If they are concerned, one possible solution would be to add progression levels to the ggcs based on the sender so the new accounts would be sending out conqueror level resources.
I have always found it weird that a new account can get something with a pretty decent chance for a 6*.
This is a really good idea, I think that would solve the GGCs problem, and therefore a large part of the whole issue. But revives, refills and other items which couldn't be gated like a GGC by progression would still be an issue.
Stop it from being a gifting event and turn it into a trading event. Boom 3 birds killed with 1 stone. No more kids getting scammed, no more botting on new accounts and no more new account gifting in general
As in you can only gift something if the other person gives the same (or similar) amount of units? Hmm, I'm not sure on that one, doesn't it kind of get rid of the whole gifting spirit of christmas?
What about wanting to send an alliance mate a gift or two, or people sending youtubers gifts. I dont know, I always liked that aspect of the gifting event. Amidst all the fraud, cheating and scams it was the one wholesome part of the event
Don't think it has changed. I think this is where we agree to disagree. If someone can spend unlimited money , I believe someone should have the right to unlimited farming.
I mean, the situation quite literally has changed. That's not an opinion, that's counting.
The situation is people can gift their main account units during gifting event. In my eyes nothing has changed. Just seems like people are concerned on how others choose to spend their time enjoying the game.
I'm sorry but you're sticking your head in the sand here. The situation has changed. You can get more units/time than before, and substantially so. This is not an opinion.
If a player could start an alt and get 20k units within 5 minutes, by your logic " people can gift their main account units during gifting event" still holds true, and you would argue that "nothing has changed". Which is very flawed.
I just think that we are discussing : 6 hours = 2k units= broken.
I'm saying it's not. I'm not arguing 20k units in 5 minutes. I'm saying I don't think the the situation has changed if people want to spend their time doing that then they can.
I also don't know what players were getting before either.
Exactly, so we agree that there is a threshold where there is a certain units per hour that is not good for the game.
Yes, and where I currently stand I don't believe 6 hours for 2k units is too much.
They are more likely to recommend a friend as well. .
Me: Hey check out this game I play simultaneously on 3 different devices for 6 hrs a day for 45 days so I can have an advantage in a 14 day event which will be obsolete in another 2 months
Friends: WHAT THE F***
You can take it out of context , but my point is when people enjoy something they are more likely to recommend it. I have a buddy who came back from a 2 year hiatus and has loved the changes Kabam has made and he already has 5 5* champs and had enough units to tackle the collector.
They are more likely to recommend a friend as well. .
Me: Hey check out this game I play simultaneously on 3 different devices for 6 hrs a day for 45 days so I can have an advantage in a 14 day event which will be obsolete in another 2 months
Friends: WHAT THE F***
You can take it out of context , but my point is when people enjoy something they are more likely to recommend it. I have a buddy who came back from a 2 year hiatus and has loved the changes Kabam has made and he already has 5 5* champs and had enough units to tackle the collector.
I'm specifically addressing the point you made about recommending friends. Whenever I tell anyone I played this game for 6 years they just look sad for me.
I'm definitely not going to be sharing how I grinded on 3 separate devices
They are more likely to recommend a friend as well. .
Me: Hey check out this game I play simultaneously on 3 different devices for 6 hrs a day for 45 days so I can have an advantage in a 14 day event which will be obsolete in another 2 months
Friends: WHAT THE F***
You can take it out of context , but my point is when people enjoy something they are more likely to recommend it. I have a buddy who came back from a 2 year hiatus and has loved the changes Kabam has made and he already has 5 5* champs and had enough units to tackle the collector.
I'm specifically addressing the point you made about recommending friends. Whenever I tell anyone I played this game for 6 years they just look sad for me.
I'm definitely not going to be sharing how I grinded on 3 separate devices
Lol, I feel that 100% , but usually my buddies ask me what I'm playing and they kinda know the game I'm playing and want to join.
Some people play for hours and hours to farm some units, while other's just ka-ching, 1 second and done. Get the equivalent, if not more units. Thats as "not fair" as the unit farm on alt accounts.
So easy solution for both sides. Don't allow alt accounts, and also lock gifting via purchased units. Only allow gifting via farmed units on a main account. Problem solved, money event finally becomes a gifting event.
Of course being realistic, it won't happen. It won't even be possible to set it up like that.
Apologies if I missed something but aren’t the units finite? Like. Yeah. You can explore act 1 in a day or whatever but once you get the units you won’t get them again. And act 4 takes forever. So if anyone cares for efficiency they’ll likely stop at act 3.
The 280k seems like a lot of hyperbole unless you’re talking something like 35 + accounts per person.
Some people play for hours and hours to farm some units, while other's just ka-ching, 1 second and done. Get the equivalent, if not more units. Thats as "not fair" as the unit farm on alt accounts.
So easy solution for both sides. Don't allow alt accounts, and also lock gifting via purchased units. Only allow gifting via farmed units on a main account. Problem solved, money event finally becomes a gifting event.
Of course being realistic, it won't happen. It won't even be possible to set it up like that.
Money is what keeps the lights on…. People can work for units or pay. But as soon as units are easier to get by creating multiple accounts there is no point in spending on the game
There is a point . You don't want want to grind the units.
Ok so hear is my take on it. As long as they are doing it legit without bots, that's on them. Time is money, and if players are willing to take time out of their day to do it, that's their decision. Plus, the beginner xp boost is gone, making it harder to level up without doing harder content. Before, you had to get about halfway in Act 2 before unlocking the gifting badge. And, Kabam added the tons and tons of units to the beginning acts while heavily cutting down the story. I'm surprised they didn't think about this ahead of time.
If they really want to do something about this, there's four solutions:
1. Only Uncollected or higher can gift one another 2. Level limit from 25 to 45. 3. You cannot gift if your account is made December 1st or later. 4. Actually crack down on bots including the arena bots
There is another possibility which occurred to me after thinking about the thread further, but as I've discussed this off the forums with other players I'll acknowledge this is not a unique or original idea: I'm basically stealing it from my old timey MMO experience, and other players have come up with similar ideas in these discussions.
For context: Kabam wants to give new players a boost as part of their low game revamp. This has unfortunately included a boost to units they can earn in the early Acts, which is a good thing when used by new players to help them progress but can be exploited in things like the gifting event. We don't want to penalize new players, but we do want to minimize the disruption these resources can cause when wielded by people other than new players picking up the game.
The solution is to create a new currency, which I will call Credits just because I can't think of a better name at the moment. This currency would behave like units in all respects except one: in any situation where units can buy things that can be gifted, donated, exchanged, or otherwise convert to resources usable by another player, Credits will not work in place of normal units.
With two currencies, Kabam can now freely give away any amount of "units" they want without hurting the wider game economy. Such unit awards would only be useful to the player who gets them. The big unit rewards in the early Acts could be converted to Credits, where they would help new players but be impossible to use in things like the gifting event. You could even go farther and have new players that have only been playing for a short period of time earn Credits instead of Units from things like the Calendar, so that people cannot use alt accounts to harvest that stuff, but actual players playing the accounts can still use them for everything else.
As far as I can tell, this is the most reasonable compromise possible. It preserves the benefits of early units for players actually playing those accounts, but eliminates the ability for those resources to be funneled into other accounts.
Whenever I tell anyone I played this game for 6 years they just look sad for me.
I'm definitely not going to be sharing how I grinded on 3 separate devices
The longest I played an MMO continuously was just over eight years. I had over 48 alts when the game shut down, and my main had about 10,000 hours of play time logged into it. MCOC is still a kinda light hobby for me.
Make level 40 or something the requirement for gifting.
That is clearly the best solution. I think level 40 is too low. Maybe 55. If you are so new to the game you are a low level you have no business getting the content from GGC. Clearly the number of people who disagree with your post means it is a good idea. People are mad they wouldn't be able to abuse it.
Ok so hear is my take on it. As long as they are doing it legit without bots, that's on them. Time is money, and if players are willing to take time out of their day to do it, that's their decision. Plus, the beginner xp boost is gone, making it harder to level up without doing harder content. Before, you had to get about halfway in Act 2 before unlocking the gifting badge. And, Kabam added the tons and tons of units to the beginning acts while heavily cutting down the story. I'm surprised they didn't think about this ahead of time.
If they really want to do something about this, there's four solutions:
1. Only Uncollected or higher can gift one another 2. Level limit from 25 to 45. 3. You cannot gift if your account is made December 1st or later. 4. Actually crack down on bots including the arena bots
There is another possibility which occurred to me after thinking about the thread further, but as I've discussed this off the forums with other players I'll acknowledge this is not a unique or original idea: I'm basically stealing it from my old timey MMO experience, and other players have come up with similar ideas in these discussions.
For context: Kabam wants to give new players a boost as part of their low game revamp. This has unfortunately included a boost to units they can earn in the early Acts, which is a good thing when used by new players to help them progress but can be exploited in things like the gifting event. We don't want to penalize new players, but we do want to minimize the disruption these resources can cause when wielded by people other than new players picking up the game.
The solution is to create a new currency, which I will call Credits just because I can't think of a better name at the moment. This currency would behave like units in all respects except one: in any situation where units can buy things that can be gifted, donated, exchanged, or otherwise convert to resources usable by another player, Credits will not work in place of normal units.
With two currencies, Kabam can now freely give away any amount of "units" they want without hurting the wider game economy. Such unit awards would only be useful to the player who gets them. The big unit rewards in the early Acts could be converted to Credits, where they would help new players but be impossible to use in things like the gifting event. You could even go farther and have new players that have only been playing for a short period of time earn Credits instead of Units from things like the Calendar, so that people cannot use alt accounts to harvest that stuff, but actual players playing the accounts can still use them for everything else.
As far as I can tell, this is the most reasonable compromise possible. It preserves the benefits of early units for players actually playing those accounts, but eliminates the ability for those resources to be funneled into other accounts.
This is the best option I've read so far. This way, there is 0 change to the gifting event's structure, it doesn't pose any level restrictions, gifting restrictions or otherwise affect the event.
There could even be a similar amount of units as before the changes, so that players who used to grind alts for gifting at a reasonable rate could continue to do that. The additional units added by the update to act 1-3 could be made up of these credits, meaning the situation is exactly as it was before the update. Then anyone complaining, would just be complaining that they couldn't get more stuff.
I think an alternative solution will be to create different tiers of GGCs, that contain different items.
So a GGC gifted from a Cav account will contain items that benefit mainly Cavs (eg 5* shards, smaller T5b amounts, T2A etc 5* roster progression items).
TB GGCs will contain larger T5b portions, T6b, T3A, 6* shards etc items that focus on 6* roster progression.
So even using such farming methods, because the account will at most be Conquerer, the items gifted out will be mostly useless to main accounts that are Cav and above, ie indirectly curbing the exploit.
I think an alternative solution will be to create different tiers of GGCs, that contain different items.
So a GGC gifted from a Cav account will contain items that benefit mainly Cavs (eg 5* shards, smaller T5b amounts, T2A etc 5* roster progression items).
TB GGCs will contain larger T5b portions, T6b, T3A, 6* shards etc items that focus on 6* roster progression.
So even using such farming methods, because the account will at most be Conquerer, the items gifted out will be mostly useless to main accounts that are Cav and above, ie indirectly curbing the exploit.
What about revives and refills etc? I know your suggestion would cover a lot of the problem, by stopping the GGC exploit, but it doesn’t solve all.
Make level 40 or something the requirement for gifting.
That is clearly the best solution. I think level 40 is too low. Maybe 55. If you are so new to the game you are a low level you have no business getting the content from GGC. Clearly the number of people who disagree with your post means it is a good idea. People are mad they wouldn't be able to abuse it.
The problem with a level gate on the gifting event is that there's an unintended side effect, it disproportionately targets casual players. A lot of people assume players blitz past level 40 (or 55) quickly, and anyone who doesn't doesn't "deserve" gifting rewards. But the vast majority of players of the game are far more casual than that, and do not reach those levels quickly. You could be blocking a lot of new players from the gifting event for six months or more if you gate to level 55. And while you can gate advanced content that way, the gifting event is a form of engagement tool: it is meant to attract new players and keep existing ones engaged. If a huge chunk of the new players you're trying to attract to the game are locked out of one of the more popular and discussed events in the game, it will likely be counterproductive to one of the goals of the event.
The *really* big problem is that a level gate disproportionately impacts casual spenders - the players you want the most to attract. A casual player that doesn't grind a ton, and bridges the gap between the time they have available and where they want to be by spending, is the sort of person more likely to spend to participate in the gifting event. They are one of the foundational spenders supporting the game. And we'd be turning many of them off with a level gate.
I think an alternative solution will be to create different tiers of GGCs, that contain different items.
So a GGC gifted from a Cav account will contain items that benefit mainly Cavs (eg 5* shards, smaller T5b amounts, T2A etc 5* roster progression items).
TB GGCs will contain larger T5b portions, T6b, T3A, 6* shards etc items that focus on 6* roster progression.
So even using such farming methods, because the account will at most be Conquerer, the items gifted out will be mostly useless to main accounts that are Cav and above, ie indirectly curbing the exploit.
What about revives and refills etc? I know your suggestion would cover a lot of the problem, by stopping the GGC exploit, but it doesn’t solve all.
There’s a limit to revives and refills usage imo (ie content to use them in + natural expiration of stashed items).
At most, you’re looking at V8/A7.3 energy costs, which is roughly, give or take, 40 refills and maybe 30-40 revives. Anything extra goes into stash and is subjected to natural expiration.
Considering the “unlimited” nature of GGCs, the small issue of revives/refills is something I’m willing to accept to curb the gifting exploit.
I think an alternative solution will be to create different tiers of GGCs, that contain different items.
So a GGC gifted from a Cav account will contain items that benefit mainly Cavs (eg 5* shards, smaller T5b amounts, T2A etc 5* roster progression items).
TB GGCs will contain larger T5b portions, T6b, T3A, 6* shards etc items that focus on 6* roster progression.
So even using such farming methods, because the account will at most be Conquerer, the items gifted out will be mostly useless to main accounts that are Cav and above, ie indirectly curbing the exploit.
This is problematic because while it tackles some of the exploits, it creates problems for the players who are using the gifting event "normally." If I as a Thronebreaker exchange gifts with an Uncollected player, then weirdly they would be getting TB rewards and I would be getting UC rewards, which a lot of people will perceive to be unfair. More importantly, it could add friction to gifting between non-exploiters, which is the last thing we want to do.
Not to mention, limiting GGCs to different tiers also avoids players excessively overpowering past their current progression level.
Eg. A fresh UC farming 120k units and gifting himself all the GGCs, which will result in insane amounts of 6* shards, Cats etc, which will likely allow him to get multiple R3s and even R4s.
I think an alternative solution will be to create different tiers of GGCs, that contain different items.
So a GGC gifted from a Cav account will contain items that benefit mainly Cavs (eg 5* shards, smaller T5b amounts, T2A etc 5* roster progression items).
TB GGCs will contain larger T5b portions, T6b, T3A, 6* shards etc items that focus on 6* roster progression.
So even using such farming methods, because the account will at most be Conquerer, the items gifted out will be mostly useless to main accounts that are Cav and above, ie indirectly curbing the exploit.
This is problematic because while it tackles some of the exploits, it creates problems for the players who are using the gifting event "normally." If I as a Thronebreaker exchange gifts with an Uncollected player, then weirdly they would be getting TB rewards and I would be getting UC rewards, which a lot of people will perceive to be unfair. More importantly, it could add friction to gifting between non-exploiters, which is the last thing we want to do.
That’s true. On the other hand, there are other benefits such as;
1.If you’re in an alliance, it’s likely everyone is roughly in the same level/progression tier. So trading within negates the complication of “trading up/down”. (Mantra of “trade with people you know”)
2. Reduces scamming of newer/unknowing players on global because the odds of trading “down” is a lot higher for scammers than trading “up”.
3. Friction between non-exploiters won’t exist because titles can be clearly seen on anyone’s’ profile.
Some time this community sucks because of threads like this 😑😑
Same with posts like this…
The sort of post like yours is right in line with those ones that say “shhhh don’t make posts about this revive drop spot in act 3.X”. As if you’re being sneaky and stopping kabam from finding out.
They know. They know what’s going on in their game that they collect nonstop data on. If thousands of new accounts are being made and the units not being spent, they’ll know. If all those accounts send gifts to the same players, they’ll know. You aren’t getting one over them by keeping these situations “quiet”.
Oh yes, forgot to mention this in my earlier post.
There is no loss to Kabam in terms of profit because these units are farmed and not bought. So it doesn’t affect their bottom line.
The only thing that will be affected is the “new players/accounts created” statistics that will show a true number, instead of an artificial growth due to dummy accounts created (which I might add, will never be used again once this gifting event is over).
Oh yes, forgot to mention this in my earlier post.
There is no loss to Kabam in terms of profit because these units are farmed and not bought. So it doesn’t affect their bottom line.
The only thing that will be affected is the “new players/accounts created” statistics that will show a true number, instead of an artificial growth due to dummy accounts created (which I might add, will never be used again once this gifting event is over).
I mean, if someone can grind out 10-20k pretty easily, why would they spend any money getting extra?
Oh yes, forgot to mention this in my earlier post.
There is no loss to Kabam in terms of profit because these units are farmed and not bought. So it doesn’t affect their bottom line.
The only thing that will be affected is the “new players/accounts created” statistics that will show a true number, instead of an artificial growth due to dummy accounts created (which I might add, will never be used again once this gifting event is over).
I mean, if someone can grind out 10-20k pretty easily, why would they spend any money getting extra?
Oh yes, forgot to mention this in my earlier post.
There is no loss to Kabam in terms of profit because these units are farmed and not bought. So it doesn’t affect their bottom line.
The only thing that will be affected is the “new players/accounts created” statistics that will show a true number, instead of an artificial growth due to dummy accounts created (which I might add, will never be used again once this gifting event is over).
I mean, if someone can grind out 10-20k pretty easily, why would they spend any money getting extra?
Yup exactly.
No I mean that, someone like me who would generally consider spending £100 or so on gifting.
To replace that £100 I will now just go and grind out 2 accounts (which is 12 hours over the next 45 days, so about an 15 mins a day), and get myself 3k units. That’s £100 Kabam lose out on. I’m not going to then spend £100 for 3100 units more, when I could just grind some more accounts
And yes, I know not everyone has the time to make up that difference. But some will, and that means that this will affect Kabam’s bottom line if it continues.
I'm still on the fence with this one. It's been a legitimate action since these Events started. Personally, I have one Account. However, I'm not convinced it's a major issue. If someone has that much time and energy on their hands, it's really not affecting me. The other side of it is I could see how it could be milked. I'm just not completely convinced it's unfair. I think this has more to do with the "competitiveness of F2P" than anything. Which BG is concerned with. I'm not of the same mindset of F2P/P2P, or any comparison or competition therein. I think there's way too much stock invested in that pride. I suppose I'm cool either way. If something is actually egregious or unfair in an imbalancing way, I'm all for action. If it's just because of having eyes on the plates of others, meh.
Comments
I'm definitely not going to be sharing how I grinded on 3 separate devices
Some people play for hours and hours to farm some units, while other's just ka-ching, 1 second and done. Get the equivalent, if not more units. Thats as "not fair" as the unit farm on alt accounts.
So easy solution for both sides. Don't allow alt accounts, and also lock gifting via purchased units. Only allow gifting via farmed units on a main account.
Problem solved, money event finally becomes a gifting event.
Of course being realistic, it won't happen. It won't even be possible to set it up like that.
Like. Yeah. You can explore act 1 in a day or whatever but once you get the units you won’t get them again.
And act 4 takes forever. So if anyone cares for efficiency they’ll likely stop at act 3.
The 280k seems like a lot of hyperbole unless you’re talking something like 35 + accounts per person.
For context: Kabam wants to give new players a boost as part of their low game revamp. This has unfortunately included a boost to units they can earn in the early Acts, which is a good thing when used by new players to help them progress but can be exploited in things like the gifting event. We don't want to penalize new players, but we do want to minimize the disruption these resources can cause when wielded by people other than new players picking up the game.
The solution is to create a new currency, which I will call Credits just because I can't think of a better name at the moment. This currency would behave like units in all respects except one: in any situation where units can buy things that can be gifted, donated, exchanged, or otherwise convert to resources usable by another player, Credits will not work in place of normal units.
With two currencies, Kabam can now freely give away any amount of "units" they want without hurting the wider game economy. Such unit awards would only be useful to the player who gets them. The big unit rewards in the early Acts could be converted to Credits, where they would help new players but be impossible to use in things like the gifting event. You could even go farther and have new players that have only been playing for a short period of time earn Credits instead of Units from things like the Calendar, so that people cannot use alt accounts to harvest that stuff, but actual players playing the accounts can still use them for everything else.
As far as I can tell, this is the most reasonable compromise possible. It preserves the benefits of early units for players actually playing those accounts, but eliminates the ability for those resources to be funneled into other accounts.
There could even be a similar amount of units as before the changes, so that players who used to grind alts for gifting at a reasonable rate could continue to do that. The additional units added by the update to act 1-3 could be made up of these credits, meaning the situation is exactly as it was before the update. Then anyone complaining, would just be complaining that they couldn't get more stuff.
So a GGC gifted from a Cav account will contain items that benefit mainly Cavs (eg 5* shards, smaller T5b amounts, T2A etc 5* roster progression items).
TB GGCs will contain larger T5b portions, T6b, T3A, 6* shards etc items that focus on 6* roster progression.
So even using such farming methods, because the account will at most be Conquerer, the items gifted out will be mostly useless to main accounts that are Cav and above, ie indirectly curbing the exploit.
The *really* big problem is that a level gate disproportionately impacts casual spenders - the players you want the most to attract. A casual player that doesn't grind a ton, and bridges the gap between the time they have available and where they want to be by spending, is the sort of person more likely to spend to participate in the gifting event. They are one of the foundational spenders supporting the game. And we'd be turning many of them off with a level gate.
At most, you’re looking at V8/A7.3 energy costs, which is roughly, give or take, 40 refills and maybe 30-40 revives. Anything extra goes into stash and is subjected to natural expiration.
Considering the “unlimited” nature of GGCs, the small issue of revives/refills is something I’m willing to accept to curb the gifting exploit.
Eg. A fresh UC farming 120k units and gifting himself all the GGCs, which will result in insane amounts of 6* shards, Cats etc, which will likely allow him to get multiple R3s and even R4s.
1.If you’re in an alliance, it’s likely everyone is roughly in the same level/progression tier. So trading within negates the complication of “trading up/down”. (Mantra of “trade with people you know”)
2. Reduces scamming of newer/unknowing players on global because the odds of trading “down” is a lot higher for scammers than trading “up”.
3. Friction between non-exploiters won’t exist because titles can be clearly seen on anyone’s’ profile.
The sort of post like yours is right in line with those ones that say “shhhh don’t make posts about this revive drop spot in act 3.X”. As if you’re being sneaky and stopping kabam from finding out.
They know. They know what’s going on in their game that they collect nonstop data on. If thousands of new accounts are being made and the units not being spent, they’ll know. If all those accounts send gifts to the same players, they’ll know. You aren’t getting one over them by keeping these situations “quiet”.
There is no loss to Kabam in terms of profit because these units are farmed and not bought. So it doesn’t affect their bottom line.
The only thing that will be affected is the “new players/accounts created” statistics that will show a true number, instead of an artificial growth due to dummy accounts created (which I might add, will never be used again once this gifting event is over).
To replace that £100 I will now just go and grind out 2 accounts (which is 12 hours over the next 45 days, so about an 15 mins a day), and get myself 3k units. That’s £100 Kabam lose out on. I’m not going to then spend £100 for 3100 units more, when I could just grind some more accounts
And yes, I know not everyone has the time to make up that difference. But some will, and that means that this will affect Kabam’s bottom line if it continues.
The other side of it is I could see how it could be milked. I'm just not completely convinced it's unfair. I think this has more to do with the "competitiveness of F2P" than anything. Which BG is concerned with. I'm not of the same mindset of F2P/P2P, or any comparison or competition therein. I think there's way too much stock invested in that pride.
I suppose I'm cool either way. If something is actually egregious or unfair in an imbalancing way, I'm all for action. If it's just because of having eyes on the plates of others, meh.