Deeds - Discussion and Critique

[Shimrra]

I’ve got pages of my complaints about deeds and their rewards and I’ll save them for an official launch with finalized numbers and all that…

At the moment I will say that I think this a load of crap.

• Pretty ridiculous P2W.
• Not enough rewards to make it worth any investment (let alone money) for all but the most dedicated (and deluded).
• Projected to take way too long to get anything done.
• Not enough of a fix for the faction vs faction issues.
• Very transparent attempt to leverage the new adventure board.
• Could put deeds in any number of other places - maps for instance - but nooooooooooo…

[Magnusimus]

+1 to the deeds in maps idea, even if it were for ridiculous accomplishments like matching 3 vaults together.

[EliteMasterEric]

@Fleg

Level 11 and 13 are the same?

11 raises to Tier 3, 13 raises to Tier 4. I fixed the OP, thanks.

[Lyrian]

It’s been said on the dev Q&A streams that if it wasn’t for Treasure Hunt being so popular with the casual crowd that it would have been retired (if not by now, then surely before 5.0), as it doesn’t have a place in the evolution of GoW. It was also said on the last stream that the economy regarding maps is so far badly blown (players with thousands of maps) that there’s nothing that can really save it.

It may hang around in its current legacy form instead of being retired, but it’s all but certain not to ever receive any further updates.

[Slypenslyde]

@turintuor

Devs are just trying to add new things to do in GoW so we don’t get bored. I think the issue as usual is that some players want to level up everything within two weeks after the release…

This is mischaracterizing the problem to the extent of being intentionally obtuse.

The argument is:

• “Eh, it’s OK if deeds come in slow since everyone gets the same rate.”
• “Except I’m mad that people who pay money, potentially unlimited, get more deeds.”

How do you go from, “I don’t like that paying real dollars can accelerate your growth” to “I think everything should be maxed in 2 weeks”?

[turintuor]

I am sorry but my point wasn’t about these players that are afraid to loose their GW battles because the defense has 2 more life points, 1 more attack point and 3 armors.

As Flash Offer is working since now:

• you cannot buy an unlimited amount of them.
• one kind of FO appears every 2 weeks/month? (no idea)
  So honestly I wait to see how advantageous is to buy some 5-dollars pack…

And:

• Sentinel bonus is there since the beginning and required premium currency (i.e. gems). Why making now a fuss about “this game is a P2W ”?
• GW is a mess with all these unbalanced troops and it became more and more a coin flipping: either the defense gets the perfect board to combo you until your death or not.

@Slypenslyde

“I don’t like that paying real dollars can accelerate your growth”

Sorry but this game was a lie . But you should have know that F2P games also have to get some dollars (you know so that devs feed their family etc).
If devs are taking this direction it could be because they need to do it.

I understand why Saltypatra is not that much on this forum and prefer twitter or facebook: too much toxicity here. Old players are staying there believing that they are protecting GoW from making some profits… oh I mean from being a bad P2W .

[Avathar]

@awryan

@en9nhcet is 600 levels ahead of me.
So he has +6 to stats that I don’t have.
6 kingdoms at level 15 would offset his advantage.

Stat gain from leveling up only applies to the hero, not to the rest of the troops, so it’s not really comparable.

I do agree with you that at the moment a couple of extra stat points make very little difference at endgame, except possibly in GWs… but whether people are overreacting or not will depend on the frequency/availability of deeds through regular play as compared to flash offers, as others have detailed.

If flash offers too common, it could for example offset (stat-wise) having invested hundreds of hours leveling up your delves or getting kingdoms to power level 15+… Doesn’t necessarily mean it would be wrong to do so, but that would be a much larger benefit for the paying customer than anything else that’s been offered in the past, so I can understand the ‘p2w’ reaction.

[awryan]

@Avathar

so I can understand the ‘p2w’ reaction.

Unfortunately if no one pays, then no one gets to play.
Coming up with optional ways to gain stats I’m for.
Taking away things like class hero XP in the arena I’m against. I wish there was a way to take money away from changes instead of paying money when changes are implemented.
Most likely the flash offers exist to make 505 happy. Not to make those who pay have more success than those who don’t. If 505 isn’t happy, then we won’t have a game to debate about.

[Avathar]

We agree @awryan, I’m not really opposed to flash offers if they help keep the game afloat

And something unrelated that might have gotten lost in the shuffle a little bit, and I’d like to highlight: @Lyrian is spot on with this comment regarding delves, in my opinion it’s the biggest roadblock preventing them to become an effective gold sink for endgamers.

@Lyrian

That said, the constraining factor here still is chaos shards. Unless a player is full clearing daily delves, and intensely clearing every Faction Tuesday and New Faction events, there isn’t enough chaos shards flowing into the average player’s account to even make this a remote possibility. And even if that was the case, the fact that only crowns and higher and meaningful past 100, and realistically only lamps and statues past 125-150ish make this an almost impossible task to achieve still. Either shards need to be more common, or treasures need to award more hoard xp to avoid be obsoleted in the first 100 levels of raising a treasure hoard.

If something were done to address this issue, like making treasures more easily available or reducing XP levels requirements to more reasonable levels (e.g. a flat rate of 100 XP/level after hoard 100), it would be a really welcome change… Unlikely maybe, but since the next patch or two are supposed to focus on endgamers, I can dream

[Grundulum]

We’re venturing pretty far afield from the topic of deeds, but waaaaaay back in the beta for the Underworld I asked if treasure XP could be boosted for ascending the troops. The response was a pretty firm no back then, but maybe it’s time to revisit that request. It would give meaning to the treasure troops being troops, and also make it less impossible to manage factions in the later stages of the game.

[Fourdottwoone]

@Slypenslyde

Delves were badly designed. The devs expected players to spend gold and resources far beyond the point at which diminishing returns happen for every Delve. Players, instead, are stopping at the point where they stop getting rewards. The devs could have chose to add new rewards to entice players to progress.

I believe the issue rather is that the devs expected players to spend a bottleneck resource on something with very little benefit.

Gold is needed for guild tasks, the more the better. There’s a huge benefit in spending gold on guild tasks, not only for you, also for those players you hang around with. Any gold spent otherwise causes the whole guild to lose out.

Delves you only complete once, then shelf them. Getting to level 500 can be done fairly easily with a level 100 hoard, at reasonable gold cost. Getting the last 10% faction renown usually requires an utterly brain boggling gold investment into your hoard, more than most players will collect within a year, on a monthly base to keep up with new faction releases. There’s no lasting benefit, even if each faction at full renown raised your daily income by 25k gold it would still be a bad deal.

No, potions aren’t the solution, as Sirrian himself has confirmed, level 500 pure faction wins are intended to be possible just using your daily sigils.

Possible ways to patch the faction design:

• Switch to a non-bottleneck resource for increasing hoard levels, like souls, in reasonable amounts. Players have been begging for a way to put souls to good use.
• Remove the gold cost for hoard levels past 100.
• Grant hoard levels for repeatedly clearing delves at level 500, as a long-term incentive to keep playing them.
• Add a hero class to each faction once all kingdoms have received one.

[Slypenslyde]

I think my opinion hinges on the rate at which deed flash offers appear. I think there are a lot of assumptions on both sides being used to make arguments more hyperbolic than they could be.

For example, it’s likely the flash offers will be limited, but we also can’t assume they’ll be limited to 1. We also need to know the rate at which deeds can appear, which has a fairly wide gulf. “1 money offer per week” flips from “harmless” to “heinous” depending on if we expect roughly the same free rate or something like “1 per month”.

People who say it “smells P2W” fear players who spend money will make progress 4x or some faster rate, which is unprecedented in GoW history. We’ve always had for-money offers, but how much progress does buying DK armor or a legendary really represent? When I was first starting in GoW, I admired that for the most part the money offers were transparently “a donation” and not “significant game progress”.

We’re already in a world where the high-level players agree if you can’t spend premium currency on potions it’s dramatically harder to participate in Delves up to level 500. Some of those high-level players are in guilds that get disproportionately rewarded gems so it’s “easier” for them to spend those gems. The vast majority of the game, demonstrably 90% or more, can’t, so it’s akin to a money purchase. The deed system seems to be introduced at least partially to address the same problems with factions, and is going to also be tied, initially, to money spends.

To to TL;DR; that last paragraph: the “smells like P2W people” are upset because factions already feel like they are P2W for the average player, and the “solution” being introduced in the next patch also has a component of P2W.

“The game has to make a buck” is the excuse to use when no other argument can be conjured. It’s a sign of defeat. The game’s appeal, for years, has been “they don’t sell stats”. They’re “selling stats” in a very indirect manner now. They don’t have to. Other games sell cosmetic items. Of note: people have asked in Q&A before for cosmetic items. The devs have expressed openly they are not interested in pursuing that route. That leaves them with only stats to sell.

I’ll leave with an on-topic snippet of a good song. Not every way to make a buck is a good one.

Bag full of oily rags, fifty cent lighter
Dreams of retirement in Cancun, burning ever brighter
There’s a lot of ways to make money in this world
But I can’t recommend insurance fraud

[Shimrra]

The really sad part is that I initially thought the 25% faction hoard stat bonus thing was a global boost. I spent a while doing math and eventually reasoned that this was a fair, gradual means to get us enough stats to deal with lvl500 faction vs faction fights. I thought it would still take a year or something to rack up enough deeds for it to make it doable.

Of course, they aren’t global. They’re 25% for that kingdom’s faction only (even though only a third of kingdoms even HAVE factions!!). Hence the more accurate estimate of 55 months or whatever it is. And that estimate, devs, it can go straight to hell!!

[awryan]

Oh you don’t want to spend 1-2 million gold to level up a hoard to get it to 2500? Well how about 700k instead and we’ll throw in a stat bonus?
Gems and gold… Every “new addition” is made to throw either resource at in hopes that real will be spent to offset the costs.
What’s constantly hilarious to me is…I keep spending money on the game but not because of all the new flashy and “entertaining” things to do. But instead to support the things I enjoy from the game. Like strategy in PvP… Having practically a “club” of who people who enjoy the same game that I do… And a direct relationship with the developers. All the extra crap as of late is like a kid selling candy bars. I buy them to support the school, not to support the candy manufacturer that over charges and probably doesn’t actually give much to the school. But the difference between GoW and those candy bars is… Those bars are always delicious. I dream for the days that GoW could be as consistently as good as those candy bars.

[Zeddicus2017]

I don’t understand all the negativity. I didn’t read everything, but the stuff I did read made it seem like the devs wanting to monetize their game, with incentives, is in someway diabolical. Deeds sounds great, and I love having something new to look forward to. When I spend money on the game I do it hoping for new content or fantastic quality of life changes, as in, I’m investing in the future of Gems of War… Hearing people unhappy that the devs want to get paid or that the publisher actually wants GOW to be financially viable, is crazy to me. And I’m sorry that any new feature is instantly met with hostility, and distrust, because people want a free to play game to be FTP… Or if they bought something 2 years ago, they feel they’ve invested enough, and should get all new features for free. New content, new features, patches, etc. take time and money… I find no fault in the Store, VIP, or in my favorite new feature ‘The Flash Offers’, which appeal to me. I know this makes me sound like a stupid shill, but I am in love with GOW and no game has had me so hooked since some of the MMO’s of long ago, and I support the game because I want lots and lots of new, cool stuff to look forward to, and I know that’s not cheap… I also support the game because I have an awesome Guild, and a larger guild family that is truly amazing, and I’m fully aware that my guild and my larger guild family wouldn’t exist without GOW.

So thank you DEVs for any, and all, cool new features, and I’m happy to let you know some of us are truly grateful for all your hard work.

[turintuor]

@Slypenslyde

but we also can’t assume they’ll be limited to 1.

Blue orb flash offers are limited to 1. And Imperial deeds should be as rare than the Blue Orb.

@Slypenslyde

People who say it “smells P2W” fear players who spend money will make progress 4x or some faster rate,

You are making …

@Slypenslyde

arguments more hyperbolic than they could be.

We are going to have a monthly flash offer for 1 Imperial Deed or something like that.

[Slypenslyde]

We will find out in a few days I reckon, but what I mean is unless you are a dev, you’re speculating as wildly as anyone else. The difference between us is you implicitly trust the devs. I don’t. That trust has been eroded by many retracted promises.

edit

Actually I just realized something I forgot, maybe you did too: one of the more recent features is not all players get the same Flash Offers anymore. It was stated the weapon selection tries to pick “better” weapons you’re more likely to purchase.

That tells me the flash offer system’s either algorithm-driven or working towards it. It could be that the people most likely to spend money get much more frequent deed offers. That’s a good way to distribute things to whales while keeping the general populace unaware.

[TheIdleOne]

@Slypenslyde

It could be that the people most likely to spend money get much more frequent deed offers. That’s a good way to distribute things to whales while keeping the general populace unaware.

Now why would they do that when they’d want to make as much money as possible? An offer can eventually show up that makes non-spending players eventually want to spend money, but how can they do that if they don’t give them offers in the first place?

[Magnusimus]

I think he’s saying players who buy deeds would be shown more, and those who don’t bite the first time would be shown something else, with the assumption being they’d be more likely to buy that something else.

[Slypenslyde]

Yes, what @Magnusimus said.

Algorithms can get pretty good at predicting what you buy. Part of my assumption is if everyone sees many deed offers, not only will most go unbought, a lot of people will feel it’s “too P2W” and might actually quit.

So it’s smarter to show only proven whales the frequent offers, carefully control the rate for middling players, and not bother showing it to the “average” spender at all so the players who are most likely to be offended by P2W sales won’t even know it’s happening. In general it doesn’t seem to me like the whales participate a lot in data mining.

Anyway I’m way out there and tired of thinking of worst-case scenarios. It is what it is. I’m more interested in figuring out how after Pokemon Masters releases I’m going to juggle 3 games vying for my free time.