We may have reached EK rates territory.
I wouldnât be surprised.
I suck at abbreviations. What is EK?
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Event Keys.
They were once more abundant, but it made chasing Legendaries and some Mythics easier for players. So to retain the worth of such rarities they limited the amount of keys you could buy/get.
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Behold, the login calendar for WarCoins and rejoice!
Hrmmm⌠would you look at that. The amount of WarCoins gifted is insufficient to buy a single Warband without engaging with additional offers. How convenient that the unusually specific denomination of WarCoins given in the calendar matches up perfectly with the VIP-exclusive War Hoard offer.
FYI, this is very similar to how this type of encouraging player engagement with additional offers works in other gacha-centric games.
Expect more of this type of behavior with offers and new currencies in the future.
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Lol, I feel like gems players are just now realizing this is a gacha after being spoiled for years prior to 4.7. I suspect many werenât aware things like ads, shrines, and especially campaign pass are all staples of the genre. I agree, we will see more in the future. The good news is I still donât believe they are as predatory or P2W compared to other games.
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Not being like all the other gachas was the sole reason GoW had such a long lived and supportive community. Now they basically decided it was time to take a turn towards the other direction, and just like that they should accept that the playerâs opinion about their game and design direction would also change.
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@Snooj my mistake. I meant EVK (Epik Vault Key) but assumed EK (Epic Key) was an acceptable abbreviation.
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Iâm sure plenty of players are aware of Gacha-style games. You canât miss them in the modern market. It doesnât change the fact that people donât want these features and donât want Gems of War to become just another Gacha game.
As a Match 3 focused game, Gems of War excelled. As a Gacha game, Gems of War is a pretty piss poor experience.
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When do you want the shrine to start?
No, it was more that the monetization wasnât the central focus of the game. Event keys were more attainable, Gems were more readily available, and the in-your-face greed was kept to a minimum.
Thatâs what made the game so wildly successful and earned it so much praise. It wasnât focusing on how many different ways it could try to part the player from his or her money - it was focused on creating a fun match-3 experience with a cash shop attached to it.
Now itâs focused on monetization at all costs, and it waited long enough to do this where a lot of newer players are just going to see it as par for the course and go along with it while longer-term players gradually give up. Thereâs a reason games go this route, and itâs because it makes money. If it didnât, they wouldnât do it.
Only getting slapped in the face one may be better than getting slapped in the face twice, but that doesnât make it desirable to get slapped in the face.
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Looks like now itâs: Explode (1+ magic) Green Gems. 
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The best thing to come out of this is re-roll on Arena team;
selecting troops in descending rarity is also an improvement, but somehow I feel (from my test runs every day since the update) that I still get offered highly mana-blocked choices at least half of the time.
Power orbs from major chaos orbs is a double edged sword. Sure, nice to get some, but - knowing the random if this game - one person will end up with 3 or whatever, while 10 thousand others will get nothing.
ShrinesâŚhonestly? What I see right now is absolute rubbish. Iâm in the most expensive offer territory and there is no way on earth Iâm paying THAT for 2 major greens.
WarbandsâŚwho had this wonderful idea to put banners behind a paywall? Make sure this person receives a hefty Christmas bonus. That was sarcastic, of course.
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YUP! Another DEVS incompetence OUTRAGE! LOL⌠donât know what to sayâŚCan NOBODY at your DEVSHOP think in Business Terms?
RNG P2W LOCKING Banners? How low can DEVS go? Weapons also??
OR the FACT that Players who completed donât get any PAYBACK??? This is to support the Game? 
This is ADDED to the stupid, broken DEEDS Shop system⌠If ONLY you DEVS had ANY Business SenseâŚ
And, By the Way, when will the 3x Campaign Troops be regularly added to the Mix?
Of course. This was made just to make money off the vets that want the banners and team slots. They said this was mainly for newer players so why not just give everyone the coins that have already completed the quests. This was another way to get new people to play the game and milk more money from end gamers.
People will pay money to get these coins for the banners and ruin the game even more. Buying this is just encouraging the devs to ignore gameplay and balance changes and just add new ways to milk more money off endgamers.
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Now that GoW has copy pasted every single monetization method from other gatcha games I wonder where they go next?
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Next step might be: pay to play 
but it will be last step before falling from a cliff
How many War Coins do you get there?
Oh there are a bunch more good ones still to come! You still have the classic offer popup when starting the game, playing ads to get more sigils(maybe thats how they should give more daily delve sigils), or other modes that look new like the campaign and have some new content, but getting money is the main goal. For that last one it may not be real money but rather a resource sink mode of some kind. The devs know as well as we do that endgamers and even many mid level players arenât spending any money at a certain point. So they have to attract and keep new players which do bring them income. There is no incentive to keep the vets happy. The campaign was smart because it got FOMO vets to spend money they probably hadnât needed to in forever.
I guess my rambling point is that the monetization well isnât dry yet and there will be continued copy and paste efforts. All we can do as a player base is to herd new players away from these traps. Outside of doom scrolls, I donât see a new player spending years to catch up if they are smart about optimizing their play and finding a guild to guide them.
Unpopular opinion incoming- it took me two years of playing to get my account to where it is as an F2P. I still need 5 mythics but they arenât good ones. If it took me that long, I donât mind it taking others that long to reach a similar spot. Gems can only be played, not won. Reaching end game isnât difficult or long. I donât count GW, that mode can shove it. Sorry not sorry bracket 1.
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