Theorycrafting about progression

Xair

Disclaimer: everything I write is only my opinion.

Some players said on the forum that rank 6* isn’t being considered by the design team. And still I want to consider what it would look like if it were to happen and how would it be implemented correctly.

I think what makes the game good is that the progression system has fundamentally remained intact, meaning, in order to progress a player still has to go through all the levels, has to accumulate 1* then 2* then 3* then 4* then 5*. And accumulating each rarity takes a significant amount of time, and effort.

Granted there are bundles on sale that could help hasten the progression for the lower levels, but those don’t fundamentally change the rate of progression or the pace of it.

So if a 6* group where to emerge it shouldn’t replace the current latest legends store, because that would disrupt the progression. Allowing new players to leap forward thus making older players feel that their long time progression has being undone, and is unappreciated.

The correct way is to add a new store that has new tokens that are available only to player playing the very highest level of the game. For instance adding a scl-10 which will reward those new tokens to the new store, without granting the possibility to earn those tokens prior to reaching that level of challenge in the game.

Trying to make high level endgame more accessible to new players will make old players feel that their efforts aren’t appreciated. And eventually lead to players feeling there is no difference between new players and old players. Which will result in the game only having only new players, turning the game shallower until it becomes just a simple puzzle game like candy crash.

I think that good progression means no shortcuts ever.

I believe that the greatest pitfall of progression games in general is trying to make the end game more accessible to new players, thus making the game shallower, more pay to win, ruining the sense of achievement for players. Which inevitably cause players who seek progression to lose interest eventually.

New players have to go through the same arduous journey (in proximity) that the old players did, this will also give the added benefit of allowing the higher levels of the game to be more complex without fear that it will cause new players to reject the game because it is daunting, natural progression will lead to players getting used to a more complex system, and to using champions that have more complicated set of abilities.

 

That said I think there are ways to help newer players overcome problems like dilution.

One way is to make a customizable store, that costs as much as latest legend store but features 3 personal champions selected by the player, this will allow players to focus their effort on championing the 5* that they want without fundamentally changing the odds and rate of getting a 5*.