Best Of

Trying to reconcile the “deals are bad” vs “the deals give an unfair advantage” paradox.

Disclosure: I’m a valiant with a well developed roster, I spend occasionally - sometimes quite a lot. I bought and maxed milestones in all previous offers except red and dead.
I have 23k units I grinded for and will not be buying anything this J4 season.

I think the deals are quite poor for several reasons:

1. The value isn’t gradual. The first pass forces you to spend 18k units while giving you less than what you got for 15k 3 months ago in the 9.2 deal: no full r4. Actually, up to 30k, you get 1 r4 and some fillers.
The entirety of value lies in deal #8 which got bumped up in price for no apparent reason. This “all or nothing” attitude leaves us with a very bad taste.
2. On the other hand, the deals, to those who decide to go all in, units and cash - grant you A LOT of value: 5 rank 4s, 3 awakening gems, a plethora of nexus titans and selectors, heaps of signature stones. Lastly, Torch.
3. ⁠The unfair advantage: a newly made valiant can just skip all the content I worked my ass for, and get almost the same number of r4s I have for cash. This cheapens my effort, and is due to the fact Kabam skipped a progression level for 7r4s.
On the other hand someone who decides to go all in after putting in the work in game will have 14 r4 champs - which will put him way ahead in competitive modes.
These two scenarios just promote FOMO, and might force someone unwilling or unable to spend - to spend nevertheless just to keep up.
4. Having no middle ground or value in lower deals or even the first pass makes people with considerable amounts of units (that are not 39k) feel like their stash is meaningless, hence any grind put in to acquire said stash is also a waste of time.
5. This deal and its’ price increase follow a year of pay walled champs, with increasing frequency. This contributes a lot to the feeling of being overwhelmed and frankly squeezing the lemon.

This could easily have been remedied with a tweak to the deal structure without changing the essential value:
First pass for 18k gives a class AG and a class 3-4 gem.
Second pass through the deals gives generics. They could even add a last 3k deal with torch and extras.
The funny thing is this was the exact structure of r3 rank ups in “sinister games” only a year ago.

A more gradual approach to the value of our units would prevent extreme value to people who go all out vs the vast majority who just sit on heaps of units. It would also prevent extreme unevenness in competitive modes.