Basics: Heart of a Hero

Every weekend we get the event Heart of a Hero - if the server is progressed far enough in chapters.

The event lasts officially from Saturday 00:00 UTC till Monday 24:00 UTC. However, the bosses spawn every 12 hours in random places on 2x2 resource tiles or, in case of one specific boss, in the water. The spawn times are on Saturday & Sunday, at 0 & 12 UTC and disappear after 11.5 hours. 

The event stays visible for one more day after that.

General Idea

Bosses are meant to be hit by several people. While it is possible to kill one all by yourself with a strong enough commander and enough rounds (usually several draws), it is best to try and have as many people from your fellowship/warband or faction/UF hit as possible. This maximizes the rewards for your team mates, which means everyone profits from it.

You can see that when you click on a boss - you can see the Damage Rankings with the top 5.

You can see that I was the only one doing damage on this boss. Eventually I killed it as it had less than an hour left before it would have disappeared and it was in a "dead" area where no one was around.

Usually I would prefer to make sure that all Top 5 are filled so we can maximize the rewards for our UF.

I would prefer to make sure that all Top 5 are filled so we can maximize the rewards for our UF.

Rewards for the Event

There are two types of rewards you get during this event. The ones for the event itself and the ones per boss that you hit after they are defeated completely by someone.

Regardless how many bosses you hit, as soon as you reduce the boss' health by 10%/20%/30%/40% you receive 100 gems after each stage and finally at 50% you receive one Mathom Medal. You can claim these rewards directly on the event page.

These rewards add up to a total value of 800 gems, which is very useful if you can claim these every weekend. Therefore I highly advise you not to skip these events, especially if you are F2P or a low spender. 

Then there are the chests that get distributed once a boss is defeated. 

If you land in the Top 5 of Damage Ranking, you receive 3 Suppressor's Spoils chests. 
Depending the strength of the boss you receive between 25k and 75k gold per chest (which means between 75k and 225k per boss) and 6 boost items per chest (Speedups for Treatment, Buildings, Recall).
To receive this chest you do not have to deal a minimum of damage. As long as you are listed in the Top 5 you receive the rewards.

If there are more than 5 participants on one single boss and you are not in the Top 5 of Damage Ranking, you might receive 1 Warrior's Spoils chest. This chest contains also Gold and Boost rewards, but less/fewer. If I remember right, one chest gives 10k gold. I don't recall how many Boost items are handed out.
Requirement to receive this chest however is that you dealt more than 5% damage to the boss. If you are below that, you receive nothing.

You can only receive either the Suppressor's Spoils or the Warrior's Spoils chest(s) per individual boss.

Boss Levels & Rewards

As your season progresses the bosses gain more power. The first week or two you will encounter bosses at 1,600,000 HP. After that you find bosses with 2,400,000 HP and then those with 3,000,000 HP.

As the bosses grow in power, so do the rewards. I took note of a few examples of individual chest contents. Please keep in mind that the Boost rewards can always be a mix-&-match out of all the available speedups that are in these chests: 

• Build Speed Up 5 min | 15 min | 30 min
• Recall Speed Up 5 min | 15 min | 30 min
• Treatment Speed Up 5 min | 15 min | 30 min

These rewards make the bosses not only very valuable as a source of gold income, but also as a source for plenty of speed-ups that will help you with your game management.

You can get as many rewards as you hit bosses that eventually get defeated. Neither the amount of chests you receive nor the content of the chests change depending on how much damage you deal on an individual boss. If you are in Top 5, you will always receive the same rewards.

Find Bosses

After all the rewards talk it is about time we go and find ourselves some bosses. There are different options to do that:

• Scroll the map - very tedious and takes more time than I want to spend on it
• Hit the button "Attack" on the event page:
  This will zoom you in directly onto a boss that the game thinks is close(est) to your base. As you will notice, this is not always accurate.
• Use the game's search option:
  Click on the looking glass in the top left corner of your screen and choose the second tab. Click on "Boss and then on Search.
  The game will zoom you into up to 5 locations of bosses with the point of the map you were at as rough center (similar to the previous option). 
  When using this method I will zoom through all five options and pin them. Then I take a closer look at the map and see if any of the locations are in my reach.
  For this option you can center the map to different positions on the map. I would typically try and go onto a fort or if I have several forts in a region zoom to the one most centered and search from there. 
• The most resourceful option is your faction and/or fellowship channels if you are in an active group. Typically your team mates will share locations. Many eyes see many bosses. It makes your life much easier.

The Bosses

There are five different types of bosses, all with slightly different traits:

• Dragon
• Balrog
• Huorn
• Giant Spider
• Watcher of the Water 

Below I will briefly explain the bosses, their traits and what to expect from them. For each boss you will find a ss that displays what it looks like on the map as well as the information panel that shows when you click on it. 

On top of the panel you can see how long the boss will be available until it disappears - similar to mobs.

1. Dragon

One of the original bosses that have been in the game since launch. 

The dragon sits majestically on his pit and just waits for victims to come close. He is not shy to try and hit you with his Fire Breath or his Tail. Be aware and wear heatproof skin if you have. 

When you face Dragons, they will activate

- [Large Unit] in the preparation phase 
-> -15% Dmg reduction for physical dmg against the dragon

During battle they activate 

- [Dragon's Tail] in rounds 3, 6, 9
-> extra attacks on your armies

- [Deep Breathing] 
-> attacks all your armies, causes Burn Damage

To get the best results against Dragons you would like to use troops that counter "Large Units". Also anything that gives you protection against the Burn Damage will help you alleviate some of the damage against this boss.

2. Balrog

The second original boss in the game. 

When you see the Balrog, you know right away that he is not here to joke around. However, this is probably the easiest boss to kill.

In your battles with a Balrog you will face

- [Servant of Darkness] in Preparation phase 
-> Avoidance/Evasion when attacked
-> 20% Dmg reduction for physical dmg against the balrog

- [Abyssal Flame] in Prebattle phase
-> attacks in Pursuit
-> armies receive Burn Damage (continuous) (before acting)

Similar to a Dragon you would want to make sure to mitigate the Burn Damage to aid you in your battle and reduce losses. Fighting fire with fire? This won't work here. But you can use commanders that deal focus damage rather than physical damage and equip your commander with gear and skills that have healing properties in order to reduce your troop losses.

3. Giant Spider

The third boss introduced to the game. 

This creature waits patiently for you to come too close to her spider web to lure you in and incapacitate you with her poison.

The Spider in her battles will activate 

- [Cobweb Twine] in Preparation phase 
-> Commander affected by Dmg reduction at the beginning of each round

- [Poison Master] during Battle
-> Spider deals Poison Damage in extra attacks

In case of the spider you will most likely want to avoid DD commanders as their damage output will be significantly reduced by [Cobweb Twine]. Any item or skill that mitigates Poison Damage is very helpful, as well as any healing or other damage mitigation. As the Spider does not carry Pursuit, you will do well with Evasion skills or items.

4. Huorns

One of the newer bosses, although also around since quite some time already.

When looking at the boss on the map it looks almost peaceful. If you look at the panel when you click on it however, it does not look quite as friendly anymore. 

When attacking a Huorn it will throw at you 

- [Adamant] in Preparation phase 
-> -30% Dmg reduction for physical dmg against the Huorn
-> +30% Burn Damage against the Huorn 

- [Enormous Power] during Battle
-> Attacks with Pursuit

You guessed it, commanders that rely on physical damage are less advisable here. If you can use Fire Damage, by all means, do that. It should serve you well. Despite the fact that the Huorn has attacks that carry the Pursuit effect, you are still good with Evasion as the Pursuit does not activate in every round. As always, healing and damage mitigation are very helpful of course, but you won't need any Fire or Poison protection - the Huorn really does not like it hot. 

5. Watcher in the Water

The last and probably weirdest of all bosses. 

This creature lures in the water and tries to pull you under with its tentacles if you come too close. When hidden in the water it might not seem to bear a lot of threat, but do not make the mistake to underestimate this boss.

If you dare to attack a Watcher in the Water, it will threaten you only with one extra skill 

- [Furious Swings] in Battle phase 
-> Progressively higher Dmg dealt against you
-> It activates in every single round, starts at +15% Dmg and goes up to +150% Dmg in round 10

Compared to other bosses Watcher in the Water deals quite a lot of damage due to the progression of damage per round. You want to equip yourself with as much damage mitigation as you can in order to mitigate the effect. Any healing skills or items will come in handy too.

In general for all bosses that you face you can use Stun or Madness items. While these won't result in any damage against the boss itself as it has no armies supporting it, using these items will simply prevent you from receiving more damage than needed. Every round the boss is stunned means you have a round or an attack incident without damage to your troops. 

The point of fighting bosses is to get the rewards at minimum losses. So this is what you want to aim for. 

Good luck and enjoy the hunt. 

Article - Balanced Servers

When playing the game we all want to have fun. This is the ultimate goal for everyone - or for most everyone. 

Players'  Expectations

One part of having fun includes the ability to play throughout the whole season. While different players have different play styles and expectations to what they consider "fun" in the game, what is common to almost all players, is that they do not simply want to log in and do - nothing. Doing nothing is boring. Farmers want to be able to farm. Theory crafters and build testers want to craft and test builds. Fighters want to fight. Prestige farmers want to farm prestige. These may be different types of goals, but the common ground is: do something and not just sit around.

In order to be able to do something, you need to have access to the basic requirements. in all cases - whether it is farming, testing builds, PvP (fun or war) - you need access to one basic thing in the game: troops. And to have access to troops you need - resources!

Now, to accomplish the common goal, most people agree on one thing: the server should be as balanced as possible. And there we hit the problem. The question "what is a balanced server?" usually brings up huge discussions and often starts fights and the ever proclaimed "toxicity". 

Contributing Factors

There are so many different factors at play that it seems difficult to find a common ground on how to achieve a "balanced server":

- number of players
- strength of players
- experience of players
- activity of players
- server setup
- type of campaign
- (dis)advantages of factions
- availability of resources
- available commanders/troops per faction/alignment
- ... and so on.

How do you measure all these different factors? Which factors are (most) deciding? Which can be neglected? Opinions go in vastly different directions.

Excurse - Server Experiences

I started playing this game when it first got officially released after the Beta testing - on September 23, 2021. Currently I am on my 9th season with my main good side account. Besides this account I have several others, some bigger than others. Among these is one bigger evil account with also 8 seasons and another decent good side account with a total of 7 seasons under the belt. All in all I have seen about 30+ different servers across most seasons and campaigns.

With all this experience you would think there had to be a few balanced servers among the list. However, I have yet to see that one truly balanced server. There is also the reality that people perceive the same server very differently. Just as an example, there was this one server that I perceived as immensely stressful from day 4 when war started until roughly 4-5 hours before the countdown ended. At the same time another group found the server extremely boring. Given these very different perceptions about that particular server you guessed it already - the server certainly was not balanced.

Solutions?

Players tend to ask developers to do something in order to balance the game. The requests go from asking for separate servers for "whales" vs "F2P" to controlling the numbers of registrations per faction/alignment or experience of these players and whatnot.

We all can see that the developers try to tackle the problems at hand by implementing different systems and algorithms that are aimed to help the balance problem. We have seen them cut down numbers per factions, capping the registrations per alignment (good/evil), capping the amount of players per team and more recently in some registrations (campaign S4 - The War of the Ring) requiring a minimum ring level in the previous server to be eligible to register for the campaign. And last not least the newest feature that will be implemented with this week's patch: the creation of registrations for players who never won the "Ring". All this in order to try and attempt balanced servers and enhance player experience.

Most people want servers to be populated. More server population = more competition = more activity = more fun. This is the idea and in the majority of the cases this is certainly true. However, how do you get servers populated? The game team can hardly force groups into registering for a certain campaign against their will. Some groups wait for friends who are still stuck in servers and want to join them, so they wait. This makes it very difficult for the game team to really influence players' choices in a grand scheme.

So, what net? We end up on a server with differently populated factions. This is the basic reality. Within these differently populated factions we have different strengths. One faction may have higher numbers than the other, but still be weaker because of lower activity, higher percentage of F2P vs whales, etc.

We could start counting the numbers of players. Do we count all players in all listed fellowships/warbands? Or do we stop after the top 15? Top 20? Or do we count only groups with X amount of players? Do we consider how many "alts" or secondary accounts they have, which may not be played as much as their main accounts?

Utopia - The Perfect Scenario

Let's assume we have a "perfect" server with 4 factions that each have 2 full fellowships/warbands - 200 people per faction. For the sake of this example we will say the other factions are completely empty. Further, let's assume the four full factions are equally active and all have the same amount of seasons under their belts. All this should allow for a perfectly balanced server, right? Simply two factions vs two factions = perfect balance.

Hold a second! How do we factor the status of the individual players' developments? We will not have a homogenous group of people who are all on the same level of commander/gear progress. Even if all those players had spent equal amounts of money, they would not have equal amounts of luck with their chest pulls - those pulls are RNG based (as so many other factors in the game).

So, how do we measure the strength of the players?

- Do we measure it by how much they farm in the first week? We have seen great farmers who don't fight much, though.
- Or do we count how many commanders at R10 they have? Commanders have different strengths and different gear set ups etc.
- Does one "kraken" outweigh 3 (or 5 or 10) whales? How do you measure this?

We'd have this perfectly "balanced" server and again we'd struggle. Simply because of the difference in strength of players. Let's now add to this the different strength of commanders/builds/troops in the alignments good vs evil. Some builds work better against good, others work better against evil. People are set up one way or another - depending on what they played so far and even with the Elven Craftsman's Hammer we cannot dismantle whatever and whenever we want to. Those items are limited.

Conclusion

In my personal opinion and according to my experience it is impossible to achieve a balanced server. What is balanced for one (e.g. equal numbers of players) is not balanced for another because they consider something else balanced (e.g. number of factions per side). The "headache" of trying to make a server balanced is taking a lot of time from the actual fun in the game - playing it, i.e. grow your commanders, manage your resources, troops, etc. and then go fight and try to win or have another favourable outcome that you worked for.

Disclaimer:

All expressed thoughts are based on my personal experiences, views and opinions. They may not be shared by other players in this or a similar way. I do not claim to have the one right opinion or view on things, but merely share my take on things based on my own, personal experiences in the game.