Cap existing gems in ANB

[NoSuchReality]

With the upcoming update limiting AD views, the Dev team has a great opportunity to address issues in ANB. Most notably, the massive overriding of the event with gems.

Since ad views are limited, I suggest the ANBs going forward do not carry your existing gem pile over to the new hero. Instead when the hero is created, the player should be asked if they want to fund a starting gem pile from their main account limited to a max of 2000 (or some other reasonable amount) which is enough to unlock the upgrade slots, inventory slots, provide some gems for boosters etc.

Players could still purchase event packs or 30 days gems which can be opened by event hero to be claimed. Daily rewards would only get one from the event character, main account chars go to main account pile.

Yes, players spending real money will have a notable advantage. I favor use of regu!ar cash getting a logo ES on their chest gear however the Devs may not want to brand their cash supporter.

With the coming ad limit, revenue during event wont be negatively impacted.

[yaddab]

That is an interesting proposal, slowly but surely moving back to the subscription model and not the $med buck$ micro transaction model. I like it, I think the best games will end up back with that model.

[XtinctionEvent6]

I posted this is the release note thread earlier, realized it probably should go in "Feedback & Suggestions" instead, then saw this thread.
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It seems like it should be possible to have a maximum number of gems transferred from the main account to an event character when it's created, so everyone in that event starts with the same gem cap. Players could choose how many of their gems (up to the event limit) to transfer -- so you could even compete at a disadvantage if you choose. There could be events with different gem caps -- maybe even multiple events active the same week. Sometimes it's fun to spend 10K gems on a single event, and other times it would be fun to figure out the best way to use only 1K gems. The choices might be very different for different numbers of hours of play time. Also, players could choose whether they want a 6-hour event or a 12-hour event based on how busy they are that week.

With this scheme, players with different amounts of gems to spend could still participate in events regularly, could alternate between events requiring more or less gems, more or less play time, still earn good rewards, and compete on a level playing field within their chosen event.

[BAgate]

Depending on how often events are, this is a bad idea. If you limit how many gems can carry over then there is no way to compete with those who spend money. Thus it becomes pay to win. Unlimited carryover is a balance to that, even if you have to only compete in every other event or the like, it remains possible.

[Ozymandius]

Depending on how often events are, this is a bad idea. If you limit how many gems can carry over then there is no way to compete with those who spend money. Thus it becomes pay to win.

The best way to level the playing field would be to cap the number of gems that can be used by any event hero. The player could then decide whether to purchase those gems or transfer them from their main account or some mix of both, but once the hero hits the gem cap no other gems could be transferred or purchased during the event. The hero could still earn gems through game play, daily quests, and either the standard 100 gems per day or the ability to watch 20 ads per day, but they would not be able to gain an advantage just by buying more gems than the other event players.

The ANB guide suggests that you need a minimum of 1.5K gems just for unlocking the abilities slots and the companion slots for the three companions from the story mode. Although the most "efficient" players have found ways to be competitive by spending less than 5k (based on self reporting on threads), the actual cap should be somewhere between 5-10K gems per event. Having a cap on the number of gems for an event would bring some strategic decision making into the game for players who currently have an unlimited gem budget that allows them to buy their way through without having to make the tough decisions such as whether to purchase additional archers or open up the third ability slot or saving those gems for reforging gear.

The real question is whether or not the Devs would be willing to run an event that had a gemstone cap. I suspect that, especially with the new 3 tier ANB format, that many players are purchasing far more gems than the proposed cap would allow. But they could offer the option for players to select into either an unlimited gem league or a restricted gem league option.

[LStab]

So,Eternium became a Ptw game?

[NoSuchReality]

PTW is better than CTW, IMHO. I know people pay to get stuff, however, my gut tells me there's little paying going on and it's a gem ad exploit allowing a massive throw of gems to accelerate everything. I'm sure the devs could allay a lot of concern by letting us know how many event boosters were bought, but I suspect the number is actually quite small. Gold ANB had a total of about 6000 players. The top 100 in two of the classes started below TL90. So that means about 5700 didn't make TL90 and I really doubt many of them bought the $49 or $99 package.