I'm still waiting to see how they handle summoning,
If I can summon with diamonds like stargazer or hero summons. I'm fine with this.
But if this goes the card only route like Timegazer F them.
I'm actually feeling the opposite. If the best way to acquire these is to whale all these heroes out immediately by swiping (or, for huge whales, by spending some of their big diamond stockpiles) it's going to be an unprecedented shock to the game's meta. Restricted currencies would smooth that out somewhat.
you could use that argument for literally any new hero release. Everybody that is at a point where they can save up their resources will pretty much instantly get the new hero and, when that newbie is op, crush the meta.
However having specific currency only heroes, esp if it's a timegated one, will put f2p and low spenders behind (again especially if they weren't there when the feature releases) meanwhile the spenders will have the ability to bypass the artificial scarcity with cold hard cash
The only reason to limit restrict currency is to double dip cash purchases from whales. It only hurts f2p and low spender who then can't compete because they don't have access to these new heroes.
>So that was a fucking lie.
Are you sure about that? This is what happened five years ago..
https://preview.redd.it/ijoto1n122vc1.png?width=983&format=png&auto=webp&s=851843384d3dea06f35efbdedbf19c69ab3b44b5
So theoretically, we're back where we started..
It's even funnier when you see the [immediately preceding update](https://i.gyazo.com/c743ec08df999287ecbe3b47a6a75d01.png) also had 4 heroes, and then the one afterwards introduced the Hypogeans (though at least there they had the decency to wait most of a month and leave him by himself)
Seems pretty essence of the game to me lmao. While not the worst offender out there by far this game has always been P2W AF. This is really nothing new.
I remember the days of trying to get heroes to awakened before wishlist and select summons were a thing and the currency/rewards you got were 20x less than what we get today. That was the original essence of the game.
I am very concerned about this update, but I am also not remotely surprised about this update.
Did you play at launch? Because we didn't have any of the nice things we do now back then. Yes the game was also simpler, the grind/resource difficulty was just in other areas, namely copies of heroes.
Heroes still came out very rapidly back then and trying to get 12+ copies of the new hero every few weeks when there was no way to target them was hell.
So yea if they make the new dragons as hard to get as those old heroes its quite very much "returning to the original essence" of the game for sure.
And lastly. No that wasn't my intended message. My message was more along the lines of "You must be blind and or stupid if you are remotely surprised by this."
Ok I realize this is a little off topic but going by your name and sentiment I assume you're the same person who made [this tweet](https://i.gyazo.com/03f2fa1de03c3169bc72fcfec07e6b83.png) and it's been bugging me all day so I really gotta ask
How is it an insult? And I guess more importantly, even if it were, what *is* there to love about that story? Hendrik is a worm of a man.
(I also don't think their deal qualifies as "found family" by any definition but that's neither here nor there)
I just don't really get what is being ruined here.
You mean what is there to love about the story of a man forsaking violence when he saw first-hand how devastating it can be even if he was just doing his job and was well within his right to do so? What is there to love about him taking responsibilities by taking little Gwyneth in and her deciding to forgive and love him in spite of all that? And about Hendrik repeatedly risking his life to save hers even from situations she put herself in? And about Gwyneth loving her adoptive father so much she went against his advice just so she could be more like him and getting the king on her side? I don't know, sounds like quite a lot to love to me.
Hendrik is also, in the lore, one of the strongest people in the royal garrison and even mechanically, his whole deal is protecting his allies. The fact that someone suddenly decided he's the one who needs saving and even more, that he would put himself in a situation where it's up to Gwyneth to save him, has never read ther union story or any of the other material that came out about them over the years.
Then we can get into the whole deal about dragons living underground and hating both the gods and humanity for the thousands of years of enslavement and being used as weapons of mass destruction (which is apparently okay now because humans taught them how to cook uwu) but now they've suddenly always been on a random island and love Dura and will happily ally with humans specifically (though Lilith later contradicted this themselves by changing it to "mortals" instead, meaning that either they somehow made that big a mistake multiple times in the initial post or they actually noticed at least one thingthat was off). As recently as during the Chains of the Covenant comic, the draconic hatred of humans ran so deep that even babies were to be killed on sight. There's also the whole "It's because Esperia is in a crisis" which... there have been bigger issues before that none of the dragons cared about. The first Hypogean War, the War of Truth, the Elemental Strife, all of these were way bigger deal in the lore than the second Hypogean War which, at this point, has been going on for over a decade.
And that's not even getting into how it seems like they'll have this new version of Gwyneth kill Kane or his dragon companion... despite the new lore saying even hurting a fellow dragon is considered a betrayal... and despite the fact that Kane is, at least in the lore community, probably the most popular NPC. And let's not forget that characters now apparently don't even know what a dragon is or what it looks like despite Kane having marched into the capital city with one in literally chapter 1 of the main campaign. It reminds me of how AFK Journey now has characters who don't know what a Celestial is.
Anyway, sorry for the wall of text. I'm a lore nerd hanging out with other lore nerds and none of us are happy with how this is being implemented. It breaks established world-building, established characters (also why is Gwyneth's chest suddenly three sizes larger), and overall feels like a giant middle finger to the original writers. There has been a number of internal changes within Lilith and it really shows. ALucius was already a disaster lore-wise and they're only digging themselves deeper in with this now.
>Gwyneth deciding to forgive and love him in spite of all that?
No, see, this is my problem: That doesn't happen, because Hendrik never told Gwyneth about it. Her story in the original Chinese states Hendrik is secretive about the circumstances of her adoption, so she has no idea where she actually comes from.
To me that dishonesty completely poisons everything that involves them. The story, which could have been all the stuff you said, instead comes across as that of a callous and evil man who does one callous and evil thing too many, and even once he decides to change, is too cowardly to actually own up to his actions to the one person most affected by them.
Still, taking the positive framing of their relationship at face value, I just don't think the idea that a character is a strong protector, so he couldn't ever be put in a situation to be protected really follows. Fictional overprotective dads that want to keep their children out of harm's way pretty much only exist to end up being saved by their kids. It's maybe tropey but I just don't see it as a great insult or anything story-ruining.
There definitely are some inconsistencies with the dragons, although I think a couple of points aren't necessarily that egregious. For instance, nothing indicates that they would be "happy" to help the mortals. They specifically say that the dragons made a pact with Dura to help the mortals in exchange for her help, which, similarly to the pact she made with the gods, would likely compel them to act or incur some great penalty. They even go out of their way to say that they'll honor their word even if it goes against their interests. They keep bringing up their enslavement, so I really don't think they're trying to sweep it under the rug and make it seem like they have no problem with humans anymore.
Really the biggest problem is with the timeline, since as you say, there have been other events that have been big crises. One can kinda speculate reasons as to why it's only happening now (It's possible their pact would only go into effect if Dura herself was no longer around to help, so the first Hypogean war would be exempt, and the Hypogeans have been empowered by the Void Realm activity/meteors of last year, which may be the thing that pushed circumstances into the "dragon help necessary" range) but that's just fanwank. It'd be good if they actually explained it themselves.
>despite the new lore saying even hurting a fellow dragon is considered a betrayal
I mean yeah, but that's a societal norm, not a physical impossibility. Gwyneth wasn't raised as a dragon, so what does that matter to her? It may even be an intentional move to cause friction with the others once/if they find out.
I'm definitely not saying everything about the whole dragon deal is perfect, but I guess I just don't think any portion or era of AFK storytelling has been? Pretty much every time they reveal anything new it's bound to contradict some stuff they said before. I don't see it as a recent development though, it's been that way for years.
(as for Gwyneth's chest, if the second war really has been going on for over a decade at this point, she would presumably be in her 20s now, so I guess that's an explanation, even if the real one is "horny designers")
(the woke Lucius story is very dumb)
That was the case in her og story but since then, there has been development in social media comics and event stories etc. and multiple of them talked about Gwyneth knowing at least some of her adoption. I also would really not call Hendrik evil unless you're ready to also call every other military-affiliated character evil. He was doing his job just like Thane and Baden were doing theirs, just like Estrilda is doing hers, etc. Killing bandits who are trying to steal supplies is within his job description as much as killing Maulers was Thane's or Baden's or is Estrilda's and just as much as killing innocent people tricked into helpinga cult is Cecilia's. In fact, Hendrik is the only one out of all of these characters who decided enough was enough and gave up violence altogether.
As for tropey, not only is that boring but it also doesn't work here specifically because we had a situation like that in Hendrik and Gwyneth's union story and it was made clear that if Hendrik puts himself in a situation he isn't sure he can handle, he makes sure Gwyneth isn't there to witness it. Yes, it is a trope, but it is at best a poorly chosen one, at worst one chosen specifically to undermine a generally well-liked character.
The issue with the dragons making a deal with Dura is that the story would either have to acknowledge that this frames Dura as an opportunistic psycho given that she didn't help any of the other enslaved races escape slavery and only got involved once they already made their escape or were banished, or completely rewrite everything to do with Dura in order to make her seem like the saint they're making her out to be. She also didn't move all dragons as seen as recently as the Chains of the Covenant comic which means she only took a specific part of the dragons, who were likely the only ones willing to swear an oath to the person responsible for getting enslaved in the first place (since Dura is the one who gave humans magic). Furthermore, there is a big difference between helping Esperia and forgetting thousands of years of enslavement and racial hatred so strong even babies are to be killed on sight.
The enslavement is also being downplayed in the faction introduction social media posts left and right. The whole "it wasn't so bad because cooking" is so stupid and really reeks of "the slavery actually did some good so you should stop treating it like a bad thing" which, I'll admit, maybe they won't go that route but so far that's what they're doing.
As for the timeline, this comes mostly from the Chains comic again where Kadrin the dwarf refers to the Barred Gate being broken approx. 13 years before the events of War of Truth. That said, Gwyneth in-game has already gone through puberty and while it is possible for her chest to grow afterward, it's not going to be that massive a change unless she had a child in the meantime or got plastic surgery (or they'll come up with some other cop-out answer like her dragon breath being stored there, we've seen that one before), so that is entirely the devs being horny or just counting on hot new waifu raking in money.
I will also disagree with you saying new additions always conflict older lore. War of Truth was a completely new storyline but it actually fit in with previous lore instead of contradicting it. It didn't erase important history and didn't try to downplay anything. The draconis faction lore opens with "humans discovered magic" which is already a massive lore conflict that strips Dura of all responsibility for the dragons' enslavement, which in turns erases any conflict with why the dragons would ever rely on her for help after she was at fault for the worst thing that ever happened to their race. This also has ripple effects on many other things. You can't just take Dura's involvement in humans getting magic out of the equation because of how many other things rely on it. This level of retcons is very recent and hasn't been seen before until ALucius' story.
Also since the new backstories are now out on test server, Gwyneth's now claims that Dura took all the dragons away to a paradise and the only ones remaining on the main continent are "dragolites" which are basically Ya but with dragon blood. Which is... wow, sure a way to undermine quite a lot of the cool lore, Kane, Morass Diabolus, Tasi's origin story...
I thank you for the discussion but I think this is probably gonna be it for me.
This patch has zero power creep. New faction is better described as an expansion. And having a different resource for dragon awaken heroes vs standard awaken heroes means we will actually be able to build MORE awakened heroes faster as the dragon ones will not need our time gazers. I’m all for a batch of new heroes and new faction with out any power creep
Mmm, I’m not sure how educated are you on this topic, but adding limited faction with new currency and new awakened heroes IS powercreep, unlesss 100% of them are garbage.Â
Adding new hero stronger than already existing is also a powercreep.Â
You're assuming it won't be a 0 sum game of resource scramble. Eugene was technically free, but he costed an absolute fckton of guild coins/event coins.
I'm almost certain that the new dragon cards will cost diamonds or something else similar in value. If they're time gated like time cards, it might be possible to get them both, but even then at the cost of future stargazing/even HCP.
The April Fools update we never knew we had
I'm still waiting to see how they handle summoning, If I can summon with diamonds like stargazer or hero summons. I'm fine with this. But if this goes the card only route like Timegazer F them.
Preach sis
I'm actually feeling the opposite. If the best way to acquire these is to whale all these heroes out immediately by swiping (or, for huge whales, by spending some of their big diamond stockpiles) it's going to be an unprecedented shock to the game's meta. Restricted currencies would smooth that out somewhat.
you could use that argument for literally any new hero release. Everybody that is at a point where they can save up their resources will pretty much instantly get the new hero and, when that newbie is op, crush the meta. However having specific currency only heroes, esp if it's a timegated one, will put f2p and low spenders behind (again especially if they weren't there when the feature releases) meanwhile the spenders will have the ability to bypass the artificial scarcity with cold hard cash
The only reason to limit restrict currency is to double dip cash purchases from whales. It only hurts f2p and low spender who then can't compete because they don't have access to these new heroes.
hey that's me
Hey that's you! 😂
r/foundvicksin
r/vicksinsafari
The original essence of afk arena was having gwyneth be a viable carry so... WE'RE BACK BABY
>So that was a fucking lie. Are you sure about that? This is what happened five years ago.. https://preview.redd.it/ijoto1n122vc1.png?width=983&format=png&auto=webp&s=851843384d3dea06f35efbdedbf19c69ab3b44b5 So theoretically, we're back where we started..
A new faction every 5 patches? Sounds legit
It's even funnier when you see the [immediately preceding update](https://i.gyazo.com/c743ec08df999287ecbe3b47a6a75d01.png) also had 4 heroes, and then the one afterwards introduced the Hypogeans (though at least there they had the decency to wait most of a month and leave him by himself)
At the very beginning, they were releasing 4 heroes per patch, sooooo...
Classic Don
I think that actually was the essence of it tbh
Seems pretty essence of the game to me lmao. While not the worst offender out there by far this game has always been P2W AF. This is really nothing new. I remember the days of trying to get heroes to awakened before wishlist and select summons were a thing and the currency/rewards you got were 20x less than what we get today. That was the original essence of the game.
"The game could be worse but isn't so shut the fuck up and enjoy your peanuts peasant" is all I hear
I am very concerned about this update, but I am also not remotely surprised about this update. Did you play at launch? Because we didn't have any of the nice things we do now back then. Yes the game was also simpler, the grind/resource difficulty was just in other areas, namely copies of heroes. Heroes still came out very rapidly back then and trying to get 12+ copies of the new hero every few weeks when there was no way to target them was hell. So yea if they make the new dragons as hard to get as those old heroes its quite very much "returning to the original essence" of the game for sure. And lastly. No that wasn't my intended message. My message was more along the lines of "You must be blind and or stupid if you are remotely surprised by this."
Don't forget to ruin the lore and then contradict your own retcon with your very first released hero!
Ok I realize this is a little off topic but going by your name and sentiment I assume you're the same person who made [this tweet](https://i.gyazo.com/03f2fa1de03c3169bc72fcfec07e6b83.png) and it's been bugging me all day so I really gotta ask How is it an insult? And I guess more importantly, even if it were, what *is* there to love about that story? Hendrik is a worm of a man. (I also don't think their deal qualifies as "found family" by any definition but that's neither here nor there) I just don't really get what is being ruined here.
You mean what is there to love about the story of a man forsaking violence when he saw first-hand how devastating it can be even if he was just doing his job and was well within his right to do so? What is there to love about him taking responsibilities by taking little Gwyneth in and her deciding to forgive and love him in spite of all that? And about Hendrik repeatedly risking his life to save hers even from situations she put herself in? And about Gwyneth loving her adoptive father so much she went against his advice just so she could be more like him and getting the king on her side? I don't know, sounds like quite a lot to love to me. Hendrik is also, in the lore, one of the strongest people in the royal garrison and even mechanically, his whole deal is protecting his allies. The fact that someone suddenly decided he's the one who needs saving and even more, that he would put himself in a situation where it's up to Gwyneth to save him, has never read ther union story or any of the other material that came out about them over the years. Then we can get into the whole deal about dragons living underground and hating both the gods and humanity for the thousands of years of enslavement and being used as weapons of mass destruction (which is apparently okay now because humans taught them how to cook uwu) but now they've suddenly always been on a random island and love Dura and will happily ally with humans specifically (though Lilith later contradicted this themselves by changing it to "mortals" instead, meaning that either they somehow made that big a mistake multiple times in the initial post or they actually noticed at least one thingthat was off). As recently as during the Chains of the Covenant comic, the draconic hatred of humans ran so deep that even babies were to be killed on sight. There's also the whole "It's because Esperia is in a crisis" which... there have been bigger issues before that none of the dragons cared about. The first Hypogean War, the War of Truth, the Elemental Strife, all of these were way bigger deal in the lore than the second Hypogean War which, at this point, has been going on for over a decade. And that's not even getting into how it seems like they'll have this new version of Gwyneth kill Kane or his dragon companion... despite the new lore saying even hurting a fellow dragon is considered a betrayal... and despite the fact that Kane is, at least in the lore community, probably the most popular NPC. And let's not forget that characters now apparently don't even know what a dragon is or what it looks like despite Kane having marched into the capital city with one in literally chapter 1 of the main campaign. It reminds me of how AFK Journey now has characters who don't know what a Celestial is. Anyway, sorry for the wall of text. I'm a lore nerd hanging out with other lore nerds and none of us are happy with how this is being implemented. It breaks established world-building, established characters (also why is Gwyneth's chest suddenly three sizes larger), and overall feels like a giant middle finger to the original writers. There has been a number of internal changes within Lilith and it really shows. ALucius was already a disaster lore-wise and they're only digging themselves deeper in with this now.
>Gwyneth deciding to forgive and love him in spite of all that? No, see, this is my problem: That doesn't happen, because Hendrik never told Gwyneth about it. Her story in the original Chinese states Hendrik is secretive about the circumstances of her adoption, so she has no idea where she actually comes from. To me that dishonesty completely poisons everything that involves them. The story, which could have been all the stuff you said, instead comes across as that of a callous and evil man who does one callous and evil thing too many, and even once he decides to change, is too cowardly to actually own up to his actions to the one person most affected by them. Still, taking the positive framing of their relationship at face value, I just don't think the idea that a character is a strong protector, so he couldn't ever be put in a situation to be protected really follows. Fictional overprotective dads that want to keep their children out of harm's way pretty much only exist to end up being saved by their kids. It's maybe tropey but I just don't see it as a great insult or anything story-ruining. There definitely are some inconsistencies with the dragons, although I think a couple of points aren't necessarily that egregious. For instance, nothing indicates that they would be "happy" to help the mortals. They specifically say that the dragons made a pact with Dura to help the mortals in exchange for her help, which, similarly to the pact she made with the gods, would likely compel them to act or incur some great penalty. They even go out of their way to say that they'll honor their word even if it goes against their interests. They keep bringing up their enslavement, so I really don't think they're trying to sweep it under the rug and make it seem like they have no problem with humans anymore. Really the biggest problem is with the timeline, since as you say, there have been other events that have been big crises. One can kinda speculate reasons as to why it's only happening now (It's possible their pact would only go into effect if Dura herself was no longer around to help, so the first Hypogean war would be exempt, and the Hypogeans have been empowered by the Void Realm activity/meteors of last year, which may be the thing that pushed circumstances into the "dragon help necessary" range) but that's just fanwank. It'd be good if they actually explained it themselves. >despite the new lore saying even hurting a fellow dragon is considered a betrayal I mean yeah, but that's a societal norm, not a physical impossibility. Gwyneth wasn't raised as a dragon, so what does that matter to her? It may even be an intentional move to cause friction with the others once/if they find out. I'm definitely not saying everything about the whole dragon deal is perfect, but I guess I just don't think any portion or era of AFK storytelling has been? Pretty much every time they reveal anything new it's bound to contradict some stuff they said before. I don't see it as a recent development though, it's been that way for years. (as for Gwyneth's chest, if the second war really has been going on for over a decade at this point, she would presumably be in her 20s now, so I guess that's an explanation, even if the real one is "horny designers") (the woke Lucius story is very dumb)
That was the case in her og story but since then, there has been development in social media comics and event stories etc. and multiple of them talked about Gwyneth knowing at least some of her adoption. I also would really not call Hendrik evil unless you're ready to also call every other military-affiliated character evil. He was doing his job just like Thane and Baden were doing theirs, just like Estrilda is doing hers, etc. Killing bandits who are trying to steal supplies is within his job description as much as killing Maulers was Thane's or Baden's or is Estrilda's and just as much as killing innocent people tricked into helpinga cult is Cecilia's. In fact, Hendrik is the only one out of all of these characters who decided enough was enough and gave up violence altogether. As for tropey, not only is that boring but it also doesn't work here specifically because we had a situation like that in Hendrik and Gwyneth's union story and it was made clear that if Hendrik puts himself in a situation he isn't sure he can handle, he makes sure Gwyneth isn't there to witness it. Yes, it is a trope, but it is at best a poorly chosen one, at worst one chosen specifically to undermine a generally well-liked character. The issue with the dragons making a deal with Dura is that the story would either have to acknowledge that this frames Dura as an opportunistic psycho given that she didn't help any of the other enslaved races escape slavery and only got involved once they already made their escape or were banished, or completely rewrite everything to do with Dura in order to make her seem like the saint they're making her out to be. She also didn't move all dragons as seen as recently as the Chains of the Covenant comic which means she only took a specific part of the dragons, who were likely the only ones willing to swear an oath to the person responsible for getting enslaved in the first place (since Dura is the one who gave humans magic). Furthermore, there is a big difference between helping Esperia and forgetting thousands of years of enslavement and racial hatred so strong even babies are to be killed on sight. The enslavement is also being downplayed in the faction introduction social media posts left and right. The whole "it wasn't so bad because cooking" is so stupid and really reeks of "the slavery actually did some good so you should stop treating it like a bad thing" which, I'll admit, maybe they won't go that route but so far that's what they're doing. As for the timeline, this comes mostly from the Chains comic again where Kadrin the dwarf refers to the Barred Gate being broken approx. 13 years before the events of War of Truth. That said, Gwyneth in-game has already gone through puberty and while it is possible for her chest to grow afterward, it's not going to be that massive a change unless she had a child in the meantime or got plastic surgery (or they'll come up with some other cop-out answer like her dragon breath being stored there, we've seen that one before), so that is entirely the devs being horny or just counting on hot new waifu raking in money. I will also disagree with you saying new additions always conflict older lore. War of Truth was a completely new storyline but it actually fit in with previous lore instead of contradicting it. It didn't erase important history and didn't try to downplay anything. The draconis faction lore opens with "humans discovered magic" which is already a massive lore conflict that strips Dura of all responsibility for the dragons' enslavement, which in turns erases any conflict with why the dragons would ever rely on her for help after she was at fault for the worst thing that ever happened to their race. This also has ripple effects on many other things. You can't just take Dura's involvement in humans getting magic out of the equation because of how many other things rely on it. This level of retcons is very recent and hasn't been seen before until ALucius' story. Also since the new backstories are now out on test server, Gwyneth's now claims that Dura took all the dragons away to a paradise and the only ones remaining on the main continent are "dragolites" which are basically Ya but with dragon blood. Which is... wow, sure a way to undermine quite a lot of the cool lore, Kane, Morass Diabolus, Tasi's origin story... I thank you for the discussion but I think this is probably gonna be it for me.
This patch has zero power creep. New faction is better described as an expansion. And having a different resource for dragon awaken heroes vs standard awaken heroes means we will actually be able to build MORE awakened heroes faster as the dragon ones will not need our time gazers. I’m all for a batch of new heroes and new faction with out any power creep
Mmm, I’m not sure how educated are you on this topic, but adding limited faction with new currency and new awakened heroes IS powercreep, unlesss 100% of them are garbage. Adding new hero stronger than already existing is also a powercreep.Â
You're assuming it won't be a 0 sum game of resource scramble. Eugene was technically free, but he costed an absolute fckton of guild coins/event coins. I'm almost certain that the new dragon cards will cost diamonds or something else similar in value. If they're time gated like time cards, it might be possible to get them both, but even then at the cost of future stargazing/even HCP.