I’ve been one of several players asking for new scoring opportunities to be added to Fortify the Network (FtN), in addition to just spending diamonds and stamina. This is something that’s been done several times in the past for special occasions, similarly to the Trick or Treat contest starting Friday, October 29. Seeing the scoring for this contest, though, I fear I’ve been misunderstood, @Loutre; I was wanting the added scoring opportunities to be a way for someone to reach 1M points if they didn’t have quite enough diamonds and/or stamina, and that’s definitely not the case with this contest:
So, on server 2, if I spend 12,500 diamonds (which I might be able to do, thanks only to the bonus from the Prize Wall Hero Quest) as well as 122,300 stamina (which means spending most of those diamonds on Get More Stamina), I’ll collect 692,250 points - over 300,000 points short of the final progress reward. There is no earthly way for me to make up that shortfall with diamonds and stamina unless I want to spend a lot of money to do so; thus, I’m going to have to get a lot of points from the offered heroes, most of whom are fairly (or very) new.
Let’s start with Creep Surge. There’s five heroes that can potentially be used for seven Creep Surges during the contest; that’s another 39,550 points. If everyone in the guild posts all five heroes as mercs, and everyone shares them equally, that can be doubled to 79,100 points; of course, I could always increase that total by hiring more than my fair share, but I’d like to think y’all aren’t intentionally designing the game so that people have to compete with their own guildmates in order to get the progress prizes in contests, so let’s leave it at 79,100 points. We’re now up to 771,350 points, with City Watch as our final source of points.
Assuming we’re able to use a hero in all 15 battles in City Watch, we can earn 7200 points per hero per City Watch; in order to get the remaining 228,650 points, we’ll have to do that 32 times in a week. If someone’s able to carry two of the five heroes through all 15 battles of City Watch, they’ll need to do that every day of the contest, plus use nine more resets, whether banked or earned from Challenger PvP winnings. If someone is able to use three of those heroes in City Watch, they’ll need “only” four resets, although if they’ve been able to afford upgrading three or more of those heroes, they’re probably not F2P.
TL;DR: Congratulations on making the least F2P-friendly contest even worse for anyone who’s not a whale. As helpful as those 30 badge crates on the top tier of progress rewards would be for me, there’s absolutely no way I can get a million points, so I don’t see the point in trying, meaning less time playing the game and less incentive to make another purchase.
(And yes, I’m well aware of how incredibly unlikely it is that my feedback will lead to any changes, but after the rough week I’ve had at work, I had to vent about this contest. Maybe it’s my fault for hoping we’d get an easier contest for Halloween, rather than this slap in the face.)
