Stop confusing "game economy" with "how can we milk the whales"...
There's definitely a tiered system, and the whales get the cream of the crop first. I have zero problem with that.
What I have a problem with is the rest of us still earning the same bunk "rewards" for playing harder content with beefier AI against whales with tankier champs. Take Arena for example: The whales have stronger champs (rightfully so since they paid to get them) but, in turn, it directly makes Arena more difficult across the board FOR EVERYBODY, but the rewards are the same.
Let's be real: Adding 10 or even 20 more units to the milestones won't break anything. Period.
War is another example. That goalpost has shifted so far so fast due to whales, yet the upper mid and lower upper tiers are ultimately paying the price for, yet again, largely the same bunk "rewards".
Again, let's be real: Beefing up the Loyalty Store won't break anything. Period.
Back to my original point: Milk the whales with all the new shinier hardest to aquire materials/champs. That's fine. That's business. But at the same time realize that everyone else gets stomped on and receives stale bread and a bland cup of soup for their efforts...and their tired of eating both.
The whales continue to be fed while the rest starve.
It won't break the "game's economy" if you add slightly better, more updated rewards for the lower and middle tier players. You'll still be able to milk the whales out of 6 digits, but at the same time everyone else wll get to broaden their roster a little faster.
Admit it: The whales and top tier players have launched into a different galaxy at this point, and the rest of us are still stuck here on Earth. We're not asking to catch up to them, but it would be nice to at least get to Mars...
Before I provide an update, I just want to say that players tend to look at the game economy different than we do. We look at it holistically - are players who are engaged in the game progressing? The answer right now is definitely yes. Think about your own accounts compared to a year ago. If you play the game regularly I guaranteed you have made substantial progress, regardless of how much you are spending.
A larger portion of rewards have been focused on events this year. We do this because we see a clear signal that it drives more player engagement than focusing those rewards into our regular modes. That doesn't mean they will never be updated, but it does mean more of the baseline reward budget is going to come from special events and things like the Daily Super Event.
With that said, here are some specific updates:
Loyalty Store - I have said elsewhere that it will not be updated. Introduction materials into the Loyalty store did not increase engagement in AW. The purpose of Loyalty moving forward will be to purchase AW consumables and maybe access the Loyalty 7-Star crystal (I say maybe because right now I am thinking about AW rewards structure changes and I think we might deprecate that system as well). Eventually we will probably remove the rank up materials etc. in the store.
Glory Store - This is the next store up for an update, should not be too long.
Battlegrounds - Battlegrounds as a whole remains one of the most rewarding modes in the game. We will continue to stagger reward updates to the different channels. I will say that a good portion of the GC rewards budget is in Trophy Tokens, so I don't agree with this take that it's been a year since GC rewards were updated. Updates to the BG store are also updates to GC rewards.
EQ and SQ - Rewards are fine for the level difficulty. We have some large changes planned for these modes we are working on that will help us scale both difficulty and rewards in the future.
Arenas - I said in a different thread, you don't want us to update Arenas. It would almost certainly result in lower Unit yields per time spent than the current tuning.
Solo Shards - I see this one a lot, solo shards are a deprecated currency for end game players. The crystals will not be updated. Why are there solo shards in the Daily Super Event then? Because when we took them out the CCP asked us to put them back in. But I'll just state it plainly, they are not an end-game currency and never will be.
I think that's what I can provide updates on right now, but for those calling for dramatic updates across the game, ask yourselves: do you really want the game's economy to be moving faster than it currently is? Do you want the 7-star lifecycle to be cut shorter, for us to introduce new ranks sooner? Because that would be the result of us updating every mode in the game to include end game rewards.
I very much appreciate the Crashed response—it’s good to have a definitive statement on something like this even if it isn’t what many want to hear. I may not love it, but it’s something concrete upon which I can premise future roster & resource management decisions.
The only quibble I have is the lack of comment on the Sigil. It’s become an inventory management tool for me more than anything else, but I think most would welcome even a slight uptick in items more suitable to Valiants new and old.
If they took the rest of the year off on champ releases and fixed the damned game, it would likely make them much more in the long run.
For the 1000000000th time. That's not how game dev works
Do you work for Kabam? Is that you trying to clown on me Mr. Diggety?
If they did what you are suggesting, the developers would not be working for Kabam either.
By fix the game I meant actual game bugs. The stores being trash isn’t too big of a deal for me. I understand why they are mega-low priority.
I just don’t try to gaslight other posters with attempts to logically handwave the issue. They need to make revenue and that’s fine.
New champ releases are the engine that powers this game. The entire game monetization foundation is built upon it. Not only that, new champ releases are one of the few ways in which this ten year old game can compete with the upstarts. If they were to stop releasing new champs, that would be blood in the water. The game would smell like it was going into maintenance mode. And once you give people that impression, it can be virtually impossible to reverse it.
I'm not saying bugs don't hurt, but for bugs to hurt the game, someone actually has to play the game to experience them. The biggest problem a ten year old game faces is getting people to pick it up in the first place. If the new shinys stop coming out, we stop getting new players. And all the old players come from the new players. All the spenders come from the free to play revolving door.
The Kabam devs knows this, and would never risk tampering with this process. Kabam management also knows this, and would never let the devs risk this. Netmarble also knows this, and would probably never allow Kabam itself to tamper with this process.
I agree that new champs power the engine… but more specifically its new attackers that are enjoyable to use and easy to understand. Not this middling year of complexity and cancerous defenders.
In the short term, sure. But in the long term, if those new enjoyable attackers don’t have something noteworthy to flex on, eventually those new enjoyable attackers will become stale and boring, because once the current enjoyable attackers have nothing that challenges them the new ones won’t have anything to do.
Nobody wants to face particularly tough defenders, nobody wants to see their current skill set made moot and nobody wants to be missing the best options. But that’s what this game is: it is an open ended lifecycle game as a service that has to keep creating the challenges that the next set of champions and rank ups are going to deal with.
Do they always get the balance right? Of course not. Balancing the strength of defenders and attackers is not just a numbers game, it is a people game. What makes defenders hard and attackers great is what the player base does with them. That’s inherently unpredictable. There’s no way to predict how fast and how well a million people will learn to fight a new champ. We enjoy the fat and happy days of powerful attackers and push over defenders, but that is unsustainable. We need the dark days of nightmare defenders and hair pulling content to make us appreciate the next set of new shiny attackers.
Once upon a time, the devs were not making difficult defenders to drive the sales of new champs. They just upped the prestige of them to force people to chase champs they didn’t even ever use. Less stressful, sure, but also more pointless. For all the revives I have to farm, I still prefer this way better.
I didn’t say tough, and that’s because it is not that they are tough. It’s that they are malignant cancers. There isn’t a fun mini game, there isn’t a skill that I could learn to defeat the them. There are just mechanics that essentially force me to block and watch their insanely long and punishing special animations. Unless I have a counter, that’s it.
We have plenty of tough defenders that are designed like a puzzle to solve, that reward players for executing the right actions and I agree we need those to keep the game intriguing. But we don’t need designs like Serpent and Bullseye. Hard counters may come… but I don’t think that it will be exciting when they do. It’ll be too little too late.
The reason why exciting attackers matter, is that’s when we as players are getting to actually play with the new shiny and glow over how much fun it is, it really is that simple.
You’re 1000% spot on @Emilia90 I’ve been wondering about the lack of updates to everything you mentioned, plus with the poor champ design of all the recent miserable defensive champs and horrible decision making with regard to compensation for the recent Raid event debacle, and thinking are they trying to kill the game and get us to stop playing?? I know that couldn’t be the case bc it just doesn’t make sense really, right?? I don’t get the design team’s focus for almost the entire year in making defense-first or defense-only champs. We all play this game because we like to use the champs and fight with them. Most of these new defensive champs are one dimensional with little use using in fights on attack, and they really suck to fight against. So where’s the fun in that??
There has been one boycott that was successful. The "shut down the game and fix-it" boycott. They did end up shutting down the game for 3 days. After that, they have made sure we can't organize such a thing ever again. By adding more moderators and killing any thread that suggested it immediately they have prevented such a thing. By having the shills attack the summoner who posted and then removing the thread they have kept the community under control.
There has been one boycott that was successful. The "shut down the game and fix-it" boycott. They did end up shutting down the game for 3 days. After that, they have made sure we can't organize such a thing ever again. By adding more moderators and killing any thread that suggested it immediately they have prevented such a thing. By having the shills attack the summoner who posted and then removing the thread they have kept the community under control.
Everything you just said is completely wrong. Amazing.
Just so you all know the best way to get results is by working together and that best way is kinda like a strike of sorts. Take off the game a week or two see how they respond when they are getting zero income from the player base. Just saying unity is a powerful thing. I usually get banned from forums for my posts bc they know how much damage it can do. They obviously don't care about what you guys or gals say and nothing gets done so see how my method works (trust me on this)!!
Never in the history of MCOC has any sort of boycott worked.
If you want to be ridiculously and extremely pedantic, then sure, you're kind of correct. However, in the realm of the sane, you are incorrect.
In the realm of the objectively sane, no boycott in the history of the game has ever accomplished any of its primary stated goals.
Someone mentioned Seatin's video, which I assume is the circa Act 7 beta one. While yes, that video was a contributing impetus towards change (I tend to get a lot of credit for that as well), you can't argue that was a boycott that accomplished its stated goals. For one thing, if we credit every player who says they are going to stop spending until a particular change happens as having staged a successful boycott, then in the history of the game there's probably been several hundred thousand successful boycotts. But that's not what a boycott actually is. For another thing, Seatin didn't exactly get what he was asking for (and neither did I, exactly, either). Seatin's video talked about burnout, of which there was a number of contributing factors. I was talking about the difficulty curve in Act 6, and how it needed to be addressed structurally. In point of fact, the largest change made in that time frame was Kabam rolling out their "RPG-like" design philosophy, which affected both concerns from a sideways perspective.
The biggest "successful" boycott people point to is the 12.0 boycott. That one at least was organized (to a degree), included a large number of spenders, and had explicitly stated goals. Unfortunately, because those goals were explicitly stated, we can also score its success based on how many of them they got.
They got none of them.
Am I being hyperbolic? Not at all. Those stated goals included reversing the nerfs on the largest nerfed champs at the time (SW, Thor, DS) none of which were (and in the case of Thor, couldn't have been with the changed mechanics), eliminating DR (which obviously wasn't done), eliminating CR (which was reduced in scale, but not eliminated), and a bunch of other stuff they didn't get either. The *proof* that they didn't get what they wanted is the fact that after 12.0.1 and 12.1 were released they continued their stated boycott specifically because they didn't get what they wanted. It is just that eventually everyone else kinda forgot about them.
At best, you can say that mass protest (to include boycotts) have caused Kabam to react and respond to them. However, rarely if ever do they actually get what they are asking for, usually because they are either asking for the literally impossible (reversing Thor's 12.0 nerf, decoupling CR from Parry mechanics) or because what they are asking for is impractical. Because protesters aren't game designers.
Just so you all know the best way to get results is by working together and that best way is kinda like a strike of sorts. Take off the game a week or two see how they respond when they are getting zero income from the player base. Just saying unity is a powerful thing. I usually get banned from forums for my posts bc they know how much damage it can do. They obviously don't care about what you guys or gals say and nothing gets done so see how my method works (trust me on this)!!
Never in the history of MCOC has any sort of boycott worked.
If you want to be ridiculously and extremely pedantic, then sure, you're kind of correct. However, in the realm of the sane, you are incorrect.
In the realm of the objectively sane, no boycott in the history of the game has ever accomplished any of its primary stated goals.
Someone mentioned Seatin's video, which I assume is the circa Act 7 beta one. While yes, that video was a contributing impetus towards change (I tend to get a lot of credit for that as well), you can't argue that was a boycott that accomplished its stated goals. For one thing, if we credit every player who says they are going to stop spending until a particular change happens as having staged a successful boycott, then in the history of the game there's probably been several hundred thousand successful boycotts. But that's not what a boycott actually is. For another thing, Seatin didn't exactly get what he was asking for (and neither did I, exactly, either). Seatin's video talked about burnout, of which there was a number of contributing factors. I was talking about the difficulty curve in Act 6, and how it needed to be addressed structurally. In point of fact, the largest change made in that time frame was Kabam rolling out their "RPG-like" design philosophy, which affected both concerns from a sideways perspective.
The biggest "successful" boycott people point to is the 12.0 boycott. That one at least was organized (to a degree), included a large number of spenders, and had explicitly stated goals. Unfortunately, because those goals were explicitly stated, we can also score its success based on how many of them they got.
They got none of them.
Am I being hyperbolic? Not at all. Those stated goals included reversing the nerfs on the largest nerfed champs at the time (SW, Thor, DS) none of which were (and in the case of Thor, couldn't have been with the changed mechanics), eliminating DR (which obviously wasn't done), eliminating CR (which was reduced in scale, but not eliminated), and a bunch of other stuff they didn't get either. The *proof* that they didn't get what they wanted is the fact that after 12.0.1 and 12.1 were released they continued their stated boycott specifically because they didn't get what they wanted. It is just that eventually everyone else kinda forgot about them.
At best, you can say that mass protest (to include boycotts) have caused Kabam to react and respond to them. However, rarely if ever do they actually get what they are asking for, usually because they are either asking for the literally impossible (reversing Thor's 12.0 nerf, decoupling CR from Parry mechanics) or because what they are asking for is impractical. Because protesters aren't game designers.
Of course it’s about you! 😂 And all your wonderful influence. You are the voice of change. When anyone thinks of change it’s the mighty dna with all your antiestablishment comments that are never ever in support of the obvious money driven decisions
You are a distraction. Picking one thing out of a giant list of complaints and everyone getting sidetracked arguing your nonsensical points and ridiculous conclusions.
What would really be helpful is, if just once you and your fellow apologists would allow the rest of the player base to use its voice. Rather than you regurgitating the same dribble you always do inspite of clear evidence that Kabam is a business and their decisions are based on profit and loss like any company.
Do you ever notice what they choose to address vs what they don’t? Maybe you should celebrate all the “glorious” interface changes. Funny how they can make superficial changes constantly that no one asks for and no cares about rather than purposefully directing resources towards gameplay or other customer satisfaction driven changes.
It’s a joke that you and others are so attached to this game that your identity is tied to it. I get it’s your whole life since you have endless time to dump on anyone and everyones very real issues with the game
But why on earth would you not want the game to run better? You get a cut of ask the resources spent? Are you just that nosey, intrusive or is it a need to feel important? What drives your inner Karen? What makes you so arrogant and argumentative about something you’re not involved in? Why can’t people ever express disappointment, confusion or even outrage without you jumping in and taking away from every important discussion with your distraction through debate?
And for the record @kabam crashed didn’t actually update anything or provide any real information. Just his own opinions about the state of the game and our collective whining. He just outlined arguments against change and spun the conversation towards player progression while avoiding Game performance Ai reaction Playable content At least in any meaningful way.
Why? Because it’s a business. Money and time are of value Not customer satisfaction or an enjoyable experience. Customer satisfaction is only important to businesses that actually has to interact with their customers and don’t have millions of them without the ability to communicate directly. There is no real threat of financial loss or lack of interest.
I feel like there’s a fundamental disconnect in what Kabam and I consider high value rewards, especially for BG
Never once in my post did I say I wanted the economy to speed up and that I wanted every store to have the highest end rewards. Why can’t they tune down the cost of t6cc since it’s so much more available now? Why can’t they lower the cost of relic shards and increase the cap? Are you telling me that having more 5* relics to purchase will break the game economy? Reduce some of the costs and increase the caps on certain items. 7* shards aren’t worth as much as they once were, another thing that could have a lowered cost
For the ranked rewards, 6k 7* shards for placing in Quantum 1 is a joke. You also only get like 1k 6* relic shards. Is that all the game economy can spare? If you’re telling me some resources that can be spared and should be increased for the level of effort can’t be changed, I’m calling bs
you say you don't want an accelerated economy but you're asking for cheaper t6cc, more 5*s relics, and a lowered cost of 7* shards "since they aren't worth as much". you're asking for acceleration lol
Please tell me how more access to 5* relics and slightly cheapened 7* shards would negatively effect the economy. I’d love to hear how having access to more r5’s and r2’s would kill the momentum they have now and make the lifespan of a 7* lower. I’m not asking for the big r3 materials to be cheapened or for them to bring r4 materials in. We’ve already seen how much 7* and T6CC shards have plummeted in value and their cost is way too high for the current state of the economy
Giving VALIANTS (endgame players) access to more r5 or r2 champs isn’t going to kill the game nor is it unhealthy. What are they going to do with relics? They’ve been paused. Is it going to kill them to include more relic shards? The current valiant store still thinks that T5CC is worth like 1600 trophy tokens which is a joke
asking for more r5s and r2s accelerates more players up the chain which means they need a new title faster which means quicker t7b and accelerating more players to valiant which also means more t4a.
more 5* relics will have the same effect. more 5*s relics means faster 5* saturation means accelerating 6*s and eventually putting out whatever's next.
everything is linked and simple sounding changes have secondary effects.
more r5/r2 is not moving anyone up the chain since the level required to move up to valiant is r3 7 stars, doesn't matter if you have 100 r5 or 1 as long as you're a valiant you are a valiant.
giving more r5 options is good because then people can rank up whoever they want when they want not necessarily saving for the best option (if you're not in a case to rank up champs as easily as they come) and more players can widen the option in their rosters.
and for relics as long as they are no new relics soon it's not a chase objective but a luxury to have, if you have all the relic doesn't mean anything different to not having half of them
with more r5s/r2s, player progression in those areas will be fast tracked and they will move up in titles and they will suddenly reach content that is ahead of their skillset, even though their roster is better, and they will complain and get frustrated and it will open up a giant can of worms.
and they will complain that deals aren't really targeting their roster progression that well because it's offering resources that can't really use (they'd rather gets 6* materials instead of 7* stuff)
and i'm sure DNA can explain this but kabam can't have tons of players hanging around in similar pools, they need separation so they need to come up with another title that starts with the whales first then it trickles down to everyone else, which means fast tracking the highest end resources for the new title......which means speeding up the entire game and then we're right back to square one where everyone cries about 8*s.
kabam isn't cheating us if every square inch of the game isn't spotless and updated to 2024 levels. they have a planned economy and are sticking to that, just because a few areas are old doesn't mean we're getting slighted and the game is "no longer fun".
also keep in mind that buffing stores usually (probably?) happen a bit after the big deals (otherwise the deals wouldn't look enticing), so they're waiting on the economy to change before doing anything like that.
A lot of things you just said aren't completely true. It's not true they aren't increasing the r5 and r2 catalysts because that would help too much players not worth it lol, if there are valiant players who still care a lot about 6 stars it's mainly because they don't have the champs they need as 7 stars and that's because 7 stars are still hard to get and it's way too early to get a new title, but they can't leave everything as it is until a new title appears cause the economy isn't stale, we saw an increase in rewards in Summer of Suffering compared to Spring of Sorrows for example.
I understand they can't just give too many r2 materials away but honestly outside bg store you get very very few amounts of t6cc and if you don't push too much in bg then you get really behind, those catalysts should be more spread out, like in the glory store. AQ rewards and glory store (outside of raids, which honestly with the random chests can't be considered too much on how they impact the economy) haven't been updated for more than a year, since way before the valiant title appeared and saying they're outdated isn't even giving justice to them, those things are bad even for a paragon player. Instead of focusing on having all the good rewards in bg or war or special events they could have spread them out more using also AQ and the glory store. Last time they buffed the glory store was a couple of months after july 4th in 2023, then after last banquet event it wasn't touched and after all this year's sales wasn't touched, I know crashed said it's the next to be updated but it's already too late and it probably won't even happen anytime close since it looks like for kabam now raids completely overshadowed everything else AQ related, which is wrong imo since we still have those stupid random chests we can't even control. And yes the economy changed and a lot compared to the last glory store buff, but due to raids they just decided to ignore it and hope the players will forget the glory store exists since the glory is used to buy raid tickets.
Then I don't even remember the last time they changed the eq and sq to be even somewhat interesting for the players, I remember the good old times when we actually were looking forward to the monthly content to have something enjoyable and useful, right now it's not useful and it's not enjoyable, I don't even know why they keep wasting time to design something a bit different every month, they really need to revamp the whole monthly events to create something which players look forward to and create more engagement since right now no one even cares about it
Stop confusing "game economy" with "how can we milk the whales"...
There's definitely a tiered system, and the whales get the cream of the crop first. I have zero problem with that.
What I have a problem with is the rest of us still earning the same bunk "rewards" for playing harder content with beefier AI against whales with tankier champs. Take Arena for example: The whales have stronger champs (rightfully so since they paid to get them) but, in turn, it directly makes Arena more difficult across the board FOR EVERYBODY, but the rewards are the same.
Let's be real: Adding 10 or even 20 more units to the milestones won't break anything. Period.
War is another example. That goalpost has shifted so far so fast due to whales, yet the upper mid and lower upper tiers are ultimately paying the price for, yet again, largely the same bunk "rewards".
Again, let's be real: Beefing up the Loyalty Store won't break anything. Period.
Back to my original point: Milk the whales with all the new shinier hardest to aquire materials/champs. That's fine. That's business. But at the same time realize that everyone else gets stomped on and receives stale bread and a bland cup of soup for their efforts...and their tired of eating both.
The whales continue to be fed while the rest starve.
It won't break the "game's economy" if you add slightly better, more updated rewards for the lower and middle tier players. You'll still be able to milk the whales out of 6 digits, but at the same time everyone else wll get to broaden their roster a little faster.
Admit it: The whales and top tier players have launched into a different galaxy at this point, and the rest of us are still stuck here on Earth. We're not asking to catch up to them, but it would be nice to at least get to Mars...
so only 1 update this entire year, while we have had multiple saga sales and sales in the year, it doesn't make sense
Let me preface this by saying that I really like this game. Still love lots of it, always will, but it’s getting absurd how outdated everything is getting, along with the AI steadily becoming worse and worse
***redacted due to length of quote***
TLDR;
Every store is out of date (loyalty, glory, battlegrounds). Solo events are out of date. Ally events are out of date. Most content is boring and bland and a lot of people are tired of it
The new content we get like SoS and act content + Necro are great imo and the best it’s ever been, but that gets ruined by the bad AI too. Buff team and champ animations are still peak and everything but new champ design is boring. Stop taking so long to update stuff
Agree 99% - you left out AW solo milestones. Top prize after 4 weeks of fighting...2,500 6* shards...
I want to add the Sigil Store/Black ISO Market to this. That's something that we actually PAY money to access. This should HANDS DOWN be updated on a regular basis. And the reset time needs to be drastically reduced. It's almost painful how long it takes to purchase some of the items again. With the addition of 7*'s and the direction that the game is going in, It should no longer take a month for large health potions to be available again. They're becoming outdated anyway.
Cant understand why sigil dosnt get updated myself - paying for that - either the milestones or the actual items in store. Something needs updating at least every 3 months to match the meta!
Arenas - I said in a different thread, you don't want us to update Arenas. It would almost certainly result in lower Unit yields per time spent than the current tuning.
While I appreciate the answer here, I wholeheartedly disagree with this line of thinking.
Why? As it stands, even if you complete EVERY milestone in every arena each week, you're only looking at about 1000 units a week (plus Battlechips, but we all know how that goes), which is a hefty amount admittedly, but it requires you to spend a couple hours doing nothing but arena. Players already say the grind isn't worth it, so not many players will do this week to week like clockwork. And unless people grind THOUSANDS of units, the only thing they can use it for are crystals the occasional revive deal, or individual Revives as needed.
Dont get me wrong, I understand it's a premium currency being given out only for time spent, but considering how low the yield is (considering again how most players don't consider arena to be worth their time), it seems weird to say "Okay, we'll give you some more rewards, but in return, we're going to remove some of the biggest reason people do this mode in the first place". Really just seems like a punishment for wanting better rewards. Either than, or they already regret being generous with units, and they're maintaining low rewards to compensate, which also seems not great.
I wonder if they don’t want to update stores for 2 reasons.
1) Players will progress too fast with more appropriate and relevant up materials that they get from all different types of game modes, most of which are easy. Obviously they don’t want us progressing this way.
2) They want to keep all the desired resources behind a pay wall and as rewards for Everest content. If we could get similar materials from content like AQ, why bother with harder Everest content that most people spend or drain their resources to complete?
—
I don’t agree with either of those reasons, but it’s what I believe is going on at this point in regards to all the various completely outdated stores.
The problem I feel is that they introduced stuff like 7* Rank 3 way too fast. And now they are trying to slow it down outside of when they want to give us Rank 3 materials. They also don’t want every 7* we have easily sitting at Rank 2.
Made a thread on this when it happened - though I got my first few 7r3 and was valiant after the first month by exploring necro and getting one from Cyber weekend. I really believe and still do that 7* rank progressions were too quick.
We are now at a point where they have to release undertuned champs and dial up content to create an artificial pause which could have been planned by not jumping up 3 ranks so quickly. Regardless of whether 7stars have an extra top rank compared to 6 stars, just slowing everything down from the start would have made the chase feel better. We have jumped 3 ranks in half the time it took to do the same with 6 stars.
Good points, but, what I see in Forums, is that the majority are free to play Summoners criticizing a game where the Summoners that pay for new champs and upgrades keep the game for everyone.
And Kabam have the time to reply even to the FTP summoners, but why?
They created the Forums ,so us could do the "job" to see bugs, tell them what is good or bad and even do tips for the game.
But they see the game with another vision, simple, to have more people interested in so many events and quests, and in economical(money) terms to keep big accounts interested to keep paying and lower accounts to pay a few bucks to complete a quest and may progress in the game.
So, they can keep the game up for more years.
At the end, they would do changes only if their data shows they need, not only by a lot of summoners on a thread will change their mind....
Just remember Serpent (never will be rebalanced) thread 👍
There has been one boycott that was successful. The "shut down the game and fix-it" boycott. They did end up shutting down the game for 3 days. After that, they have made sure we can't organize such a thing ever again. By adding more moderators and killing any thread that suggested it immediately they have prevented such a thing. By having the shills attack the summoner who posted and then removing the thread they have kept the community under control.
We don't have Seatin anymore. He's the one that got that to happen.
I personally won't spend a dime on this game until they fix the game from crashing as frequently as it does on top of the slew of other issues already mentioned here.
Before I provide an update, I just want to say that players tend to look at the game economy different than we do. We look at it holistically - are players who are engaged in the game progressing? The answer right now is definitely yes. Think about your own accounts compared to a year ago. If you play the game regularly I guaranteed you have made substantial progress, regardless of how much you are spending.
A larger portion of rewards have been focused on events this year. We do this because we see a clear signal that it drives more player engagement than focusing those rewards into our regular modes. That doesn't mean they will never be updated, but it does mean more of the baseline reward budget is going to come from special events and things like the Daily Super Event.
Arenas - I said in a different thread, you don't want us to update Arenas. It would almost certainly result in lower Unit yields per time spent than the current tuning.
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Hey Crashed. Thanks as always for the info. Can I ask for one clarification though? You mention you don’t think an economy change in arenas would ultimately benefit the players and I certainly understand your point for the ones Monday to Saturday. However, would it be possible to tweak just Sunday and maybe throw in som 6* shards or a couple units. I can imagine that would be game breaking
throwing units in the sunday arenas would cause the same problem. they would remove them from other areas of the game and we’d have to do more work for the same stuff.
arenas shouldn’t be touched because it’ll be worse off for everyone and that’s guaranteed…
Arena itself is tedious to get those units (this is coming from someone that maxes the milestones). Wouldn't you rather have them be put in other game modes? There's nothing as grindy and tedious as arena
EQ and SQ - Rewards are fine for the level difficulty. We have some large changes planned for these modes we are working on that will help us scale both difficulty and rewards in the future.
Problem with this specifically is you guys increased the difficulty level across all eq not too long ago because you said people's rosters are larger, WITHOUT increasing rewards. It's why my 6* r4 champs can't even autofight the third lowest difficulty in EQ 3.1 without all dying. So right now the difficulty level doesn't match the rewards.
Here you're saying you're going to increase rewards and also difficulty, which means the rewards still won't be worth it. Since the last eq updates you basically will have increased difficulty twice and rewards once. Either increase rewards without increasing difficulty, or keep rewards the same and decrease difficulty. Until then the rewards will not be worth the effort.
EQ and SQ - Rewards are fine for the level difficulty. We have some large changes planned for these modes we are working on that will help us scale both difficulty and rewards in the future.
Problem with this specifically is you guys increased the difficulty level across all eq not too long ago because you said people's rosters are larger, WITHOUT increasing rewards. It's why my 6* r4 champs can't even autofight the third lowest difficulty in EQ 3.1 without all dying. So right now the difficulty level doesn't match the rewards.
Here you're saying you're going to increase rewards and also difficulty, which means the rewards still won't be worth it. Since the last eq updates you basically will have increased difficulty twice and rewards once. Either increase rewards without increasing difficulty, or keep rewards the same and decrease difficulty. Until then the rewards will not be worth the effort.
Paragon gauntlet was a nice addition at the time but 3k shards for that and all of EQ exploration doesn't match the effort imo. Think the eq's need a slight bump in rewards individually.
Then any future EQ difficulty changes can warrant more rewards. But as of rn, the rewards are outdated from majority opinion.
Quick comparison that came to mind, we can get the number of 7* shards that EQ/Gauntlet gives for the entire month, in only 3 weeks of the traders outpost store itself (and even less time if you include the 7* shards on the SQ paths). So if you factor that in to, you get 4 runs per week with each giving 500 7* shards.
So in the 1st week of SQ you already get the same amount of 7* shards that the EQ gives. But compare the amount of effort it takes to do 4 runs of the side quest and buying from the traders outpost to the effort for exploring EQ.
If they cant update the rewards for the EQ exploration itself, then it would make sense to have Gauntlet locked behind Completion instead of Exploration
Don't get me started on how they took FOREVER to update solo crystals that people hoarded now we are just stuck with these garbage iso and gold crystals
Also the paragon gauntlet shouldn't be locked away behind exploration. Put it behind completion and you'll see more engagement. Valiants don't have trouble with TB content. It's just not worth the time and energy spent on it.
Before I provide an update, I just want to say that players tend to look at the game economy different than we do. We look at it holistically - are players who are engaged in the game progressing? The answer right now is definitely yes. Think about your own accounts compared to a year ago. If you play the game regularly I guaranteed you have made substantial progress, regardless of how much you are spending.
A larger portion of rewards have been focused on events this year. We do this because we see a clear signal that it drives more player engagement than focusing those rewards into our regular modes. That doesn't mean they will never be updated, but it does mean more of the baseline reward budget is going to come from special events and things like the Daily Super Event.
With that said, here are some specific updates:
Loyalty Store - I have said elsewhere that it will not be updated. Introduction materials into the Loyalty store did not increase engagement in AW. The purpose of Loyalty moving forward will be to purchase AW consumables and maybe access the Loyalty 7-Star crystal (I say maybe because right now I am thinking about AW rewards structure changes and I think we might deprecate that system as well). Eventually we will probably remove the rank up materials etc. in the store.
Glory Store - This is the next store up for an update, should not be too long.
Battlegrounds - Battlegrounds as a whole remains one of the most rewarding modes in the game. We will continue to stagger reward updates to the different channels. I will say that a good portion of the GC rewards budget is in Trophy Tokens, so I don't agree with this take that it's been a year since GC rewards were updated. Updates to the BG store are also updates to GC rewards.
EQ and SQ - Rewards are fine for the level difficulty. We have some large changes planned for these modes we are working on that will help us scale both difficulty and rewards in the future.
Arenas - I said in a different thread, you don't want us to update Arenas. It would almost certainly result in lower Unit yields per time spent than the current tuning.
Solo Shards - I see this one a lot, solo shards are a deprecated currency for end game players. The crystals will not be updated. Why are there solo shards in the Daily Super Event then? Because when we took them out the CCP asked us to put them back in. But I'll just state it plainly, they are not an end-game currency and never will be.
I think that's what I can provide updates on right now, but for those calling for dramatic updates across the game, ask yourselves: do you really want the game's economy to be moving faster than it currently is? Do you want the 7-star lifecycle to be cut shorter, for us to introduce new ranks sooner? Because that would be the result of us updating every mode in the game to include end game rewards.
“ do you really want the game's economy to be moving faster than it currently is? Do you want the 7-star lifecycle to be cut shorter, for us to introduce new ranks sooner?”
At the same time, you can purchase this 4 times 🤦🏻♂️
Make it make sense at least; that’s a terrible explanation.
And for the record @kabam crashed didn’t actually update anything or provide any real information. Just his own opinions about the state of the game and our collective whining.
If you don't understand how closely entwined Crashed's opinions and Kabam's official position are, then you haven't been paying attention. Maybe you should...
Let me preface this by saying that I really like this game. Still love lots of it, always will, but it’s getting absurd how outdated everything is getting, along with the AI steadily becoming worse and worse
Loyalty Store
To start, every store is out of date. Is it really that hard to revise this regularly so people have an incentive to keep playing? Do we have to beg Kabam and then praise them when the update comes 50 years later? The loyalty store is absolute trash for any tier of progression other than the crystal, the rewards haven’t been updated in ages and it costs a valiant like 600k loyalty for a 6* AG that they hand out every month. Why not update the values at least? There’s no incentive for pretty much anything here, except for occasionally getting raid tickets for rng rewards (yay so fun)
Glory Store
People have been asking for months at this point. Glory store sucks, especially for valiants. The fact that we still have to pay an increased price per item is crazy for the low level of value we get out of anything here. Relic items are the only things I get here and it’s still too costly for how much you get. Not much to say here, they’ve been out of date for months
Battlegrounds
Oh boy. I actually love BG but the level of time and effort isn’t matching the rewards. Grinding your butt off barely gets you anything compared to other game modes these days. Have y’all seen the solo and ally rewards? Absolutely a joke for how much time and points you need. GC rewards are mediocre af (6k shards for placing in Quantum seriously). I know someone is about to mention the realm event, but there should be a more permanent addition. I’m tired of them bringing in small bonus rewards every couple seasons only to shift away from them and keep the same mediocre rewards the next season. The store values and caps should’ve also been updated a long time ago and valiants should have access to more than what we have now
War and AQ are barely worth it for 90% of players. War takes a whole month and unless you’re at the very top, you barely get anything out of it. AQ is similar because the glory store is still bad but I guess the other rewards are alright
Some smaller things that I know they’ll never touch but should’ve been updated a long time ago: Summoner Advancement, Sunday Arenas
SQ and EQ
We got recent confirmation that they’re “working on an update to this” but we can all agree that it’s way way past the time they should’ve done it right? They always update the difficulty a million years later when everyone is already long been tired of the content, and then we’re supposed to be happy lmao. SQ isn’t bad rewards wise, they have some cool stuff in there recently for the effort. The format is stale but it’s ok for now, but EQ is such a slog. TB rewards are awful and we need to 100% it every month just to do the paragon gauntlet, which has mediocre rewards too. I’m fine with the paragon gauntlet but I feel like the restrictions should’ve been removed for valiants a long time ago because TB eq sucks plain and simple. I’ve never been so bored playing the game before
Recent Champ Design
This has been a big topic of debate. I kinda understand what Kabam is doing now, but I feel like it’s too late and too little at this point. Essentially, 90% of 2024 champs are disappointing. Most are undertuned and niche and barely keep up with the amazing batch we got last year. I get it now though, 7* r3’s are the new norm and they’re gimping most new champs heavily to try and scale back the power creep. The thing is, when a 6* CGR or Juggs or Hulkling outdamages all your 7* r3 2024 champs, why would you think that people want to use them? Y’all overtuned a bunch of champs and trying to retract it by gimping every new champ isn’t going to work lmao. I can see them keeping it the same and eventually introducing 7* r4+ soon so the 6* can no longer punch up that high. The thing is, champs like Hulk, Juggs, Silk, Adam, etc that hit like trucks still exist as 7*, so my question is why? Why take such a step back in champs while still releasing annoying defenders. I do enjoy champs like WT, Prowler, BRB, and Dust but most of them have been so mid.
TLDR;
Every store is out of date (loyalty, glory, battlegrounds). Solo events are out of date. Ally events are out of date. Most content is boring and bland and a lot of people are tired of it
The new content we get like SoS and act content + Necro are great imo and the best it’s ever been, but that gets ruined by the bad AI too. Buff team and champ animations are still peak and everything but new champ design is boring. Stop taking so long to update stuff
Loving your post! wanted to do this myself but was bored as heck so didn't do it. Thanks again for taking the time to write this up. Completely agreed to everything you said. All stores need to be revised and updated right away. Stores gotta be updated and buffed at least every 6 months to stay relevant.
Stop confusing "game economy" with "how can we milk the whales"...
There's definitely a tiered system, and the whales get the cream of the crop first. I have zero problem with that.
What I have a problem with is the rest of us still earning the same bunk "rewards" for playing harder content with beefier AI against whales with tankier champs. Take Arena for example: The whales have stronger champs (rightfully so since they paid to get them) but, in turn, it directly makes Arena more difficult across the board FOR EVERYBODY, but the rewards are the same.
Let's be real: Adding 10 or even 20 more units to the milestones won't break anything. Period.
War is another example. That goalpost has shifted so far so fast due to whales, yet the upper mid and lower upper tiers are ultimately paying the price for, yet again, largely the same bunk "rewards".
Again, let's be real: Beefing up the Loyalty Store won't break anything. Period.
Back to my original point: Milk the whales with all the new shinier hardest to aquire materials/champs. That's fine. That's business. But at the same time realize that everyone else gets stomped on and receives stale bread and a bland cup of soup for their efforts...and their tired of eating both.
The whales continue to be fed while the rest starve.
It won't break the "game's economy" if you add slightly better, more updated rewards for the lower and middle tier players. You'll still be able to milk the whales out of 6 digits, but at the same time everyone else wll get to broaden their roster a little faster.
Admit it: The whales and top tier players have launched into a different galaxy at this point, and the rest of us are still stuck here on Earth. We're not asking to catch up to them, but it would be nice to at least get to Mars...
"milking the whales" is literally how this game is structured. something like a high-90-something-percent of players don't spend at all, so the whales have to be convinced to spend enough to make the game go around.
your complaint is that we get higher difficulty war and arena fights? c'mon man, that's silly, but guess what? your account is considered a whale roster to players below you too. they probably think that their rewards are "bunk" too in comparison.
if the average whale is spending $5k a year on the game, shouldn't they stomp f2p players in war and battlegrounds? if their spending didn't give them an advantage, why would they spend?
they're also getting the least amount of bang for their buck. a $100k for a rank 5 and f2p are practically getting them for free by doing saga objectives a few years later. do you want to spend a hundred thousand dollars on something that will be a dime a dozen 20 months later?
spenders are paying $100m to go to mars. sure, they'll be the first there, but they're funding an operation that will eventually send everyone else to mars for $10 bucks.
Stop confusing "game economy" with "how can we milk the whales"...
There's definitely a tiered system, and the whales get the cream of the crop first. I have zero problem with that.
What I have a problem with is the rest of us still earning the same bunk "rewards" for playing harder content with beefier AI against whales with tankier champs. Take Arena for example: The whales have stronger champs (rightfully so since they paid to get them) but, in turn, it directly makes Arena more difficult across the board FOR EVERYBODY, but the rewards are the same.
Let's be real: Adding 10 or even 20 more units to the milestones won't break anything. Period.
War is another example. That goalpost has shifted so far so fast due to whales, yet the upper mid and lower upper tiers are ultimately paying the price for, yet again, largely the same bunk "rewards".
Again, let's be real: Beefing up the Loyalty Store won't break anything. Period.
Back to my original point: Milk the whales with all the new shinier hardest to aquire materials/champs. That's fine. That's business. But at the same time realize that everyone else gets stomped on and receives stale bread and a bland cup of soup for their efforts...and their tired of eating both.
The whales continue to be fed while the rest starve.
It won't break the "game's economy" if you add slightly better, more updated rewards for the lower and middle tier players. You'll still be able to milk the whales out of 6 digits, but at the same time everyone else wll get to broaden their roster a little faster.
Admit it: The whales and top tier players have launched into a different galaxy at this point, and the rest of us are still stuck here on Earth. We're not asking to catch up to them, but it would be nice to at least get to Mars...
"milking the whales" is literally how this game is structured. something like a high-90-something-percent of players don't spend at all, so the whales have to be convinced to spend enough to make the game go around.
your complaint is that we get higher difficulty war and arena fights? c'mon man, that's silly, but guess what? your account is considered a whale roster to players below you too. they probably think that their rewards are "bunk" too in comparison.
if the average whale is spending $5k a year on the game, shouldn't they stomp f2p players in war and battlegrounds? if their spending didn't give them an advantage, why would they spend?
they're also getting the least amount of bang for their buck. a $100k for a rank 5 and f2p are practically getting them for free by doing saga objectives a few years later. do you want to spend a hundred thousand dollars on something that will be a dime a dozen 20 months later?
spenders are paying $100m to go to mars. sure, they'll be the first there, but they're funding an operation that will eventually send everyone else to mars for $10 bucks.
Reading comprehension isn't your strong suit...go back and re-read my post...
I kind of like the stores the way they are. Not everyone want’s to feel they need to participate in everything in order to keep up. There are more special events and game modes then there were just a few years ago and i imagine resources need to be spread out. I haven’t participated in a AQ or AW in two years now as i find the game modes boring and repetitive. I would like to keep it that way and feel that i can get what i need from the game elsewhere.
Comments
There's definitely a tiered system, and the whales get the cream of the crop first. I have zero problem with that.
What I have a problem with is the rest of us still earning the same bunk "rewards" for playing harder content with beefier AI against whales with tankier champs. Take Arena for example: The whales have stronger champs (rightfully so since they paid to get them) but, in turn, it directly makes Arena more difficult across the board FOR EVERYBODY, but the rewards are the same.
Let's be real: Adding 10 or even 20 more units to the milestones won't break anything. Period.
War is another example. That goalpost has shifted so far so fast due to whales, yet the upper mid and lower upper tiers are ultimately paying the price for, yet again, largely the same bunk "rewards".
Again, let's be real: Beefing up the Loyalty Store won't break anything. Period.
Back to my original point: Milk the whales with all the new shinier hardest to aquire materials/champs. That's fine. That's business. But at the same time realize that everyone else gets stomped on and receives stale bread and a bland cup of soup for their efforts...and their tired of eating both.
The whales continue to be fed while the rest starve.
It won't break the "game's economy" if you add slightly better, more updated rewards for the lower and middle tier players. You'll still be able to milk the whales out of 6 digits, but at the same time everyone else wll get to broaden their roster a little faster.
Admit it: The whales and top tier players have launched into a different galaxy at this point, and the rest of us are still stuck here on Earth. We're not asking to catch up to them, but it would be nice to at least get to Mars...
The only quibble I have is the lack of comment on the Sigil. It’s become an inventory management tool for me more than anything else, but I think most would welcome even a slight uptick in items more suitable to Valiants new and old.
Dr. Zola
We have plenty of tough defenders that are designed like a puzzle to solve, that reward players for executing the right actions and I agree we need those to keep the game intriguing. But we don’t need designs like Serpent and Bullseye. Hard counters may come… but I don’t think that it will be exciting when they do. It’ll be too little too late.
The reason why exciting attackers matter, is that’s when we as players are getting to actually play with the new shiny and glow over how much fun it is, it really is that simple.
Of course it’s about you! 😂 And all your wonderful influence. You are the voice of change. When anyone thinks of change it’s the mighty dna with all your antiestablishment comments that are never ever in support of the obvious money driven decisions
You are a distraction. Picking one thing out of a giant list of complaints and everyone getting sidetracked arguing your nonsensical points and ridiculous conclusions.
What would really be helpful is, if just once you and your fellow apologists would allow the rest of the player base to use its voice. Rather than you regurgitating the same dribble you always do inspite of clear evidence that Kabam is a business and their decisions are based on profit and loss like any company.
Do you ever notice what they choose to address vs what they don’t?
Maybe you should celebrate all the “glorious” interface changes.
Funny how they can make superficial changes constantly that no one asks for and no cares about rather than purposefully directing resources towards gameplay or other customer satisfaction driven changes.
It’s a joke that you and others are so attached to this game that your identity is tied to it.
I get it’s your whole life since you have endless time to dump on anyone and everyones very real issues with the game
But why on earth would you not want the game to run better?
You get a cut of ask the resources spent?
Are you just that nosey, intrusive or is it a need to feel important?
What drives your inner Karen?
What makes you so arrogant and argumentative about something you’re not involved in?
Why can’t people ever express disappointment, confusion or even outrage without you jumping in and taking away from every important discussion with your distraction through debate?
And for the record @kabam crashed didn’t actually update anything or provide any real information. Just his own opinions about the state of the game and our collective whining. He just outlined arguments against change and spun the conversation towards player progression while avoiding
Game performance
Ai reaction
Playable content
At least in any meaningful way.
Why? Because it’s a business. Money and time are of value
Not customer satisfaction or an enjoyable experience. Customer satisfaction is only important to businesses that actually has to interact with their customers and don’t have millions of them without the ability to communicate directly. There is no real threat of financial loss or lack of interest.
I understand they can't just give too many r2 materials away but honestly outside bg store you get very very few amounts of t6cc and if you don't push too much in bg then you get really behind, those catalysts should be more spread out, like in the glory store. AQ rewards and glory store (outside of raids, which honestly with the random chests can't be considered too much on how they impact the economy) haven't been updated for more than a year, since way before the valiant title appeared and saying they're outdated isn't even giving justice to them, those things are bad even for a paragon player. Instead of focusing on having all the good rewards in bg or war or special events they could have spread them out more using also AQ and the glory store. Last time they buffed the glory store was a couple of months after july 4th in 2023, then after last banquet event it wasn't touched and after all this year's sales wasn't touched, I know crashed said it's the next to be updated but it's already too late and it probably won't even happen anytime close since it looks like for kabam now raids completely overshadowed everything else AQ related, which is wrong imo since we still have those stupid random chests we can't even control. And yes the economy changed and a lot compared to the last glory store buff, but due to raids they just decided to ignore it and hope the players will forget the glory store exists since the glory is used to buy raid tickets.
Then I don't even remember the last time they changed the eq and sq to be even somewhat interesting for the players, I remember the good old times when we actually were looking forward to the monthly content to have something enjoyable and useful, right now it's not useful and it's not enjoyable, I don't even know why they keep wasting time to design something a bit different every month, they really need to revamp the whole monthly events to create something which players look forward to and create more engagement since right now no one even cares about it
Why? As it stands, even if you complete EVERY milestone in every arena each week, you're only looking at about 1000 units a week (plus Battlechips, but we all know how that goes), which is a hefty amount admittedly, but it requires you to spend a couple hours doing nothing but arena. Players already say the grind isn't worth it, so not many players will do this week to week like clockwork. And unless people grind THOUSANDS of units, the only thing they can use it for are crystals the occasional revive deal, or individual Revives as needed.
Dont get me wrong, I understand it's a premium currency being given out only for time spent, but considering how low the yield is (considering again how most players don't consider arena to be worth their time), it seems weird to say "Okay, we'll give you some more rewards, but in return, we're going to remove some of the biggest reason people do this mode in the first place". Really just seems like a punishment for wanting better rewards. Either than, or they already regret being generous with units, and they're maintaining low rewards to compensate, which also seems not great.
We are now at a point where they have to release undertuned champs and dial up content to create an artificial pause which could have been planned by not jumping up 3 ranks so quickly. Regardless of whether 7stars have an extra top rank compared to 6 stars, just slowing everything down from the start would have made the chase feel better. We have jumped 3 ranks in half the time it took to do the same with 6 stars.
And Kabam have the time to reply even to the FTP summoners, but why?
They created the Forums ,so us could do the "job" to see bugs, tell them what is good or bad and even do tips for the game.
But they see the game with another vision, simple, to have more people interested in so many events and quests, and in economical(money) terms to keep big accounts interested to keep paying and lower accounts to pay a few bucks to complete a quest and may progress in the game.
So, they can keep the game up for more years.
At the end, they would do changes only if their data shows they need, not only by a lot of summoners on a thread will change their mind....
Just remember Serpent (never will be rebalanced) thread
👍
I personally won't spend a dime on this game until they fix the game from crashing as frequently as it does on top of the slew of other issues already mentioned here.
Here you're saying you're going to increase rewards and also difficulty, which means the rewards still won't be worth it. Since the last eq updates you basically will have increased difficulty twice and rewards once. Either increase rewards without increasing difficulty, or keep rewards the same and decrease difficulty. Until then the rewards will not be worth the effort.
Then any future EQ difficulty changes can warrant more rewards. But as of rn, the rewards are outdated from majority opinion.
Quick comparison that came to mind, we can get the number of 7* shards that EQ/Gauntlet gives for the entire month, in only 3 weeks of the traders outpost store itself (and even less time if you include the 7* shards on the SQ paths). So if you factor that in to, you get 4 runs per week with each giving 500 7* shards.
So in the 1st week of SQ you already get the same amount of 7* shards that the EQ gives. But compare the amount of effort it takes to do 4 runs of the side quest and buying from the traders outpost to the effort for exploring EQ.
If they cant update the rewards for the EQ exploration itself, then it would make sense to have Gauntlet locked behind Completion instead of Exploration
At the same time, you can purchase this 4 times 🤦🏻♂️
Make it make sense at least; that’s a terrible explanation.
your complaint is that we get higher difficulty war and arena fights? c'mon man, that's silly, but guess what? your account is considered a whale roster to players below you too. they probably think that their rewards are "bunk" too in comparison.
if the average whale is spending $5k a year on the game, shouldn't they stomp f2p players in war and battlegrounds? if their spending didn't give them an advantage, why would they spend?
they're also getting the least amount of bang for their buck. a $100k for a rank 5 and f2p are practically getting them for free by doing saga objectives a few years later. do you want to spend a hundred thousand dollars on something that will be a dime a dozen 20 months later?
spenders are paying $100m to go to mars. sure, they'll be the first there, but they're funding an operation that will eventually send everyone else to mars for $10 bucks.
Not everyone want’s to feel they need to participate in everything in order to keep up.
There are more special events and game modes then there were just a few years ago and i imagine resources need to be spread out.
I haven’t participated in a AQ or AW in two years now as i find the game modes boring and repetitive.
I would like to keep it that way and feel that i can get what i need from the game elsewhere.