Lol.created a new account a week ago.that day and yesterday were the only times I even played on that account.its just tedious and boring.well whatever kabam.thanks though for saying something.
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.
I think you need to either stop reading my posts or start reading the posts I'm replying to, because it is obvious you're replying to my posts out of context, and in a discussion thread talking about issues as complex as this one is it is going to be too tedious constantly referring you to the post I'm both replying to and quoting for context, when that stuff is literally right there in the post you're replying to.
If someone is asking how a large amount of rewards that one player gets can possibly impact the game play of another different player, I can take the time to construct a complex but numerically accurate situation and then analyze the ways that the game balancing techniques most game operators use will affect the situation in a specifically calculated way, or I can simply use the technique of emphasizing the difference with an extremal case, which is simpler and clearer. If you want a more computationally meaningful lesson on game balance theory, ask me again after the holidays when there's more time to devote to that,
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
That's not what I said, but it is a logical consequence of what I was saying. It is also very obviously true.
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).
Your question though isn't comparable to mine. In my question we are talking about 2 different ways to get the same event completed. In yours it is two different game aspects to get the same type of reward.
A more comparable question would have been: Player A completes the Abyss with only resources they collected in game. Player B completes the Abyss buying tons of revives/potions with money.
Here both players get to the exact same outcome through 2 totally different means. In this new question of mine it also has the same result on the player base. Both players get the same rewards so the way it effects the player base is equal. Also one player used in game resources and one player purchased resources, so it has the same effect on Kabam's bottom line as my previous question about this gifting event.
So in this new scenario, is Player B in the wrong? Is Player A? Both are acceptable? I get that it is a different game mode so it isn't totally Apples to Apples, but it comes from the same type of concept. In Game Earned vs Purchased, either way same rewards (results) and effect on player base and Kabam.
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.
You don't want mass alt farming. Others might not want it. I don't care about it at all, and plenty of others on here have said so.
This is not an exploit. If it was an exploit I would agree it was wrong. Kabam saying they might consider it one going forward doesn't make it one now. All that means is they didn't think their game design through thoroughly enough to see this outcome and have decided to change their mind on their own design. Kabam changing their mind on things is not new at all, but does not mean it currently is an exploit. No one is doing anything that by definition would actually be an exploit.
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.
You don't want mass alt farming. Others might not want it. I don't care about it at all, and plenty of others on here have said so.
This is not an exploit. If it was an exploit I would agree it was wrong. Kabam saying they might consider it one going forward doesn't make it one now. All that means is they didn't think their game design through thoroughly enough to see this outcome and have decided to change their mind on their own design. Kabam changing their mind on things is not new at all, but does not mean it currently is an exploit. No one is doing anything that by definition would actually be an exploit.
Pretty sure Gifting specifics haven't even been announced yet this year. Which means it's not a matter of them not thinking it through. On the contrary, they've indicated in this very Thread that they're thinking it through.
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).
Your question though isn't comparable to mine. In my question we are talking about 2 different ways to get the same event completed. In yours it is two different game aspects to get the same type of reward.
That's a distinction without a difference. The comparison is only for illustrative purposes. I could just state flatly: in your question the two situations might have the same numerical impact but will be psychologically perceived in different ways that could affect engagement, which translates that difference into an actionable distinction quantifiable indirectly in operational metrics.
And then make it your responsibility to figure out what that means. Or I can give an analogy which out of necessity will not be exact, but serves to illustrate simply what I could otherwise state technically.
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.
You don't want mass alt farming. Others might not want it. I don't care about it at all, and plenty of others on here have said so.
This is not an exploit. If it was an exploit I would agree it was wrong. Kabam saying they might consider it one going forward doesn't make it one now. All that means is they didn't think their game design through thoroughly enough to see this outcome and have decided to change their mind on their own design. Kabam changing their mind on things is not new at all, but does not mean it currently is an exploit. No one is doing anything that by definition would actually be an exploit.
Of course not, because as I already stated, alt farming is not an exploit. Whether or not mass alt gifting is an exploit is a matter of debate, but that is hypothetical until the gifting event arrives or Kabam makes an explicit statement about it.
However, the time to act is not *when* the exploit becomes possible, but *before* it can be exploited when that's possible. We already have people complaining that if they alt-farm now and they cannot gift later, that's not fair. However, there's no fundamental right to alt-farm gift that players can claim. They can alt farm all they want because that's not an exploit, but they can't claim aggrieved status if those units cannot be gifted back to their mains in an unlimited manner either. So gaining clarity on the situation would prevent players from taking actions they won't be able to profit from later.
That's a distinction without a difference. The comparison is only for illustrative purposes. I could just state flatly: in your question the two situations might have the same numerical impact but will be psychologically perceived in different ways that could affect engagement, which translates that difference into an actionable distinction quantifiable indirectly in operational metrics.
And then make it your responsibility to figure out what that means. Or I can give an analogy which out of necessity will not be exact, but serves to illustrate simply what I could otherwise state technically.
C'mon now, you can do far better than that. Now you are just trying to get fancy to impress the kids at home.
Your initial response is like if I had asked What is the sky blue? and you responded with "Fair question, but to answer that I have to ask "Why does the sky have clouds?".
Yes both questions are about the sky, but neither are related answers to each other.
You clearly are intelligent and not new to debate, that alone though doesn't win the arguments. All you have done so far is throw out a red herring and dodge my actual question.
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.
You don't want mass alt farming. Others might not want it. I don't care about it at all, and plenty of others on here have said so.
This is not an exploit. If it was an exploit I would agree it was wrong. Kabam saying they might consider it one going forward doesn't make it one now. All that means is they didn't think their game design through thoroughly enough to see this outcome and have decided to change their mind on their own design. Kabam changing their mind on things is not new at all, but does not mean it currently is an exploit. No one is doing anything that by definition would actually be an exploit.
Of course not, because as I already stated, alt farming is not an exploit. Whether or not mass alt gifting is an exploit is a matter of debate, but that is hypothetical until the gifting event arrives or Kabam makes an explicit statement about it.
However, the time to act is not *when* the exploit becomes possible, but *before* it can be exploited when that's possible. We already have people complaining that if they alt-farm now and they cannot gift later, that's not fair. However, there's no fundamental right to alt-farm gift that players can claim. They can alt farm all they want because that's not an exploit, but they can't claim aggrieved status if those units cannot be gifted back to their mains in an unlimited manner either. So gaining clarity on the situation would prevent players from taking actions they won't be able to profit from later.
But if Mass gifting is the true debate, then how the crystals are obtained isn't part of the problem. The problem is the mass gifting of crystals, in which case the action that stops the alts from doing it should also stop the whales from doing it.
That's a distinction without a difference. The comparison is only for illustrative purposes. I could just state flatly: in your question the two situations might have the same numerical impact but will be psychologically perceived in different ways that could affect engagement, which translates that difference into an actionable distinction quantifiable indirectly in operational metrics.
And then make it your responsibility to figure out what that means. Or I can give an analogy which out of necessity will not be exact, but serves to illustrate simply what I could otherwise state technically.
C'mon now, you can do far better than that. Now you are just trying to get fancy to impress the kids at home.
The fact that you think my reply was "fancy" when in fact that's the plain language way of stating my position without an analogy, is precisely why I posted my position with an analogy.
For example, that's how I would state my position to the developers of the game. Actually, I should say: that *is* how I've stated my position to the developers directly in the past. I don't recall having a communication problem with them.
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.
You don't want mass alt farming. Others might not want it. I don't care about it at all, and plenty of others on here have said so.
This is not an exploit. If it was an exploit I would agree it was wrong. Kabam saying they might consider it one going forward doesn't make it one now. All that means is they didn't think their game design through thoroughly enough to see this outcome and have decided to change their mind on their own design. Kabam changing their mind on things is not new at all, but does not mean it currently is an exploit. No one is doing anything that by definition would actually be an exploit.
Of course not, because as I already stated, alt farming is not an exploit. Whether or not mass alt gifting is an exploit is a matter of debate, but that is hypothetical until the gifting event arrives or Kabam makes an explicit statement about it.
However, the time to act is not *when* the exploit becomes possible, but *before* it can be exploited when that's possible. We already have people complaining that if they alt-farm now and they cannot gift later, that's not fair. However, there's no fundamental right to alt-farm gift that players can claim. They can alt farm all they want because that's not an exploit, but they can't claim aggrieved status if those units cannot be gifted back to their mains in an unlimited manner either. So gaining clarity on the situation would prevent players from taking actions they won't be able to profit from later.
But if Mass gifting is the true debate, then how the crystals are obtained isn't part of the problem. The problem is the mass gifting of crystals, in which case the action that stops the alts from doing it should also stop the whales from doing it.
You keep referencing money, but whether in the game or outside, money represents time and effort. Even those who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths are still well-off because someone along the lines somewhere invested time and effort into it. The game makes it possible to earn Resources with adequate time and effort. The problem arises when the possibility of amalgamating incentives for newer Accounts gains the ability to transfer that advantage to well-established Accounts. The issue isn't Gifting. It's the potential use for it. I'm sorry but spending versus Grinding is a fallacy.
It seems like a lot of people are operating under the assumption that ggc's are the only thing that will be gifted. I've already got about 1k units on an alt after one day of off and on auto fighting. I could feasibly get to 8k units in total by the end of gifting. If I can, I will be gifting them all as revives and do up to 3 abyss paths with them. I've only done one path so far, but between the items on my main and potentially 200 extra revives from gifting I could do 4 entire abyss paths essentially for free in a month. It seems wrong that so little effort can give such high reward, but if its allowed I'm going to take the opportunity.
That's a distinction without a difference. The comparison is only for illustrative purposes. I could just state flatly: in your question the two situations might have the same numerical impact but will be psychologically perceived in different ways that could affect engagement, which translates that difference into an actionable distinction quantifiable indirectly in operational metrics.
And then make it your responsibility to figure out what that means. Or I can give an analogy which out of necessity will not be exact, but serves to illustrate simply what I could otherwise state technically.
C'mon now, you can do far better than that. Now you are just trying to get fancy to impress the kids at home.
The fact that you think my reply was "fancy" when in fact that's the plain language way of stating my position without an analogy, is precisely why I posted my position with an analogy.
For example, that's how I would state my position to the developers of the game. Actually, I should say: that *is* how I've stated my position to the developers directly in the past. I don't recall having a communication problem with them.
You can take a stab at me all you like, it does not hurt me in the slightest. Maybe I did in fact misjudge you though, alas, these things happen especially over the internet.
Edit: You also still never actually answered the question, just a jab and dodge.
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.
You don't want mass alt farming. Others might not want it. I don't care about it at all, and plenty of others on here have said so.
This is not an exploit. If it was an exploit I would agree it was wrong. Kabam saying they might consider it one going forward doesn't make it one now. All that means is they didn't think their game design through thoroughly enough to see this outcome and have decided to change their mind on their own design. Kabam changing their mind on things is not new at all, but does not mean it currently is an exploit. No one is doing anything that by definition would actually be an exploit.
Of course not, because as I already stated, alt farming is not an exploit. Whether or not mass alt gifting is an exploit is a matter of debate, but that is hypothetical until the gifting event arrives or Kabam makes an explicit statement about it.
However, the time to act is not *when* the exploit becomes possible, but *before* it can be exploited when that's possible. We already have people complaining that if they alt-farm now and they cannot gift later, that's not fair. However, there's no fundamental right to alt-farm gift that players can claim. They can alt farm all they want because that's not an exploit, but they can't claim aggrieved status if those units cannot be gifted back to their mains in an unlimited manner either. So gaining clarity on the situation would prevent players from taking actions they won't be able to profit from later.
But if Mass gifting is the true debate, then how the crystals are obtained isn't part of the problem. The problem is the mass gifting of crystals, in which case the action that stops the alts from doing it should also stop the whales from doing it.
Mass gifting isn't the problem either. You seem to be operating on some weird atomic exploit theory where if a process is an exploit, all steps in the process must also be an exploit. That's false. The commonly accepted definition of an "exploit" is a process where a player takes advantage of an unintended opportunity to generate an unacceptable advantage.
Individual players are allowed to create multiple game accounts. This is not prohibited, nor is this an exploit. When they create new accounts, those accounts are allowed to benefit from the rewards normally given to new players, because each new account is considered a "new player" for the purposes of progresssional rewards. Gaining these rewards is also not an exploit.
Gifting is not an exploit. Lots of accounts gifting one account is not an exploit. Lots of accounts owned by a single player gifting to another account owned by the same player is not an exploit. None of these behaviors satisfies the requirements for the activity to be considered an exploit.
However, connecting all of them together does potentially satisfies those conditions: creating large numbers of alt accounts and gaining the early player reward bonuses and then gifting those resources to a single account can be considered exploitive, even though none of the individual steps is exploitive alone.
Exploits are processes, not actions. Some exploits are very short processes that look like single activities, but most aren't. You do have players that try to claim that since running a path isn't an exploit, running it a hundred times can't be an exploit since each individual run is itself not an exploit. I'm unaware of any game operators who would be impressed by that logic.
Offers that are unanimously agreed as being worth it come around 2/3 times a year on July and cyber Monday and black Friday. After that, it's better to farm in alts.
And don't say no one is buying revives or stones. As long as they are there people are going to buy them. For me it takes atleast a month if grinding to get 6k units. Now I can get the same in just 3 days and use it to fund my masteries and if needed abyss or LOL runs.
That's a distinction without a difference. The comparison is only for illustrative purposes. I could just state flatly: in your question the two situations might have the same numerical impact but will be psychologically perceived in different ways that could affect engagement, which translates that difference into an actionable distinction quantifiable indirectly in operational metrics.
And then make it your responsibility to figure out what that means. Or I can give an analogy which out of necessity will not be exact, but serves to illustrate simply what I could otherwise state technically.
C'mon now, you can do far better than that. Now you are just trying to get fancy to impress the kids at home.
The fact that you think my reply was "fancy" when in fact that's the plain language way of stating my position without an analogy, is precisely why I posted my position with an analogy.
For example, that's how I would state my position to the developers of the game. Actually, I should say: that *is* how I've stated my position to the developers directly in the past. I don't recall having a communication problem with them.
You can take a stab at me all you like, it does not hurt me in the slightest. Maybe I did in fact misjudge you though, alas, these things happen especially over the internet.
Actually, perceiving that post as "taking a stab" tells most rational observers you do, in fact, take debates personally when they don't go your way. If you were going to attempt to pretend to take the high ground, you shouldn't have tipped your hand like that first.
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.
You don't want mass alt farming. Others might not want it. I don't care about it at all, and plenty of others on here have said so.
This is not an exploit. If it was an exploit I would agree it was wrong. Kabam saying they might consider it one going forward doesn't make it one now. All that means is they didn't think their game design through thoroughly enough to see this outcome and have decided to change their mind on their own design. Kabam changing their mind on things is not new at all, but does not mean it currently is an exploit. No one is doing anything that by definition would actually be an exploit.
Of course not, because as I already stated, alt farming is not an exploit. Whether or not mass alt gifting is an exploit is a matter of debate, but that is hypothetical until the gifting event arrives or Kabam makes an explicit statement about it.
However, the time to act is not *when* the exploit becomes possible, but *before* it can be exploited when that's possible. We already have people complaining that if they alt-farm now and they cannot gift later, that's not fair. However, there's no fundamental right to alt-farm gift that players can claim. They can alt farm all they want because that's not an exploit, but they can't claim aggrieved status if those units cannot be gifted back to their mains in an unlimited manner either. So gaining clarity on the situation would prevent players from taking actions they won't be able to profit from later.
But if Mass gifting is the true debate, then how the crystals are obtained isn't part of the problem. The problem is the mass gifting of crystals, in which case the action that stops the alts from doing it should also stop the whales from doing it.
Mass gifting isn't the problem either. You seem to be operating on some weird atomic exploit theory where if a process is an exploit, all steps in the process must also be an exploit. That's false. The commonly accepted definition of an "exploit" is a process where a player takes advantage of an unintended opportunity to generate an unacceptable advantage.
Individual players are allowed to create multiple game accounts. This is not prohibited, nor is this an exploit. When they create new accounts, those accounts are allowed to benefit from the rewards normally given to new players, because each new account is considered a "new player" for the purposes of progresssional rewards. Gaining these rewards is also not an exploit.
Gifting is not an exploit. Lots of accounts gifting one account is not an exploit. Lots of accounts owned by a single player gifting to another account owned by the same player is not an exploit. None of these behaviors satisfies the requirements for the activity to be considered an exploit.
However, connecting all of them together does potentially satisfies those conditions: creating large numbers of alt accounts and gaining the early player reward bonuses and then gifting those resources to a single account can be considered exploitive, even though none of the individual steps is exploitive alone.
Exploits are processes, not actions. Some exploits are very short processes that look like single activities, but most aren't. You do have players that try to claim that since running a path isn't an exploit, running it a hundred times can't be an exploit since each individual run is itself not an exploit. I'm unaware of any game operators who would be impressed by that logic.
I could make 100 alt accounts and buy units on each of them to send gifts to my main. This is not "intended" but still provides the same advantage. This method also means only I get the benefits instead of people who go in and send crystals to each other.
By your logic this is the same "exploit" situation because it was never intended for someone to be able to buy the crystals for themselves and not interact with anyone else.
So this returns the debate back to: is it the mass gifting or is it how the crystals are obtained?
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.
I think you need to either stop reading my posts or start reading the posts I'm replying to, because it is obvious you're replying to my posts out of context, and in a discussion thread talking about issues as complex as this one is it is going to be too tedious constantly referring you to the post I'm both replying to and quoting for context, when that stuff is literally right there in the post you're replying to.
If someone is asking how a large amount of rewards that one player gets can possibly impact the game play of another different player, I can take the time to construct a complex but numerically accurate situation and then analyze the ways that the game balancing techniques most game operators use will affect the situation in a specifically calculated way, or I can simply use the technique of emphasizing the difference with an extremal case, which is simpler and clearer. If you want a more computationally meaningful lesson on game balance theory, ask me again after the holidays when there's more time to devote to that,
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.
You don't want mass alt farming. Others might not want it. I don't care about it at all, and plenty of others on here have said so.
Want vs need. We don't need alt accounts. We want alt accounts
You also still never actually answered the question, just a jab and dodge.
I did in fact answer your question, twice. The fact that you don't like the answers, or rather don't accept the validity of those answers, doesn't make them suddenly not exist. But I believe we've reached the point where my best response to your claim I'm dodging your question is to leave it to others to decide if, whether they agree with my position or not, whether I've answered your questions directly and you have a persecution complex, or I've deliberately avoided your questions in favor of attacking you without justification. I've reread the thread of responses, and I'm fine standing on the cards I have. Because it seems clear to me you only posed those questions because you think they possess more persuasive power than they actually do, and were not prepared for or actually desired an actual reply.
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. .
To use your analogy, say the exam is open book. You decide you are not going to use the book and everyone else does. Now if the all the others have good grades, is it cheating? Just to clarify, the stance I have is that average people cannot farm on 100 alt accounts with the sole purpose of gifting their main accounts. If people do that, either they are using bots(illegal and unacceptable) or they are doing it to earn money(again illegal and unacceptable). Most average people will create alts and farm on probably 1 account, maybe 2 or in the worst case scenario 3. That hardly imbalances the game economy. Kabam should absolutely crack down on bots and those accounts that are selling these farmed units for money.
Pretty sure Gifting specifics haven't even been announced yet this year. Which means it's not a matter of them not thinking it through. On the contrary, they've indicated in this very Thread that they're thinking it through.
Pretty sure “THINKING it through” doesn’t mean they’ve already decided to screw over all new players or take away the hours and hours of grinding some people have already done.
Thinking, isn’t used for decisions that have already been made
I’d like somebody to ask Brian grant what he’s going to do with the units he has on alt accounts and how many times in the past he’s gifted himself things? Especially before they took our badges
Comments
If someone is asking how a large amount of rewards that one player gets can possibly impact the game play of another different player, I can take the time to construct a complex but numerically accurate situation and then analyze the ways that the game balancing techniques most game operators use will affect the situation in a specifically calculated way, or I can simply use the technique of emphasizing the difference with an extremal case, which is simpler and clearer. If you want a more computationally meaningful lesson on game balance theory, ask me again after the holidays when there's more time to devote to that,
A more comparable question would have been:
Player A completes the Abyss with only resources they collected in game.
Player B completes the Abyss buying tons of revives/potions with money.
Here both players get to the exact same outcome through 2 totally different means. In this new question of mine it also has the same result on the player base. Both players get the same rewards so the way it effects the player base is equal. Also one player used in game resources and one player purchased resources, so it has the same effect on Kabam's bottom line as my previous question about this gifting event.
So in this new scenario, is Player B in the wrong? Is Player A? Both are acceptable? I get that it is a different game mode so it isn't totally Apples to Apples, but it comes from the same type of concept. In Game Earned vs Purchased, either way same rewards (results) and effect on player base and Kabam.
Step 2) Get everyone arguing about it so no one actually farms
Step 3) ?
Step 4) Profit
This is not an exploit. If it was an exploit I would agree it was wrong. Kabam saying they might consider it one going forward doesn't make it one now. All that means is they didn't think their game design through thoroughly enough to see this outcome and have decided to change their mind on their own design. Kabam changing their mind on things is not new at all, but does not mean it currently is an exploit. No one is doing anything that by definition would actually be an exploit.
And then make it your responsibility to figure out what that means. Or I can give an analogy which out of necessity will not be exact, but serves to illustrate simply what I could otherwise state technically.
However, the time to act is not *when* the exploit becomes possible, but *before* it can be exploited when that's possible. We already have people complaining that if they alt-farm now and they cannot gift later, that's not fair. However, there's no fundamental right to alt-farm gift that players can claim. They can alt farm all they want because that's not an exploit, but they can't claim aggrieved status if those units cannot be gifted back to their mains in an unlimited manner either. So gaining clarity on the situation would prevent players from taking actions they won't be able to profit from later.
Your initial response is like if I had asked What is the sky blue? and you responded with "Fair question, but to answer that I have to ask "Why does the sky have clouds?".
Yes both questions are about the sky, but neither are related answers to each other.
You clearly are intelligent and not new to debate, that alone though doesn't win the arguments. All you have done so far is throw out a red herring and dodge my actual question.
For example, that's how I would state my position to the developers of the game. Actually, I should say: that *is* how I've stated my position to the developers directly in the past. I don't recall having a communication problem with them.
The problem arises when the possibility of amalgamating incentives for newer Accounts gains the ability to transfer that advantage to well-established Accounts. The issue isn't Gifting. It's the potential use for it. I'm sorry but spending versus Grinding is a fallacy.
Edit:
You also still never actually answered the question, just a jab and dodge.
Individual players are allowed to create multiple game accounts. This is not prohibited, nor is this an exploit. When they create new accounts, those accounts are allowed to benefit from the rewards normally given to new players, because each new account is considered a "new player" for the purposes of progresssional rewards. Gaining these rewards is also not an exploit.
Gifting is not an exploit. Lots of accounts gifting one account is not an exploit. Lots of accounts owned by a single player gifting to another account owned by the same player is not an exploit. None of these behaviors satisfies the requirements for the activity to be considered an exploit.
However, connecting all of them together does potentially satisfies those conditions: creating large numbers of alt accounts and gaining the early player reward bonuses and then gifting those resources to a single account can be considered exploitive, even though none of the individual steps is exploitive alone.
Exploits are processes, not actions. Some exploits are very short processes that look like single activities, but most aren't. You do have players that try to claim that since running a path isn't an exploit, running it a hundred times can't be an exploit since each individual run is itself not an exploit. I'm unaware of any game operators who would be impressed by that logic.
And don't say no one is buying revives or stones. As long as they are there people are going to buy them. For me it takes atleast a month if grinding to get 6k units. Now I can get the same in just 3 days and use it to fund my masteries and if needed abyss or LOL runs.
By your logic this is the same "exploit" situation because it was never intended for someone to be able to buy the crystals for themselves and not interact with anyone else.
So this returns the debate back to: is it the mass gifting or is it how the crystals are obtained?
Just to clarify, the stance I have is that average people cannot farm on 100 alt accounts with the sole purpose of gifting their main accounts. If people do that, either they are using bots(illegal and unacceptable) or they are doing it to earn money(again illegal and unacceptable). Most average people will create alts and farm on probably 1 account, maybe 2 or in the worst case scenario 3. That hardly imbalances the game economy. Kabam should absolutely crack down on bots and those accounts that are selling these farmed units for money.
Thinking, isn’t used for decisions that have already been made
I’d like somebody to ask Brian grant what he’s going to do with the units he has on alt accounts and how many times in the past he’s gifted himself things? Especially before they took our badges