Fire Emblem Heroes General Discussion and Links

[mampfoid]

1 minute ago, Xenomata said:

Not immediately, if that's what you mean.

I mean, this specific Klein has been favorited for months now because I've not had many plans to promote him anytime soon.

But it's not a big deal like accidentally promoting a -ATK Bartre. 

[Xenomata]

1 minute ago, mampfoid said:

But it's not a big deal like accidentally promoting a -ATK Bartre. 

I... suppose?

I'd rather have a Brave Bow LA!Roy though...

[Ice Dragon]

1 minute ago, DehNutCase said:

I mean, isn't the IV thing how they 'get' you in terms of making you roll?

At some point, players just stop caring and will settle for second best. If one falls into your hands on a pity breaker, it's nice, but you eventually stop going for them specifically.

I think Nintendo gets far more money off of whales pulling for merges and skill fodder than pulling for the perfect nature, mostly because pulling for merges or skill fodder naturally gets you a decently large pool of natures to work with.

 

I've been playing around with designing a system to allow natures to be changed, and my current thoughts are something like this:

• Every unit sent home gives an item corresponding to their boon. For example, sending home a +HP unit will give you 1 Angelic Robe.
• These items are also distributed via quests or other reward sources (events and whatnot).
• You can spend x of an item to set a unit's boon to that stat and y of an item to set a unit's bane to that stat. The value of y should probably be somewhere around 20% to 25% of x.
• The rate of acquisition should be approximately x of each item per month for a free-to-player and double that for a medium-sized whale.
  • Assuming 700 pulls per month for a medium-sized whale, that's about 100 of each item per month from sending units home after accounting for merges and skill fodder.
  • Assuming a free-to-player rarely sends units home, that means quests and other reward sources should supply about 100 of each item per month.
  • And that means it should cost about 100 of an item to set a boon and 20-25 of an item to set a bane.
• Sending home a neutral unit gives a "neutralizer" that changes a unit to be neutral.
• This would also finally allow free characters to have non-neutral natures.

The numbers might need some adjusting, but I think something like this could work without reducing the demand for summoning at all.

[mampfoid]

1 minute ago, Xenomata said:

I'd rather have a Brave Bow LA!Roy though...

Yeah, additional unexpected wait time is disappointing. 

[Javi Blizz]

Guys, I'm in doubt. Should I give a Guard Bow to mi +6 Niles when I get a Setsuna or should I keep his Slaying Bow? Although a bit of extra bulk is never a bad thing, right now with B!Ike's Infantry Pulse, Niles goes down to 1 CD for the first Iceberg, which is too good to pass. What do you think that I should do?

Edited July 3, 2018 by Javi Blizz

[Sunwoo]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

So, since I'm currently going through my barracks and looking for places where I can make a bit more space with merges and whatnot (and noticing that my best-natured Micaiah is also [+Res, -Spd]), I have come to the realization that of the 37 copies of Julia I have pulled, none of them are [+Atk, -Def].

And, in fact, I have pulled at least one of every nature for Julia except [+Atk, -Def], [+Atk, -Res], [+Def, -Res], and [+Res, -Spd]. Game, why?

 

This game needs a means of re-rolling natures.

Man, quit hogging all the Julias -- some of us have never pulled even one!

[DehNutCase]

49 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

At some point, players just stop caring and will settle for second best. If one falls into your hands on a pity breaker, it's nice, but you eventually stop going for them specifically.

I think Nintendo gets far more money off of whales pulling for merges and skill fodder than pulling for the perfect nature, mostly because pulling for merges or skill fodder naturally gets you a decently large pool of natures to work with.

 

I've been playing around with designing a system to allow natures to be changed, and my current thoughts are something like this:

• Every unit sent home gives an item corresponding to their boon. For example, sending home a +HP unit will give you 1 Angelic Robe.
• These items are also distributed via quests or other reward sources (events and whatnot).
• You can spend x of an item to set a unit's boon to that stat and y of an item to set a unit's bane to that stat. The value of y should probably be somewhere around 20% to 25% of x.
• The rate of acquisition should be approximately x of each item per month for a free-to-player and double that for a medium-sized whale.
  • Assuming 700 pulls per month for a medium-sized whale, that's about 100 of each item per month from sending units home after accounting for merges and skill fodder.
  • Assuming a free-to-player rarely sends units home, that means quests and other reward sources should supply about 100 of each item per month.
  • And that means it should cost about 100 of an item to set a boon and 20-25 of an item to set a bane.
• Sending home a neutral unit gives a "neutralizer" that changes a unit to be neutral.
• This would also finally allow free characters to have non-neutral natures.

The numbers might need some adjusting, but I think something like this could work without reducing the demand for summoning at all.

I mean, demand will definitely change---if you have less reasons to do a thing, you'll do it less. Like, you might not specifically look for, say, Julia in a banner, but you'll definitely mind her less on a Legendary Hero banner than a unit you already had a perfect nature and 10 merges for. (You'd still need someone in her color worth pulling, of course, but a slight positive is still better than a neutral.)

 

That said, I also agree that it's possible to push QoL changes like this through without decreasing FEH's income.

Because you'll be grabbing it from FGO and the like.

It's a matter of getting as much money from the customers you have as possible vs. getting the most amount of customers as possible. QoL changes like this would decrease (even if slightly) per customer spend while increasing total number of customers---because a better game = more players.

 

The main problem with this approach is that every player also has a point where they're 'satisfied'* with the units they already have. Like, a F2P is by definition satisfied with anything they can get their hands on, because otherwise they'd be paying for more rolls.

*In terms of what they absolutely must have. I would like infinite copies of all units and perfect IVs, but I would be satisfied, i.e., not paying, with quite a lot less.

 

Getting more customers usually doesn't actually 'steal' customers from other games, mostly you'd have situations where a single player plays multiple games, at least to start. Which is why it's important to include a LOT of grinding, particularly grinding that rewards gacha currency, so a player feels invested. The more grinding a player does in a game, the more 'tied' they'd feel towards it because of sunk costs and whatnot, and there's only 24 hours in a day, so if you have a LOT of grinding in a game, you'd naturally push out other games that the player likes less.

 

QoL updates would NOT hurt income from the die-hard core you create from them liking your game + the amount of resources in terms of time, money, or whatever they dumped into your game, but it WOULD hurt income from the multi-game customers who are playing more than one game, because, once they reach the 'satisfied' point, they'll stop spending on your game and start spending on the other game(s).

 

 

In other words, FEH has to make itself more addicting, like, really addicting, before it should focus on QoL updates that make rolling less necessary.

 

Edit: This is from the cold-blooded money first perspective, though. I'm sure the game has a core of developers who simply want to make FEH the best game possible, so they'd prioritize QoL changes like this. I suppose a reasonable compromise would be a item gacha where you roll for items with orbs, stat changing items being on the list.

You'll still have to roll for heroes, and you'll have a healthy demand for rolling for items as well. (Particularly if some of the items are 'merely' cosmetic, like the accessories we've just gotten.)

 

Double Edit:

35 minutes ago, Javi Blizz said:

Guys, I'm in doubt. Should I give a Guard Bow to mi +6 Niles when I get a Setsuna or should I keep his Slaying Bow? Although a bit of extra bulk is never a bad thing, right now with B!Ike's Infantry Pulse, Niles goes down to 1 CD for the first Iceberg, which is too good to pass. What do you think that I should do?

That depends. Do you like Niles? If you're using him only because he's a good unit, then as long as he functions already there's no need to upgrade him anymore. If you're using him because you like him, on the other hand, there's no reason not to give him Guard Bow, I'd say.

Even in the worst case where Slaying Bow is better in most situations, he still has the Guard Bow option for possible grand hero battles and whatnot.

 

Like, my Cordelia has lots of lances she doesn't actually use, but I'm using her because I like her as a unit and because I like her. Sure, it hurts a little that I've used 20k feathers per weapon and possibly some moderately-rare fodder, but it did mean I get to try a lot of different sets with her, and that I have the option to change to her older sets if I ever wanted to try them again.

Basically, I very much take the the FGO approach in terms of resources like 'grails.'

"Grails are for wifus."---Archimedes, probably.

 

As long as you don't need feathers or Setsuna for a very specific purpose---to clear a particular GHB or whatnot---I don't really see a reason NOT to invest in a unit you like.

Edited July 3, 2018 by DehNutCase

[Javi Blizz]

23 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

That depends. Do you like Niles? If you're using him only because he's a good unit, then as long as he functions already there's no need to upgrade him anymore. If you're using him because you like him, on the other hand, there's no reason not to give him Guard Bow, I'd say.

Even in the worst case where Slaying Bow is better in most situations, he still has the Guard Bow option for possible grand hero battles and whatnot.

 

Like, my Cordelia has lots of lances she doesn't actually use, but I'm using her because I like her as a unit and because I like her. Sure, it hurts a little that I've used 20k feathers per weapon and possibly some moderately-rare fodder, but it did mean I get to try a lot of different sets with her, and that I have the option to change to her older sets if I ever wanted to try them again.

Basically, I very much take the the FGO approach in terms of resources like 'grails.'

"Grails are for wifus."---Archimedes, probably.

 

As long as you don't need feathers or Setsuna for a very specific purpose---to clear a particular GHB or whatnot---I don't really see a reason NOT to invest in a unit you like.

I'm using him exclusively because I like Niles, I don't care if a unit is good or bad (even Odin can probably end up being a good unit with the proper investment, sure)

The main issue here is that I need feathers for a few more units, so I don't want to give him something that's not going to be used, at least until I have no other units/fodder requiring feathers

[DehNutCase]

1 minute ago, Javi Blizz said:

I'm using him exclusively because I like Niles, I don't care if a unit is good or bad (even Odin can probably end up being a good unit with the proper investment, sure)

The main issue here is that I need feathers for a few more units, so I don't want to give him something that's not going to be used, at least until I have no other units/fodder requiring feathers

Have you tried liking less units?

; )

 

In all seriousness, though, I'd say there's no issue with delaying non-critical upgrades when you still have things to work on. Adding guard bow isn't really a priority if Niles is functional already. Like, even I ear-marked more feathers for promoting a workable pool of heroes for AA and whatnot before I started going merge heavy on my main team. If your roster has definite holes that needs filling---good Flier/Cavalry/Infantry/Armored teams for monthly quests, etc.---then fill the holes first.

 

I do have a bit of advice. If you're promoting units for the sake of filling out your roster, I'd focus on units with a good base kit, and take cheaper shortcuts where available (L&D 2 over L&D 3 or Swift Sparrow, for example)---they're not your priority heroes, so it's best to spend as little on them as possible. I actually like Odin a lot in that respect, his spread is just workable enough, that, with equivalent investment, he actually beats out everyone but Tailtiu, because his -blade tome is 20k cheaper than everyone else's. 20k feathers buys a lot of good budget skills. Even L&D 2 only costs 2k.

You can probably get budget set advice either here or in the Q&A section if you ever feel like you want a good, cheap, unit. (Mind, my definition of 'cheap' is around 30k feathers, or 10k if you ignore the cost to promote to 5*.)

[Humanoid]

I don't even like Niles but he's there as the 5th unit in my barracks if I sort by Obtained. After the Askr trio, the first four units in the list 5* Maria, 4* Niles, 4* Lilina and 3* Serra (level 20). The first three were the units I used for most of the story missions (and Serra subbed in occasionally in the early levels because healers tend outlevel the others early on). So yeah, I don't like Niles as such, but I'm attached to *this* Niles and would never fodder him.

One day I'll promote him, even though I probably haven't used him in over a year. Obviously I knew nothing of boons and banes back then, but it's super fortuitous that he's +Spd -Def, so that's nice. I will soon promote the Lilina and merge her into my +Atk one, and when I do it'll be bittersweet.

(Figures that the best unit I had in the first month of the game is a +Def -Res 4* Lilina +1. Hell, the copy I merged into this one was probably better but we will never know. I wonder how things would have turned out if I were a smart person and rerolled to get a Lucina or Takumi from the launch banners instead of a pitybreaker Maria. As it is, my first non-healer 5* was Hawkeye, who even today is not properly built yet.)

Edited July 3, 2018 by Humanoid

[Ice Dragon]

36 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

I suppose a reasonable compromise would be a item gacha where you roll for items with orbs, stat changing items being on the list.

I don't see how this is a compromise. In fact, this looks worse to the consumer even if it isn't because this means they have to split their hard-earned orbs between two separate gachas instead of rolling it all into one package.

The point of quality-of-life improvements is in large part to improve the product's image and reduce complaints.

Furthermore, I think splitting characters and items into two different gachas is likely to result in worse revenue all around from the money-making perspective. Fully separating the systems means there are now logical stopping points for both pools. Now you have to make sure you perfectly balance the numbers between the pools to make sure (1) you didn't make it too easy to obtain the items and (2) you didn't make it so hard to obtain the items that the player doesn't even bother trying. In the case of (1), you've definitely reduced revenue from whales who can now actually stop at exactly 11 copies, and in the case of (2), free-to-players and minnows will definitely be complaining and maybe even the smaller whales will, too, if it's sufficiently egregious.

What's important about the design I wrote up is that it feels good for the player. You get these items for doing things you already do, even if the rate is extremely slow (because players already gather all of the other resources at relatively slow rates). The trick is to make sure it's slow enough that whales are acquiring items slower than they acquire new projects to use them on, but free-to-players are acquiring them fast enough to still look forward to using them. There should be enough data in their hands to get a good starting number. Heck, they can even deliberately set the rate a bit too low and raise it later, which, again, makes them look good.

[Anacybele]

Yeah, I definitely don't want a second gacha here. I'm fine with just one. xP

I've wanted a means of re-rolling natures forever now too, and I like your idea there, Ice Dragon! I wouldn't have to keep searching for a +Def, -Res Frederick or have to try for a better nature after I get a 5 star I wanted, but with crappy IVs.

But unfortunately, I doubt IS will do this, because they said natures exist to encourage different builds, and a lot of people would want the same nature for a specific unit (like Reinhardt always wants +Atk), so that would lead to most people using the same build for said unit.

[DehNutCase]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

I don't see how this is a compromise. In fact, this looks worse to the consumer even if it isn't because this means they have to split their hard-earned orbs between two separate gachas instead of rolling it all into one package.

The point of quality-of-life improvements is in large part to improve the product's image and reduce complaints.

Furthermore, I think splitting characters and items into two different gachas is likely to result in worse revenue all around from the money-making perspective. Fully separating the systems means there are now logical stopping points for both pools. Now you have to make sure you perfectly balance the numbers between the pools to make sure (1) you didn't make it too easy to obtain the items and (2) you didn't make it so hard to obtain the items that the player doesn't even bother trying. In the case of (1), you've definitely reduced revenue from whales who can now actually stop at exactly 11 copies, and in the case of (2), free-to-players and minnows will definitely be complaining and maybe even the smaller whales will, too, if it's sufficiently egregious.

What's important about the design I wrote up is that it feels good for the player. You get these items for doing things you already do, even if the rate is extremely slow (because players already gather all of the other resources at relatively slow rates). The trick is to make sure it's slow enough that whales are acquiring items slower than they acquire new projects to use them on, but free-to-players are acquiring them fast enough to still look forward to using them. There should be enough data in their hands to get a good starting number. Heck, they can even deliberately set the rate a bit too low and raise it later, which, again, makes them look good.

Does it look worse? The two gachas serve completely different purposes, the regular one is for making your units better, the item one is for making your units prettier. I should clarify that I imagined the item gacha as mostly the accessories, with the IV changing items being secondary.

 

A pure perfomance based player would almost never roll on the item gacha because most of the stuff would be things he doesn't want.* Expensive hats, alternative backgrounds, stuff like that.

*Because BST distribution is limited, you'll eventually get a unit 'close enough' to the spread you want even without IV modifying items. You might not be able to use +Atk Alfonse, but you can get -Hp Chrom. Even Prf weapon effects are going to resemble each other more and more because of limited design space.

 

On the other hand, people who only care about the unit they like would have a reason to keep rolling on the item gacha even after their units are 5* +10'd, perfectly IVd, and completely kitted out. Because they'll have hats and backgrounds and random stuff that isn't gameplay related from that gacha. Pretty hats make a lot of money. You can even make limited time item banners---seasonal backgrounds to match whatever unit banner's going on.

The idea is that the casual player who just wants one unit will go 'Yay! I pulled her!' and then dump the rest of their orbs on the item gacha for pretty hats---and occasional IV changing item---for that one unit. If you add an wardrobe function, or a randomizer---that picks a random accessory/outfit/background/whatever from a given list---then people who care about looks will practically never stop rolling on the item banner.

 

And it seems pretty unlikely that people would complain seriously about more banners. We have, what, 6 unit banners going on right now? Sure, there's some complaints, but it's mostly jokes about how you don't have enough orbs to roll on all of them, I doubt anyone would seriously say "I wish there were less banners so I wouldn't have to choose between them."

 

 

And the most problematic part of your system is that I honestly don't see a way for that system NOT to significantly reduce revenue. Like you said, you'd get these stat modifying items from things you'd do anyway, meaning there's going to be a natural accumulation. Meaning most casual players would stop at one copy of the unit they want, and then stop pulling. With my system, even if you got the one copy you wanted, you'd still keep pulling on the other gacha.

The casual with one copy of, say, Summer!Cordelia would go: "Eh, I can just spend an IV item later to fix Summer!Cordelia's bad stats." And then, when it comes time to actually use that item... they either would, or wouldn't, but in either case it would probably be after the Summer banner was over, meaning they wouldn't pull anymore.

 

No matter how stupid or smart someone is, eventually they'll arrive at the correct decision. By giving players time to think (because IV items can fix bad IVs later, whereas you have to pull for units now, before the banners disappear), you allow them to actually consider how much they're willing to pay to fix a unit's IVs.

Even I'm weak to impulse pulls. I pulled a +Spd/-Atk Summer Cordelia, which I didn't like, because I thought 35/35 was better than 32/38 in the first place, and then I spent another hundred and fifty orbs or so for... another +Spd/-Atk Summer Cordelia. I was happy enough with just one banner unit, so, if I had IV items as an option---even if it was just a future one, not an item I had on hand---I wouldn't have pulled for the second copy.

 

Would I have stopped if I could pull on an item gacha for an IV fixing item...?

Honestly, probably. But the difference is that I do have to actually spend orbs to pull on that item gacha.

Edited July 3, 2018 by DehNutCase

[Hilda]

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

At some point, players just stop caring and will settle for second best. If one falls into your hands on a pity breaker, it's nice, but you eventually stop going for them specifically.

I think Nintendo gets far more money off of whales pulling for merges and skill fodder than pulling for the perfect nature, mostly because pulling for merges or skill fodder naturally gets you a decently large pool of natures to work with.

 

I've been playing around with designing a system to allow natures to be changed, and my current thoughts are something like this:

• Every unit sent home gives an item corresponding to their boon. For example, sending home a +HP unit will give you 1 Angelic Robe.
• These items are also distributed via quests or other reward sources (events and whatnot).
• You can spend x of an item to set a unit's boon to that stat and y of an item to set a unit's bane to that stat. The value of y should probably be somewhere around 20% to 25% of x.
• The rate of acquisition should be approximately x of each item per month for a free-to-player and double that for a medium-sized whale.
  • Assuming 700 pulls per month for a medium-sized whale, that's about 100 of each item per month from sending units home after accounting for merges and skill fodder.
  • Assuming a free-to-player rarely sends units home, that means quests and other reward sources should supply about 100 of each item per month.
  • And that means it should cost about 100 of an item to set a boon and 20-25 of an item to set a bane.
• Sending home a neutral unit gives a "neutralizer" that changes a unit to be neutral.
• This would also finally allow free characters to have non-neutral natures.

The numbers might need some adjusting, but I think something like this could work without reducing the demand for summoning at all.

Thisvis a very good Idea and i like it. I just would settlevit to onevitem there is allready so many items in the game. 

Also additional one should be ableb to pick different itmes when you send a unit home.

For now we only get feathers but it would be nice ifvthere was anboption to pick between feathers, coins, badges, and stones for weapon refinement

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

@JSND Alter Dragon Boner YO THIS IS FREEEEEEE

I'm surprised you have Eliwood on there instead of Brave Roy.

I sent a friend invite btw. セツナ, L&D Summer Cordy as lead at the moment.

[Hawk King]

6 hours ago, Anacybele said:

I wouldn't have to keep searching for a +Def, -Res Frederick

Don't you already have trouble with Nowis? What is his current nature?

[silverserpent]

...i just need two more copies of Camilla to finish +10'ing her, but they aren't showing up.

[ElectiveToast]

Thinking about making some photoshop fan art of Arvis and Surtr under the American Flag. 4th of July and all. 

[ElectiveToast]

(TP) 

Edited July 3, 2018 by ElectiveToast

[ElectiveToast]

(I hate it when the forum glitches on me like this.) 

Edited July 3, 2018 by ElectiveToast

[silverserpent]

26 minutes ago, ElectiveToast said:

Thinking about making some photoshop fan art of Arvis and Surtr under the American Flag. 4th of July and all. 

Add in Berkut and you'll have a regular barbeque going.

[ElectiveToast]

4 minutes ago, silverserpent said:

Add in Berkut and you'll have a regular barbeque going.

That guy who turned his lover into a Flame Atronach? Yus! 

[ElectiveToast]

(Oh for love’s sake, I didn’t even press the submit button twice.) 

Edited July 3, 2018 by ElectiveToast

[Anacybele]

4 hours ago, Hawk King said:

Don't you already have trouble with Nowis? What is his current nature?

+Def, -Spd. And Frederick's Res is too low to matter there. If I got him neutral Spd, he wouldn't get doubled as often.

[Johann]

3 hours ago, Anacybele said:

+Def, -Spd. And Frederick's Res is too low to matter there. If I got him neutral Spd, he wouldn't get doubled as often.

What does your usual team look like? Is there room for a Spd buff of any kind?