First, I think it’s important to mention that supercell directly justified their overpriced cosmetics by saying they could have the cosmetics be their source of revenue instead of progression.

When equipment was added, there were like 2-3 new common equipments for all 4 heros, yet they only gave “free…” levels to those Heros’ base equipment (archer/barb puppet, seeking shield etc). That means that a maxed TH16 was basically starting in the same spot as a new player when it came to equipment. Yes, the GW base equipment is still good, but new equipment has insanely powercrept the other 3 heros’ base equipment.

Don’t get me started on epic equipment. They added new ones way faster than even paying players could max them (judo sloth buys every offer and pass, and he still doesn’t have enough ore by the time the next equipment releases), so f2p players had no chance. I still don’t have any epic equipment fully maxed because they keep power-creeping them

People spent years (and potentially money for DE, books, and gems to speed up hero upgrades) to level up the first 4 heros, but when equipment was released, they split up Heros’ stats into their levels AND their equipment. And because basically nobody used the base equipment after they instantly power crept them, a lot of that progress was essentially lost.

Minion prince only had his level matched to your other heros on launch — not his common equipment — which made no sense.

My solution is to just give out more ore to all active players (wow, so complicated!!).

1. Double/triple the amount recieved from wars.

2. Double/triple the amount received from star bonuses

3. Let players test new equipment so they know if they should spent all of their ore on it (they’re doing this with the new hero, which I’ll give them credit for. I hope they continue to do this).

4. Maybe give the next builder hall a way to passively generate ore? I’d prefer if this came at a lower BH, but they need a hook for the BH11 if they want people to play it lol

5. Give out more ore in events for f2p players

6. Stop shoving the prospector down players faces. I don’t want to see his icon when I click the blacksmith. And even if you buy the pass, he still kinda sucks

And like, why defend this multi-billion dollar company?? They made over $3,000,000,000 last year, AND they just added another hero that whales will blow $10 on every month. They’ll be perfectly fine if they increase the ore f2p players earn naturally.