Kabam has a GOLDEN opportunity...

...to better please a big part of their player base!

Cheesy, I know, but it got you to click on this suggestion...

Arguably, one of the hardest basic resources in the game to get in quantity without grinding in the game is GOLD.

No matter where you are in game progression, you always need Gold, Iso, and Cats to rank up...

For many of us, Gold is the bottleneck in this process. I would say, in the current state of the game, it is actually easier to get God-Tier champs on your roster than it is to get the resources you need to rank them up.

I am not ignorant of the ways to get gold in game:

Progression Content (one-time reward)
Back Issues (one-time reward)
Monthly Events (limited volume and usually requires declining other resources for Gold instead)
Milestones
Incursions
Selling stuff (for a pittance)
Using your hard-earned/bought units to buy gold crystals (limited return on investment)
And everyone's favorite - Grinding Arena!

I have a few suggestions for how more gold could be added to the game:

A Daily Quest with a Gold focus (you already have ones for Iso, Cats, and Potions...). I know this would probably not be a huge amount, but it would be a daily auto-play option...
Including Gold in regular unit offers (No one wants to spend their Odin's on gold crystals...perhaps sweeten the pot and do this only on your web store unit offers?)...
Make Gold available to be purchased (in some form) in the Battlegrounds and/or Incursions and/or other stores...
Increase the Gold given or reduce the cost of Gold needed to rank up...

I am sure there are other very cool ways this could also be done, but that is what I have so far.

Any attention to improving the availability of Gold would be appreciated by me, and I would imagine, the entire player base.

We all need GOLD and I think we all would like more ways to get it.

Comments

DNA3000

I have more gold than I can use. What I'm always short on is catalysts. If they do what you want and add more gold to the game, and then they do what I want and add more catalysts to the game, you'll be short of gold again.

The only way you won't be short of gold is if they add more gold to the game for you, and then don't add more catalysts for me, so you won't have even more catalysts and run out of gold again. How do you propose they choose which of us to satisfy?

Demonzfyre

Says it's the hardest resources to get and lists 8 different ways of getting said resource.

[Deleted User]

How do you propose they choose which of us to satisfy?

To be fair, Gold and Catalysts are handled very differently in terms of balancing the economy. When new Ranks are achieved, it's through newly available Catalysts. When players can obtain a certain amount of newer ranks, it's because Kabam chooses how many of those newer catalyst types to make available. I've seen your gold stash, and I'm willing to bet Kabam does not take your available amount of gold into account when balancing what you can achieve with that material.

Your scenario doesn't seem to include the possibility that they just add more Gold to the game, which doesn't have as bad of an outcome. The top 5% of accounts don't have much to worry about in terms of Gold, but I don't know of any mid-level accounts that have gold to play around with. With Battlegrounds being the sort of fast track to roster progression and requiring around 5 rank-ups a season to compete, it's hard to keep up, and I haven't seen much of a change in the way Gold is pushed out to account for that.

DNA3000

How do you propose they choose which of us to satisfy?
To be fair, Gold and Catalysts are handled very differently in terms of balancing the economy. When new Ranks are achieved, it's through newly available Catalysts. When players can obtain a certain amount of newer ranks, it's because Kabam chooses how many of those newer catalyst types to make available. I've seen your gold stash, and I'm willing to bet Kabam does not take your available amount of gold into account when balancing what you can achieve with that material.

Your scenario doesn't seem to include the possibility that they just add more Gold to the game, which doesn't have as bad of an outcome. The top 5% of accounts don't have much to worry about in terms of Gold, but I don't know of any mid-level accounts that have gold to play around with. With Battlegrounds being the sort of fast track to roster progression and requiring around 5 rank-ups a season to compete, it's hard to keep up, and I haven't seen much of a change in the way Gold is pushed out to account for that.

My scenario does include that possibility explicitly. They can decide to add gold for the people who need more gold, then not add more anything else for everyone else as a way to choose who to help and who to decide not to help. I state that in the second of the only two paragraphs in my post.

Of course the economy of gold is balanced differently from catalysts. But that's a technical matter that doesn't change the fundamental question. There are bottlenecks everywhere. There *must* be bottlenecks everywhere, because resources are consumed together. When you consume resources, one of them will run out first, for all players. Saying people are short of gold is meaningless, because by definition everyone is going to be short something, and some subset of them will be short of gold. That's practically a mathematical certainty, outside of degenerate situations.

If you have some evidence that the gold shortage is fundamentally more harmful to the game than any other shortage, that would be evidence that the gold supply needs to be increased. But absent that, you're just arbitrarily picking winners and losers. You sympathize with the people short of gold, and don't sympathize with the people with lots of gold that are short other materials. Or you are one of those people who believes in the religion of "gold shouldn't be a bottleneck, because I said so."

Which is fine, but if that's the game being played, and we're just asking for stuff, then I'm going to ask for more of the stuff I'm short of while everyone else is asking for more of the stuff they are short of to equalize the situation. Because if the devs are going to design the economy around math, I'm wiling to accept where ever that math goes. But if the devs are going to design the economy around sympathy, then I'm going to advocate for them to sympathize with me first.

You are correct that the game economy designers regulate the flow of catalysts into the game in general terms. It is interesting to me that you think this is only done for catalysts, and not for other materials like ISO or gold. Do you believe gold rewards in the game are designed arbitrarily, and the devs just happened to pick numbers that are too low for the game?

[Deleted User]

How do you propose they choose which of us to satisfy?
To be fair, Gold and Catalysts are handled very differently in terms of balancing the economy. When new Ranks are achieved, it's through newly available Catalysts. When players can obtain a certain amount of newer ranks, it's because Kabam chooses how many of those newer catalyst types to make available. I've seen your gold stash, and I'm willing to bet Kabam does not take your available amount of gold into account when balancing what you can achieve with that material.

Your scenario doesn't seem to include the possibility that they just add more Gold to the game, which doesn't have as bad of an outcome. The top 5% of accounts don't have much to worry about in terms of Gold, but I don't know of any mid-level accounts that have gold to play around with. With Battlegrounds being the sort of fast track to roster progression and requiring around 5 rank-ups a season to compete, it's hard to keep up, and I haven't seen much of a change in the way Gold is pushed out to account for that.
Do you believe gold rewards in the game are designed arbitrarily, and the devs just happened to pick numbers that are too low for the game?

I don't believe that any reward in this game is designed arbitrarily, I just don't think comparing Gold to Catalysts is a fair way to describe the balance intentions.

I also don't 100% believe that the lack of gold handed out is all that much lower than it should be, as I haven't fully broken down what volume of gold is realistically possible for players of all kinds to obtain. I just don't think the discussion of "Why should your bottleneck matter more than my bottleneck" sums up the situation very well. If there is a gold shortage for middle tier players and it is objectively harmful, then no, your bottleneck will not matter when solving that issue.

Anmael

A simple way to look at it, to my mind, is to look at the availability in stores. It will obviously depend on the Cats you need (top tier will always be harder to get by design), but the following stores have Cats available:
Iso Black Market
Glory
Loyalty
Battlegrounds
Rank Up
Misc

Gold:
Glory

And while not an amazing quantity, as I said, the dailies include focused quests for other resources, but not gold. You get a pittance from most daily content, but again that is a pittance, based on what quantity is needed for game progression.

I do understand the "and/or" argument, but I think the balance is at least a little heavier against equality of gold availability on the day-to-day.

My strongest leaning to balance things would be a daily gold quest and to put gold options in some of the stores. The others would be a bonus, but as you say, if they were offering gold with units "why not cats?" So, that may ignite a different argument.

To someone else's suggestion point you commented on, for the Cats, I think it would not be a terrible idea for you to be able to trade whole cats for fragments of the next tier of Cat.

To your point, if people made a "mistake" in their decision to trade, they may complain, but isn't that what most people on the forums do anyway? Is that not what the moderators field daily? Is that likely not the reason that the tiny link for the forum looks like this?

Someone will complain, always. If that someone is asked 3 times if they were really, really sure they wanted to do something and they said yes, they would still gripe. Game options should be determined based on what is considered best for the majority. It is arguable what that best course of action is, but that is why I am suggesting this for consideration.

That being said, thank you for not being the guy who says "I got plenty of gold, I don't know what your problem is...!" with a screenshot of their gold total. I appreciate the mature discussion

Anmael

And my above comment was to DNA3000. I am excited that at least this topic has garnered some discussion, but have not been able to catch up on the other responses yet.

Demonzfyre

How do you propose they choose which of us to satisfy?
To be fair, Gold and Catalysts are handled very differently in terms of balancing the economy. When new Ranks are achieved, it's through newly available Catalysts. When players can obtain a certain amount of newer ranks, it's because Kabam chooses how many of those newer catalyst types to make available. I've seen your gold stash, and I'm willing to bet Kabam does not take your available amount of gold into account when balancing what you can achieve with that material.

Your scenario doesn't seem to include the possibility that they just add more Gold to the game, which doesn't have as bad of an outcome. The top 5% of accounts don't have much to worry about in terms of Gold, but I don't know of any mid-level accounts that have gold to play around with. With Battlegrounds being the sort of fast track to roster progression and requiring around 5 rank-ups a season to compete, it's hard to keep up, and I haven't seen much of a change in the way Gold is pushed out to account for that.

The problem is those mid level accounts have the perception that all resources are supposed to keep up with your progress. One of the side effects of new players being able to advance so much more quickly than in the past is they haven't experienced what resource management is.

The other problem is that the players tend to think they should be compensated in other ways because they don't want to do arena or incursions.

What happens if they introduce a gold quest that gives enough gold to rank 1 champ a week going forward and then players bottleneck on T4B because there isn't enough to rank 4 champs a month? Is Kabam now required to increase the amounts of t4b everywhere? What if they do and T2A is the next bottleneck?

I say this as someone who needs gold badly. I loathe arena. I'd rather re-read every one of Ebony Maws comments than do arena. So is Kabam responsible for making an entirely new quest because I hate arena?

[Deleted User]

How do you propose they choose which of us to satisfy?
To be fair, Gold and Catalysts are handled very differently in terms of balancing the economy. When new Ranks are achieved, it's through newly available Catalysts. When players can obtain a certain amount of newer ranks, it's because Kabam chooses how many of those newer catalyst types to make available. I've seen your gold stash, and I'm willing to bet Kabam does not take your available amount of gold into account when balancing what you can achieve with that material.

Your scenario doesn't seem to include the possibility that they just add more Gold to the game, which doesn't have as bad of an outcome. The top 5% of accounts don't have much to worry about in terms of Gold, but I don't know of any mid-level accounts that have gold to play around with. With Battlegrounds being the sort of fast track to roster progression and requiring around 5 rank-ups a season to compete, it's hard to keep up, and I haven't seen much of a change in the way Gold is pushed out to account for that.
The problem is those mid level accounts have the perception that all resources are supposed to keep up with your progress. One of the side effects of new players being able to advance so much more quickly than in the past is they haven't experienced what resource management is.

The other problem is that the players tend to think they should be compensated in other ways because they don't want to do arena or incursions.

For the most part, I do agree. I started playing again in May and have gone from Cav to Paragon in that time. And of course, I've been short on gold every step of the way.

What I don't agree with is the generalization that those who complain about a gold shortage and have mid level accounts are all just wrong, can't manage their resources, or are expecting more than is reasonable. If you're suffering a gold shortage yourself, there's a conversation to be had there about whether or not the gold shortage is real and/or harmful to the current state of the economy that you could contribute to.

As for Arena, I do think Kabam bears the responsibility of making their game fair and enjoyable, that much we all know. I think the better question is just: is there a gold shortage, does it cause a problem and how could the problem be solved? Could it be solved by making a new Gold focused quest? Probably not without creating more issues. I do think adding Gold to a couple more stores isn't the worst idea, and I think everyone would be on board for a total Arena overhaul. Just make it more enjoyable pretty please.

zernix

I have 2 Paragon Accounts.

Account 1 is my main which I do about an hour a day spread between each of three 3 arenas. I have almost 90 million gold.

Account 2 is my alt and I do 0 arena...and have like 300k gold.

Gold definitely CAN be a problem, but it's likely because you're ignoring the content the gold comes from.

Coppin

Or u can do incursions and arenas...

Demonzfyre

How do you propose they choose which of us to satisfy?
To be fair, Gold and Catalysts are handled very differently in terms of balancing the economy. When new Ranks are achieved, it's through newly available Catalysts. When players can obtain a certain amount of newer ranks, it's because Kabam chooses how many of those newer catalyst types to make available. I've seen your gold stash, and I'm willing to bet Kabam does not take your available amount of gold into account when balancing what you can achieve with that material.

Your scenario doesn't seem to include the possibility that they just add more Gold to the game, which doesn't have as bad of an outcome. The top 5% of accounts don't have much to worry about in terms of Gold, but I don't know of any mid-level accounts that have gold to play around with. With Battlegrounds being the sort of fast track to roster progression and requiring around 5 rank-ups a season to compete, it's hard to keep up, and I haven't seen much of a change in the way Gold is pushed out to account for that.
The problem is those mid level accounts have the perception that all resources are supposed to keep up with your progress. One of the side effects of new players being able to advance so much more quickly than in the past is they haven't experienced what resource management is.

The other problem is that the players tend to think they should be compensated in other ways because they don't want to do arena or incursions.
For the most part, I do agree. I started playing again in May and have gone from Cav to Paragon in that time. And of course, I've been short on gold every step of the way.

What I don't agree with is the generalization that those who complain about a gold shortage and have mid level accounts are all just wrong, can't manage their resources, or are expecting more than is reasonable. If you're suffering a gold shortage yourself, there's a conversation to be had there about whether or not the gold shortage is real and/or harmful to the current state of the economy that you could contribute to.

As for Arena, I do think Kabam bears the responsibility of making their game fair and enjoyable, that much we all know. I think the better question is just: is there a gold shortage, does it cause a problem and how could the problem be solved? Could it be solved by making a new Gold focused quest? Probably not without creating more issues. I do think adding Gold to a couple more stores isn't the worst idea, and I think everyone would be on board for a total Arena overhaul. Just make it more enjoyable pretty please.

If someone can list 8 ways to get gold constantly in a initial forum post, I don't think there there's a gold shortage.

Anmael

I listed the 8 ways I could think of so someone would not later come and say "these are all the ways you can get gold, fool."

I can also list 8 ways that I can inefficiently get from the east coast to the west coast of the US (wagon train, hot air balloon, bicycle, jog, rickshaw, rowboat, swim through the Panama Canal, Moonwalk). Just because these are ways doesn't always mean that they should be the ONLY ways to accomplish this goal.

You may have noticed that many of the ways I mentioned have notes indicating that they are one-time opportunities, the totals are pretty limited, or require grinding. You may also note that much of the Progressive and Back Issue content is also very difficult for even many of the high skill YouTubers out there, so for mid-tier players like me, those are either not a really great option or a null gain (for time, energy, and resources invested).

I stand by my original statement. I truly believe that there is an inequity in the availability of Gold in comparison to other rank-up resources, especially with relation to the cost requirements for progression.

As a mid-tier player who is acquainted with other mid-tier players with a similar challenge, I think it would be AMAZING if Kabam would at least look into this and consider the metrics to see if I am right.

I think, at minimum, it would be a reasonable step to consider making gold resources available in other stores, such as Incursions and Battlegrounds. I also still think that a dedicated gold quest is not going to break the game, especially since the amount they are likely to award would probably be fairly small and part of the gold long-game, but it would be one more source.

I believe this conversation has been a constructive discussion by all parties involved. You have stated your opinion, Demonzfyre, and the reasons you feel that way. I respect that; I simply don't agree with you.

If Kabam explores these suggested avenues, develops their own, or does nothing, that is entirely up to them. Suggestions are just that.

HSS75