Valley of Kings -Debut Powerslave characters, including a limited edition Pharaoh Ed

[TheoShodi]

The percentages are weird in this event, spend over 50 souls and did not complete the anubis characters, just 2 sentinels, i think these toons are rarer than the new dogs.

[blade685]

The percentages are weird in this event, spend over 50 souls and did not complete the anubis characters, just 2 sentinels, i think these toons are rarer than the new dogs.

and me 0 of them all
And if you want the new dog you must use 150 000 000 gold!!!!

[kgk56]

The percentages are weird in this event, spend over 50 souls and did not complete the anubis characters, just 2 sentinels, i think these toons are rarer than the new dogs.

I only could get the two 3* anubis ... but I think that all new characters are rarer than any toons b4 (I usually could grab 5 or 6 new on 7)

[Blade]

nah msf is still much better as a game and i still play and enjoy it, because of the awesome alliance we have, but the game is similar repetitive and some game modes like blitz are just too time consuming and annoying. MSF is a high quality product with a monthly revenue of 5 mio usd in february according to sensortower. lotb had 140k in february and 160k in january according to the side so you cannot expect such a small game to have the same quality.

MSF has the same whale hunting approach like lotb with insane prices and ridiculous low value and recently they introduced a RNG based improvement, which really sucks...they also frustrate players and they use every dirty mind trick to create revenue. like the fear of missing out. i had to realize that lotb also started to abuse this. if you read leviathans announcements everything screams " DON'T MISS OUT" " LAST CHANCE " "EXCLUSIVE CHANCE" and so on. this is a very cheap trick to create demand, they learned as it seems
but it's an unethical approach if you ask me. lotb wasn't that aggressive in the early days, this changed a lot.

but the whale hunting approach itself makes absolutely sense for lotb, if you think about it. a small playerbase with many loyal and hardcore fans/players with a high emotional connection to the game and the band behind...these guys are likely to spend a ton. this is the only monetisation which makes sense for this game. you only need a small % of whales to make money, microtransactions wouldn't work nearly as well here.

in the end it's our choice if we want to pay or not. i payed 1$ in MSF (yes, one) and around 15 in lotb in the last years. it was more of a donation because i wanted to support the game, but with this approach they won't get anoter buck out of me. nontheless it's possible to enjoy the game for free. you just cannot expect to get everything immediatly if you don't pay, but in the long run, you will get the most things you really need. and with the heroic souls and events they improved the situation a lot. so i will stick to both games for a while and i'm curious to see where everything will end.

Thanks Slauki for sharing your experience with us and also these numbers! Man I expected MARVEL to be bigger but those are significant numbers! That is some factor above 30! Moreover, if you type marvel into the search bar on the site you mentioned, you get about 100 hits! They have a lot of games, which also means that they can compensate a lot if one game is not very successful. Taking this into account it is very clear that it is much harder for NF to be successful compared to these big companies and also that they should be more carefull with their player base. 5 millions in one month just for one of these games... wow maybe I should change my job

These "dirty" psychological tricks might be the same for most of these games, which comes with the basic principle of this freemium approach. I can withstand quite well, but I feel sorry for those who can't and get into money trouble. From this perspective I would be very open for some advertisment and sponsering within the game. Also you are right that the whale-approach fits very well to these games and especially to LotB. I also talked about those topics in one of the earlier posts here.

I can also still enjoy the game, as it makes my all-time favorite band a bit more vivid and the artwork and style is predestined for something like this game! I can dive into the Maiden lore every day while I have only seen them 4 times on the stage so far. The fragment cuts and gold increase still hurt a lot and I am curious for their reply to my ticket about it. I have no problem to get things later then others that pay for it! My concerns are a bit different as I see the development within the last ~half a year. One of the few good changes are the heroics that you mentioned, and since a few weeks they are also available as legendary and mythical ones - this is really great! There never was such a "clear" way to get the characters you miss (but to be honest this is also needed as the character pool is so bloated now and still grows very fast). I did not need the epic souls, but they are ok, especially in connection with the fragment drops that go from the lowest (regular souls) to the highest. I also don't need hundreds of different Talis and new characters, but again this seems to be needed to keep the game in motion.
As you started to play again you will see some changes in the upcoming LoL event. Also the dungeons have changed in my perspective, as I got less Talisman drops every month. Some dungeons drop event soul frags so that you can farm a lot to get the char with a guarantee (see Ferryman dungeon), but this is not always the case (see the recent one). Gauntlet enemies are still allowed to wear all Talis they want and seem to win the coin toss in ~90%?. What is your experience with the Gauntlet? I mean as we are troopers I see your statistics :P

The small negative changes under the hood become more and more perceptible and I don't like the way they are implemented. Changes with a negative impact can be done within hours or minutes but annoying bugs can stay for years (interaction of counter attacks with shields) or weeks (Arena's 3h countdown does not reset after clearing the list anymore).
Simply, I don't like to be fooled and would always prefer to be informed about changes (even if they are negative for me) - in time. They call the fragment changes "adjustments" instead of clearly saying "this and that will change". Such things are ridiculous and unworthy in my eyes - especially in the name of Iron Maiden. Without this forum we would all be in the dark anyway. But many have drawn the same conclusion and keep their wallets closed from now on.

I am curious to see what the next events/characters and talis willl bring, how long this can go well and how long I can play with the resources I have and the strategies I use to stay competitive without paying. I am willing to adapt but if this will not be possible, it is what it is.

[Esquatcho]

nontheless it's possible to enjoy the game for free. you just cannot expect to get everything immediatly if you don't pay, but in the long run, you will get the most things you really need. and with the heroic souls and events they improved the situation a lot.

Yep, I think this is the point. If you're a whale you can get everything. If you play for free you can get everything, just heeeaaaapppsss slower. I guess Im kinda cool with that.

Poor communication doesnt have any excuse though. But the key for me in this game is that they never remove the chance of getting decent chars longer term for free players.

[slauki]

These "dirty" psychological tricks might be the same for most of these games, which comes with the basic principle of this freemium approach. I can withstand quite well, but I feel sorry for those who can't and get into money trouble. From this perspective I would be very open for some advertisment and sponsering within the game. Also you are right that the whale-approach fits very well to these games and especially to LotB. I also talked about those topics in one of the earlier posts here.

I don't mind it here that much since the overwhelming majority of all players should be adults. but the marvel universe is also attractive for teens and children and they don't have a clear idea of what is happening, this is a really big problem imo. we would need some regulation on this i belive.

My concerns are a bit different as I see the development within the last ~half a year. One of the few good changes are the heroics that you mentioned, and since a few weeks they are also available as legendary and mythical ones - this is really great! There never was such a "clear" way to get the characters you miss (but to be honest this is also needed as the character pool is so bloated now and still grows very fast).

7 new chars in one event is pure madness. MSF does 2-3 every month, i was really surprised with all the random chars out there, and now we even get the same chars in a different design... this is way too much imo, but they want to keep us chasing forever.

As you started to play again you will see some changes in the upcoming LoL event. Also the dungeons have changed in my perspective, as I got less Talisman drops every month. Some dungeons drop event soul frags so that you can farm a lot to get the char with a guarantee (see Ferryman dungeon), but this is not always the case (see the recent one). Gauntlet enemies are still allowed to wear all Talis they want and seem to win the coin toss in ~90%?. What is your experience with the Gauntlet? I mean as we are troopers I see your statistics :P

this is an outstanding game mode but i only played it once so far. it requires more strategy than the whole msf game, this is really cool. the character and talisman selection is just horrible though. it can take up to 10 minutes to setup one stupid team. this is horribly designed, but overall it's a very good game mode if you ask me. i just dislike that it still needs the same currency as arena, since this is devaluating arena a lot (but the rewards for arena are really crap since 2016, so who cares ).

The small negative changes under the hood become more and more perceptible and I don't like the way they are implemented. Changes with a negative impact can be done within hours or minutes but annoying bugs can stay for years (interaction of counter attacks with shields) or weeks (Arena's 3h countdown does not reset after clearing the list anymore).

same in msf, things that work in their favour stay there forever and small things that benefit the players get eliminated asap. our quality of live seems to be low priority for them, but everything that hurts the revenue is top priority....

Simply, I don't like to be fooled and would always prefer to be informed about changes (even if they are negative for me) - in time. They call the fragment changes "adjustments" instead of clearly saying "this and that will change". Such things are ridiculous and unworthy in my eyes - especially in the name of Iron Maiden. Without this forum we would all be in the dark anyway. But many have drawn the same conclusion and keep their wallets closed from now on.

yes the last changes i saw were very badly executed. but i don't think this will change anything at all. many forum and reddit members tend to think they have a big impact on the game, but in the end we are only a extremly small number of hardcore guys. 99% of all players don't know the forum and they decide about the future of the game. the devs only look at the overall numbers and decide afterwards if a decision was good or not. individuals are really meaningless for the big picture, since it's only statistics in the end. that's why they don't seem to care about individual opinions. took me some time to realize this, but after digging through some youtube vids i started to understand this dev approach....

[druid138]

I also have not decided yet. Especially as I don't like that cosmic talisman stuff. I also did not finish SS in Gauntlet last time because of that. We all don't know where these Talis will go in the end but - unfortunately - they might become so powerful that it would be bad to miss out on them. Relics we can buy all the time but this (overpriced) cosmic stuff is only given drop by drop. It's remarkable how much it is stretched until you have enough material to do something with it. Well, I would just bunker it anyway and wait.

Blade - I missed this post my first time through this thread. This is a really important point that has not received enough attention, in my opinion. In fact, the rollout method of these cosmic talismans - and the lack of complete information about them - is my biggest concern right now. I'm going to open up a different thread specific to that topic.

[Yup]

Not certain why it's confusing.. it's yet another method they can alter the power creep. Rather than new characters, then can drop the rare evo stuff.. allowing a big power boost via the talisman. -- Remember "Characters make money" -- so they are trying to find another, equally viable, revenue stream.. so "Cosmics make money" is the plan, clearly.

[Blade]

Blade - I missed this post my first time through this thread. This is a really important point that has not received enough attention, in my opinion. In fact, the rollout method of these cosmic talismans - and the lack of complete information about them - is my biggest concern right now. I'm going to open up a different thread specific to that topic.

There was already some discussion about it in the post referring to the first event that featured these cosmics. You find that thread here -> click

There I also gave my thoughts about the system (page 7, click).

So I don't know if there is a need for a new thread. Maybe a fresh one were we collect all information about these Talis, as the next step of evolution might be possible because of the current event? I cannot participate in that as I got only 2 Talis so far, both white T1 and hence they stay untouched at the moment.
If you decide to open a new thread, feel free to include my ideas if you like!

[scott-5496]

I guess we all just need to take a view on what we want to egt frm the game and work from there. I used to chase eveything i could within reason - maybe spend on average £10 per month since it started and I was fine with that as I play the game a lot. But it seems ot me every update is a massive change to the negative, very little postitve. Bugs continue and more develop. Game inflation keep son growing while resources are hit harder. Newer players will spend to catch the meta and that helps keep the light son - older players like me will spend less as we get less RNG luck on pulling anthing new at all. I just did my first ten souls and all three star junk - I am fine with that but it certainly does not potivate me to pursue anything else.

For me I think I just need to chill and not chase as much. In time all characters will come and if I miss the next big OP character then so be it - I will fall away a little bit more each month. This month is a classic case of overkill so far - all those new characters, new tallies...the mind boggles as to what they will be doing for the rest of the year.

Then you get your quality fo life char from the devs and what have we seen to date - zip! What we do see is rune and shard overloads and we have to sell stuff or use stuff and spend more gold to get rid of it (depending on what you do to clear your resources when they overflow) - that is not a quality of life improvement - it is the exact opposite of that.


I am not annoyed about it as much as I thought and how I felt when the recent changes were made - settled down a bit about it now but overall I think we are looking at a very significant change in the game on all levels and I dont see it as overly positive for those of us who are on the forum or other sites - but it is probably all good for the rest who care not so much to comment in places like this.