About whales and tiers, fairness and greed

Well, I've been playing since Day 1 as well, and I've managed to stay in Tier 20 with a nearly maxed out dragon core, as well as occasional bonus units.

With some long-term thinking, it is possible to stay in Tier 20 without spending too much money. Maybe it's possible as an F2P.

However, I do agree: it's been more and more difficult to stay in Tier 20 with my one team. Also, Arena runs have been more and more frustrating, as new units get released and are unusable in Arena as the only +10s that I have are two of my three dragons(Nowi and Fae). A!Tiki is currently +8.

Don't even talk to me about Arena Assault.

But, it is possible to stay in Tier 20 with some efforts. However, with powercreep the way it is, I suppose that my Nowi will be replaced soon enough...or we'll get a better dragonkiller.

Meh.

By the end of the day, your right about the pay aspect of the game. Whales do have a better advantage but so does the f2p players "If" there luck goes well on summons and they save up on orbs. Ive already made 80 orbs alone this month and i havent spent a dime yet, course im saving for a better banner lol. Ill admit, im a whale too but whaleing ain't the best way to go when drops are not in your favor, plus you have to put time for seals and sp points anyway so luckily f2p and p2w players have the same ordeal grinding there. Players like myself use what charecters they have either good or bad IV's and make'em better, but for teir 20 i dont see myself grinding for extra feathers when i can be casual in teir 16 and not stress over points and lets me see builds outside the meta game. I never player arena assault simply due to the fact i dont have time working up 20+ characters when i can make 7-8 good ones for TT, but i am missing out the rewards for it.... oh well :)

I'm mostly F2P (spent a small amount on orbs a couple of times). I float between tier 18-19 which is not that hard to do (I play without merged units for the most part, and only have a few at +1). I've only been to tier 20 one time when I had a deathless run with an armor team. I think for F2P players if you want to hit tier 20 the dragon units or an armor team are the best way to go as you can get a lot of good 4* units and level up and merge toward +10. I've easily merged enough units that I could have 1-2 at +10 if that would have been my goal...so I don't think F2P players are totally excluded from tier 20. I get 20K feathers once a week and have been for a while, so if you keep doing all the quests you can get 12 units upgraded and merged in three moths, which seems pretty generous. Of course people who spend money on the game have a big advantage, but they keep the game free for the majority of players, so I have no complaints.

This answer comes from a person with a pretty similar situation than you, though i'm less ambitious about being in the top. For the last several months, I've been satisfied with being Tier19 and tier20 every second season. However, since there isnt ANYTHING else in this game to work towards, I am starting now to change this, and I am being almost borderline there.

My strategy for this is to build a trio of +10 units that can deal with the majority of the threats in the game. The only ways for this seems to be 1. Armors or 2. Dragons, and I am pursuing both ways rn (I have a +10 Draug and a +10 A.Tiki, working on Sheena and Gwendolyn rn and likely Nowi as well).
Anyways. Even if i manage to get a Triple+10 Core, which seems fairly possible to do, does that mean I am good at the game? No, I just put a lot of time and ressources in it. I did nothing that not just anyone could do, you dont need skill, you dont need to be clever, you just need to farm units and feathers until ur done. Nothing special about it.

That said, I am still perfectly fine with the system as it is. If I was a whale and spent 500 Dollars at this game every month, I would get extremely pissed if I wasnt able to reach tier 20 because any bunch of F2P assholes with more time on their asses than me because I am working my ass off for 16 hours a day can just do the same.

So, to sum it up: Yes, I think you can reach tier20 by dedicating all your ressources to it - at least I am pretty close and I can't say I did really everything in my Power to reach there. But doing so does not mean you are good at this game. It's just about putting your ressources in the right places. My main goal is having fun at this game, so I want to waste some ressources on units i like rather than those that lead me to tier20. And this feels much more lke playing the game "right".

I agree, and my opinion is pretty much the same; I agree that how good you do in arena isn't skill-based, but how many rare abilities that you throw onto your units. There are also other factors. Raise your hand if your perfect arena run was ever killed because of a stupid decision of the AI that you didn't think they would do (IE dancing instead of attacking). I agree that IS should do something; The whaling gets worse and worse everytime new units come out; The benchmark for T20 keeps increasing and increasing.

IDK man, there's parts of your argument I agree with and parts I don't.
The T20 thing isn't true. While I haven't been playing from Day 1, I have been playing since very early in the game's lifecycle, and I consistently bounce back and forth between 19-20 (Soren+4, Lute+1, Red Ike+1, and a bonus unit which is sometimes the new units and sometimes a F2P unit; None of these are particularly high-tiered units). I've spent a whopping $40 on this game since I've started playing, so I'm kind of F2P but definitely not a whale. I've also not been extremely lucky with my pulls so I can't say I agree with you on this end. I mean, it *is* possible, and sacred seals definitely help with that. (staying in T20 is another matter altogether. You need merges for that and whaling/luck is the only way to get that).

Where I do agree with you is having rewards/ranks be based solely on the results of whaling. Arena Assault is the PERFECT example of this because you can't get away with just building a small amount of units; you have to build at least 28 units, and even then your score is based on the BST of your first team so merges still matter (and therefore whaling/luck). I really wish IS would come up with a different/alternate point system, even if it's just for AA, because it is definitely impossible getting to the top AA rank as a F2P or even as someone who spends a little bit on the game and that's not *really* fair. It's also kinda boring; I WANT VARIETY. Like how cool would it be to receive bonuses for using units with LOW BSTs to beat higher BST teams?

tl;dr - I think having one mode that's based off of BST is fine, but it sucks when every mode is. =T

While I agree that there will always be an advantage for those that can afford to spend big money on the game, I disagree that you need to be a whale to be in tier 20.
I’m not a whale (though I’ve spent some money on the game when I’ve wanted too, nothing extreme) but I’m in tier 20 and have been for a few months now.
Though I accept I’ve never be ranked 1st, I average finishing within the top 2000 places for arena and the top 3000 places for arena assault.

I’ve built a strong team largely out of strong 4* units that can be pulled and merged up through time (Reinhardt & Eirika for example) and utilised skills with high rankings (I don’t use aether) like dual rally and fully levelled up seals. I have units for arena assault design to check certain units with breaker skills and such so that I always have a pool of heroes I can use and I am happy to build up and work in unpopular units who I see potential in and have a good bane/boon (such as my Kagero, Robin, Klein - and more all started out as 4* units).

I budget myself on purchases of orbs. Or I did, but I've got a solid core now(Just needs more feathers to get my 4 star Fae's to 5) so I have no reason to purchase at the moment. I do agree that it takes a lot of luck or disposable income, things which I have only fleetingly, in order to get a top tier team quickly, but even common units can become powerful and top tier capable without the need for high octane skills. It's just a matter of using the heroes you do summon wisely.

I totally agree that being F2P can stay in tier 20, I've been there for months without any $ spent .

The key is to use high-merged regular heroes as everyone has mentioned. Moreover, you have to invest feathers on the suitable ones - powerful brave users like Reinhart, Est, Donnel, Cherche ,popular tanky armors , or fast mages such as Nino , Tharja ; even Lon'qu, Selena, Barst can be a great threat . They come from 3*-4* pools where luck doesnt affect much , be built fully then they will be kinda great force in arena (fix the lower bst by all galeforce/aether ).

Another point that 8 heroes from "Daily Hero Battle" (Subaki, Sophia, Cecilia,...) are easily pulled and these 4* +10 truly bring more arena points if you ever notice. They will be rotated but everyweek always has at least 1 of them.

About assault arena , the first team needs to be the highest bst-based team . But from 2nd-7th team , specific non-merged heroes are good to enter , A.Tiki can deal with lots green/red melee except falchion lords, raventome/bowbreaker take care of B.Lyn/Rein , bravebow Jeorge slays many low-hp enemies ,even Alphonse TA/swordbreaker can handle green and some red.

Thou I gotta admit the bst-bonus heroes somehow break the game's balance, as proof of the increase arena point recently. Hope IS have solution to upgrade normal heroes 's bst lol - or at least some other methods. Enjoy the game :D

As a 100% F2P I can assure that staying in T20 is not as hard as it may seem.
It's all about strategy in building characters, knowing the current meta and how the scores are assigned.
IMHO the best strategy for F2P players is to fully merge relatively common characters and equip them with the few valuable skills you find from the rare 5 stars only characters (e.g. I'm working on a +10 Selena with slaying edge, distant counter and wrath, as a jack-of-all-trades character).
I'm currently in T20 for my 4° consecutive season with a team composed by Fae +4, Nowi +6, Black Knight and anyone in the askr trio is on for the bonus.
With such a team, I'm scoring about 712-718 points for every match.
Notice that using even more common characters (as Sheena or Gwendolyn), you can reach even higher scorest just by fully merge them and giving them proper skills.
In the end, for those who do not want to spend, it becomes more a matter of feathers than of orbs.

FAIR WARNING: Incoming Wall of Text. (While I don't necessarily agree with most of the points illustrated on that article, particularly if you're a gamer who grew up long before the concept of subscriptions and microtransactions have existed, it really looks like they're here to stay.)

source: https://gamepress.gg/whales-anonymous-k-san (Whale Anonymous: A Second Look Into Mobile Game Whaling)

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What is your take on the monetization model in these games?

Game monetization is actually a topic that I take strong interest in (as a consumer) and have discussed at lengths with many different people (both fellow players as well as those working in the game industry) for various different games. So before I get into my thoughts on it, let’s step back a bit and take a look at why it’s needed and what kinds there are.

In a simplified model, game development involves two parties: the developer and the publisher. The developer (DelightWorks for example) is the game studio that creates the game. This includes the game engine, the graphical sprites, the promotional artwork, the sound effects, the voice overs, and much much more. Games usually take 1-3 years to make, sometimes even longer depending on the kind of game and the size of the studio. Lots and lots of people are involved from start to finish and put in tons of work and effort (especially in the game industry where long hours and weekend overtime is the norm), so as you would expect, the cost of development isn’t exactly a trivial amount. Once a game is done, it gets handed off to the publisher (Aniplex for example) who then takes care of promoting the game, running the game and, of course, figuring out the monetization model for the game. That monetization model needs to churn out enough money to cover the initial cost of development and marketing, the cost of maintaining the game servers, and of course a good margin of profit to keep the company running and growing so that there’s money available to invest into paying for future games or content updates. In other words, when a game launches with a monetization model, it’s not simply publishers just being greedy - part of it goes into cost recovery and future investments. If a publisher or game company doesn’t turn a profit, it stops making such kinds of games. Which means no more games like FGO for fans like us. A lose-lose situation. In other words, a truly free-to-play game simply cannot exist - monetization models are a necessary “evil” to ensure we get to play more and more fun games in the future.

With all that said, not all monetization models are equal. There are generally three popular types of monetization models for online games: 1) subscription-based (e.g. World of Warcraft), 2) one-time purchases (e.g Guild Wars 2 originally), and 3) microtransactions. Of the three, recent trends point to microtransactions being the most popular, both in mobile and desktop games. Why? Because most microtransaction games are “free”, and everyone loves free! Anyone can play it without having to spend a dime if they choose not to. But of course out of every 1000 free players, there will always be at least 1 who will be *willing* to spend a dime or more for all the snazzy in-game benefits. And unlike subscription-based and one-time purchase models, the *amount* of money one could spend is unlimited. More often than not, this amount will end up being far more than the amount one would have spent if it were a subscription-based game or one-time purchase. In fact, the amount those single players (often referred to as “whales”) will usually end up far exceeding the total amount multiple players would have spent through any of the other two monetization models. Instead of selling a single cosmetic item for $50 flat, for example, why not put it in an RNG box for $5 and watch as people spend far more than $50 trying to get it. Or put a rare waifu with a <1% roll chance in a gacha with no roll guarantees. This will usually upset a lot of people, but in the end, the wallets still come out. In fact, if you look at the revenue reports of any major game company over the past few years that sell both one-time purchase games as well as microtransaction-based games (EA, Ubisoft, NCSoft, etc.), you’ll very clearly see that revenue from things such as gacha rolls, loot boxes, DLCs, or other types of microtransactions drastically outperform other sources of revenue.

So in the end, most publishers end up going with the microtransactions monetization model for their games. These “free” games end up not being truly free. Someone inevitably pays for it and, while I personally dislike this model, due to my competitive/goal-driven nature, one of those people usually ends up being me. South Park actually had a pretty amusing (but accurate) episode on this.

tl;dr: Monetization models are necessary, but what type depends on the publisher. In today’s day and age, despite people’s hate against it, the microtransaction model ends up being the most profitable and will likely continue to be over the next few years.

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Being someone in my mid-to-late 30s (yeah, I'm getting THERE, to the big four-oh) and having grown up with video/computer games of all sorts, it had all somehow, in my opinion, boiled down to a company getting its return of investment quicker, and not being concerned about product (buggy games that should have spent more time in the works are suspect), at least not about looking beyond all the bells and whistles they could add, milking every sense of profit from it.

Compared to other games, it seems (to me, anyway) that FEH is not really that p2w-centric; I don't feel it's a 100% cash grab like your run-of-the-mill MMORPG from South Korea or something (and I do have reason to believe that the F2P concept of reeling paying customers in started from there), and you can still gain orbs/feathers steadily—something other gachas don't really have, or have no interest in implementing (until now, anyway, particularly if you look at, oh I don't know, Brave Frontier and a few others?).

I can't say I disagree with you.

I had a tendency to complain over it's scouring system. I used to feel as if it somewhat limited who I wanted to use, and also certain skillsets. I used to be all for budget skillsets, even if it only included the 1rst/2nd level of said skill- but then, it kind of makes sense, in a way (the way certain skills weigh). I do agree with you the system at it's full potential simply caters to people who pay, unless you've been building a 5*+10 since the very start of the game (a guy here called DRAAAAAVEN built an Effie off of 2-3 5*s, the rest was all his').

With that said, I guess I wasn't very informative in the poll. I put that I didn't really have any complaints, but this would've made me voice a different opinion.

It is entirely possible for someone F2P to be in the top 1000 of tier 20... But they'd have to have played for a long amount of time and been very focused/efficient in their resource management. They would just need to focus feather usage on 3*/4* units (like Fae, Reinhardt, etc) and save orbs for select 5* banners. It would make the game rather boring...in my opinion...but they could still be competitive. The advantage of "whales" is that they don't have to focus on optimizing a handful of heroes or manage resources efficiently. I think this is a reasonable compromise for the "whales" - they should get something for paying for development of this game.

As for me... I've played since launch and am currently F2P, but occasionally drop some cash to get a copy of a favorite hero (like Sigurd).