This claim is likely incorrect.
Why? Because you very likely correctly pointed out the accurate culprit at play in one of your posts last week. Citing this post,
The very low drop rates are very likely working exactly as designed. This the exact analogy I would present here. In fact, the base economy in PQ3 significantly revolves exactly around this exact concept.
Case in point, here is a help graphic for a low-level resource in PQ3:
Translations (from PQ3-ese → GOW-ese),
- Uncommon (PQ3) → Rare (GoW)
- Rare (PQ3) → Ultra-Rare (GoW)
So, in GoW terms, Drakeweed is a resource needed to evolve things from 1-star Green to 2-star Dark Blue.
Where to find this item:
- Challenges (PQ3) → Adventure Board (GoW)
- Chests [Council of Scales] (PQ3) → Boss Chests [Pick a Kingdom, Explore] (GoW)
- Eveline (PQ3) → Soulforge (GoW)
The analogies are pretty much 1-to-1 here to GoW. Drakeweed can show up as a possible daily Adventure Board reward, there is a recipe in the Soulforge to directly create it, and there is “a small chance” to farm one from the relevant explore boss chest.
“A small chance” = technically farmable, in the most technical of definitions, at least Heart of Rage rare. And this is for a very low level resource. Can one drop from the right chest? Sure. You can also pull a Mythic with a single key in GoW. A player shouldn’t ever count on doing that.
Where is the only realistic way to get this resource? The shop, of course, using Gems or real money.
And now, that mechanic has found its way into GoW via Cursed Runes. A currency so rare, that the only reliable way to sanely obtain this currency is to buy the Cursed Gnome Bait once it is available, by design.
Hence, “not a bug”, as super annoying as the monetization concept is.
At this point, I’m left wondering if the PQ3 early access is partially serving a beta test for monetization concepts to import into GoW. If so, there’s likely even more severe monetization coming where Cursed Runes came from. That shouldn’t shock anyone though by now.