We have a simple structural problem with this event, which is, the players with the highest ability to impact the score (long-time summoners with tens of thousands of crystals sitting around) also have the lowest incentive to participate. Because the rewards aren’t worth the trouble.
I'm not sure that is the case. Which is to say, I don't disagree that if you are an intrinsic hoarder you probably have tens of thousands of unopened crystals and little incentive to part with them given the realm event rewards.
But I believe that the average player could easily put up between 1000 and 2000 crystals within the 35 day event window without possessing any significant crystal hoards. If we call that 1500, then it would only take about 670,000 players to reach the one billion mark. We have that many players. If the players who show up on the BG solo event leaderboards opened 1500 crystals that would already be 375 million crystals just from them. If half of all players participate in BG, then that means you can account for 750 million crystals from the masses. And I suspect less than half the playerbase participates in BG, which means the masses could in theory put up even more.
The mega hoarders could be opening tens of thousands of crystals, but there are probably only tens of thousands of them maybe. If they all emptied their stashes, then they alone could account for hundreds of millions of points. But the masses with little effort can probably do even better than them collectively.
I started with no crystals hoarded in both my accounts. In a week of this event my main account is sitting at 920 crystals opened between arena, war, eq, aq and battlegrounds playing.
My alt account which focuses on aq, war, eq and some battlegrounds is at 640 crystals between the daily quests, 7 hour quests and other awards.
I say this to point out that an average player who opens everything they receive with two eqs in that 35 day window is probably on track to easily getting to 1,000 crystals on their own. If hoarders don't want to contribute, that's their choice, but you can get to that level of crystals in just about a week's time depending on content you tackle.
1. It's annoying to open thousands of crystals 10 at a time.
2. Then I have to allow items to expire or tap on thousand of items in overflow to get the gold from selling.
And for everyone waiting to say "that's a you problem". I don't disagree with you. I honestly just won't put in as much effort as I would have if they had thought about this. But if Kabam wanted more particapation so we would clear out our stashes they should have thought about how to make those 2 issues more convenient.
i agree it is challenging to open large numbers of crystals in a short period of time. But I think the people who are saying Kabam could have "done better" have this backwards. They did not try to make the event something that would encourage people to open crystals, with the intent of trying to get them to open as much as possible. Rather, they needed a test run to validate the new technology of realm events, and when you are testing something like that you need to find something that on the one hand will stress the system, but on the other hand has very low stakes in case there's a malfunction of some kind.
A crystal opening realm event is the perfect choice here. Clearly, they have already been able to stress the system to the tune of hundreds of millions of crystal openings. They have been able to validate that the realm wide point counters work (apparently - they may be verifying these in the data to make sure, because how would any of us actually know if the counters were not perfectly accurate).
Could they have made all sorts of changes to the way crystals worked and the way inventory worked to make this easier on the players? Potentially yes. But then we would be testing all of those new features on top of the realm event. What if those changes themselves failed? Then they could have completely messed up the actual realm event test, and then we would have to have had another one before any major realm event could happen.
The idea was to come up with something that could be set of with relatively little time and resources outside of the realm test itself, so all the attention could be focused on ensuring that that technology was working properly, and if it didn't work properly no player was unduly negatively impacted. This seems to be working as intended.
You’re out of your mind if you think opening 10 crystals at a time is reasonable for an event like this.
It’s stupid and keeps people from actually playing the game.
1. It's annoying to open thousands of crystals 10 at a time.
2. Then I have to allow items to expire or tap on thousand of items in overflow to get the gold from selling.
And for everyone waiting to say "that's a you problem". I don't disagree with you. I honestly just won't put in as much effort as I would have if they had thought about this. But if Kabam wanted more particapation so we would clear out our stashes they should have thought about how to make those 2 issues more convenient.
i agree it is challenging to open large numbers of crystals in a short period of time. But I think the people who are saying Kabam could have "done better" have this backwards. They did not try to make the event something that would encourage people to open crystals, with the intent of trying to get them to open as much as possible. Rather, they needed a test run to validate the new technology of realm events, and when you are testing something like that you need to find something that on the one hand will stress the system, but on the other hand has very low stakes in case there's a malfunction of some kind.
A crystal opening realm event is the perfect choice here. Clearly, they have already been able to stress the system to the tune of hundreds of millions of crystal openings. They have been able to validate that the realm wide point counters work (apparently - they may be verifying these in the data to make sure, because how would any of us actually know if the counters were not perfectly accurate).
Could they have made all sorts of changes to the way crystals worked and the way inventory worked to make this easier on the players? Potentially yes. But then we would be testing all of those new features on top of the realm event. What if those changes themselves failed? Then they could have completely messed up the actual realm event test, and then we would have to have had another one before any major realm event could happen.
The idea was to come up with something that could be set of with relatively little time and resources outside of the realm test itself, so all the attention could be focused on ensuring that that technology was working properly, and if it didn't work properly no player was unduly negatively impacted. This seems to be working as intended.
You’re out of your mind if you think opening 10 crystals at a time is reasonable for an event like this.
It’s stupid and keeps people from actually playing the game.
You could have opened 1640 crystals instead of tapping all those letters to complain about it
1. It's annoying to open thousands of crystals 10 at a time.
2. Then I have to allow items to expire or tap on thousand of items in overflow to get the gold from selling.
And for everyone waiting to say "that's a you problem". I don't disagree with you. I honestly just won't put in as much effort as I would have if they had thought about this. But if Kabam wanted more particapation so we would clear out our stashes they should have thought about how to make those 2 issues more convenient.
i agree it is challenging to open large numbers of crystals in a short period of time. But I think the people who are saying Kabam could have "done better" have this backwards. They did not try to make the event something that would encourage people to open crystals, with the intent of trying to get them to open as much as possible. Rather, they needed a test run to validate the new technology of realm events, and when you are testing something like that you need to find something that on the one hand will stress the system, but on the other hand has very low stakes in case there's a malfunction of some kind.
A crystal opening realm event is the perfect choice here. Clearly, they have already been able to stress the system to the tune of hundreds of millions of crystal openings. They have been able to validate that the realm wide point counters work (apparently - they may be verifying these in the data to make sure, because how would any of us actually know if the counters were not perfectly accurate).
Could they have made all sorts of changes to the way crystals worked and the way inventory worked to make this easier on the players? Potentially yes. But then we would be testing all of those new features on top of the realm event. What if those changes themselves failed? Then they could have completely messed up the actual realm event test, and then we would have to have had another one before any major realm event could happen.
The idea was to come up with something that could be set of with relatively little time and resources outside of the realm test itself, so all the attention could be focused on ensuring that that technology was working properly, and if it didn't work properly no player was unduly negatively impacted. This seems to be working as intended.
You’re out of your mind if you think opening 10 crystals at a time is reasonable for an event like this.
It’s stupid and keeps people from actually playing the game.
I’m out of my mind because I’m collecting data points for an online game event that involves players mindlessly tapping on a screen periodically. I don’t need additional reasons.
However, as I write this we’ve collectively opened 276,905,731 crystals and by my projections we’re likely to land around 800 million, barring a burst in activity near the end (which is possible). If we fail to reach the final milestone, it will not be because the game mechanics are any significant impediment to players opening enough crystals. A thousand crystals, which is enough to qualify for the maximum milestone, requires only averaging 30 crystals a day. There are no game client mechanics that would limit a player from opening that many. And at our original opening rate of over 13 million crystals per hour, which we were able to sustain at the start of the event, we’d blow past the final milestone in only four days.
The limits predate the event, and as I explained it would be bordering on idiotic to change them just for this one event that is unlikely to be repeated. First because that would jeopardize the test of the realm event, and second because after this event who would need those features that would cost development time and resources to implement. I’m sure everyone could come up with something more important for the devs to work on. I would bet even all the crystal hoarders opening big batches of crystals come the event would be able to come up with something more important to be working on.
Is there any chance Kabam will give us a list of all the crystals they plan on force opening? It seems like they must have such a list to be able to actually carry out the force opening so it would be nice to give us a heads up on what they are.
Is there any chance Kabam will give us a list of all the crystals they plan on force opening? It seems like they must have such a list to be able to actually carry out the force opening so it would be nice to give us a heads up on what they are.
I don’t believe they are likely to release such a list, for two reasons. First, I suspect they want to protect the integrity of the event. Which is to say, they want the decision for whether or not to open crystals to be entirely a choice made by the players. Telling people which crystals they are going to force open would essentially be telling players to open them or else.
But the other reason is that the list is itself data driven. The general rule is the crystals they tend to force open are crystals that a) players can no longer earn, so there’s no reason to keep their definitions around anymore and b) few players have, so that force opening them impacts the fewest players possible. Which crystals meet that definition will depend significantly on what happens during the realm event. In other words, there might be a crystal that would theoretically be on the list now because relatively few players have it, but after the event there are more crystals that even fewer players have and thus that crystal no longer makes the cut.
By putting the realm event out there and essentially saying “you guys decide which crystals you don’t really need to keep” the players will ultimately decide which crystals Kabam keeps around and which they decide to purge, without Kabam putting its thumb on the scales so to speak.
Do you think they still plan to force open the old AQ map crystals (I know you probably can't say for sure but just an educated guess)? I have a fair amount of those left that I'd rather not open now if I don't need to because I probably don't have the gold to utilize the rank up resources in all of them. I also have old monthly EQ cav crystals and monthly calendar hero crystals I kept for iso but it sounds like those might be prime examples of the can't earn any more of them type crystals you mentioned. I hate the force opening without knowing what they have opened concept because scrolling through all my inventory after they do it to figure out what I have expiring and need to use will be difficult (I have 89.5k crystals).
@DNA3000 I played a BG against you a couple weeks ago. You cleaned my clock, but the whole time I was omg I know this dude from (lurking) the forums. And it was awesome. Great work as always on this write up.
I started with no crystals hoarded in both my accounts. In a week of this event my main account is sitting at 920 crystals opened between arena, war, eq, aq and battlegrounds playing.
My alt account which focuses on aq, war, eq and some battlegrounds is at 640 crystals between the daily quests, 7 hour quests and other awards.
I say this to point out that an average player who opens everything they receive with two eqs in that 35 day window is probably on track to easily getting to 1,000 crystals on their own. If hoarders don't want to contribute, that's their choice, but you can get to that level of crystals in just about a week's time depending on content you tackle.
yup, exactly my point. again, I had like 50 t4cc before this started? best case. and here’s current:
mind you, I’m compulsive on Solo Events, YMMV. but a somewhat active player, over a month? 100% doable with in-game common resources, any progression level.
Do you think they still plan to force open the old AQ map crystals (I know you probably can't say for sure but just an educated guess)? I have a fair amount of those left that I'd rather not open now if I don't need to because I probably don't have the gold to utilize the rank up resources in all of them. I also have old monthly EQ cav crystals and monthly calendar hero crystals I kept for iso but it sounds like those might be prime examples of the can't earn any more of them type crystals you mentioned. I hate the force opening without knowing what they have opened concept because scrolling through all my inventory after they do it to figure out what I have expiring and need to use will be difficult (I have 89.5k crystals).
I honestly don’t know, but my plan is to open my old AQ crystals and my old Glory crystals, on the assumption there’s a decent chance they’ll be on the chopping block.
But I don’t think it’s a certainty, because it’s possible many players are still holding them and the resources they contain are inventory capped. So it’s possible the devs decide to let us hold them for a bit longer. I lean 60/40 they get opened.
I think champion crystals are more likely to be targeted, because the resources in them either don’t expire (gold, champs) or can be converted into related resources that don’t (ISO).
But for the record, I have no list of targets, nor have I asked to see one. I have at best educated guesses.
@DNA3000 I played a BG against you a couple weeks ago. You cleaned my clock, but the whole time I was omg I know this dude from (lurking) the forums. And it was awesome. Great work as always on this write up.
Is there any chance Kabam will give us a list of all the crystals they plan on force opening? It seems like they must have such a list to be able to actually carry out the force opening so it would be nice to give us a heads up on what they are.
I don’t believe they are likely to release such a list, for two reasons. First, I suspect they want to protect the integrity of the event. Which is to say, they want the decision for whether or not to open crystals to be entirely a choice made by the players. Telling people which crystals they are going to force open would essentially be telling players to open them or else.
But the other reason is that the list is itself data driven. The general rule is the crystals they tend to force open are crystals that a) players can no longer earn, so there’s no reason to keep their definitions around anymore and b) few players have, so that force opening them impacts the fewest players possible. Which crystals meet that definition will depend significantly on what happens during the realm event. In other words, there might be a crystal that would theoretically be on the list now because relatively few players have it, but after the event there are more crystals that even fewer players have and thus that crystal no longer makes the cut.
By putting the realm event out there and essentially saying “you guys decide which crystals you don’t really need to keep” the players will ultimately decide which crystals Kabam keeps around and which they decide to purge, without Kabam putting its thumb on the scales so to speak.
A general idea will still be nice. For instance, anything that requires shards... are those safe from being forced open? 7-hour crystals? t4cc crystals? I hold onto things because it'll be a complete waste to open them every time I acquire them... then NOT HAVE THEM when I do need them.
Giving us a short list of "open or else" will at least let people open them when they count DURING the event... and not screw the less fortunate over (event-wise).
Is there any chance Kabam will give us a list of all the crystals they plan on force opening? It seems like they must have such a list to be able to actually carry out the force opening so it would be nice to give us a heads up on what they are.
I don’t believe they are likely to release such a list, for two reasons. First, I suspect they want to protect the integrity of the event. Which is to say, they want the decision for whether or not to open crystals to be entirely a choice made by the players. Telling people which crystals they are going to force open would essentially be telling players to open them or else.
But the other reason is that the list is itself data driven. The general rule is the crystals they tend to force open are crystals that a) players can no longer earn, so there’s no reason to keep their definitions around anymore and b) few players have, so that force opening them impacts the fewest players possible. Which crystals meet that definition will depend significantly on what happens during the realm event. In other words, there might be a crystal that would theoretically be on the list now because relatively few players have it, but after the event there are more crystals that even fewer players have and thus that crystal no longer makes the cut.
By putting the realm event out there and essentially saying “you guys decide which crystals you don’t really need to keep” the players will ultimately decide which crystals Kabam keeps around and which they decide to purge, without Kabam putting its thumb on the scales so to speak.
A general idea will still be nice. For instance, anything that requires shards... are those safe from being forced open? 7-hour crystals? t4cc crystals? I hold onto things because it'll be a complete waste to open them every time I acquire them... then NOT HAVE THEM when I do need them.
Giving us a short list of "open or else" will at least let people open them when they count DURING the event... and not screw the less fortunate over (event-wise).
The *only* crystals Kabam ever forces open are crystals they intend to delete from the databases. To be more specific, they don't intend to delete them from our inventories, they intend to delete them from the game completely. The crystal definitions, the crystal graphics, the crystal drop odds tables, the crystal descriptions, the vault banners, everything. That's the only way in which deleting crystals helps the game: by making space for new stuff to be added to the game servers and the game client, which just keeps getting bigger.
So long as one player owns a crystal, *everyone* must have that crystals resource data in their phones, every game account has to burn database space in the back ends for that crystal, even if a hundred million game accounts just have a "zero" in that space.
[You know how people can quit the game and come back five years later and their account is still there? Every single one of those accounts, whether the player is actively playing now or not, probably has to track whether they have a crystal or not.]
They force crystals open during crystal clean ups when there's just eight dudes and Brian Grant who owns that crystal, and decide it ain't worth keeping it around anymore.
If the crystal can be earned today, or is obviously earnable in the future, it is safe. Four hour crystals are safe. Gold crystals are safe. T4CC crystals are safe. Kabam gains nothing from forcing those crystals open, because they can't purge the game of those crystals - someone is going to earn one five seconds later.
What is *potentially* on the chopping block? The Cav crystals you can only earn in the side quests, and then they go away and you can't earn them again? If they are old, they are candidates (they aren't going to purge a crystal that is still relatively new). 6* featured crystals from 2021? Potentially on the chopping block: you can earn featured 6* crystals today, but you can't earn *those specific ones* any more with those specific featured champs in it.
To be clear: I am not a Kabam employee and nothing I say should be construed as an official statement or guarantee. However, this is not the first time Kabam has done a crystal clean up purge, and the rules have always been the same. Furthermore, the *reason* why they do these is well-established. It isn't to force players to open their crystal hoards. It is to ensure that a few indefinite crystal hoarders don't clog up the entire game for everyone else.
Gotcha. Thank you. I wound up opening a bunch of stuff I DON'T use (arena boosts) + all of things I had more than I needed of (4* sig stones). Not sure if the solo crystals will stay, but I hope they do... I opened all the formed ones I had just in case. Selling over-flow stuff took hours. LOL.
On a side note, it would be nice if when items expire in the overflow get automatically converted to gold and/or whatever shards towards the higher-up tier of that catalyst. Losing things via expiration is very deflating.
As far as hero crystals go, I understand what you're saying. It's too bad Brian Grant will lose those long-saved keepsake hero crystals, but I get it's for the right reasons. Thanks again for clearing things up. Rather not convert the rest of my shards as they are all used wisely for a variety of reasons.
Gotcha. Thank you. I wound up opening a bunch of stuff I DON'T use (arena boosts) + all of things I had more than I needed of (4* sig stones). Not sure if the solo crystals will stay, but I hope they do... I opened all the formed ones I had just in case. Selling over-flow stuff took hours. LOL.
When they consolidated the various events into the Super Daily, they included 100k solo shards in there. So I am assuming all of the solo crystals are basically safe, since a) they are still purchasable, and b) since each tier targets different stuff, they aren't redundant. There are players who collect 2* champs and could still use the 2* sig stones in the tier 1 solo crystals, and since they literally sell collector crystals with rare 2* champs in them, I find it highly unlikely they would orphan the solo crystals.
Comments
My alt account which focuses on aq, war, eq and some battlegrounds is at 640 crystals between the daily quests, 7 hour quests and other awards.
I say this to point out that an average player who opens everything they receive with two eqs in that 35 day window is probably on track to easily getting to 1,000 crystals on their own. If hoarders don't want to contribute, that's their choice, but you can get to that level of crystals in just about a week's time depending on content you tackle.
It’s stupid and keeps people from actually playing the game.
You could have opened 1640 crystals instead of tapping all those letters to complain about it
You win dude.
However, as I write this we’ve collectively opened 276,905,731 crystals and by my projections we’re likely to land around 800 million, barring a burst in activity near the end (which is possible). If we fail to reach the final milestone, it will not be because the game mechanics are any significant impediment to players opening enough crystals. A thousand crystals, which is enough to qualify for the maximum milestone, requires only averaging 30 crystals a day. There are no game client mechanics that would limit a player from opening that many. And at our original opening rate of over 13 million crystals per hour, which we were able to sustain at the start of the event, we’d blow past the final milestone in only four days.
The limits predate the event, and as I explained it would be bordering on idiotic to change them just for this one event that is unlikely to be repeated. First because that would jeopardize the test of the realm event, and second because after this event who would need those features that would cost development time and resources to implement. I’m sure everyone could come up with something more important for the devs to work on. I would bet even all the crystal hoarders opening big batches of crystals come the event would be able to come up with something more important to be working on.
But the other reason is that the list is itself data driven. The general rule is the crystals they tend to force open are crystals that a) players can no longer earn, so there’s no reason to keep their definitions around anymore and b) few players have, so that force opening them impacts the fewest players possible. Which crystals meet that definition will depend significantly on what happens during the realm event. In other words, there might be a crystal that would theoretically be on the list now because relatively few players have it, but after the event there are more crystals that even fewer players have and thus that crystal no longer makes the cut.
By putting the realm event out there and essentially saying “you guys decide which crystals you don’t really need to keep” the players will ultimately decide which crystals Kabam keeps around and which they decide to purge, without Kabam putting its thumb on the scales so to speak.
/a fan
mind you, I’m compulsive on Solo Events, YMMV. but a somewhat active player, over a month? 100% doable with in-game common resources, any progression level.
But I don’t think it’s a certainty, because it’s possible many players are still holding them and the resources they contain are inventory capped. So it’s possible the devs decide to let us hold them for a bit longer. I lean 60/40 they get opened.
I think champion crystals are more likely to be targeted, because the resources in them either don’t expire (gold, champs) or can be converted into related resources that don’t (ISO).
But for the record, I have no list of targets, nor have I asked to see one. I have at best educated guesses.
Trying to do every objective milestones to get those 1000 crystals of 3rd page in Crystals tab.
Currently, openned 218 total
Giving us a short list of "open or else" will at least let people open them when they count DURING the event... and not screw the less fortunate over (event-wise).
Any help would be nice @Kabam Pinwheel
So long as one player owns a crystal, *everyone* must have that crystals resource data in their phones, every game account has to burn database space in the back ends for that crystal, even if a hundred million game accounts just have a "zero" in that space.
[You know how people can quit the game and come back five years later and their account is still there? Every single one of those accounts, whether the player is actively playing now or not, probably has to track whether they have a crystal or not.]
They force crystals open during crystal clean ups when there's just eight dudes and Brian Grant who owns that crystal, and decide it ain't worth keeping it around anymore.
If the crystal can be earned today, or is obviously earnable in the future, it is safe. Four hour crystals are safe. Gold crystals are safe. T4CC crystals are safe. Kabam gains nothing from forcing those crystals open, because they can't purge the game of those crystals - someone is going to earn one five seconds later.
What is *potentially* on the chopping block? The Cav crystals you can only earn in the side quests, and then they go away and you can't earn them again? If they are old, they are candidates (they aren't going to purge a crystal that is still relatively new). 6* featured crystals from 2021? Potentially on the chopping block: you can earn featured 6* crystals today, but you can't earn *those specific ones* any more with those specific featured champs in it.
To be clear: I am not a Kabam employee and nothing I say should be construed as an official statement or guarantee. However, this is not the first time Kabam has done a crystal clean up purge, and the rules have always been the same. Furthermore, the *reason* why they do these is well-established. It isn't to force players to open their crystal hoards. It is to ensure that a few indefinite crystal hoarders don't clog up the entire game for everyone else.
On a side note, it would be nice if when items expire in the overflow get automatically converted to gold and/or whatever shards towards the higher-up tier of that catalyst. Losing things via expiration is very deflating.
As far as hero crystals go, I understand what you're saying. It's too bad Brian Grant will lose those long-saved keepsake hero crystals, but I get it's for the right reasons. Thanks again for clearing things up. Rather not convert the rest of my shards as they are all used wisely for a variety of reasons.