Brian Grant just insinuated he may quit the game over the gifting event.....

Jeremy3186 · December 2021

Watch the video below and I'm curious of people's thoughts...

he's basically saying they went too far this time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKHWYCqX8kA

AverageDesi · December 2021

I think his insinuation was about stopping YouTube videos

Siliyo · December 2021

They did go too far. From what I have seen: Kabam knows how to keep the game “alive” financially by doing lucrative things like this, at the same time they’re killing the in game economy, competition, and just ethics regarding MCOC. What’s funny is that they have no problem doing things like this, but it becomes a real problem when players ask for something and it has to go to the “economy team” to see how it will affect the game. Yet the gifting event is no problem to them.

Worknprogress stepped away from the game because of the game content direction, and I have been slowly stepping away too because of that. This is adding another layer of demotivating people to keep on playing because Kabam has only catered to spending players and has done virtually nothing for people who enjoy and play this game with their spare time.

Skiddy212 · December 2021

Can someone explain to me what changed with gifting this year please? i do not understand and would like too

GroundedWisdom · December 2021

Are we still pretending that people who play for free should have everything that people who spend have?

danielmath · December 2021

Jeremy3186 said:

AverageDesi said:
I think his insinuation was about stopping YouTube videos
that may be true... but I took the overall sentiment as "I can't keep up with this meta"

He hasn’t been able to keep up for years, nothing is changing

Skiddy212 · December 2021

Jeremy3186 said:

Skiddy212 said:
Can someone explain to me what changed with gifting this year please? i do not understand and would like too
watch the video.. they basically made all objectives to achieve in this game pay to win for the next 2 weeks.... including things you can't get from just playing.

Thank you, i will watch

TheLegend27 · December 2021

GroundedWisdom said:
Are we still pretending that people who play for free should have everything that people who spend have?

Sure, but it's ridiculous when you can literally only throw cash at a game and it accomplishes the same thing (and actually significantly more in this instance) as actually playing.

This is why I've always considered the gifting "event" as one of the dumbest events in the game. It's not even an event.

GroundedWisdom · December 2021

FreddyKane said:

GroundedWisdom said:
Are we still pretending that people who play for free should have everything that people who spend have?
People by the end of this event will have 4+ r4 6-stars. Me, thronebreaker and everything 100% except abyss will not even have a single one. I'm not asking for 4 but by the time people are getting fully prestiged out with r4s I should get to have at least one.

Spending has always been an option in the game. They will always have more than the people who play for free because money saves time. There is NO way to keep up with people who spend. However, spending is not necessary to play. Which is great, considering the fact that spending makes the game possible for those that don't.
Moreover, Resource will open up more and more as people advance higher up. It's been that way since the game started.

Lovejoy72 · December 2021

I don’t know what these guys are going to do. But I think what has been broken is the illusion that somehow a highly skilled underdog can find a way to take down the big guys. It’s like every sports movie ever made, that’s what we want to see. But when the other guys have an unassailable numerical advantage that is immutable, incontestable etc? Well that story just isn’t that much fun. Things like prestige just don’t care about how skilled the underdog is. And when tiebreakers AW are made up of fight time, R4s are just going to win.

It’s almost like they need to find a way to split up between amateur and professional leagues or something. Even when I was doing competitive USPSS IPSC they had different divisions for out of the box and heavily modded.

Shadowstrike · December 2021

We'll see what happens in the next couple of weeks when the event is over because for as many people that are angry with how the rewards are scaled, I'm wondering how many of those people will feel the same way if after this event they've acquired the materials that they couldn't have gotten their hands on in the first place. I'm not trying to be dismissive of Brian's arguments but I am noting that people's opinions usually change when they're lucky enough to hit the jackpot. Like I said, we need to wait and see how this plays out

Lovejoy72 · December 2021

Shadowstrike said:
We'll see what happens in the next couple of weeks when the event is over because for as many people that are angry with how the rewards are scaled, I'm wondering how many of those people will feel the same way if after this event they've acquired the materials that they couldn't have gotten their hands on in the first place. I'm not trying to be dismissive of Brian's arguments but I am noting that people's opinions usually change when they're lucky enough to hit the jackpot. Like I said, we need to wait and see how this plays out

It’ll be interesting. I just opened more than 50 greater gifting crystals and got maybe fourth or fifth of a T3a and a T6b. Really not very impactful. Admittedly I got almost everything else I could possibly want, including the dupe on 6* NF (so I can use my generic gem on someone else). But if it was somebody trying to keep up with the meta it would’ve been a waste of their time

GroundedWisdom · December 2021

FreddyKane said:

GroundedWisdom said:

FreddyKane said:

GroundedWisdom said:
Are we still pretending that people who play for free should have everything that people who spend have?
People by the end of this event will have 4+ r4 6-stars. Me, thronebreaker and everything 100% except abyss will not even have a single one. I'm not asking for 4 but by the time people are getting fully prestiged out with r4s I should get to have at least one.
Spending has always been an option in the game. They will always have more than the people who play for free because money saves time. There is NO way to keep up with people who spend. However, spending is not necessary to play. Which is great, considering the fact that spending makes the game possible for those that don't.
Moreover, Resource will open up more and more as people advance higher up. It's been that way since the game started.
You are completely ignoring the point. The gap here is massive and I have zero way of earning these things apart from dropping massive amounts of cash. How am I ever supposed to get to high tier aw if the resources I need to get there are only offered through cash? Then by the time they get to me the next resource I need to continue to catchup is only offered through cash? And not a miniscule reasonable amount of it. An unreasonable amount is offered making it nearly impossible to catchup. "Money saves time" if that was all it did that wouldnt be a problem but the money is buying time that isnt even available yet.

*for now. As I said, they will become more available down the line. Spenders will always have first dibs. Welcome to the game.

Wicket329 · December 2021

It is not possible to be entirely free to play and remain competitive at the highest levels of this game. And I’m okay with that, because you can still climb very high and be competitive. You can comfortably sit in the top 150-250 range in AQ as a FTP player. You can compete at the highest echelons of AW, as prestige is not a factor there.

The gifting event only presents a problem if you are a FTP player, or even a light to moderate spender, trying to directly compete with the massive whale players and alliances. You just can’t do it. No amount of skill or time spent in game will create rank up materials that otherwise do not exist. You can’t arena grind your way to a generic 6* awakening gem and hundreds of sig stones. It’s just not how the game plays.

And it’s okay to not be at the pointy tip of this game. Everything is still available, content-wise. And honestly, the only mode that requires whaling is AQ because it’s tied to prestige. I have no idea when it will launch, but it’s entirely possible that the solo competitive mode will provide rewards that could address prestige concerns. Who knows.

GroundedWisdom · December 2021

Jeremy3186 said:

GroundedWisdom said:

FreddyKane said:

GroundedWisdom said:

FreddyKane said:

GroundedWisdom said:
Are we still pretending that people who play for free should have everything that people who spend have?
People by the end of this event will have 4+ r4 6-stars. Me, thronebreaker and everything 100% except abyss will not even have a single one. I'm not asking for 4 but by the time people are getting fully prestiged out with r4s I should get to have at least one.
Spending has always been an option in the game. They will always have more than the people who play for free because money saves time. There is NO way to keep up with people who spend. However, spending is not necessary to play. Which is great, considering the fact that spending makes the game possible for those that don't.
Moreover, Resource will open up more and more as people advance higher up. It's been that way since the game started.
You are completely ignoring the point. The gap here is massive and I have zero way of earning these things apart from dropping massive amounts of cash. How am I ever supposed to get to high tier aw if the resources I need to get there are only offered through cash? Then by the time they get to me the next resource I need to continue to catchup is only offered through cash? And not a miniscule reasonable amount of it. An unreasonable amount is offered making it nearly impossible to catchup. "Money saves time" if that was all it did that wouldnt be a problem but the money is buying time that isnt even available yet.
*for now. As I said, they will become more available down the line. Spenders will always have first dibs. Welcome to the game.
how far "down the line" is fair to you? I'm curious... 6 months? a year? How much of a head start should people paying get from those who do not to be fair to both ends of the spectrum?

Considering how new R4s are, some time. When R3s were introduced, people weren't Ranking them in mass numbers at first. The same goes with any new Rank.
People who pay will always have an advantage. I'm aware that BG prides himself in trying to compete with spenders, but the game isn't really designed with that in mind. There is no "us vs. them". It allows people to play both for free, and for pay.

StevieManWonder · December 2021

I’m pretty salty about the fact that there’s an Abyss nexus in the rewards. That crystal is meant to be a reward for completing the most grueling content in the game (not most difficult, so don’t get on me about that) but now they’re just letting people buy it.
Same with six star Weapon X. Don’t get me wrong, I was wanting him to be in the GGCs because I love him and want more people to have access to him but having be able to be outright bought rubs me the wrong way.
Don’t even get me started on the fact that there’s a generic r4 gem before there was ever a class based crystal one.

Fit_Fun9329 · December 2021

This all feels just .. to much. It’s over the top

BimboDan · December 2021

AverageDesi said:
I think his insinuation was about stopping YouTube videos

he aint stopping, why would he give up decent source of revenue. if anything he is milking the controversy and hype, making dramatic scene and laughing at channel high traffic

NickMerks · December 2021

Then you could at least make plans to join/leave an alliance. How are you supposed to position yourself for a mystery event? Just leave ur long time alliance just incase.

GameChanger12 · December 2021

The problem with the gifting is there is a substantial drop off from ranks to even the the top 10%. Many in the top 10% will be spending big but will literally get a fraction of what the no limit spenders go for. If I dropped a boatload and got the short end of the stick I'd be livid. The drop off in reward tiers shouldn't have gone from 100 at top dawg to say 85 at the last rank to like 50 at top 10%. I think it would have been wise for kabam to recap revenue losses by making this event nutty. Where they messed up is the tier brackets. Heck I think even at the top 50% a tiny sampling of t3a and t6b would have made financial sense to act as a constant reminder of what you should strive for and in their eyes try to buy more. That's the whole point of retailers giving samples. When it takes what 3 of each for a r4 what's 100 shards at 50% standing? But people who just missed the ranks get zip. That's dumber than the trade in store where kabam didn't even put out a financial offer to get more AG. Whoever at Kabam is making these strategic decisions is making a laughable string of poor decisions.

As a f2p player I didn't expect I'd get much of anything and won't be near the top 10%. I have a little over 5k units saved up might be able to get it close to 6k by end of event to spend but that's not much so I'm not talking about what I'm missing out on. If the tiers dropped more gradually for rewards it's doubtful lots of moderate spenders on YouTube would be putting out videos like this because they wouldn't entirely miss the boat.

Eb0ny-O-M4w · December 2021

tafre said:

Eb0ny-O-M4w said:

tafre said:
I doubt any f2p player has a r4 champ and some people will have 3 of them by the time this event ends. .
3 of them is achievable in just a few hours, if not less.
I wouldn't doubt some people would have 20 or more of them at the end of the event
20 is a bit too much lol but I get your point. They are selling rewards that cannot be consistenly obtained from any part of the game. That is the point. And they can get as much as their bank acct allows.

Judging by what we've been seeing in the last couple of years, the average top spender would have more than enough for at least 5000 of these crystals.
Now how much r4's can be achievable there? I have no idea, but probably a good couple of them

Brian Grant just insinuated he may quit the game over the gifting event.....

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