January 2019 Legendary Banner Expectations

[Johann]

18 minutes ago, Othin said:

What long-term issues would that cause? I don't think having them share a banner would be very consequential.

My thinking is, they want both Anima and Astra to be released before Dark, so for a couple of months, the only way to have both an offense and defense mythic for the same season will be to pull for two non-Eir heroes, not just one. That helps them get as much mileage as possible out of the elements while they're new.

Ah hmm yeah that makes sense, but I'm thinking of it from the perspective that giving the player a greater chance (in the form of more Light/Astra heroes to summon) to promote in AR rank sooner reduces the need to pull for other Mythics down the road. A Dark hero certainly helps since you've already got Eir, but if you just need to pull one more Eir or two of the Astra hero, and you do thanks to them both being available on the same banner, are you going to care as much about pulling a Dark or Anima hero later on? Additionally, if March's banner has Eir and an Astra hero, the next opportunities to pull more of either Light/Astra would likely not come for another 4-5 months or so (June is the earliest unless both Robin and Duma appear in April), whereas a Dark hero in March means an Astra hero in May. I figure they intend to spread out the opportunities for pulling Light/Astra heroes rather than lump them into one banner so soon.

[Othin]

2 minutes ago, Johann said:

Ah hmm yeah that makes sense, but I'm thinking of it from the perspective that giving the player a greater chance (in the form of more Light/Astra heroes to summon) to promote in AR rank sooner reduces the need to pull for other Mythics down the road. A Dark hero certainly helps since you've already got Eir, but if you just need to pull one more Eir or two of the Astra hero, and you do thanks to them both being available on the same banner, are you going to care as much about pulling a Dark or Anima hero later on? Additionally, if March's banner has Eir and an Astra hero, the next opportunities to pull more of either Light/Astra would likely not come for another 4-5 months or so (June is the earliest unless both Robin and Duma appear in April), whereas a Dark hero in March means an Astra hero in May. I figure they intend to spread out the opportunities for pulling Light/Astra heroes rather than lump them into one banner so soon.

Legendary banners are really unreliable, and which colors people want can depend a lot on what they already have. I don't think putting Eir and the Astra hero on the same banner would have that much of an impact, especially with them being in separate colors. It might actually be less impact than spreading them out on different banners, since it's the difference between people pulling for one of them being people with orbs at just one time rather than two opportunities.

I'm not sure why you say 4-5 months. Barring more colorless elemental heroes, Eir will be back in June, just three months after her March appearance. That means just missing April and May, which isn't so bad, and we'll have other mythic heroes being run/rerun in those months.

Having Eir run at the same time as the first Dark hero might actually have more of the impact you're talking about, since pulling green/colorless for either or both of them would take that player's existing support for Light/Dark seasons due to Eir and push it higher either way.

[Landmaster]

Would have liked Quan but Kliff is even better for me~ I'll be really happy to get any of the Blue Focuses on the Banner, though I won't be throwing too many Orbs at the Banner~

[Johann]

30 minutes ago, Othin said:

Legendary banners are really unreliable, and which colors people want can depend a lot on what they already have. I don't think putting Eir and the Astra hero on the same banner would have that much of an impact, especially with them being in separate colors. It might actually be less impact than spreading them out on different banners, since it's the difference between people pulling for one of them being people with orbs at just one time rather than two opportunities.

I'm not sure why you say 4-5 months. Barring more colorless elemental heroes, Eir will be back in June, just three months after her March appearance. That means just missing April and May, which isn't so bad, and we'll have other mythic heroes being run/rerun in those months.

Having Eir run at the same time as the first Dark hero might actually have more of the impact you're talking about, since pulling green/colorless for either or both of them would take that player's existing support for Light/Dark seasons due to Eir and push it higher either way.

I guess the bottom line is that I'm assuming most players will value having an Astra hero over having a Dark hero, in that they value having a consistently good AR offense team & score over whatever losses they'll take on Defense. More accurately, I suppose, I'm assuming IS assumes that's what players value. Putting Eir/Astra together so soon means lucky players will get what they (presumably) value immediately and not care about what comes down the road, while unlucky players will have to wait much longer for a chance at either hero.

Regarding the 4-5 months, I could've made that clearer-- I meant that Eir coming back in June seems to me too conservative a guess since February, April, May, and June could have new colorless heroes to push Eir back to July or further.

[Othin]

6 minutes ago, Johann said:

I guess the bottom line is that I'm assuming most players will value having an Astra hero over having a Dark hero, in that they value having a consistently good AR offense team & score over whatever losses they'll take on Defense. More accurately, I suppose, I'm assuming IS assumes that's what players value. Putting Eir/Astra together so soon means lucky players will get what they (presumably) value immediately and not care about what comes down the road, while unlucky players will have to wait much longer for a chance at either hero.

Regarding the 4-5 months, I could've made that clearer-- I meant that Eir coming back in June seems to me too conservative a guess since February, April, May, and June could have new colorless heroes to push Eir back to July or further.

That's interesting, because I think it's the other way around.

My own view is that all that really matters is how well you can score in whichever season is best for you. Like, personally, I just have the starting Eir, so during Light/Dark weeks, I get 140 point offense games and 80 point defense losses. If I were to get an Astra hero, I'd become able to also get 140 point offense games and 80 point defense losses in Astra/Anima weeks, but what use is that to me? I've already climbed as far in the tiers as I feel able to with 140/80, which for me is Tier 20. For other people, it might be less (or more). On the other hand, a Dark hero would immediately improve my scoring to 140/60, while a second Light hero would improve it to 160/80. To get to those scores in the other weeks, I'd need both an Astra and an Anima hero to match the effect of just a Dark hero, or two Astra heroes to match the effect of just a second Light hero, and both of those are way less efficient.

All you get out of improving your consistency at hitting the same scores you can already reach on your better season is faster rising through the tiers and hitting your highest possible rank reward more often. But Aether Raids have been around for long enough that a lot of people have already gotten as high through the tiers as they can on their current best weeks, and that'll be even more true by the time the next mythic hero releases. And rising further in the tiers does way more to improve your ranking than improving your standing within a tier you're stuck at. So the increased consistency only really seems significant for people already in Tier 21, which isn't many people, and generally requires improving your ability to score in a particular week anyway. (And it won't even be significant for people in Tier 21 until that number exceeds 3k, since until then, they all automatically get the top ranking reward just by staying in the tier.)

Others might feel differently: what matters isn't what's actually effective, just what people think is effective. But that's my thinking: higher peaks help you advance, higher consistency doesn't.

As for the possibility of more colorless elemental heroes in the next few months, I'd bet against that. Three of those months are legendary heroes, and the only colorless legendary hero we've gotten so far is one who would now be classified as a mythic. I also think they're likely to mix up the colors of the next couple of mythic heroes rather than sticking with three of the first four being colorless. I don't see much hurry to add more colorless elemental heroes now that we have enough for a proper rotation, and it's not something that's been a common practice in the past.

[a bear]

I'll bet all of my nicest crackers here that AR will see big changes soon after the 4th mythic is released. Definitely new rewards, possibly new ranks, and likely shorter defense loss grace windows to up the value of Dark/Anima mythics.

[Diovani Bressan]

• February: Hrid, Ephraim, Gunnthra, Robin, New Legendary Hero
• March: Ryoma, Lucina, Azura, Eir, New Green Mythic Hero
• April: Ike, Marth, Fjorm, Hector, New Colorless Legendary Hero?
• May: Eirika, Tiki, Lyn, Duma, New Mythic Hero

[Johann]

6 hours ago, Diovani Bressan said:

• February: Hrid, Ephraim, Gunnthra, Robin, New Legendary Hero
• March: Ryoma, Lucina, Azura, Eir, New Green Mythic Hero
• April: Ike, Marth, Fjorm, Hector, New Colorless Legendary Hero?
• May: Eirika, Tiki, Lyn, Duma, New Mythic Hero

Thanks for this, I'll do the new thread when I get home

[Johann]

NEXT MONTH'S THREAD:

Please use the most recent thread if you intend to make posts about future banners. Feel free to use this thread for analysis of trends, etc.