**Mastery Loadouts**
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Regarding Brian Grant’s Most Recent Video
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
First it was the intended use of those units. Now it is the ease of acquiring them.
Why can't you just admit that you are upset others are doing something you choose not to do for whatever reason and you don't like it that they are going to get something you aren't because of that choice.
Reply if you wish, but I am done wasting time with you because you are going to try and twist everything to make it seem like you are being hurt by this horrible thing because you don't want to do it...
I'm not a free to play player. I spend on the Sigil, and I do spend on occasion, normally on the big sale days but occasionally when a really good deal comes along. But I have my own rules for spending. They aren't as strict as Brian, but in theory I could just literally buy everything. I would be far more advanced than I am now. But doing so would take away the fun of playing. My spending rules are completely made up for me, and I can't really logically justify them, but I don't care about what anyone else thinks of my spending or playing. It works for me, and that's what matters.
I also have a second account that I am making very slow progress on. That account is totally free to play. I keep that account free to play because I just like the idea of having a free to play account. It is my game, I do what I want.
Soooooooo many Comments
They are severely devaluing the units by buying GGCs.
Forget about the units number. It’s misleading because those units will never be able to purchase what a main can.
You described how units from an alt are 5x faster.
Taking your parameters, would you rather have the contents of 1 GGC (excluding milestone/alliance rewards) or 60 units?
You can’t keep focusing on the amount of units since redemption value is tied to progression.
It takes around 40 crystals to get a 6-star. That’s 12,000 units for an alt. Using your parameters, a main could have farmed 2,400 units in the same time frame. Sure 12,000 vs 2,400 looks like a huge imbalance. But not when you look at what that actually buys you. When you look at net gain, it becomes a lot closer.
Making a new alt account and scooping up the units in the early Acts is not an exploit. It is, in fact, entirely intended.
Making a new alt account and scooping up the units in the early Acts just to funnel them to your main is not intended, but is not generally considered an exploit either.
Making hundreds of new alt accounts and scooping up the units in the early Acts just to funnel them to your main is not intended, and probably considered exploitive.
Making hundreds of new alt accounts and scooping up the units in the early Acts and selling those units to other players during the gifting event is almost certainly a violation of the TOS and definitively exploitive.
The early act units are not an exploit (exploits are processes, not rewards) but they have the potential to enable or significantly incentivize exploitive behavior. It doesn't matter if it already happens or can happen, what matters is whether the benefits of the change to the early Acts outweigh the potential exploitive damage they can produce. I'm not sure they do, but I do know that changing those Units into non-transferrable currency preserves all of the benefits *intended* for them while simultaneously eliminating virtually all of the exploitable potential they contain. So that's why I advocated that change. There's no real downside to making that change.
You also realise that people spend 300 units on their main for a GGC. As in, if they have 300 units they will trade it with an alliance mate for a GGC, so it's not like everyone looks at that and thinks wow that's overpriced.
Lastly, having 2000 units on an alt account and sending it to your main, is the exact same as having those units on your main and trading it. I'm not sure where the jump in logic from getting units 5x faster means they are worth 5x less comes in, but it's not sound. If Units are 5x faster to get, then you get 5x as many and send them to your main.
If everyone got a million GGCs except you, and everyone started crushing all the content except you, the difficulty of the game would go up to compensate. Everyone would eventually return to normal, with the content being just as challenging as it used to be relative to their new rosters. Everyone except you.
On small scales this is difficult to see, but on longer scales this is a lot easier to see. A lot of the people complaining about content getting harder are seeing the impact of this. The players *on average* are getting stronger, and the content is rising to meet them. Average players over time will see the content remaining roughly at the same level of challenge. Stronger players will still see the content getting easier over time. But if you're far below average in progress rate? You'll see the game get harder.
People think it is obvious that on a leaderboard if someone overtakes you, you fall lower. Most people don't realize it is all leaderboards, it is just that most of them in an online massively multiplayer progressional game are invisible.
This is part of what makes exploits so problematic. There are idiots out there who think exploits are "pro player" because they help players. They don't. For every player they help, they hurt hundreds of others. Every exploit is the game taking a penny away from a hundred players to give a dollar to one player. It is just harder to see those pennies, so people don't realize it is happening.
Mass gifting is either wrong or ok. The way it occurs makes no difference at all.
If players were somehow actually exploiting I would totally agree that needed to be looked into and fixed.
In the same time, you could have farmed 2,400 on your main.
People in this thread see 12,000 and think, “Outrageous! Devaluing units! Exploit!”
But those units are a golden handcuff. You can’t give them to your main. So, you can only buy GGCs. GGCs are terrible value for 300 units by themselves. It takes on average 15 to get enough shards for a 5-star. 4500 units. Or 40 for a 6-star; 12000 units. So you can’t compare units because units on an alt are less valuable than units on a main. You have to compare what time spent farming on alts gets your main versus what time spent farming on your main gets.
For the same time spent, it’s not “Do I want 12000 units or 2400 units”.
It is “Do I want 40 GGC or 2400 units.”
Now go look at YouTube and find GGC opening videos. Would you pay 2400 units for those contents? I’d wager some times you would, some times you wouldn’t.
The point is, the disparity is not as wide as people are pretending because alt units have to be spent on GGCs and GGCs are RNG with value tied to milestones and alliance rankings. By buying on alts, you erase the milestone and alliance value from the GGCs.
Every way I think about it, it's going to badly affect a certain group of players.
Account level - someone who bought the 735 unit daily card for 12 months but only is level 15
Time of creation - new players who start in the coming days
Progression - newer players who couldn't get to that level
Can only gift to similar rated players - anyone who has a mate who doesn't play the game as seriously/plays it way more seriously, or a member of the alliance who is much different rated. Same with progression.
Aside from your new currency idea, which would be great for next year, but right now couldn't fix the issue. What do you think is the best way to do something that is best for new players, lower players or the players who want to grind a couple alts, but at the same time doesn't allow someone to grind 50?
Player A runs the Abyss and gains X rewards.
Player B spends money and gains X rewards.
Is this fair?
And the answer is: it depends. It is a completely arbitrary decision to state that it is fair for player B to buy what player A had to earn through gameplay. It is up to the developers to decide what kind of game they want to make, and up to the players to decide what kind of game they want to play. There are people who would say that is completely unfair, that player B should not be allowed to buy with cash what everyone else has to earn through game play. That's a perfectly legitimate stance. Of course, such players will now have to decide whether to play microtransaction supported F2P games. There are games that don't sell resources - they sell cosmetics, for example. But then you have players who believe they deserve something back for their money that has utility value. Selling cosmetics is ridiculous because the game company is giving you literally nothing of value for you cash, which is absurd (to them).
In this game, we sell resources to support the game. You either accept that fact, or you go find another game. Here, selling stuff that other players have to earn through game play, sometimes very challenging game play, is considered generally acceptable.
There's a lot of things we don't consider acceptable. We don't consider botting acceptable. We don't consider mercing to be acceptable. And when I say "we" I mean the devs consider these things to be unacceptable, and most players (but not all) also consider them to be unacceptable. To some extent, these are arbitrary decisions, but they are the consensus ones.
So what's the problem with someone making a hundred alts and gifting hundreds of GGCs to their main? Doesn't that have the same impact on other players as someone earning those resources in the game through other means? In one sense, sure. But would most players consider this to be an acceptable strategy? Probably not. Most cheating doesn't impact most players. No matter how many bots fill the arena leaderboards, this impacts at most a few hundred players out of a million. 99% of the players will never be affected by a war pilot. But we all collectively abhor these things, and they negatively impact players' experience with the game. It is one thing for these things to happen because the company tries and fails to eliminate all of it. It is another thing for these things to happen because the company literally doesn't care or actively encourages it. There are lots of players that will find this perfectly acceptable. But I suspect the vast majority wouldn't, at least in extreme cases.
And this makes the situation something the devs have to act upon. Or not, but choosing not to act is itself an action that sends a signal (and I know Kabam has already stated they are considering their next steps).
1 anyone can do this
2 it doesn’t affect the price of units
3 can not be used throughout the year
4 nothing in this game has any real value
5 the most important. Units are not set at some static amount. monthly card 735 units $4.99x 2= 1,470. Black panther 1,450 $49.99 seems like Kabam sells units at different prices number 1. I don’t know or care how much money you or anyone else makes in a day, but 8 hours of time is worth more than 2100 valueless units. Kabam says those units are less than $15 or as much $70, but sometimes $15 only gets you 310 units.
So what exactly do you mean by devaluing something that kabams tos deems to be valueless. And at the very least considers this to have a fluctuating value. One day you could $49.99 for 2500 shards the next $99 could get you a dual class of nexus 6*.
I’d just like to know. I know you’re a big man on the forums but I’m not sure why you believe this is any different than anything else, or why you feel you should have the right to decide what other people are allowed to do. Kabam is the authority here and there’s no morality argument to be had off of what a person earns or pays for.
People spend 300 units for a GGC on their main for the *solo and alliance rewards*. Most alts are outside of the alliance, so those extra rewards are non existent.
If you send your main 7 GGC, they get 7 GGC. That’s it. If your main has 2,100 units. That account gets 7 GGC and solo rewards and alliance rewards. Or your main can buy progression based offers. Thus, units on main have greater value.
Fact
So stop the nonsense
It is just that when the smart kid raises the curve, we consider that to be normal. And in this game, when the rich kid buys the school a whole new wing, we let him have Stephen Hawking help him with his physics homework, because without him and his friends there would be no school.
We want the skilled players and we need the whales. We don't need mass alt farming. That's the difference.
Now with the changes to those Acts of progressing quickly and getting a lot more units, yes it creates a conundrum with those who can do this in their spare time. With his video I decided if it is possible with an actual job, kid(s), and personal life if you can do it. Calling it my 30 For 30 Challenge.
BG's video showcased you would need to have perfect conditions of 5 hours everyday without distractions, barely a bathroom break and you would actually have to do it (unless you have a bot). This is also exacerbated by the 2 free 3* of Ikaris and Sersi with rank up gems. Because truth be told, everyone could have been doing this prior. With the changes to Act 1-3 and 2 3* it just makes it easier to do than last month or last year's gifting event.
So far, with my little shadow alliance of alts (Not a Single Doom so far btw), it's pretty safe to say between now and late December I would get 30 GGCs at minimum come this greater gifting event if nothing changes. I will not be able to get the 2100 per account, because one, I don't have have 3-6 hands, bots, sacrificing my main account, patience, and don't want to burnout of this grind of repetition. It is an extreme effort just to get where I'm at with one phone and then having to login (remember which email and password) each day to progress, switch, and move. You do not get auto-fight until lvl 19, so you have to do the fights until then.
Something to consider in regard to his video and actually attempting to do something like this.
And makes me want to create an account 😂
“ he got $70 worth of units for a full days work bohoo” listen to yourselves.. but some sheik spends 100k and no one cares.. someone buys 735 for $5 is ok though too and farming that way is fine 20 accounts all year long gives you 176,000 units for just logging in!!!!
Quit your crying and let other people do what they do. Play your game your way
exploittake advantage of the situation, so I won't speculate with too much specificity until they announce what they are going to do.I can say what I don't want to happen.
1. I don't like the idea of locking gifting to players of similar progression. My alliance is full of different people of different progression. The idea that I might get locked out of gifting to the majority of my alliance is unpalatable. If it was just me or I was the extreme minority, I'd bite the bullet, but for reasons I gave earlier I don't think I'm the exception. I think among more casual players there's a lot more progression variation among alliance mates or friends they might exchange with.
2. I'm fine with low level locks, but I get uncomfortable when those level locks start presuming that everyone who progresses slowly is someone we can just disregard as unimportant. If you told me gifting required level 25, I'd be fine with that. I'd start getting uncomfortable if it was level 30. I'd balk completely at level 50.
3. I'm really uncomfortable locking gifting to cash. I believe F2P players should have a way to participate, and if they want to spend their hard earned units on gift exchanges, I believe this should always be possible.
In my head, I have a loose idea of what I think most people would find acceptable. I think in any case where two players exchange roughly equal gifting, and neither side is acquiring those units through TOS-breaking means, that's probably okay. Even in the case where someone rolls up a hundred alt accounts, I think if that player were to gift from the alts to the main, but they also reciprocated, sending gifts from the main to the alts to balance this out, most players would find this acceptable. Insane, but within the limits of fair play. So maybe the limit should be a limit on asymmetry. You can accept gifts from more players than you send them to, but only up to some limit.
Now, some players might actually legitimately get lots of gifts from other players, for example content creators. So the rule would have to be that the limit would be a player could only gift asymmetrically from alts to mains up to some limit (let's say ten just for argument's sake) but anyone getting more than that would be vetted, and if it looked like an alt farm and not just friends and fans the devs could take action to revoke those gifts.
The problem is this does bring some judgment into play, and I don't know how to make this idea rigorous. I'm not even sure it should be made rigorous, as giving players absolute limits can have the side effect of endorsing or encouraging all activity just below the limit.