I’ve done some raids on three accounts at three different levels of progression. To sum up, the early-midgame account doesn’t have the tools to get very far. I got every troop in kingdom because it was new but I don’t have certain hero weapons, classes, traits, kingdom bonuses, or masteries that the other accounts have. The late-midgame and endgame accounts had the tools, but past a certain point it got really, really repetitive. Having access to all the troops and their traits certainly made it easier, if only slightly faster.
Between the three accounts, I’ve spent over 10 hours on raid content alone this week - one finished most sigils for about 6 hours, the other two only went part way with about 2 hours each - no reason to keep continuing with the next portal being so far away and the fights taking too long while giving basically nothing. To put this in perspective, I usually only play one of the accounts, and I’ve usually gotten everything I need to do for the week within about 4 hours with guild wars, or 2.5-3 hours otherwise.
As for the portal rewards, they hinge almost entirely on the orbs being useful, which for the most part they aren’t in the quantities given. A dedicated player in a guild that does portal 10 every raid event and assuming Invasions have a similar reward structure still needs about 2 years to craft Zuul’Goth. A guild that closes portal 9 needs about 14 years given equal weighting on orb drops, portal 8 28 years, and 54 years otherwise, barring some extreme luck on Gnomes or an explosion of orb drops for the Invasion/Bounty events (seems unlikely at this point). Since we got to portal 8, and probably portal 7 on future weeks, I can only judge the orbs by their primary function, since Zuul’Goth isn’t realistically possible, so even pretending it is possible would be foolish. All of them cover a function already in the game and therefore they have maximum values as follows:
- Orb of Clans: 15 gem keys (and possibly the ability to cover for a slacking guildmate)
- Orb of Growth: 1000 souls
- Orb of Wisdom: 24 arcane stones
- Orb of Ascension: ?? copies of a troop you already have
Compared to the amount of man-hours that have to have gone in to raiding this week, you can figure that only one of these prizes is even subjectively worth the time investment, let alone paying gems for the pleasure of doing so. I didn’t get an orb of ascension, so this week, objectively playing any other mode would have given me, personally, a better reward. Yes, everybody in the guild got a couple orbs, but also nearly everybody that participated put in an absurd amount of time. And if I had earned an Orb of Ascension? Well, as a fully committal consumable, it is likely to be one of those things I wouldn’t even use for fear that the economy will shift again and I’ll need it at a later date and because I have no reliable way to earn another one. Granted, it is the best reward on the table by far, but I’m way more focused on the troops I don’t have and having the resources to not miss future ones making them either way more costly or straight up uncertain to obtain by any means instead of getting additional copies of the ones that I do have.
My personal experiences:
- Early midgame account (guild completes around 9 task levels per week): Raids are not for me. I don’t have the tools to win without a good starting board, it takes too long and the guild doesn’t really get far (we just closed the portal with a single vault key). It was an enjoyable distraction for a while, but it became a painful slog. I can’t make any headway given an even moderately bad board when even my hero troop dies to a single skull and I don’t have stones to waste to trait him as a Dragonguard or to trait Penglong to get that one extra turn of stalling I need to make headway with a neutral board. Too costly overall, but this is clearly not the player you were targeting with this content.
- Late midgame account (multiple legendary task guild): Raids are not for me, but they could be. Bought tier 4 and regretted it as it became tediously repetitive and I didn’t have the kingdom skill bonuses and traits on certain troops to use everything effectively for the long haul. Started throwing myself in a bit more recklessly using stuff like Mang and hoping for skull drops and a decent starting board, and just focusing as much as I could on the boss and not even trying to win if the hero fell. I could see playing like this on future weeks, but I’m also never buying t4 again, so we probably won’t even hit the same prize point, which will likely leave me frustrated with the experience.
- Endgame account (multiple legendary task guild): Raids are not for me, but I wish they were. Bought no tiers before starting my run. I have access to every troop in the kingdom and can instantly unlock any trait, and the battles are a nice change of pace, but if I want to play very battle to the best of my ability it just takes way. too. long. I don’t have enough hours in the week to buy a tier 3 or 4 and carefully play each battle. Admittedly, I could still go faster and riskier (I don’t even have the godslayer troop yet), but to me that kind of rips the very heart out of the mode. Raiding overstayed its welcome at first but after just an hour of gnome hunts I nonetheless found myself wanting to do something that takes more than three brain cells. So I’m kind of torn here… I like the mode, but I don’t like it at this pace. I can’t justify funneling all my time there and depleting resources for the pleasure of doing so when I need to check off all the other daily weekly boxes the game offers and conserve my resources so I can continue getting new toys to play with.
To reiterate: the gems sinks in and of themselves are not that bad and mostly voluntary, but combined with the time sinks, limited access, and overall lackluster rewards, particularly for the people this mode is targeted at, sour the experience.
Also, the unique weapon is awful and one of the worst types of mana generation you’d want to use for this type of content - random gem creation, two fixed colors, random balance between the colors, and not all that many total spawned (12 max in this case, given there is no Shentang hero). I see more in the spoilers that follow this same pattern. I don’t know what the pattern of thought was even with these given how little you get off the spawns and how hard the boss can capitalize.
On reflection, I think the mode would be greatly improved by:
- lower damage requirements for existing portals. The single greater orb is too far out there as some kind of ultimate prize, but it also gates access to Zuul’Goth period. And hes a two year or more chase even with this unless you consistently hit the leaderboard’s top 10. Without either, we are talking the kind of waits where some of us will literally die of old age before accumulating those resources if we played out every event. Orbs are very lackluster without this chase, particularly at endgame (and yes, you can be both endgame and not in a guild that closes 10 portals), so it should be on the table for as many people as possible.
- Change the crafting recipe for major orb of growth to 4 minor orbs. 20 is stupid to begin with, even if it “makes sense” because troops have 20 levels and an orb of growth grants 1 while a major orb grants 20 levels (while totally ignoring the soul cost of the combine and the fact that nobody is ever be using orbs of growth to level a troop from 1 to 2). This would help with the above.
- add more portals for high achieving guilds. throw some orbs on there, with another major orb or possibly even two by the end. Twice as many orbs should be available. Guilds putting the time and effort in should get their stuff faster.
- Futureproof orbs. Zuul’Goth shouldn’t be the sink, he should be the chase. There are too many situations where it is possible to have more than enough of an orb of a specific type for its primary function but still so far away from Zuul’Goth that it is still functionally impossible. And for those that can craft Zuul’Goth, the one big sink is now out of the way. Like so many resources before them, orbs will hit a usability wall, pile up, and become another dead end that you have to work around some players having too many of and other players having none of. Nip this in the bud before it happens.
- Buff every battle reward. Glory reward equal to about 10-20% of the boss level. Base gold reward ten times the boss level. If I have the sigils, it should be at least half as profitable to complete raid battles as it is to just grind PvP, preferably far more profitable, but I don’t see that happening given how fast I can PvP and the relative time investment of a single raid battle.
- An additional 10 seals for completing any raid battle, granted as claimable seals in the guild seals menu.
- 30 seals for closing any portal, granted as bonus seals in the mail like guild wars rewards
- others probably won’t agree here, but don’t compromise on the gem sinks. Just make them a big enough draw where they no longer feel like “sinks” and that we are actually gaining more value for spending the gems here than we would elsewhere instead of giving the impression of being strongarmed for a pay to play more limited access mode. This will, of course, be difficult given that gems directly to troops reward path is the path of least resistance and given scarcity on gems, the obvious choice, which is why these sinks are getting resisted in the first place. And no, I don’t mean gems in - gems out. Just reevaluate the “gem value” of things from the perspective of an endgamer and realize that far, far too many resources in this game dead-end.
- Consider retooling the numbers so that less sigils are awarded and less total battles have to be fought at the “obligatory” stage of raiding (before any tiers are purchased) to reach the same number of portals closed. Entry-level time commitment is too high unless this is the only thing the player is supposed to be doing that week, which clearly it isn’t since even now we have a vault event running concurrent to a raid.
- do something about the weapon. Why would you want to spawn a low amount of random gems of two colors and do practically no damage on an all colors boss with an undrainable, unblockable, instakill spell? Unconditional extra turn would make it instantly at least somewhat viable as a support weapon, if still weak overall. Adding a triple or even double damage to boss condition would help for earlier raid stages, particularly for the earlier game people that might be struggling now because of their lack of troops they have available.
With double or triple the amount of orbs on the table, some luck, dedication, and a guild that can go all the way players might see Zuul’Goth within a 9 months to a year if they don’t use orbs on anything else. Sounds like enough of a chase to me. I actually can’t even fathom people making plans for obtaining such a thing after doing the math and knowing that it will take longer than a year, especially if they have been around for the last year.
tl;dr:
- Reexamine orbs from the perspective of a late-midgame to endgame player (the players at which this content is targeted), the amount of total time commitment required to participate in raids at even an entry-level, and the opportunity cost for participating in raids instead of other content.
- Buff battle rewards, buff portal rewards, even out portal rewards to have better minimum value instead of “lol RNG gonna RNG”, and add higher portal reward marks for guilds willing to put in the extra time and effort.
- Put Zuul’Goth on the table as a chase item for everybody completing enough raid content to earn orbs (which buffs orbs value by proxy) - anything over a year is pushing it as a chase, over a decade is too long to consider a chase
- 4 orbs of growth = 1 major orb of growth in soulforge (helps put Zuul’Goth on the table for more people at least in appearance, buffs orbs value by proxy)
- Futureproof orbs by giving them additional functions so most people remain out or almost out of orbs and happier for it
- Reevaluate the exclusive weapons to not be garbage for the content they are intended to be used in.
I hope that covers everything.
Agree with you, I’m a savvy tit git I suppose IRL, so I generally can manage expectation and have cut offs like you. I thought the last Ishbaala was a really good troop so I thought to condider if I had to, spend a little more to get it, but ofc I failed. I suppose I just think there is too much to spend too limited resources on. So I suppose the next scenario n in management stakes is - boss raid - play until it costs me gems, then stop, but then I am not helping that much.
