So we’ve got another Bounty event coming up tomorrow. And I find myself wondering “what’s the point” of this, after dozens of Bounty events. Sure, we get a new troop to nudge kingdom progression along a notch, but what beyond that?
Because we have a number of event types where the rewards simply aren’t meaningful anymore. That offer nothing to the endgame player and perhaps not even anything to anybody beyond the early stages of game progression. The rewards simply don’t move the needle because they’re paltry and they duplicate stuff that can be more easily and profitably farmed in other game modes.
Vault keys? Wait for a gnome weekend that comes around just about as often and invest the time in that. Throw a Gnome-a-Palooza or three out there and you’ll farm dozens of Vault Keys, more than you’re likely to see through completely finishing every other event in the interim.
Chaos orbs? Also plentiful, both from those interim events and from spending those Vault Keys, but with little of value to use them upon once you’ve crafted the handful of things in the Soulforge.
Ingots? They can always be farmed through grinding PvP, among other things.
Traitstones? Souls? Even gold? Easily and more profitably farmed in other game modes.
Cosmetics? Titles and Emojis and the like? I’ll bet 99% of the player base couldn’t care less.
I’m an endgame player, probably about as far advanced as any 100% F2P player can be. So what resources would be helpful to me, and where do I get them?
Gems are always helpful, and they do appear in the reward tables for some events. Not in really huge quantities, but one can get a steady Gem income by logging in more and/or by doing Treasure Hunt. (Even if Treasure Hunt is a boring slog and inefficient for that purpose.) And a couple hundred every week from Guild Tasks.
Diamonds are still helpful to me – I have roughly a half-dozen Mythics yet to craft and a new one gets added to that pool every campaign or so – but they’re probably a diminishing return at my stage of things. And they’re also available from some reward tables, plus the Daily Dungeon, and a trickle from Guild Tasks.
Forge scrolls would be great, and they only come around once every 11 weeks and even then only in one color. The soulforge isn’t an answer here because Cursed Runes aren’t available in enough of a quantity to assist, but I’m also waiting on the alleged changes to Daily Deals to introduce some there. I have at least one kingdom where I’ll have to upgrade a Cursed Weapon to remove a kingdom stars block, so this is an issue.
Dragonite would be a popular suggestion, here, but I’m willing to leave that one alone on account of it still being a recently-added resource. I hope for more ways to get it in the future, but for now it can be let alone (in my opinion).
But the big one? Deeds. (Also: Writs to forge into Deeds.) Because deeds are becoming (or have already become) a significant impediment to kingdom power progression. And even if you see them semi-regularly, whether from rare appearances on the Adventure Board or offers through Daily Deals / Arena offers (and being a player with enough of a gem income to take advantage of them), the number of kingdoms requiring Kingdom Power Level 18 is starting to multiply pretty quickly, with Kingdom Power Level 20 requirements perhaps a year away from starting to emerge. And those require huge numbers of deeds without a way for a F2P player to reasonably and/or reliably come up with them. Or to catch up to the already necessary number.
It helps that we’re starting to see more Journey events, and that Books of Deeds are part of that reward table. It helps if you’re in an active guild that completes most/all of the Guild Tasks every week because a trickle of Deeds (and Writs) can be had that way. But players are falling behind in this area, and Writs/Deeds haven’t become particularly more plentiful the way other past “new” resources have.
So it’s time for Deeds and Writs to be added to Event Reward tables, both as a way to refresh them with relevant currency and to encourage more players to participate in those events to get them. Not necessarily in huge quantities, but enough to get players outside the top guilds (who likely finish all of the rewards in the first place) to get them and to have meaningful rewards in those tables as opposed to the easily-acquired-elsewhere dreck that’s there now.
Perhaps 10 colored deeds per week based on the Event/Kingdom, with them stationed at Gates 4 (1 deed), 6 (2 deeds), 8 (3 deeds), and 10 (4 deeds)? Plus an Imperial Deed at the 12th and final gate? And some similar mechanism for Bounty and Faction Assault (weekend) events to make those more meaningful to late-game players who otherwise have little reason to play those events for paltry rewards as compared to the time invested?
I already skipped much of last weekend’s Faction Assault Redux; I purchased three tiers from the Event Shop to get a copy of the troop – which I promtply orb’ed to mythic for the kingdom stars without thinking, because I have that many orbs lying unused in my inventory – but I felt little inclination to play the event. If I play the Bounty event at all this weekend, it’s probably to have an excuse to avoid my family and guests over Thanksgiving weekend; I’m seriously considering just buying enough shop tiers to get one copy of the new troop and orb’ing that to mythic as well.
The Redux Invasion and Redux Raidboss events at least offer a new weapon to justify purchasing tiers, and as guild events they’re generally pretty quick and easy for a large(r), active guild to complete. But I’m just not seeing it for Bounty. Or Faction Assault Redux. Or even Arena, where the rewards are crummy and require tremendous effort even to get that far.
Something needs to change here.