On the Mystery of the Mystery Box

My question is "Why?". The subject is the Mystery Box.

For the past several months these boxes, which randomly select prizes and MAY contain the hero you actually wanted, have been released into the game, culminating in their most recent appearance: Rocket Racoon's Mystery Box. These boxes defy all logic. Here's why.

The idea, I presume, is to make more money by forcing people to buy gold so that they can buy a ton of mystery boxes in the hope of getting the promised prize. But wasn't that what the dreaded prize wheel did as well? And, in one of the best improvements the game has ever released, the Prize Wheel was dealt away with.

Here's the thing. I would like the game to make money. I want it to keep going. However, random chance is frustrating and degrading to the players. If you want them to spend real life money, why not just make these heroes Agent-Only?

The only argument for this is that it's more "fun" to randomly get a hero that you were tentatively hoping to get. Do you know what's more fun? Gameplay! Remember those arcade games that don't have a purpose, since they're a bad way of getting fractals? How about your score in the games reflects the chance of getting a hero? That's assigning rewards to gameplay, essentially Developer 101. I don't play "Rooftop Run" unless it's part of a challenge NOW, but I'd play it the whole gameplay session if it meant I'd get a hero!

In other, better news, Drax is confirmed. Yes! Thank you. I actually see the line of reasoning for once - Drax looked like another boring strong guy character before I saw the movie. However, I still don't see the logic behind the incongruous enigma that is the Mystery Box.

-- SHSOFan.

How to Earn Fractals in SHSO

Remember my often referenced How to Earn Gold post? Well now it's obsolete. So here's the updated version... How to Earn Fractals!

Step 1. Eliminate Unnecessary Purchases

The best way to have a lot of fractals on hand is to NOT spend them on things you don't need. Here are some things you don't need:

Titles

These are for rich squaddies who have thousands and thousands of fractals. They aren't necessary and waste your precious resources! Don't bother getting any. If you feel like you MUST have a title, they occasionally give out codes for titles in their email newsletters.

Medallions

 Do you know what my favorite hero is? The one I don't have yet. Do you know why I don't have it yet? Because I wasted 200 fractals on saying what my favorite hero is! Again, it's not worth the waste.

Sidekicks

Walking around with a miniature version of Iron Man by your side seems kind of weird. If they can't help you out in missions, what's the point?

Crafts

Last resort. Don't buy these unless you absolutely can't find them in missions or locations. There's a handy craft guide here that tells you what missions give out what.

Potions

There are only a few of these that are actually helpful, namely the leveling up potion. Otherwise, don't spend fractals on them.

And finally...

Mystery Boxes

This is the one that I'm sure people won't completely agree with me on, but hear me out. The mystery boxes are a product of the old SHSO. The evil twin of the prize wheel. Random prizes that frustratingly never appear? It's not worth it. I sunk at least 2000 fractals into trying to get Winter Soldier. Leave it for the rich squaddies, there are tons of gems in the regular store.

Don't get those. Create a list of heroes that you want and aim to get them. The new prices are much, much better than the old prices, so it's not that hard to get Anti-Venom, for instance, who's 5000 fractals like most of the newer heroes. But some go for 500 or even 200. Move on to Step 2 for how to earn a lot of fractals quickly!

Step 2. Use Achievements

Okay, so the "easiest" way to earn fractals is to use all your heroes to explore a zone and find all the 10 fractals, the golden fractal, which is worth 10 fractals, complete the Impossible Man mission and earn 10 fractals through an adamantium medal, and then get a 20 fractal reward for completing all that and the other daily achievements. That's forty fractals. But it's also a lot of time. Trust me, it takes just as long to do all that as it does to complete one of the Destiny achievements. Look for something called "Missions", (yes I might be getting that wrong, I can't quite remember what it's called).

I looked through all the achievements and these are the easiest achievements to complete, for the most reward. One mission takes around 10 to 15 to 20 minutes, the same time it takes to collect all the dailies for one hero in your squad. However, instead of forty fractals, you get 200 for completing each goal. When you add up the mission time, that's about an hour for a thousand fractals.

The card game achievements seem like too much for too little right now for me. If you're leveling up a hero, and really like playing on them, look into their individual hero achievements. It isn't a very large reward but it's better then foraging through zones for the Golden Fractal.

When you run out of achievements, that's when you resort to zone exploring. I've tried it and it's not fun, at least without anyone else doing it with you, so eliminate all other options first.

Step 3. Widen Your Reach

Subscribe to the newsletter. Watch Squad Time, they always give out a code at the end. And check the official Facebook page, (link in the sidebar), for when they give out codes and hold contests. I don't participate in Facebook contests because I don't have a Facebook account. However, now they have an email contest and it's really, really easy to enter.

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Those are my three tips for how to earn more fractals and get what you want. However, if you want Coulson or Winter Soldier, haha! Good luck with that.

Here are some recommendations for heroes to get! My favorite heroes are Ghost Rider, Daredevil, Captain America (the new Stealth Suit's probably good too), and I recently got Moon Knight and he was pretty awesome. Taskmaster's good too, but maybe that's just because I'm a big Taskmaster fan.

In other news, Groot looks pretty good, albeit weird when growing. I wish there were some leaf-y particles or just something that doesn't make it look like just a scale adjustment.

And come on SHSO, announce Drax! You can't leave him out!

-- SHSOFan.

I'm Back and Here's Why

Well, for the first time in a while, I got back into the game. There were new heroes and some big improvements. There are still some gripes I have with it, but for the most part I approve of everything they changed.

The prize wheels have disappeared! Awesome!

Yes, wasting time on the prize wheel was never "gameplay" or particularly fun. Thanks a million for getting rid of it. Despite the chance element being taken from getting currency, it still remains in the mystery boxes, which I remain annoyed about. But at least now there are lots of accessible heroes in the new shop, which has been reorganized but is still sadly lacking COMPLETE organization. For instance, scrolling through heroes is STILL a pain, but at least you can search for them now.

Here I am next to Winter Soldier, one of the Mystery Box heroes.

 The new currency, fractals, may be the best decision. No more useless silver, now it's purely fractals, which you can find in the game, or gold, which you can purchase outside of the game.

I may have to write a guide to how to get as many fractals as possible soon, seeing as my old How to Get Gold post is moot thanks to the prize wheels finally getting evicted.

Speaking of fractals, I've managed to get two new heroes just by doing various missions and achievements, Moon Knight and Taskmaster. As you can probably tell, I'm into hoods.

I also purchased a badge for Ghost Rider, who I want to level up more since he's such a great hero.

Alright, a bit more complaining and then I'm done with the complaining. What is up with THIS? :

I don't have Spider-Man! And he's not on sale! Why is there an achievement like this? It could've been "Switch to a Wall-Crawling Hero"! Was there a tutorial where they give out Spider-Man to new players or something? Because I missed that!

Sigh, well anyway, I'm still playing on Night Commander Guard, so if you see me around during the next few months, let's go on a mission together!

Also, I have a few of my old files for that Megatron Mission from my Transformers What-If that I never published. I'm going to try to publish them soon. There's not much there, but I've kept anyone who was looking forward to that hanging for about two years.

The Guardians look pretty cool. Where's Drax, though? Let's hope he pops up soon.

Good to be back.

-- SHSOFan.