Kabam, PLEASE stop this.

I don’t know what to say, other than this absolutely disgusts me. There is already a massive gap between free-to-play accounts and whales, and this is only going to further widen that margin.

For new champs I want, I grind arena events and have recently gotten top 400 for Kushala. For other new champs I want, I collect resources and patiently await their arrival in featured crystals…this is how I got photon, vox, and werewolf by night. To simply make a new champ available to valiant players for a cash grab makes me absolutely despise how this game continues push away FTP players.

Comments

Ruwqiersa

Why do you care how fast other people get new champs if not for competitive reasons?

BringPopcorn

I don’t know what to say, other than this absolutely disgusts me. There is already a massive gap between free-to-play accounts and whales, and this is only going to further widen that margin.

For new champs I want, I grind arena events and have recently gotten top 400 for Kushala. For other new champs I want, I collect resources and patiently await their arrival in featured crystals…this is how I got photon, vox, and werewolf by night. To simply make a new champ available to valiant players for a cash grab makes me absolutely despise how this game continues push away FTP players.

FTP players create profit for Kabam how?...
You think Devs feed on FTP units?

DudeMaGude

Why do you care how fast other people get new champs if not for competitive reasons?

Simply speaking, it widens the margins for those attempting to compete in AW and BGs even further. A FTP ally-mate of mine just got paired with someone already on a r5, 200 sig onslaught in BGs. We can argue about fairness of BGs and all that, but how does that person earn a better chance at progressing over someone who grinds for hours daily?

Pikolu

Why do you care how fast other people get new champs if not for competitive reasons?
Simply speaking, it widens the margins for those attempting to compete in AW and BGs even further. A FTP ally-mate of mine just got paired with someone already on a r5, 200 sig onslaught in BGs. We can argue about fairness of BGs and all that, but how does that person earn a better chance at progressing over someone who grinds for hours daily?

Why shouldn't spending actual money provide an advantage? If money doesn't give an advantage, then people won't spend. If people don't spend, then the game dies.

DudeMaGude

FTP players create profit for Kabam how?...
You think Devs feed on FTP units?
I didn’t intend to imply FTP players creat profit for Kabam, that is counterintuitive. My apologies and/or I might be misunderstanding your point.

I was just expressing my dissatisfaction with all of the short cuts in the game to gain new champs, rank ups, resources, etc with just cash payouts.

DudeMaGude

Why do you care how fast other people get new champs if not for competitive reasons?

Why shouldn't spending actual money provide an advantage? If money doesn't give an advantage, then people won't spend. If people don't spend, then the game dies.

I’m not naive enough to know that kabam doesn’t need to make money. I just personally disagree with making brand new champs available straight away for X amount of dollars. My apologies if I’m alone on that, which it seems I am!

DudeMaGude

I guess what I’m trying to say, is that it feels like this is discouraging some players to compete in certain game modes because it is hard, if not impossible, to keep up with the competition who spends limitlessly. There has to be someone out there smarter and more articulate than me who hates this? 🤣

2StarKing

This is great for the game. This actually takes the whales out the arena. Expect dips in 6* cut off scores. Expect 7* arena... coming soon.

MrSakuragi

FTP aren’t intended to compete with players who spend limitlessly. If that prevents people from playing game modes, that’s unfortunate but they can play anything, there’s just a ceiling to their progress in the mode.

ReignkingTW

They didn't sell 5s until 18 months ago, when they were about to push towards 6r5s and 7s. It does feel pretty quick to do it now.

PT_99

100 dollars, Kabam need that money after that Banquet circus that they are planning to pull.

DudeMaGude

FTP aren’t intended to compete with players who spend limitlessly. If that prevents people from playing game modes, that’s unfortunate but they can play anything, there’s just a ceiling to their progress in the mode.

This makes me sad 🥺

Coolbum67

FTP aren’t intended to compete with players who spend limitlessly. If that prevents people from playing game modes, that’s unfortunate but they can play anything, there’s just a ceiling to their progress in the mode.

They are intended to compete with whales, you have battle grounds and alliance war. Match making in BG’s is terrible and is only getting worse. When you have someone with maybe a couple 7*s and maybe r4 and r5 6*s that will now be going up against basically full decks of 6* r5’s, 7* r1-r3, and maybe some 6* r4’s it’s pretty much a loss for the little guy. It’s totally ruining the game mode especially for the ftp players. It’s not as big of an issue with AW for the simple fact you have the rest of your alliance with you also.

Pikolu

This is great for the game. This actually takes the whales out the arena. Expect dips in 6* cut off scores. Expect 7* arena... coming soon.

1000 times this. Chee'ilth went for like 90mil round 1. Without valiant getting her as a 6*, that score would likely have been over 140mil cutoff.

ahmynuts

FTP aren’t intended to compete with players who spend limitlessly. If that prevents people from playing game modes, that’s unfortunate but they can play anything, there’s just a ceiling to their progress in the mode.

They are intended to compete with whales, you have battle grounds and alliance war. Match making in BG’s is terrible and is only getting worse. When you have someone with maybe a couple 7*s and maybe r4 and r5 6*s that will now be going up against basically full decks of 6* r5’s, 7* r1-r3, and maybe some 6* r4’s it’s pretty much a loss for the little guy. It’s totally ruining the game mode especially for the ftp players. It’s not as big of an issue with AW for the simple fact you have the rest of your alliance with you also.

Polygon

This is great for the game. This actually takes the whales out the arena. Expect dips in 6* cut off scores. Expect 7* arena... coming soon.

This is a stretch, it might be great for arena, but it will be a pain in BGs

Gamer

I guess what I’m trying to say, is that it feels like this is discouraging some players to compete in certain game modes because it is hard, if not impossible, to keep up with the competition who spends limitlessly. There has to be someone out there smarter and more articulate than me who hates this? 🤣

Keep in mind it 100 dollars. That not cheap at all so don’t worry to much it would most be whales to get it

SecondSkriller

Why do you care how fast other people get new champs if not for competitive reasons?
Simply speaking, it widens the margins for those attempting to compete in AW and BGs even further. A FTP ally-mate of mine just got paired with someone already on a r5, 200 sig onslaught in BGs. We can argue about fairness of BGs and all that, but how does that person earn a better chance at progressing over someone who grinds for hours daily?
Why shouldn't spending actual money provide an advantage? If money doesn't give an advantage, then people won't spend. If people don't spend, then the game dies.

Yup, it's a very good point you make, the spending keeps the game going and this year has been one of the if not Kabam's strongest year yet. The game felt very rewarding this year, with 7 stars, great enjoyable story content, battlegrounds, fun sugar pill meta and necro. It's been awesome in 2023.

Crys23

Why do you care how fast other people get new champs if not for competitive reasons?
Simply speaking, it widens the margins for those attempting to compete in AW and BGs even further. A FTP ally-mate of mine just got paired with someone already on a r5, 200 sig onslaught in BGs. We can argue about fairness of BGs and all that, but how does that person earn a better chance at progressing over someone who grinds for hours daily?
Why shouldn't spending actual money provide an advantage? If money doesn't give an advantage, then people won't spend. If people don't spend, then the game dies.
Yup, it's a very good point you make, the spending keeps the game going and this year has been one of the if not Kabam's strongest year yet. The game felt very rewarding this year, with 7 stars, great enjoyable story content, battlegrounds, fun sugar pill meta and necro. It's been awesome in 2023.

A great 2023 that's about to end on a big thud. No holiday break, AW meta sucks, BG meta sucks, Banquet rewards suck. This is more like the Kabam we all know (and hate)

ShadowFighterrr

I guess what I’m trying to say, is that it feels like this is discouraging some players to compete in certain game modes because it is hard, if not impossible, to keep up with the competition who spends limitlessly. There has to be someone out there smarter and more articulate than me who hates this? 🤣

If anything, I want the whales to spend and get the latest champs for money so I can grind arena in peace. Ofc the gap will get widen eventually, but it will also push me as a player to be more skillful than players who just spend their way through.

Demonzfyre

I guess what I’m trying to say, is that it feels like this is discouraging some players to compete in certain game modes because it is hard, if not impossible, to keep up with the competition who spends limitlessly. There has to be someone out there smarter and more articulate than me who hates this? 🤣

The "gap" between spenders and F2P will never close. You'll never keep up. You aren't intended to keep up. You okay the game at your speed and spenders pay to play the game faster.

This will never change.

Suros_moon

Why do you care how fast other people get new champs if not for competitive reasons?
Simply speaking, it widens the margins for those attempting to compete in AW and BGs even further. A FTP ally-mate of mine just got paired with someone already on a r5, 200 sig onslaught in BGs. We can argue about fairness of BGs and all that, but how does that person earn a better chance at progressing over someone who grinds for hours daily?

I think there does exist an issue here but not for the reasons you described. Spenders having access to champions earlier has been true of the game since crystals being available for units was conceptualized. The new problem is that, by guaranteeing champions, the rates at which these new characters can be introduced in game increases exponentially. The problem is that, save for spending 70 energy to fight this boss in the monthly EQ, there is no reasonable way to practice fighting this champion. In a game mode like battlegrounds, knowing how to evade the special attacks is the bare minimum requirement for success and having champions introduced in these rates a day after their release presents a problem that borders on unfair in that there is not reasonable access to practice fighting the champions before they become a competitive tool in a game mode where you have 3 fights maximum to achieve your ends.

The banning feature can mitigate this, but you’re essentially forced into the ban not because of how strong a champion is, but due to the fact that there is not a fair way to learn fighting them. Im opposed to this on principle but you may disagree here. Its fine. Generally I think bans should stand on strategies not derived from “I literally have no way to figure this champ out because I cant practice fighting them anywhere”.

A perfect tool for this problem exists: The duel feature/practice feature. The problem is that finding high rarity versions to duel can be near impossible. Onslaught has high prestige so it may solve itself this time, but thats not true of most new releases. For reasons that I didn’t pick up on, kabam has limited who you can practice fighting to 1) champions you own and 2) the level you have then at currently. This makes no sense in my opinion as this feature should allow you to openly practice whichever fight you want with parameters you can set. If this option is allowed I think the issue of selling champs becomes moot as you can practice an arbitrary amount to figure put what works and doesnt.

Tl;dr: This problem is only a problem because we dont have a way to practice fighting these champions on the day they are being released. Fix the practice feature to allow for us to duel the targets the same day their pre-releases come out and I think thats a fair resolution

DNA3000

I don’t know what to say, other than this absolutely disgusts me. There is already a massive gap between free-to-play accounts and whales, and this is only going to further widen that margin.

Does it? When the top rarity was 6* and the top progression title was Paragon and the cash offers guaranteed a 5*, why does the gap widen when you add one to all the numbers?

In absolute terms, maybe it does. But in proportional terms, it doesn't really. I mean, you could argue that if banks give everyone the same 2% interest rate that widens the gap between the rich and the poor, because the poor with $100 in the bank only get two dollars a year while the rich who have $100,000 in the bank get two thousand dollars a year, so they are getting so much more interest the gap between the two is expanding. But really, in proportional terms they are both getting exactly the same proportional benefit, and will be the exact same gap apart in proportional terms as well.

The rewards you earn are, for the most part, roughly proportional to your progressional tier, or rather the amount of stuff the average player has at that progression tier. As they add new progression tiers at the top, the rewards those players get at that progression tier must also rise in proportion. And as a consequence, the stuff they can buy for cash must also rise in proportion. But the *value* of those rewards, at least in broad strokes, stays roughly the same. The value of buying a 5* when the top rarity is 6 is roughly the same as buying a 6* when the top rarity is 7 for the top progression tier players.

There's this idea that the gap between spenders and free to play players just keeps getting larger, because what spenders can buy keeps getting higher. But that's not true: there is a counterbalancing force: game inflation. What the spenders are spending a lot to buy today, everyone else is going to getting much cheaper later. Eventually players will be getting for free. Time erodes all advantages, and the advantage that spenders are buying today is going to diminish to almost nothing eventually. The whales buying 6s today are the whales that were buying 5s in the past. How much advantage are all those 5s giving them today? Not nearly as much. If that was the only advantage anyone could buy, that advantage would have depreciated to almost nothing today.

It isn't the only advantage that people could buy, but all of them depreciate over time. The champs, the rank up materials, and even the stuff they earn with those things, all depreciate over time. Not to exactly zero, but to vastly lower amounts. Time reduces the gap between the free to play and the spenders, and it does so very powerfully. The advantages they are buying today are only temporary. Whales don't have a huge gap over the rest of us because they spent, they have that advantage because they spent, spend now, and will continue to spend in the future. The moment they stop spending, the rest of us start catching up immediately. They will always have more stuff, but that stuff will matter less and less.

Spenders are not spending to widen the gap, they are spending to maintain the gap, and the moment they stop spending that gap starts disappearing. Consider that, when you consider what spenders are actually getting for their money. Spenders are not really buying advantages, they are renting them, often at Manhattan prices.

WOLF_LINK

Valiant Whales can buy every new released 6* … what’s the problem? They can whale Crystals to pull 7* too.

Odachi

The fact they are selling 6* to the whales makes the arena grind easier for you because there are now less people pushing for them. I'd argue you only got Kushala because of these offers.

DNA3000

The fact they are selling 6* to the whales makes the arena grind easier for you because there are now less people pushing for them. I'd argue you only got Kushala because of these offers.

We saw this with 5* champs as well. The cutoffs for those dropped substantially over time as the ways for the top players to get them increased, and the demand pressure on them decreased as a consequence.

Vegeta9001

I don't see a problem with these offers, if they were doling out stuff that would break the competitive edge like when the whales got loads of r2s and r5s earlier in the year, that's too much, but a 6* champion, that's fine, that'll come to us eventually, it's not widening a gap. Having 10 r5 6*s when FTP players could only get 4, that was widening a gap that we still haven't truly recovered from.

Crossy76

real money aint easy to earn yo , since peopple using it in game they are doing more than ftp players . they are the ones that keeping game alive , because of whales spending in game we ftp players are enjoying the new contents.
and why shouldnt spenders get advantages or benifits ? they deserve it

Leanbison

2 quick points.
1st the selling of six star featured champs positively affects free to play players by lowering arena scores. The same people buying the champ now have bigger rosters but are no longer competing in the featured arena. So in theory more top 400 spots should open up for FTP.
2nd - I personally get excited when I face a bg opponent with all the latest champs. It usually means they dont know how to play very well. I win those matches more than I lose.