Anniversary Feh Channel Now Live!

[Water Mage]

2 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Source? I've not heard such a thing before. If anything, I thought the past year was better than year 2.

This how Gacha games performed in Japan:

 

[Sentinel07]

12 minutes ago, DefyingFates said:

Eh, I'd still pull for them 😛

Exactly! Just...are IS/ Nintendo really that starved for money by their most successful mobile game?

Admittedly, FEH being their most successful mobile game is kind of a low bar. Animal Crossing, Dragalia Lost, and the Mario games have actually been kind of pathetic in the amount of money they've brought in. You see the charts and they're not even remotely in the same league as FEH.

And as mentioned, the player base seems to have gone down a lot.

[Anacybele]

5 minutes ago, Water Mage said:

This how Gacha games performed in Japan:

 

A 32% decrease in FEH? Wow...I'm legitimately shocked. I was certain 2019 made more money than 2018 what with all the hate for the Fates spam in the latter. This is really weird. And not a good thing.

I guess Heroes is going to be discontinued pretty soon (along with those other failing Nintendo mobile apps. That's a huge drop. Really sucks...

Also, I thought Pokemon GO was the most successful Nintendo mobile app. It isn't made by Nintendo themselves, but it still uses a Nintendo franchise.

Edited February 2, 2020 by Anacybele

[Water Mage]

2 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

A 32% decrease in FEH? Wow...I'm legitimately shocked. I was certain 2019 made more money than 2018 what with all the hate for the Fates spam in the latter. This is really weird. And not a good thing.

I guess Heroes is going to be discontinued pretty soon (along with those other failing Nintendo mobile apps. That's a huge drop. Really sucks...

Also, I thought Pokemon GO was the most successful Nintendo mobile app. It isn't made by Nintendo themselves, but it still uses a Nintendo franchise.

From what I’ve heard, FEH is not doing well financially in Japan and I suspect it’s being carried by it’s western fanbase.

[Anacybele]

Just now, Water Mage said:

From what I’ve heard, FEH is not doing well financially in Japan and I suspect it’s being carried by it’s western fanbase.

That could be true, but with Japan still being more of the primary target audience...yeah. Though at the same time, Zelda does better out here than in Japan and it's never been in danger of ending, so who knows.

[DefyingFates]

8 minutes ago, eclipse said:

It seems to be a trend. . .and given how often it's cropping up, it looks like it's a successful one.

Ew...I guess we just need to wait for EA to take it too far before the industry as a whole backs off?

8 minutes ago, TheNiddo said:

Well I left my feedback

Same here. #CancelFehPass was trending on Twitter and people are still using it in replies to the Feh account's tweets. I was pleased to see that the Japanese Feh Channel video is also mostly disliked, though the dis/like ratio is more even there (then again, there were fewer votes on it in general compared to the English version's).

The problem is that whales are likely going to buy the pass anyway, so it becomes a question of whether they put enough money into the game for IS to keep the Pass around specifically for them. Also, I've seen a lot of people here say they're willing to buy the Pass for specific months if a character they like gets a new skin, which just seems like a far too slippery slope to me. I know for a fact that if someone I like gets a resplendent variant I'm just going to look up their art and lines on Gamepedia. Don't be tempted into supporting this mess!

2 minutes ago, Sentinel07 said:

And as mentioned, the player base seems to have gone down a lot.

I know people have been complaining about FEH recently but I didn't realise there'd been an exodus, thanks! But that and FEH far outstripping Nintendo's other mobile games just gives them more reason to do right by its players, right? Or is that too customer-friendly a mindset?

---

On a slightly different note: I hope the Feh Pass doesn't make everyone forget about how annoying the Combat Manual paths are. Just...why?! I'm sure each step of the path is going to be more and more expensive too (a la Heroic Grails), but even if not...why not just have separate Manuals, possibly at different prices? And why not just incentivise red Divine Codes ("Divine Codes Part 2"?) by making them cheaper instead of by not tying them to such a tedious unlock method?

I know this is the lesser of two evils, but it's still a scummy move that I hope isn't overlooked in the Feh Pass outrage.

[eclipse]

3 minutes ago, DefyingFates said:

On a slightly different note: I hope the Feh Pass doesn't make everyone forget about how annoying the Combat Manual paths are. Just...why?! I'm sure each step of the path is going to be more and more expensive too (a la Heroic Grails), but even if not...why not just have separate Manuals, possibly at different prices? And why not just incentivise red Divine Codes ("Divine Codes Part 2"?) by making them cheaper instead of by not tying them to such a tedious unlock method?

I know this is the lesser of two evils, but it's still a scummy move that I hope isn't overlooked in the Feh Pass outrage.

I'm going to wait and see on this one.  It might be enough for me to actually care about Mjolnir's Strike.

[Sunwoo]

17 minutes ago, Water Mage said:

If I remember it right FEH is actually not doing as well as it was before, it has lost a lot of players especially in Japan.

You'd think that if they're losing players, especially in Japan, they'd actually make an effort to undo some of the things that are losing them players

Instead, they seem to be doubling down on decisions that are likely to drive away the rest of the playerbase

Companies are very smart

[Sentinel07]

9 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

A 32% decrease in FEH? Wow...I'm legitimately shocked. I was certain 2019 made more money than 2018 what with all the hate for the Fates spam in the latter. This is really weird. And not a good thing.

I guess Heroes is going to be discontinued pretty soon (along with those other failing Nintendo mobile apps. That's a huge drop. Really sucks...

Also, I thought Pokemon GO was the most successful Nintendo mobile app. It isn't made by Nintendo themselves, but it still uses a Nintendo franchise.

The reason why Pokemon Go isn't considered is because they're not getting a lot of the money. Nintendo themselves stated that only a very small percentage of Pokemon Go's money goes to them (like only 2% or something). The rest goes to The Pokemon Company and Niantic. 

Hence why you don't see Pokemon Go show up all that much in Nintendo reports and it largely focuses on FEH, Dragalia Lost, Animal Crossing, and the Mario games.

[Anacybele]

2 minutes ago, Sentinel07 said:

The reason why Pokemon Go isn't considered is because they're not getting a lot of the money. Nintendo themselves stated that only a very small percentage of Pokemon Go's money goes to them (like only 2% or something). The rest goes to The Pokemon Company and Niantic. 

Hence why you don't see Pokemon Go show up all that much in Nintendo reports and it largely focuses on FEH, Dragalia Lost, Animal Crossing, and the Mario games.

Yeah, that makes sense. I just like to count it because it still uses a Nintendo franchise, but yeah.

Whatever happens, I hope things don't continue to spiral downward for Heroes and kill it too soon...

Edited February 2, 2020 by Anacybele

[Water Mage]

There are various possible factors for FEH’s huge loss of players:

-The grindy nature of many events

-The lack of any story in the game and the lack if character interactions

-The powercreep is insane

-The PvP nature of the games can push people away

-The lack of Awakening/Fates content and new characters, it could be what was carrying FEH

-And the lack of fanservice. Some people might not like hearing this, but lack of fanservice can be a major reason for FEH’s loss of players. In gacha games, fanservice characters are huge money makers, like really huge.

 

Edited February 2, 2020 by Water Mage

[Anacybele]

4 minutes ago, Water Mage said:

-The lack of any story in the game and the lack if character interactions

This is so false, there is a story (even if it's not the greatest ever) and there are character interactions in paralogues, story chapters, and Forging Bonds. FB has really good ones in particular.

5 minutes ago, Water Mage said:

-The lack of Awakening/Fates content and new characters, it could be what was carrying FEH

lol no. This is even more false. The Fates spam was HATED. Adrift was the most hated banner period and the hot spring banner was also very hated. There were more alts last year than the year before, so being disappointed in that I can understand.

[Roflolxp54]

24 minutes ago, DefyingFates said:

On a slightly different note: I hope the Feh Pass doesn't make everyone forget about how annoying the Combat Manual paths are. Just...why?! I'm sure each step of the path is going to be more and more expensive too (a la Heroic Grails), but even if not...why not just have separate Manuals, possibly at different prices? And why not just incentivise red Divine Codes ("Divine Codes Part 2"?) by making them cheaper instead of by not tying them to such a tedious unlock method?

I know this is the lesser of two evils, but it's still a scummy move that I hope isn't overlooked in the Feh Pass outrage.

It also feels like a circular argument, too. Given the current state of the game, banners that aren't the monthly aren't worth pulling on and Divine Codes are pretty much meant to be a way to throw a bone for those players skipping banners in order to hoard orbs for Mythic/Legendary merges to be used for gamemodes including Mjolnir's Strike. Ugh.

After looking over Feh Pass some more, it's mainly the QoL features that are a huge issue (since those QoL features could easily be free for everybody and be easily replaced on the Pass with additional timegated resources like codes or grails for the paying players). The reskins are fine for now (who knows how long it's going to last before IS goes ham with it given the state of the game since the start of Book 4) since the player who buys the Pass gets 2 (3 if the player is smart and sneaky enough to wait a few days) guaranteed units (including 5-star exclusives) per month. 10 USD to effectively dodge RNG which could be a huge deal for players who want to get and/or are working on specific characters, especially given how pricey Orbs themselves are and the generally crappy state of the summoning mechanic (no major change that improves the summoning experience).

 

Edited February 2, 2020 by Roflolxp54

[Water Mage]

Just now, Anacybele said:

This is so false, there is a story (even if it's not the greatest ever) and there are character interactions in paralogues, story chapters, and Forging Bonds. FB has really good ones in particular.

lol no. This is even more false. The Fates spam was HATED. Adrift was the most hated banner period and the hot spring banner was also very hated. There were more alts last year than the year before, so being disappointed in that I can understand.

The first one I’ll give you, but the people that disliked the Awakening/Fates spam might have been a minority. Have you noticed how Camilla won the CYL last year? How Tharja, Robin and Chrom still ranked highly in this year’s CYL?

[eclipse]

Other reasons:

- The pull system needs an overhaul.  Was great when it first released, but with newer games doing it better (hello Dragalia Lost), yeah.

- The summoning pool needs to be cleaned out.  While there's some debut units that make excellent fodder (Shanna), there's also those that I can't find any use for (Est).

- A lot of things are introduced, but the core of the mode is rarely improved on.  IMO the biggest overhaul was to VG, of all things.  Thus, it's a matter of "what event is next".

- The summons themselves became less integral to the overall story.  Compare how they acted in the first book to now!

[Water Mage]

4 minutes ago, eclipse said:

 

- The summoning pool needs to be cleaned out.  While there's some debut units that make excellent fodder (Shanna), there's also those that I can't find any use for (Est).

You played FGO right? The Friend Point summon system from there could be great way to clean up the summoning pool in FEH.

Edited February 2, 2020 by Water Mage

[Ottservia]

9 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

You'd think that if they're losing players, especially in Japan, they'd actually make an effort to undo some of the things that are losing them players

Instead, they seem to be doubling down on decisions that are likely to drive away the rest of the playerbase

Companies are very smart

thing is though one of the likely reasons that the japanese playerbase is starting to leave is likely due to the focus on echoes(From what I hear sold pretty poorly in japan) and such in 2019 as well as the lack of fanservice. I'm willing to bet a decent amount of orbs to say that at least a decent chunk of the japanese playerbase are in fact otaku in some form or another which the lack of fanservice would certainly drive away. I mean how else do you think Fate/GO does so well. People like anime tiddies

 

1 minute ago, Anacybele said:

This is so false, there is a story (even if it's not the greatest ever) and there are character interactions in paralogues, story chapters, and Forging Bonds. FB has really good ones in particular.

sure but then when you compare it other gachas fate/GO, the story is okay at best. Then again Fate/GO actually has really talented writers like Gen Urobuchi or Nasu working for them so maybe that's not a fair comparison. 

4 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

lol no. This is even more false. The Fates spam was HATED. Adrift was the most hated banner period and the hot spring banner was also very hated. There were more alts last year than the year before, so being disappointed in that I can understand.

I'd chalk that up to just a loud vocal minority and you forget we're talking about the japanese fanbase here. The only time it crossed the line with them was when hot springs Camilla dropped iirc. They were mostly fine with everything else. 

13 minutes ago, Water Mage said:

The various possible factors for FEH’s huge loss of players:

-The grindy nature of many events

-The lack of any story in the game and the lack if character interactions

-The powercreep is insane

-The PvP nature of the games can push people away

-The lack of Awakening/Fates content and new characters, it could be what was carrying FEH

-And the lack of fanservice. Some people might not like hearing this, but lack of fanservice can be a major reason for FEH’s loss of players. In gacha games, fanservice characters are huge money makers, like really huge.

 

pretty much all of this

[Sunwoo]

I'd honestly love to have one of the two options regarding the 3-4 star pool:

1) Give each individual player a "checklist" of sorts that allows them to remove certain lower rarity characters from the pool. Letting us remove 5 characters of each color would be great, 3 at the very least. This would make summoning more enjoyable so we don't have to get stinkers that we have no use for anymore, and increases the likelihood of getting a lower rarity character you actually want.

2) Take out all of the launch 3-4 star units (all of the book 1 3-4 star units if they want to be generous) and put them in a separate permanent no-focus banner of their own where the summoning currency is either arena medals or universal shards/crystals. I have SO MANY FUCKING SHARDS AND CRYSTALS that I have to force myself to use if I don't like how much I'm accumulating. It'd be nice to give those stupid shards and crystals actual use. We don't even need them anymore because we don't have to wait until 20 to level up a character either.

ALSO DON'T PAYWALL THIS IF THEY DO IT.

[Anacybele]

9 minutes ago, Water Mage said:

The first one I’ll give you, but the people that disliked the Awakening/Fates spam might have been a minority. Have you noticed how Camilla won the CYL last year? How Tharja, Robin and Chrom still ranked highly in this year’s CYL?

The dislike bars on both versions of the trailers say otherwise. They're massive. And I heard some people voted Camilla in that CYL to create salt, not because they like her. As for Chrom, he hasn't been spammed as much as some other characters.

6 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

I'd chalk that up to just a loud vocal minority and you forget we're talking about the japanese fanbase here. The only time it crossed the line with them was when hot springs Camilla dropped iirc. They were mostly fine with everything else. 

Again, see the dislike bars on the trailers.

[Water Mage]

3 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

The dislike bars on both versions of the trailers say otherwise. They're massive. And I heard some people voted Camilla in that CYL to create salt, not because they like her. As for Chrom, he hasn't been spammed as much as some other characters.

Again, see the dislike bars on the trailers.

Those who dislike videos are a real small portion of the fanbase.

[XRay]

36 minutes ago, DefyingFates said:

Exactly! Just...are IS/ Nintendo really that starved for money by their most successful mobile game?

26 minutes ago, eclipse said:

It seems to be a trend. . .and given how often it's cropping up, it looks like it's a successful one.

26 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Source? I've not heard such a thing before. If anything, I thought the past year was better than year 2.

Here is a slightly more complete revenue picture for anyone interested. Fire Emblem Heroes is Nintendo's most successful mobile game and most successful Fire Emblem game, but it is not exactly looking pretty financially right now.

For rough estimates of gross revenue by February of each year:
2018: $295,000,000 (Sensor Tower)
2019: $500,000,000 (Sensor Tower)
2020: $656,000,000 (Yahoo Finance)

And that gives us an annual revenue summary:
2017: $295,000,000
2018: $205,000,000; 30% annual drop
2019: $156,000,000; 24% annual drop, 47% drop from first year

21 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

A 32% decrease in FEH? Wow...I'm legitimately shocked.

Same reaction as me. I did not know their revenue drop was this bad until I just looked it up. I thought they would be more like maybe just shy of $200 million. Hopefully, their profit margins dropped less though.

11 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

You'd think that if they're losing players, especially in Japan, they'd actually make an effort to undo some of the things that are losing them players

Instead, they seem to be doubling down on decisions that are likely to drive away the rest of the playerbase

Companies are very smart

Sometimes, it is better to cater to a smaller, more profitable clientele than serving a larger customer base due to the cost of appealing to a wider audience.

But yeah, if I was Nintendo investor, I would still be panicking anyways. And this is Nintendo's BEST mobile game, other mobile games are going to be super disappointing. Heroes is not some luxury boutique product where it can survive off of an elite clientele indefinitely. Unlike Gucci or Ferrari that you can easily show off in real life, whales in Heroes only has other fish to show off too, and when those fish are gone, so will the whales.

10 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

You'd think that if they're losing players, especially in Japan, they'd actually make an effort to undo some of the things that are losing them players

Instead, they seem to be doubling down on decisions that are likely to drive away the rest of the playerbase

Companies are very smart

Compared to what other games have to offer though, I would argue Heroes' story is pretty bad. Even when you just compare it to the main series games, Heroes is very, very, very barebones basic. I do not really mind since I do not play Fire Emblem for the story, but having a good story does help. Heroes is not bad in terms of being horribly written (although this is subjective, but I think the story is okay), it is bad in terms of there is very little going on, like there is barely even a story. The story feels like a really short draft.

18 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

lol no. This is even more false. The Fates spam was HATED. Adrift was the most hated banner period and the hot spring banner was also very hated. There were more alts last year than the year before, so being disappointed in that I can understand.

It is not what the sales number say though. Despite having a more varied cast, the drop in revenue still happened and still dropped severely. There sure is a vocal minority complaining about Fates, but I do not think they are large enough to affect sales numbers.

[DefyingFates]

16 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

2) Take out all of the launch 3-4 star units (all of the book 1 3-4 star units if they want to be generous) and put them in a separate permanent no-focus banner of their own where the summoning currency is either arena medals or universal shards/crystals. I have SO MANY FUCKING SHARDS AND CRYSTALS that I have to force myself to use if I don't like how much I'm accumulating. It'd be nice to give those stupid shards and crystals actual use. We don't even need them anymore because we don't have to wait until 20 to level up a character either.

This one would be ideal. It's far too generous a change - even without a paywall - but still one I'd love to see.

42 minutes ago, eclipse said:

I'm going to wait and see on this one.  It might be enough for me to actually care about Mjolnir's Strike.

If each Combat Manual along a path has the same low price, I suppose locking them behind others would be a subtle way of giving them different values based on their Skills. We saw S!Laevatein and Kliff were the highest tiers in the two paths shown and both have Tier 4 Skills; if I had the choice of getting one of them for 250 Codes or getting one + four Manuals I won't use for 250 Codes the latter would be more efficient.

But that's just it: if each Manual has a low/ fixed price. If we get a Grails situation again where each step along the path is more and more expensive then we go right back to the whole thing being grindy for the sake of being grindy.

Edited February 2, 2020 by DefyingFates

[Othin]

6 minutes ago, XRay said:

Here is a slightly more complete revenue picture for anyone interested. Fire Emblem Heroes is Nintendo's most successful mobile game and most successful Fire Emblem game, but it is not exactly looking pretty financially right now.

For rough estimates of gross revenue by February of each year:
2018: $295,000,000 (Sensor Tower)
2019: $500,000,000 (Sensor Tower)
2020: $656,000,000 (Yahoo Finance)

And that gives us an annual revenue summary:
2017: $295,000,000
2018: $205,000,000; 30% annual drop
2019: $156,000,000; 24% annual drop, 47% drop from first year

Same reaction as me. I did not know their revenue drop was this bad until I just looked it up. I thought they would be more like maybe just shy of $200 million. Hopefully, their profit margins dropped less though.

That is concerning. But yeah, I don't think this will help. Maybe if they back off soon and open up some of the pass's options to all players (particularly the QOL stuff), to get views on it more positive, but... even then, two Resplendent Heroes per month is a significant increase in the character creation costs, so what are they even doing?

[Midnox]

Called it, FEH’s existence wasn’t to be taken for granted. Over 30% drop is huge. I haven’t been playing this game as much lately for one reason or another. There are many things that need fixing ASAP. I remember when the delevopers listened to player feedback in the beginning 

[Anacybele]

16 minutes ago, XRay said:

Compared to what other games have to offer though, I would argue Heroes' story is pretty bad. Even when you just compare it to the main series games, Heroes is very, very, very barebones basic. I do not really mind since I do not play Fire Emblem for the story, but having a good story does help. Heroes is not bad in terms of being horribly written (although this is subjective, but I think the story is okay), it is bad in terms of there is very little going on, like there is barely even a story. The story feels like a really short draft.

What the heck, I didn't actually make the post you're quoting here and yet my username is on it...

I actually think the only time Heroes's story was legit bad was book 2 and this is coming from someone that likes Hrid. Book 1 was okay, book 3 was actually pretty good imo and book 4 is shaping up to be interesting.