User blog:Nauibotics/The Future of Fire Emblem Heroes. Vol 2.

Hello FE Wiki readers and possibly/probably Heroes fans! It is I, Naui, one of your admins of FE Wiki!. In a year since the last time I made I FEH related blog post I am back because...well...something needs addressing here.

Lessons Learned?
Now I speak no hyperbole that FEH has not had a perfect run and somewhere...I feel like we have trekked down this path before. Oh right, I made a blog post about this almost a year ago. You know, when IS decided to rip out the entire Book I roster, which was met with some lukewarm skepticism. I for one disliked it since it removed the collectability of the game since now I had to hope to be pity broken on a non-new/seasonal banner or wait for a specific revival banner for them to return. To be fair however, it did make summoning on the player base heavily focused banners much more safe and rewarding as at least when you were pity broken on then, you weren't given some of Book I's questionable units stuck in the 5 Star pool like Luke and Mist. But for those like me who are merely casually competitive (I don't really care about being in the higher tiers hence I don't whale anyone except for Lucina who is my sole 5 * exclusive whale who happened purely out of luck or perhaps not). It hurts the casual and F2P since already our orbs are lower than those willing to cash out.

Is did address this somewhat by giving the Book I revival banners with better pull ratings than non-legendary hero banners. It was thanks to this I was given some good pity breakers on my free summons and even granted me a certain someone I mentioned last year that I did not have upon the summoning pool update. I think this was at least a compromise and things at least were handled good, though I know of a few people still bitter a little bit by the choice. Nonetheless, surely IS would not do something of this nature right.

History Repeats
We are now in the initial months of Book IV and we have just begun our 3rd anniversary of FEH, as usual we expect awesome announcements and rewards for our continued loyalty and sure enough we receive another Feh Channel. In it, we got similar news to last year. Awesome rewards, free content and maps for rewards. Most excitingly for me, another new Duo Hero of a beloved FE couple! It started off strong, but what came next was more devastating devastating as the news that Marth got shafted the Brave Hero candidate a third year in a row.

Feh Pass... * inhales * 

Okay so as if IS already already does not want to alienate the F2P from the Captain Ahabs of the FEH community, they decide to roll out a new MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION to their Gacha game. For $9.49 USD a month (essentially $10 a month) you get 5 bonuses. And what are those bonuses? Resplendent Heroes, alternative costumes and increased stats to Book I units...okay, I guess that is one way to boost their relevance in the ever Powercreeped meta of FEH and could be worth the $10. Unique Quests and reward to holders...Okay, sounds good and bit fair and does not scream "this-pass-is-necessary". Also 2 Bonus Summoner Supports, essentially a Divine Pulse/Mila's Turnwheel feature, and continuous map battling. WAIT WHAT?!?!

Okay IS, sure the Resplendent Heroes are MAYBE worth the pass and the unique quests are fair for those willing to directly support the developers. But you guys decided to hold off quality of life changes behind a pay wall?! Okay, the map redo thing makes sense to an extent as we have a limited version of this, the Light Blessings, but the auto battle start feature is NOT something you put behind a paywall. That should have been an automatic addition to the game to EVERYONE, not those who are simply able to pay for it.

Speaking of the Heroes, I love the fact that the Resplendent Heroes give boosts to the often extremely powercrept Book I units who mostly exist in the middle tiers of FEH at best...except for Hector who is a good boy. I do not think that these stat boosts are going to exactly be life changing, but they do give them a huge boost. That being said, these stat buffs should have been an automatic thing as often the older units are simply outclassed because of poor distribution of stats and simply lower BST. Has IS addressed this? Sure for some units like Virion who took an initial questionable stat distribution flaw and turned it into a huge strength due in part to a unique weapon and refine, rather than fixing his stats. Most importantly is the general lack of love for older units who have still not yet received a unique weapon and/or the initial refine units who have simply lacking effects on their refines to a pointless change to their impact in the growing meta like Lyn or Minerva.

The Future?
Is the Pass a Bad thing? Not entirely IMO. Parts of it is good, namely the Resplendent Heroes and the Quests. The Re-Act thing is also somewhat of a fair feature given that the game is a Stamina based game. I understand. However, the Auto-Start thing should not be locked behind this pass. That should be featured for all players. With just the four features of the pass other than that, I think one could reasonably justify the $10 a month thing as I feel that it will not affect most people's experience of the game if they do not have them. But at the same time, $10 does seem a little steep. Maybe $5 seems safer and would have garnered a much less hostile initial response.

In the past year, I managed to make a handful of +10 units who are 4* and lower units who have served me well thus far and even take down some of those top tier nuisances with little effort, granted I had to do some heavy investing by foddering off some pity breaks here and there. It is not like the pass is necessary and neither is the need to spend orbs for existing F2P players out there. At this point, I have 5* every unit I ever receive and have a pool of roughly 450 unique characters which I attribute mainly to luck and only purchasing on deals (like getting my first Winter Tharja thanks to the Christmas bundle).

I think this is possible one of the worst decisions as a package. IMO, the Auto-Start should be a default feature. The pass otherwise maybe needs to be like $5 a month. That is FAR more fair to a game that can be outright punishing in the gacha aspect to some players. For all you pure F2P players out there, I pray for your success and hope that IS takes a better step after this. Otherwise the Whaling Master Race will further outstrip the dirty F2P peasants than they already are.