is there no way to earn premium essence?

[Klaus]

title?
So I got all these orange gems so I can unlock... avatar cards...?
dude...

[AutoAttackGames]

You can unlock cards, guilds, mastermind options, and future special builders with essence. Premium essence is purchasable, but can also be earned by winning tournaments and by leveling up your guild. At level 10 and every level beyond 10, you and all members of your guild earn premium essence. This level up process can be sped up by donating cards to the guild.

[Klaus]

sounds convoluted, which in most cases in video games means it's really hard to earn them by playing. Very disappointed with this decision. As someone who has convinced several friends to buy/play it, made 100+ youtube videos on it and have been a fan since it first came out as a Warcraft 3 mod (none of this makes my opinion any better than another, just trying to highlight how much I love the game). The game truly could be something great, but decisions like this are holding it back. It is not necessarily bursting at the seams with new players. Putting an actual decent model in place with cool skins players could earn would incentivize people to play more. I personally would not buy a recolor of a unit with real money. However, I would grind in game to earn them thus increasing play time, thus increasing exposure to new players who WOULD buy them with real money, etc. I mean I guess I am not the whale audience this model caters to and therefore I’m frustrated.

[QLIQ]

yeah i kind of agree. Sure they could be purchasable but they should also be obtainable by a solo player even if it takes a long time to acquire them.

I got 300 premium essences from the guild i joined which has a lot of veteran players but i can not really contribute much to the progression since its looked behind donating cards which i cant with my pity score of 500.

[AutoAttackGames]

Originally posted by SoberToaster:

sounds convoluted, which in most cases in video games means it's really hard to earn them by playing. Very disappointed with this decision. As someone who has convinced several friends to buy/play it, made 100+ youtube videos on it and have been a fan since it first came out as a Warcraft 3 mod (none of this makes my opinion any better than another, just trying to highlight how much I love the game). The game truly could be something great, but decisions like this are holding it back. It is not necessarily bursting at the seams with new players. Putting an actual decent model in place with cool skins players could earn would incentivize people to play more. I personally would not buy a recolor of a unit with real money. However, I would grind in game to earn them thus increasing play time, thus increasing exposure to new players who WOULD buy them with real money, etc. I mean I guess I am not the whale audience this model caters to and therefore I’m frustrated.

Really appreciate your love for the game and you making videos and recruiting friends. It's awesome seeing an OG fan of the mod enjoying Legion TD 2.

I won't sugar coat it. It wasn't financially viable for us to offer skins for essence. As an independent studio with no external funding, we're barely making ends meet. For what it's worth, skins are achievable by playing - with membership in a guild. Some players have already earned 700 Essence from guilds, which is enough for two skins. Realistically, some amount of money would be required to get most or all of the skins. Even if you disagree, I hope you understand where we're coming from.

I agree with what you said about how making skins achievable by playing encourages activity. That's something we can consider more with a larger player base. We are working to grow the player base this coming weekend with a big promotion and next year with the full release of the game.

Also, just to comment, none of the skins are recolors. They all have new texture designs. Most of them have new VFX. And Safety Mole M.D. has a new model/rig.

Thanks again for your love of the game.

- Jules

[Hal]

Could you explain what the decisions were for locking the gain of premium essence behind the membership in a larger guild? If you form a guild with a couple of friends you pretty much lock yourself out from gaining premium essence for a long time, especially if some of those haven't played the game much and can't contribute with card (which are rare as f*ck to begin with, see QLIQs comment - a pity score of way over 100 is common).

[AutoAttackGames]

Originally posted by Hal:

Could you explain what the decisions were for locking the gain of premium essence behind the membership in a larger guild? If you form a guild with a couple of friends you pretty much lock yourself out from gaining premium essence for a long time, especially if some of those haven't played the game much and can't contribute with card (which are rare as f*ck to begin with, see QLIQs comment - a pity score of way over 100 is common).

Our vision is to have larger guilds (20-30 players), rather than many smaller guilds. It creates better community and competition and is just overall more epic. There's always an incentive to run your own guild and be semi-exclusive about it, so we intentionally incentivized larger guilds. The main risk with smaller/fragmented guilds is that they feel more like clubs and people don't care much about them. Maybe consider joining a guild together with your friends? A ton of guilds are looking for members right now, and I'm sure they'd love to have you :)