This is a really well written game. The graphics are beautiful, the animations smooth and the environments are interesting.
The alliance community is really active and the game encourages cooperation within an alliance as well as cooperation or conflict between alliances.
The down-side is that the drop rate for heroes and vehicles has been SO reduced, especially in the latest season, that you’re very unlikely to get anything that’s actually useful. The drop-rate for weapon elements is practically zero… if you think you’ll get epic anything from the lower-cost drop pods, think again! You’re pretty likely to get a mid-tier epic hero or vehicle from a premium drop pod.
Resources for buying regular drop pods include gold coins or battle trophies. Energy shards are used for buying premium drop pods. Gold can be gathered by completing daily challenges but it is a slow process. Trophies can be slow too unless you have an arrangement with another alliance to do trophy trading. Energy shards are much slower to save up. You get those mainly from completing intelligence missions or drop pods. Energy shards present a strategic conundrum however, you can either biohack a unit with them or buy a premium drop pod. Both have significant impact on your effectiveness.
Regular drop pods can be purchased for gold coins. At the rate you earn gold, you can buy a crate maybe every 3-4 days. With the new drop rate this season, don’t expect anything very useful from a regular crate…. They’re mostly a source of energy shards now. They did have limited drop pods last season but those were removed this season.
Premium drop pods are really the only “reliable” source of epic heroes or vehicles. There doesn’t seem to be an algorithm to prevent these from dropping duplicate items which are still useful, but always a disappointment! There seems to be nearly zero odds of getting a weapon however.
The heavily reduced drop rate this season is a highly expressed source of frustration! Everyone has noticed and nobody is happy about it! It appears to be a, not subtle, tactic to force players to spend significant money if they want to be competitive. The lower cost purchases (like the $10 life tree fund) bring almost no advantage… expect to spend a minimum of $30 if you want to be in the mid-tier rankings of this game.
Feedback to the devs:
Increase the drop rate or better elements, especially weapons!
Add more ways to earn coins and energy shards.
Adding more daily challenges would be nice. It’s been expressed by many that they log in, do their daily 10 minutes of play and then come back the next day to do it again.
Add a build manager. Multiple regiments is nice, but being able to use the same elements in different combinations would be really nice.