Honest, ernest question poll about 7* cost thought process

Sbkrueb

Do you think Kabam announced 7* cost at 15,000 shards just so they can "compromise" at 12,500 with less outrage?

Comments

Kabam Jax

The answer is no.

magnus_xix

What makes you think they will compromise?

Chatterofforums

Well op your negotiation wasn't good your supposed to start off asking for much less than you want and then there could be a "compromise".

Sbkrueb

The answer is no.

That is actually extremely disheartening.
That was the one hope I had for it not being a complete cash grab.

There are some very poignant takes on the 15k cost and the titan crystal and none of them are great.
There is a lot going on in a negetive way with the game right now and this felt like a dropped opportunity for some neutral or even good will.

GroundedWisdom

The answer is no.
That is actually extremely disheartening.
That was the one hope I had for it not being a complete cash grab.

There are some very poignant takes on the 15k cost and the titan crystal and none of them are great.
There is a lot going on in a negetive way with the game right now and this felt like a dropped opportunity for some neutral or even good will.

Good will doesn't extend to speeding up the introduction pace of a new Rarity. That affect the future design demands. Nor is it about F2P vs. P2P. No connection, really.

DrZola

The answer is no.

Missed the twitch stream, but perhaps you could discuss the thought process behind the scaling here? Can we expect 6* dupes to continue to be only 275 shards and if so, why?

Dr. Zola

RomeroK

The real question if the shards were supposed to be scaled up will players get 50% extra of their current inventory as a markup along with the shards from 6 star dupe being updated to 413 because thats how scaling up works not just rewards going forward.

Pikolu

The answer is no.
Missed the twitch stream, but perhaps you could discuss the thought process behind the scaling here? Can we expect 6* dupes to continue to be only 275 shards and if so, why?

Dr. Zola

The reason for the 15k is to devalue 6*s dupes. That is the only reason.

On the bright side, our first 2 7*s are only 10k, so imo, that's pretty fair.

Greekhit

The answer is no.
Missed the twitch stream, but perhaps you could discuss the thought process behind the scaling here? Can we expect 6* dupes to continue to be only 275 shards and if so, why?

Dr. Zola

Because of the BGs store.
That’s the answer.
People are buying cheap 6* shards for months now accumulating 7* shards from 6* duped.
They saw their data on how much 7* shards on average players have, and they thought 10k would allow players to open more 7* stars than was intended.
I’m not playing BGs that much and I’ve already have 30k 7* shards plus 400k unopened 6* shards, that will be 90% dupes and 7* shards.
I imagine hardcore BGs players will be already around the 100k 7* shards mark, let alone where whales will be.
The transition from the 6*s to 7*s for people that don’t play BGs will be rough, because outside BGs 6* shards availability is heavily outdated.
Watch 8.2 f.e. you can get more 6* shards for two weeks in BGs, than exploring the latest story content.

DNA3000

The answer is no.
That is actually extremely disheartening.
That was the one hope I had for it not being a complete cash grab.

This everything being a cash grab thing is honestly annoying. People lodge this complaint at literally every change even when the effect is exactly the opposite.

Altering the 7* shard economy by increasing the crystal cost and then boosting every source for shards except 6* duplication attenuates the *primary* way to theoretically buy 7* champs with cash: via champion duplication. Whales open tons more champion crystals than anyone else, and thus they get disproportionately more shards from champion duplication than anyone else. Anything that increases the relative shard sources of everything except champion duplication, or to put it another way anything that reduces the ability for spenders to buy 7* crystals, reduces the gap between spenders and non-spenders.

Calling this a cash grab is completely ludicrous.

DNA3000

The answer is no.
Missed the twitch stream, but perhaps you could discuss the thought process behind the scaling here? Can we expect 6* dupes to continue to be only 275 shards and if so, why?

Dr. Zola
The reason for the 15k is to devalue 6*s dupes. That is the only reason.

On the bright side, our first 2 7*s are only 10k, so imo, that's pretty fair.

It seems to be the primary economic driver, but there is a compensating factor as well. Although in one sense the 7* basic crystal will now cost 15k, in another sense there is no 7* basic crystal at all. The 5* and 6* basic crystals have a specific intent: to drop a random champion from the basic pool. That pool is, more or less, the same for 3*, 4*, 5*, and 6* champs. There are exceptions, but in general the intent is to include all or nearly all champions available in that rarity, excluding trophy champs and new champs that haven't passed into the pool yet.

The 7* crystal appears to have a much more curated set of champions. It doesn't appear to be intended to rapidly include everything as quickly as say the 5* and 6* crystals did. Therefore, the net value of that crystal is much higher.

The way I look at it, as a thought experiment there was an imaginary 7* basic crystal for 10k, a 7* curated crystal for 15k, and the 7* Featured crystal for more. The 7* featured crystal evolved into the Titan crystal with its own shard currency, and the 10k basic crystal was simply eliminated altogether to eliminate the option to buy a crystal with subpar champions in a full basic pool.

The way I look at it, the 7* crystal has higher value, the shard cost is higher, but those higher shard costs will be disproportionately paid by the players who open the most 6* crystals, because on a relative basis they are the ones who will have their relative buying power reduced the most. Most players opening 7* crystals are likely to benefit overall from this structure.

Dart1981

The answer is no.
Missed the twitch stream, but perhaps you could discuss the thought process behind the scaling here? Can we expect 6* dupes to continue to be only 275 shards and if so, why?

Dr. Zola

This was going to be my question too, the scaling on a 6* dupe should now be multiplied by 1.5 to stay in line 4 and 5* dupes.

GroundedWisdom

The answer is no.
Missed the twitch stream, but perhaps you could discuss the thought process behind the scaling here? Can we expect 6* dupes to continue to be only 275 shards and if so, why?

Dr. Zola
This was going to be my question too, the scaling on a 6* dupe should now be multiplied by 1.5 to stay in line 4 and 5* dupes.

I don't believe they're supposed to be in line. That's the reason for the change. I'm almost certain this is to slow the introduction of them, for no other reason than to pace things. If they're introduced too fast, that becomes more demanding, and I believe they don't want it to be as fast as 6*s were introduced.

mbrace

The answer is no.

Then how about a 50% compensation bump for all of the 6* champs that we duped thinking that the rewards were set up to correlate with the cost of the 7* champs? 250 shards is the same as what you’d get for duping a 5*, and then the 6* basic crystal costs 10k. Why not just make it 20k for a basic 7* to be even more out of proportion? 30k anyone? Why not just be clear that the scaling is not fair.

GinjabredMonsta

The answer is no.
That is actually extremely disheartening.
That was the one hope I had for it not being a complete cash grab.

There are some very poignant takes on the 15k cost and the titan crystal and none of them are great.
There is a lot going on in a negetive way with the game right now and this felt like a dropped opportunity for some neutral or even good will.

Personally, it was logical that the next one would be more than the other 15k was my guess, but every two new ranks have a new cost. This also helps with acquisition and balance

DNA3000

The answer is no.
Then how about a 50% compensation bump for all of the 6* champs that we duped thinking that the rewards were set up to correlate with the cost of the 7* champs? 250 shards is the same as what you’d get for duping a 5*, and then the 6* basic crystal costs 10k. Why not just make it 20k for a basic 7* to be even more out of proportion? 30k anyone? Why not just be clear that the scaling is not fair.

I'm sorry, are you asking for compensation for being wrong, or are you asking for compensation for the crystal RNG duping champions? Either way the answer is going to be no, but I'm still curious.

There is no "fair" and "unfair" shard cost. What matters is how many crystals players ultimately get. Until recently, 6* dups generated no shards at all. Is that fair? It isn't fair or unfair, that's just how the duplication worked for lower rarities. The relative shard costs and drops for 7* champs do not need to be numerically identical to prior rarities, because those rarities are no more fair or unfair. They are just numbers in a system, and it is how the system works overall that matters. You can't just cogs outside of the gears.

Leanbison

This everything being a cash grab thing is honestly annoying. People lodge this complaint at literally every change even when the effect is exactly the opposite.

Altering the 7* shard economy by increasing the crystal cost and then boosting every source for shards except 6* duplication attenuates the *primary* way to theoretically buy 7* champs with cash: via champion duplication. Whales open tons more champion crystals than anyone else, and thus they get disproportionately more shards from champion duplication than anyone else. Anything that increases the relative shard sources of everything except champion duplication, or to put it another way anything that reduces the ability for spenders to buy 7* crystals, reduces the gap between spenders and non-spenders.

Calling this a cash grab is completely ludicrous.

Paragon Crystals? While we are collecting 2 types of shards the whales will be buying Paragon Crystals. I do think the point of making it so hard to collect shards was to encourage people to buy crystals. From a business perspective it makes a lot of sense.

o_o

I suppose this question was honest but i'm not sure it was earnest

DNA3000

This everything being a cash grab thing is honestly annoying. People lodge this complaint at literally every change even when the effect is exactly the opposite.

Altering the 7* shard economy by increasing the crystal cost and then boosting every source for shards except 6* duplication attenuates the *primary* way to theoretically buy 7* champs with cash: via champion duplication. Whales open tons more champion crystals than anyone else, and thus they get disproportionately more shards from champion duplication than anyone else. Anything that increases the relative shard sources of everything except champion duplication, or to put it another way anything that reduces the ability for spenders to buy 7* crystals, reduces the gap between spenders and non-spenders.

Calling this a cash grab is completely ludicrous.
Paragon Crystals? While we are collecting 2 types of shards the whales will be buying Paragon Crystals. I do think the point of making it so hard to collect shards was to encourage people to buy crystals. From a business perspective it makes a lot of sense.

Paragon crystals were going to exist no matter what. The whales were going to get the same number of 7* champs from those crystals no matter what. Whether the 7* crystal cost 10k or 15k or 20k. The difference is that when those whales open a gazillion paragon crystals, they will get fewer 7* champs via 6* duplication.

The Paragon crystal odds have not been announced (as far as I'm aware) but we can speculate that the odds of pulling a 7* are going to be very low, but the odds of pulling a 6* are going to be much higher than for Cav crystals: probably not too dissimilar from the odds of pulling a 5* from Cavs. Those Paragon crystals were not *only* going to land the occasional jackpot 7*, they were also going to flood those whales with even more 6* shards generating even more 6* dups.

Whales always get the chance to buy into the top rarity. With Cavs/Paragon crystals, with special offers, with special crystals. None of that is likely going away. The specific change being discussed here is the change to shard costs, and the net impact on 6* duplication generated shards. Those are now relatively less valuable. And however you look at it, the whales are always going to get a lot more of those than anyone else. An order of magnitude more in many cases. Every time an F2P player gets one 6* champ from 5* dups, the whales are getting ten. Well now every time an F2P player gets a 7* champ from 6* dups, the whales will be getting seven. In relative terms, F2P players come out ahead.

Bel

This everything being a cash grab thing is honestly annoying. People lodge this complaint at literally every change even when the effect is exactly the opposite.

Altering the 7* shard economy by increasing the crystal cost and then boosting every source for shards except 6* duplication attenuates the *primary* way to theoretically buy 7* champs with cash: via champion duplication. Whales open tons more champion crystals than anyone else, and thus they get disproportionately more shards from champion duplication than anyone else. Anything that increases the relative shard sources of everything except champion duplication, or to put it another way anything that reduces the ability for spenders to buy 7* crystals, reduces the gap between spenders and non-spenders.

Calling this a cash grab is completely ludicrous.
Paragon Crystals? While we are collecting 2 types of shards the whales will be buying Paragon Crystals. I do think the point of making it so hard to collect shards was to encourage people to buy crystals. From a business perspective it makes a lot of sense.
Paragon crystals were going to exist no matter what. The whales were going to get the same number of 7* champs from those crystals no matter what. Whether the 7* crystal cost 10k or 15k or 20k. The difference is that when those whales open a gazillion paragon crystals, they will get fewer 7* champs via 6* duplication.

The Paragon crystal odds have not been announced (as far as I'm aware) but we can speculate that the odds of pulling a 7* are going to be very low, but the odds of pulling a 6* are going to be much higher than for Cav crystals: probably not too dissimilar from the odds of pulling a 5* from Cavs. Those Paragon crystals were not *only* going to land the occasional jackpot 7*, they were also going to flood those whales with even more 6* shards generating even more 6* dups.

Whales always get the chance to buy into the top rarity. With Cavs/Paragon crystals, with special offers, with special crystals. None of that is likely going away. The specific change being discussed here is the change to shard costs, and the net impact on 6* duplication generated shards. Those are now relatively less valuable. And however you look at it, the whales are always going to get a lot more of those than anyone else. An order of magnitude more in many cases. Every time an F2P player gets one 6* champ from 5* dups, the whales are getting ten. Well now every time an F2P player gets a 7* champ from 6* dups, the whales will be getting seven. In relative terms, F2P players come out ahead.

So you agree it is a cashgrab then? Since if we start with the presumption that "whales are gonna whale" then anything that forces them to spend more to achieve the same outcome will result in more $ for Kabam.

Furthermore if the goal from the design team was to truly slow the acquisition of 7* champions then the Paragon crystal would not be coming out for a long time. There was a long period (years I believe) between the release of 6*'s and the release of the cav crystal. After the cav crystal released it is obvious that whales spammed the opening of them to acquire "all" the champions.

Lets be clear: the paragon crystal will be no different and Kabam are betting on it.
Whales will buy as many paragon crystals as necessary to have all the available 7* champions at max sig and then more again to get the titan shards+crystals for the other champion set.

While I appreciate Kabam Miike's post earlier explaining the design decision, much of the reasoning is completely nullified by the financial decision of the paragon crystal.

All this is before you get into the sheer disastrous PR approach. Kabam knew the cost of the crystal would not be received well. So much so that Jax said it on stream as gently as possible and immediately had the "first two for 10k" cookie ready to go to help make the medicine go down better.

I'll leave it there for now and see what others have to say.

Bugmat78

I'm in agreement with DNA3000 here. I mean for years we got nothing for duplicating 6* until they decided they were introducing 7* so I'm not that outraged by the incoming 6* shards devaluation or the shards cost of 7* crystals.

It would have been nice if it was 10k but i expected 12.5 -15k. They were always going to (1) monetize the next star level to a certain extent and (2) cater more to the players that spend more. Paragon crystals will be part of that.

The game needs to be profitable.

DNA3000

So you agree it is a cashgrab then? Since if we start with the presumption that "whales are gonna whale" then anything that forces them to spend more to achieve the same outcome will result in more $ for Kabam.

If you want to put it that way, sure. The game is a cash grab, and the new rarity structure will grab even more cash from the biggest spenders.

That's what this game does. It grabs cash from thousands of spenders, so hundreds of thousands of people can play the game completely for free. I'm not a big spender, but I do spend, and I approve of this. And I'm also fine getting less for my money so that those of us that do spend have a lower advantage over the rest of the F2P community.

Normally that's not what people mean when they call something in this game a "cash grab." They mean something derisive. But in the sense you're implying, this is a good thing and something we can only hope the game does more of in the future.

rockykoston

I don't understand why some ppl look down upon others spending cash in the game, or if the game tries to monetize a new release.

Be thankful that you can play the game for free and still enjoy it.

Is it ideal that 7* are priced at 15k?? No.

Is it really that game breaking?? No.

Will it force people to leave or spend?? Personal choice.

Searmenis

Humm... what outrage?

Hort4

So you agree it is a cashgrab then? Since if we start with the presumption that "whales are gonna whale" then anything that forces them to spend more to achieve the same outcome will result in more $ for Kabam.
If you want to put it that way, sure. The game is a cash grab, and the new rarity structure will grab even more cash from the biggest spenders.

That's what this game does. It grabs cash from thousands of spenders, so hundreds of thousands of people can play the game completely for free. I'm not a big spender, but I do spend, and I approve of this. And I'm also fine getting less for my money so that those of us that do spend have a lower advantage over the rest of the F2P community.

Normally that's not what people mean when they call something in this game a "cash grab." They mean something derisive. But in the sense you're implying, this is a good thing and something we can only hope the game does more of in the future.

A voice of common sense in the darkness of MCOC.
I have no doubt more 7*s will be opened by the average player than 6*s when they were introduced.

BigBlueOx

The answer is no.
That is actually extremely disheartening.
That was the one hope I had for it not being a complete cash grab.
This everything being a cash grab thing is honestly annoying. People lodge this complaint at literally every change even when the effect is exactly the opposite.

Altering the 7* shard economy by increasing the crystal cost and then boosting every source for shards except 6* duplication attenuates the *primary* way to theoretically buy 7* champs with cash: via champion duplication. Whales open tons more champion crystals than anyone else, and thus they get disproportionately more shards from champion duplication than anyone else. Anything that increases the relative shard sources of everything except champion duplication, or to put it another way anything that reduces the ability for spenders to buy 7* crystals, reduces the gap between spenders and non-spenders.

Calling this a cash grab is completely ludicrous.

Gotta agree with this take. Also the insane amount of 6star shards in the current economy compared to 5star shards when 6s launched can’t be understated here.

Not sure how I feel about the Titan shard acquisition through dupes, but I’m willing to concede that the ideas around that probably aren’t very mature yet and Kabam is trying hard to be transparent with us about this new idea

Magrailothos

So you agree it is a cashgrab then? Since if we start with the presumption that "whales are gonna whale" then anything that forces them to spend more to achieve the same outcome will result in more $ for Kabam.
If you want to put it that way, sure. The game is a cash grab, and the new rarity structure will grab even more cash from the biggest spenders.

That's what this game does. It grabs cash from thousands of spenders, so hundreds of thousands of people can play the game completely for free. I'm not a big spender, but I do spend, and I approve of this. And I'm also fine getting less for my money so that those of us that do spend have a lower advantage over the rest of the F2P community.

Normally that's not what people mean when they call something in this game a "cash grab." They mean something derisive. But in the sense you're implying, this is a good thing and something we can only hope the game does more of in the future.

As a FTP player, I completely agree; and I'm very grateful to those who fund the game.

Anything that increases the relative shard sources of everything except champion duplication, or to put it another way anything that reduces the ability for spenders to buy 7* crystals, reduces the gap between spenders and non-spenders.... now every time an F2P player gets a 7* champ from 6* dups, the whales will be getting seven. In relative terms, F2P players come out ahead.

As usual, it's interesting to read your perspective on this kind of thing. I wasn't too troubled by the announced cost (and was pretty happy about the introductory offer of 10k, which I would suggest will also disproportionately benefit those who acquire champs/shards more slowly), but I'm more than fine about it now. Thanks, DNA.

TyEdge

For people who are binging on paragon crystals, this affects them minimally. It’ll often be a matter of how many sig levels champs have. For regular players who aren’t whales, dupes were probably the primary method of accruing shards, and it’ll hurt them as it now takes 55 dupes to get enough shards for a crystal.

DNA3000

For people who are binging on paragon crystals, this affects them minimally. It’ll often be a matter of how many sig levels champs have. For regular players who aren’t whales, dupes were probably the primary method of accruing shards, and it’ll hurt them as it now takes 55 dupes to get enough shards for a crystal.

To put this into perspective, since the new featured 6* crystal flipped over, I've opened 28 crystals, plus I have one unopened, plus I am sitting on about 15k of shards. So hypothetically speaking, I could have opened 30 featured crystals in about 66 days. How many of those 6* crystals were purchased with 6* shards from 5* dups?

Essentially, none of them. I stopped opening 5* crystals a while back, once my ISO situation stabilized. For me 5* crystals are a way to save ISO for a rainy day, and it hasn't rained in a while. I have over 440k 5* shards at the moment, plus 30 5* dual class crystals unopened. Of course, I've received 5* champs here and there - from arena rewards, say. But overall, in the last 66 days it is safe to say that the total number of 6* shards I received from 5* duplication would amount to less than one crystal.

But what if I liquidated *all* of my 5* champion crystals all at once? I could open about 80 crystals between shards, dual class, and nexus crystals. Let's assume all of them generate max sig crystals and all of those drop 6* shards. That would amount to 80x275x2 = 44000 shards. That's four basic 6* crystals and change. Let's round that up to five, for no reason at all, and let's also compare those five basic crystals to the 30 featured crystals I've already opened, all of which cost more shards.

In that case, my 6* champions in the last 66 days would come about 17% from 5* duplication and 83% from direct 6* shard rewards.

For my 6* champs to come at least 50% from 5* duplication would require magically opening an additional 465 5* crystals or otherwise max sig dup 465 champions. In 66 days that would require opening seven 5* crystals a day. Really, that is not going to happen. But I could be opening Cav crystals. Basic Cav crystals have a 16% chance to drop a 5* champ then I could be opening about 42 Cav crystals a day to end up with enough 6* shards from 5* duplication to equal the amount of 6* champs I'm currently getting from non-duplication sources. So for regular players buying about 1300 Cav crystals a month, 6* champs could be coming as much from 5* duplication as from direct rewards.

Except that's wrong: Cav crystals don't actually help at all. They have a 16% chance to drop a 5* but also a 3% chance to drop a 6*. That means for every 100 Cav crystals you buy you get (on average) three 6* champs directly, and sixteen 5* champs that generate about 8800 6* shards on average (assuming every drop generates a max sig crystal that itself drops shards). That's less than one. So no amount of buying Cav crystals will *ever* create a situation where a player is getting more 6* champs from 5* dups as they get from just receiving 6* champs directly.

A whale that is completely bonkers could buy an unlimited number of GMCs which have a chance to drop 5* champs and no chance to drop 6* champs and eventually have more 6* champs from 5* duplication than from direct 6* rewards. But that's ridiculous.

*Initially* at release it is possible that champion duplication could be a substantial percentage of the 7* shards available to players. However, history shows that changes fast: it did for 5* and 6* rarity. There's no way that once things get moving the average player is going to be opening 6* crystals at twenty to forty times the rate of 7* crystals, which is what it would take for duplication to compete with direct rewards. That would eventually require Kabam to start handing Paragon players hundreds of 6* crystals. That's extremely unlikely.

Mackey

I was (and still are) a big believer that the revive nerf thing was a cash grab, or rather, their earnings that they was getting from everest content dwindled since every man and his dog farmed 3.2.6 like crazy, nothing will change my mind on that. Kabam have confirmed it without saying it in more than one way but how is the 7* increase ever a cash grab ... why are people saying it is 🤔