QFT.
Shaping this thought a bit more, newer currencies and game modes that have been introduced into the game are highly subjective to diminishing returns in comparison to the amount of effort applied to a player’s advancement in a given mode/event/thing.
For growth orbs, the drop-off is binary. Either the player can use the orb, or they cannot. Once a player has leveled up all the troops they can, these orbs are worthless. Their diminished value becomes zero. On the other end of the scale, for newer players, major growth orbs are fantastic. This reason has been cited many times by the devs on why the weekly major growth orb exists.
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On a bit of a long-winded sidetrack, Delves are a perfect example of this concept in action.
Each faction is worth up to 2500 renown. The first 500-1000 renown are very easy to obtain. Reaching 2000 renown for the faction pet is considerably harder. Reaching 2500 renown for the maxed faction pet… well, there are tons of threads on the forum about that.
So, the higher the sought renown, the higher the applied effort must be to reach that renown.
But, increasing a faction’s Hoard addresses that issue. Yet, reaching 2500 renown in most factions remains out of each for all but a fraction of the top 1% of the playerbase currently. If increasing a Hoard makes this issue easier, why is this outcome happening?
Diminishing returns.
Everyone knows that treasures go into a Hoard. No shocking revelations, there. But there’s some concepts at work that enforce a very steep diminishing returns system.
The basic XP formula looks extremely innocent. You need whatever the next Hoard’s level number will be in XP. If a Hoard’s level is 50, then 51 XP is needed for the next level.
Then, look at the XP distribution of the treasures themselves. 10, 25, 50, 100, 250, 500
Again, on the surface, not a big deal at all.
Now, let’s bring in the treasure drop table.
On the surface, again, not a big deal. The distribution is bugged, and there was an massive fight over this back in the day, where it was ultimately decided to leave the bugged formula in the game. In the end, the bugged distribution table doesn’t really matter in the long run, which is probably why the bugged formula was allowed to stay in the game.
But, here’s the kicker.
– The gold costs of leveling up a Hoard
The sole reason for the gold costs on leveling up a Hoard is to enforce diminishing returns.
It’s the reason why a player can’t drop a stockpile of 2000 gold rings on to a hoard, even through they are rotting in their inventory. As a Hoard levels up, so does the cost of adding the next, marginal treasure to the Hoard.
At Hoard level 1, all treasures are effective at leveling up a Hoard. Very quickly, however, players learn that low-rarity treasures will quickly deplete their gold reserves. But, looking at the treasure drop table, more effective treasures are rarer and rarer drops. By the time renown increases for raising a Hoard stops at level 100, crowns are the lowest acceptable drops. There’s only a ~10% chance of a treasure of that rarity or better dropping from a chaos shard pull.
By Hoard level 125ish (or less depending on a given player’s perspective towards the matter), crowns become a poor treasure to add to the Hoard, so now the player is forced to look at lamps or better, which is a ~4% chance from a pull. Of that 55% treasure distribution rate, 4% of pulls is a “good” treasure, and the other 51% of pulls that yield treasures are “trash” and rot in inventory (sound familiar?). More and more chaos shards have to be farmed to yield treasures that are progressively lower and lower effectiveness as a player progresses with a faction’s Hoard. It is the combination of gold costs and lack of effective treasures at high Hoard levels that are blocking players from completing pure faction 500 runs currently.