Pity Timer, still in the making?

Continuing the discussion from Event chests, glory packs:

@Nimhain, just wondering out loud after a guild chat convo. A year on from the first mention of this, is a pity timer still something that may occur in game?

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I don’t know for sure but my guess is that the crafting system is going to be what they put in place of this. Both would be awesome but my gut is that having both a pity timer and the crafting would make it too easy to get cards.

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@ogunther Took the words right out of my mouth… so I’ll just say

I AM GROOT!

:wink:

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Considering that pity timer post is from a year ago, i won’t celebrate crafting before it actually hits the ground.

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Two things…

First: @efh313 you am not groot you arent foolin anybody😜

Second: and forgive my ignorance but what is a pity timer?

It is a mechanic that keeps track of how many chests have been opened and then rewards a specific rarity if one has not been randomly pulled in that time. (The following is completely made up numbers.)
So a Mythic should drop 1 in 10,000 drops, after 10,000 chests opened your 10,001 chest will be a guaranteed mythic.

If you randomly pull, the counter resets.

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For example, on mythic week, the pity timer could be 2,000 gems. In other words, if the mythic didn’t drop after you spent 2,000 gems, you would get the mythic.

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I[quote=“Gouki, post:4, topic:23907, full:true”]
Considering that pity timer post is from a year ago, i won’t celebrate crafting before it actually hits the ground.
[/quote]

I agree however I would point out one difference is the dev’s have announced the crafting system and that it’s coming in the next big update. They never announced the pity system, just that they were in agreement and looking into it. So while I agree that, in essence, don’t count your chickens, however at least we know the Devs are actively working on crafting. :slight_smile:

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In GoW you don’t count chickens, chickens count you and then spawn brown gems.

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Lol FACT! :wink:

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I see… I could get behind a pity timer but only if crafting doesnt solve the issue

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I think Crafting is the devs’ answer to the issue.
Players need a way to get those hard to find cards they are missing.
Pity Timer solves it by building a failsafe into the RNG mechanic.
Crafting solves it by actually allowing specific targeting.

Either way, players feel like they have better control over their choices and that is what was wanted at the core. :wink:

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Did they actually say crafting grants access to everything? The sneaky hint they dropped implies a separate set of exclusive troops and weapons to me. (Why else would weapons need to be craftable?)

In any case, even if crafting does allow access to all, it and pity timer are not mutually exclusive features.

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I don’t think the troops would be exclusive, since the initial announcement for it was during a discussion about being able to target specific mythics. There might be some exclusive troops, but even if there were, I feel like we’d be able to craft existing troops as well. Also Weapons might be exclusive, but it could also be something like different results for a couple weapons (see my Weapon Forging proposal for more thoughts on this. Though not saying it’s what they’ve done, I have no idea on that, just it’s one way they might have gone about it). Or they could add some long gone event weapons for crafting as there have been a number of calls for some of them. Eg look at the recent bring back of Crescendo during the Pan’s Vale week with Nyx recently, I’ll be the devs saw an increase in weapon packs bought during that week over normal weeks.

I do agree that it’s not mutually exclusive to a pity timer though.

However the problem I see with a pity timer is that it could increase/start the perception of the game being “pay to win”. Using the values from @Ashasekayi’s example explaining what a pity timer was:

2,000 Gems is roughly $130 without VIP levels. (Motherload is 1500 gems for $99.99) So you would know that if you paid $130 you would be guaranteed that the mythic would drop. For those with particularly bad luck (or having a string of bad luck on a Mythic they really wanted) they will start perceiving that the game is more pay to win now, since if you don’t drop $130 you won’t get the mythic.
Now this would be slightly mitigated by the fact we can and do get a lot of gems just from playing the game (Tributes, guild tasks, PVP wins etc), so a number of people probably do have 2,000 gems lying around if they want to target a specific mythic. However this might create the perception that the lower level players will never be able to catch up to the top if the top can just grab each new mythic with almost 100% consistency due to not needing currency for much else. There is this perception a little bit at the moment, and is one of the reasons behind the call for a crafting system, but currently there is a plateau at the top where RNG slows down the top in their quest for a complete 4x Mythic collection.
Note: I might be overstating the resources available to the top players on a regular basis, it’s possible that once their backlog of resources get used up that they would be in the same boat as everyone else.

A minor side effect to this would be that people would probably stop using gems outside of Mythic exclusive weeks, and just save for the sure thing that they will get a mythic they don’t have then, rather than blowing them in a normal week and risk getting a mythic they already have. While this is minor, I feel the devs would prefer that currency is being used in a mostly constant and consistent fashion.

EDIT: Just to clarify, I’m not against a pity timer per se, I’m just cautious about the unintended side effects that might arise from it.

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Yeah and all you are saying it’s exactly what happens today. One player can just throw thousand of dollars to drop one Mythic. Will it make this game a P2W?
But someone that put 100$ in the game is not sure to obtain what he want. Do you think it’s fair? I’m sure devs are loosing a lot of money because of that.

The P2W fear is not reasonable: every haters can claim that. I just remind that at the beggining of the game, we had to pay golds to start a battle and so on, this game was claimed as P2W because of that. But every players who spend more than 2 hours know that the amount gold that one win was far superior that the gold fee. So it was an unfair claim done by haters who just don’t want to understand this game.

EDIT: another similar discussion is the Mythic pack: some players claimed that if tomorrow devs provide pack with a Mythic let’s say for 100$, it will make the game a P2W one. But actually we can buy Legendary so what’s is the difference?

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Mythics are currently a larger problem for the community (Famine, Death etc) None of the legendaries are quite that troublesome other than maybe EK and Bone Dragon.

The issue here is again about perception, most people will balk at spending a thousand dollars on the game just for one mythic, but if the price was only $130 for a mythic? You would see MANY more people actually doing it. Yes is currently possible to “buy” a mythic, but you don’t know how much it will cost, and it could end up costing more than you’re willing the pay. That uncertainty prevents most people from trying it. If it was known how much you’d need then people are more likely to make the decision knowing that they aren’t at risk of paying more.

Surely for top level players but Legendaries should be diffuclt to obtain for low level players who are the less knowledgeable about this game and so on, surely the ones who can call this game a P2W one.

130$ for a troop in a videogame that you can obtain through the game (even if the chance is very low)? If players does that, I will be the first to applaud them. If I don’t give dollars anymore to devs it’s just because I don’t need anything that their shop has (I’m still VIP 9).

I totally agree and it also means that devs are loosing a market because of that (and so dollars). I don’t care if some haters call this game a P2W one if it helps devs to make money.

I just think people may be setting themselves up for potential disappointment, imagining the crafting system to answer all their woes, when we know next to nothing about it. “Wait for crafting” seems to be the standard reply to drop rate concerns now.

Even if existing Mythics were to become craftable, it’d be unlikely for the task to be easier than opening 1000 gem chests (purportedly the average for a random Mythic).

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I think you’re describing the switch to Unity, which is being reported to fix pretty much every problem with the game, and might even cure cancer… :wink:

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Just might? This is heresy!

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