Legendary troops are way to hard to deal with without having your own legends now. Seems like it became more pay to win than anything after this patch. They were doing such a good job until this. Makes me a little sad. There a quite a few positive changes though. I don’t want to criticize the bad without noting there were good changes.
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See PvP Balancing and 1.0.8 for my take on this.
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I agree %100 with your points. This is exactly what kills a game like this over time. I think they should take a few pages out of the devs at path of exile if they want this game to last and encourage new players to continue to play.
I think the biggest issue is the devs don’t really get to see how all the changes play out until after the fact, but they do generally respond well, so I’m hopeful that the more extreme problems will get a fix.
I feel the whole VIP system is pushing things to the side of pay to play but unless it becomes a requirement to play I will ignore that facet of the game and enjoy the rest.
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It’s still completely free to play, but they did tilt the scale towards the pay side. Nothing of the changes would matter if not the decrease in gem from tributes. They lowered that part of gem income extremely hard with explanation that because of getting double tributes chance from kingdom power level gems would be harvested to much. That would be logical if that level for double tribute chances would be accessible easy. I don’t think that more then maybe 10-20 players at this point or in any time soon (in next couple months) will have more then maybe 1 or 2 kingdoms maxed out.
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It’s not over the line into P2W in my view.
I have a team that I like with no legendaries that smashes everything and farms gold and souls at the same time. 340 wins - 10 losses with lowest-difficulty Warlord I. Only one of the troops came from a chest. I posted about it on another thread saying it should probably be nerfed somewhat but other players talked me out of that position since it plays somewhat slower than fast attack teams. (It’s Boar Rider - Alch - Valk - Sunweaver if you’re interested. You have to be very crafty with creating 4/5 matches.)
Certainly, if you’re playing above Normal difficulty, don’t be making pay-to-win objections. Adjust difficulty so that your win frequency suits you better.
Gems of War is pay-for-acceleration like Blizzard’s Hearthstone. You can win a ton with cheap teams and skill without paying a dime, it just means the variety of options will grow more slowly for you. That’s the sweet spot where the devs end up earning enough money to continue investing in the game.
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Perfectly put - that needs framing in big bold letters somewhere. With a dragon hanging off it.
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I think it’s more of don’t pay, then decelerate massively.
- Gems from tributes have reduced by five-fold
- Buying Souls from glory has gone from 10 Gl = 40 Souls to 25 Gl =40 Souls
- Souls from Arena has dropped by 50%
All this happening, while:
- troop levels have increased for all 150+ troops by 33% to Lvl 20
- introduction of traits, which require Glory or Gems to produce most of the Runic/Arcane/Celestial traitstones.
This may eventually get back on track, once a handful of kingdoms are at Power Level 3 (double tribute chance & double tribute)…but given a lvl 380 player is struggling to get even 1 kingdom to power level 3, I suspect without paying however, it is just a mirage for lower level players…particularly given most of my levelling up was done when celestial armour & arena delivered 800 souls (instead of 400 now).
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The problem is, getting to that level requires exactly the resources whose appearance has been uber-nerfed… It’s really frustrating. I have a tendency to save resources when there’s a good reason, so I tried to always keep 20,000 gold on hand and get to 180 gems before spending them (on a 15-pack of magic keys). But even with saving everything indefinitely once I knew this patch was coming, I only just managed yesterday to get one lousy trait on a rare card, and it wasn’t even for a troop in one of my higher level kingdoms.
You know what that one trait gets me in terms of Power Level? 25 points. At this rate, it’ll take forever get to 3 stars; none of mine are above 1 gold star at the moment.
I mean, sure, allowing tons of gems for tribute would help out the players who are already basically in a position to level everything substantially, but by hampering them the new system effectively kills the ability of lower level players to catch up, and it’s really frustrating. If I wanted to make up the difference by spending money (which I have no inclination to do), it would take, at a rough estimate, many hundreds if not some thousands of US$.
Speaking of the tribute nerf, though, what exactly is the new gem/key payout for 3, 4 and 5-kingdom tributes? I haven’t managed to get anything over 2 at a time since the patch, even though before I would typically get at least one of those a day… 
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Agree - the changes have made it nigh-on impossible for lower level players (without paying crazy amounts of money).
3 Kingdom Tribute - was 10 gems, now 2 gems
4 Kingdom Tribute - was 15 gems, now 3 gems
5 Kingdom Tribute - was 20 gems, now 4 gems
Under old scheme, even 6 Kingdom Tribute did not deliver more than 20 gems (i.e. it was maxed).
Yes - maybe you get a few extra keys…but they don’t anywhere near make up for the lost gems.
I think this change, unchecked, may result in a mass exodus of players. Hopefully the devs will address quickly - my recommendation would be to return the Arena to where it was, then I can deal with the change in tribute. But both, a bit rich.
The 5 stars thing is clearly a long term plan. I must be one of the top collectors in the game - now have 90+ troops to Mythic, but only a smattering of traits so far, and not especially on the troops I want to use. I have most kingdoms showing two stars, a few on one star, none on three stars, yet.
Don’t let it demotivate us - something to aim for gradually. Will be worth it one day, with many more troops around and future content.
Oh sure, I’m not saying it’s supposed to be an easy goal. It’s just that because the only people who would really have a chance of getting a ton of gems from tribute are the ones who really don’t need them, the way they changed it seems to have hurt low level players more than anything else. Besides, if they were so worried about currencies, why are they now giving 2x the souls with tribute?
The only thing reducing gems does is make it way harder for people like me, who poured tons of time and resources into leveling up kingdoms, to keep making significant progress. Honestly, I’m to the point where about the only chests I can open on a regular basis are gold chests, because I can’t get many gems any more for gem chests, glory items are more expensive, and I just don’t have the kind of real money lying around that would help me actually catch up.
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If JimBob decides to spend $100+ it shouldn’t really affect me directly, I’m still plodding along winning invades, farming souls, etc… However, once you’ve defeated all Kingdoms there are only 3 things to do:
- PVP - which means if you aren’t spending you’re going to get outpaced, and have a major uphill battle facing level 20 mythics with your level 17 Ultra Rares.
- Arena - 8 random even fights, but all the effort you put into collecting troops, levels, traits have 0 impact. With exception of innate masteries and weapons, your personal progression has no value.
- Treasure Hunt - Mini-game that takes a while, but again your personal progression has no value.
It would be nice to have more PvE content so we can showcase our progress, but without having to compete directly with the big spenders. Think of something like Arena, but you use Your troops instead of random. And each round increases the level/rarity/traits on the opposing force. Work up to facing a full set of level 20 mythics with all traits, and if you beat that it starts ramping up stats like Warlord levels (bonuses to attack, life, magic…)
For the record, I’m all in favor of having acceleration via a cash shop, that pays the bills, keeps the servers on, and keeps new content being developed. I just would hate to see people looking for something simple to find themselves either doing content that doesn’t take advantage of their effort (arena) or facing a behemoth sized mountain (PVP)
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I’d second the arena comments. For me it seems odd that the best way to farm souls as a new player is to not use my troops and go with a relatively random team. My goal is to get good cards build teams I enjoy but to do so I need souls and to get them I’m forced to play arena. With souls being in chests thats an option as well but as a new player I’d rather not have extra things in chests especially gold because it’s very easy to come by.
I don’t feel a huge difference in being vip 7 compared to pre patch. It has some nice extra’s but I’d prefer a bit more advantages. Better deals and bundles which may come but currently I feel the bundle system is lacking. I think the vip chests are a bit more expensive than I’d like. I’d like to see cost drop as my vip goes up.
What I think this game desperately needs is PVP. Currently it’s nothing but PVE and quite a bit of that really isn’t needed. As I have bought gems I’ve got all of the epics from the quests. Most I won’t bother to level to legendary or mythic because I have no intentions of using them. I don’t see a point, unless I’m missing something, of doing quests outside the free card I probably will never use. Well Khaziel for war and peace but ya. Right now the changes have made things very tedious for new players. Getting traitstones gold souls etc… in chests kinda sucks when you’d rather have duplicates.
I don’t think it’s terribly difficult to win without legends or only 1 or 2 legends. 3 or 4 rock worm teams are still effective against all legend teams since the AI isn’t very good. Level them up to UR and they have solid stats and can dish out good skull damage. It takes longer but once you’re set it’s just extra turn after extra turn. Plenty of other options for common/rare cards to be effective.
What I found more annoying than anything in the new patch was they added “feeding” to this game. One of the things I liked about this over the D3 made Marvel Puzzle quest was that you just had to level up your cards and there was a max that was attainable (long road but attainable). Now you feed duplicates to your cards and the level cap on them goes up. This is fine for commons and rares as you’ll see them eventually but the higher rarity cards? There’s no way to “craft” cards in this game, everything is RNG. SO now you just have to hope you get that legendary, again?
No thanks…
I know it’s optional, but it’s also frustrating. It’s not like we were all max level on all the cards we had, this just seems unnecessary.
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A crafting system would be desirable… would need to be expensive, to preserve the game’s economy, but desirable…
@Jainus in the event you again feel the need to target me remember it’s not intentional and you’re letting your own prejudice against people with disabilities get to you. It’s best to simply ignore my posts if you find them offensive instead of attacking me for a third time.
Or they could just allowing trading like every popular TCG app. Use gems as currency allow them to be tradeable and implement some sort of guild war style event that encourages top guilds to spend on gems or a war item of some sort and you keep your sales up while increasing overall satisfaction among the masses and allowing for some high end unique troops.
Current line of business logic is what my coworkers and I refer to as stupid logic. It’s counterintuitive but providing more options and allowing trading increases sales short and long term. Now if you buy a pack and get your 9th orion you have a use of trading it to somebody else who might have 9 sheggra as an example. It also vastly increases customer satisfaction. I’ve spent close to $1000 and I haven’t received a single sheggra on either system for example. The most of any legend I have is 4 and I’ve got tons of epics I’ll never want to use.
Or they could do what rage and marvel did and allow you to ascend with any card just like a progress bar with exp and different rarity have different values.
Implementing these things would boost sales, player base, longevity, and satisfaction with a very high degree of certainty.
Don’t people get most gems through guild rewards? Before 1.0.8, gems were not very useful I thought. I ended up just trading the gems for gold till my kingdoms maxed out. Had no use for souls, had no use for magic keys, had more luck with iron keys. So while gems were reduced for tribute, gems increased in value. So i think it evens out.
I would not call it p2w. I still look at the shop and don’t feel buying anything would make me better. Buying from the shop will help a new player a lot, but don’t help a vet player much.
And the other ‘rub’…
450 gems used to get you 40 magic keys, or 120 magic cards → with 3x the chance of a Legendary (lifting it to ~2% per card), that meant you’d statistically get 2.4 legendary characters.
Now 450 gems gets you only 50 cards…they say at 4x the chance, so let’s estimate 3%~…so statistically 1.5 legendary characters.
So to go with all the other reductions in gems & souls, when you do get enough gems to buy gem keys, you’ve got less chance to get legendary characters.