Hero Wars Dominion: October 2025

October 12, 2025

Haven't been actively documenting in-game activity but did participate to some extent. We had Tournament of Power - Hero War edition at the start of the month for which I placed 4th. This was followed by: Legacy of the Great Ones, Foundations of Power and Seer's Game.

Not sure what happened, but I fared better in the first rendition of the Seer's Game compared to the follow-ups. While some rewards were earned, I couldn't complete a single full game. Plus, the Seer's Game currency was difficult to earn in decent sums.

Granted there were quests that rewarded this currency; however, those quests were further down the quest line and took a while to get to. Personally, I would like the Cursed Card to be removed from the game. On Day 2 of the Seer's Game, we got Corvus' Hero Brawls.

Normally, I don't participate in Hero Brawl events fully, but this time around I was fairly active. So active, that I managed to earn enough Brawl Coins to get Corvus to Red Rank. After the Brawls came Guardians of Outland. On Day 2 of the event we got...

Area of Conquest: Updated Edition

Spent 20K Superior Coins and got to Level 8 ½
and spent 20K more and got to Level 12 ¼.

A noticeable update came to Area of Conquest. After much asking, we finally got an action points increase. Instead of 10, we now start off with 20. 

The Speed Booster changed from decreasing recovery time to instantly granting 10-action points. It also now takes 12-minutes to recover one action point. We also got an activity log that shows how many Superior Coins were contributed to the castle from each participating player.

Despite some of the positive changes, there are still some players calling for the auto-depositing of coins into the castle. On top of this, we still don't have a clear view of how many SC's are needed to get to the next level. With all of these conversations taking place, it got me wondering: why can't the SC's go both ways?

To elaborate, my first MMO-type game had a mode that was compatible to AoC with some differences. The main difference is that it wasn't guild focus. You were randomly assigned to one of the two participating teams.

Next, earning points for your team wasn't a 1-way street. If you did something in the game mode to earn points, the points went to both the individual player and the team. For example if I complete Task A plus B and earned 125-points, 125-points would be applied to both my earned points total and the Team's earned points total.

When the event ended, the players got rewards for being on the team with a bonus if the team won the event. In addition to this, point contributors got extra rewards. Moreover, the game mode had a nice mix of PvP and PvE activities which worked great for times when little to no players were online -- the mode was 1-hour long and had 3-sessions per day.

AoC on the other hand is designed very differently. The biggest pain point, in my opinion, is that it's guild-oriented. Normally this wouldn't be a bad thing but the way things are laid out, the end result isn't great.

You're either in a guild that makes participation mandatory or you're not. As mentioned in several past posts that discussed this event, I had high expectations when the event was first teased. I was expecting a mix of PvP [Player-vs-Player] and PvE [Player-vs-Environment] elements.

What was delivered was solely, in my opinion, PvP oriented. The only PvE element is chest collecting. There are no NPC (non-playable character) opponents that can be fought.

Even when there are guilds online that are somewhat actively participating, nobody engages in combat. Many encourage and argue about the importance of upgrading the castle, however there really isn't a reason to upgrade the outside of the rewards of which the decent ones are tied to the paid reward path. Moreover, the 4th place rewards can be so much better.

1st:  16 Chests of Patterns & 6,500 Golden Threads

2nd: 12 Chests of Patterns & 5,000 Golden Threads

3rd:   8 Chests of Patterns & 3,500 Golden Threads

4th:    4 Chests of Patterns & 1,500 Golden Threads 

The simple removal of the Hero Upgrade Chests and the dropping the rewards down a level while adding a new 1st place option. Nothing about the game mode screams conquest. It's more of a game of hide and seek mixed with a dash of Flag Capture (I'm referencing the Jak-X version for this one).

There's room for improvement but the game mode has to match the base game's style of play. If you're wondering about the picture above, that's not my main team. The match-ups are so weird that I wind up setting weak defenses so that I'm not keeping 32-Midtown from another player that may not be as strong as my main team.

What Can Be Improved?

I would very much like to see earned points go to both the player and their guild. Keeping point earning in its current state is causing a lot of unnecessary friction within guilds to the point where members are getting kicked based on this single event alone.

Moreover, there needs to be some PVE elements added to the map. Not everyone can do fights due to unpredictable guild matching. This way, players can have more than one avenue for earning points.

Next, the rewards for castle leveling need some TLC. Gift of Dominion should be on both paths. Orange can stay on the paid or they can upgrade it to Red. For the free path, they can include either Orange (if they upgrade to Red for the paid path) or they can include Violet.

Lastly as mentioned several times prior, give castle leveling a purpose. Obtaining rewards isn't the only end goal for most players. For some, leveling the castle usually comes with perks in the form of boosts and bonuses for the game mode.

In this case, if castle leveling had a perk where a captured settlement can be held for 12-hours (Midtown is limited to 6-hours) while also increasing coin production, that could be a good start. After time is up, the holder will be open for attacks. Each guild will be limited to 2-settlements for the hold with a 12-hour cool-down.

If the suggestions aren't doable then they should just make the mode some variant of Flag Capture or something.

October 25, 2025

Stuck on Roots and Will. Even with suggested
teams, can't defeat boss despite retries.

We got a lot of titan events since the 12th with some overlap. Then we got an event for the new titan that falls into the category of summoner titan. They're for the Earth element and are called Verdoc and Phyto.

This will be the first new [titan/hero] event where I waited till the next day to do anything. Usually after the launch, some time after reset, I will start doing stuff. This time I waited because I couldn't make heads or tails of anything.

Logged back in and was able to complete some quests. The major downer, which feels worse with this iteration of hero/titan stall, is that heroes/titans you're trying to build don't show up often enough. For example, it took forever to get Arachne maxed to complete the hero quest-line.

I'm still working on the titans and unfortunately water titans weren't part of the quest chain. To make things even more hectic, they included totem fusion skills tasks. This is another pain in itself because - like the heroes and titans - they don't show up often enough.

Another issue that I ran into were the buff minimums. For Chapter 3, I had to increase the buff from the stated minimum up to 110 just to defeat the final boss. Chapter 4 was smooth sailing and then I got to Chapter 5.

I was short 4-levels to reach to the minimum to unlock the chapter. Didn't realize that the energy crystal cost went up a bit with upgrades. One moment the cost was 30 and the next 40.

Finally got enough to unlock the chapter, but it looks like more is needed for the final boss. At least that's how it's looking right now as I can't seem to get all the pieces needed to max out skills and titans. Moreover, the game hangs on certain screens. Going to try the game again tomorrow and hope overall gameplay is more smooth.

October 27, 2025: Verdoc Event at a Standstill

This screen has showed repeated since the lauch
of the Verdoc and Phyto event.

While I found a temporary fix for the screen on the right, I can go no further. Despite repeated attempts at Roots and Will I can't get the fragments in the quantity needed to defeat the boss. Tried elemental counters and even some suggested teams.

Of course I was in the middle of another retry when the game glitched and was followed by an error screen. If I can get in tomorrow, I'm going to spend what's left of this event's currencies. The Great Storm and Ascension to Asgard are winding down and Weaving Patterns is launching soon.

I'm more curious about Weaving Patterns as there's two versions. Would love to get a reward that will grant free pattern removal. Makes customizing War Flags not worth it with these kinds of limitations.

October 28, 2025: It Has Spread to the Minion Fights

I spent every active event's currency. Then I turned my attention to the Asgard Minion fights. After selecting heroes for the first fight, the game glitches and the error screen appears.

sigh

So I close out the browser, reopen it and re-enter the game. Of all my years playing this game, this is the first I've run into an issue like this. And I've been playing since the game was Flash-based.

Trying to play sparingly at least until the Verdoc Event ends. In addition to this, we got Weaving Patterns taking place and there's more confusion than is needed. Instead of one Chest of Patterns [CoP], we have 3 different ones and they don't have the same contents.

This was noticed when I was scrolling through my inventory and the event tasks. I have 13-CoPs but the CoP in the event task list shows I have none. Completed some tasks and got the CoP from the task rewards. Went back and read the announcement post and started scrolling the recharge bundles.

Starting at IV, you get a CoP but after hovering it showed that I had zero despite the 1 and 13 which means yet another variation.