Yup, as in said in another thread:
Also, in my original comment, I didn’t point out the fact that once they are fully upgraded, you might want to switch to a different class “just because”. Maybe for GW, or because of the other troops you’re using, or a different weapon or whatever. But, nope, can’t have that. Not for free or even remotely cheap.
I mean, come on, we have plenty of new Gem sinks to suck us dry. Do we really need an old one too?
Guild Wars defense calls for the best we have. PVP leveling calls for anything not fully leveled. We can’t even actually have them both at the same time if we wanted to, which is a totally different problem - and admittedly is truly hard to deal with.
On the other hand, the whole paywall-stopping-us-exploring-new-things issue?
*eyeroll at devs and/or publishers*
Agree completely. This really needs to be looked at.
We basically got half an update. The restriction of the hero needing to be on the team to earn champion xp will go hand in hand with the hero not really “being” a certain class all the time and only having that class be active when that hero is actually on the team. But we didn’t get the other half - making it so that any class of hero can be inserted into a team at any time and it would stick to that and being able to freely insert any class of hero into the team. That is the part that is tricky and potentially game breaking to implement.
The 50 gem fee to change classes as is stands now is simply unpleasant design - they don’t want people to have to go through several menus to change the class to put a different class hero on the team and they know that people want to, so the fee is there so you don’t even want to in an attempt to (poorly) steer you away from such a glaring design flaw. One could argue that, and I would tend to agree with, that this is even worse, though.
(Go to 40:35 if it doesn’t take you there.)
I personally think that a 1 hour timer is plenty of “friction” to keep players from hyperoptimizing and needing to go into these menus constantly. This is short enough for a stretch of casual play focused on one task before switching to another, and long enough that you aren’t going into the menu every few battles.
I’d say 10-15 minutes, an hour is still a stretch. I can get a lot of matches done in that time, probably 1-2 battles a minute on average. An hour is an eternity in the paint-by-numbers hellscape that is endgame meta right now.
I hate how the devs auto response every time this issue has been raised is “It’s a complicated problem and requires a lot of work and we don’t want to break the game” Do they even hear us?
ATTENTION DEVS!!! We are not asking for a complete rework of the Hero classes, we know that’s in the works for a future update and we look forward to it. ALL WE WANT IS A TEMPORARY RELIEF IN THE FORM OF REDUCING THE COST TO 1 GEM AND/OR REDUCING THE TIMER TO 1 HOUR!!! @Sirrian @Saltypatra
Hopefully we can get a response from the devs one more time on this issue but this time specifically on why we can’t have some TEMPORARY relief.
they said it was too hard for them to change the “old Code” so I would be happy if it cost 1 gem to change, that should be able to be accomplished
No, you actually don’t ever want to do use your hero on defense unless it’s a one size fits all situation. The easiest battles for the most points are those you play at least a day late. It’s amazing how many players totally screw up their Monday defense come daily reset because their Tuesday defense is based on a different hero class.
I don’t understand why there has to be any friction at all.
Every reasonable metric you could be chasing is optimized by choosing the right mode and maximizing “number of matches won per hour”. To change classes, you have to make several clicks/taps, and unless you’re using some kind of autoclicker that’s going to take you 10-15 seconds. So if we’re talking about a person changing hero classes every match, they’re losing 1 match worth of play time probably every 3-5 matches. It’s probably more optimal, in most scenarios, to absorb a loss.
That situation requires a game where there are several hero classes and meta teams with high win rates for each. That game is not current Gems of War. Maybe that’s the ultimate design goal, but it’s hard to see any set of changes leading us there in the near future.
But honestly, that we’re intended to pick one hero class and sit on it bothers me for other reasons.
Isn’t “Divines or Doomskulls are the only team you need” a problem? Don’t the people who want a healthy meta define “healthy” as meaning team selection becomes meaningful? That would be counter to this feature, which wants you to sit on one Hero team for 24 hours or pay a toll.
It seems like if the devs wanted players to select teams, they’d encourage experimentation.
After 1 1/2 to 2 years of posts they hear. And it is complicated when: The issue is out of their hands = Publisher approval is needed with an ECONOMY change. I’m certain there will be arguments that this doesn’t effect the economy. But Gems are the premium resource and this change cost is Gems. Case closed until someone holding the purse strings somewhere says “Approved”.
A fix for this seems to be to reduce the gem cost from 50 to 5 or 10 gems.
Please see my comments above. Same issue. 50, 5, 1……….
To my knowledge that has never been the reason they’ve given though. How many gems are spent each week on changing classes you think?
Well hopefully on next dev Q and A they can go into details on how progress is being made on 50 gem class change. Seems everyone wants to see something happen with this extremely badly. I know my guild sure does lol
In the streaming thread, Salty specifically said that they will not be addressing that question again.
Wow I assumed that meant just for the stream she was doing not forever. So not addressing biggest issue players have in 3.5 ever again. I guess that is one way to handle it.
I only meant that they won’t be addressing it in that stream for sure. When she said that they’ve answered it 4 times already, it does have an air of finality to it though.
Still, the last time they answered it, hero classes were dramatically different. Now that we have a multitude of talents to explore, tons of classes to level and weekly hero events, the old answer really doesn’t feel satisfactory (to the extent it ever did).
I think the old answer is even more solidified with this update.
Almost every update recently has been a gem sink in an attempt to get players to use their most valuable resource… 
This update hasn’t introduce a new cost, however is now encouraging players to use an existing one.
I can’t imagine it will lose its 50 gem pricing. But hey, I’m pessimistic.
My Guild does too. There are already two players who left the game
But it proves once more the devs don’t listen to the players… This way they will loose players…
But hey… Sooner or later they will see the results of their attitude…
