Today marks the 3rd anniversary for the Fire Emblem Heroes mobile game. It’s supposed to be a celebration. Most companies typically aim to please the customers and fans of their games and make sure that there’s no backlash. It’s very unfortunate that Intelligent System never learned from their past mistakes and they make another mistake again this time around.
Take a look at Fire Emblem Heroes video on YouTube. There’re more than 2:1 dislike to like ratio. About 70% of viewer dislike the announcement of the 3rd celebration. Why is that? It’s all because of the announcement of the new subscription – FEH pass.
This announcement overshadows all other things that they announced. People are not talking about any gifts from the 3rd anniversary announcements, but complained about the upcoming FEH pass. If you look at Fire Emblem Heroes sub on reddit, you’ll know what I’m talking about. The subreddit exploded with anger, disappointment, etc. It’s all due to the FEH pass.
What is FEH pass?
It’s a new subscription for Fire Emblem Heroes that’ll cost about $10 per month. It’s going to be available really soon. Basically, users who purchase the pass will be able to enjoy 5 benefits (see the video):
- Two 5* heroes per month
- 2 skins per month
- 2 special quests per month
- 3 summoner support
- Re-Act feature
- Auto play feature.
What makes the community exploded with anger? There are quite a few reasons. Let’s take a look.
Skins
The skins will have affect to buff the heroes stats by 2 of each attributes. So, basically a +10 BST. It’s very useful to buff the old gen heroes. As with any gacha games, power crept is unavoidable. This is simply the nature of the game and the business model. Newer heroes have to be a bit stronger than older heroes, otherwise people won’t spend money to get the new heroes. As of this time, the generation 1 heroes (first year heroes) are way behind the generation 4 heroes by about 10 BST. So, the skins is a way for the older generation heroes to catch up in order to have better relevance to the new heroes. It sounded good, right.
Unfortunately, the buff is locked behind subscription model. That means only the paying players get to use older generation heroes with better stats. IS did not mention whether the additional stats will be accessible to the free to play players. Currently, many people assumed that the buff will only be available to those who subscribe. And if majority of players are fine with this practice, what’s stopping the company to lock other heroes improvement behind the subscription too, or increase the subscription price to include more than 2 heroes per month, etc.
Actually, players have complained about the lower BST on older heroes since they’re power crept by newer heroes. IS tried to fix that with dragon flowers, but that’s not enough. There are new heroes introduced every 2-3 weeks. To players, this is something that IS as the company need to resolved, not something they have to locked behind a subscription. The additional 10 BST has implication to the competitive game mode. The skins increase that heroes’ BIN by 2. Generation 1 infantry heroes typically have about 157-158 BST. With the additional 10 BST, they’ll be in 167-168 BST. When merged, they’ll be in the 170 BIN. So, for the same heroes, F2P players will have lower score than paying players by 2 BINs.
5* Heroes
People didn’t seem to complain about this benefit. It already have precedent and seems that players don’t mind. Getting 2 extra 5 star heroes per month is nice, but they are accessible to free to play players too. As long as F2P players are lucky in their summoning sessions, they can get those 5 stars.
Special Quests
People also don’t complain as much on this benefit. F2P players will lose out on the additional resources. The results, it’ll simply take F2P players longer to achieve what they want to achieve. But at least, everything is available to F2P players albeit at a much slower pace.
3 Summoner Supports
People complained about this benefit. Why does it have to be locked behind subscription? Though the summoner support do not directly affect the high scoring on offense, it does have some effects in gameplay. Summoner support give additional stats to any heroes by up to 13 additional stats. Currently all players have access to 1 summoner support. The assumption is that with 3 summoner supports, it’ll make it easier to players to win the competitive game mode.
Re-Act
This feature allows players to undo their action in certain game mode. People don’t seem to complain about this feature. I actually don’t know why this is a feature benefit. Fire Emblem games are popular due to the no undo feature. Once we decide to take an action, that’s it. You can’t undo. This feature really doesn’t fit.
Auto Play
People also complain about this feature. Some game mode in Fire Emblem is very repetitive and grindy such as Tempest Trials. This will allow players to set the game to repeatedly auto start a game until stamina is gone. It doesn’t make any sense to lock this feature behind a paywall.
Quit the game?
That’s the sentiment of many people who post their comments on reddit. They are angry at IS and Nintendo, calling them greedy. People are displeased with the way the company handle the game. They are the loyal Fire Emblem fans. This may actually hurt the game as a whole. I already saw comments about people are uninstalling the game and leaving negative feedback on the store. IS doesn’t seem to ever learned from their past mistake. If they do, they would’ve not announce this thing on the anniversary. Instead of celebration, they shot their own foot. People are angry and uninstalling the game.
What about me? I’m a F2P player too. Will I quit the game? Will I cave in and subscribe? I’m going to wait and see what IS will eventually do before making any decision. Currently, it doesn’t really affect me much. If you’ve read any of my previous post, you’ll find that I’m somewhat competitive in this game but not very. I’m currently yoyo-ing in Arena tier 20-21, Aether Raids tier 27 (light season) and tier 26 (Anima season), top rank bracket in Allegiance Battle, top 3K in Arena Assault. So, missing out on the highest rewards, highest ranks don’t really matter that much. I don’t like the pass, but it’s not the end of the world. I hate the fact that some of the needed improvement such as additional stats buff to older generation heroes and the 3 summoner support are locked behind the paywall. The announcement really left quite a sour taste in the mouth. I was really looking forward to the 3rd anniversary. Unfortunately, it’s ruined now.
My Recommendation
IS need to make FEH pass detailed info available as quickly as possible to address the issue that players brought up. I think it’s for their best interest to make the buff to older heroes and the 3 summoner supports feature are accessible to all players. Make them accessible to F2P players via other alternative, i.e. orbs or other in-game currency.