TreeSap wrote:The claim that there is no way for Lilith to generate revenue by making old heroes competitive again just lacks imagination.
Yes, a new hero is a new toy that motivates folks to buy more diamonds, should they have the dough. But making a new hero certainly isn't the only way to achieve that goal. A new hero release fulfills the player's desire for novelty and also the need to keep up with (or beat the snot out of) the Jones'; in other words, to have higher prestige in this little community.
Result:
- money made for Lilith due to value introduced by new system
- better game balance, and thus better game, and thus more players, and thus more revenue opportunities and game content because players=content in social games like this one
- no new heroes introduced, thus newer players are less overwhelmed than they would be otherwise
- level 100's have new things, like coddling their favorite pet Sumiko's, to put their time and money toward and thus maybe better player retention
Cost:
- Making a new system that builds upon current system (probably the awakening system, but other ways possible with creativity)
- actually attempting to balance existing hero teams at their new caps rather than just relying on new hero accretion
Yes and no, but it is not that simple. What you're proposing is essentially a new system similar to Awakening to balance old heros. A new system is much harder to implement than just a new hero, we're not talking a 1-2 times harder. We're talking about a linear equation based on the number of heros available.
1) First of all, the Awakening system is not yet finished as ~60% of the heros are still missing their Awakening.
2) The system you're proposing is essentially just another Awakening with no imperative theme. It is basically Awakening part II, because Awakening part 1 failed to do its job. What you're saying is that the current Awakening is a failure and the game needs another Awakening system. Developers will take criticism and feedback from players, but they will not admit their creation as a failure. It is just part of a development cycle for software developers, the developer will always stick with their original goal as they have already invested time/money/effort in it. The only reason why they would actually start over and scrape the current Awakening system would be that their sales and revenue goes down drastically BECAUSE of the current Awakening implementation.
3) Let's think from Lilith's perspective, would it be easier to just release a single hero. Or easier to implement a new system, then balance every single hero in the game (~70 heros in total I think), test all of them, reduce bugs down to a minimum, then finally release it. Chances are, it'll probably take Lilith a week to release a broken hero and make tons of money whereas implementing a new system would take them months. The revenue and profit that Lilith can gain as a direct result of such a system is unknown. If you can do predictive analysis, then be my guest and show me the statistic. Life cycle of mobile game typically don't last long, so it is always ideal for developer to make the most amount of money in the shortest amount of time when possible.
TL:DR, Why make a new system to balance the game for everyone, when you can take the easy route. Releasing OP heros and make tons of $$$ from top spenders is arguably more beneficial than to cater towards bunch of f2p players.