I have to say that the difficulty level in Fire Embem Heroes PvE game mode has increased considerably lately. Though not all players will feel it. I think newer players won’t feel it since they won’t know how it was in the past. However, players that have been playing since the first years and only casually playing the game will feel it more. How can that be? Let’s take a look …
Fire Emblem Heroes game is quite old
This game has been around since Feb 2017. We’re still in the middle of 5th year anniversary. FEH is a gacha game and because of that nature, in order to Intelligent Systems to survive – meaning keep on making money from this game – they have to keep pumping out new heroes for players to purchase. Well, purchase is not completely accurate term – gamble is a better term. I said gamble because players have to “summon” the hero. Summon results are random – usually 3% rate to get the newest heroes (or 0.75% rate to get the newest heroes you want). Basically, players need to gamble in order to get the new heroes by using orbs – in game currency for FEH.
The game gives out a very limited amount of orbs to players. Once players used up all of those orbs, they have to spent money to purchase the orbs to continue on gambling on getting the newest heroes. Other “purchase” like mechanic exists in the game, such as “Spark”, “FEH Pass”, “Spark for FEH Pass” or “Special Promo”, however, gambling is still the way players have to go through in order to get the latest, greatest, newest heroes. Players can only “Spark” after they “summon or gamble” 40 times. Special promo usually only gives out heroes that are not the latest/newest. FEH Pass gives out very old heroes.
Gacha nature
That’s the mechanic of getting the hero – Gacha. Now, what does IS have to do in order to keep players spending their money to purchase orbs to gamble month after month? If newest heroes they introduced are MEH, players won’t gamble. If people don’t gamble, they don’t make money. They have to keep on introducing newest heroes that’s slightly more powerful than the previous ones. That’s what most people considered as “Power Creep”. In FEH, there’s also “Skill Creep” where the skills are more powerful than before.
By now, there are very few heroes that were introduced in 2017 that can withstand the latest heroes without some kind of major investments. If you’ve been playing very casually, not building/tinkering with your older gen heroes, then you’re going to feel the difficulty increased quite a bit. Newer players usually have enough orbs to gamble on the newer banner to get newer heroes. So, newer players won’t be affected too much. However, as soon as they run out of orbs just like the rest of us, they too will face this issue in the future.
Older generation heroes are a lot weaker when compared to the newer generation heroes. Older gen heroes have less stats and skills. Their skills are typically a one-liner effect and not that powerful. Newer heroes have much higher stats and much better skills with multiple effects – see screenshots below.
Book 5 heroes
I didn’t feel this difficulty issue before the latest tempest trial where Duo Chrom+Robin is the boss. With tempest trials, I usually just use 1 bonus hero I have and slap other heroes I want to SP/HM grind. I don’t even have to build them. I did the similar thing this time around, using original Chrom (bonus), original male Robin (bonus) and 2 other heroes I’m grinding for SP/HM. All are unmerged with basic skills I foddered from older gen unit. As I played, I didn’t realized that book 5 heroes were in this mode. Basic original Chrom with no refine cannot defeat the green flier fallen female Morgan. Chrom lost. Basic original Robin with triangle adept lost against the red fallen male Morgan. Robin with triangle adept also lost against Duo Chrom+Robin. My first team got wiped out in the first game of this tempest trial – the 7th battle. So, I had to bring in more powerful heroes to finish the game. This is the first time in such a long time that I didn’t get a perfect score in 1st game of 3x bonus score of tempest trial.
Older generation heroes
This makes me wonder – what should I do with my older generation heroes. I have a lot of them. I don’t use them, most of them are not built. They are outdated, weak and cannot defeat newer unit unless merged and got fodder from newer heroes. I have a few +10 older gen units – Nowi, Adult Tiki, Reinhardt, Camilla. They need to be refreshed with new skills and refine to compete with newer heroes. I don’t feel like doing that. How long will they last if I do that? At the current power creep speed, I don’t think they’ll last long.
That’s my thought on the increased difficulty on Fire Emblem Heroes. What about you? Do you feel the increased difficulty too?