Fire Emblem Heroes 1-Year Anniversary: What are your predictions?

[Ice Dragon]

2 hours ago, Javi Blizz said:

-Catria (to 3*-4*): Same as Caeda. (The wiki says she's in 4*-5*, although I think I've a 3* one)

Catria was given as a quest reward at 3-star rarity once.

 

2 hours ago, Javi Blizz said:

-Olwen (to 4*-5*): Come on, Reinhart is even in this pool while powercreeping her sister, why should she still be 5* exclusive?

Because rarities don't change after the character is added to the standard summoning pool and because we haven't had a rarity rework yet. I realize the question was likely rhetorical, but it bugs me whenever a question like this is asked.

 

2 hours ago, Javi Blizz said:

As you can see, my main issue isn't 5* exclusives, but unit's in the 4*-5* pool which doesn't need to continue there. This means 18 5* units less in the pool.

Raising the chances of pulling a 5-star unit from the standard pool from 0.12% (1 in 800) to 0.15% (1 in 600) isn't really much of a difference. The probability of pulling a 5-star character you want from the standard pool is still horrible. The standard 5-star pool should basically be treated as if it doesn't exist in terms of pulling a character you want from it because unless it can be reduced to around 20 characters, it's going to remain extremely diluted.

 

 

And I still thing most of the justifications for rarity reductions look more like "I want to pull this character more" or "I don't want to get pity broken by this character" rather than actual justifications.

Also, anything that you reduce to a lower rarity that has nothing of value for Skill Inheritance (because I see a lot of "this character doesn't have any good skills, so let's demote them") just dilutes the summoning pool with more junk that no one wants. Oboro and Est having no skills of value is bad enough. Putting more Oboros and Ests in the pool will just make it worse.

[Crux404]

5 hours ago, Michelaar said:

I like you too :D

 

Personally i've always been of the mindset 'Be happy that you get anything at all.' I don't see why people would be mad with getting New Years Corrin along with a login bonus. It gives you a free unit in general,  and you get free orbs to have a chance to summon more new units, which is in general what people want, yes?

Your positive initiative in this post is lovely. Keep it up!

5 hours ago, coldhand25 said:

Well, I remember when Blizzard gave 1 free pack in HS for everyone just because they released the gift system, and people were like "1 pakk rly?! y only 1?....." They were legit mad about Blizzard giving away free stuff. So yeah, seeing that there are still people with good attitude really warms my heart! Keep it up :D

 

From my perspective, if we take the price value of the stuff we get freely at face value; we do get a LOT (I got 150 orbs in 2 weeks, which is about $75). I think the problem is actually the lack of satisfaction on spending those orbs because of the gacha system (as in, spending those 150 orb and the some to get 10 Wrys instead of a single Elise). It would be nice if IS would offer a "Brave pull" (one which we would select a focus hero a with neutra IVs) on orbs purchase. It would allow people to het their waifus/husbandos for those who want to spend small amounts and give merges to those that want to get a +10. 

In case of HS, I think the player "ungratitude" is a side effect of the difficulty to get many packs. But all of my post CAN be wrong.

[coldhand25]

1 hour ago, Crux404 said:

From my perspective, if we take the price value of the stuff we get freely at face value; we do get a LOT (I got 150 orbs in 2 weeks, which is about $75). I think the problem is actually the lack of satisfaction on spending those orbs because of the gacha system (as in, spending those 150 orb and the some to get 10 Wrys instead of a single Elise). It would be nice if IS would offer a "Brave pull" (one which we would select a focus hero a with neutra IVs) on orbs purchase. It would allow people to het their waifus/husbandos for those who want to spend small amounts and give merges to those that want to get a +10. 

In case of HS, I think the player "ungratitude" is a side effect of the difficulty to get many packs. But all of my post CAN be wrong.

The Brave pull is an awesome idea actually, I really would like to see it in the game :D As for the packs, though what You are saying is right, I still don't feel like people should act this way towards the developers. If it would've been some event reward I would say it's okay to feel bad, but it was supposed to be some nice gesture, not some milestone-reward.

[TheNiddo]

I think NY!Corrin will be released in some fashion shortly before the 1-Year anniversary stuff. So not officially tied to it at all.

For the actual 1-Year Anniversary:

• Legendary Banner carries over the 1-Year mark, but I don't think there will be any connection between the two outside of it being mentioned in the video. Maybe making the starting % be 10% instead of 8%. 
• The original banners from launch returning (Potentially with higher 5* pull rates).
• 1-Year Anniversary log in orbs for 2 weeks
• Developer Maps
• Next Story Chapter
• FEH Channel Thank You video. That also shoves the Valentines Day seasonal banner units into our face.

That's about all I'm expecting. There's a non-zero chance that we'll get a free 5* of choice like with the original CYL banner: 1-year anniversary is large enough event to warrant it. Not sure if they would make new variations of heroes as part of the celebrations (and thus let us pick one of them), or if they're just going to say "you get one hero of your choice from one of the original banners".

[Crux404]

1 hour ago, coldhand25 said:

The Brave pull is an awesome idea actually, I really would like to see it in the game :D As for the packs, though what You are saying is right, I still don't feel like people should act this way towards the developers. If it would've been some event reward I would say it's okay to feel bad, but it was supposed to be some nice gesture, not some milestone-reward.

Yeah, gamming communities should criticize better to (including complaining about not getting enough free stuff when getting free stuff). Surveys and forums are the better ways of developer/community interaction, but it is for naught if the survey is not worded properly or if we put a complain about how "we should get more packs when we get a feature". I really wish Heroes had and official forum modded by IS. 

[Ivy Wife Supremacy]

Honestly I don't expect anything major or mind blowingly cool especially for a gacha game probably FINALLY the next few chapters of Book II, more updated weapon refines, 20+ orbs/more feathers maybe a special character(that's not New Years Corrin).

Edited January 8, 2018 by Blade Lord Lyn

[bottlegnomes]

8 hours ago, Cute Chao said:

While I'd like to add Keaton, Kaden and Shigure to the list of characters I want to see from Fates (in addition to Kaze and Silas), I agree here. I always keep hoping for an expansion of the 3-4* pool (or even 3* exclusive, if they really want to go for it) that includes characters that won't make them money. FE has so many characters, but they're adding fewer and fewer, particularly if this month's TT really does have Kimono Corrin as the prize -.-

 

That's pretty much all I want from the anniversary. I don't really care about free stuff (though won't complain there - I'd be happy with anything... though probably not happy with nothing) or anything else. I just want more characters to be added and, hopefully, to make pulling anything other than a 5* exciting again (I am a very mini type of whale, so I have all the 3 - 4* units available just in the course of trying to pull the 5* units I wanted). It doesn't help that fewer units drop to 4* as a consequence of fewer new non-seasonals being added.

Yeah, honestly all I want is more characters to train. I'm fine with not getting all the 5*s, but I have like 5 characters total that I don't have at 4* 40

5 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Because rarities don't change after the character is added to the standard summoning pool and because we haven't had a rarity rework yet. I realize the question was likely rhetorical, but it bugs me whenever a question like this is asked.

Was Nino ever 5* or did I pull her on a focus banner and not realize it? Because I definitely pulled a 5* Nino at some point.

Raising the chances of pulling a 5-star unit from the standard pool from 0.12% (1 in 800) to 0.15% (1 in 600) isn't really much of a difference. The probability of pulling a 5-star character you want from the standard pool is still horrible. The standard 5-star pool should basically be treated as if it doesn't exist in terms of pulling a character you want from it because unless it can be reduced to around 20 characters, it's going to remain extremely diluted.

Personally, yeah, fewer pitybreakers would be nice, but more I'd like it because that'd mean more characters that are actually reasonable to get. I personally don't consider spending $80 every banner reasonable. Like I said, I have a handful of characters that aren't 4* 40 and just waiting to get 5*ed when I have time and motivation, and then there are 4 that I haven't pulled yet. Training characters is what keeps me entertained between TTs, Paralogues, and story updates and it'd be nice to have some more to do there. That's why I enjoy TTs, at least until recently, and GHBs so much. It's a guaranteed new unit for me to play with.

Looking through the charts, if they just did away with shared 4-5* characters, it'd cut the 5* pool in half. That doesn't seem that objectionable. It'd mean fewer pitybreakers when going for an on-banner character, a 1/400 (woooooo!) chance of a non-banner 5*, and wouldn't actually change IS's income. Who actually whales for 4-5* characters?

And I still thing most of the justifications for rarity reductions look more like "I want to pull this character more" or "I don't want to get pity broken by this character" rather than actual justifications. 

You could make the argument that they consider 5*-exclusive characters especially desirable characters, either from gameplay or design PoVs and that characters of lower rarities are less desirable. At this point, Karel is neither a particularly popular character (design) nor a particularly good unit or SI fodder (gameplay), so it seems counterintuitive to keep him as 5*-exclusive. I think we can all agree that were he to be introduced now, he wouldn't be. Looking through the current pool, there aren't a ton that would be similar, e.g. Mist, maybe Gray and Alm, but dropping them to 4* would allow the people who don't have them a better chance of getting them off-banner and since, as you pointed out, they aren't particularly desirable, wouldn't meaningfully decrease IS's revenue. Yeah, it would further clutter the 3-4* pools, but those are a significantly higher chance of getting and yeah, yet another 3* Est is frustrating, but I don't think many people would argue it's more frustrating than a 5* Rebecca resetting 80 orbs worth of going after a focus unit.

Re the Mist doesn't matter because she's terrible, would you advocate making units like Est and Oboro 5* exclusive so regular players have a better chance of getting more desirable units? That's a serious question as it seems like that's the crux of your argument there: It's better to have Mist be 5* exclusive because it only inconveniences a small number of players (the ones who want her) in exchange for benefiting a significant number of players (the ones who'd rather get a halfway decent 4*). Let me know if I'm misunderstanding your point.

[Zeo]

10 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

That would be true if tome fliers were the only thing that Hone Fliers is useful for, but it isn't. The top melee fliers have better offensive stats than the top melee cavalry, and by extension, Hone Fliers on them makes them better than the top melee cavalry with Hone Cavalry.

Also, there's the simple fact that Litrblade is broken on pretty much anything that has easy access to +6/6 buffs even without optimal stats or builds. You don't need an optimal Camilla, Corrin, or Nowi to make them absolutely devastating. -Atk or -Spd really doesn't matter all that much when your Atk stat is in the 70's or 80's.

Except that unlike Cavalry, Fliers even with their occasionally tricky mobility, are limited to 2 move and are extraordinarily easier to bait and dispatch. A Flier melee or Tome Flier is never going to give you the same problems as cavalry because they'll never be able to race to the other side of the map at the beginning of a stage and a couple of points of attack and speed don't change that. Flier Formation and Guidance are tricky skills and Nowi's Grimore can be troublesome, but you can be spawned on a map where all 3-4 cavalry mages/Lyn can each attack every spot on a map within a set radius making it nearly impossible to bait. This situation is literally never going to happen against Flier Emblem and where as you need specific skills, specific weapons and specific tomes inorder to specifically fight cavalry, you can take a Brave Bow+ archer (or Brave Lyn, who was free) and Flier Emblem is trivialized in it's entirety. This is why Flier Emblem was labeled "unremarkable". Perhaps an exaggeratory word, but Cavalry Emblem is dumb and the only thing that can contend with that is maybe a 3 Mage Flier Emblem team + Azura, a unit just released a week ago.

10 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Leaving Hone Fliers as a 5-star exclusive skill is nowhere near similar to turning off the water in the second toilet because turning off the water in the first toilet wasn't removing Hone Cavalry from the 3-star and 4-star pool. Turning off the water in the first toilet was implementing cavalry-effective weapons and field buff negation on them. Mopping up was implementing Panic Ploy, Deflect skills, and stronger debuffing options.

By that arguement there was never a Fliers mess to clean up to begin with. Fliers, unlike cavalry have had their weakness built into the game since the release date. NY!Azura just singlehandedly turned Flier Emblem into a grand problem going into the new year. But before that an optimized Flier Emblem team could be baited and quickly dealt with same as any team that doesn't involve a WoM Dancer or Cavalry Emblem. A single seal that negates Flier weaknesses is not going to mitigate the fact that a Brave Bow or Firesweep Bow archer can ORKO 3 out of the 4 units on an enemy team. Raven builds exists for the mages sure, but the archer, again can just bait and kill the other 3 units and leave the Raven user to one of your other 3 units. There is no single way to trivialize Cavalry. You have to legitimately build a team around countering it to avoid problems.

10 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

You don't seem to be understanding my argument.

FIrst off, I am using the word "casualties" to refer to skills that are unimpressive, but locked to rare units. I could type out "skill that are unimpressive, but locked to rare units" every time, but it's much easier to assign a single word to refer to them. There's no point in arguing the definition; treat the word as shorthand for the full phrase if you must. The banner being gone so the unit and skill are also gone in their entirety from the summoning pool exactly fits the description of "skills that are unimpressive, but locked to rare units".

Fine. I get it.

10 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Next, Mist has a 0.12-0.13% chance (1 in 800 to 1 in 850 chance) of being pulled from a colorless summoning orb at base rate when not on a banner (depending on the colors on the banner). This is, for all practical purposes that don't involve whaling harder than I do, equivalent to not being in the summoning pool at all if you are specifically trying to pull for her.

Therefore, unless you are rich, dumb, or both, if you are trying to pull for Spur Def/Res, you are pulling when Mist is on a banner. If you are trying to pull for Atk/Res Bond, you are pulling when Halloween Nowi or New Year Takumi is on a banner. These situations are literally (no, really, literally) identical and have no reason to be treated differently.

The fact that the developers want you to pull from the limited banner because limited characters is no different from the fact that the developers want you to pull from the not limited banner because haha you're not getting these characters otherwise (referring only to the 5-star-exclusive characters on those banners). (If you think you're getting those characters otherwise, you're either hopelessly optimistic or absurdly lucky.)

Despite my personal categorization, this is the reality of the situation. And this is why I take issue with said skills being locked to *5. They range in usefulness but the worth of said skill to be locked comes into question more often than not. Regardless skill availability itself is a secondary problem, the grand one is the bloated pool of *5 units that continues to grow in comparison to the small common rarity pool. That's the heart of this discussion. Maybe I started ranting because it was 5 AM. So pardon me.

10 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

If it's pointless, why are you complaining?

Because the point of this topic was to speculate and predict things that could be changed/added/improved for the anniversary? When do you see me randomly complaining about Heroes otherwise? Just because you may not consider lopsided rarity pool size difference and skill availability a potential issue doesn't mean that others don't.

10 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Sure, it makes it harder to experiment with these skills, but let's be honest, how many people would actually experiment with these skills (making joke builds doesn't count) if they were made more available rather than using the characters for something else or sending them home?

There are like five people on the forums that actually use Litrowl on serious builds on characters that actually do well with them despite Blarowl and Gronnowl having decent availability. Drive Def (Roderick) and Drive Spd (Tailtiu) are available on units that can be pulled at 4-star rarity, but I never hear about them being used (Roderick has been in the 4-star pool for more than 6 months, Tailtiu has the entire Drive Spd skill tree available without needing a 5-star promotion).

It's really hard to say, but the word pointless is used because regardless of the relative value of the skill and unit, even if it's in the worst case it's potentially making the common pool worse, that is a superior trade off to *5 exclusivity. If I pull a *3 or *4 Mist with said skills, she's not great and maybe I even wanted another unit instead. Maybe her set is worthless to me. But if I pull her at *5, she just broke my pity rate when I could have pulled a Kagero, Brave Lyn etc. Now I have her at *5 rarity which makes foddering her off feel more like a waste and she killed the chance of a potentially far more useful *5 exclusive unit. We may not be always be demoting *5's to promote creativity among players, we may just be draining the swamp.

I would kill for a Roderick or Tailtiu because I haven't pulled a single one of either (and I actually want both of those skills for a few units...). But those are great example of good skills brought into the general pool. But I'm also going to use myself as an example here. There are quite a few players that could just be like myself and never pull those units. The *4 pool is massive and you could pull for months without getting the unit you want. Perhaps some of the skills on *4 aren't used as much as you'd expect but I'm willing to bet for every player that doesn't care about them there's one that simply can't pull said unit.

Rebecca, Raven, Roderick, Tailtiu, Soleil. I have never pulled a single copy of any of these units and I have been playing for 8 months. 2 of these units were available before I even started playing. It also took me months to pull a Fae, and I didn't pull a Lachesis, Priscilla, Lillina until near the end of the year. Cordelia and Kagero I've only pulled twice and I've literally only pulled one Sheena, ever.

I'm sure there are plenty of players with units they simply have never been able to acquire, but the thing is that these are all *4 to *5 characters and the *4 pool is huge as it should be. The issue is that *3 pool. It's small and pitiful. I'm sure if any one of these units were in said pool, I would have pulled them already. I've pulled a million copies of every unit in the *3-*4 pool. Even the rarest units I may have pulled from the *3 pool have been pulled a good 3-5 times like Hinata, Odin, A!Tiki, M!Robin, Arthur. The more useful ones ironically.

The *5 pool needs to shrink and the *3 pool needs to get larger. That was my angle this entire argument, improved skill availability is a bonus.

Edited January 8, 2018 by Zeo

[Ice Dragon]

2 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

Was Nino ever 5* or did I pull her on a focus banner and not realize it? Because I definitely pulled a 5* Nino at some point.

She was on the Battling Ursula banner, the Heroes with Hone Atk banner, and the Heroes with Blade Skills banner.

 

5 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

but I don't think many people would argue it's more frustrating than a 5* Rebecca resetting 80 orbs worth of going after a focus unit.

People think the pity rate matters more than it actually does. In practice, the existence of the pity rate mechanic as it is implemented is equivalent to if the 5-star and focus rates were actually just fixed at about 3.5% and didn't change.

 

11 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

Re the Mist doesn't matter because she's terrible, would you advocate making units like Est and Oboro 5* exclusive so regular players have a better chance of getting more desirable units?

I personally wouldn't want them to be 5-star exclusive because Oboro has Rally Def, which is actually a good stepping stone skill for passing on Roderick's skills (you get Rally Def and Spur Def 1 from other characters, then pass Roderick's Rally Def/Res, Drive Def 1, and Drive Def 2), and Est is actually a good unit (but needs to have her skill set completely overhauled from the ground up).

That said, I really don't care all that much about junk sitting in the 3-star pool because I send all of them home anyways (except Barst and Selena) because even if they have useful skills, they don't have them available until they are promoted to 4-star rarity (except Barst and Selena), and I'd rather spend my feathers promoting a single unit to 5-star for skills than spending them on promoting units to 4-star rarity.

If Mist were somehow in the 3-star and 5-star pools (for some godforsaken reason), I probably wouldn't really care because the 3-star pool is all trash to me anyways (except Barst and Selena).

 

Actually, can we just replace the 3-star pool with only Barst and Selena?

[Ice Dragon]

Excuse the double post. This post and the previous post are long.

 

1 minute ago, Zeo said:

Except that unlike Cavalry, Fliers even with their occasionally tricky mobility, are limited to 2 move and are extraordinarily easier to bait and dispatch. A Flier melee or Tome Flier is never going to give you the same problems as cavalry because...

The worth of a unit in terms of Arena defense means nothing to me.

 

11 minutes ago, Zeo said:

Flier Formation and Guidance are tricky skills and Nowi's Grimore can be troublesome, but you can be spawned on a map where all 3-4 cavalry mages/Lyn can each attack every spot on a map within a set radius making it nearly impossible to bait.

I have more trouble with teams of mixed range-melee units than I have with teams of ranged cavalry. Their long reach just makes them easier to bait, not harder, and having the same movement range and attack range as each other means their ranges tend not to overlap at the edges.

Furthermore, a properly built flier team tends to stay together far better than a cavalry team due to their lower movement range and nearly unrestricted ability to use Hit and Run and Reposition.

 

13 minutes ago, Zeo said:

By that arguement there was never a Fliers mess to clean up to begin with.

And indeed there wasn't because Hone Fliers never had good availability. Flier teams are rare until you reach the top of the Arena (just before it drops off into all armors) because the players that could get their hands on multiple copies of Hone Fliers are generally the same players that can build high-merge units.

Cavalry was a problem the moment Skill Inheritance was a thing because Hone Cavalry had easy access, allowing everyone and their dog to use it.

 

33 minutes ago, Zeo said:

the grand one is the bloated pool of *5 units that continues to grow in comparison to the small common rarity pool. That's the heart of this discussion.

37 minutes ago, Zeo said:

Just because you may not consider lopsided rarity pool size difference and skill availability a potential issue doesn't mean that others don't.

44 minutes ago, Zeo said:

The *5 pool needs to shrink

The only feasible way to un-dilute the 5-star pool is to also increase the probability of pulling a 5-star character overall (to around 10-20%), and that's simply not happening.

Without increasing the probability of pulling a 5-star character overall, any character in the 5-star pool is guaranteed to have a prohibitively low chance of being pulled. Cutting the number of characters in the 5-star pool in half without increasing the 5-star pull rate still results in a roughly 1 in 400 chance of pulling the character you are looking for if you only pull that color, which is equivalent to approximately 1,000 USD worth of orbs for a single copy. Of course, if you're summoning that many units, you're probably not sniping a single color the entire time (unless you are whaling and are too impatient to wait for a focus banner). When pulling from 3 different colors, you'd have a roughly 1 in 1,200 chance of pulling the character you are looking for from our hypothetical halved 5-star pool.

The dilution of the 5-star pool is something that cannot be solved without changing the game's business model. To get remotely reasonable 5-star pull rates from the standard pool, you either need to reduce the size of the pool to about 3-5 characters per color (not happening) or increase the 5-star overall pull rate to about 10-20% (also not happening).

[Crux404]

1 hour ago, Zeo said:

The *5 pool needs to shrink and the *3 pool needs to get larger. That was my angle this entire argument, improved skill availability is a bonus.

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

People think the pity rate matters more than it actually does. In practice, the existence of the pity rate mechanic as it is implemented is equivalent to if the 5-star and focus rates were actually just fixed at about 3.5% and didn't change.

If Mist were somehow in the 3-star and 5-star pools (for some godforsaken reason), I probably wouldn't really care because the 3-star pool is all trash to me anyways (except Barst and Selena).

Actually, can we just replace the 3-star pool with only Barst and Selena?

2 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

The only feasible way to un-dilute the 5-star pool is to also increase the probability of pulling a 5-star character overall (to around 10-20%), and that's simply not happening.

Without increasing the probability of pulling a 5-star character overall, any character in the 5-star pool is guaranteed to have a prohibitively low chance of being pulled. Cutting the number of characters in the 5-star pool in half without increasing the 5-star pull rate still results in a roughly 1 in 400 chance of pulling the character you are looking for if you only pull that color, which is equivalent to approximately 1,000 USD worth of orbs for a single copy. Of course, if you're summoning that many units, you're probably not sniping a single color the entire time (unless you are whaling and are too impatient to wait for a focus banner). When pulling from 3 different colors, you'd have a roughly 1 in 1,200 chance of pulling the character you are looking for from our hypothetical halved 5-star pool.

The dilution of the 5-star pool is something that cannot be solved without changing the game's business model. To get remotely reasonable 5-star pull rates from the standard pool, you either need to reduce the size of the pool to about 3-5 characters per color (not happening) or increase the 5-star overall pull rate to about 10-20% (also not happening).

Sorry to get into the discussion, but it seems you both are pinpointing the same problem: The polls are getting to big to pull non-focus characters reliably (and that can get in the way of getting certain skills). That`s quite a problem that (assuming my memory to be correct) has been on this forum before but I don`t remember if a solution was agreed upon and I know IS has not commented anything about it. It could be solvable by either or having more "skills" banner (as the Focus: Effective Against Cavalry) or limiting the characters obtainable in a focus such as a banner focused with Elibe units only having GBA units. The latter seems to be case (with the details tab), but I wonder if other think they`ll do anything at all or they have a proposal to solve this

[bottlegnomes]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

She was on the Battling Ursula banner, the Heroes with Hone Atk banner, and the Heroes with Blade Skills banner.

I think it was right around when Ursula just showed up so that'd explain that.

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

I personally wouldn't want them to be 5-star exclusive because Oboro has Rally Def, which is actually a good stepping stone skill for passing on Roderick's skills (you get Rally Def and Spur Def 1 from other characters, then pass Roderick's Rally Def/Res, Drive Def 1, and Drive Def 2), and Est is actually a good unit (but needs to have her skill set completely overhauled from the ground up).

I just chose them because they were the two that seemed to keep popping up in y'all's conversation. Not just restricted to them, but basically any essentially worthless character would you advocate them getting moved to 5* exclusive since that does sort of seem to be your angle with Mist? Again, legitimate question since I'm just curious.

On a side note, interesting in the pity rate. The way people go on about it, myself not excluded (strange wording intentional; I'd like to think I'm not as bad as some, but I'm hardly guilt less), you'd think it was like the life of your first child.

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Actually, can we just replace the 3-star pool with only Barst and Selena?

You know, I wouldn't actually mind either. I'd probably keep Barst until all my axers had Brave Axe+, but then I could throw reposition at everyone and their mother (or father) and send the remainder home guilt-free. Plus no more holding onto 3* Hinatas for fury while desperate hoping for a 4* to show up to save some feathers.

Honestly, though, I just want more characters to play with and a reasonable chance to get them. I don't care how they get in, be it upping the chance of a 5*, dropping characters from 5* exclusive, or adding in more 3-4* characters.

Edited January 8, 2018 by bottlegnomes

[Javi Blizz]

Hi @Ice Dragon, first of all I’d like to apologize, since maybe I didn’t explain my point of view with the correct words. 

I was trying to say a few different things:

When I was talking about the demotions from the 4*-5* pool to the 3*-4* pool, it’s about units which are indeed in the 4* pool anyways. So we wouldn’t be putting more Est and Oboro in the 4* pool, as they already are there. 

What I was trying to say with the reduction of those 18 units in the 5* pool isn’t about improving your chances of getting a certain 5* unit off-focus (because that would be the opposite to make money), but improving the quality of the 5* units that you pull. Maybe I’m wrong, since I don’t know how to run the maths, but I think this could reduce the risk of getting more easily an off-focus 5* than a focus 5*, while as other people pointed, could reduce the dissappointment of getting a worthless 5* breaking your pity rate. 

Also, I know that the demotions I proposed from a few 5* exclusives to the 4*-5* pools won’t probably happen, but if there were any demotion from that pool, who do you think that could be demoted? 

I hope this doesn’t sound as if I’m trying to argue or something, just being curious

[Ice Dragon]

1 hour ago, Crux404 said:

Sorry to get into the discussion, but it seems you both are pinpointing the same problem:

Honestly, I don't consider the dilution of the 5-star pool to be a problem. The actual problem is the availability of 5-star-exclusive characters. People trying to solve this problem by trying to reduce the dilution of the 5-star pool are going about it the wrong way (because as the math shows, reducing the number of characters in the 5-star pool doesn't help until the pool becomes extremely small).

The solution is therefore exactly what you say it is: to increase the number of banners running at any given time, which is what the "Heroes with x" banners are meant to do.

And so the solution is actually very simple: make more "Heroes with x" banners and have them overlap with each other.

 

1 hour ago, bottlegnomes said:

I just chose them because they were the two that seemed to keep popping up in y'all's conversation. Not just restricted to them, but basically any essentially worthless character would you advocate them getting moved to 5* exclusive since that does sort of seem to be your angle with Mist? Again, legitimate question since I'm just curious.

If I want to be a bit cynical, I'd say Gunter, but that should have been done before Skill Inheritance, and now it's too late.

Reinhardt probably deserves to trade rarity distribution with Olwen, though I don't really mind all that much.

In terms of "worthless" characters, I don't think I'd ever want to move anyone into being 5-star exclusive. Characters that are already 5-star exclusive I'm fine having them stay there though, if only because I'm used to the status quo being the status quo of not having access to any skills exclusive to them.

There's also the fact that most of the "worthless" characters in the 3-to-4-star summoning pool at the very least have a Rally skill, which can be used to step up to a dual Rally without wasting one of the three Inheritance slots.

 

1 hour ago, Javi Blizz said:

Also, I know that the demotions I proposed from a few 5* exclusives to the 4*-5* pools won’t probably happen, but if there were any demotion from that pool, who do you think that could be demoted? 

I personally think a valid argument could be made for at least Karel, Azura, Gray, Tiki, Rhajat, and Ninian, in that order (strongest to weakest argument, you'll notice my arguments tend to get longer as they go down because they need more justification).

The addition of Athena to the 4-star pool means that Karel no longer has anything that is otherwise locked to the 5-star summoning pool.

Azura is a dancer with no special skills, and I don't see any harm in giving players more dancer availability. A lance dancer is hardly novel anymore.

Gray's most notable skill is Zanbato. With the fact that Ridersbane is available at 4-star rarity, I don't think there's a good reason to keep Zanbato restricted to the 5-star pool (noting again that I think Firesweep Sword and Firesweep Lance are justified at 4-star rarity, but Firesweep Bow should remain 5-star exclusive). His other notable skills are Wind Boost, which is situational at best, and Sword Valor, which, while an amazing skill, is not something so amazing that it needs to be difficult to get.

Tiki is about as vanilla as dragons get with literally no notable skills, considering Flametongue is simply a Silver breath. Nowi and Fae, who are both comparable to Tiki, are both available at 4-star rarity.

Rhajat's notable skills are Keen Gronnwolf and Distant Def. With Distant Def being added as a Sacred Seal, I think it's now worth considering making it available from lower-rarity pulls (Distant Def 3 can keep a 5-star requirement, though). Keen Gronnwolf is the upgrade to the Gronnwolf tome that has been available since forever ago. While I can see it being worth keeping at 5-star rarity for a while for the same reason as for Slaying weapons (to prod players into using the refinery instead), at the same time, I think it's about time they stop being so cautious about giving us proper cavalry counters to actually stir up the meta a bit for players who spend less money. Furthermore, Keen Gronnwolf has significantly fewer characters that can even equip the skill compared to any of the Slaying weapons, so it's not like it's the limiting factor for players' builds (Gronnraven works plenty fine in the meantime, after all).

As mentioned before, I don't see any harm in giving players more access to Dance and Sing, and Ninian is the only remaining 5-star-exclusive dancer in the standard summoning pool. Her only noteworthy skill is Fortify Dragons, which is a really good skill, but I think it's something that I'd be willing to accept being available on a 4-star pull (Fortify Cavalry, Fortify Fliers, and Fortify Armor are all available from 4-star or lower pulls). Now if Nils comes with Hone Dragons, that has every right to stay 5-star exclusive.

 

If we don't mind dropping characters with unique weapons to the 4-star pool, I'd also add Olwen, Sanaki, and Leo, also in that order. Possibly also Lyn and maybe even Eldigan (he's stepping on Stahl's toes, though, which is why he's very much a maybe). Lyn, Eldigan, and Michalis are probably the best characters to introduce players to the refinery for unique weapons. Maybe also Jaffar as long as they leave Life and Death 3 a 5-star exclusive skill.

Edited January 9, 2018 by Ice Dragon

[Crux404]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

And so the solution is actually very simple: make more "Heroes with x" banners and have them overlap with each other

It would be nice if we knew in advance what the next Heroes with X would be. IS probably does not rely on orb sales based on that kind of surprise and they could add the 4-star focus for skills not exclusive for 5 stars; like a DB banner. . Additionally, it would be interesting if they could have  limited polls well the regular roster has 250+ heores (ex: only units with damaging specials in a Moonbow focus).

 

 

About 3*- True about units those being the only ones usable as 3 stars skill fodder, but for some players it is nice to have the option
to have "skills for feathers" trough the "easily pullable", like all -blade or -raven tomes because people it might take a
while for them to be in a Focus X.

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Azura is a dancer with no special skills, and I don't see any harm in giving players more dancer availability. A lance dancer is hardly novel anymore.

As mentioned before, I don't see any harm in giving players more access to Dance and Sing, and Ninian is the only remaining 5-star-exclusive dancer in the standard summoning pool. Her only noteworthy skill is Fortify Dragons, which is a really good skill, but I think it's something that I'd be willing to accept being available on a 4-star pull (Fortify Cavalry, Fortify Fliers, and Fortify Armor are all available from 4-star or lower pulls). Now if Nils comes with Hone Dragons, that has every right to stay 5-star exclusive.

If we don't mind dropping characters with unique weapons to the 4-star pool, I'd also add Olwen, Sanaki, and Leo, also in that order. Possibly also Lyn and maybe even Eldigan (he's stepping on Stahl's toes, though, which is why he's very much a maybe). Lyn, Eldigan, and Michalis are probably the best characters to introduce players to the refinery for unique weapons. Maybe also Jaffar as long as they leave Life and Death 3 a 5-star exclusive skill.

I agree. I think her 5* exclusivity only due to her popularity (along with Ninian). Compared to Olivia (which can be pulled as a 3*), she has +3 ATK, and +2 RES for -6 DEF and a different skill (SPD1/2/3 instead of knockback). Even compared to the recent Flyzura statwise, she has -1 HP, +1 ATK, -2 SPD, -1 DEF, +2 RES.

What differ Dancers is mostly their initial skills (and PA!Azura's legendary weapon) and their weapon type, which give each their "niche" (fortify, raven usage...).

I really don't see why they put Sanaki there  in the first place (she isn't that popular, there are non-5 star with legendary weapon and there is nothing in terms of stats os SI that make her "above" others. Leo COULD be a exclusive if his weapon refinery gets Gravity+ and Pain (because that + Draw back can be annoying).

 

3 hours ago, bottlegnomes said:

Honestly, though, I just want more characters to play with and a reasonable chance to get them. I don't care how they get in, be it upping the chance of a 5*, dropping characters from 5* exclusive, or adding in more 3-4* characters.

I pretty much play the same way. The problem I think this current Gacha format has is that even "lucky results" can be unsatisfactory, like getting two B!Lyn and an Innes instead of the targeted Elise. 

 

As a side note, I have the impression that the 1-year banner will be a legendary CYL heroes- part 2 (with the "old CYL" in the focus). NOT BECAUSE I WANT PAPA HECTOR OR ANYTHING.

[Charmeleonbrah]

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

As mentioned before, I don't see any harm in giving players more access to Dance and Sing, and Ninian is the only remaining 5-star-exclusive dancer in the standard summoning pool. Her only noteworthy skill is Fortify Dragons, which is a really good skill, but I think it's something that I'd be willing to accept being available on a 4-star pull (Fortify Cavalry, Fortify Fliers, and Fortify Armor are all available from 4-star or lower pulls). Now if Nils comes with Hone Dragons, that has every right to stay 5-star exclusive.

Now if CYL Camillucoa comes with Hone Dragons, that has every right to stay 5-star exclusive.

[bottlegnomes]

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

If I want to be a bit cynical, I'd say Gunter, but that should have been done before Skill Inheritance, and now it's too late.

Reinhardt probably deserves to trade rarity distribution with Olwen, though I don't really mind all that much.

In terms of "worthless" characters, I don't think I'd ever want to move anyone into being 5-star exclusive. Characters that are already 5-star exclusive I'm fine having them stay there though, if only because I'm used to the status quo being the status quo of not having access to any skills exclusive to them.

There's also the fact that most of the "worthless" characters in the 3-to-4-star summoning pool at the very least have a Rally skill, which can be used to step up to a dual Rally without wasting one of the three Inheritance slots.

Yeah, SI backfired in a big way in a few cases, most notably Gunter. It used to be a trade-off: use an okay character, but get massive buffs. Now it's harvest that character to make your good units even more broken.

With Rein, they definitely should have, but the damage is well past done and it seems like all upping him now would do is give newer players a distinct disadvantage as he's a fairly decent soft counter to himself in addition to being a stellar unit.

To me Rhajat's rarity came across as much more IS overvaluing distant defense. Every character they've given either of those skills is locked to 5* and ("/or" in the case of Joshua) often limited release.

I'd say that Alm, Saber, Ephraim (though less since refinement), Mist, and maybe Minerva if we're really stretching could have a case for being demoted in addition to your list. Reasons below are in order of (IMO) strongest reasoning to weakest.

Mist - Honestly, as we've kind of discussed, she should be 3*. She offers very little in the way of use in gameplay or SI. She's got less going for her than Wrys, but is infinitely more rare. Really all her being 5* does is make it difficult for who want her to actually get her. I get the whole cluttering the 4* pool, but it seems like backwards logic to effectively make characters limited release to prevent unwanted 4* pulls.

Saber - Statwise he's decent enough, but unimpressive, comparable to Corrin but without the legendary weapon. To my knowledge, Shield Pulse, while neat, isn't largely used or sought-after. (I may be very wrong on that, though.) The only real selling point for him is Slaying Edge, which as you mentioned is probably fine for now to get people to use the refinery, but could at some point probably be dropped.

Alm - His only real selling point is Windsweep which has a lot of contention for B skills. It's situationally good, like for handling beefy/DC characters, but needs a rather specific setup to be put to much use, either phantom speed 3 on a slowish character or a character with middling speed who can actually outspeed some enemies but not double meaningfully. Overall, it seems like more units would prefer to actually double when they can. Plus, watersweep is already available on Soren. Keep Windsweep 3 locked to 5* and I don't really see any issue with him being dropped. Windsweep isn't really any more impressive than Desperation, QR, or any of the breakers. And it's certainly not as impressive as the firesweep weapons.

Ephraim - Prior to refinement he was essentially blue Chrom who could run a free buff in exchange for not being able to combat medic. His sister could run the same gimmick with comparable offense (trading damage per hit for actually having a shot at doubling) and defense (better magic bulk and not getting doubled by everything). I guess you could argue he'd be pretty decent with distant counter and QR, but that describes like a million characters. With the refinements, his case is a little better thanks to guaranteed doubling on his first attack, but that's a very high HP threshold and he'd need fairly regular healing to maintain it. He's tenuous IMO, where a case could be made for, but a case could also be made fairly easily against.

Minerva - I'm really stretching it with this one. Basically, it comes down to there are 4* characters with better stats, Michalis has Hauteclere with more availability, and Hana has L&D anyway. I'd be surprised if she ever actually dropped though, being probably the best green melee flier and from what I can tell fairly popular.

1 hour ago, Crux404 said:

It would be nice if we knew in advance what the next Heroes with X would be. IS probably does not rely on orb sales based on that kind of surprise and they could add the 4-star focus for skills not exclusive for 5 stars; like a DB banner. . Additionally, it would be interesting if they could have  limited polls well the regular roster has 250+ heores (ex: only units with damaging specials in a Moonbow focus).

I pretty much play the same way. The problem I think this current Gacha format has is that even "lucky results" can be unsatisfactory, like getting two B!Lyn and an Innes instead of the targeted Elise. 

Yeah, I think that's a big part of it. I've pulled 3 Lucinas and 3 5* Chroms which has honestly been infuriating. Don't get me wrong, Lucina's still better than at least a few of the reds I could've gotten, but it's just kind of depressing to get a repeat of a character. On the other hand, I know people who'd kill for even one Lucina.

One thing I'd absolutely die for in terms of limited character pools would be a "Unsummonable Characters" banner. Basically, the entire normal pool is replaced with the characters who aren't normally summonable at their default rarities: seasonal and TT would make up the 5* pool, GHB and TT would make up 4*, and GHBs would make up 3*. The Askr trio could get bumped up to 3* and be summonable. Legendaries I could see going either way. The 5* pool would still be somewhat large at 38 if I counted correctly and with no actual guarantee of getting any of them. 3-4* would be fairly sparse at only like 24, but it would solve a lot of the issues with those characters and people still might mini-whale for like say Joshua or Valter to avoid having to wait forever for reruns or, if they decide to have IVs, optimal IVs. It'll almost certainly never happen, but it actually seems like it'd be fairly decent in terms of revenue and might get some goodwill.

Edited January 9, 2018 by bottlegnomes

[Lord_Grima]

Most likely we will get a new login bonus and maybe a few maps (like the New Years maps) to give us more orbs.

What I expect is a story chapter, a new CYL Banner, rerun of the original banners, some new update (maybe one of the teased modes). 

What I want is a free 5* unit of choice (or something like the CYL Free Banner(CYL Banner included)), New Story chapter, New characters, Reset story rewards, summoning pool fixed, and New Modes.

I don't expect everything I want to happen, but if at least one happens then I'll be happy. 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I'm hoping there's no new seasonal banner for the month of February. We've never had three months of seasonal banners in a row, and I don't want it to be the norm. It's like, six days of work, the seventh day is rest. I don't know if I can play this game anymore if I know its creators don't fear God.

For serious though I'm just not into the idea of a Valentine's Day banner. It's a D tier holiday, and I won't care for the month-long Did-You-Knows about how Japan uniquely bastardizes the holiday by splitting it into two parts.

[C. Turtle]

Ooh, something I forgot in my original post, I'm kind of expecting another CYL Poll. A poll specifically, rather than adding the next most popular characters, because of the way Feh phrased the hint drop, at least in the English version of the Feh Channel. "You all like me right? I need to start getting ready for the next Choose Your Legends event!" That first sentence makes it seem to me like Feh's hinting that you should vote for her, and hence, that a new poll is on the horizon.

Although personally, I think it'd be interesting if the poll only featured characters who aren't in the game yet, to sort of show the developers which characters players want to see more, especially now that Echoes would have helped the placement of the Gaiden characters. Obviously they can't just run the same poll again with Echoes characters added, because then the top spots would probably be mostly the same, or if the previous winners were excluded, it would be entirely likely that the next most popular characters would just take their place. I'd also love it if spin-off characters were included this time. I'd definitely cast a vote or two towards the Cipher and TMS casts.

I could very easily be off-base, though. I just think it'd be kinda neat to celebrate the anniversary the same way we did the launch.

[Frenzify]

9 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

I'm hoping there's no new seasonal banner for the month of February. We've never had three months of seasonal banners in a row, and I don't want it to be the norm. It's like, six days of work, the seventh day is rest. I don't know if I can play this game anymore if I know its creators don't fear God.

For serious though I'm just not into the idea of a Valentine's Day banner. It's a D tier holiday, and I won't care for the month-long Did-You-Knows about how Japan uniquely bastardizes the holiday by splitting it into two parts.

Oh... I forgot about Valentine's Day...

The seasonals really do need to chill out for now... But they'll do a Valentine's banner for sure, probably with Tharja or Camilla... or both spotlighting it. Both characters I like, but both characters that are being milked for all their worth. I don't want them to do a Valentine's banner, but I would be really surprised if they didn't.

[GinRei]

12 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

I'm hoping there's no new seasonal banner for the month of February. We've never had three months of seasonal banners in a row, and I don't want it to be the norm. It's like, six days of work, the seventh day is rest. I don't know if I can play this game anymore if I know its creators don't fear God.

You're only looking at start dates.  We're already on our third seasonal banner in less than 3 months, considering the Halloween/October banner started on the 30th.  If we go back 3 months, we had a fourth going on at the time in Performance Arts (even if it started prior to that).

And the May to July period was also 3 months straight of seasonal banners.  Bride -> Summer 1 -> Summer 2.  The CYL banner is the only real "break" we've had since May in that regard, to be honest.

[EricaofRenais]

If they do a V day banner, though I don't think they will since they didn't do one last year, I really hope Kaze is on it. 

I really hope they do give out a free 5* of choice next month and I hope they make the 3* and 4* pools bigger with new units since I have everyone from those pools and it would make getting a lower level unit more fun for a while. 

Edited January 9, 2018 by EricaofRenais

[Ice Dragon]

11 minutes ago, EricaofRenais said:

If they do a V day banner, though I don't think they will since they didn't do one last year, I really hope Kaze is on it. 

The game had literally been out for only 12 days by the time Valentine's Day happened last year. They probably didn't want to start doing limited banners that early when they still had so many regular characters they had planned to add.

[Stroud]

CYL Camilla would be nice, blue Wyvern please, Camilla emblem please.
The last crushing VG told us who is truly devoted to Camilla. 

hmm, also how about they finally do something for the Askr Trio. But I think it is more likely that they implement something for them in the story.
I will just wait and see what Feh will tell us, no point in speculating too much. At least for me.