However, truth is often held by a minority.
The vast majority of people believe that the Dragon Slayer Sword did something stupid, and many of them are watching the data of "Idle Heroes" with a gloating attitude.
But if they had surveyed the attitudes of existing players of "Idle Heroes", they probably wouldn't think that way.
Before the new version was released, the Dragon Slayer Sword Studio also conducted an internal test.
Surprisingly, players were equally eager for the opportunity to test the Dragon Slayer Sword.
The reason is naturally—
"I heard that during the test, you can get unlimited diamonds! You can buy any item in the shop you want!!!"
"Finally, I can experience the joy of being a whale (someone who spends a lot of money on in-game purchases)! Let's go!!!"
Their feedback was actually as follows:
"Huh, isn't this a single-player game? What? An arena? There's something like that?"
"Another new pay-to-win project? Can your world chat be made more colorful to reflect the big spenders? I need help with the co-op dungeon..."
"This sprite can simplify a lot of operations, which is great. I finally don't have to get up at 3 a.m. every day... 998 is too expensive, but the first recharge gift pack is half price, so I might consider it."
"Another item in the shop? Another one with simplified controls like the Heaven-Defying Technique? Whatever, it's none of my business anyway. I can just leave it running for another three days and five hours and then I can draw cards again..."
This is another feature of "Idle Heroes".
—The Dragon Slayer Sword basically didn't have a PVP system; it only had a very simple arena where you could match three times a day.
The rewards from this arena aren't very useful; you can only pick and choose two or three skins to buy.
There is almost no competition between players. Each player's team is relatively independent, and they are responsible for their own profits and losses. They cannot affect other players' gameplay.
Compared to the teleportation and healing items in the game "Against the Heavens," the Little Knife Elf is a very generous auxiliary function.
It has almost no impact on balance and perfectly simulates the behavior of a super dedicated player.
Pay-to-win players are delighted with this.
And wallets are saying... they're completely drained! QAQ
Chapter 67 Genius
At the end of March, a week after the official launch of the built-in knife sprite in "Idle Heroes", something even more amazing happened.
Surprisingly, the paid ranking of "Idle Heroes" has risen instead of falling!
Moreover, it's a comprehensive and substantial improvement—
The average spending per player increased by 30%, the total number of users increased by 3.5%, and the user online rate increased by more than 50%.
And these ratios are still increasing!
This data report was produced internally by the Dragon Slayer Sword Company and will naturally be kept secret from the outside world.
However, the partners, including the platform, couldn't hide it from them. They could roughly deduce the sales changes of "Idle Hero" from their own backend data.
Everyone who saw the data wore a standard bewildered expression.
—Why? The official website has a built-in auxiliary program that actually helps boost sales?
—Isn't this too much of a disruption to balance, leading to a massive loss of players?
It's very simple. It's because the idea of Little Knife Elf robbing... oh no, tricking people into spending money... oh no, encouraging consumption is once again beyond the comprehension of local designers.
Because they couldn't understand why "Idle Heroes" had almost no operability and didn't even require players to fight.
What's most impressive is that players actually enjoy playing this kind of game?
Therefore, they also cannot understand why these players would spend money to further reduce operations, even spending tens or hundreds of thousands of yuan at once, just to "automate" the harvesting process.
However, facts speak louder than words, and players buy into it.
The emergence of the Little Knife Elf allowed them to experience the highest level of manual efficiency.
At this point, what affects their earning speed is actually the frequency with which the heroes work.
For example, a level 5 dagger spirit can collect a treasure chest every 3 hours, but many players' hero teams will return every 4 hours.
There will be many staggered intervals, and every 12 hours, the rewards from one treasure chest will be wasted.
The strategy that maximizes overall efficiency is to ensure that every action of the Little Knife Sprite yields the full amount of treasure chests.
So players started racking their brains to make the two frequencies overlap.
The simplest way is to spend real money to draw an orange-tier hero, whose passive attribute reduces dungeon run time by 1 hour...
But even if a player is incredibly lucky and actually draws this hero...
What if the little knife sprite accumulates enough experience after a week and levels up again, starting to harvest every 2.5 hours?
The timing is off again.
It's simple, my friend, just rearrange your team!
Countless choices lead to countless efficiencies and paths.
After all, "games are a series of meaningful choices"!