Those Units were added with the express purpose of assisting newer Players starting out. Not to create mega-mains.
The redesign was done to make it easier for new players this is true. The Units were there before the redesign and are there because they have always been there. There is no "express purpose" for those Units just like there isn't one for Units we get in end game content. The only purpose for those Units is to be spent on whatever the person who spent the time farming them (from any content) decides to spend them on. If they had an intended purpose then the game would only allow you to spend them on those specific games.
Those Units have been made easier to get. That's the difference. Intentions change, and that's what we're discussing. The ease of acquiring a mass amount within a short span of time.
You keep changing your statements to try and match what the counter argument is.
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...
What’s the deal with Brian anyway? What I mean is what is the motivation behind his super free to play mindset? I’ve never heard him mention why he plays the way he does. Is he unemployed and pressed for cash? I genuinely don’t know what his deal is and would actually really like to know?
Brian plays the way he does because that is the way he wants to play. It is just that simple. He has actually spent money on the game, so he isn't averse to spending (he's spent money on his new account challenges). He just set himself the goal of seeing how far he could get without spending on his main account when he first started, and once he set that goal for himself he stuck with 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.
Those Units have been made easier to get. That's the difference.
es, and everyone could benefit from it because Kabam didn't forbid it. There is no difference here. You just don't understand it, because - as you admitted before - you're just jealous because you didn't make any alts by yourself.
That's literally the subject we're discussing. Kabam looking at options to make sure advantages are in the spirit of fairness. They've already indicated they're discussing options. So the idea that Kabam hasn't forbid it is what's on the table.
What’s the deal with Brian anyway? What I mean is what is the motivation behind his super free to play mindset? I’ve never heard him mention why he plays the way he does. Is he unemployed and pressed for cash? I genuinely don’t know what his deal is and would actually really like to know?
Brian plays the way he does because that is the way he wants to play. It is just that simple. He has actually spent money on the game, so he isn't averse to spending (he's spent money on his new account challenges). He just set himself the goal of seeing how far he could get without spending on his main account when he first started, and once he set that goal for himself he stuck with 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.
So much this. Play the game the way you want to that makes you happy. That is the whole point of gaming after all is to bring the player enjoyment.
What’s the deal with Brian anyway? What I mean is what is the motivation behind his super free to play mindset? I’ve never heard him mention why he plays the way he does. Is he unemployed and pressed for cash? I genuinely don’t know what his deal is and would actually really like to know?
. But doing so would take away the fun of playing. .
Brian did once say the reason and it's similar to this. He tried spending once in Diablo 3 or something and everything that he had previously spend hours grinding to get he got instantly and that killed the game for him and he never went back to it
It is probably worth noting that whatever kind of gates they put in place to address this issue will only delay it. For example, if a person were to make many alt accounts and farm units right now and Kabam came out and said “an account must be this old or X level to participate in gifting,” then those alt accounts would sit out this year… and then be usable next time around.
I have no idea how I feel about this. I don’t mind if people have an alt or two and decide to feed their main account with some quick and easy units. It’s the holidays, live and let live. I would mind if a person did this to such an extent as to tip rank rewards in an alliance or some other such nonsense. That would be obnoxious.
But it is ok for someone to spend money to buy units to do this? Either mass gifting via any means is bad or it isn't, but it can't be wrong for someone to do this for free and totally fine for someone to spend money when the end result is the same.
I'm sure @DNA3000 can explain this much better, but there's a difference between money and time, although I agree that time is money...
Kabam designs rewards like GGCs with a certain economy in mind. If you buy it with units using real money, the cost was high, rewards intended, and balanced. If you buy GGCs with units farmed from arena, it's balanced because it takes a long time farm them because the amount of units scattered across the game is intended and calculated.
If contents is adjusted that allows easy farming (post-buff Act 1-3), it devalues the value of units (purchased or grinded the old fashioned way) and throws everything out of balance.
A whale and a hardcore grinder don't affect game balance (assuming the whale can't buy everything in the game), but exploit farmers can.
Ok, so explain this to me.
Player A spends tons of their time to get units for free through alt farming and gets 50 6* champs because of it (Totally made up numbers clearly). Player B spends real money to make sure they get the same number of crystals as Player A and they also receive 50 6* champs (still totally made up numbers).
One of these effects the bottom line for Kabam, but how does only one of these have a different impact on you? The end result from both Player A and Player B is the same on every other player.
Let me put it this way, and it's a rough estimate so bear with me...
Over the period of a week, it takes ~30hrs of in-game arena grinding to get ~2k units.
Post-buff you can farm ~2k units from Acts 1-3 in ~6hrs and you don't have to wait for a new arena and you can get multiple devices and autofight going to make it even more efficient.
You can get 5x the units doing the early Acts now that it does farming arena. Imagine if all in game item prices shot up by 5x? Imagine if 1x Cav crystal cost 1500 units..
This is bad for the game.
Except units on a developed account are worth 5x more than units on a new account.
If there were no alliance or milestone rewards virtually no one would be spending 300 units on a crystal with the same rewards as a GGC. Even at 50 units I bet most wouldn’t touch them.
And that's where those farmed units are going to..their developed main.
No it isn’t and you know it.
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.
Why is everyone calling this an exploit? A simple question to all those people calling this an exploit: Do you or do you not farm revives by running back issues arachnid action 2.2? Or for that matter any of the act 5 chapters or act 4? Do you or do you not run ROL to farm potions? If you do either of the above, do you consider these to be an exploit? If you don’t think the above are an exploit, please enlighten how unit grinding on alt account is an exploit?
Unit grinding on an alt account is not an exploit. An exploit is a tactic specifically designed to take advantage of an unintended opportunity to gain an advantage significantly beyond what is otherwise intended.
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.
It is probably worth noting that whatever kind of gates they put in place to address this issue will only delay it. For example, if a person were to make many alt accounts and farm units right now and Kabam came out and said “an account must be this old or X level to participate in gifting,” then those alt accounts would sit out this year… and then be usable next time around.
I have no idea how I feel about this. I don’t mind if people have an alt or two and decide to feed their main account with some quick and easy units. It’s the holidays, live and let live. I would mind if a person did this to such an extent as to tip rank rewards in an alliance or some other such nonsense. That would be obnoxious.
But it is ok for someone to spend money to buy units to do this? Either mass gifting via any means is bad or it isn't, but it can't be wrong for someone to do this for free and totally fine for someone to spend money when the end result is the same.
I'm sure @DNA3000 can explain this much better, but there's a difference between money and time, although I agree that time is money...
Kabam designs rewards like GGCs with a certain economy in mind. If you buy it with units using real money, the cost was high, rewards intended, and balanced. If you buy GGCs with units farmed from arena, it's balanced because it takes a long time farm them because the amount of units scattered across the game is intended and calculated.
If contents is adjusted that allows easy farming (post-buff Act 1-3), it devalues the value of units (purchased or grinded the old fashioned way) and throws everything out of balance.
A whale and a hardcore grinder don't affect game balance (assuming the whale can't buy everything in the game), but exploit farmers can.
Ok, so explain this to me.
Player A spends tons of their time to get units for free through alt farming and gets 50 6* champs because of it (Totally made up numbers clearly). Player B spends real money to make sure they get the same number of crystals as Player A and they also receive 50 6* champs (still totally made up numbers).
One of these effects the bottom line for Kabam, but how does only one of these have a different impact on you? The end result from both Player A and Player B is the same on every other player.
Let me put it this way, and it's a rough estimate so bear with me...
Over the period of a week, it takes ~30hrs of in-game arena grinding to get ~2k units.
Post-buff you can farm ~2k units from Acts 1-3 in ~6hrs and you don't have to wait for a new arena and you can get multiple devices and autofight going to make it even more efficient.
You can get 5x the units doing the early Acts now that it does farming arena. Imagine if all in game item prices shot up by 5x? Imagine if 1x Cav crystal cost 1500 units..
This is bad for the game.
Except units on a developed account are worth 5x more than units on a new account.
If there were no alliance or milestone rewards virtually no one would be spending 300 units on a crystal with the same rewards as a GGC. Even at 50 units I bet most wouldn’t touch them.
And that's where those farmed units are going to..their developed main.
No it isn’t and you know it.
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.
In what world is 12000 units the same as 2400? Especially in the context of gifting
It is probably worth noting that whatever kind of gates they put in place to address this issue will only delay it. For example, if a person were to make many alt accounts and farm units right now and Kabam came out and said “an account must be this old or X level to participate in gifting,” then those alt accounts would sit out this year… and then be usable next time around.
I have no idea how I feel about this. I don’t mind if people have an alt or two and decide to feed their main account with some quick and easy units. It’s the holidays, live and let live. I would mind if a person did this to such an extent as to tip rank rewards in an alliance or some other such nonsense. That would be obnoxious.
But it is ok for someone to spend money to buy units to do this? Either mass gifting via any means is bad or it isn't, but it can't be wrong for someone to do this for free and totally fine for someone to spend money when the end result is the same.
I'm sure @DNA3000 can explain this much better, but there's a difference between money and time, although I agree that time is money...
Kabam designs rewards like GGCs with a certain economy in mind. If you buy it with units using real money, the cost was high, rewards intended, and balanced. If you buy GGCs with units farmed from arena, it's balanced because it takes a long time farm them because the amount of units scattered across the game is intended and calculated.
If contents is adjusted that allows easy farming (post-buff Act 1-3), it devalues the value of units (purchased or grinded the old fashioned way) and throws everything out of balance.
A whale and a hardcore grinder don't affect game balance (assuming the whale can't buy everything in the game), but exploit farmers can.
Ok, so explain this to me.
Player A spends tons of their time to get units for free through alt farming and gets 50 6* champs because of it (Totally made up numbers clearly). Player B spends real money to make sure they get the same number of crystals as Player A and they also receive 50 6* champs (still totally made up numbers).
One of these effects the bottom line for Kabam, but how does only one of these have a different impact on you? The end result from both Player A and Player B is the same on every other player.
Let me put it this way, and it's a rough estimate so bear with me...
Over the period of a week, it takes ~30hrs of in-game arena grinding to get ~2k units.
Post-buff you can farm ~2k units from Acts 1-3 in ~6hrs and you don't have to wait for a new arena and you can get multiple devices and autofight going to make it even more efficient.
You can get 5x the units doing the early Acts now that it does farming arena. Imagine if all in game item prices shot up by 5x? Imagine if 1x Cav crystal cost 1500 units..
This is bad for the game.
Except units on a developed account are worth 5x more than units on a new account.
If there were no alliance or milestone rewards virtually no one would be spending 300 units on a crystal with the same rewards as a GGC. Even at 50 units I bet most wouldn’t touch them.
And that's where those farmed units are going to..their developed main.
No it isn’t and you know it.
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.
You realise that firstly, you can send items other than GGC, like revives, refills, mastery cores which have a 1:1 unit value.
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.
How does this affect the game negatively? How does someone else’s progress affect me? Unless I am in the top 20 or even top 100 alliances?
People keep asking this question. And the answer is: the same way someone cheating in your class affects your grade. Massively multiplayer games, like many classes, are graded on a curve. Content and reward systems are balanced around datamined averages and other metrics.
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.
People keep asking this question. And the answer is: the same way someone cheating in your class affects your grade. Massively multiplayer games, like many classes, are graded on a curve. Content and reward systems are balanced around datamined averages and other metrics.
This is absolutely not valid logic, because otherwise the 100s (1000s maybe?) of players who spend insane money to create the same outcome during the gifting event would have the same negative impact on the economy/game. I am also willing to bet that the number of people creating large scale alt farming is probably equal to or less than the number of players who whale out like crazy on the gifting event.
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.
It is probably worth noting that whatever kind of gates they put in place to address this issue will only delay it. For example, if a person were to make many alt accounts and farm units right now and Kabam came out and said “an account must be this old or X level to participate in gifting,” then those alt accounts would sit out this year… and then be usable next time around.
I have no idea how I feel about this. I don’t mind if people have an alt or two and decide to feed their main account with some quick and easy units. It’s the holidays, live and let live. I would mind if a person did this to such an extent as to tip rank rewards in an alliance or some other such nonsense. That would be obnoxious.
But it is ok for someone to spend money to buy units to do this? Either mass gifting via any means is bad or it isn't, but it can't be wrong for someone to do this for free and totally fine for someone to spend money when the end result is the same.
I'm sure @DNA3000 can explain this much better, but there's a difference between money and time, although I agree that time is money...
Kabam designs rewards like GGCs with a certain economy in mind. If you buy it with units using real money, the cost was high, rewards intended, and balanced. If you buy GGCs with units farmed from arena, it's balanced because it takes a long time farm them because the amount of units scattered across the game is intended and calculated.
If contents is adjusted that allows easy farming (post-buff Act 1-3), it devalues the value of units (purchased or grinded the old fashioned way) and throws everything out of balance.
A whale and a hardcore grinder don't affect game balance (assuming the whale can't buy everything in the game), but exploit farmers can.
Ok, so explain this to me.
Player A spends tons of their time to get units for free through alt farming and gets 50 6* champs because of it (Totally made up numbers clearly). Player B spends real money to make sure they get the same number of crystals as Player A and they also receive 50 6* champs (still totally made up numbers).
One of these effects the bottom line for Kabam, but how does only one of these have a different impact on you? The end result from both Player A and Player B is the same on every other player.
Let me put it this way, and it's a rough estimate so bear with me...
Over the period of a week, it takes ~30hrs of in-game arena grinding to get ~2k units.
Post-buff you can farm ~2k units from Acts 1-3 in ~6hrs and you don't have to wait for a new arena and you can get multiple devices and autofight going to make it even more efficient.
You can get 5x the units doing the early Acts now that it does farming arena. Imagine if all in game item prices shot up by 5x? Imagine if 1x Cav crystal cost 1500 units..
This is bad for the game.
Except units on a developed account are worth 5x more than units on a new account.
If there were no alliance or milestone rewards virtually no one would be spending 300 units on a crystal with the same rewards as a GGC. Even at 50 units I bet most wouldn’t touch them.
And that's where those farmed units are going to..their developed main.
No it isn’t and you know it.
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.
In what world is 12000 units the same as 2400? Especially in the context of gifting
Your alts generate 12,000 in 36 hours of farming.
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.
@DNA3000 I'm interested on your take about what the best way to put in a requirement, or what Miike is alluding to when they say they're looking into ways to stop it being exploited.
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?
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.
What are you going to buy with 2400 units in your main that equals 12000 units worth of GCCs?
It is probably worth noting that whatever kind of gates they put in place to address this issue will only delay it. For example, if a person were to make many alt accounts and farm units right now and Kabam came out and said “an account must be this old or X level to participate in gifting,” then those alt accounts would sit out this year… and then be usable next time around.
I have no idea how I feel about this. I don’t mind if people have an alt or two and decide to feed their main account with some quick and easy units. It’s the holidays, live and let live. I would mind if a person did this to such an extent as to tip rank rewards in an alliance or some other such nonsense. That would be obnoxious.
But it is ok for someone to spend money to buy units to do this? Either mass gifting via any means is bad or it isn't, but it can't be wrong for someone to do this for free and totally fine for someone to spend money when the end result is the same.
I'm sure @DNA3000 can explain this much better, but there's a difference between money and time, although I agree that time is money...
Kabam designs rewards like GGCs with a certain economy in mind. If you buy it with units using real money, the cost was high, rewards intended, and balanced. If you buy GGCs with units farmed from arena, it's balanced because it takes a long time farm them because the amount of units scattered across the game is intended and calculated.
If contents is adjusted that allows easy farming (post-buff Act 1-3), it devalues the value of units (purchased or grinded the old fashioned way) and throws everything out of balance.
A whale and a hardcore grinder don't affect game balance (assuming the whale can't buy everything in the game), but exploit farmers can.
Ok, so explain this to me.
Player A spends tons of their time to get units for free through alt farming and gets 50 6* champs because of it (Totally made up numbers clearly). Player B spends real money to make sure they get the same number of crystals as Player A and they also receive 50 6* champs (still totally made up numbers).
One of these effects the bottom line for Kabam, but how does only one of these have a different impact on you? The end result from both Player A and Player B is the same on every other player.
I think this is a fair question worth answering. But to answer it, I have to pose a related question.
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).
Yes, but I'm saying that the platpool event doesn't devalue units as much as the new account unit farming - because how many units the platpool event gives out is limited by being Cav, new account farming is limited by clicking create account.
Please explain what you mean by devaluing units? Because this premise makes zero sense.
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.
It is probably worth noting that whatever kind of gates they put in place to address this issue will only delay it. For example, if a person were to make many alt accounts and farm units right now and Kabam came out and said “an account must be this old or X level to participate in gifting,” then those alt accounts would sit out this year… and then be usable next time around.
I have no idea how I feel about this. I don’t mind if people have an alt or two and decide to feed their main account with some quick and easy units. It’s the holidays, live and let live. I would mind if a person did this to such an extent as to tip rank rewards in an alliance or some other such nonsense. That would be obnoxious.
But it is ok for someone to spend money to buy units to do this? Either mass gifting via any means is bad or it isn't, but it can't be wrong for someone to do this for free and totally fine for someone to spend money when the end result is the same.
I'm sure @DNA3000 can explain this much better, but there's a difference between money and time, although I agree that time is money...
Kabam designs rewards like GGCs with a certain economy in mind. If you buy it with units using real money, the cost was high, rewards intended, and balanced. If you buy GGCs with units farmed from arena, it's balanced because it takes a long time farm them because the amount of units scattered across the game is intended and calculated.
If contents is adjusted that allows easy farming (post-buff Act 1-3), it devalues the value of units (purchased or grinded the old fashioned way) and throws everything out of balance.
A whale and a hardcore grinder don't affect game balance (assuming the whale can't buy everything in the game), but exploit farmers can.
Ok, so explain this to me.
Player A spends tons of their time to get units for free through alt farming and gets 50 6* champs because of it (Totally made up numbers clearly). Player B spends real money to make sure they get the same number of crystals as Player A and they also receive 50 6* champs (still totally made up numbers).
One of these effects the bottom line for Kabam, but how does only one of these have a different impact on you? The end result from both Player A and Player B is the same on every other player.
Let me put it this way, and it's a rough estimate so bear with me...
Over the period of a week, it takes ~30hrs of in-game arena grinding to get ~2k units.
Post-buff you can farm ~2k units from Acts 1-3 in ~6hrs and you don't have to wait for a new arena and you can get multiple devices and autofight going to make it even more efficient.
You can get 5x the units doing the early Acts now that it does farming arena. Imagine if all in game item prices shot up by 5x? Imagine if 1x Cav crystal cost 1500 units..
This is bad for the game.
Except units on a developed account are worth 5x more than units on a new account.
If there were no alliance or milestone rewards virtually no one would be spending 300 units on a crystal with the same rewards as a GGC. Even at 50 units I bet most wouldn’t touch them.
And that's where those farmed units are going to..their developed main.
No it isn’t and you know it.
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.
In what world is 12000 units the same as 2400? Especially in the context of gifting
Your alts generate 12,000 in 36 hours of farming.
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.
Tell me, what do you intend to by with the 2400 units on your main? If it's cavs then I've got bad news. They're worse than gccs
It is probably worth noting that whatever kind of gates they put in place to address this issue will only delay it. For example, if a person were to make many alt accounts and farm units right now and Kabam came out and said “an account must be this old or X level to participate in gifting,” then those alt accounts would sit out this year… and then be usable next time around.
I have no idea how I feel about this. I don’t mind if people have an alt or two and decide to feed their main account with some quick and easy units. It’s the holidays, live and let live. I would mind if a person did this to such an extent as to tip rank rewards in an alliance or some other such nonsense. That would be obnoxious.
But it is ok for someone to spend money to buy units to do this? Either mass gifting via any means is bad or it isn't, but it can't be wrong for someone to do this for free and totally fine for someone to spend money when the end result is the same.
I'm sure @DNA3000 can explain this much better, but there's a difference between money and time, although I agree that time is money...
Kabam designs rewards like GGCs with a certain economy in mind. If you buy it with units using real money, the cost was high, rewards intended, and balanced. If you buy GGCs with units farmed from arena, it's balanced because it takes a long time farm them because the amount of units scattered across the game is intended and calculated.
If contents is adjusted that allows easy farming (post-buff Act 1-3), it devalues the value of units (purchased or grinded the old fashioned way) and throws everything out of balance.
A whale and a hardcore grinder don't affect game balance (assuming the whale can't buy everything in the game), but exploit farmers can.
Ok, so explain this to me.
Player A spends tons of their time to get units for free through alt farming and gets 50 6* champs because of it (Totally made up numbers clearly). Player B spends real money to make sure they get the same number of crystals as Player A and they also receive 50 6* champs (still totally made up numbers).
One of these effects the bottom line for Kabam, but how does only one of these have a different impact on you? The end result from both Player A and Player B is the same on every other player.
Let me put it this way, and it's a rough estimate so bear with me...
Over the period of a week, it takes ~30hrs of in-game arena grinding to get ~2k units.
Post-buff you can farm ~2k units from Acts 1-3 in ~6hrs and you don't have to wait for a new arena and you can get multiple devices and autofight going to make it even more efficient.
You can get 5x the units doing the early Acts now that it does farming arena. Imagine if all in game item prices shot up by 5x? Imagine if 1x Cav crystal cost 1500 units..
This is bad for the game.
Except units on a developed account are worth 5x more than units on a new account.
If there were no alliance or milestone rewards virtually no one would be spending 300 units on a crystal with the same rewards as a GGC. Even at 50 units I bet most wouldn’t touch them.
And that's where those farmed units are going to..their developed main.
No it isn’t and you know it.
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.
You realise that firstly, you can send items other than GGC, like revives, refills, mastery cores which have a 1:1 unit value.
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.
Come on. We both know the vast majority of units will be spent on GGCs, let’s not focus on outliers.
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.
It affects me when I'm not using an Alt to boost my main, and playing without unfair advantages. It affects the fairness of the Event. It affects the entire point of having a Gifting Event. Essentially, it's people saying since we can't have the Units legitimately, we'll find a way around it. It's shady.
News flash mr humble. It’s only an unfair advantage of you don’t have the opportunity to do it also! The same reason why spending isn’t an unfair advantage! it does not affect you if other players have more than you! It only affects you if them doing it inhibits you from achieving something or takes some thing away from you. Your entire argument is neither grounded nor wise. It’s a pathetic attempt to stop people that have more time to invest our money to invest from achieving more than you even though if they do more than you they deserve more than you!
People keep asking this question. And the answer is: the same way someone cheating in your class affects your grade. Massively multiplayer games, like many classes, are graded on a curve. Content and reward systems are balanced around datamined averages and other metrics.
This is absolutely not valid logic, because otherwise the 100s (1000s maybe?) of players who spend insane money to create the same outcome during the gifting event would have the same negative impact on the economy/game. I am also willing to bet that the number of people creating large scale alt farming is probably equal to or less than the number of players who whale out like crazy on the gifting event.
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.
The logic is not invalid: the people who spend do create the same situation as the people who gain rewards through exploits. For that matter, highly skilled players who crush content are also creating the same issue when they raise the curve for everyone else.
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.
People keep asking this question. And the answer is: the same way someone cheating in your class affects your grade.
You are the next person who use the word "cheat" in relation to farming on alt accounts. I repeat - everyone could, and still can, set up an alt account and farm units on it because Kabam didn't forbid it. Many people started alt accounts long before this "drama" started. They spent tens or even hundreds of hours on them, even before that early changes. Are you going to call them cheaters too?
I did not call alt farming "cheating." I answered the question posed. Exploit rewards affect other players in the same way cheating on a test affects everyone's grades in a class graded on a curve. Nowhere did I say that alt farming was cheating, and in fact I made an entire post making the distinctions clear.
So, when BG's first video came out I was excited. Like oh yeah! I did this with an alt last gifting event with the OG Act-1 to 3. Even Lagacy put out a video about the $5 unit card and how you can create alts and just do that too for even more units.
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.
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.
What are you even talking about? What is this example with those millions of GGCs? After all, Brian himself showed how long it takes to work out 2,100 units - 6 hours. How many people do you think will literally spend a whole month and every moment of this month to achieve something like that? The only real problem is bots and this is what Kabam should focus on, instead of making f2p players' lives more difficult once again. Well, not only f2p, because like I said before, everyone can farm on alt accounts. If you care so much about the balance of this game then perhaps kindly note that the biggest imbalances have always been money and bots.
Tell me you don’t understand hyperbole without telling me you don’t understand hyperbole.
All these people crying about what other people get remind me of
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
How does this affect the game negatively? How does someone else’s progress affect me? Unless I am in the top 20 or even top 100 alliances?
People keep asking this question. And the answer is: the same way someone cheating in your class affects your grade. Massively multiplayer games, like many classes, are graded on a curve. Content and reward systems are balanced around datamined averages and other metrics.
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.
so what you're saying is, not playing the game puts you behind the curve? damn crazy thought bro
@DNA3000 I'm interested on your take about what the best way to put in a requirement, or what Miike is alluding to when they say they're looking into ways to stop it being exploited.
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?
I will respect @Kabam Miike 's position that articulating what Kabam is considering doing would give people a recipe to ride the line on trying to exploit take 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.
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.