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Will Fire Emblem Heroes Stay Relevant?


Sentacotus
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Ok first things first, I love this game.  Especially with the commutes I'm doing now in days its nice to be able to pop out my phone and get a few rounds in.  Even at home its fun to play and the way the combat is done makes it so that most matches are much quicker than their counterparts.  It also has a surprising amount of depth to it with all the upgrades unit merging etc... I also like the fact that it is truly free to play.  Sure there are the "freemium" aspects of it to buy orbs or feathers to get more chances to get better units but at no time do I feel the need to do so to keep progressing in the game.  By far I think its the best Nintendo mobile game out there.  But the question I have is how long will it last?  How long do you think Nintendo and IS will upkeep the servers and the game?  Do you feel that this is simply a stop gap for future major releases in the series like Echoes or whatever the next "big" FE title is and this will drop down in popularity?  I would like to think the answer is no and that as more games get added to the series Heroes will stick around and just add major characters from future titles.  That being said, I would think that with updates and so on would start making the game pretty large (larger than it already is currently sitting at 589MB on my phone). 

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Right now, it's still rather difficult to determine how the game will do, especially since Heroes has only been around for about 2 months. For most freemium games, you probably need to have it around for at least a year to have a grasp on whether the game will stick around. But generally, this game will be here to stay as long as people keep spending money on it.

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I think that FEH is more about appealing to people who are already Fire Emblem fans rather than a "winder audience" of random people. It will "stay relevant" as long as the people over at IS continue to bother keeping it relevant to the FE fans who are already playing it first and foremost.

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If something like pokemon shuffle, which I would argue is an incredibly worse game across the board, can stay alive and semi-relevant despite massive incredible player base drop offs after 2 years, I'm sure Heroes will do fine. 

At the very least, it's probably a question to revisit in 6 months or a year and see the state of the game

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So long as they keep adding new characters in waves, as well as introducing and/or refining new mechanics like Skill Inheritance, the seals, and whatnot, I think this game will stick around a pretty long time.

Complexity (so long as it's not so overly complex as to be a barrier to entry for new players) tends to equal longevity in games in my experience (stuff like fighting games, and League of Legends, etc.).

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I think with Nintendo pushing Fire Emblem as much as they have and with it being one of their biggest franchises at the moment that it would motivate them to keep supporting FE Heroes as long as they keep making money off of those damn orbs lol.

The only thing thats in the back of my mind is that it is still a mobile game and if Nintendo's recent titles like Mario Run, Pokemon Go, and Miitomo show anything there was a massive dropoff after the initial releases granted games like Pokemon Go screwed the pooch in alot of ways Heroes has not...(yet)

Edited by LordOTaco
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11 hours ago, LordOTaco said:

I think with Nintendo pushing Fire Emblem as much as they have and with it being one of their biggest franchises at the moment that it would motivate them to keep supporting FE Heroes as long as they keep making money off of those damn orbs lol.

The only thing thats in the back of my mind is that it is still a mobile game and if Nintendo's recent titles like Mario Run, Pokemon Go, and Miitomo show anything there was a massive dropoff after the initial releases granted games like Pokemon Go screwed the pooch in alot of ways Heroes has not...(yet)

Well, the good news is that Heroes has had consistent amounts of content that I imagine will continue for a while, and Intelligent Systems has been excellent with communication, adressing many things people had problems with.

People were skeptical about Mario Run from the get go, since it really doesn't offer anything that regular Mario games don't have, and the price tag was a bit much for the small amount of content it had.

If anything, one thing Heroes has the advantage in is that it offers a somewhat different FE experience compared to the main games while still not alienating some values of the franchise.

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On 13/04/2017 at 1:56 PM, LordOTaco said:

I think with Nintendo pushing Fire Emblem as much as they have and with it being one of their biggest franchises at the moment that it would motivate them to keep supporting FE Heroes as long as they keep making money off of those damn orbs lol.

The only thing thats in the back of my mind is that it is still a mobile game and if Nintendo's recent titles like Mario Run, Pokemon Go, and Miitomo show anything there was a massive dropoff after the initial releases granted games like Pokemon Go screwed the pooch in alot of ways Heroes has not...(yet)

Nintendo learnt the lesson from Pokemon Go. FEH has a very clear and regular update schedule from the beginning; basically new content has been added every 2 weeks, enough to keep people playing. I think the developers said in an interview that they already have release schedule up to the end of this year, so hopefully the game will be interesting until then.

The problem is that FEH can't keep releasing new content forever. FE has enough characters to release for a few years but in order to get people hooked, it needs to offer new gameplay updates too. So far I really can't think of many game mechanics left to release. After survival mode in late April, maybe the only major types of mission left are fog of war and turn limit? Of course after that there are various small mechanics they can put in like magic triangles but I'm not sure how they will fit in the current atmosphere.

If we look at the release schedule of FE series then we have Echoes in May and Warriors in Sep, both of which will draw people's attention substantially and again how Heroes will interact with these two games to stay relevant is the question. I think it will be really great if there is some kind of bonus character or 'link' between 2 games to motivate people playing both, though probabbly not possible with current technology yet. 

Then there is question of user base. An article about Pokemon Go but maybe relevant for FE too, states that a mobile game normally loses 30% of its active user base per week (there will be new addition too, but of course general direction is down). In the end there will be a long 'tail' of devoted fans who will suport the game financially and keep it livig, but with the departure of casual f2p players, the hype will die down.

So ... my guess is FEH will continue to bring a strong cashflow to Nintendo until late May/early June - abeit gradually slowing down. After that the 'tail' will start to become noticeable, though the game will have enough fanbase to stay relevant until at least September or more (especially true if Nintendo then expands  it into other countries). At that point we will go to the second half of their financial year (ending Mar 18), which will require introduction of new games (or in other words, new revenue streams). 

I really hope I'm wrong and the game will archive its vision as the developers said in their interview though - to make it something long lasting for fans to play in between future FE games. Realistically that statement was more of an advertisement than a reliable prediction. If anything, I hope FEH has helped draw attention from new gamers and proved to Nintendo that FE is a reliable series to invest in the future. So that we will continue to have FE games in the next 20 years.

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I think people underestimate the Fire Emblem fanbase and mobile games in general.  Quite a few less popular mobile games have stayed alive for years, and this is based on a franchise that keeps growing more and more popular.  Most of the people that started FEH at launch are probably going to stick with it.  Chances are many of them have their some of their favourite units already, and a sizeable collection to always have decent team handy for quests/chapters/arena.  Not much of a reason to leave unless there starts to be droughts of content like with FGO. And even then, that's still really popular.  

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On 4/13/2017 at 4:58 AM, Extrasolar said:

So long as they keep adding new characters in waves, as well as introducing and/or refining new mechanics like Skill Inheritance, the seals, and whatnot, I think this game will stick around a pretty long time.

Complexity (so long as it's not so overly complex as to be a barrier to entry for new players) tends to equal longevity in games in my experience (stuff like fighting games, and League of Legends, etc.).

Thing is that there's like a ton of characters that are in each and every game. It would take years to finish the entire list of characters like this.

To me, well I can't play the game anymore so I don't really know about the future of this game. Its at the very least decent but it lacks a lot of variety that needs to be implemented if this game is going to last very long.

 

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I think it has potential.

There are many, many mobile games of this style that live on for years and years. Even more so when they are based on an established franchise.

Fire Emblem has so many characters across so many games that they sure aren't going to run out of characters to add and stories to take from anytime soon. Every new Fire Emblem release will be a chance to hype up Heroes and draw players back in. As will events, updates, and new characters.

A big thing that could massively expand the scope and complexity of Heroes far into the future is increasing the size of the maps and teams you can deploy. It's designed around 4v4 on 6x8 maps for now, but once they exhaust everything they can think of and do with the game in its current state... perhaps they may increase the size of the battlefields, which would allow for longer and more complex missions. Yes, it would mean changing one of the very core aspects of the game's design, but if the game is starting to fade out, this could be a move to breathe new life and interest into it. I wouldn't expect this for a long time, not until long after FE Switch releases, but I think this kind of update could end up revitalizing the game years down the road.

Edited by XaosLogos
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7 hours ago, Harvey said:

Thing is that there's like a ton of characters that are in each and every game. It would take years to finish the entire list of characters like this.

Exactly. That's exactly my point. Part of what keeps me coming back is not just the gameplay itself, but the potential to pull and train my favorite characters from each game. I know I'm excited for the eventual release of Tellius characters. :lol:

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On Monday, April 17, 2017 at 5:13 PM, Sayyyaka said:

I think people underestimate the Fire Emblem fanbase and mobile games in general.  Quite a few less popular mobile games have stayed alive for years, and this is based on a franchise that keeps growing more and more popular.  Most of the people that started FEH at launch are probably going to stick with it.  Chances are many of them have their some of their favourite units already, and a sizeable collection to always have decent team handy for quests/chapters/arena.  Not much of a reason to leave unless there starts to be droughts of content like with FGO. And even then, that's still really popular.  

As someone who plays both, the content droughts in FGO aren't as bad as the content droughts in FEH.  In FGO you can farm materials, exp to use or bank, or bond points.  Here you just have exp (if you have units to do it for) and merit points.  Then when an event/new story segment happens in FGO, it keeps you busy for a week or two.  In FEH, it keeps you busy for a day at most.

As for your other point of current players not leaving because they have their favorites and a sizeable collection... that's a problem too.  It's not just about keeping people playing (though that is important), but also keeping people buying orbs.  If people don't buy orbs because they have the units they want already, it'll mean one of three things.  1) Game dies, 2) Power creep begins (see: DBZ Dokkan... my god the power creep there is obscene), or 3) many more time limited alternate forms of fan favorite characters.

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1 hour ago, Extrasolar said:

Exactly. That's exactly my point. Part of what keeps me coming back is not just the gameplay itself, but the potential to pull and train my favorite characters from each game. I know I'm excited for the eventual release of Tellius characters. :lol:

I feel a bit weird about this..... I mean I would love to play as the characters when it comes to the main games....but I feel that its really strange to play those same characters in worlds that they were never brought up....call me crazy but I just feel that its weird...

 

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Worth noting that nintendo's earning report is this thursday. Heroes and its revenue data will likely be brought up and there's usually some comments on timing, ideas, and so on related to the data. Might give a better opinion on the relevancy of the game (though I think it will sticka round for a long time just because whales can keep anything afloat)

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