The Importance of Releasing Banquet Event Details in Advance

Riryoku

I know I’ll get some disagreements on this, but I feel the need to express my opinion about releasing the Banquet details just 2 DAYS BEFORE THE EVENT.

Many forum users have been asking why the information hasn’t been shared earlier, and some even get annoyed when others inquire about the Banquet—one of the most significant and highly anticipated events of the year. This is understandable; the anticipation surrounding the event is enormous. And it's clear why: unlike Cyber Week or the July 4th event, the Banquet is much more friendly to F2P players because of its unit-based scoring rather than real money.

Thanks to this, many Summoners start forming alliances well in advance to maximize their rewards, which leads to the main issue: why it’s so important to have this information ahead of time.

The primary challenge with these Banquet-specific alliances is how they affect recruitment for other alliances. To comfortably participate in the event, a Summoner must have been in their alliance for at least 14 days. While this rule helps prevent bad actors from exploiting others, it creates problems for alliances not planning to participate heavily in the Banquet and instead focusing on regular content (AQ, AW, BGs).

During those 14 days, recruitment becomes much harder because many Summoners are already committed to Banquet alliances, leaving fewer players available. This impacts AQ/AW modes, where new recruits need to participate before these modes begin. As a result, alliances may struggle to maintain performance, especially when they cannot replace underperforming members due to the limited pool of available players.

Another issue is setting minimums. Beyond individual Summoners wanting to know the minimums to decide whether to continue farming units in the Arena, alliances also need this information to establish recruitment requirements. Even alliances with limited participation in the Banquet aim to optimize their rewards by achieving all alliance milestones.

So why wasn’t this information released earlier, as it was last year? Perhaps Kabam didn’t consider it necessary this time, but I believe it’s related to Isophyne. I understand that, ultimately, the game is a business. Releasing a new character like Isophyne right before the Banquet incentivizes players to spend real money to get her. Isophyne appears to be an excellent counter to Serpent, but that utility depends on her sig ability.

Big events like this aren’t planned in a week—they’re likely finalized months in advance, alongside things like the 10x10 calendar. This is why I think Kabam delayed sharing Banquet details: to encourage players to spend money on Isophyne dupe before seeing her as a Realm Event reward. Of course, this is just my speculation, but regardless of the reason, it interfered with providing timely information about the Banquet.

Now that the details are out, there will be mixed opinions—some players will love it, while others will be dissatisfied, and that’s okay. You can’t please everyone. Personally, I like the fact that a large portion of rewards has been moved to the Realm Event. That said, I have a few suggestions Kabam could consider for next year’s Banquet to reduce inconveniences for alliances:

• Release Banquet event details well in advance, giving Summoners enough time to decide whether to switch to a Banquet-focused alliance or stay in their current one for regular content.
  
• Alternatively, eliminate the alliance event entirely and move those rewards to the Realm Event.
  

Ultimately, my goal with this post is to provide constructive feedback to Kabam and spark a discussion about how future Banquet events can be improved. With better planning and timely communication, both alliances and individual Summoners could have a smoother and more enjoyable experience. I hope Kabam considers these points, as the Banquet remains one of the most beloved events of the year, and it’s important to ensure its success for all types of players.

Furrymoosen

A couple things to keep in mind:

Kabam's priority is not in making it easy for players to move in and out of alliances whenever they want for whatever reason they want to. If anything, I would argue that Kabam wants players to stick with their alliances and not jump all over the place. They've actually relieved some of this pain with how they've adjusted the line-up of events starting and finishing, but they've also been clear that there may be scenarios where players have to sacrifice something if they're going to switch alliances. It doesn't always line up perfectly.

I'll echo what Crashed said the other day. We've known the most important information for awhile now - start date and the 14-day window. These things aren't new. Players had time to switch awhile ago, but they also want to have everything, which just isn't always possible. The timing delay isn't new and we've known the date for quite awhile now. Players that want to alliance hop to maximize rewards may have to sacrifice other rewards to do that, but it is their own fault if they wait until the last minute to make their move.

As far as units go, this info being released 10 days ago wouldn't have made a difference. Players could've MAYBE farmed an extra 5 or 6 crystals worth of units - nothing game changing unless RNG welcomes them with open arms. The problem is, players that wait for this info to farm units (which is almost certainly a small minority) are players that won't even farm that many units in such a short period of time because they don't make a regular practice of it. And players that do farm units regularly didn't need this news to incentivize them to farm because, as crazy as it sounds, they've known for years that this event requires units. The banquet comes the same time every year. Regardless of the details, players know they need units for it and if the news dropping is going to be what causes them to go farm units then they are really too far behind already for it to make any considerable difference.