It's fun to see them grouped like that and I'm not gonna say more 'cause I'm close to the project.
That said, I was poking at my own data (TM) and wanted to delve into another topic that might benefit from being laid out clearly and in one spot all at once: the perception of Hero scarcity.
Lately, the idea has been floating around that there aren't many Hero Cards left. We've seen them become increasingly scarcely-played as the game goes on (though that's pretty normal), and there's certainly a feeling that there's not much in the way of wiggle room. But is it true?
No. No it is not.
In fact, here past the halfway point, there's some interesting math to be shared.
Right now, V7 has 41 remaining handlers with unrolled characters. Of these 41 handlers, 28 hold unplayed Hero Cards. That means that 68.3% of the game still has a Hero Card (by comparison, only 22, or 53.7%, still have a Swap Card). Over two thirds of the game still has their Hero--in fact, more than twice as many people have Heroes as do not have them.
More than that, we have seen only 18 Hero Cards played to this point in the game. What
that means is that there are more Heroes currently available than have been played, by a sizable degree (for those interested, I count 24 Swap Cards played so far).
So why, then, do Heroes feel scarce?
I do have a few theories.
First off, it's worth noting that
having a Hero Card is very different from holding any intention of playing one. I talked about it
before, but only V4 saw more than half its handlers play their Heroes. Aside from that outlier, typical Hero usage lives in the 35-45% range.
There are a bunch of reasons not to play a Hero. A particularly common one is that doing so would knock the handler in question out of the game. Of the remaining V7 Heroes, 16 (57.1%) belong to handlers on their final character. This is, naturally, a big factor to consider when deciding whether to play your card... especially at this relatively early stage.
This is, as a slight tangent, probably a result of the shift to the roll-by-character method. Of the 41 remaining handlers, 23 (56.1%) are on their final character, 10 (24.4%) have two characters left, 6 (14.6%) have three, and 2 (4.9%) have four. Both four-character handlers have a character not protected from multiple rolls, one due to late adoption, the other to second adoption--which is to say, everyone with four characters left has adopted, possibly multiple times. This leveling of the playing field is the result of a system in which on of our four-character handlers will be, next rolls, four time as likely to lose a character as a one-character handler is to be eliminated... and also at risk of dropping half their cast in one go, should their late/multiple adoptees get hit.
Furthermore, there's the question of why people play Heroes to begin with. I believe there's been a bit of a cultural shift on that front. In days of yore, it was not uncommon to use Heroes as a disposal method for excess or unwanted characters. This probably peaked in V4, where handlers found themselves overwhelmed trying to juggle an entire cast for the whole game. From V5 on, however, "fodder" characters were discouraged, and the lower character cap offered less opportunity to get in over one's head. While V7 restored the V4 character cap, that does not immediately erase how handlers think of their characters.
In fact, V7's cast is generally very tight, with most everyone getting some share of development and attention. This also works against large number of Heroes; handlers are more likely to view all their characters as relatively even, or to hesitate more to sacrifice one off-handedly.
So, then, Heroes slowly but surely have come more in line with their original stated purpose: to be used to save a character you really like.
This, then, depends on readership, investment, etc. etc. If Heroes are becoming infrequent, it's because handlers just don't feel like playing them... which is fine. There's long been this sort of unspoken expectation for people to Hero, but as discussed above no version except V4 has seen the majority actually do it. There are dozens fo good reasons not to Hero, and dozens of good reasons to do so.
Just, I think it's important that any conversations on the subject spring from a factual starting point, and the simple fact is that, whatever the reason for seemingly-lower rates of Heroing, it can't really be pinned on a lack of cards.
