Typically hero unlocks generate 20% of a moba’s revenue. SEMC has chosen a very generous system for F2P players. All heroes unlock with the same amount of glory and the 8k glory amount is easily obtained in a month of play. The 7-day window provided by purchasing a hero with ICE gets you a short period of time where you are confident you won’t fight other people for insta-locking. The value of using ICE on a hero diminishes with every day it gets closer to being purchasable with glory. If SEMC went to a 10-day window, I suspect they would increase revenue. SEMC clearly needs to bring in more revenue based on how many people have been let go recently. With a Wednesday patch release, a new hero would be F2P by the next Saturday.
Would you support a 10-day ICE only hero purchase window if you knew it would help support the game?
i dontthink this would be a good idea. it would be the killing blow for vg as a competitive moba, if that still is a thing.
to make more money with new heroes, vg really needs more players, instead of trying to milk the existing ones.
even a game like lol started to do some heavy youtube ads to get more players. i hope that vg tries that as well, after letting so many people go, they might have the money to do it now.
i would rather increase the glory price for new heroes to sth like 12k -16k glory. getting reduced to 8k after 6-8 updates. but even that will cost them some players.
This appears to be the thinking at SEMC as well … but if you’re a new player looking at MOBAs on mobile, why exactly would you choose VG over AoV, for example?
I agree they need to add to their player base. But I think raising glory costs just pushes F2P players out of the game. I also disagree it is a “killing blow to VG as a competitive moba” because new heroes are permabanned in rank for the first patch anyway. It doesn’t affect competitive at all.
I love playing Anka!! After the 7 day ICE only period, I will struggle get to play her in any mode because she will be banned in rank and instalocked in everything else. SEMC needs to add value to the ICE purchase of a hero while keeping F2P inexpensive.
this is semcs biggest issue. there is basically only the balance and game design for vg. this is why its so dangerous for vg atm to change their established patterns to increase their potential money flow.
vg needs sth truly unique and new. their esports scene had the chance to become exactly that, but they couldnt let it grow naturally
being a perma ban affects rank quite a lot. this would mean that we really only get 3 bans, instead of 4. it also is a killer for competitive teams. they need to know the new hero or they are forced to ban him or her, which simply is a huge disadvantage if you pick second. any streamed competitive game will need to auto ban the new hero at least for the duration of the ice only period and that would reduce the interest players have in these games.
that alone is an issue for the game and its partly due to the ice only week.
semc tried to add some value to buying anka early with the short event. i think stuff like this might be the better way to get people to buy the new hero.
and dont forget: even if it doesnt really affect the playerbase much, they still will take it as a reason to stop playing this game or investing money into it. for me, playing the new hero of a patch has become a reason to keep playing the game. i really like their hero designs, but if i couldnt get the hero for a month, my hype would be gone.
and a second thing to keep in mind. the longer the hero is ice only, the longer it will take to balance the hero and a op hero only accesible with ice is gonna kill casual and brawl.
Agreed. But how many hardcore gamers are on mobile? I think we’ve seen the answer to that …
My point is that most mobile gamers are looking for a more casual experience, so SEMC ignoring its “base” of loyal users – many of whom get frustrated and leave – in favor of trying to attract new users is not a winning strategy.
No doubt – and a very lucrative one, for titles which are successful in distinguishing themselves in an increasingly crowded marketplace.
We have a different definition of “hardcore” – I’m talking about games that approach the depth and complexity of the best PC games, not just games people are passionate about. (I was pretty serious about Boom Beach at one point in time, but never in my wildest dreams would I call that a “hardcore game.”)
Some of those people are hard core, that’s for sure! And not just the digital CCGs … (Magic, I’m looking at you.)
I’d support it. I’ve been a F2P player for months (or year) now as I can’t recall my last spending, except for my last purchase the othe day for my smurf to get the battle pass, hahaha! That doesn’t count, it was for a smurf.
Anyway, back to the main point. I also think the 7-day period is too short, the waiting time doesn’t hurt much.
Personally, I wouldn’t mind waiting a few more days to unlock a new hero with Glory. But then, I’m fairly happy with my hero pool and tend to default to old favourites either way.
I always thought 900 ICE was a rather hefty price-tag for 7 days of early access. I’d probably reduce that to 800 and extend the early access to 10 or even 14 days, as suggested.
As is evident from some of the other replies here, that might bother those who really look forward to learning new mechanics, though.
The last thing SEMC want to do is to alienate more people, so in the end it might just not be worth it.
I got reim rare BP twice in a row
And yeah i agree. I actually got the 1k ice from the 12 win event. But i won a tourney where ill get 2.5k ice. Thats my only hope. If i dont get that, then all ill ever have will be 27 ice
There are private games (all modes) for that. No competative scene tho and imho the biggest mistake of SEMC, that was the thing that could let the game grow and draw attention. What they did? They killed it, I am sure no choice and investors after 5vs5 release was like: enough, lets milk what we can for less investment loss and call the day instead of more investments. Just it didn’t work out it seems, sadly.
but private games need 10 or 6 people. try getting 10 vainglorious silver players together on one server. this will be hard.
as i understood it, the competitive scene didnt work as a way to gain more players (probably because they didnt do an add campaign at the same time to actually draw attention to it)
(I was pretty serious about Boom Beach at one point in time, but never in my wildest dreams would I call that a “hardcore game.”)
