Ideas to recycle junk in Wartune

We have a new event in Wartune, Sky Adventure. To access higher rewards in this event, you will surely need to spend balens; however, ALL rewards but the very last are completely useless for anyone who is playing Wartune since a while and spent some balens. I think it's time to bring up the topic again: most events in Wartune award only useless junk.

The game has many events, with many different rewards which can be used to advance different things. This was cool at the beginning, it was fun to advance so many things, I had so many goals. But now I play since 2 years and 3 months, spent some balen too - and 95% of the rewards I get are useless junk. I wonder what the people feel who play since longer, and spent a lot more?

For most of us, rewards, goals, advancements are important things in a game. If they are no more - the game is dead. To me, it is particularly frustrating when the game has one thing to advance, I do events, earn reward: but after a certain point, I can't use the items I earned, I can only use items to advance the VERY SAME stat if I buy something at a ridiculous price - while, at the same time, the resource used for that stat is rotting in my inventory.

Examples are refinement locks (can't use them for sylph equipment refining), advanced sepulcrum and mahra, fate stones vs beads of influence.

But this is the problem with most other rewards as well.

Experience points, crystalloids, legendary stones, fate stones, soul crystals, refinement locks, star tears, star sands, sylph equip shards, sylph exp scrolls, golden holy water, dragon souls... we keep getting these literally everywhere. Sepulcrum, mahra, runestones, mount hoof can be still useful to some, but not to veteran players.

And this is not an old problem, lack of upgrading rewards for old events. Even new events - like sylph expedition - award crap. Even chests - which you can buy for balens! - contain useless junk.

My real problem is that this generates more and more frustration to me. Why the developers ignore this obvious problem? Why they try to sell newer and newer resources at astronomical prices? Gift of god, for example? Who would pay 20.000 balens - 200 USD - to increase a sylph's HP by 1500? Or empire truncheon? Next medal for me requires 1600, which is 128 USD. No, thx.

Anyway, I have my solution. This is something my other favorite game, Doomlord is using. It could make happy the players, and as such, it would be good for the game and it's owners as well. Also it wouldn't require much effort. In Doomlord, you can exchange use / useless items as resources in activities. They could do the same here.

Make a new exchange, where you can sell junk items for some new resource, like „junk coupons”. Crystalloids, soul crystals etc. Also allow players to purchase „junk crystals” for 500.000 XP each. And allow players to purchase items using junk coupons, junk crystals and balens/bound balens. For example, you could buy a vulcan hammer for 100 junk coupon, 1 junk crystal and 5 balens. Or a empire truncheon for 20 junk coupon, 1 junk crystal and 1 balen. Or an advanced sepulcrum for 60 junk coupon, 1 junk crystal and 3 balens. And so on... This way, exp would be useful again, and people would be happy to utilize their junk. Prices / ratio etc. subject to change...

Because right now, Sky Adventure, with the grand reward of 100 soul crystal or fate stones is not... very appealing :)

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Hoard or spend?

Wartune - and many other late-generation Chinese games - has an interesting features unseen in previous games. It's the „hoard and spend” concept. In Wartune, you do not simply increase your stats - you get resources, and spend them to increase stats. This have 2 benefits and 1 drawback:

benefit 1: The resources can be awarded freely in different events and can be also sold for real money.

benefit 2: Players can have the joy of collecting pretty colorful objects and hoard them.

drawback: When you max out a stat and keep receiving the resource as a reward, it becomes frustrating after a while.

Please note that the drawback could be easily counter by the Wartune developers, simply allowing maxed out resources to be exchanged for other resources - at a worse rate. Like they did with crystalloids, 10 level 3 crystalloids into one lvl 4, and 10 level 4 into one level 5. This system could be applied to everything else, fate stones to beads, soul crystals to soul seals etc.

This system has summoned another concept to the game: be rewarded for spending resources. From time to time, Wartune has „spender” events, where you can spend a specific resource to increase a stat, and receive bonus resources for doing so. This system has 2 benefit too, and one HUGE drawback:

benefit 1: Some people who are low on the specific resources are willing to spend real money on that resource during the sale which usually comes with the spender event.

benefit 2: Simply increasing your stat becomes and interesting game event, and people are excited to wait what comes next.

drawback: You never know what resource gets a spender event, and if this spender event will be better or worse than the previous one. Often you don't even know if it will get ever. So this makes it a huge gamble. Sometimes we have to sit on the reward we collected for months, instead of using it and enjoying the benefits. Some people lose their patience and spend - and this is a critical mistake.

This drawback could be countered to by giving the players advance schedules of events. The designers of Wartune think the surprise element is cool. But I can show you a different example. In Doomlord, all events are scheduled, players have all the info - and they love it!

So, the question is, when to hoard? When to spend? What's the best strategy?

You can put your resources into the following categories:

1.) Useless resources, where the stat is already maxed. For me, these are soul crystals, dragon souls, mount hoofs, fate stones, sepulcrum, star tear, star sand, sylph xp scroll, sylph equipment shards, crystalloids, legend stones. Strategy for these is easy: I store them (either in guild vault or in mailbox), and hope I can use them for something one day. Those which can be sold for gold (crystalloid, legend stones, sylph equip shards) I sell when I need gold.

2.) Resources where you know there is a regular spender event. For me, these are mount whips, mahra, vulcan hammers, divinity souls, glint of magic and magical moonlight, golden holy water, gems, crystals shards, will crystals, clothes, fashion cores. The strategy for these is the following: always hoard them, NEVER use them outside spender event (not even for a BR ranking event!) When a spender event comes, check carefully the rewards.

Some events are easy, the reward is always the same, like mahra or hammer event, so just use what you have.

Some are one per day (like gems, crystal shards, divinity souls). Here you are often low on resources (like gems, divinity souls, resist crystals). You should plan what combines get you the best reward. For example, if you can make only 4 lvl 6 gems, it is not a good idea to make all on the first day, better do one each day and make the lvl 7 only on the 3^rdday.

Some unlimited events have a varying reward. For example, I remember when the whip event gave sylph equipment shards as rewards. It was pretty obvious that from the sylph arena alone you will max your sylph equipments soon, so it's better to wait for a different event. Or in case of a cloth event where you get chests as rewards, and you already have everything from that chest (cloths, mount) then it's better to save your combine for the next cloth event.

3.) Resources where there was no spender event yet. This is the hardest one. If you spend them, and lose a lot of reward, it's bad. If you sit on them forever and stay weaker, that's bad too. So here is my advice:

Check what is your gain if you spend the resource. If you gain a lot, consider spending at least part of what you have. If it won't make a big difference, keep hoarding. I show you a few examples:

Soul seals. Soul seals are in the game since 4 or 5 months, but there was no real spender event for them. (Ok, if you use them for „soul engrave” event, you get the 30 soul crystal + xp/gold, but that reward is neglectable.) So wait? Or spend? Here I did what investors call „portfolio diversification”. I keep 9-10k soul seal, but spend the rest. This way I steadily increase my BR, but also have enough stocks for a possible spender event.

Gems. I remember for a very long time, there were unlimited gem events for lvl 5-8 gems. After we made all our gems to lvl 8, and still had like 100 spare, the question came up: hoard, or wait for an event which rewards for higher rank gems? I remember we waited for like 3 months, while I finally decided to make the lvl 10 atk gems. It made a big difference, we could kill +1 boss in DI, get a lot of extra loot, and it helped in other places as well. By the time they added lvl 10 rewards, I had most of my gems up to lvl 10. I still had a lot of lvl 8 spare so I could make 10.000 soul seal in rewards. But if Im patient and wait a half year, I could have gotten some more. Still, I dont regret my decision, I had benefit from the higher BR. Now I made all my ATK gems to lvl12 - but only those.

Sepulcrum. Take almost a year for them to add a sepulcrum spender event after this resource was added to the game. I kept hoarding it for 3 months, then started spending. I don't regret it, it made a big difference, and you can't rely on waiting for a year anyway.

Coin of ancestry. Here, you have a trick. Make a character on an oceanic server (like S40). This way, you can see the events for the next day already after 16pm. So when a coin exchange is of the last day, check what's tomorrow, and decide whether to spend or keep. Always try to calculate how much balen you get per coin. There were some great deals (like 2k balen coupon or the 80 vulcan hammer) and some really bad ones. If you see a good deal, and you see you won't get a better one in the next coin exchange, don't hesitate. Don't save up, hoping for something even better. You can always get more coins if a mount or something comes up.

And finally, if anyone didn't know, I call your attention to the event reset feature. Whenever Wartune adds a new event which can be completed once per day through several days, you can do it once between midnight and 5am, and once after 5am on the first day. So, for example, if there is a 3-day gem or resist crystal or divinity soul event, you can actually do it 4 times. Same for the „do 15 bounty quests a day” hot event. Don't do more than 5 bounties until 16pm. At that time, log into S40, check if there is a bounty event. If there is one, do the remaining 15 bounties using scroll only after midnight.  

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SC and gem event

We were all waiting for the next Wartune Soul Crystal event (both use and exchange). But there is nothing since 2 months. People are tossing around 2-3 complete vault size soul crystals in their mailbox. So everybody is asking the same questions, why there is no SC event? Will there be any ever? Well, it is here finally, but you wont thank it. You can exchange 100 SC for 50k gold, and that's it. 

Why such a sucky event?
There are many possible explanations, but I think the most likely is:
They finally realized that they gave out too much SC. Not only everyone maxed it out, but people can max out even whatever they can exchange for them (whips, runestones). So they just want the players to lose all these SC while gaining nothing in exchange.

Exchange or not?
I wouldn't do it if I were you. Gold is a free resource, we get a virtually unlimited amount. WB, DI and sylph boss gives many millions each day. If you are a relatively new player, with far from max stables, SC is your only chance to catch up with the older servers with whips. So you can do nothing just wait and hope. Older players, prolly you don't need gold anyway. So wait is a good strat too. When your mail is about to expire, just loot it, get kicked and that's it. 

Is it wise what Wartune does?
No, not at all. It's never wise to piss off your customers because you can lose them. In my other favorite game, Doomlord, they don't nerf, don't reduce rewards, and you have an event calendar for the entire year. Players feel safe and are happy.
And this is why because there WILL be a better SC event eventually. Because the player community CAN create a pressure on them, it will just take some time. But until then, don't worry to much about it. A better SC event will come eventually.

The gem event

There is also a gem event coming tomorrow. It's the same as before - it's limited (can be done only once per day), gives runestones. The change is they removed lvl 5 gem reward, and added lvl 9 and lvl 10.
This event is good! Actually - since most of us made lvl 9-10 gems for HoF and other advantages, an unlimited gem event with lvl 9-10 gems would be really shocking when we realize how much we lost by not being patient enough :)
Finally some math: 
1. If you have a few lvl 9 and lvl 8 gems, you need a total of 112 lvl 4 gems each day to claim all rewards and end up with 2 lvl 10 gems.
2. In the old unlimited event (where you get double reward for every gem, incl. lvl 5, but no rew for lvl 8 and 9), if you started with 112 lvl 4 gems (and also had 1 lvl 8 and lvl 9 gem), you ended up with 1.3 lvl 10 gems. 
So actually, the current event is better than the previous one :) You should claim each reward each day if you have the gems.

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Black friday "sale"

Really amazing! We cant event get a real discount on "black friday" sales in Wartune.

mahra normally sells for 25, sepu for 15. so 1 mahra+1 sepu is 40: exactly the same they sell it here. Btw mahra's realistic value is 5, sepu is 10-12, so this "sale" is double of realistic price.
mount whip worth 2 balens, SC is 0.4 balen (well, it actually worth nothing, since no SC event since 2 months) but anyway, the value here is 600 balen, they again sell for double price.
mount hoof and soul seals value is approx 10 balens each. So the third pack is 2k balen. Why buy it for 5k balens?
Vulcan's hammer worth approx 20 balens at the stage where I am, but price drops quickly as chance decreases. Stoves hold no value to me, have a lot from sylph boss. So 6k balens for a 2k pack, pretty ridiculous.
Will crystals approx 3 balens, crystal shard 0.4 balens (these are normal ingame prices!!) so this is 700 balens. Again no discount at all.

I see there is an extra 1M gold in each pack, but it worth nothing, really. So my question is, with all the SC and HoF fumble, wouldn't it be wise to do a REAL SALE at once? Because there will be only a very low number of fools who fall to these scams (even with the big spender combined) and Wartune lose a LOT of money.

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Hoard or use?

Chinese browser games including Wartune has a unique feature, they reward people who do not use resources, but hoard them. I have seen the same in an older game, Business Tycoon online too. Probably the original concept was to combine an event where you get reward for using a resource with a sale, where people can buy the resource – and sales will skyrocket.

However, the idea does not seem to work in practice. Players (or at least, some of them) are smart. They hoard the resources they get for free, and use them only when they get rewarded. Sales could be still a great idea, but not when you collect 1000 resources for free, and can buy 10 more for 50 USD.

Personally, I don't think that the hoard concept is so great, since:

• It forces players NOT to use ANY resources to develop characters, but save up these for weeks, maybe months. We love to use stuff the moment we get them. Holding back, is like holding back your... you know.
• It increases the gap between players – especially since in Wartune, you hoard and reward the same 3-4 resources around, so the benefits increase exponentially. Players who started later, or with less, or are on holiday during such an event, or just used some without reward are falling behind more.
• When it ends – and it will, when you are maxed and can't use more – it will feel quite desperate. When you spend thousands of SC, gems, whips each week and get a huge BR boost every time, you get used to the euphoria. When it's over, it's bad.

Still, I agree that these „treasure showers” are great for the community morale, we are even willing to overlook lags, bugs, lack of CS as long as we get tons of treasure.

Anyway, we know that we have to hoard soul crystals, mount training whips, gems, sepulcrum, mahra, resist crystals, bounty scrolls, since we know there is a regular „hoard-and-use” event for these. But what about the other resources? Should I save mount hoofs? Dragon souls? Runestones? Etc. I would say, think what you win if you use these resources. If it nets good weekly reward, use some or maybe all. If it doesn't help you that much, save it. But let's see each.

Fate stones. Maxing out fate stone abilies was pretty easy, even for non-cashers. For this reason, we didn't expect any significant hoard event: and recently, they added one with great rewards. So now I say, if you didn't maxed fate yet, don't. Leave it at 20/18 and 20/19, just in case.

Lvl 8 gems. Question is, should I make lvl 9 or 10 gems? Or wait for an event which gives reward for these? Personally I decided to make the lvl 10 atk gems, and my team members did the same. This way now we can easily do 7 boss in DI every day, so win +20 hoof +20 dragon soul and some gold with it. It also made possible for me to do sky trial 3-5. I also made lvl 10 HP gems so I can survive World Boss 1 too. Which I could, but then WB got nerfed – so maybe this wasn't such a great idea. But with Hall of Fame coming up, almost everyone will make as much lvl 9 and 10 they can anyway.

Mount hoofs. It is possible that they will add a hoard-and-use event for mount hoofs. But also, hoofs are a real badass BR-boost. So I did the following: pumped up all my mounts to 2 star. It's a lot of BR, really. 3 star costs 200 hoofs, things slow down here, so I save up them now. But hoof are only available to lvl 80 class advanced players, so it is less likely that there will be a spender event on this.

Runestones. I don't expect a spender event for these, but of course I have the basic caution of always saving up like 1-2000 of these and use only when I can gain immediately a new level for a runestone.

Dragon souls. Some people might have maxed this out already, or maxing it out soon, and it is open only to lvl 80 class advancement players anyway, so I think dragon souls are safe to spend.

Daru. Although you can spend any amount of wild shop, I recommend that you save up 600-800M for the next troops.

Gold. You can always save up gold for gem synthetiser and cloth identify events: leave the world boss prize2 in your mail, do not use gold chests, store luckstones and vip tokens.

There are many other stuffs too: refinement crystals, vulcan hammers/stoves, heaven horns, amethyst etc. which they can use for a „hoard-and-use” event anytime in Wartune. I always save up some of these – just in case – but use the majority of them.

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