I wonder what we’ve all learned today? I know that I have learned at least two things:
1. There are some very smart people playing this game 2. Given the difficulty with which I am having deciphering some of these posts, I might not be one of 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.
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?
Neither I think. It's how they accumulate exponentially (but not really) with relative ease as to how they were previously.
You can make 100 accounts but you would have to put in days or months of effort for it to be equal to to now where you can get the same in less than a fraction of the previously required time
I wonder what we’ve all learned today? I know that I have learned at least two things:
1. There are some very smart people playing this game 2. Given the difficulty with which I am having deciphering some of these posts, I might not be one of them
There are some potential future politicians here with some serious master (de)bating skillz.
This is a huge amount of smoke with a very little fire. As I said 10 days ago this is a theoretical notion pushed to a theoretical maximum, the reality being that there’s going to be very few who are going to have the inclination to truly take it to obscene levels and it still won’t impact the integrity of the rank rewards, it might even push the average player higher as there would be a higher amount of accounts involved, most of which would take up the bottom 50%.
Speaking as someone who made 6 accounts last year (thanks Boris for ruining Christmas), all of those accounts had to be manually played and I was through Act 2 by the time I could auto fight, now it’s going to be even later with the condensed size of the acts which means the ability to run multiple accounts simultaneously is not really viable unless you have 6 hands or the hand to eye coordination of an Apache pilot. Not only that, it took a toll on me, I had an extremely boring ~10 days sitting and grinding throw away accounts. I challenge somebody to do this 8 hours a day on 3 accounts/day until Christmas lol.
This is a huge amount of smoke with a very little fire. As I said 10 days ago this is a theoretical notion pushed to a theoretical maximum, the reality being that there’s going to be very few who are going to have the inclination to truly take it to obscene levels and it still won’t impact the integrity of the rank rewards, it might even push the average player higher as there would be a higher amount of accounts involved, most of which would take up the bottom 50%.
Speaking as someone who made 6 accounts last year (thanks Boris for ruining Christmas), all of those accounts had to be manually played and I was through Act 2 by the time I could auto fight, now it’s going to be even later with the condensed size of the acts which means the ability to run multiple accounts simultaneously is not really viable unless you have 6 hands or the hand to eye coordination of an Apache pilot. Not only that, it took a toll on me, I had an extremely boring ~10 days sitting and grinding throw away accounts. I challenge somebody to do this 8 hours a day on 3 accounts/day until Christmas lol.
I wonder what we’ve all learned today? I know that I have learned at least two things:
1. There are some very smart people playing this game 2. Given the difficulty with which I am having deciphering some of these posts, I might not be one of them
You should see the math posts. Some are really really good
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.
The implication here is that we shouldn't penalize the people who use alt farms, we should instead simply state that this is an option anyone can use, and any player that doesn't is simply accepting a voluntary handicap - ala someone who doesn't use the book in a test that is open book. The problem here is the analogy fails to capture some nuance.
Here's a better analogy. Back in my day, some classes allowed for note sheets. You could bring one sheet of notes, front and back. I was the master of this kind of test, because back then I had the tiniest handwriting you had ever seen. I could fit a dozen pages of notes onto a single page. I could bring basically anything I wanted into a test like that, because I could fit vastly more stuff on a page. Technically, this meant I had an advantage over other students that had nothing to do with academics, but this was considered an acceptable advantage.
And then laser printers came along. Now you could print in 3pt font and practically squeeze the whole text book onto a sheet of paper, if you had the eyesight to read it. This was considered an unacceptable advantage, and they started prohibiting laser printed note sheets. The question was one of degree. They were fine with students competing with each other over who had the tiniest handwriting, but they were unwilling to accept where that arms race went when technology opened the door to ludicrous extremes.
As you say, most people who attempt to do this at all are likely to attempt to do this on one or a couple accounts. They don't look like a problem, and they aren't the problem. The problem is one of degree. There's no single bright line that separates acceptable from exploitive: there is no one number of alts that defines this, any more than there's a font size that defines unacceptable note sheet. Rather, there's a point where we acknowledge the extreme is too extreme, and then we change the rules to prevent that extreme from getting out of hand.
I will say this though: you state that if someone does this on a hundred accounts they aren't just gifting to their mains, they are either botting or selling, and both are against the TOS anyway. But that's not the only way to end up with a hundred alts in an alt farm. Another perfectly reasonable way to do that - assuming Kabam took no longer term action on this - would be for an arena grinder to make one or two of these every Sunday, when arena grinding often throttles down due to the Sunday arenas being less attractive. A hard core arena grinder that is already used to grinding several hours a day could easily make one or two of these alt accounts every Sunday, and end up with something between 50 and 100 of them by next Christmas. If Kabam takes no action at all, 100 alts is unlikely by this Chriistmas, but it is possible by next Christmas, and every Christmas after that, without any activity that is more strenuous than what is already being done by active arena grinders.
@Kabam Miike I have an EASY fix that would eliminate exploits.
Instead of being able to receive Gifts without the obligation to send anything back make it a requirement that in order to receive gifts user has to gift back an equal exchange.
so you could change Gifting event and instead make it a present exchange event. Similar to how offices do xmas exchanges at work during holidays.
for example i would exchange with you a GGC and you would send one back to me in order to receive my gift “present exchange”
This is a huge amount of smoke with a very little fire. As I said 10 days ago this is a theoretical notion pushed to a theoretical maximum, the reality being that there’s going to be very few who are going to have the inclination to truly take it to obscene levels and it still won’t impact the integrity of the rank rewards, it might even push the average player higher as there would be a higher amount of accounts involved, most of which would take up the bottom 50%.
Maybe, but you should never assume what players are willing to do. You can be right a hundred times in a row, but the one time you're wrong it is likely to be catastrophic.
@DNA3000 A hard core arena grinder that is already used to grinding several hours a day could easily make one or two of these alt accounts every Sunday, and end up with something between 50 and 100 of them by next Christmas.
again you are also leaving out the fact that grinding arena is far more fun than grinding act123 on alts - Kam also confirmed this and he is a massive arena grinder
I'm also an arena grinder and I tested this out myself. I didn't find it as problematic as Kam did, and as I mentioned Kam didn't consider strategies like focusing on Sunday when the arenas that are live are far less rewarding. He also didn't consider that someone with multiple devices can grind manually on one to take them up to 19 and autofight on a number of others that have already reached 19. I found that if I got bored grinding an alt, I could just take a break while other devices continued to make progress in other accounts. Kam focused on time efficiency, while I was testing "mental stamina" efficiency.
It was a little more work than grinding arena, and honestly I like my Sunday break from arena so I'm unlikely to do this for 52 straight weeks. Also, if I want units that badly I can just buy them. But for me personally, I found this to be a practical way to earn a lot of units quickly if I was not in a position to buy them.
I will say though, that if nothing else this has gotten people to make the claim that grinding arena is more fun than something else, which is an assertion I thought I would never hear.
@Kabam Miike I have an EASY fix that would eliminate exploits.
Instead of being able to receive Gifts without the obligation to send anything back make it a requirement that in order to receive gifts user has to gift back an equal exchange.
so you could change Gifting event and instead make it a present exchange event. Similar to how offices do xmas exchanges at work during holidays.
for example i would exchange with you a GGC and you would send one back to me in order to receive my gift “present exchange”
This blocks most alt-farm exploits, but this also prevents the normal kind of alt-gifting that has been allowed in the past, and it prevents people from sending true gifts, which seems to be an undesirable side effect compared to other solutions.
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.
The implication here is that we shouldn't penalize the people who use alt farms, we should instead simply state that this is an option anyone can use, and any player that doesn't is simply accepting a voluntary handicap - ala someone who doesn't use the book in a test that is open book. The problem here is the analogy fails to capture some nuance.
Here's a better analogy. Back in my day, some classes allowed for note sheets. You could bring one sheet of notes, front and back. I was the master of this kind of test, because back then I had the tiniest handwriting you had ever seen. I could fit a dozen pages of notes onto a single page. I could bring basically anything I wanted into a test like that, because I could fit vastly more stuff on a page. Technically, this meant I had an advantage over other students that had nothing to do with academics, but this was considered an acceptable advantage.
And then laser printers came along. Now you could print in 3pt font and practically squeeze the whole text book onto a sheet of paper, if you had the eyesight to read it. This was considered an unacceptable advantage, and they started prohibiting laser printed note sheets. The question was one of degree. They were fine with students competing with each other over who had the tiniest handwriting, but they were unwilling to accept where that arms race went when technology opened the door to ludicrous extremes.
As you say, most people who attempt to do this at all are likely to attempt to do this on one or a couple accounts. They don't look like a problem, and they aren't the problem. The problem is one of degree. There's no single bright line that separates acceptable from exploitive: there is no one number of alts that defines this, any more than there's a font size that defines unacceptable note sheet. Rather, there's a point where we acknowledge the extreme is too extreme, and then we change the rules to prevent that extreme from getting out of hand.
I will say this though: you state that if someone does this on a hundred accounts they aren't just gifting to their mains, they are either botting or selling, and both are against the TOS anyway. But that's not the only way to end up with a hundred alts in an alt farm. Another perfectly reasonable way to do that - assuming Kabam took no longer term action on this - would be for an arena grinder to make one or two of these every Sunday, when arena grinding often throttles down due to the Sunday arenas being less attractive. A hard core arena grinder that is already used to grinding several hours a day could easily make one or two of these alt accounts every Sunday, and end up with something between 50 and 100 of them by next Christmas. If Kabam takes no action at all, 100 alts is unlikely by this Chriistmas, but it is possible by next Christmas, and every Christmas after that, without any activity that is more strenuous than what is already being done by active arena grinders.
Some people even now grind arena like crazy and amass thousands of units for the holiday deals. If somebody is planning on grinding a 100 accounts until next christmas(kudos to them for their dedication) then I feel that they have thoroughly deserved their gifting crystals. That will give them what a few extra six stars and ability to r3 several of them maybe even r4 a couple of them. And even boost their prestige by a few hundred points. The question is: how many people are actually likely to do that? Of those that are likely to do that, how many are going to gain an unfair advantage? Considering they are people not from a highly competitive alliance and are not already spending to be at the top Is this such a big problem that people here think will upset game balance in a healthy way? Or as you had mentioned in a earlier post that the content will get significantly more difficult for the rest of the people who haven’t advanced their rosters or abilities without these 100 alt accounts
I still say kabam won't do anything til after gifting event and then they'll penalize anyone who did do mass alt accounts. It's their style to let you do something then take it away later. No way they let players get away without spending.
This is a huge amount of smoke with a very little fire. As I said 10 days ago this is a theoretical notion pushed to a theoretical maximum, the reality being that there’s going to be very few who are going to have the inclination to truly take it to obscene levels and it still won’t impact the integrity of the rank rewards, it might even push the average player higher as there would be a higher amount of accounts involved, most of which would take up the bottom 50%.
Maybe, but you should never assume what players are willing to do. You can be right a hundred times in a row, but the one time you're wrong it is likely to be catastrophic.
Well then I just learned we’ve been playing in a post apocalyptic battle realm after the countless arena bot accounts have already had similar impacts for years now. Not to mention the players who have already employed similar tactics (for years) with near identical outcomes to what is being discussed as a possibility now.
Mass gifting from alt accounts is nothing new and the degree bots already do it won’t be matched by players taking advantage of early acts.
@Kabam Miike I have an EASY fix that would eliminate exploits.
Instead of being able to receive Gifts without the obligation to send anything back make it a requirement that in order to receive gifts user has to gift back an equal exchange.
so you could change Gifting event and instead make it a present exchange event. Similar to how offices do xmas exchanges at work during holidays.
for example i would exchange with you a GGC and you would send one back to me in order to receive my gift “present exchange”
This backfires horribly if random people start sending you crystals.
Sure, IIRC you at least need them added as friends, but...
Guys i dont choose a side but i just ordered 5 more iphone 13 pro max and gonna open acc and play them to get units yeahhhhh this method is the BEAST dudeeed
Odin = $100 But wait ... Lemme create 20 new accounts and buy the starter 625 unit pack for $5 on all 20 account ... Paired with the alliance and solo events during gifting that's about 1200 each account ( 625+40+275*2) ... 1200*20=24000 ... Hey! I can spend money on my alts and get 8 times the amount of units ( in this case GGCs ) I would get from buying an Odin on my main account
But let's ignore that huh? Why? Ohh i spent money!!! That's makes it legit right?? Right?????
I’m curious. If I were to have, say, four accounts that didn’t 100% acts one thru three, and they could go back and get the 1200 or so units available for the hundred percent, would it be more valuable for me to spend those units on GGCs for trade or the 1000 unit deal on cyber Monday? Assuming I actually wanted to play those accounts? For the sake of argument let’s assume that all of those accounts are Uncollected.
This is a huge amount of smoke with a very little fire. As I said 10 days ago this is a theoretical notion pushed to a theoretical maximum, the reality being that there’s going to be very few who are going to have the inclination to truly take it to obscene levels and it still won’t impact the integrity of the rank rewards, it might even push the average player higher as there would be a higher amount of accounts involved, most of which would take up the bottom 50%.
Maybe, but you should never assume what players are willing to do. You can be right a hundred times in a row, but the one time you're wrong it is likely to be catastrophic.
Well then I just learned we’ve been playing in a post apocalyptic battle realm after the countless arena bot accounts have already had similar impacts for years now. Not to mention the players who have already employed similar tactics (for years) with near identical outcomes to what is being discussed as a possibility now.
Mass gifting from alt accounts is nothing new and the degree bots already do it won’t be matched by players taking advantage of early acts.
If the botters actually knew what they were doing (and they don't) this would trivially obliterate what the bot farms can currently do. The botters are not the sharpest tacks in the box, but we can't expect them to stay that way forever.
This is a huge amount of smoke with a very little fire. As I said 10 days ago this is a theoretical notion pushed to a theoretical maximum, the reality being that there’s going to be very few who are going to have the inclination to truly take it to obscene levels and it still won’t impact the integrity of the rank rewards, it might even push the average player higher as there would be a higher amount of accounts involved, most of which would take up the bottom 50%.
Maybe, but you should never assume what players are willing to do. You can be right a hundred times in a row, but the one time you're wrong it is likely to be catastrophic.
Well then I just learned we’ve been playing in a post apocalyptic battle realm after the countless arena bot accounts have already had similar impacts for years now. Not to mention the players who have already employed similar tactics (for years) with near identical outcomes to what is being discussed as a possibility now.
Mass gifting from alt accounts is nothing new and the degree bots already do it won’t be matched by players taking advantage of early acts.
If the botters actually knew what they were doing (and they don't) this would trivially obliterate what the bot farms can currently do. The botters are not the sharpest tacks in the box, but we can't expect them to stay that way forever.
I think you don’t understand or underestimate what bots farms are capable of and the numbers they have been turning out. They also pick up unused or discarded accounts so there is no need to build one.
Side note, someone ask BG what his wife thinks of him tying up thousands of dollars in new devices while locking himself away to play 12 accounts for 8 hours a day and foregoing his upcoming holiday plans so he can farms dem big units over he next 45 days.
This is a huge amount of smoke with a very little fire. As I said 10 days ago this is a theoretical notion pushed to a theoretical maximum, the reality being that there’s going to be very few who are going to have the inclination to truly take it to obscene levels and it still won’t impact the integrity of the rank rewards, it might even push the average player higher as there would be a higher amount of accounts involved, most of which would take up the bottom 50%.
Maybe, but you should never assume what players are willing to do. You can be right a hundred times in a row, but the one time you're wrong it is likely to be catastrophic.
Well then I just learned we’ve been playing in a post apocalyptic battle realm after the countless arena bot accounts have already had similar impacts for years now. Not to mention the players who have already employed similar tactics (for years) with near identical outcomes to what is being discussed as a possibility now.
Mass gifting from alt accounts is nothing new and the degree bots already do it won’t be matched by players taking advantage of early acts.
If the botters actually knew what they were doing (and they don't) this would trivially obliterate what the bot farms can currently do. The botters are not the sharpest tacks in the box, but we can't expect them to stay that way forever.
I think you don’t understand or underestimate what bots farms are capable of and the numbers they have been turning out. They also pick up unused or discarded accounts so there is no need to build one.
Side note, someone ask BG what his wife thinks of him tying up thousands of dollars in new devices while locking himself away to play 12 accounts for 8 hours a day and foregoing his upcoming holiday plans so he can farms dem big units over he next 45 days.
I'm 99% sure you're joking but incase you aren't he did specifically say that he will not farm an alt at all. He did one run yesterday and immediately spend the 2k units on grandmaster crystals
IMO, whatever it is he has done Kabam a favor. First thing there may be very few with that amount of time to spend on a mobile game. Secondly it’s not like they are farming $$s. Obviously Kabam can look at it that way. All that the alt can do is gifting. As a casual player I wouldn’t mind those players doing so. At the end of the day they are going to have a few R4s more for the time that they spent. As if there is no gulf between players right now. I specifically used “spend” cause whoever it is they are not gaining anything materialistic to term it as an investment.
This is a huge amount of smoke with a very little fire. As I said 10 days ago this is a theoretical notion pushed to a theoretical maximum, the reality being that there’s going to be very few who are going to have the inclination to truly take it to obscene levels and it still won’t impact the integrity of the rank rewards, it might even push the average player higher as there would be a higher amount of accounts involved, most of which would take up the bottom 50%.
Maybe, but you should never assume what players are willing to do. You can be right a hundred times in a row, but the one time you're wrong it is likely to be catastrophic.
Well then I just learned we’ve been playing in a post apocalyptic battle realm after the countless arena bot accounts have already had similar impacts for years now. Not to mention the players who have already employed similar tactics (for years) with near identical outcomes to what is being discussed as a possibility now.
Mass gifting from alt accounts is nothing new and the degree bots already do it won’t be matched by players taking advantage of early acts.
If the botters actually knew what they were doing (and they don't) this would trivially obliterate what the bot farms can currently do. The botters are not the sharpest tacks in the box, but we can't expect them to stay that way forever.
I think you don’t understand or underestimate what bots farms are capable of and the numbers they have been turning out. They also pick up unused or discarded accounts so there is no need to build one.
Actually, I've constantly overestimated the botters. Their results are due less to their prowess, and more because of Kabam failings. As we've discussed before, we can bemoan those failings or we can try to reverse them, and I've chosen my side there.
How about keeping the Level requirement from last year and giving the gifting badge only to accounts that have used up 2K or more (lifetime) in units? That should cover those who try and "exploit" the easy units from starting new accounts....you could start a new account but you would have to use up 2K in units to even be able to gift taking away the biggest reason to want to start a new account and still making it fair for new or older players that play fairly
This is a huge amount of smoke with a very little fire. As I said 10 days ago this is a theoretical notion pushed to a theoretical maximum, the reality being that there’s going to be very few who are going to have the inclination to truly take it to obscene levels and it still won’t impact the integrity of the rank rewards, it might even push the average player higher as there would be a higher amount of accounts involved, most of which would take up the bottom 50%.
Maybe, but you should never assume what players are willing to do. You can be right a hundred times in a row, but the one time you're wrong it is likely to be catastrophic.
Well then I just learned we’ve been playing in a post apocalyptic battle realm after the countless arena bot accounts have already had similar impacts for years now. Not to mention the players who have already employed similar tactics (for years) with near identical outcomes to what is being discussed as a possibility now.
Mass gifting from alt accounts is nothing new and the degree bots already do it won’t be matched by players taking advantage of early acts.
If the botters actually knew what they were doing (and they don't) this would trivially obliterate what the bot farms can currently do. The botters are not the sharpest tacks in the box, but we can't expect them to stay that way forever.
I think you don’t understand or underestimate what bots farms are capable of and the numbers they have been turning out. They also pick up unused or discarded accounts so there is no need to build one.
Side note, someone ask BG what his wife thinks of him tying up thousands of dollars in new devices while locking himself away to play 12 accounts for 8 hours a day and foregoing his upcoming holiday plans so he can farms dem big units over he next 45 days.
I'm 99% sure you're joking but incase you aren't he did specifically say that he will not farm an alt at all. He did one run yesterday and immediately spend the 2k units on grandmaster crystals
Will he or won’t he? Because he sure did threaten to do so during that run; using the scenario I posted if nothing was done to remove the possibility.
I have someone in my alliance with 5 accounts. Plays them all.
How are you going to separate them and the supposed farming accounts?
It’s completely not fair to those people. I have always ran a few accounts. Switch between them here and there. I’ll get bored of the big leagues and go to a baby account and enjoy the ranking process.
You saying you won’t tell us the requirements is bull! How will those with multiple daily accounts know what they need to reach before the event?
Comments
1. There are some very smart people playing this game
2. Given the difficulty with which I am having deciphering some of these posts, I might not be one of them
You can make 100 accounts but you would have to put in days or months of effort for it to be equal to to now where you can get the same in less than a fraction of the previously required time
Speaking as someone who made 6 accounts last year (thanks Boris for ruining Christmas), all of those accounts had to be manually played and I was through Act 2 by the time I could auto fight, now it’s going to be even later with the condensed size of the acts which means the ability to run multiple accounts simultaneously is not really viable unless you have 6 hands or the hand to eye coordination of an Apache pilot. Not only that, it took a toll on me, I had an extremely boring ~10 days sitting and grinding throw away accounts. I challenge somebody to do this 8 hours a day on 3 accounts/day until Christmas lol.
Here's a better analogy. Back in my day, some classes allowed for note sheets. You could bring one sheet of notes, front and back. I was the master of this kind of test, because back then I had the tiniest handwriting you had ever seen. I could fit a dozen pages of notes onto a single page. I could bring basically anything I wanted into a test like that, because I could fit vastly more stuff on a page. Technically, this meant I had an advantage over other students that had nothing to do with academics, but this was considered an acceptable advantage.
And then laser printers came along. Now you could print in 3pt font and practically squeeze the whole text book onto a sheet of paper, if you had the eyesight to read it. This was considered an unacceptable advantage, and they started prohibiting laser printed note sheets. The question was one of degree. They were fine with students competing with each other over who had the tiniest handwriting, but they were unwilling to accept where that arms race went when technology opened the door to ludicrous extremes.
As you say, most people who attempt to do this at all are likely to attempt to do this on one or a couple accounts. They don't look like a problem, and they aren't the problem. The problem is one of degree. There's no single bright line that separates acceptable from exploitive: there is no one number of alts that defines this, any more than there's a font size that defines unacceptable note sheet. Rather, there's a point where we acknowledge the extreme is too extreme, and then we change the rules to prevent that extreme from getting out of hand.
I will say this though: you state that if someone does this on a hundred accounts they aren't just gifting to their mains, they are either botting or selling, and both are against the TOS anyway. But that's not the only way to end up with a hundred alts in an alt farm. Another perfectly reasonable way to do that - assuming Kabam took no longer term action on this - would be for an arena grinder to make one or two of these every Sunday, when arena grinding often throttles down due to the Sunday arenas being less attractive. A hard core arena grinder that is already used to grinding several hours a day could easily make one or two of these alt accounts every Sunday, and end up with something between 50 and 100 of them by next Christmas. If Kabam takes no action at all, 100 alts is unlikely by this Chriistmas, but it is possible by next Christmas, and every Christmas after that, without any activity that is more strenuous than what is already being done by active arena grinders.
Instead of being able to receive Gifts without the obligation to send anything back make it a requirement that in order to receive gifts user has to gift back an equal exchange.
so you could change Gifting event and instead make it a present exchange event. Similar to how offices do xmas exchanges at work during holidays.
for example i would exchange with you a GGC and you would send one back to me in order to receive my gift “present exchange”
It was a little more work than grinding arena, and honestly I like my Sunday break from arena so I'm unlikely to do this for 52 straight weeks. Also, if I want units that badly I can just buy them. But for me personally, I found this to be a practical way to earn a lot of units quickly if I was not in a position to buy them.
I will say though, that if nothing else this has gotten people to make the claim that grinding arena is more fun than something else, which is an assertion I thought I would never hear.
The question is: how many people are actually likely to do that?
Of those that are likely to do that, how many are going to gain an unfair advantage? Considering they are people not from a highly competitive alliance and are not already spending to be at the top
Is this such a big problem that people here think will upset game balance in a healthy way? Or as you had mentioned in a earlier post that the content will get significantly more difficult for the rest of the people who haven’t advanced their rosters or abilities without these 100 alt accounts
Mass gifting from alt accounts is nothing new and the degree bots already do it won’t be matched by players taking advantage of early acts.
Sure, IIRC you at least need them added as friends, but...
But wait ... Lemme create 20 new accounts and buy the starter 625 unit pack for $5 on all 20 account ... Paired with the alliance and solo events during gifting that's about 1200 each account ( 625+40+275*2) ... 1200*20=24000 ... Hey! I can spend money on my alts and get 8 times the amount of units ( in this case GGCs ) I would get from buying an Odin on my main account
But let's ignore that huh? Why? Ohh i spent money!!! That's makes it legit right?? Right?????
No, I'm not kidding.
Side note, someone ask BG what his wife thinks of him tying up thousands of dollars in new devices while locking himself away to play 12 accounts for 8 hours a day and foregoing his upcoming holiday plans so he can farms dem big units over he next 45 days.
How are you going to separate them and the supposed farming accounts?
It’s completely not fair to those people. I have always ran a few accounts. Switch between them here and there. I’ll get bored of the big leagues and go to a baby account and enjoy the ranking process.
You saying you won’t tell us the requirements is bull! How will those with multiple daily accounts know what they need to reach before the event?