Weird Ideas: Troops from Daily Login

Feature Requests and Game feedback
1

Here we go again, another one of those Weird Ideas. This one is based on some personal observations:

  • The daily login bonus feels… underwhelming. It used to be something to look forward to, back when you still had to pay for questing and gold was a scarce resource. Nowadays, it just doesn’t seem to matter any more, as a reward it doesn’t really feel rewarding.

  • The overall troop pool keeps expanding, making it difficult to acquire specific troops. This affects both new and regular players. New players have a hard time assembling a good team with synergies (e.g. the Goblin deck). Regular players have a hard time obtaining the few troops they are missing (e.g. Autumnal Imp, my personal pet peeve, which definitely isn’t hiding in any of the many chests I’ve been looking into).

My proposition would be to add a single Daily Token to the login bonus. The sole purpose of this token is to directly buy any troop one might want to have, roughly at this price:

  • 1 Daily Token for a Common troop.
  • 3 Daily Tokens for a Rare troop.
  • 6 Daily Tokens for an Utra-Rare troop.
  • 10 Daily Tokens for an Epic troop.
  • 20 Daily Tokens for a Legendary troop.
  • 40 Daily Tokens for a Mythic troop.

Thoughts:

  • Asking for Extra Lootz feels somewhat greedy. It doesn’t seem too excessive though, given that this would be a loyalty reward. An extra Common, Rare or even Ultra-Rare is nice to get you started, doesn’t make much of a difference in the long run though. Playing for three weeks to get a Legendary is probably okay, now that we have about 40 around, and tend to want at least 6 of each for ascension purposes. Saving up tokens would allow buying every second Mythic, which should put some of the sting out of the horrible drop rates while not automatically granting access to all of them. If it turns out to be too much of a benefit, numbers can be adjusted.

  • It’s a capped resource, so the impact can’t get out of hand. There’s no way to farm it, no way to benefit from previously stockpiled resources, it’s fair to all players. This kind of system wouldn’t work for, say, souls gained from disenchanted troops, quite a few players would be able to directly buy everything they’ll ever need for years to come.

  • It’s a unique bonus that definitely makes you want to return each day. Especially if the Daily Token were only to be handed out on reaching the Day 7 tier of daily bonuses.

  • It’s already possible to browse all existing troops, even if you don’t own them. Adding a button to craft the selected troop doesn’t sound too tricky to one like me who doesn’t actually have to code it.

7 Likes
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It’s unclear if the troop you get would be random or you just pick it ?
I find it to be a tad cheap, i don’t own any mythics, but i’d say 60 daily tokens would sound better (especially if not random)
While i’d boost Rares to 5, Ultra-Rares to 10, Epics to 15-20 and Legendaries to 30-40.
Otherwise it wouldn’t be a bad idea i think.

1 Like
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You would pick it, no randomness involved.

Feels a bit harsh on Rares, I wouldn’t value them at five times a Common. Mythics might need a boost, I think I initially had some higher number in mind. For a nice looking cost progression curve with multipliers going down a bit for each next rarity level I’d probably pick 1/3/7/15/30/55. It’s just some rough values to illustrate the idea though, I’d expect the Devs to have much more insight than me for fine-tuning numbers.

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I’d support this even if the “daily tokens” were the bottleneck and crafting required additional expenditure of other resources so that mythics or legendaries wouldn’t be “free” from just logging in. I’d also like to suggest the idea be expanded for much cheaper costs for duplicates of stuff you already own (in terms of daily tokens, while still requiring a secondary cost), so there would be a way to target ascensions as well.

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id be fine with random troop or even a token for a random troop of specific rarity. dont expect too much of a certain free stuff, it would still be an improvement any way devs decide to add this if at all :slight_smile:

6

We already get seals as well as gold from the daily login, and seals give us Troops, so don’t we already have this?

Plus if you use the login gold to buy gold chests, you get more Troops and glory/gems to save up for higher level Troops.

1 Like
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Yes, we do. I’m not sure why people would rather have Infinite open chests for them, when you could otherwise use the gold for kingdom leveling or guild tasks if you wanted.

1 Like
8

A mythic every 40, 60, or 5000 days just for logging in? Never, ever, ever going to happen. Sorry.

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Absolutely agree. People should have to play the game more…

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ah cmon not even 5000 days? :sob:

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To clarify, I’d like to see this with the “daily tokens” as a way to facilitate a way to straight buy something at a cost approximate to what it would be during its exclusive/event period, but at any time, rather than trying to fish it out of a pool of ever increasing size if you happen to get unlucky and miss it the first time it was available. Given appropriate additional costs (say, 2400 gems for a mythic, 600 for a legendary), and still capping off how often it can be done (once a month for legendary, once every two months for mythic) having an alternate method of pursuing missing troops and not being able to just be completely screwed over by the RNG would be nice. Anyone attempting to obtain mythics in this way alone is going to have to spend a significant portion of the gems available (not getting any other troops in the process using “RNG” methods) as well as get them half the speed they become available. The “daily tokens” themselves could also be gained in some way other than simply logging in, but still strictly controlled in how many are available in a given time period, possibly even sold (like guild seals).

Given that system in place, I’d like to see a similar method, but with significantly reduced “daily token” costs and slightly reduced secondary costs, for obtaining duplicate troops, as a way to target ascensions specifically.

3 Likes
12

Personally I’d like to see a better loyalty rewards type of monthly system. I know a lot of free to play games do it, and even games like Guild Wars 2 do it.

Where you have to log in every day to unlock your reward - whatever it may be. Perhaps lose your progress (it could reset) if you don’t log in every day for that month. Rewards progressively get better. The ultimate prize for that month could be a guaranteed troop of the devs choice (or random). Or it could be more lenient and friendly casual by just rewarding for days played, so progress doesn’t reset and then make the guaranteed troop random (but the rarity could be set. Perhaps every 7 days you move up a rarity, from common to legendary and then it resets). Or instead of having it based on log in, it could be based on a daily task. Something manageable in a day that everyone could do but it would prevent you from just logging on for a second to collect it.

The rewards don’t have to be fabulous, and I don’t care how it’s implemented. Just something to keep you feeling rewarded enough to want to continue to support the game (and perhaps throw more money in).

I know I always loved those types of systems, but I’m not sure how others feel about it.

1 Like
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That’s actually quite reasonable too. Daily tokens to grant limited direct buy options, extra cost to purchase. Gems feel like a good fit, there should really be more things they can be used for. Possibly keep the extra cost for Common/Rare and even Ultra-Rare very low, so newish players will also be able to benefit.

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Internet ads have ruined the word “weird”. Now not only does the thread title sound defensive, it sounds like spam.

With that out of the way, I find it unlikely that the devs would implement something like this, for the exact same reason players would want it: it undermines the entire random drop system.

There are two particular qualities of a random system that I think are valuable to the game, and ultimately, its players: it gives the game an unpredictable pace, and each player a unique experience, both of which tend to drive engagement and retention, as long as those experiences are not unusually and extremely negative.

A fixed rate of rewards can be reassuring for players who feel they are suffering from extremely bad luck, and in those cases, it can keep them playing when they would otherwise be discouraged. However, the existence of a reliable, fixed-rate reward schedule can easily displace the random rewards in players’ minds. Rather than being encouraged (I’m guaranteed something good in no more than X days/battles), players may feel that they’re being time-gated (I won’t get anything good for another X days/battles).

Unique experiences require the player to be more engaged, because they have to develop their own solutions, rather than simply follow a script that someone else has laid out for them. When each player has the exact same options, it’s easier to determine optimal choices that everyone can make, leading to the rest of the options being discarded, even if they’re only slightly less optimal. People tend towards fewer categorizations, rather than more: something is either the best, or it’s complete trash. This is the sort of pattern we see emerging among the top players in the game: the meta. People know what the best options are, they have access to them, and so that’s what they choose. And then they complain that everyone is doing the same thing, and it’s boring and stale. The rest of the playerbase sees much more variety, because they don’t have access to the optimal choices. They’re forced to be creative and find what is optimal out of what they have available. They may gain a greater appreciation for those non-optimal choices, and may continue to use some of them even when more optimal choices become available to them.

I understand the frustration of wanting something specific, and it stubbornly refusing to drop, no matter how much time or effort you put in. I can’t field most of the teams I see discussed here on the forums because I’m missing at least one troop or hero weapon from them. I think some kind of pity system would be appropriate, and could dampen the negative effects of randomness on engagement and retention. But it would need to be designed so that it doesn’t harm the positive effects of randomness as well. Done wrong, it could easily turn the game into a boring, predictable grind to systematically acquire the exact same optimal troops that everyone else says to use. The meta, rather than irritating only the top few, would reach down and impact the majority of the playerbase as well.

On the other hand, that might mean the devs would feel forced to address it, since it would show up in their data in a big way. But I think it’s more likely they’ll try to avoid solutions that allow it to happen in the first place.

4 Likes
16

How about this variation on the same concept OP suggested:

The daily login bonuses remain the same and cap at the same gold, but, when you get to your 7th day, you get one event key and the week starts over. However, this second cycle of days as well as every following cycle grants you the full gold bonus you would normally get, plus a gold key each day, and an event key on the 7th day instead of a gold key.

With this system, they wouldn’t have to add a new item to the game (login tokens), but instead just grant event keys. Early game, event keys are a big deal because they give you the highest chance of getting a very specific card (one of the two event cards) of any type of key, so that’s the most control you have when it comes to getting a specific troop. Also, it would add in tracking the actual number of days logged in, so the devs could throw in special bonuses at higher numbers, such as a gem key at 100 days or something like that.

With a real daily login tracker keeping up with how many consecutive days you’ve logged in, other events could be created around log-ins, such as in-game holidays where anyone who has a log-in count of 30 days or more when the holiday starts gets a special card. Three or four of these could be sprinkled throughout the year.

1 Like
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Ok this whole thing is an interesting notion, but how in the world is 60 Revenge wins equivalent to signing in for 15 seconds 7 times in a week? (1 Event Key)

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Revenge wins give more than just glory. They also give souls, gold, trophies, and PvP ranking. Plus, you get enough glory to buy a Spoils of War with about 30 hard battles, not 60, and less if some of them are revenge battles. That’s even without any special armor. Then, you’re getting an entire Spoils of War, not just an event key, on top of all the gold and keys that you got from the battles themselves that got you there. So it’s closer to 20 battles worth, or 3ish a day. That doesn’t diminish the effort of battles any.

Without a guild, or in a very small guild, I remember early game it was a big effort for me to just get the one event card each week. And that’s all it was, one of the two cards each week. I was getting roughly 3-400 glory a week. If I didn’t like that week’s cards, or I didn’t have enough glory, I’d buy a Spoils of War instead and use it the next week. I think for people like that, the incentive that they are guaranteed one shot at getting the event card each week so long as they log in every day is pretty nice.

You also have to consider the point behind event cards and daily log in bonuses- they actually overlap quite a bit. They keep people playing on a regular basis and keep the game changing so that playing it every day doesn’t get old. Keeping players in the game is what it’s all about. “I got a new troop, now I want to see if I can build a team around it!” That’s the goal. Keep people interested, and keep them from forgetting about the game. Even a casual player who logs in 3-4 times a week will occasionally see that he’s only 3 days away from an event key and decide to go for it, then when he gets the new troop, he’s been rewarded for stepping up the amount of time he played the game. Now he’ll be more likely to increase his time playing. And that effect, when spread across hundreds of users, increases the chance that they will pay for something in-game, and in return keeps the lights on for the devs so they can keep the servers running for everyone.

It’s not always about balance. Is 100ish glory equal to 15 gems? Maybe, but probably not. It’s about encouraging the players to do the things that help the overall game. Having a base of players that play the game every day is a big deal. That’s how you turn casuals into serious players. Also, I’d like to point out that there’s no way to ‘farm’ logins. 1 a day is the most you can get, period. You can farm glory fairly easily. Aside from just PvP, tribute grows as you play, so that means the value of a single event key goes down (like any other key) the more you play, because they become easier for you to get. This would in o way diminish the value of actually playing the game. On the contrary, it would make people want to play rather than just logging in for 15 seconds because they would have a chance at a new card.

EDIT: okay, I see where you got 60 from. You were talking about just the key you get for the revenge battles alone. You’re right on that count, but consider that you pick up about 5 event keys worth of glory getting there, plus a crap ton of gold, souls, keys, trophies, and ranks without even counting the specific “revenge” bonuses. That’s like saying that a La-Z-Boy recliner should be priced the same as a 1st class airline ticket because they both provide comfy chairs.

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That’s ALOT of text. I was trying to find something that gives similar rewards to demonstrate 1 Event Key is a bit much IMO for signing in a few times.

I can not wait until PC players get the task system, this forum will be filled how (8) wins with Broken Spire troops should reward +200 Glory, +18 Gem Keys and a Mythic. /s

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TL;DR: your math is way off because 60 revenge wins generates much, much more than just one event key. An event key by itself is not worth much (about 100 glory).

You sound like one of those salty players that thinks every other person playing the same game is “ruining the game” for you. That doesn’t make for a productive conversation. It also doesn’t make sense for what is essentially a single player game.