What this years Banquet event really needed…

Squammo

Progression based solo event milestones.

I fully understand that it would be silly to give small accounts access to 7 star shards, Titan shards, rank 1-2/4-5 materials. The current solo event milestones are supposed to benefit everyone a little, but unfortunately they are simply underwhelming for advanced roster Paragons and Valiants. That is why in my opinion it would have been perfect to introduce brackets for the solo event. Give Cav and below, TB and Paragon/Valiant players their own solo reward milestones tuned to their respective progression.

For example the 7 star could have been the highest reward for all brackets, while Paragons could have gotten at least 3 t3a/t6b.

A 5 star nexus might as well just be a 4 star nexus at this point since it’s basically a choice of which ISO we need most as a more advanced account.

7 star (Titan) shards could have been a milestone for Paragon+, there could have been t6cc as well.

This way players would probably be much more willing to spend all those units that are required this year to get all milestones.

Do you think this would have been a good thing?

BeastDad

Progression based would have certainly helped.

Colinwhitworth69

Most of the player base needs more free stuff to move up, compared to Paragon and Valiant players. Those of us in Valiant and Paragon are moving away from the rest of the players at light speed as it is. If Thronebreaker and below players have any hope of ever competing in BGs, for example, there needs to be some events that help their accounts more than it helps Paragon-plus.

Colinwhitworth69

ahmynuts said:

@Colinwhitworth69 Give it a rest, man. You're dying on a hill that no one needs you to stand on.

I feel fine, thanks for checking. Much better than the players curled in a fetal position surrounded by empty tissue boxes.

Lokx

Colinwhitworth69 said:

Most of the player base needs more free stuff to move up, compared to Paragon and Valiant players. Those of us in Valiant and Paragon are moving away from the rest of the players at light speed as it is. If Thronebreaker and below players have any hope of ever competing in BGs, for example, there needs to be some events that help their accounts more than it helps Paragon-plus.

So your saying because we progressed we deserve less… kinda deterring for people who want to progress. The fun of the game is progressing your account. Last Christmas the way this boosted my account felt amazing but now i feel less enthusiastic about it next year. You can’t just shaft the higher tier players because lower tiers are not at the same stage.

also not everyone in paragon is the same. We can all get 6* awakening gem, 6* sig stones, tier 5 and tier 2 alphas as well as tier 6 and tier 3 alpha fairly easy (eq, sq, glory store etc.) but only the higher end of paragon players can get things like multiple titan crystals, 7* crystals etc from being at the highest rank in bg and war. While i’m not expecting the exact same quantity of rewards they get for doing little to no effort. Some stuff like 7* r2 rank up materials and titan shards will benefit all paragon players without being ground breaking.

DNA3000

ahmynuts said:

@Colinwhitworth69 Give it a rest, man. You're dying on a hill that no one needs you to stand on.

He's not wrong. Paragons and Valiants need to be rewarded for their higher progression, but that doesn't mean they need to be propelled way past everyone else at every possible opportunity, in fact that's harmful to the long term health of the game.

Valiant is still a brand new title. The devs made it a point to ensure that you could not just whale out and buy that title. No amount of spending alone can get you Valiant. It is clear that they also wanted to make sure that if you did become Valiant, you couldn't instantly amplify your spending during CW to blast way ahead of everyone else. There were very limited opportunities to pour money into that title. And that was practically yesterday. The banquet is happening before the fire has gone cold on CW, and I suspect the devs still want to moderate how much Valiants and even high Paragons can spend into it to pull too far ahead of everyone else.

The Valiants will get their opportunities to advance soon enough. And the high Paragons who want to advance are supposed to be looking to Necropolis, and eventually Act 8 exploration. For them, the banquet is probably supposed to be just a fun little extra optional thing, unless you're in an alliance that intends to whale out for the top ranks. For everyone else, the banquet is still going to be extremely good for them.

Viper198787

We needed more to help with 7* acquisition, not 6* acquisition. Giving more 7* and Titan shards would’ve helped a lot without propelling paragon and valiant players forward an insane amount. Unless there’s something I’m missing this month seems to be the driest when it comes to 7* shards compared to the past few months.

ahmynuts

DNA3000 said:

ahmynuts said:

@Colinwhitworth69 Give it a rest, man. You're dying on a hill that no one needs you to stand on.

He's not wrong. Paragons and Valiants need to be rewarded for their higher progression, but that doesn't mean they need to be propelled way past everyone else at every possible opportunity, in fact that's harmful to the long term health of the game.

Valiant is still a brand new title. The devs made it a point to ensure that you could not just whale out and buy that title. No amount of spending alone can get you Valiant. It is clear that they also wanted to make sure that if you did become Valiant, you couldn't instantly amplify your spending during CW to blast way ahead of everyone else. There were very limited opportunities to pour money into that title. And that was practically yesterday. The banquet is happening before the fire has gone cold on CW, and I suspect the devs still want to moderate how much Valiants and even high Paragons can spend into it to pull too far ahead of everyone else.

The Valiants will get their opportunities to advance soon enough. And the high Paragons who want to advance are supposed to be looking to Necropolis, and eventually Act 8 exploration. For them, the banquet is probably supposed to be just a fun little extra optional thing, unless you're in an alliance that intends to whale out for the top ranks. For everyone else, the banquet is still going to be extremely good for them.

The point I was mainly countering is him going to every thread white knighting all of the rewards about this event.

DawsMan

I'm just putting the units I would've spent on banquet into necro for guarenteed rewards.

startropics

honestly, the devs did valiants and high tier paragons a favor, and this isn't a passive aggressive dig at them. they could have stuffed the banquet with 7 star stuff and everyone would have had to spend AGAIN, just weeks after cyber monday.

devs were nice to us.

DNA3000

ahmynuts said:

DNA3000 said:

ahmynuts said:

@Colinwhitworth69 Give it a rest, man. You're dying on a hill that no one needs you to stand on.

He's not wrong. Paragons and Valiants need to be rewarded for their higher progression, but that doesn't mean they need to be propelled way past everyone else at every possible opportunity, in fact that's harmful to the long term health of the game.

Valiant is still a brand new title. The devs made it a point to ensure that you could not just whale out and buy that title. No amount of spending alone can get you Valiant. It is clear that they also wanted to make sure that if you did become Valiant, you couldn't instantly amplify your spending during CW to blast way ahead of everyone else. There were very limited opportunities to pour money into that title. And that was practically yesterday. The banquet is happening before the fire has gone cold on CW, and I suspect the devs still want to moderate how much Valiants and even high Paragons can spend into it to pull too far ahead of everyone else.

The Valiants will get their opportunities to advance soon enough. And the high Paragons who want to advance are supposed to be looking to Necropolis, and eventually Act 8 exploration. For them, the banquet is probably supposed to be just a fun little extra optional thing, unless you're in an alliance that intends to whale out for the top ranks. For everyone else, the banquet is still going to be extremely good for them.

The point I was mainly countering is him going to every thread white knighting all of the rewards about this event.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. The people who don't like the rewards and the people who are fine with them have exactly equal right to express that opinion, in every thread discussing it. And not just the literal right; if we decide that criticism of the game is fine, but the game doesn't need people to support it when such controversies arise, that doesn't make the criticism more valuable. It makes it almost worthless, because any medium that only allows critics to feel comfortable posting is so skewed no one would ever reasonably pay attention to it.

I don't think most people fully appreciate that. A thread with players posting on both sides is a thread worth paying attention to, because you can see both sides in context. A thread with players on only one side posting, while all other sides are driven out, is not worth spending time on, because there's no way to know how those positions actually stack up against countervailing opinions. Instead, a lot of people think that the focus should be entirely on the people expressing dissent, because the more voices there are in dissent, the more powerful that dissent will be.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The devs might notice that the dumpster is on fire, but they aren't going to go digging in it to find extinguishers.

DrZola

DNA3000 said:

ahmynuts said:

@Colinwhitworth69 Give it a rest, man. You're dying on a hill that no one needs you to stand on.

He's not wrong. Paragons and Valiants need to be rewarded for their higher progression, but that doesn't mean they need to be propelled way past everyone else at every possible opportunity, in fact that's harmful to the long term health of the game.

Valiant is still a brand new title. The devs made it a point to ensure that you could not just whale out and buy that title. No amount of spending alone can get you Valiant. It is clear that they also wanted to make sure that if you did become Valiant, you couldn't instantly amplify your spending during CW to blast way ahead of everyone else. There were very limited opportunities to pour money into that title. And that was practically yesterday. The banquet is happening before the fire has gone cold on CW, and I suspect the devs still want to moderate how much Valiants and even high Paragons can spend into it to pull too far ahead of everyone else.

The Valiants will get their opportunities to advance soon enough. And the high Paragons who want to advance are supposed to be looking to Necropolis, and eventually Act 8 exploration. For them, the banquet is probably supposed to be just a fun little extra optional thing, unless you're in an alliance that intends to whale out for the top ranks. For everyone else, the banquet is still going to be extremely good for them.

There are players who argue that Banquet should provide the means to reach Valiant.

Of course, that’s an absurd position.

But…not everyone is saying that. To dismiss real concerns with Banquet rewards that approximate a rehash of last year’s with a glib “let them do Necro” response is a bit rich.

Veteran players working their way through Necro (who didn’t spend on BF/CM to get that second R3) can and should rightfully take issue with 6* shards and other uninspiring rewards for what has traditionally been a gangbuster year-end event. They also have a legitimate beef if milestones cost more for the comparable Banquet prize this year versus last year (assuming GBCs are priced the same as usual).

A previous comment pointed out the possibility that the team lavished too rich a set of “Necrodeath” prizes on players who complete their runs before Jan. 15, prompting them to dial down Banquet’s upper end rewards. If so, the team should just come out and say it.

Based on what we know now, Banquet looks disappointing to more than a few veteran, high-end players like me. That isn’t because I expected to be served Valiant on a silver platter—it’s because I expected an opportunity to pick up highly valued, useful items for my account.

Dr. Zola

FieryWater

Colinwhitworth69 said:

Most of the player base needs more free stuff to move up, compared to Paragon and Valiant players. Those of us in Valiant and Paragon are moving away from the rest of the players at light speed as it is. If Thronebreaker and below players have any hope of ever competing in BGs, for example, there needs to be some events that help their accounts more than it helps Paragon-plus.

I'd say this is generally false. Those who are moving away at light speed are those who are spending. If you think that getting towards Paragon faster is the solution for lower tier players completing BGs, wait till they become Paragon and suddenly find themselves facing stacked Valiant accounts.

Ultimately, F2P will never catch up with spenders, and spenders with weaker accounts can easily catch up to bigger non-spender accounts with cash. Valiant is not a justification for giving Paragon's absolutely trash rewards. Its not like these rewards are free - we do have to spend units. If a Paragon is gonna spend 10K units, give that person Paragon level rewards and not TB level rewards.

FieryWater

DNA3000 said:

ahmynuts said:

DNA3000 said:

ahmynuts said:

@Colinwhitworth69 Give it a rest, man. You're dying on a hill that no one needs you to stand on.

He's not wrong. Paragons and Valiants need to be rewarded for their higher progression, but that doesn't mean they need to be propelled way past everyone else at every possible opportunity, in fact that's harmful to the long term health of the game.

Valiant is still a brand new title. The devs made it a point to ensure that you could not just whale out and buy that title. No amount of spending alone can get you Valiant. It is clear that they also wanted to make sure that if you did become Valiant, you couldn't instantly amplify your spending during CW to blast way ahead of everyone else. There were very limited opportunities to pour money into that title. And that was practically yesterday. The banquet is happening before the fire has gone cold on CW, and I suspect the devs still want to moderate how much Valiants and even high Paragons can spend into it to pull too far ahead of everyone else.

The Valiants will get their opportunities to advance soon enough. And the high Paragons who want to advance are supposed to be looking to Necropolis, and eventually Act 8 exploration. For them, the banquet is probably supposed to be just a fun little extra optional thing, unless you're in an alliance that intends to whale out for the top ranks. For everyone else, the banquet is still going to be extremely good for them.

The point I was mainly countering is him going to every thread white knighting all of the rewards about this event.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. The people who don't like the rewards and the people who are fine with them have exactly equal right to express that opinion, in every thread discussing it. And not just the literal right; if we decide that criticism of the game is fine, but the game doesn't need people to support it when such controversies arise, that doesn't make the criticism more valuable. It makes it almost worthless, because any medium that only allows critics to feel comfortable posting is so skewed no one would ever reasonably pay attention to it.

I don't think most people fully appreciate that. A thread with players posting on both sides is a thread worth paying attention to, because you can see both sides in context. A thread with players on only one side posting, while all other sides are driven out, is not worth spending time on, because there's no way to know how those positions actually stack up against countervailing opinions. Instead, a lot of people think that the focus should be entirely on the people expressing dissent, because the more voices there are in dissent, the more powerful that dissent will be.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The devs might notice that the dumpster is on fire, but they aren't going to go digging in it to find extinguishers.

At this point, with the Season start date, a trash banquet event, and bugs galore, they've basically set the dumpster on fire themselves. It would be foolish to assume that they even care at this point. Not to mention that we are now also losing war rating in off-season!

DNA3000

DrZola said:

But…not everyone is saying that. To dismiss real concerns with Banquet rewards that approximate a rehash of last year’s with a glib “let them do Necro” response is a bit rich.

That is a very extreme condensation of a much more nuanced design triangulation that I go into a lot more detail here: https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2432442#Comment_2432442

But even absent that more detailed explanation, I don't think it "dismisses" concerns with the banquet rewards to state the simple fact that the intent of those rewards may not have been to satisfy those concerns. As Odysseus says in that wonderful documentary, "it is no insult to say a dead man is dead."

DrZola

DNA3000 said:

DrZola said:

But…not everyone is saying that. To dismiss real concerns with Banquet rewards that approximate a rehash of last year’s with a glib “let them do Necro” response is a bit rich.

That is a very extreme condensation of a much more nuanced design triangulation that I go into a lot more detail here: https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2432442#Comment_2432442

But even absent that more detailed explanation, I don't think it "dismisses" concerns with the banquet rewards to state the simple fact that the intent of those rewards may not have been to satisfy those concerns. As Odysseus says in that wonderful documentary, "it is no insult to say a dead man is dead."

“And the high Paragons who want to advance are supposed to be looking to Necropolis…”

Perhaps another lengthy post somewhere I didn’t read expounded on those words—you should footnote it next time. 😉

Dr. Zola

DNA3000

DrZola said:

DNA3000 said:

DrZola said:

But…not everyone is saying that. To dismiss real concerns with Banquet rewards that approximate a rehash of last year’s with a glib “let them do Necro” response is a bit rich.

That is a very extreme condensation of a much more nuanced design triangulation that I go into a lot more detail here: https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2432442#Comment_2432442

But even absent that more detailed explanation, I don't think it "dismisses" concerns with the banquet rewards to state the simple fact that the intent of those rewards may not have been to satisfy those concerns. As Odysseus says in that wonderful documentary, "it is no insult to say a dead man is dead."

“And the high Paragons who want to advance are supposed to be looking to Necropolis…”

Perhaps another lengthy post somewhere I didn’t read expounded on those words—you should footnote it next time. 😉

Dr. Zola

That sentiment comes directly from Kabam, via their recent streams. They articulated their rationale more than once that they wanted the focus for progression from Paragon to Valiant to focus on Necropolis in the short and intermediate term, to lengthen the relevance of Necropolis itself (they also added the trophy champs and the mastery point along these lines) and repeatedly stated that there would be no spending only path to Valiant for a while. There was a slide in which they said that the three main paths to Valiant were going to be a) explore Necropolis, b) complete Necropolis and whale out on CW, and c) down the road some combination of Necropolis and Act 8 exploration.

Progression relevant resources in the banquet event for Paragons looking to move up to Valiant would contradict that intent. The earliest I would expect to see R3 stuff for sale outside of the specified content in any significant quantities would be J4. They didn't say that themselves, but the fact that we can't explore Act 8 yet implies no other avenue is likely to open up until at least that has been a possibility for some time.

GroundedWisdom

I don't get why the complaints are coming, or what the expectation was, but the Event has lots of things to look forward to. That doesn't mean EVERYTHING we pull will be tailored to what we're personally working on.

Kontestman

Honestly uncollected noob *opinion* coming as a lower progression, I think this is not worth it I’m pushing for cav and spending units on banquet is not worth it, unless the cost is lower honestly I’m abstaining, this event just needs something fixed this isn’t friendly to the paragon+ or thronebreaker below, units are too precious and we can’t spend this much on mid rewards.

Greekhit

GroundedWisdom said:

I don't get why the complaints are coming, or what the expectation was, but the Event has lots of things to look forward to. That doesn't mean EVERYTHING we pull will be tailored to what we're personally working on.

As a Valiant account, apart from the Deathless Guillotine piece, there is nothing in Banquet solo or ally event milestones that would entice me to spend 10k units.
FFS Valiants are pulling fully formed t6cc and basics from daily crystals, it doesn't make any sense to pay 10k units for only one piece.
Rewards are relevant only for progressing accounts (up to TB maybe early Paragons), for progressed accounts (late Paragons and Valiants) are a joke for real.
I can understand it's difficult for Kabam to put rewards that are balanced across the eligible playerbase for Banquet, so this leads us to that it's high time they introduce selectors in these type of events, so they can put more appropriate rewards for all players.
These rewards for Conquerors are game changing, but for Valiants are completely irrelevant.
It's probably too late to change anything this round, but this should be a lesson for next year.
It would be a pro player move to price 2023 GBC at 150 units each, or double the points they award if they remain at 300 units, to have a good chance on saving the event 😉

GroundedWisdom

Greekhit said:

GroundedWisdom said:

I don't get why the complaints are coming, or what the expectation was, but the Event has lots of things to look forward to. That doesn't mean EVERYTHING we pull will be tailored to what we're personally working on.

As a Valiant account, apart from the Deathless Guillotine piece, there is nothing in Banquet solo or ally event milestones that would entice me to spend 10k units.
FFS Valiants are pulling fully formed t6cc and basics from daily crystals, it doesn't make any sense to pay 10k units for only one piece.
Rewards are relevant only for progressing accounts (up to TB maybe early Paragons), for progressed accounts (late Paragons and Valiants) are a joke for real.
I can understand it's difficult for Kabam to put rewards that are balanced across the eligible playerbase for Banquet, so this leads us to that it's high time they introduce selectors in these type of events, so they can put more appropriate rewards for all players.
These rewards for Conquerors are game changing, but for Valiants are completely irrelevant.
It's probably too late to change anything this round, but this should be a lesson for next year.
It would be a pro player move to price 2023 GBC at 150 units each, or double the points they award if they remain at 300 units, to have a good chance on saving the event 😉

Valiant was literally just released, and I think it's safe to say the vast majority of Players are not there yet. The Event is for all Players.
I'm also unclear how lowering the price would make the Event better if you're dissatisfied with the payout.
The game doesn't stop at 7*s. Nor are they so common that any 6* material is irrelevant.
Don't get me wrong. People have the right to their own opinions. That doesn't mean the game is as undervalued as people feel.
I'd say if anything, the timing is an issue because we just had a piece of content released that yielded some high Rewards, and now the expectations are too high.

Greekhit

GroundedWisdom said:

Greekhit said:

GroundedWisdom said:

I don't get why the complaints are coming, or what the expectation was, but the Event has lots of things to look forward to. That doesn't mean EVERYTHING we pull will be tailored to what we're personally working on.

As a Valiant account, apart from the Deathless Guillotine piece, there is nothing in Banquet solo or ally event milestones that would entice me to spend 10k units.
FFS Valiants are pulling fully formed t6cc and basics from daily crystals, it doesn't make any sense to pay 10k units for only one piece.
Rewards are relevant only for progressing accounts (up to TB maybe early Paragons), for progressed accounts (late Paragons and Valiants) are a joke for real.
I can understand it's difficult for Kabam to put rewards that are balanced across the eligible playerbase for Banquet, so this leads us to that it's high time they introduce selectors in these type of events, so they can put more appropriate rewards for all players.
These rewards for Conquerors are game changing, but for Valiants are completely irrelevant.
It's probably too late to change anything this round, but this should be a lesson for next year.
It would be a pro player move to price 2023 GBC at 150 units each, or double the points they award if they remain at 300 units, to have a good chance on saving the event 😉

Valiant was literally just released, and I think it's safe to say the vast majority of Players are not there yet. The Event is for all Players.
I'm also unclear how lowering the price would make the Event better if you're dissatisfied with the payout.
The game doesn't stop at 7*s. Nor are they so common that any 6* material is irrelevant.
Don't get me wrong. People have the right to their own opinions. That doesn't mean the game is as undervalued as people feel.
I'd say if anything, the timing is an issue because we just had a piece of content released that yielded some high Rewards, and now the expectations are too high.

Expectations are higher, because Kabam themselves set them there.
Despite already having two 7* r3s, I was from the players that were against making available r3 so soon.
They chose to move the posts to r3, they need to adjust the game economy to that now, and make at least 6* rank up mats and 7* r2 mats more widely available.
It's not science physics.
It was their choice to pace up the ranks unlocking, and in my opinion a bad one.
It was soon for that.
7*s are already at r3 after less than a year from their release.
If we keep having ranks at that pace, we will have 8*s by late 2025 ☠️

phillgreen

I can you that I wouldn't bother with necropolis at all if it wasn't a pathway to valiant. I kinda like the idea of the content being relevant rather than how many units are spent on offers. It's still possible to whale ones way to a R3 but there is also a skill investment and this is the first of these things I've done while its actually useful to me, well, kinda done since I have a few fights left.

I always get salty with gifting events, because our small alliance of 4 active accounts isn't ever going to amount to much, and I'm the only one who ever has units haha.

GroundedWisdom

Greekhit said:

GroundedWisdom said:

Greekhit said:

GroundedWisdom said:

I don't get why the complaints are coming, or what the expectation was, but the Event has lots of things to look forward to. That doesn't mean EVERYTHING we pull will be tailored to what we're personally working on.

As a Valiant account, apart from the Deathless Guillotine piece, there is nothing in Banquet solo or ally event milestones that would entice me to spend 10k units.
FFS Valiants are pulling fully formed t6cc and basics from daily crystals, it doesn't make any sense to pay 10k units for only one piece.
Rewards are relevant only for progressing accounts (up to TB maybe early Paragons), for progressed accounts (late Paragons and Valiants) are a joke for real.
I can understand it's difficult for Kabam to put rewards that are balanced across the eligible playerbase for Banquet, so this leads us to that it's high time they introduce selectors in these type of events, so they can put more appropriate rewards for all players.
These rewards for Conquerors are game changing, but for Valiants are completely irrelevant.
It's probably too late to change anything this round, but this should be a lesson for next year.
It would be a pro player move to price 2023 GBC at 150 units each, or double the points they award if they remain at 300 units, to have a good chance on saving the event 😉

Valiant was literally just released, and I think it's safe to say the vast majority of Players are not there yet. The Event is for all Players.
I'm also unclear how lowering the price would make the Event better if you're dissatisfied with the payout.
The game doesn't stop at 7*s. Nor are they so common that any 6* material is irrelevant.
Don't get me wrong. People have the right to their own opinions. That doesn't mean the game is as undervalued as people feel.
I'd say if anything, the timing is an issue because we just had a piece of content released that yielded some high Rewards, and now the expectations are too high.

Expectations are higher, because Kabam themselves set them there.
Despite already having two 7* r3s, I was from the players that were against making available r3 so soon.
They chose to move the posts to r3, they need to adjust the game economy to that now, and make at least 6* rank up mats and 7* r2 mats more widely available.
It's not science physics.
It was their choice to pace up the ranks unlocking, and in my opinion a bad one.
It was soon for that.
7*s are already at r3 after less than a year from their release.
If we keep having ranks at that pace, we will have 8*s by late 2025 ☠️

I don't think Kabam set any expectations for Banquet. They released Everest content that gives the Mats to reach Valiant if you 100%. That's not a floodgate.
In terms of Banquet, that's exactly why I could see them not going ham with things, to prevent the progression gate from being something people can just shell out and pass with ease. Not to mention the same argument is made year in and year out. "Milk the whales."
What we have is an introduction gated primarily by content.
It's also worth noting that there are higher Rewards coming from RTTC, which means overdoing it would be excessive.

MDx

DNA3000 said:

ahmynuts said:

@Colinwhitworth69 Give it a rest, man. You're dying on a hill that no one needs you to stand on.

He's not wrong. Paragons and Valiants need to be rewarded for their higher progression, but that doesn't mean they need to be propelled way past everyone else at every possible opportunity, in fact that's harmful to the long term health of the game.

Valiant is still a brand new title. The devs made it a point to ensure that you could not just whale out and buy that title. No amount of spending alone can get you Valiant. It is clear that they also wanted to make sure that if you did become Valiant, you couldn't instantly amplify your spending during CW to blast way ahead of everyone else. There were very limited opportunities to pour money into that title. And that was practically yesterday. The banquet is happening before the fire has gone cold on CW, and I suspect the devs still want to moderate how much Valiants and even high Paragons can spend into it to pull too far ahead of everyone else.

The Valiants will get their opportunities to advance soon enough. And the high Paragons who want to advance are supposed to be looking to Necropolis, and eventually Act 8 exploration. For them, the banquet is probably supposed to be just a fun little extra optional thing, unless you're in an alliance that intends to whale out for the top ranks. For everyone else, the banquet is still going to be extremely good for them.

So if they included one 7* r2 gem or even half the materials for an r2 in milestones would have propelled paragons and valiant way pas everyone else ? 🤦

Also 'devs made sure valiant can't be get by whaling' , u sure u saw the ranked rewards? Top 90 get an r3 and even top whales in these 90 get multiple r3s ( only need 2 for valiant) - there is a spending only path to valiant

Don't know in which world are you living , away from all the banquet rewards info that kabam gave us.

The banquet is surely a fun extra optional thing , sure , no one is saying give an r3 to everyone who completes all milestones . Haven't checked but read someone saying last year we got 1 t6b and 1 t3a in milestones , this year also we're getting one each. Sounds like game economy regarding these catalysts haven't progressed in a year.

Steam97

DNA3000 said:

ahmynuts said:

@Colinwhitworth69 Give it a rest, man. You're dying on a hill that no one needs you to stand on.

He's not wrong. Paragons and Valiants need to be rewarded for their higher progression, but that doesn't mean they need to be propelled way past everyone else at every possible opportunity, in fact that's harmful to the long term health of the game.

Valiant is still a brand new title. The devs made it a point to ensure that you could not just whale out and buy that title. No amount of spending alone can get you Valiant. It is clear that they also wanted to make sure that if you did become Valiant, you couldn't instantly amplify your spending during CW to blast way ahead of everyone else. There were very limited opportunities to pour money into that title. And that was practically yesterday. The banquet is happening before the fire has gone cold on CW, and I suspect the devs still want to moderate how much Valiants and even high Paragons can spend into it to pull too far ahead of everyone else.

The Valiants will get their opportunities to advance soon enough. And the high Paragons who want to advance are supposed to be looking to Necropolis, and eventually Act 8 exploration. For them, the banquet is probably supposed to be just a fun little extra optional thing, unless you're in an alliance that intends to whale out for the top ranks. For everyone else, the banquet is still going to be extremely good for them.

The solo milestones are really trash for any paragon player and there's no reason to push for them and its very disheartening. I completely understand the banquet crystals cant be too good or some players will get too much of an advantage but milestones can be accessed by everybody only once so those should have been better, except for the 7 star guardian crystal the rest is useless and obtainable in like 1 month of side quest lol.

DrZola

DNA3000 said:

DrZola said:

DNA3000 said:

DrZola said:

But…not everyone is saying that. To dismiss real concerns with Banquet rewards that approximate a rehash of last year’s with a glib “let them do Necro” response is a bit rich.

That is a very extreme condensation of a much more nuanced design triangulation that I go into a lot more detail here: https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2432442#Comment_2432442

But even absent that more detailed explanation, I don't think it "dismisses" concerns with the banquet rewards to state the simple fact that the intent of those rewards may not have been to satisfy those concerns. As Odysseus says in that wonderful documentary, "it is no insult to say a dead man is dead."

“And the high Paragons who want to advance are supposed to be looking to Necropolis…”

Perhaps another lengthy post somewhere I didn’t read expounded on those words—you should footnote it next time. 😉

Dr. Zola

That sentiment comes directly from Kabam, via their recent streams. They articulated their rationale more than once that they wanted the focus for progression from Paragon to Valiant to focus on Necropolis in the short and intermediate term, to lengthen the relevance of Necropolis itself (they also added the trophy champs and the mastery point along these lines) and repeatedly stated that there would be no spending only path to Valiant for a while. There was a slide in which they said that the three main paths to Valiant were going to be a) explore Necropolis, b) complete Necropolis and whale out on CW, and c) down the road some combination of Necropolis and Act 8 exploration.

Progression relevant resources in the banquet event for Paragons looking to move up to Valiant would contradict that intent. The earliest I would expect to see R3 stuff for sale outside of the specified content in any significant quantities would be J4. They didn't say that themselves, but the fact that we can't explore Act 8 yet implies no other avenue is likely to open up until at least that has been a possibility for some time.

I think you (and some of the other posters immediately above) misunderstand me. I don’t expect to get enough materials for my second R3 7* from Banquet. But I do expect to get things like Dust, materials for R1–>R2, ample materials for R5 6*, 7* shards and perhaps some Titan shards. That kind of stuff advances accounts if it doesn’t advance titles, and there’s scant amounts of any of that.

What I did not expect was copypasta of last year’s event for what essentially appears to be more cost/effort in some instances. It’s as if this was an event version of the champion Gladiator—the team was so scared of creating something OP they instead gimped it completely and utterly.

Valiant seems nice, and I could have used my units to acquire the T4a I need to get my second R3 during BF/CM. I’m not a first day-new progression title guy (nor have I ever been), so I didn’t.

But that’s not my concern. I’m perfectly content to be a Paragon until I explore Necro or 8.4 or whatever. My issue is that the team shouldn’t make a big year-end event more or less irrelevant for certain levels of players.

Dr. Zola

DNA3000

MDx said:

So if they included one 7* r2 gem or even half the materials for an r2 in milestones would have propelled paragons and valiant way pas everyone else ? 🤦

It is tricky enough to discuss my actual statements about economic balance issues, I'm disinclined to go far out of my way to explain why statements I didn't make are actually statements I didn't make.

I don't design the game economy, I just understand it, more or less. If you want an explanation, that's something I can provide a perspective on. If you want an argument, go argue with someone who can actually do something about it, if you can. I know what I want to see in the game economy, and you're unlikely to change my mind there. But I'm not telling you want I want to see, I'm simply telling you what is. If you think my understanding of the game economy is flawed, that's your prerogative. Go find someone else who understands game economy design and has discussed it with the economy designers and has a better idea of what's going on than I do, and ask them to explain it to you. Then come back and tell me what they said.

DrZola

For some reason, whenever I hear the words “game economy” or “economic balance issues,” the phrase “sacred timeline” also pops into my head.

All seem like vaguely defined terms designed to deflect critique while justifying doing whatever.

Dr. Zola

Kontestman

Yeah I can agree Loki has been describing a lot of stuff going on the forums right now it’s kinda funny. When you think about this forum is kinda like the sacred time line posts being deleted/pruned to keep it on track. People being banned/warned for the greater good it’s kinda funny