Best Of

The amount of effort you spent raging about this could've easily been spent getting 825 units and 20k titan shards.

you really thought you did something with that huh? it’s a time-gated, paywalled mode — nobody’s ‘wasting time’ by pointing out how trash it is while we wait for the next drip of content. maybe read how the event works before pretending you’re the productivity police.

You keep saying paywalled for some weird reason, let's actually do the math for a second so you can stop calling it that cause it's not paywalled at all if you strategize properly your masteries, spending speeds up the process yes but it's not 100% necessary. You get 3 entries a day and the event lasts 29 days, that's 87 entries in total, 59 of those entries need to be spent on shatter mode alone for the Titan which leaves you with 28 entries left for the rest of the chapters. This means you have 3 entries in total for each chapter other than shatter mode which if you actually use your brain when upgrading a character with masteries is more than enough, you really shouldn't be dying on the same chapter more than twice if you focusing on upgrading one single character first and then slowly upgrade the rest for the other objectives and even if you are, you will still have 4 more entries left in case you made a couple extra mistakes on a certain chapter.

you’re missing the entire point — it’s not about whether it’s doable, it’s about how kabam is monetizing frustration by time-gating a boring, low-effort mode and selling arcade tickets to skip the wait. the design is built around people getting annoyed enough to pay, not around fun.

kabam didn’t offer paid tickets by accident — they knew the mode was boring and slow enough that people would want to skip it. it’s not pay-to-win, it’s pay-to-stop-being-annoyed. that’s how they monetize frustration, it’s psychological manipulation.

they know people value their time, especially in a mode that feels slow, repetitive, or annoying. so they drag it out just enough that paying to speed things up feels like relief.

so yes it’s an indirect paywall dressed up as a player choice.

No it is not, you can't just change the meaning of words as you see fit lol paywall literally means restricting access to content with either a purchase or a paid subscription, you can't just change the meaning of a word. Nothing here is being restricted to you if you don't pay, the objectives are easy to complete if you just wait and play the way it was intended to play. The tickets you buy are just a shortcut and that's the word you should be using here because they are not a resource you absolutely need, they're optional if you're not a patient person.

no one’s changing definitions — you’re just ignoring how modern monetization works.

a hard paywall restricts access entirely.

a soft paywall — which is what this is — deliberately designs the experience to be slow, tedious, and frustrating unless you pay. that’s not “optional,” that’s psychological manipulation.

kabam didn’t sell us value — they sold us relief from their own artificial grind.

that’s the whole point: the mode was built in a way that incentivizes payment by making the free path annoying, not inaccessible. that is a paywall — just in the form of time, not a locked door.
and that distinction? it's the exact kind of thing games exploit now because players like you pretend it's not happening.

That's not what a soft paywall is, a soft paywall limits access to some content but still allows you to engage with some of the content for free. Like I said, you are delusional and so fixated on pushing your views on everyone else that you're even attempting to argue against a valid point by changing the meaning of a word completely.
This isn't a paywall no matter how you spin it, and how many Bibles you type about how the word can have a different meaning (it doesn't) if you add a different word before it because modern monetization bla bla bla. The tickets are simply a shortcut, they are not a paywall and by definition you are wrong, grab a dictionary and stop trying to modify the English language as you see fit lol.

you have repeatedly ignored the actual argument in favor of semantic nitpicking — which is exactly what people do when they know they’re losing on substance. whether you call it a “soft paywall,” “timegate,” or “strategic monetization,” the point stands: kabam intentionally designed boring, repetitive content and layered in paid shortcuts because they know some players will pay to skip it.

the definition game doesn’t change the fact that kabam profits off manufactured frustration. if you want to argue about dictionaries while they slowly replace effort with engagement farming, be my guest — i am going to call it what it is.

Yes some players will pay to skip, and I do agree it's a form of monetization because they know people will pay the five for the shortcut. What I found an issue with is you calling it a paywall, it's not a paywall no matter how you spin it, it's just a shortcut.

Now, people paying actually a good thing or a bad thing? If you hated the mode and don't want more game modes like this in the future then obviously not, if you did and you're okay with mini game type modes like this one with very good rewards then yes it's a good thing, and that's literally how every game mode is designed based on interest and player response and feedback. If you have different views on the matter then agree to disagree and move on lol it's really that simple. Don't go telling people they have Stockholm Syndrome just because they didn't share your views and actually liked the content.

you keep hyper-focusing on dictionary definitions and sidestepping the core argument like you're auditioning for a debate team no one asked for. you're still ignoring the actual point: kabam is monetizing frustration through psychological design — not by locking content outright, but by making it tedious enough that paying feels like relief.

instead of engaging with that, you're clinging to the technicality of the word “paywall” like it's some hill you're desperate to die on — while pretending this whole design isn't engineered to test how much annoyance players will tolerate before spending money.

I just told you they are doing that indeed, are you dyslexic? How are you still arguing after I agreed that that is exactly what they're doing lol it is a form of monetization to some extent. It's not a paywall but they are getting people who don't have the patience or the time to spend money even if it's just a small amount. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing tho depends entirely on whether you enjoyed mini games like this one or not, if you do you obviously want more of them if you don't then you don't.

you did technically agree that kabam is monetizing frustration by offering paid skips, i’ll give you that. but let’s be real, you only admitted it after spending multiple posts trying to nitpick the word paywall like that somehow erased the point i was making.

you kept shifting the conversation to semantics instead of actually addressing the core issue — kabam intentionally building a boring, time-gated mode and then selling relief from it and testing the waters. that's the design problem. arguing over the exact word i used doesn’t change what they did.

so yeah, you agreed with the mechanic but only while pretending the concern behind it didn’t matter.

Because you didn't call it a skip button initially, you called it a paywall. I wouldn't have argued any of that if you called this what it is instead of calling it something else.
You can have your own views on whether monetizing shortcuts is a good thing or a bad thing, but if you're going to start a debate at least call it what it is so there aren't any misunderstandings later on when you're trying to get your point across.

you’re acting like the entire discussion hinges on whether i used the exact dictionary term you prefer, when the point was always about kabam giving us low effort content with a time gate, knowing its boring, frustrating to wait on, then selling relief from that tedium. call it a skip button, a soft paywall, psychological monetization — the label isn’t the issue. the design tactic is.

you latched onto the word “paywall” to sidestep the argument entirely and now you’re pretending that was the only barrier to understanding the point. it wasn’t. you just didn’t want to engage with it.

I actually did engage with it and multiple times not just once, and I told you some people liked it regardless of all the predatory tactics or whatever you want to call them. I even pointed out how you told someone they have Stockholm Syndrome for liking the event lol you're obviously not going to agree, or agree to disagree for that matter so what would even be the point in engaging with your point again and again in the first place? You won't stop arguing until everyone is sharing the same views as you.

Anyways I'm done here, we're beating a dead horse, you have your views and I have mine.

then just admit you were more interested in tone-policing and nitpicking terminology than actually addressing the substance of the argument. you didn’t really engage — you skimmed over the point, waved it off with “agree to disagree,” and kept pivoting to how i said things instead of what i said. and yeah, i said the stockholm thing — because acting like predatory design is fine just because the rewards are good is exactly how this kind of garbage becomes normalized.

if you're fine with that, cool. i’m not. and i'm not going to pretend it's just “two equal opinions” when one of them helps kabam turn trash into a template.

I did address it and you ignored it, just like you're ignoring the fact that we have different opinions and instead of agreeing to disagree you're still trying to force your view on me and everyone else who disagrees with you lmao.

You also seem very heated over an argument about a video game, sit down and take a deep breath it's really not that serious.

The amount of effort you spent raging about this could've easily been spent getting 825 units and 20k titan shards.

you really thought you did something with that huh? it’s a time-gated, paywalled mode — nobody’s ‘wasting time’ by pointing out how trash it is while we wait for the next drip of content. maybe read how the event works before pretending you’re the productivity police.

You keep saying paywalled for some weird reason, let's actually do the math for a second so you can stop calling it that cause it's not paywalled at all if you strategize properly your masteries, spending speeds up the process yes but it's not 100% necessary. You get 3 entries a day and the event lasts 29 days, that's 87 entries in total, 59 of those entries need to be spent on shatter mode alone for the Titan which leaves you with 28 entries left for the rest of the chapters. This means you have 3 entries in total for each chapter other than shatter mode which if you actually use your brain when upgrading a character with masteries is more than enough, you really shouldn't be dying on the same chapter more than twice if you focusing on upgrading one single character first and then slowly upgrade the rest for the other objectives and even if you are, you will still have 4 more entries left in case you made a couple extra mistakes on a certain chapter.

you’re missing the entire point — it’s not about whether it’s doable, it’s about how kabam is monetizing frustration by time-gating a boring, low-effort mode and selling arcade tickets to skip the wait. the design is built around people getting annoyed enough to pay, not around fun.

kabam didn’t offer paid tickets by accident — they knew the mode was boring and slow enough that people would want to skip it. it’s not pay-to-win, it’s pay-to-stop-being-annoyed. that’s how they monetize frustration, it’s psychological manipulation.

they know people value their time, especially in a mode that feels slow, repetitive, or annoying. so they drag it out just enough that paying to speed things up feels like relief.

so yes it’s an indirect paywall dressed up as a player choice.

No it is not, you can't just change the meaning of words as you see fit lol paywall literally means restricting access to content with either a purchase or a paid subscription, you can't just change the meaning of a word. Nothing here is being restricted to you if you don't pay, the objectives are easy to complete if you just wait and play the way it was intended to play. The tickets you buy are just a shortcut and that's the word you should be using here because they are not a resource you absolutely need, they're optional if you're not a patient person.

no one’s changing definitions — you’re just ignoring how modern monetization works.

a hard paywall restricts access entirely.

a soft paywall — which is what this is — deliberately designs the experience to be slow, tedious, and frustrating unless you pay. that’s not “optional,” that’s psychological manipulation.

kabam didn’t sell us value — they sold us relief from their own artificial grind.

that’s the whole point: the mode was built in a way that incentivizes payment by making the free path annoying, not inaccessible. that is a paywall — just in the form of time, not a locked door.
and that distinction? it's the exact kind of thing games exploit now because players like you pretend it's not happening.

That's not what a soft paywall is, a soft paywall limits access to some content but still allows you to engage with some of the content for free. Like I said, you are delusional and so fixated on pushing your views on everyone else that you're even attempting to argue against a valid point by changing the meaning of a word completely.
This isn't a paywall no matter how you spin it, and how many Bibles you type about how the word can have a different meaning (it doesn't) if you add a different word before it because modern monetization bla bla bla. The tickets are simply a shortcut, they are not a paywall and by definition you are wrong, grab a dictionary and stop trying to modify the English language as you see fit lol.

you have repeatedly ignored the actual argument in favor of semantic nitpicking — which is exactly what people do when they know they’re losing on substance. whether you call it a “soft paywall,” “timegate,” or “strategic monetization,” the point stands: kabam intentionally designed boring, repetitive content and layered in paid shortcuts because they know some players will pay to skip it.

the definition game doesn’t change the fact that kabam profits off manufactured frustration. if you want to argue about dictionaries while they slowly replace effort with engagement farming, be my guest — i am going to call it what it is.

Yes some players will pay to skip, and I do agree it's a form of monetization because they know people will pay the five for the shortcut. What I found an issue with is you calling it a paywall, it's not a paywall no matter how you spin it, it's just a shortcut.

Now, people paying actually a good thing or a bad thing? If you hated the mode and don't want more game modes like this in the future then obviously not, if you did and you're okay with mini game type modes like this one with very good rewards then yes it's a good thing, and that's literally how every game mode is designed based on interest and player response and feedback. If you have different views on the matter then agree to disagree and move on lol it's really that simple. Don't go telling people they have Stockholm Syndrome just because they didn't share your views and actually liked the content.