Valiant Force Forum

The main reason why this complete 15 trial thing is inherently bad for the game is due to the fact that VF is at its core, a gacha game.
On top of being a gacha game, its a gacha game where the heroes you get heavily skew how far you can progress in the game.

Due to the fact that VF's game design is fundamentally flawed from the start, having the 100% hero reward placed behind a gear-check wall isn't helping. Why do i say that the game design is flawed, let me explain:
Not saying a gacha type of game can't succeed but the fact that the heroes you get are all very different with lots of strengths and weaknesses makes lots of heroes strong and at the same time others extremely weak.
There are other gacha games where there are wide selection of collectibles but that's basically it, they are all collectibles, not must haves. Sure metas will develop and some will become core units and what not but it't not like VF where not having the meta units will hamper your progress significantly.
For example:
Trigger archers, cybella, kane
Summoners, sven, tali, sora, matilda
faye, lucille, units for sdd setups etc

If you don't have any of the above don't even bother about raid. Legendary and above difficulty also use a lot of those units as core setups. Everything in the game is now balanced with these units in mind. Imagine if you didn't have any of these units, you would scream out that content is too bloody hard. Now why is it so hard you might ask, precisely because of the above units and the trigger system in place.

Arguments against these would be ability to use ally units, valianites for exchange of both summoner and regular units as well as pixies. Yes sure you have all these to ease the content for you. But you can only have 1 ally, you still need the other 4 units. 

Exchanging for a unit+ pixie costs an exorbitant amount of gems, even more so for a summoner. you might take 2 months or more to save up 30 val if you are purely F2P.
So what, everyone can still get the units they want at some point in time. This is the crux of the issue. How many months can it take for you to properly form your SDD team? How much to invest to make 1 trigger archer max crit? having 10k+ damage on your svens? 20k hp on Faye? All of this takes time to build up and maybe after 3 or 4 months you got a super good SDD/ trigger team or something. By then maybe the meta has shifted due to new units/gear being introduced. So maybe 1 or 2 of your units are rendered obsolete. Then your hard earned val you used to exchange for the units goes down the toilet. Hardcore players / p2p players don't feel as much pain for the transition but the casuals / f2p suffer the most.

Now back to the 100% reward, for those newer / undergeared players, completing 100% is a long shot whereas more seasoned players can just breeze through the content cause they have the meta units already. So now the stronger players have this free hero basically granting them a further 15/20 val lead over those who couldn't get it. I don't expect someone who is new to complete 100%, but someone who is 2months+ into the game can hardly be considered a new player. 
You imagine yourself as this newer player, you can do all the quests except 1 so you can't get the 100%, what do you get in the end. Basically close to nothing if unlucky. Lots of equipment/hero tickets are given but its no guarantee of 5*, not to mention completing the set. (Excluding drops from the events itself) Sure you can exchange for bazaar items but so can the stronger player (at a faster rate even) but bazaar items still include rune tickets, hierlooms so progress can still be made from there. But its painfully slow. Hierlooms take an exorbitant amount of gold and time to up 1 set to 4/5/6*, runes are also heavily RNG based and majority of runes you get might be useless and simply fodder material.

Ask yourselves this. What do you play the event for. Honestly.
100% chest + legendary drops and bazaar items obviously. So you take away the 100% chest and legendary drops will you even still play the events. For the new and upcoming player, they may go through event after event with little to no progress because they cannot do legendary. It may take months before a player can have a good team to consistently clear legendary content comfortably. What will happen before then, they quit the game obviously. At least with the 100% hero there is a sense of progression. Honestly is giving them the hero spoon feeding them? you still need to work for your gear, runes, MLB and faith. On top of making a proper team.
RNG isn't the problem, you look at Diablo 3 now. RNG all over the place yet you can still play and be happy with the game, not feel salt at every turn. If you play the game and spend the time but gain little to no progress, it isn't player friendly at all, even more so for a mobile game where players may have the majority of people may be casual players.

*Saves gems for 1 month. Spends 3k gems on new event to pull new hero. Gets almost no 5* potential and no event hero.*
How will you feel. bloody salted i bet. 
*Struggles with raid since the start. Finally have enough for full set. Exchanges for champion set. Wiz / Def / Wiz / Zodiac. Spends 30+ val to reroll everything to trinity"
How will you feel. bloody salted i bet.
*Spends months waiting for valiant tickets from both login and arena. What do you get. Kiera Kiera Kiera, oh kane! hercules faith. Faints oh a darrion! hera. Freya! Athena*
How will you feel. bloody salted i bet.

Why do you think the player population has plummeted so badly? The nature of the game requires you to invest lots of time so that over the long run the RNG evens out. Casuals can't have that. 
I don't need the game to be easy mode, i play this game a lot and can afford the salt, i come from games even saltier than VF. But if the game cannot at least cater to newer players / casuals it will just die.
When i mean cater i don't mean spoon-feed them, but provide them an appropriate path of progression. 
You tell people to git gud, but do they have a way to do that consistently? Depends on luck most of the time.
Lucky = get the hero/gear you need. unlucky = wait to exchange using valianite 

Its no easy job to balance for casuals / hardcore / f2p / p2p players but the devs have pigeonholed themselves into a corner with the trigger system. No trigger = no DPS / Trigger = absurd DPS. How do you even balance this. Obviously not by releasing hard to get heroes with trigger abilities.

Just my wall of text rant about the current state of the game. you may not agree with me, but frankly its my opinion and you don't have to share the same one. Everyone has different views and so be it, i just hope VF survives.

Uhh.. I feel the first 2 events everyone has to go through it without 100% completion when they are a noob unless they are willing to spend gems and get a decent hero pool draw and get a decent generic line up for the event ( tank dps healer lol, or RNG triggers). I think that is a given. The difficulty is there so that it is more enjoyable when you overcome it. This is what separates the true gamers who love the game from those seeking quick pleasure from it. Agreed with what Freydom said, many people probably started taking for granted these stuff done by the devs. The arena, though relevant, is a completely different matter. Summoners needed to dominate it can be quite true to a certain extent, especially when needing to deal with all those player accounts who quit and dropped till bronze 1 (srsly full 5* team fighting you when you don't have a 5* is not even a funny matter). Thus, arena needs a revamp for that, period. But back to the matter, you said you're a launch player and you want to bring up this matter? Isn't this why you're still playing the game, cos you enjoy overcoming some trials? Just because there's a trial that you can't auto or seem to figure for now, doesn't mean it is not doable. Previous event gave haste potions. Sven's events gives wyvern orbs. You're bound to have the 4* attack roots from the previous events' chest drops. And yeah, it is called a trial, it better pose some difficulty. I agree it is not newb-friendly, but this makes the time spent by older players worth it and retains them. And yeah seriously to those who just keep on f***ing complaining and not being thankful or grateful, go f*** yourselves. You earned it and it is hilarious.

"The important thing in Life is not triumph, but the struggle" - Pierre de Coubertin

The main reason why this complete 15 trial thing is inherently bad for the game is due to the fact that VF is at its core, a gacha game.
On top of being a gacha game, its a gacha game where the heroes you get heavily skew how far you can progress in the game.

Due to the fact that VF's game design is fundamentally flawed from the start, having the 100% hero reward placed behind a gear-check wall isn't helping. Why do i say that the game design is flawed, let me explain:
Not saying a gacha type of game can't succeed but the fact that the heroes you get are all very different with lots of strengths and weaknesses makes lots of heroes strong and at the same time others extremely weak.
There are other gacha games where there are wide selection of collectibles but that's basically it, they are all collectibles, not must haves. Sure metas will develop and some will become core units and what not but it't not like VF where not having the meta units will hamper your progress significantly.
For example:
Trigger archers, cybella, kane
Summoners, sven, tali, sora, matilda
faye, lucille, units for sdd setups etc

If you don't have any of the above don't even bother about raid. Legendary and above difficulty also use a lot of those units as core setups. Everything in the game is now balanced with these units in mind. Imagine if you didn't have any of these units, you would scream out that content is too bloody hard. Now why is it so hard you might ask, precisely because of the above units and the trigger system in place.

Arguments against these would be ability to use ally units, valianites for exchange of both summoner and regular units as well as pixies. Yes sure you have all these to ease the content for you. But you can only have 1 ally, you still need the other 4 units. 

Exchanging for a unit+ pixie costs an exorbitant amount of gems, even more so for a summoner. you might take 2 months or more to save up 30 val if you are purely F2P.
So what, everyone can still get the units they want at some point in time. This is the crux of the issue. How many months can it take for you to properly form your SDD team? How much to invest to make 1 trigger archer max crit? having 10k+ damage on your svens? 20k hp on Faye? All of this takes time to build up and maybe after 3 or 4 months you got a super good SDD/ trigger team or something. By then maybe the meta has shifted due to new units/gear being introduced. So maybe 1 or 2 of your units are rendered obsolete. Then your hard earned val you used to exchange for the units goes down the toilet. Hardcore players / p2p players don't feel as much pain for the transition but the casuals / f2p suffer the most.

Now back to the 100% reward, for those newer / undergeared players, completing 100% is a long shot whereas more seasoned players can just breeze through the content cause they have the meta units already. So now the stronger players have this free hero basically granting them a further 15/20 val lead over those who couldn't get it. I don't expect someone who is new to complete 100%, but someone who is 2months+ into the game can hardly be considered a new player. 
You imagine yourself as this newer player, you can do all the quests except 1 so you can't get the 100%, what do you get in the end. Basically close to nothing if unlucky. Lots of equipment/hero tickets are given but its no guarantee of 5*, not to mention completing the set. (Excluding drops from the events itself) Sure you can exchange for bazaar items but so can the stronger player (at a faster rate even) but bazaar items still include rune tickets, hierlooms so progress can still be made from there. But its painfully slow. Hierlooms take an exorbitant amount of gold and time to up 1 set to 4/5/6*, runes are also heavily RNG based and majority of runes you get might be useless and simply fodder material.

Ask yourselves this. What do you play the event for. Honestly.
100% chest + legendary drops and bazaar items obviously. So you take away the 100% chest and legendary drops will you even still play the events. For the new and upcoming player, they may go through event after event with little to no progress because they cannot do legendary. It may take months before a player can have a good team to consistently clear legendary content comfortably. What will happen before then, they quit the game obviously. At least with the 100% hero there is a sense of progression. Honestly is giving them the hero spoon feeding them? you still need to work for your gear, runes, MLB and faith. On top of making a proper team.
RNG isn't the problem, you look at Diablo 3 now. RNG all over the place yet you can still play and be happy with the game, not feel salt at every turn. If you play the game and spend the time but gain little to no progress, it isn't player friendly at all, even more so for a mobile game where players may have the majority of people may be casual players.

*Saves gems for 1 month. Spends 3k gems on new event to pull new hero. Gets almost no 5* potential and no event hero.*
How will you feel. bloody salted i bet. 
*Struggles with raid since the start. Finally have enough for full set. Exchanges for champion set. Wiz / Def / Wiz / Zodiac. Spends 30+ val to reroll everything to trinity"
How will you feel. bloody salted i bet.
*Spends months waiting for valiant tickets from both login and arena. What do you get. Kiera Kiera Kiera, oh kane! hercules faith. Faints oh a darrion! hera. Freya! Athena*
How will you feel. bloody salted i bet.

Why do you think the player population has plummeted so badly? The nature of the game requires you to invest lots of time so that over the long run the RNG evens out. Casuals can't have that. 
I don't need the game to be easy mode, i play this game a lot and can afford the salt, i come from games even saltier than VF. But if the game cannot at least cater to newer players / casuals it will just die.
When i mean cater i don't mean spoon-feed them, but provide them an appropriate path of progression. 
You tell people to git gud, but do they have a way to do that consistently? Depends on luck most of the time.
Lucky = get the hero/gear you need. unlucky = wait to exchange using valianite 

Its no easy job to balance for casuals / hardcore / f2p / p2p players but the devs have pigeonholed themselves into a corner with the trigger system. No trigger = no DPS / Trigger = absurd DPS. How do you even balance this. Obviously not by releasing hard to get heroes with trigger abilities.

Just my wall of text rant about the current state of the game. you may not agree with me, but frankly its my opinion and you don't have to share the same one. Everyone has different views and so be it, i just hope VF survives.

 i really think we must consider his/her statements, to endorse new player for a bigger community, we or dev need to make a game that's not disheatening for a new player, but ofc bbqsauce it's not easy, because if the events is too easy it will disheartening for veteran, my idea maybe we need multi events but ofc the price will be different, like when i play at first time i don't chase for 100% completion, but what i chase is 4* set gear, so i can get stronger in next event, but it might be irrelevant to nowdays new player, 
so my propose for tier 2 events maybe *5 potensial(& will be always *3 with  *5 potential) hero roll or more set *4 gear ofc if the idea accepted, before any question about what if after completion tier 1 they go to tier 2? why not making like raid, but with additional, once u choose tier 1 event you can't go to tier 2, how about the map? the map can be the same, only the objective for completiion will be different.
with this kind of setup Newbies can't be feel neglected

Sorry.. I laughed.

It took me 3 months more to get where i am. I am a F2P player.

The pain to try to finish the events quests are real but a fact.

I need to earn gems as many ways as i could in the past, and when there is no such good events rewards. Looking at legend level with 100 gems rewards are like seeing a carrot hang up on a tree that i cannot reach. Even now, i cant complete all also.

But i face it, because i am a f2p. Access to gems and proper usage of gems in the past is the key to going further.
Now u have a raid system, a 6 medal 6*!!!! Weapon and heirloom items!!! And you are complaining you cant do anything.

Seriously.. I laughed..

I will like to suggest the dev to have the 100% rewards to be event hero selectors than the event hero. Because apparently looking at the event hero reward is pissing people off. And also. Selector only have 2 hero usually. So shouldnt be a big issue.

Woah woah, I wasn't expecting the conversation to devolve into this. All I wanted to do when I made this topic was voice my own opinion on this matter and subsequently request for help in beating a trial that I was stuck in. While it might seem that my original post was a complaint, I never intended to do so. And just to clear things up: With the exception of the fact that the 15 trial requirements might not be entirely newbie friendly, I have no other issues with the it being a requirement for the 100% completion chest. My ONLY gripe was clearing Legendary trial 2. The only reason why I termed the trial 'ridiculous' was because I was repeatedly encountering Fayes and Kahunas in both waves. This made it difficult to clear the stringent 'within 7 rounds' trial. Though funnily enough, once I posted this thread, with the exception of a single Holy Defender Faye in the second wave, I never ran into any Kahunas and together with some slight changes to the team composition suggested by YayuSheng, I HAVE managed to complete that second trial.

Including this one, I've made a grand total of 4 posts, and I almost NEVER read the topics in the VF forum so I didn't have any clues that complaints were rampant during the past events. While I understand that the majority of you frequent posters might be tired of "complaint" threads, I ask that you do not jump to any conclusions and lump everyone who made said topics into a single basket.

Also, to Cassiel, just because threads complimenting the actions of the development team weren't made, doesn't necessarily mean that they weren't given. In any video game community, complaints are always going to be more rampant and visible than compliments. Myself and a group of friends who play VF were very positive of the recent changes made to the garrison and the small QOL changes. You didn't know it, the development team didn't know it, but compliments were indeed given. As long as the game continues to improve, they wouldn't have any problems maintaining or even increasing the current player base. This can be construed as a form of 'compliment'.

Seeing as how the original goal of the thread has been fulfilled, I thank the few people who offered to help, and the one guy who did. You guys can continue to discuss about this "issue", but I will no longer partake in it. Good day.

I know that your main intention is to find out how to pass 2nd trial of legendary event stage. But your topic title negatively indicates unhappiness about the need to complete 15 trials and also in your opening post, you said it's extremely hard for average players to complete 100%. Your topic title and your opinion have drawn more attention of players (especially the negative title). And many of the latter posts have turned to discuss more of the history of 100% event completion reward. This is where I share my opinion in agreement with another post that the devs have been improving the game according to players' feedback and yet there are always complains. Regarding my opinion on the ability to clear 100% achievement, I'm sure I have made myself clear that I prefer it to be easier for majority for the longevity of the game.
I believe too much pessimism or negative thinking could kill the game. It's great to know you and your friends like the game. If you really love the game like you claimed, please refrain from posting negative thread but instead ask for opinion and you will find that you can easily clear 2nd trial without having to post anything negative   Now the consequence of your negative title and opinions has caused the heated up discussion and dissent among old and new players. This is not the firs time this kind of conversation occurred though.

Lastly, let's hope everyone share their opinions in the constructive way. It's a tough job for the devs to balance the challenge for veteran players and new/young players but as long as it is a constructive feedback, the devs will be able to make use of it.

Well, then i pretty sorry on how the thread have turn to this direction.

So i guess it is important to set the right topic and tone in the initial post to highlight your intention.

"Need help with trial 2 - 7 turns to complete"

Something like that is more friendly than the one you have now. Now all of us know, again, there is no way to balance new and seasonal players, the content is meant for average players already and for some seasoned whale players, master is like a piece of cake for them and they are already storing for the ladder event. (they care less about completion the 100% before ladder starts)

But that doesn't mean the events can be set so easy for everyone to clear because the game need to have some challenge for average or new players. Games should make people think and discuss for ways to win it. Not just send in a troop and know you will win no matter what. 

Hi guys, great discussion!

I will now share my personal opinion as an administrator who has no say in the decision making of the difficulty levels!

I find that the difficulty of the event mode in this run has been scaled to match the difficulty in story mode much better. That means: if you could clear Story Mode Legendary 24-3, you more or less should clear this event with similar effort. Previously, being able to clear L 24-3 doesn't mean you could even touch the legendary difficulties in events as sometimes the mechanics require one specific team which is something many players do not have.

I find this balance much more fun, as we can come up with all sorts of teams for those trying to rise above their current strength and still allow the best players to breeze through this difficulty and challenge Master. It's much better than being forced to get the event hero for event's sake!

I do hope that there will be less comparisons with Sora's event because it's obvious that the previous event was a gift from the developers to everyone (1 skeleton can clear the trials in Master). We wouldn't want another no skills trial do we :p

Hi guys, great discussion!

I will now share my personal opinion as an administrator who has no say in the decision making of the difficulty levels!

I find that the difficulty of the event mode in this run has been scaled to match the difficulty in story mode much better. That means: if you could clear Story Mode Legendary 24-3, you more or less should clear this event with similar effort. Previously, being able to clear L 24-3 doesn't mean you could even touch the legendary difficulties in events as sometimes the mechanics require one specific team which is something many players do not have.

I find this balance much more fun, as we can come up with all sorts of teams for those trying to rise above their current strength and still allow the best players to breeze through this difficulty and challenge Master. It's much better than being forced to get the event hero for event's sake!

I do hope that there will be less comparisons with Sora's event because it's obvious that the previous event was a gift from the developers to everyone (1 skeleton can clear the trials in Master). We wouldn't want another no skills trial do we :p

Sound logical. If players can beat legendary difficulty in story mode, they can beat legendary difficulty in event mode. Problem could be the difficulty level is never stable. After i beat legendary act 4, it still took me some time to beat legendary event. If we can make the difficulty level stable with the same difficulty level of legendary story mode, I'm sure there will be less complain coz we can explain the reason clearly and logically.

The main reason why this complete 15 trial thing is inherently bad for the game is due to the fact that VF is at its core, a gacha game.
On top of being a gacha game, its a gacha game where the heroes you get heavily skew how far you can progress in the game.

Due to the fact that VF's game design is fundamentally flawed from the start, having the 100% hero reward placed behind a gear-check wall isn't helping. Why do i say that the game design is flawed, let me explain:
Not saying a gacha type of game can't succeed but the fact that the heroes you get are all very different with lots of strengths and weaknesses makes lots of heroes strong and at the same time others extremely weak.
There are other gacha games where there are wide selection of collectibles but that's basically it, they are all collectibles, not must haves. Sure metas will develop and some will become core units and what not but it't not like VF where not having the meta units will hamper your progress significantly.
For example:
Trigger archers, cybella, kane
Summoners, sven, tali, sora, matilda
faye, lucille, units for sdd setups etc

If you don't have any of the above don't even bother about raid. Legendary and above difficulty also use a lot of those units as core setups. Everything in the game is now balanced with these units in mind. Imagine if you didn't have any of these units, you would scream out that content is too bloody hard. Now why is it so hard you might ask, precisely because of the above units and the trigger system in place.

Arguments against these would be ability to use ally units, valianites for exchange of both summoner and regular units as well as pixies. Yes sure you have all these to ease the content for you. But you can only have 1 ally, you still need the other 4 units. 

Exchanging for a unit+ pixie costs an exorbitant amount of gems, even more so for a summoner. you might take 2 months or more to save up 30 val if you are purely F2P.
So what, everyone can still get the units they want at some point in time. This is the crux of the issue. How many months can it take for you to properly form your SDD team? How much to invest to make 1 trigger archer max crit? having 10k+ damage on your svens? 20k hp on Faye? All of this takes time to build up and maybe after 3 or 4 months you got a super good SDD/ trigger team or something. By then maybe the meta has shifted due to new units/gear being introduced. So maybe 1 or 2 of your units are rendered obsolete. Then your hard earned val you used to exchange for the units goes down the toilet. Hardcore players / p2p players don't feel as much pain for the transition but the casuals / f2p suffer the most.

Now back to the 100% reward, for those newer / undergeared players, completing 100% is a long shot whereas more seasoned players can just breeze through the content cause they have the meta units already. So now the stronger players have this free hero basically granting them a further 15/20 val lead over those who couldn't get it. I don't expect someone who is new to complete 100%, but someone who is 2months+ into the game can hardly be considered a new player. 
You imagine yourself as this newer player, you can do all the quests except 1 so you can't get the 100%, what do you get in the end. Basically close to nothing if unlucky. Lots of equipment/hero tickets are given but its no guarantee of 5*, not to mention completing the set. (Excluding drops from the events itself) Sure you can exchange for bazaar items but so can the stronger player (at a faster rate even) but bazaar items still include rune tickets, hierlooms so progress can still be made from there. But its painfully slow. Hierlooms take an exorbitant amount of gold and time to up 1 set to 4/5/6*, runes are also heavily RNG based and majority of runes you get might be useless and simply fodder material.

Ask yourselves this. What do you play the event for. Honestly.
100% chest + legendary drops and bazaar items obviously. So you take away the 100% chest and legendary drops will you even still play the events. For the new and upcoming player, they may go through event after event with little to no progress because they cannot do legendary. It may take months before a player can have a good team to consistently clear legendary content comfortably. What will happen before then, they quit the game obviously. At least with the 100% hero there is a sense of progression. Honestly is giving them the hero spoon feeding them? you still need to work for your gear, runes, MLB and faith. On top of making a proper team.
RNG isn't the problem, you look at Diablo 3 now. RNG all over the place yet you can still play and be happy with the game, not feel salt at every turn. If you play the game and spend the time but gain little to no progress, it isn't player friendly at all, even more so for a mobile game where players may have the majority of people may be casual players.

*Saves gems for 1 month. Spends 3k gems on new event to pull new hero. Gets almost no 5* potential and no event hero.*
How will you feel. bloody salted i bet. 
*Struggles with raid since the start. Finally have enough for full set. Exchanges for champion set. Wiz / Def / Wiz / Zodiac. Spends 30+ val to reroll everything to trinity"
How will you feel. bloody salted i bet.
*Spends months waiting for valiant tickets from both login and arena. What do you get. Kiera Kiera Kiera, oh kane! hercules faith. Faints oh a darrion! hera. Freya! Athena*
How will you feel. bloody salted i bet.

Why do you think the player population has plummeted so badly? The nature of the game requires you to invest lots of time so that over the long run the RNG evens out. Casuals can't have that. 
I don't need the game to be easy mode, i play this game a lot and can afford the salt, i come from games even saltier than VF. But if the game cannot at least cater to newer players / casuals it will just die.
When i mean cater i don't mean spoon-feed them, but provide them an appropriate path of progression. 
You tell people to git gud, but do they have a way to do that consistently? Depends on luck most of the time.
Lucky = get the hero/gear you need. unlucky = wait to exchange using valianite 

Its no easy job to balance for casuals / hardcore / f2p / p2p players but the devs have pigeonholed themselves into a corner with the trigger system. No trigger = no DPS / Trigger = absurd DPS. How do you even balance this. Obviously not by releasing hard to get heroes with trigger abilities.

Just my wall of text rant about the current state of the game. you may not agree with me, but frankly its my opinion and you don't have to share the same one. Everyone has different views and so be it, i just hope VF survives.

Some interesting facts from my actual play experience if you are interested.
1) This game is not designed to have easy play. It's designed to be challenging. It's a year-time game not a month-time game. 6 months play and I still cannot beat some trials in master stage of some event.
2) It took me 2 months till I can beat legendary event for the first time with lots of consumables used (Drake & Elemental Chaos event). And it's my 7th event since I start playing.
3) Longer play time does not mean a player will get stronger (p2p or f2p). This game has many things to focus. It goes back to how a player plays the game daily. I know a f2p member who were good at almost all areas since lv 70 while some lv 80 f2p members couldn't compete and she never spend a dime.
4) Many f2p members in my guild have been improving and become better players. If the meta shifts so fast as you say, I believe these f2p members wouldn't be doing good or improving at all. Once you get the hand on useful heroes, they are useful no matter what. The release of new & better units does not make useful heroes become useless. It's just that the new hero can do better. And it's illogical if the devs do not release better hero coz this is gacha game. If the new hero is not better, who would want such hero?
5) Dragoon Drake's trigger cheapens the effort of players who invest time to build well-rounded squad, as you can only have good stats and well-equipped Dragoon Drake while bringing 2 naked life stealing aura heroes along with 1 naked SW kahuna and keep retreating till you get full 6 mins trigger in 1st and 4th raid battles (if you have all the time of your life). But thanks god, Dragoon Drake is not so useful in other areas. (Still, I do not mind if Dragoon Drake is nerfed despite using him myself.)