The new balance of the game

I’ve been a huge fan of this game since January 2015, shortly after its release. I’ve played avidly and at a reasonably high level for most of that time, and have wasted more hours than I dare to count on it. I truly love this game.

I got rather disheartened when 7* champs released. Not because they were released, but because the long grind to getting a 6* R5 went from seeming massively important (by the game’s standards) to pretty irrelevant, when folks were R2’ing 7*s almost immediately and they were so much more powerful in raw stats.

It felt like years of hard work developing my 6* roster suddenly meant a whole lot less. I knew there’d be an impact with 7*s releasing, but really didn’t expect the level we saw. I’ve been around a while and saw this with 5* and 6* champs releasing: the step change with 7* champs coming at the same time as Paragon crystals releasing is barely comparable.

In my disappointment, I stopped playing the game for a bit. I needed a break anyway. After a few weeks’ hiatus, I figured I’d fire up the game to see these 4th July offers. I’m not a whale but do spend roughly $1k/year (probably more) on this game.

I cannot express my disappointment at the offers I’ve seen enough. Players can get 5 R5 6* champs if they buy all the available Odin’s. They more or less have their pick of champs thanks to all those abyss selectors too. What a kick in the teeth.

As a long term player, semi-regular spender and a true lover of this game: I will not be coming back.

I hope others aren’t bothered at all and continue to enjoy this wonderful game. I hope Kabam starts to care about balance again so this game can continue. Seems they may be squeezing revenues due to a perceived lifetime remaining for the game, but I hope I’m wrong.

Comments

Logan

Thanks for your post. Basically in the same position as you. Every match in BG's has stacked rosters. Even if I fight perfectly, I can't finish a fight as quickly as my opponent(usually get to the gladiator circuit). My account was indirectly nerfed, and every minute put into this game was essentially for nothing because you can whip out your credit card to outpace someone who played every day for eight years. There has always been separation, but this has been miscalculated if players were kept in mind.

Demonzfyre

I’ve been a huge fan of this game since January 2015, shortly after its release. I’ve played avidly and at a reasonably high level for most of that time, and have wasted more hours than I dare to count on it. I truly love this game.

I got rather disheartened when 7* champs released. Not because they were released, but because the long grind to getting a 6* R5 went from seeming massively important (by the game’s standards) to pretty irrelevant, when folks were R2’ing 7*s almost immediately and they were so much more powerful in raw stats.

It felt like years of hard work developing my 6* roster suddenly meant a whole lot less. I knew there’d be an impact with 7*s releasing, but really didn’t expect the level we saw. I’ve been around a while and saw this with 5* and 6* champs releasing: the step change with 7* champs coming at the same time as Paragon crystals releasing is barely comparable.

In my disappointment, I stopped playing the game for a bit. I needed a break anyway. After a few weeks’ hiatus, I figured I’d fire up the game to see these 4th July offers. I’m not a whale but do spend roughly $1k/year (probably more) on this game.

I cannot express my disappointment at the offers I’ve seen enough. Players can get 5 R5 6* champs if they buy all the available Odin’s. They more or less have their pick of champs thanks to all those abyss selectors too. What a kick in the teeth.

As a long term player, semi-regular spender and a true lover of this game: I will not be coming back.

I hope others aren’t bothered at all and continue to enjoy this wonderful game. I hope Kabam starts to care about balance again so this game can continue. Seems they may be squeezing revenues due to a perceived lifetime remaining for the game, but I hope I’m wrong.

If you spend roughly $1k a year, why wouldn't you pick up a few of those offers?

This game hasn't changed how the "economy" or "balance" works. Spenders have had dozens of R5's for months and months before these deals came out because most of them play in high tier AQ and AW.

I don't understand why everyone is so concerned about what others do in this game and can't just enjoy their own journey. Just because another player has 20 R5's doesn't mean you're in a race to catch up to them. Play the game for your enjoyment and don't worry about other people's accounts.

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Drago_von_Drago

I don't understand why everyone is so concerned about what others do in this game and can't just enjoy their own journey. Just because another player has 20 R5's doesn't mean you're in a race to catch up to them. Play the game for your enjoyment and don't worry about other people's accounts.

With the focus of the game seemingly shifting away from quest based content and individual achievement and towards Battlegrounds combined with the lack of matchmaking after a certain point in BG play, other players’ rosters start to have a more direct impact on someone’s ability to play and enjoy the game.

If you’ve completed the story content, monthly EQ probably isn’t very exciting or challenging and we haven’t had any other new quest based content for a while. And on top of that this months side quest only offered 18 runs which was not even once a day for the month if you tried to space it out. That leaves BG as the most interesting new challenge and also the best store in the game so if you’re suddenly outmatched significantly in that game mode after these deals it leaves you wondering where the game is heading. I know that’s what I’m wondering after the announcement that 8.3 paths will but cut in half.

_Pez_

Just enjoy what you have not what you don't have.... You can still do everything in this game without worrying that others have more.

You can still progress in Battlegrounds with a little patience and get good rewards. Skill and better tactics can more than make up for someone having a couple more rank 5s than you, and as soon as you hit plat you get matched against people worse than yourself too...

And I'll repeat myself. You can literally get 1000+ units farming arena, event quests, etc for free every week. That is a load of free premium currency for a game like this and if you had saved all year up until now, you could have got all the unit offers including a few 6r5s. If you save from now until banquet, you can get whatever you want then too....

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Chuck_Finley

Just enjoy what you have not what you don't have.... You can still do everything in this game without worrying that others have more.

You can still progress in Battlegrounds with a little patience and get good rewards. Skill and better tactics can more than make up for someone having a couple more rank 5s than you, and as soon as you hit plat you get matched against people worse than yourself too...

And I'll repeat myself. You can literally get 1000+ units farming arena, event quests, etc for free every week. That is a load of free premium currency for a game like this and if you had saved all year up until now, you could have got all the unit offers including a few 6r5s. If you save from now until banquet, you can get whatever you want then too....

No too nitpick too much.. but 1k units a week doesn’t get you everything. Unless you can somehow find missing weeks between now and the banquet that equals 36 weeks. Unit grinders thought they needed 18-21k units to max the deals. It’s doubled up on them now.

Colinwhitworth69

Spenders will always progress faster than non-spenders. That's how they fund this business.

Someone progressing faster than you doesn't change the story or Everest challenges you have in front of you (8.2 and on, EOP, Carina's, Abyss, Gauntlet, etc).

The main pain point for non-spenders in BGs, which is something I hope Kabam addresses in a way that satisfies most players. There needs to be a level added that splits the base and lets you find more reasonable matches. Or som such.

But the deals and whatnot will not go away and will likely only get juicier.

Chuck_Finley

Spenders will always progress faster than non-spenders. That's how they fund this business.

Someone progressing faster than you doesn't change the story or Everest challenges you have in front of you (8.2 and on, EOP, Carina's, Abyss, Gauntlet, etc).

The main pain point for non-spenders in BGs, which is something I hope Kabam addresses in a way that satisfies most players. There needs to be a level added that splits the base and lets you find more reasonable matches. Or som such.

But the deals and whatnot will not go away and will likely only get juicier.

Why in the world would even a low spender to mid spender like me waste units on revives on Everest content? That seems like a horrible idea. Unit value is far superior in the big events. Explore act 8 itemless sure - but units for revives? Also a terrible idea in this new economy.

Drago_von_Drago

Someone progressing faster than you doesn't change the story or Everest challenges you have in front of you (8.2 and on, EOP, Carina's, Abyss, Gauntlet, etc).

…

But the deals and whatnot will not go away and will likely only get juicier.

This is the big disconnect to me. They eliminated the revive farms so if you want to do “Everest content” you need to spend a bunch of units for already outdated rewards. Then you have people telling you to just arena grind all year and save the units for these sales so you’ve got to make a decision there and the better value is to just wait for the next sale because they “will likely only get juicier”.
Removing the revive farm and offering sales like this completely disincentivized that kind of content after a couple months for a lot of players.

I would do EOP and Gauntlet and Carina’s Challenges but without an easy source for revives now I’d be forced to spend a lot units to do it and then I wouldn’t have any for the next sale event and I’d fall farther behind. I’m better off having an extra 1-2k units for the banquet event than I am spending revives on EOP today.

Add on top of that, plenty of people already have all these done so all that’s left is BG for something new to do which is where this roster disparity is most impactful.

Pikolu

Just enjoy what you have not what you don't have.... You can still do everything in this game without worrying that others have more.

You can still progress in Battlegrounds with a little patience and get good rewards. Skill and better tactics can more than make up for someone having a couple more rank 5s than you, and as soon as you hit plat you get matched against people worse than yourself too...

And I'll repeat myself. You can literally get 1000+ units farming arena, event quests, etc for free every week. That is a load of free premium currency for a game like this and if you had saved all year up until now, you could have got all the unit offers including a few 6r5s. If you save from now until banquet, you can get whatever you want then too....
No too nitpick too much.. but 1k units a week doesn’t get you everything. Unless you can somehow find missing weeks between now and the banquet that equals 36 weeks. Unit grinders thought they needed 18-21k units to max the deals. It’s doubled up on them now.

What people don't get is that banquet gives you the worst return for your units in the game unless you win the RNG. 36k units gives you so much more guaranteed rewards than it does in banquet. Banquet just there to drain units

Demonzfyre

I don't understand why everyone is so concerned about what others do in this game and can't just enjoy their own journey. Just because another player has 20 R5's doesn't mean you're in a race to catch up to them. Play the game for your enjoyment and don't worry about other people's accounts.
With the focus of the game seemingly shifting away from quest based content and individual achievement and towards Battlegrounds combined with the lack of matchmaking after a certain point in BG play, other players’ rosters start to have a more direct impact on someone’s ability to play and enjoy the game.

If you’ve completed the story content, monthly EQ probably isn’t very exciting or challenging and we haven’t had any other new quest based content for a while. And on top of that this months side quest only offered 18 runs which was not even once a day for the month if you tried to space it out. That leaves BG as the most interesting new challenge and also the best store in the game so if you’re suddenly outmatched significantly in that game mode after these deals it leaves you wondering where the game is heading. I know that’s what I’m wondering after the announcement that 8.3 paths will but cut in half.

But you have to understand that if you're playing BGs, at some point you're going to be out matched anyway.

There's always someone who will have a better roster than you. You can still play BGs and enjoy them knowing you won't be rank 1, but if you tell yourself you deserve rank 1 in BGs with one rank 5 6*, you're setting yourself up to fail.

danielmath

This is the same post we get countless of every july 4 and every cyber weekend, for the last 5 or so years. Spending always will and always should give a noticeable advantage

Spaghetti1297

At this point I think the game can only be divided into 2 groups: the whales and non spenders. Because I think the casual spending is no longer worth it: you either go spend thousands of dollars, or not spend at all.

Pick your side. I myself used to spend here and there, sigil pass, some offers and stuff, but it’s just impossible to keep up with the pace where the game is headed. I bought an Odin’s with these offers, and I’m happy with my R5 and the other stuff I was able to get with the units I had, and honestly have no regrets spending that money on it, but NOW after all the dust settled, and seeing all those monstrous accounts on BG, I don’t think it’s worth keep spending at all, so from now, on, thats what I’m doing with this game: just stick to monthly and special missions, casual BG, and just chill, grow my roster with all the tranquility of the world and be OK with the rewards I get. No hurries. There’s no point on stressing out trying to keep pace with this greedy scheme. It’s just not worth it.

Let the whales whale out tho, thanks to them the game is up and running, and since I don’t think my humble couple of dollars don’t make any difference for this company the same way the do for me, they won’t ever see a single penny from me again. I’m done with that.

Drago_von_Drago

But you have to understand that if you're playing BGs, at some point you're going to be out matched anyway.

There's always someone who will have a better roster than you. You can still play BGs and enjoy them knowing you won't be rank 1, but if you tell yourself you deserve rank 1 in BGs with one rank 5 6*, you're setting yourself up to fail.

I don’t expect to be number 1 or anywhere close. The problem is with the current lack of matchmaking, it’s possible to face 30+ matches in a row that you have no chance of winning. It’s basically saying get to GC, then hope for good luck with matchmaking to get wins but you may never get that so why keep playing? Sure you could get lucky and get a bunch of lower level or evenly matched opponents, but the gap between FTP/casual spenders and the big spenders just grew dramatically overnight and you could just as easily get stuck burning 900 elder marks against rosters you can’t compete with. Once you hit your personal peak, playing only risks losing levels for season rewards and gains nothing unless you get lucky with matchmaking.

With the current BG system, you cap out and then there’s no reason to keep playing so it disincentivizes playing. You can’t elect to stay in the lower levels and even if you could there’s nothing to gain besides the objectives every two days so there’s no reason to play all season if you reach your peak level of competition early in the season.

If there were other things to do in game it wouldn’t be as big of a deal but with BG being the focus and only new thing to do the combination of the new gap and the lack of matchmaking makes the gap feel worse than normal.

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Aomine_Daiki10

Spenders will always have an advantage in the game we get it but this time around the advantage is too much. You can basically create a new account and swipe your card and get a stronger account than someone that has been playing for years. Kabaam are becoming more greedy.

DannyB01

Just to clarify for everyone: the reason I am so disheartened is because the amount to which “rewards” are now associated with paid offers rather than content and building up a roster. Objectively, the game has never been this skewed towards spending.

A very top tier AQ/AW player would have been on 6-10 R5s before this event, and a spender who doesn’t do AQ/AW could be on 10+ just from this event.

Of course you get bonuses for spending, that’s why I’ve spent on the game historically. But there’s never been anything like this level of imbalance between spending and non-spending in the game, and it’s very disheartening to someone who’s spent that much time building their roster.

I totally acknowledge comments about staying in our own lanes and just focusing on playing the game and not what others are doing. Power to those who appreciate playing the game like that. Maintaining at least SOME kind of competitive capability through hard work and grinding is what kept me playing the game for 8.5 years. That’s where the thrill was for me, and without that at all now (it’s much more pay to win) I’m not really interested. Hence, my post.

Chobbly

Spenders will always have an advantage in the game we get it but this time around the advantage is too much. You can basically create a new account and swipe your card and get a stronger account than someone that has been playing for years. Kabaam are becoming more greedy.

For balance, not quite. But being able to spend could take a new Paragon player with three 6*R4 up to someone with potentially 4 6*R5, eight new champions picked from Abyss Nexus Selectors and a couple of 7* - and that's just if they bought four Odins from the in-game store. That's not including the Summoner's Market or anything else.

That's a serious uplift. Good luck to those who can and do, I'm sure anyone in their position would do the same. But I do agree it's a serious uplift.

Ultragamer

I spent 100$ on 4th but only have 1 r5 yet I’m beating rosters with 4-5 r5 and 1-2 r2 7* it’s a matter of can you outplay them and force bad match ups they can have a bigger roster but bgs also takes in can you force them into harder match ups that’s what you got to do no point in complaining when you can win the match
And I only have 13 r4 and not all are on my deck and my one r5 is apoc so it’s not like it’s my roster is big I use mainly r3s with a mix of r4s and my r5 so it comes down to can you force bad match ups play the difficult match ups and outsmart the opponent

endgamelocked

Spenders will always progress faster than non-spenders. That's how they fund this business.

Someone progressing faster than you doesn't change the story or Everest challenges you have in front of you (8.2 and on, EOP, Carina's, Abyss, Gauntlet, etc).

The main pain point for non-spenders in BGs, which is something I hope Kabam addresses in a way that satisfies most players. There needs to be a level added that splits the base and lets you find more reasonable matches. Or som such.

But the deals and whatnot will not go away and will likely only get juicier.

Yes BGs is the whole main point here. I keep facing players with lots r5 6* while i only have 4 r4. BGs seems to me is a game mode design only for spenders.

HungaryHippo

Spenders will always progress faster than non-spenders. That's how they fund this business.

Someone progressing faster than you doesn't change the story or Everest challenges you have in front of you (8.2 and on, EOP, Carina's, Abyss, Gauntlet, etc).

The main pain point for non-spenders in BGs, which is something I hope Kabam addresses in a way that satisfies most players. There needs to be a level added that splits the base and lets you find more reasonable matches. Or som such.

But the deals and whatnot will not go away and will likely only get juicier.
Yes BGs is the whole main point here. I keep facing players with lots r5 6* while i only have 4 r4. BGs seems to me is a game mode design only for spenders.

Only 4 6r4? Are you a relatively new player? This wasn’t super competitive even before the sales.

Ultragamer

Another thing I want to point out some of you ask for balanced matchmaking there’s no such thing there will always be someone who’s roster is slightly worse or they are a worse players no matter what someone will always lose cause they worse than the person their facing so balanced matchmaking doesn’t exist cause someone will always have to be worse than the other for someone to win if you both are completely equal it would always end in a tie

Demonzfyre

Spenders will always progress faster than non-spenders. That's how they fund this business.

Someone progressing faster than you doesn't change the story or Everest challenges you have in front of you (8.2 and on, EOP, Carina's, Abyss, Gauntlet, etc).

The main pain point for non-spenders in BGs, which is something I hope Kabam addresses in a way that satisfies most players. There needs to be a level added that splits the base and lets you find more reasonable matches. Or som such.

But the deals and whatnot will not go away and will likely only get juicier.
Yes BGs is the whole main point here. I keep facing players with lots r5 6* while i only have 4 r4. BGs seems to me is a game mode design only for spenders.

Are you thinking you're playing a different track than those players?