With the launch of awakening, there's now a champ training tournament with soul coins/stones at all reward tiers. Is this a great one-time deal, or a whale trap?
Specially with the upcoming fusion, i'm inclined to take a slow and patient approach towards the new mechanics.
Ya i was aasking myself the exaact same question. Of course i was in the middle of chicken prep. But i was only doing this with free energy.
Will we get hit by back to back champ training, this one, and another to collect fragments?
Some very basic theorycrafting.
It's still quite early to lock in a value of these soulstones and soul coins, but if we wanted to use Plarium themselves as a guide, they essentially seem to be valuing the mortal soulstones at $2.2 AUD a piece (probably $1.5 USD).
A mortal soulstone costs 1000 mortal soul coins (the silver ones) from the mystic market, and you will get 1000 of them, plus 1 mortal soulstone and 1 Immportal Soulstone over the course of the tournament itself
At $1.5 UDS per 1000 mortal soul coins (or 1 mortal soulstone), we can then compare this to the rough value of other items based on some numbers I pulled from websites that track this (personally I don't buy things, so I don't know how accurate these are being determined. Keen for feedback):
@RoseRoyal out here with the big charts. Rose, if I look at everything in dollars and cents, I get depressed. lol
That's a good start @RoseRoyal. It's a bit weird to me that Plarium is pricing mortal soulstones roughly the same as ancient shards, then giving away 18 of them. That offer feels very overpriced to me.
But more importantly, in contrast to things like shards which are straightforwardly useful in all stages of the game, souls skew more towards the lategame. So I don't think you can price them in a universal way, it'll depend on the account in question.
I'm a mid-game player, and I'm coming down on the side of ignoring the initial wave of hype on this. I won't invest in teams for the iron twins yet, and if I can't clear a decently high stage "naturally", I won't farm them either.
I rate them as follows:
If I get them ...fine
But I will not spent 60$ to have a miniscule chance to get a good soul....after pulling anout 50 souls, I mostly got rare souls for champs which are just chickens....epic souls for mostly unused epic champs...and 1 legendary for a champ I also do not use extensively...
Therefor my appraoch is to use tehm when I get them....but buying them is just way overpriced....
To fully get a legendary and equip him with books, masteries, equipment and now awakening....you would need to spend more than 900$ per champion!....no way....
My initial judgement might have been clouded by the free souls to pull (I like to pull) but on a more remote point of view....they are just a bait to spend more money....too much money for me....
I've decided the same. Maybe my initial bad luck plays a part in my thinking, not too sure. (not getting anything for anyone on my roster except for my 3 star chickens, which are only there until fusion starts and will then disappear from my vault). But it got me thinking about the in-game economics of this feature.
For an account like mine, and even moreso for newer ones, I think it actually makes no sense to start farming these things. F2P accounts will need loads of time to build a sufficient roster to justify going in there and playing roulette.
In more details, here's how i view it. There's basically 2 things you can do if you're mid game as far as Iron twins go. One, you're actually able to clear at least stage 11, which means you'll need to spend up to 120 energy on a daily basis, or 840 energy per week. Two, you're not quite at that level yet, and so you'll clear a lower level and not even get any soul essences for the runs you do. It will nevertheless cost you around 700 energy and this without getting decent rewards. Beginners who are stuck at level 6 or less shouldnt even bother.
840 energy per week, what does this mean? It means one third of a tournament not completed to full, so less epic books, or it means less chickens, which will impact the growth of your roster over the long haul, or it means less potions and you'll have a bunch of 6-stars without amulets and banners, or it means one less champion without masteries per month, etc. etc. etc.
So, it all comes down to cost vs. reward doesnt it. Spend 840 energy, and possibly have nothing useful to show for it, or forego this feature and focus on guaranteed growth. I choose the latter.
That's a good start @RoseRoyal. It's a bit weird to me that Plarium is pricing mortal soulstones roughly the same as ancient shards, then giving away 18 of them. That offer feels very overpriced to me.
But more importantly, in contrast to things like shards which are straightforwardly useful in all stages of the game, souls skew more towards the lategame. So I don't think you can price them in a universal way, it'll depend on the account in question.
I'm a mid-game player, and I'm coming down on the side of ignoring the initial wave of hype on this. I won't invest in teams for the iron twins yet, and if I can't clear a decently high stage "naturally", I won't farm them either.
As a community I think we still have a long way to go with understanding a lot of the mechanics of blessings, but I've seen some very good blessings that will beneficial even for early players.
For example, an early player could get a 1 star perfect soul from the mystic market for a legendary champion that they have (such as any free login reward one, or even legendary deathknight that was also free) simply by checking back in every now and then and using the free 20 essences that were given.
That 1 star could then be used to get the Chaos Legendary Blessing of "Smite", whcih gives a 20% chance of applying Smite to the enemy, which will deal damage equal to 25% of their max HP whenever they use an active skill. On CB this seems to be doing 250,000 in it's current form, but even in general content it effectively means that champion has 20% chance of removing a quarter of the enemy HP.
Even some rare blessings seem to be quite powerful, including Phantom touch (under the Dark tab), with a 20% chance of inflicting bonus damage
I'm on the same fence as you in that I am tentatively holding off until more information comes out, but personally I would recommend pushing up in the iron twins tower as much as you can, even if you have to manual it.
Edit: @harleQuinn My eyes seem to instinctively gloss over prices, especailly in Raid! The pop-ups and packs used to bother me at the start, but now closing them is a habit!
As a community I think we still have a long way to go with understanding a lot of the mechanics of blessings, but I've seen some very good blessings that will beneficial even for early players.
For example, an early player could get a 1 star perfect soul from the mystic market for a legendary champion that they have (such as any free login reward one, or even legendary deathknight that was also free) simply by checking back in every now and then and using the free 20 essences that were given.
That 1 star could then be used to get the Chaos Legendary Blessing of "Smite", whcih gives a 20% chance of applying Smite to the enemy, which will deal damage equal to 25% of their max HP whenever they use an active skill. On CB this seems to be doing 250,000 in it's current form, but even in general content it effectively means that champion has 20% chance of removing a quarter of the enemy HP.
Even some rare blessings seem to be quite powerful, including Phantom touch (under the Dark tab), with a 20% chance of inflicting bonus damage
I'm on the same fence as you in that I am tentatively holding off until more information comes out, but personally I would recommend pushing up in the iron twins tower as much as you can, even if you have to manual it.
Edit: @harleQuinn My eyes seem to instinctively gloss over prices, especailly in Raid! The pop-ups and packs used to bother me at the start, but now closing them is a habit!
I agree that Brimstone and a few others, looking at you Commanding Presence, seem quite strong. And you also get a free reset of your first blessing choice, like Masteries, so there's a bit of room to play around with them.
I've decided the same. Maybe my initial bad luck plays a part in my thinking, not too sure. (not getting anything for anyone on my roster except for my 3 star chickens, which are only there until fusion starts and will then disappear from my vault). But it got me thinking about the in-game economics of this feature.
For an account like mine, and even moreso for newer ones, I think it actually makes no sense to start farming these things. F2P accounts will need loads of time to build a sufficient roster to justify going in there and playing roulette.
In more details, here's how i view it. There's basically 2 things you can do if you're mid game as far as Iron twins go. One, you're actually able to clear at least stage 11, which means you'll need to spend up to 120 energy on a daily basis, or 840 energy per week. Two, you're not quite at that level yet, and so you'll clear a lower level and not even get any soul essences for the runs you do. It will nevertheless cost you around 700 energy and this without getting decent rewards. Beginners who are stuck at level 6 or less shouldnt even bother.
840 energy per week, what does this mean? It means one third of a tournament not completed to full, so less epic books, or it means less chickens, which will impact the growth of your roster over the long haul, or it means less potions and you'll have a bunch of 6-stars without amulets and banners, or it means one less champion without masteries per month, etc. etc. etc.
So, it all comes down to cost vs. reward doesnt it. Spend 840 energy, and possibly have nothing useful to show for it, or forego this feature and focus on guaranteed growth. I choose the latter.
I think you are very seriously undervaluing the twins, and, more importantly, you are very seriously undervaluing investing in something which is time-locked. Regardless of whether or not the system as-is works for you, the fact that you max out at 12 attempts per day means that if you change your mind six months from now, you've just lost six months of farming that you cannot get back.
I *strongly* recommend that you do your best to get the highest stage possible on farm, and then use those keys every single day.
I don't care how Plarium is pricing themselves things. I'm an old school gamer and in the late 90' we bought an entire game for 50 bucks. It was fun for at least 3 Month. If you need 900 bucks to max out one champ and need other at least 4 of them presuming you get lucky and get a synergising team at the beginning this is insane. Can already clear all of the content including the new Boss so if Plarium is not going to at least recognize that the million of occasionally spenders of 50 bucks are their most income and they are selling only 0 and 1 wich cost anything to replicate infinitely, they will and have already loose and lost a lot of money. And yes, it's my job to calculate pricing of real goods since 1998 and our company is doing great!
I don't care how Plarium is pricing themselves things. I'm an old school gamer and in the late 90' we bought an entire game for 50 bucks. It was fun for at least 3 Month. If you need 900 bucks to max out one champ and need other at least 4 of them presuming you get lucky and get a synergising team at the beginning this is insane. Can already clear all of the content including the new Boss so if Plarium is not going to at least recognize that the million of occasionally spenders of 50 bucks are their most income and they are selling only 0 and 1 wich cost anything to replicate infinitely, they will and have already loose and lost a lot of money. And yes, it's my job to calculate pricing of real goods since 1998 and our company is doing great!
This is a gambling game. Don't consider pricing in the fashion of typical goods and services. Compare it with a casino.
You're right of course. But still, it's about the fun you get per $ in some way. And for people who have few champs, awakening is simply unfun. You need a specific champ and then their specific high-level soul. That's a quadratic probability. There are already hundreds of champions, so getting a specific leggo and their soul is in the tens of thousands.
If I pull a mid-tier leggo champ, I'll at least try to build them, probably put them in my FW team, and keep an eye out for new content where they might me useful.
But if I pull a 4* Whythir soul (as I did today), there's literally nothing I can do with it.
This is a gambling game. Don't consider pricing in the fashion of typical goods and services. Compare it with a casino.
Wrong. In the casino, there's still a "decent" chance of you walking out with a profit. Video games are ONLY a money sink. I can spend 4-5 hours here, playing for free, while someone else spends the same 4-5 hours while spending 100-200-300 bucks. At the end of it all, we both go to sleep. I'm richer than the other dude at this point.
And when i read about people "investing" in their account... Let me laugh, what investment is that? You can't sell it, so every dollar you spend is spent, not invested. It would be like saying "I'm gonna go to the grocery store and invest in peaches". You dont invest in peaches, you buy them, you consume them, then they are gone.
Our friend was not comparing this game with other general goods, he was comparing it with the pricing of, i assume, console video games. One-time buy, many hours of fun, no cash re-fills required. But the game world has changed, and is preying on addicts to syphon all the money they can from them.
This is a gambling game. Don't consider pricing in the fashion of typical goods and services. Compare it with a casino.
I know where plarium is coming from but I stopped spending for shards because of the way too crappy chance to get something usefull and I'm shure I'm not the only one. If 95% of your money is wasted I could also throw it in the trash and don't have to wait the animations come to an end. Don't get me wrong the game is still fun but in my opinion they overdo with pricing and low chances to work out something good. The playerbase has so often asked for a litte less rng instead they are increasing it massively with this awakening stuff. We would honour if some content would be something to earn and not only gambling. At least diluting the pool in this massive manner, get up the probabilities for epics and legos or make the 10x be real 10x for example. Same with 2x for your wishlist in awakening. If they think we fell on your heads it's ok but for those of us thinking still in some clear way they still could make a lot money more even as a gambling company.
Wrong. In the casino, there's still a "decent" chance of you walking out with a profit. Video games are ONLY a money sink. I can spend 4-5 hours here, playing for free, while someone else spends the same 4-5 hours while spending 100-200-300 bucks. At the end of it all, we both go to sleep. I'm richer than the other dude at this point.
And when i read about people "investing" in their account... Let me laugh, what investment is that? You can't sell it, so every dollar you spend is spent, not invested. It would be like saying "I'm gonna go to the grocery store and invest in peaches". You dont invest in peaches, you buy them, you consume them, then they are gone.
Our friend was not comparing this game with other general goods, he was comparing it with the pricing of, i assume, console video games. One-time buy, many hours of fun, no cash re-fills required. But the game world has changed, and is preying on addicts to syphon all the money they can from them.
Yes I compared it to something long gone, but I do this to stay grounded. I know the gaming world has changed. Only tried to clarify people are not dumb. I think we would honour if they would add some part you can really "earn" rewards and not only as top price fir one winner or by gambling. They want to make money, yes I do spend sometimes but never ever for a shard anymore and shurely not for this new stuff. If they would return some fun for the money, ok but only the fun of summoning 90% of crap and 5% of dupes no thanks.
Wrong. In the casino, there's still a "decent" chance of you walking out with a profit. Video games are ONLY a money sink. I can spend 4-5 hours here, playing for free, while someone else spends the same 4-5 hours while spending 100-200-300 bucks. At the end of it all, we both go to sleep. I'm richer than the other dude at this point.
And when i read about people "investing" in their account... Let me laugh, what investment is that? You can't sell it, so every dollar you spend is spent, not invested. It would be like saying "I'm gonna go to the grocery store and invest in peaches". You dont invest in peaches, you buy them, you consume them, then they are gone.
Our friend was not comparing this game with other general goods, he was comparing it with the pricing of, i assume, console video games. One-time buy, many hours of fun, no cash re-fills required. But the game world has changed, and is preying on addicts to syphon all the money they can from them.
I think you just described a casino.
Wrong. In the casino, there's still a "decent" chance of you walking out with a profit. Video games are ONLY a money sink. I can spend 4-5 hours here, playing for free, while someone else spends the same 4-5 hours while spending 100-200-300 bucks. At the end of it all, we both go to sleep. I'm richer than the other dude at this point.
And when i read about people "investing" in their account... Let me laugh, what investment is that? You can't sell it, so every dollar you spend is spent, not invested. It would be like saying "I'm gonna go to the grocery store and invest in peaches". You dont invest in peaches, you buy them, you consume them, then they are gone.
Our friend was not comparing this game with other general goods, he was comparing it with the pricing of, i assume, console video games. One-time buy, many hours of fun, no cash re-fills required. But the game world has changed, and is preying on addicts to syphon all the money they can from them.
Thanks, yes I wanted to compare it to something that got lost in some way to stay grounded. Or if you want to have something to compare that gave one time this many hours of fun for little money. I know these times are gone but I would honour it with more money spent if i get some hours of fun and not some seconds of summoning. So they could make more money if they wouldn't be as greedy and lower prices and get up the chances to get something usefull. In my opinion some more people think this way.
I know where plarium is coming from but I stopped spending for shards because of the way too crappy chance to get something usefull and I'm shure I'm not the only one. If 95% of your money is wasted I could also throw it in the trash and don't have to wait the animations come to an end. Don't get me wrong the game is still fun but in my opinion they overdo with pricing and low chances to work out something good. The playerbase has so often asked for a litte less rng instead they are increasing it massively with this awakening stuff. We would honour if some content would be something to earn and not only gambling. At least diluting the pool in this massive manner, get up the probabilities for epics and legos or make the 10x be real 10x for example. Same with 2x for your wishlist in awakening. If they think we fell on your heads it's ok but for those of us thinking still in some clear way they still could make a lot money more even as a gambling company.
But why would they do that? They already have plenty of suckers who are willing to spend money. They have no incentive to make the system fairer.
