Heroes Charge (Mobile) Review
System Mobile
Developer Ucool Publisher Ucool Genre RPG, Strategy # of Players 1 Release Date |
Pros
Lots of content to do in game Easy to play Plenty of daily content Cons Still a free a play game that favors paying customers Takes a long time to reach end game content |
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Review
by Thonos
1/27/2017
NOTE: This review is written by someone who has invested well over a year into this game along with some money. Also, this review is going to look like a mini game FAQ for the game. That is an unintended side effect of trying to talk about all of the content this game has.
Free to play games can be tricky. Their purpose is to entice you to put money into the game using a “carrot on a stick” approach. While most people avoid the pitfalls of sinking large sums of money into games like this, others can spend hundreds of dollars. It's usually the people that do the latter that get the huge advantages later in the game which makes the strictly free to play players left in the dust. These players are called whales since they give so much money to the developer. While Heroes Charge does suffer from this, this is a free-to-play game that still gives the non paying players enough to do to compete.
Heroes Charge does have a story, but honestly it was so forgettable that I don't even remember what it is anymore. The game boils down to a 2-D game that lets you pick a team of 5 heroes and complete different tasks in the game. Your heroes gain energy while fighting, and when their energy is full, you can use that hero’s ultimate skill. All other combat and skill use is automatic. Along the way, your heroes gain experience and levels while your you gain overall experience for your account, which affects when new features unlock and what your maximum hero level is.
The game uses three main currencies. Coins are earned from doing most tasks and are used to buy most basic items. Gems, the game’s premium currency, are used to buy stronger items, some hero stones, and reset some events. You can also use gems to get more coins, if needed. Gems can be bought for real-world cash. Stamina is used to progress through campaign and elite campaigns, which will be discussed later. Stamina can be bought with gems, but it is also regained on its own over time at a rate of 10 per hour.
Coins and gems can be used at the Merchant shop to buy gear, items and soul stones. This shop resets every couple of hours with new items and sometimes heroes. There is a Troll and Black Market merchant that can appear after you use stamina that sell better gear, almost exclusively for gems. You can also use coins and gems to open treasure chests that can contain gear, hero stones and sometimes heroes. There are three levels of chests: bronze, silver, and gold chests. You get five free coin treasures (bronze) every day and a free gem chest (silver and gold) every two days.
The heroes are the main part of the game. As of this review, there are 111 heroes available to get either through events, certain currency exchanges, or grinding. Heroes are either physical or magical and are either front, middle, or back row heroes. When forming a team, you should have a balance between different types and positions of heroes that you put on your team (e.g. You don't want to use a team of all front-row heroes since this will usually leave you with no offensive power.
Heroes start at a grey power level and currently go up to red. Hero power can be upgraded by filling the six gear slots they have with the required gear for each hero. The hero then absorbs the gear, increasing their power and sometimes their quality color. When you change quality colors, you unlock new skills (up to purple level, and sometimes depending on the hero, orange level). Taking a hero from grey to red requires 17 upgrades. This is an important part of the game and one of the three ways to power up your heroes.
Another way to increase power level is to increase a hero’s star level. When you get a hero, they have a preset star rating from 1 to 3. The starting star level determines how many hero stones it takes to unlock the hero. All heroes can be upgraded to 5 stars by using soul stones of the same hero. These stones are gained from the same way that the hero is earned (farming, certain currency exchanges, events, etc..). One thing to note is that when you upgrade a hero from one star level to another, the hero’s base stats increase, and that effect is retroactive based on the hero level at the time of the upgrade. In other words, if you go from a three star to a four star at level 49, you will get the stat increase as if you leveled the hero from 1-49 as a four star hero. While not as time-efficient as upgrading a hero with gear, this is still an important way to increase a hero’s power, especially if you play this game for an extended period of time.
Each hero has four to five skills that unlock as their character gets stronger. These skills can be upgraded using skill points. Skill points take coins to use, but the skill points regenerate on their own up to a cap. A skill’s max level is dependent upon the hero’s max level. Some skills that do not open up until later have a lower maximum level, (e.g. A skill that does not open up until that hero reaches purple may have a max skill point cap roughly half of what the hero's level is). While keeping all of your skills maxed can be costly early on, it is well worth it.
Most gear in the game can be enchanted. Enchanting gear makes it stronger, and depending on the rarity of the gear, you can enchant it multiple times. You enchant gear using enchanting dust that comes in three strengths and is obtained through playing the game or events. You can also use other gear for enchanting, but it is not as cost-effective. When your heroes absorb gear that is enchanted, you get some of the enchanting dust back.
The campaign tells the story of Heroes Charge through a series of chapters, each of which has a varying number of stages. Some stages can only be done once while others can be repeated. Each stage consists of three rounds, with each round involving defeating all the enemies and proceeding to the next round. Each stage rewards coin and gear items. The first time beating a stage will give all of the items the stage offers as rewards, and running it subsequent times will give you a chance of getting some of those items. Better items become available as drops in later stages. Your progression is gated behind enemy difficulty and your player level.
There is also an Elite campaign that follows the same structure as the normal campaign where you progress from stage to stage and chapter to chapter, but the final hero boss may drop a soul token for that hero. Each of these elite stages can only be done three times a day. These stages are generally harder than the normal campaign, and while they also drop gear, the soul tokens are the main reason to do these.
In the Arena feature, you pick a team of five heroes and fight other players’ teams. Fighting and beating a higher-ranked team lets you take their rank. If you beat your previous highest-achieved rank, you get a certain amount of coins and gems, depending on the jump in ranking. At a certain point each day, you will receive gems, coins, arena tokens, and some experience items, depending on your current rank.
The Grand Arena has you assemble three 5-hero teams in a best 2 out of 3 matches. Fighting and beating a higher-ranked team lets you take their rank. There is some strategy here since if you put all of your strongest heroes in the first two teams, you might not always win, leaving your third team in trouble. Like the Arena, there is a ranking system, and the higher your rank, the tougher the opponent. The Grand Arena awards Grand Arena Tokens that can be used to purchase certain hero souls and gear. These tokens are gained on a per-hour basis depending on your rank and do not have to redeemed at a certain time. I’ve already had situations where I didn't play for a few days and then came back to have a few thousand tokens waiting for me.
For both the Arena and Grand Arena, there are three things to note. One is that when you receive your daily rank award, the game compares your arena and grand arena rankings, and you get rewards for the higher one. Another thing is that you can also go down in ranking if someone with a lower ranking beats you. For both arenas, you set up defense teams, and those are the teams that fight other players when they challenge you. Lastly, when doing arena and grand arena, you do not control your heroes; the game automatically uses your skills when they become available.
Time Rifts are events that offer coins or experience items as rewards. Only one of two events is open on any particular day of the week, with the exception of Sunday where you can do both events. There are 9 difficulty levels, with higher levels offering better-quality experience items or more coins. The higher difficulties become available at higher team levels, and you can only do these events twice a day.
Hero Trials work somewhat like Time Rifts. There are three different trials, and only one is available each day, except on Sundays when all three are open. Also, unlike the Time Rifts where you can use any heroes, the Hero Trials require you to either use physical, magic, or female heroes, depending on the trial. The rewards here are pieces of gear that get better as the difficulty increases. Similar to Time Rifts, the higher difficulties become available at higher team levels, and you can only do these events five times a day.
The Outland portal is interesting and frustrating. On one hand, you face one of five different enemies rotating daily that require you to use certain heroes to overcome their attacks and abilities. Higher difficulty levels offer better items. The issue here is that if you do not have the right heroes to beat the enemy, you are going to be stuck advancing until you get them. You can do the Outland portal twice a day.
The Booty cave, in theory, is a neat concept. Here you can dig a cave for either coins or experience potions. You can keep the cave for 1, 3, and 10 hours. The longer you have a cave, the more resources you can earn. You have to choose a team to defend each of your caves since other players can attack and steal your resources. You can also attack other players caves to take their resources. Like I said, it’s a neat concept, but one that I do not do very often. I find it faster just to buy experience items from the merchant and coins come fast enough in the game.
The Crusade, on the other hand, is something I do as often as possible. The Crusade is a 15-battle persistent gauntlet. How it is broken down is that you fight a 5-hero team, beat that team, and get a chest that can have anything from gear to hero souls. You keep progressing and fighting harder and harder teams, eventually defeating the 15th and final team. You can use any heroes you want, but the stipulation is that health, energy, and deaths carry over after each battle (note that you do regain some health and energy at the end of each battle on the normal difficulty). Also, every third chest contains Crusade coins that can be used to buy hero stones and gear. It is also worth noting that buying gear with Crusade coins is a bad idea due to these items being available from the merchants, whereas the souls in the Crusade are only bought with Crusade coins. The crusade can take a while to do, but the rewards are well worth it, at least early on. I have already gotten legendary gear from some final chests. There is a hard difficulty that provides better items from chest, but your heroes do not regenerate any health or energy between fights.
The Grand Kingdom is a floor-based mode where you fight harder and harder teams. After you beat a team, you get to pick from one of four chests that can contain gear or a hero soul. Although the game tells you what is possible to get from the chests, opening one of them up randomly gives one of the four items. You can use gems to unlock another or all remaining chests, if you wanted to.
Guilds in Heroes Charge are a way for up to 50 players to play and stay in contact with each other. There is a Mercenary camp into which you can put a hero that anyone else in the guild can use once per day. Even if no one uses the hero, when you remove the hero from the camp, you get coins for how long they were in the camp. Also, when guild members use stamina, it contributes to the guild activity points. These points can be used to do guild activities, like enter the guild tournament, and more importantly, unlock raids.
Raids are just like campaign stages, but the enemies are exceptionally stronger. Any guild member can participate when the raid is unlocked. Contributing gives you coins depending on how much damage you did, and you can participate in stage battles twice a day. Defeating stages and progressing rewards gear for the guild that anyone in the guild can request to take. You also can earn guild coins that can be used to buy hero stones and gear. I like the raids, but they do take a while to do, depending on your guild size. The more active players helping with the raid, the faster it will go.
The Ancient Temple is another feature that the guild can help with. This unlocks randomly while doing campaign missions. Here you have 8 hours to clear three wings of the temple. If you clear it, you receive the gear that is shown. The only issue is that it takes three separate players to clear the temple, and each person can only participate once in a given temple. Due to this, I have never cleared the temple.
There is the Heroes Camp, which is another way to gain resources and power up your heroes. There are Championships and Guild Tournaments that you can enter and bet on for rewards. There is also a War of the Gods where you create teams of max-level heroes and go against other max-level heroes in real time against another player. I'm glancing over these since the Heroes camp does not unlock until level 80, and since my guild is small, I have never done the guild tournament. As for the Championship and War of the Gods, I only do them on occasion.
Almost all of these events have a daily task attached to them. These dailies are a way to gain player experience besides using stamina. This, along with the daily sign-in rewards, are a big reason to log in everyday. They also have events tied to most features that double item/hero stone drops. There are also holiday events that give out free rewards and also rewards for spending money. The game also gives out free stamina during a two-hour window three times a day. At the very least, if you log in and get the stamina, you can stockpile it until you have time to play.
I like the graphics and audio of this game. The game uses 2-D graphics for its characters and backgrounds, which works well for the game. The heroes have detailed sprites and portraits that I feel look good and fit the rest of the game. The audio is decent, and you’ll hear the same two or three music scores over and over while the sounds effects match the hero special effects. Each hero also has some lines of voiced dialogue, which is a nice touch.
Up to this point, my review reads like a mini game FAQ and sounds like a glowing endorsement of the game, and I do enjoy this game. There is enough content in this game that even a non-paying player can come back day after day and still stay competitive. The developers are constantly doing patches, and since I started playing, new features like the Ancient Kingdom, Heroes Camp, and War of the Gods have been added. There is also a level of strategy required with this game. Later in the game, once you get enough heroes unlocked, consideration needs to given as to which heroes to prioritize when leveling and powering up since resources will not be available to keep all of them maxed out. However, this game does have some issues.
This game has a short playtime but requires a long commitment. Even with all the different events mentioned above, you can complete all the daily quests in about 20 minutes. Like most free-to-play games, if you run out of stamina, you cannot progress further in the campaign. Also, most of the events can only be done a few times a day. To make any meaningful progress in the game, you have to play for a few months to really get to the game’s endgame.
You also run into what I call “progression droughts”. When your heroes get past level 40, the gear required to power them up takes longer to get. This can slow down or halt your progression in the campaign and arena. This is another case where continued playing over time will get you what you need, but it can sometimes take weeks to get some pieces of gear.
Finally, this is still a free-to-play game where if you pay, you will advance farther than a non-paying player. This game has a VIP system that gives you points depending on how many gems you buy. Reaching a certain number of points will advance you to the next VIP level. These VIP levels unlock some convenience features, some extra chances at some events, and at higher levels, extra shops to buy items and hero stones. Currently, I am VIP 10 going on 11, and I have to say that some of the benefits do come in handy.
This is a game of commitment, similar to a MMO. If you put the time in, you will advance and be rewarded. If you like games with some RPG elements and some strategy, you will like this game, but go in knowing that this is still a game where real money is king, and in the end, your level of enjoyment may depend on whether or not you are willing to commit a little money to the game.
by Thonos
1/27/2017
NOTE: This review is written by someone who has invested well over a year into this game along with some money. Also, this review is going to look like a mini game FAQ for the game. That is an unintended side effect of trying to talk about all of the content this game has.
Free to play games can be tricky. Their purpose is to entice you to put money into the game using a “carrot on a stick” approach. While most people avoid the pitfalls of sinking large sums of money into games like this, others can spend hundreds of dollars. It's usually the people that do the latter that get the huge advantages later in the game which makes the strictly free to play players left in the dust. These players are called whales since they give so much money to the developer. While Heroes Charge does suffer from this, this is a free-to-play game that still gives the non paying players enough to do to compete.
Heroes Charge does have a story, but honestly it was so forgettable that I don't even remember what it is anymore. The game boils down to a 2-D game that lets you pick a team of 5 heroes and complete different tasks in the game. Your heroes gain energy while fighting, and when their energy is full, you can use that hero’s ultimate skill. All other combat and skill use is automatic. Along the way, your heroes gain experience and levels while your you gain overall experience for your account, which affects when new features unlock and what your maximum hero level is.
The game uses three main currencies. Coins are earned from doing most tasks and are used to buy most basic items. Gems, the game’s premium currency, are used to buy stronger items, some hero stones, and reset some events. You can also use gems to get more coins, if needed. Gems can be bought for real-world cash. Stamina is used to progress through campaign and elite campaigns, which will be discussed later. Stamina can be bought with gems, but it is also regained on its own over time at a rate of 10 per hour.
Coins and gems can be used at the Merchant shop to buy gear, items and soul stones. This shop resets every couple of hours with new items and sometimes heroes. There is a Troll and Black Market merchant that can appear after you use stamina that sell better gear, almost exclusively for gems. You can also use coins and gems to open treasure chests that can contain gear, hero stones and sometimes heroes. There are three levels of chests: bronze, silver, and gold chests. You get five free coin treasures (bronze) every day and a free gem chest (silver and gold) every two days.
The heroes are the main part of the game. As of this review, there are 111 heroes available to get either through events, certain currency exchanges, or grinding. Heroes are either physical or magical and are either front, middle, or back row heroes. When forming a team, you should have a balance between different types and positions of heroes that you put on your team (e.g. You don't want to use a team of all front-row heroes since this will usually leave you with no offensive power.
Heroes start at a grey power level and currently go up to red. Hero power can be upgraded by filling the six gear slots they have with the required gear for each hero. The hero then absorbs the gear, increasing their power and sometimes their quality color. When you change quality colors, you unlock new skills (up to purple level, and sometimes depending on the hero, orange level). Taking a hero from grey to red requires 17 upgrades. This is an important part of the game and one of the three ways to power up your heroes.
Another way to increase power level is to increase a hero’s star level. When you get a hero, they have a preset star rating from 1 to 3. The starting star level determines how many hero stones it takes to unlock the hero. All heroes can be upgraded to 5 stars by using soul stones of the same hero. These stones are gained from the same way that the hero is earned (farming, certain currency exchanges, events, etc..). One thing to note is that when you upgrade a hero from one star level to another, the hero’s base stats increase, and that effect is retroactive based on the hero level at the time of the upgrade. In other words, if you go from a three star to a four star at level 49, you will get the stat increase as if you leveled the hero from 1-49 as a four star hero. While not as time-efficient as upgrading a hero with gear, this is still an important way to increase a hero’s power, especially if you play this game for an extended period of time.
Each hero has four to five skills that unlock as their character gets stronger. These skills can be upgraded using skill points. Skill points take coins to use, but the skill points regenerate on their own up to a cap. A skill’s max level is dependent upon the hero’s max level. Some skills that do not open up until later have a lower maximum level, (e.g. A skill that does not open up until that hero reaches purple may have a max skill point cap roughly half of what the hero's level is). While keeping all of your skills maxed can be costly early on, it is well worth it.
Most gear in the game can be enchanted. Enchanting gear makes it stronger, and depending on the rarity of the gear, you can enchant it multiple times. You enchant gear using enchanting dust that comes in three strengths and is obtained through playing the game or events. You can also use other gear for enchanting, but it is not as cost-effective. When your heroes absorb gear that is enchanted, you get some of the enchanting dust back.
The campaign tells the story of Heroes Charge through a series of chapters, each of which has a varying number of stages. Some stages can only be done once while others can be repeated. Each stage consists of three rounds, with each round involving defeating all the enemies and proceeding to the next round. Each stage rewards coin and gear items. The first time beating a stage will give all of the items the stage offers as rewards, and running it subsequent times will give you a chance of getting some of those items. Better items become available as drops in later stages. Your progression is gated behind enemy difficulty and your player level.
There is also an Elite campaign that follows the same structure as the normal campaign where you progress from stage to stage and chapter to chapter, but the final hero boss may drop a soul token for that hero. Each of these elite stages can only be done three times a day. These stages are generally harder than the normal campaign, and while they also drop gear, the soul tokens are the main reason to do these.
In the Arena feature, you pick a team of five heroes and fight other players’ teams. Fighting and beating a higher-ranked team lets you take their rank. If you beat your previous highest-achieved rank, you get a certain amount of coins and gems, depending on the jump in ranking. At a certain point each day, you will receive gems, coins, arena tokens, and some experience items, depending on your current rank.
The Grand Arena has you assemble three 5-hero teams in a best 2 out of 3 matches. Fighting and beating a higher-ranked team lets you take their rank. There is some strategy here since if you put all of your strongest heroes in the first two teams, you might not always win, leaving your third team in trouble. Like the Arena, there is a ranking system, and the higher your rank, the tougher the opponent. The Grand Arena awards Grand Arena Tokens that can be used to purchase certain hero souls and gear. These tokens are gained on a per-hour basis depending on your rank and do not have to redeemed at a certain time. I’ve already had situations where I didn't play for a few days and then came back to have a few thousand tokens waiting for me.
For both the Arena and Grand Arena, there are three things to note. One is that when you receive your daily rank award, the game compares your arena and grand arena rankings, and you get rewards for the higher one. Another thing is that you can also go down in ranking if someone with a lower ranking beats you. For both arenas, you set up defense teams, and those are the teams that fight other players when they challenge you. Lastly, when doing arena and grand arena, you do not control your heroes; the game automatically uses your skills when they become available.
Time Rifts are events that offer coins or experience items as rewards. Only one of two events is open on any particular day of the week, with the exception of Sunday where you can do both events. There are 9 difficulty levels, with higher levels offering better-quality experience items or more coins. The higher difficulties become available at higher team levels, and you can only do these events twice a day.
Hero Trials work somewhat like Time Rifts. There are three different trials, and only one is available each day, except on Sundays when all three are open. Also, unlike the Time Rifts where you can use any heroes, the Hero Trials require you to either use physical, magic, or female heroes, depending on the trial. The rewards here are pieces of gear that get better as the difficulty increases. Similar to Time Rifts, the higher difficulties become available at higher team levels, and you can only do these events five times a day.
The Outland portal is interesting and frustrating. On one hand, you face one of five different enemies rotating daily that require you to use certain heroes to overcome their attacks and abilities. Higher difficulty levels offer better items. The issue here is that if you do not have the right heroes to beat the enemy, you are going to be stuck advancing until you get them. You can do the Outland portal twice a day.
The Booty cave, in theory, is a neat concept. Here you can dig a cave for either coins or experience potions. You can keep the cave for 1, 3, and 10 hours. The longer you have a cave, the more resources you can earn. You have to choose a team to defend each of your caves since other players can attack and steal your resources. You can also attack other players caves to take their resources. Like I said, it’s a neat concept, but one that I do not do very often. I find it faster just to buy experience items from the merchant and coins come fast enough in the game.
The Crusade, on the other hand, is something I do as often as possible. The Crusade is a 15-battle persistent gauntlet. How it is broken down is that you fight a 5-hero team, beat that team, and get a chest that can have anything from gear to hero souls. You keep progressing and fighting harder and harder teams, eventually defeating the 15th and final team. You can use any heroes you want, but the stipulation is that health, energy, and deaths carry over after each battle (note that you do regain some health and energy at the end of each battle on the normal difficulty). Also, every third chest contains Crusade coins that can be used to buy hero stones and gear. It is also worth noting that buying gear with Crusade coins is a bad idea due to these items being available from the merchants, whereas the souls in the Crusade are only bought with Crusade coins. The crusade can take a while to do, but the rewards are well worth it, at least early on. I have already gotten legendary gear from some final chests. There is a hard difficulty that provides better items from chest, but your heroes do not regenerate any health or energy between fights.
The Grand Kingdom is a floor-based mode where you fight harder and harder teams. After you beat a team, you get to pick from one of four chests that can contain gear or a hero soul. Although the game tells you what is possible to get from the chests, opening one of them up randomly gives one of the four items. You can use gems to unlock another or all remaining chests, if you wanted to.
Guilds in Heroes Charge are a way for up to 50 players to play and stay in contact with each other. There is a Mercenary camp into which you can put a hero that anyone else in the guild can use once per day. Even if no one uses the hero, when you remove the hero from the camp, you get coins for how long they were in the camp. Also, when guild members use stamina, it contributes to the guild activity points. These points can be used to do guild activities, like enter the guild tournament, and more importantly, unlock raids.
Raids are just like campaign stages, but the enemies are exceptionally stronger. Any guild member can participate when the raid is unlocked. Contributing gives you coins depending on how much damage you did, and you can participate in stage battles twice a day. Defeating stages and progressing rewards gear for the guild that anyone in the guild can request to take. You also can earn guild coins that can be used to buy hero stones and gear. I like the raids, but they do take a while to do, depending on your guild size. The more active players helping with the raid, the faster it will go.
The Ancient Temple is another feature that the guild can help with. This unlocks randomly while doing campaign missions. Here you have 8 hours to clear three wings of the temple. If you clear it, you receive the gear that is shown. The only issue is that it takes three separate players to clear the temple, and each person can only participate once in a given temple. Due to this, I have never cleared the temple.
There is the Heroes Camp, which is another way to gain resources and power up your heroes. There are Championships and Guild Tournaments that you can enter and bet on for rewards. There is also a War of the Gods where you create teams of max-level heroes and go against other max-level heroes in real time against another player. I'm glancing over these since the Heroes camp does not unlock until level 80, and since my guild is small, I have never done the guild tournament. As for the Championship and War of the Gods, I only do them on occasion.
Almost all of these events have a daily task attached to them. These dailies are a way to gain player experience besides using stamina. This, along with the daily sign-in rewards, are a big reason to log in everyday. They also have events tied to most features that double item/hero stone drops. There are also holiday events that give out free rewards and also rewards for spending money. The game also gives out free stamina during a two-hour window three times a day. At the very least, if you log in and get the stamina, you can stockpile it until you have time to play.
I like the graphics and audio of this game. The game uses 2-D graphics for its characters and backgrounds, which works well for the game. The heroes have detailed sprites and portraits that I feel look good and fit the rest of the game. The audio is decent, and you’ll hear the same two or three music scores over and over while the sounds effects match the hero special effects. Each hero also has some lines of voiced dialogue, which is a nice touch.
Up to this point, my review reads like a mini game FAQ and sounds like a glowing endorsement of the game, and I do enjoy this game. There is enough content in this game that even a non-paying player can come back day after day and still stay competitive. The developers are constantly doing patches, and since I started playing, new features like the Ancient Kingdom, Heroes Camp, and War of the Gods have been added. There is also a level of strategy required with this game. Later in the game, once you get enough heroes unlocked, consideration needs to given as to which heroes to prioritize when leveling and powering up since resources will not be available to keep all of them maxed out. However, this game does have some issues.
This game has a short playtime but requires a long commitment. Even with all the different events mentioned above, you can complete all the daily quests in about 20 minutes. Like most free-to-play games, if you run out of stamina, you cannot progress further in the campaign. Also, most of the events can only be done a few times a day. To make any meaningful progress in the game, you have to play for a few months to really get to the game’s endgame.
You also run into what I call “progression droughts”. When your heroes get past level 40, the gear required to power them up takes longer to get. This can slow down or halt your progression in the campaign and arena. This is another case where continued playing over time will get you what you need, but it can sometimes take weeks to get some pieces of gear.
Finally, this is still a free-to-play game where if you pay, you will advance farther than a non-paying player. This game has a VIP system that gives you points depending on how many gems you buy. Reaching a certain number of points will advance you to the next VIP level. These VIP levels unlock some convenience features, some extra chances at some events, and at higher levels, extra shops to buy items and hero stones. Currently, I am VIP 10 going on 11, and I have to say that some of the benefits do come in handy.
This is a game of commitment, similar to a MMO. If you put the time in, you will advance and be rewarded. If you like games with some RPG elements and some strategy, you will like this game, but go in knowing that this is still a game where real money is king, and in the end, your level of enjoyment may depend on whether or not you are willing to commit a little money to the game.