So for longer term players is this the norm, have I just been playing through a golden age the last 3 months and now have nothing to look forward to?
As someone who has been playing this game since launch, allow me to assure you -- you have plenty to look forward to.... if you like frustration and throwing good money after bad odds. At some point, you'll run out of crew to build and things to do in the game. It takes most folks about a year. You'll also have a lot of fully fused beholds and gauntlet bad beats waiting for you at that point. Then, all you'll have is events and the frustration inherent in those (as you're already expressing above).
Thanks for the encouragement! I was more after info on events, is this the norm where there are only a minimal number of bonus crew?
I managed to resist the latest offer with 5 legendary citations and enough dilithium for the next month for only 27 euros. It was a really great deal but I decided that I wanted to play my way up instead. So I think the money will not take me.
I am already at the stage where I have nothing I want to level up, I have some 2/4 s that are too average and will not help me until 4/4, and crew collections. I am leveling up any 1* or 2* in 2 collections. I am left balancing a lot of 1/4 stars that are good but I do not want to invest in them until I have them at least 2/4. So Chronitons grow but not much to do outside of events and gauntlet that I do very well in.
So although it is frustrating that the 5* reward is so so far out of reach... the main problem is the event is largely unplayable with the lack of bonus crew, and if it was then the other rewards are so mediocre, even the option of a 3/4 star is not going to make it to my voyage crew and just take up space. It seems very bad planning to me to make the game impossible and the rewards unattractive for those who would play. Adding a 5* so far up that most who get there will airlock her seems just a waste of their time.
It is all very well to have some premium things to draw in extra money for the game each week, but when they make the event so unattractive for those only paying monthly .... Most app creators would be very happy with 5 euros a month per player... I hope this is just a mistake and not the norm in the long term
I haven’t done any rigorous review of past events (I can think of two or three others who are really good at that sort of thing) but the total number of small bonus or event crew that are useful (20: Apollo, Layna, 9/11 Kirks, and 9/10 Trois) isn’t terribly small, though there are a lot of 5* crew in that tally. If we just look at 3 or 4* crew, 9 is on the smaller side. Ready to Rumble was the most recent one that was worse, with 9/9 Qs, 4/5 Tuckers, and Klaa for a total of 14 useful bonus crew (with only 9 total 3 or 4*s and really 8 that were commonly available). Events like Peldor Joi or An Even Field, where there are 20ish or more useful event/bonus crew, are not the norm either.
There seems to be a fine balance between “too many” and “too few”...at least as this forum is concerned. 10-15 3 or 4* bonus crew is probably the standard and this event is just under that. The important thing to note is that newer players that aren’t whales are going to have a hard time in any Faction event because a deep crew roster is one of the major keys to success (a pantsload of boosts - or dilithium - is the other).
For me I take the perspective of the skills those bonus crew cover and I have to say the skills are not always covered very well for instance Ferengi missions there really isnt much point doing them after the kick start, waste of transmissions if you ask me because there's too much Sci and Eng in that grouping.
[was on Sabbatical/Hiatus] Currently a trialist at Galaxy SquadronSTAY SAFE and KBO
I managed to resist the latest offer with 5 legendary citations and enough dilithium for the next month for only 27 euros. It was a really great deal but I decided that I wanted to play my way up instead. So I think the money will not take me.
Not sure if you just made a mistake. But the citation offer was for superrare not legendary.
Looking at the threshold requirements i am not even going to try. This is purely stupid - so they ask me to pay for boosts and stay on strict 3h regime day/ night until monday??? Wtf is this, just lol
And once again DB is silent about our concerns. So typical lately. Sad.
The event has already been released. They can't make changes at this point so I don't fault them on that. I trust that Shan is reading all our posts and will evaluate our thoughts, but I do think we need to continue to talk about it and express our concerns in a productive manner.
Also nerfed the quickstart so hitting those thresholds will now be harder. Used to be 20 missions for reruns -- now they've capped at 16.
Spotted that as well, man way to go DB sure make the kick start smaller, sure raise the thresholds higher, watch as your fan base drifts over to a different game.
[was on Sabbatical/Hiatus] Currently a trialist at Galaxy SquadronSTAY SAFE and KBO
Also nerfed the quickstart so hitting those thresholds will now be harder. Used to be 20 missions for reruns -- now they've capped at 16.
Ya I honestly think they are trying to find anyway to make it harder.
Could be a way to shut down the game. Internal power struggle, 1 group wants to keep it, another wants to shut it down. Make it harder, QA less responsive, players start to leave, justifies shutting down to focus resources elsewhere.......who knows?
Founding ADM - PoF family of fleets (POF, POF2 & POF3) - Dear TP: Non sequitur. Your facts are uncoordinated.
Also nerfed the quickstart so hitting those thresholds will now be harder. Used to be 20 missions for reruns -- now they've capped at 16.
Ya I honestly think they are trying to find anyway to make it harder.
Could be a way to shut down the game. Internal power struggle, 1 group wants to keep it, another wants to shut it down. Make it harder, QA less responsive, players start to leave, justifies shutting down to focus resources elsewhere.......who knows?
Nah, they just want you to buy more, pay more. That 400k legendary is no longer a reward to play towards, but a carrot to incentivize you to buy boosts and other stuff. In other words that legendary may end up more expensive than a straight up purchase from an offer. Money grab
Also nerfed the quickstart so hitting those thresholds will now be harder. Used to be 20 missions for reruns -- now they've capped at 16.
Ya I honestly think they are trying to find anyway to make it harder.
Could be a way to shut down the game. Internal power struggle, 1 group wants to keep it, another wants to shut it down. Make it harder, QA less responsive, players start to leave, justifies shutting down to focus resources elsewhere.......who knows?
Nah, they just want you to buy more, pay more. That 400k legendary is no longer a reward to play towards, but a carrot to incentivize you to buy boosts and other stuff. In other words that legendary may end up more expensive than a straight up purchase from an offer. Money grab
The crazy/sad/funny thing is that these forums are full of ideas of ways that we will gladly give them our money...
And once again DB is silent about our concerns. So typical lately. Sad.
I prefer they experiment with different threshold reward layouts than do nothing at all. They are trying different things to see how the broader game reacts. The forum is the voice of (typically) more active players and higher spenders. They are more interested in the behavior of the player base as a whole, not the forum rabble. To get their "input", they have to experiment with different event structures. I'm 100% OK with this.
I'm ok with it. Just wish they would comment more when there is this much discussion on it. Gives me a weekend off and I like that as I have both purps ffe already.
Well this solved 1 issue i had until now, if i should spend money on this game or not anymore.
Looks like i will have some money for other presents this year.
The basic assumption of this thread is that everyone who participates in the event should reach 100% of the threshold rewards. This just isn't the case and should not be. I think 400k is a fine threshold for a 5*. That way people who put the time in will get a decent reward even if they don't make it to top 25.
Anyone who achieves 350k will still get a decent reward for playing even if they don't get top 1,000.
I dont think that’s the assumption at all, the assumption or rather the fact is the reward structure used to be x but now DB have changed it to y.
Actually, they changed it to Y, realized they didn't properly set the goal posts, changed it to Z, and now have to deal with the backlash of poor game development.
Edit: I do believe the reason Troi is at 400k is that they thought it makes more sense that it is the greatest prize and should have the highest threshold.
More than likely they didn't put any thought into it other than "we need to add the previous legendary, just tack it on to the end".
This reiterates my previous post about poor game development. If they don't have QA testers to catch errors and don't properly account for how their decisions will affect game play, they seriously need to revisit their management strategies for this game.
I don't feel like I've really got a targ in the race, since I just threshold-and-out anyway (old threshold, the 150k level) and there was nothing DB could've offered that'd have made me push harder anyway, but still, this is a disappointment. I'm still going for Apollo's equipment - I've got him 4/4 lvl 100, but unequipped, so the gear will save a little bit of effort - but I didn't bother to properly kickstart, just queued up all the 2pt missions and did them, then settled back to regular shuttling, and I'm not using boosts either.
Normally I kickstart and boost til 150k, then keep flying no-boost shuttles until the end, and I usually end up getting the 250k reward. If I make 150k using today's 'lazy approach', that might just become my standard for faction missions, unless there's a new 3* on the rank rewards table and I need a vaguely respectable rank to get it. As I say I wouldn't have been spending dil on shuttles regardless, but I'm more disengaged from playing competitively than I was before. Not a huge deal to DB, but I'd like to think that's still not a trend they'd want to encourage.
It will be intersting to see how this all shakes out. I started nearly 5 hours late and I'm just outside the top 1500. The kickstart nerf is brutal, and I'm not sure what my total VP or position will be. At a minimum, I'm hoping for the 250k 1500 honor, though I will use anything but dil if I think I have a shot at 400k.
And once again DB is silent about our concerns. So typical lately. Sad.
I prefer they experiment with different threshold reward layouts than do nothing at all. They are trying different things to see how the broader game reacts. The forum is the voice of (typically) more active players and higher spenders. They are more interested in the behavior of the player base as a whole, not the forum rabble. To get their "input", they have to experiment with different event structures. I'm 100% OK with this.
I'm ok with it. Just wish they would comment more when there is this much discussion on it. Gives me a weekend off and I like that as I have both purps ffe already.
Deflect, pretend it didn't happen, assume things will blow over without comment. That has been DB's approach for years.
This is my first time writing in this forum; before I was only a silent reader. I already hit VIP level 14 over four times and may not be one of Disruptor Beam's best whales, but this is nevertheless an insane amount of money, when I am comparing it to the normal full price games (€50) I play on PC.
The new threshold rewards table was at first a decent deal. The 150k VP were a good, reachable point for players playing the game a longer time, for players already paid a decent amount of money for a decent game. But if you have the maximum amount of shuttle and crew slots, 400k VP are just insane!
Long story short: momentarily the threshold VP level needed for an old legendary crew isn't friendly enough for players paying a decent amount of money.
400k VP are that high above the stars, only the biggest whales of all whales are reaching them (and do these whales actually need the old legendaries?). Definitely think about it, Disruptor Beam. Definitely think about your good paying customers.
And as far I am watching the event rankings at this time (and I'm not using any boosters this time), I am ranking really good, meaning many players are sick. Just my two cents.
Edit:
If Disruptor Beam wants to reward the biggest whales of all whales with a legendary crew, I would suggest one of the new legendaries at 500k VP. 150k VP for an old legendary (like last time) would be appropriate for the smaller whales. That would be best for all paying customers and DB's income situation.
I used to enjoy faction events the most, now I don’t have a favorite. I’m not spending hours and hours on a weekend playing a mobile game. Used to be I could run my shuttles, do a long run overnight and place decently while getting the thresholds, they have ruined faction events with the ridiculous too high thresholds yet have kept the events that need higher threshold rewards too low. Assbackwards. I’m not able to do the kickstart required to get even close as I don’t have the time available at work to jump on an event right when it starts. I lose 7 or 8 hours of time and by the time I can start the event I’m too far behind. As others have said it’s just more of a money grab. I’ve been here nearly from the start, I can’t imagine how bad it is for newer players who don’t want or can’t spend money, way to eff up the game DB.
400k VP are that high above the stars, only the biggest whales of all whales are reaching them (and do these whales actually need the old legendaries?). Definitely think about it, Disruptor Beam. Definitely think about your good paying customers.
And as far I am watching the event rankings at this time (and I'm not using any boosters this time), I am ranking really good, meaning many players are sick. Just my two cents.
Edit:
If Disruptor Beam wants to reward the biggest whales of all whales with a legendary crew, I would suggest one of the new legendaries at 500k VP. 150k VP for an old legendary (like last time) would be appropriate for the smaller whales. That would be best for all paying customers and DB's income situation.
While I agree that I'd like to see the rerun legendary at a lower threshold than 400K it's completely false to say that only the biggest whales are capable of reaching it.
While I agree that I'd like to see the rerun legendary at a lower threshold than 400K it's completely false to say that only the biggest whales are capable of reaching it.
I didn't get my four times VIP level 14 by buying boosters. Never bought some, because I want to get the most out of my limited budget. And unless I am insanely stockpiling the time savers I am able to get free, this is impossible for me. I prefer using the time savers to get the new rare crew. And when new rare crew are released, I definitely need the time savers, because many players will go on the hunt for the new rare crew.
Shuttles is pure pay2win, at least skirmishes involve actual gameplay.
Now with the new shuttle boosts and the old legendary at 400k now.^^
Momentarily I am ranked within the best 5,000 people. And this without any boosts at all. Before I had to use all my boosts up for getting all 3 rare crew. I guess, many players are upset.
My suggestion in my first post would be a win-win-win-situation for all the paying players as DB as well. The biggest whales would scarcely generate double-your-crew-purchases at all when they get an old legendary. If they could reach a new and the smaller whales an old, both type of whales would.
Anyone who is willing or able to invest the time and energy to get through factions? (which is non-trivial)
Anyone who has spent their money on crew slot sales to build bench versus other things?
Anyone who has put thought effort into maximizing their win chances event by event?
Yes, unless you have been saving time boosts for more than the last 2-3 weeks, you should expect to have to pay about $10 for the GoE legendary, if you've got the time and willpower to slog it through.
Sorry, getting a little chuffed at the casual "anyone who is competitive must be a high-roller from Dubai" implication here. Everyone's not thrilled with the threshold change. Bad card at the end of the rainbow that even at a not-unreasonable $10 investment point still would require mountains of work, which is less reasonable. But please think twice before assuming anyone who is competitive is dumping piles of cash in. It's simply not true, and an easy out for the frustration pointed in the wrong direction.
Yes, unless you have been saving time boosts for more than the last 2-3 weeks, you should expect to have to pay about $10 for the GoE legendary, if you've got the time and willpower to slog it through.
If you want to compete successfully in the rankings without buying boosters, stockpiling over a longer period is essential. As a result, you cannot compete every time for the top 1,000. I remember the times (I started maybe in May of the first year) where competition wasn't as hard, where I could successfully reach the top 1,000 in Galaxy events with crew only level 60 (or 50?); until the times where the voyages feature was released. And as I already mentioned: I rather save my Faction event boosters for new rare crew. And the chronitons for leveling up my massive size crew; only my common are level 100, legendaries are 90 and most of the rest is still 80.
I would say at least every one hitting VIP level 14 one time. As buying the biggest dilithium package for €105 gets you 5,000 VIP points, you at least pay €1,000 for hitting VIP level 14. This I absolutely consider a whale status. It's an insane amount of money compared to the €50 full price PC games I normally buy. And Timelines is the first F2P game I played and payed for.
This prize structure, with the 5* at 400k would only make sense to me if it was next week's 5* rank reward and we competed this week FOR this week's event 5*
(Old system + 400k next week preview bonus)
And even then I think 400k is a bit too high.
I'm almost thankful that the first two weeks of the upcoming mega event are events I won't bother trying to rank in and aren't faction events. I'm glad I won't see another full faction event for nearly a month, and I never thought I'd say that.
This ramped up system is burning me out.
We need to utilize the full spectrum of events to their full potential.
Galaxy
(New event type, super gauntlet)
Skirmish
Faction
Expedition
Repeat event
(Over and over)
This doesn't affect me personally, since most of the times I don't really want or need the rerun legendary and if I do, I can get to 400k with a reasonable effort. But for new players, it was probably a nice addition to be able to get a legendary out of an event from time to time. They probably don't have lots of immortal crew and a 1/5*, even if it's a weak one, will still be better than most 2/4* or 3/4*.
I agree that it's a nice thing to have an additional threshold reward for people who want to rank in the top 1k and fail, but this one is not very useful and not nearly as valuable as the ranked reward. They could have added a second copy of the existing legendary at 400k, which would have annoyed fewer people and might have turned out to be actually of some use for those who are able to get there.
It's not so much about increased competition or incentives to spend money, it's that it makes things more difficult without adding anything new to the game. If they added some new ranked rewards or a new threshold reward at 400k to entice people to keep playing and spend more money, most people would be fine with it.
It's not so much about increased competition or incentives to spend money, it's that it makes things more difficult without adding anything new to the game. If they added some new ranked rewards or a new threshold reward at 400k to entice people to keep playing and spend more money, most people would be fine with it.
I think you summed it up well. And I think some would have been much happier with the challenge had the 400K prize been a much better card. GoE as crew belongs at a much lower VP level, no two ways about it; she's effectively a good SR's worth of play value.
And @guest_1037599502354433, my apologies if I set up a strawman to knock down at your expense - cumulative frustration with the casual "whales" comments elsewhere when much progress can be made through smarter play and learning to avoid all the unwise ways to spend resources the game happily throws at you. I do think Timelines is a strategy game masquerading as a mindless-clicker, and learning to play smarter is part of the fun for me. It's also part of the reason people can get legitimately frustrated when bars are raised. Many probably came on board probably thinking "casual" and suddenly it's "intense" (without new value, to Emperor Borg Drone's point).
Fair definition of whale = VIP14+. Though I'd say it's possible to get halfway there over time with a very modest amount of weekly spending not much different than what one might spend IRL on reasonably priced forms of entertainment. Cumulatively, yes, it's way more than the calibration for game costs I grew up with, but we're in a different era, for better or worse, and I tend to judge now by $ per hour of entertainment (heck, I live in a city where one drink in a bar is going to set me back $10-$15, thank goodness I don't do bars much anymore).
I don't think anyone would dispute the game is moving towards encouraging more spending. I don't begrudge DB this, but I do feel for anyone lured into buying 9-hour doublers and rental tokens for $9.99, and hope they quickly discover it's not a good idea, the same way I might switch to a beer if my favorite establishment served watered-down cocktails. But I haven't yet seen any fundamental barrier-to-entry type walls that would make it truly P2W, unless *maybe* you're talking top 25, and even there we see reports of long-term players with careful hoarding being able to succeed.
The very idea that this would work as an "incentive" to make people "play harder" on a damn pay-2-win fest like this game makes me laugh. The only hard thing here is the idea, to me, to burn money buying boots and dilithium to go for this nonsense.
People using words like "effort" when all you have to do is buy your way to the top shows me how delusional players of this kind of game are. No wonder the state of the gaming industry nowadays is ridiculous. Look what Bethesda is doing. And every other major company. Some people really want to be mocked and pay for it.
Comments
For me I take the perspective of the skills those bonus crew cover and I have to say the skills are not always covered very well for instance Ferengi missions there really isnt much point doing them after the kick start, waste of transmissions if you ask me because there's too much Sci and Eng in that grouping.
Not sure if you just made a mistake. But the citation offer was for superrare not legendary.
The event has already been released. They can't make changes at this point so I don't fault them on that. I trust that Shan is reading all our posts and will evaluate our thoughts, but I do think we need to continue to talk about it and express our concerns in a productive manner.
Proud Former Officer of The Gluten Empire
Retired 12-14-20. So long, and thanks for all the cat pics!
Spotted that as well, man way to go DB sure make the kick start smaller, sure raise the thresholds higher, watch as your fan base drifts over to a different game.
Our team is working on your concerns.............
Ya I honestly think they are trying to find anyway to make it harder.
Could be a way to shut down the game. Internal power struggle, 1 group wants to keep it, another wants to shut it down. Make it harder, QA less responsive, players start to leave, justifies shutting down to focus resources elsewhere.......who knows?
Nah, they just want you to buy more, pay more. That 400k legendary is no longer a reward to play towards, but a carrot to incentivize you to buy boosts and other stuff. In other words that legendary may end up more expensive than a straight up purchase from an offer. Money grab
The crazy/sad/funny thing is that these forums are full of ideas of ways that we will gladly give them our money...
I'm ok with it. Just wish they would comment more when there is this much discussion on it. Gives me a weekend off and I like that as I have both purps ffe already.
Looks like i will have some money for other presents this year.
Actually, they changed it to Y, realized they didn't properly set the goal posts, changed it to Z, and now have to deal with the backlash of poor game development.
This reiterates my previous post about poor game development. If they don't have QA testers to catch errors and don't properly account for how their decisions will affect game play, they seriously need to revisit their management strategies for this game.
Normally I kickstart and boost til 150k, then keep flying no-boost shuttles until the end, and I usually end up getting the 250k reward. If I make 150k using today's 'lazy approach', that might just become my standard for faction missions, unless there's a new 3* on the rank rewards table and I need a vaguely respectable rank to get it. As I say I wouldn't have been spending dil on shuttles regardless, but I'm more disengaged from playing competitively than I was before. Not a huge deal to DB, but I'd like to think that's still not a trend they'd want to encourage.
Deflect, pretend it didn't happen, assume things will blow over without comment. That has been DB's approach for years.
The new threshold rewards table was at first a decent deal. The 150k VP were a good, reachable point for players playing the game a longer time, for players already paid a decent amount of money for a decent game. But if you have the maximum amount of shuttle and crew slots, 400k VP are just insane!
Long story short: momentarily the threshold VP level needed for an old legendary crew isn't friendly enough for players paying a decent amount of money.
400k VP are that high above the stars, only the biggest whales of all whales are reaching them (and do these whales actually need the old legendaries?). Definitely think about it, Disruptor Beam. Definitely think about your good paying customers.
And as far I am watching the event rankings at this time (and I'm not using any boosters this time), I am ranking really good, meaning many players are sick. Just my two cents.
Edit:
If Disruptor Beam wants to reward the biggest whales of all whales with a legendary crew, I would suggest one of the new legendaries at 500k VP. 150k VP for an old legendary (like last time) would be appropriate for the smaller whales. That would be best for all paying customers and DB's income situation.
While I agree that I'd like to see the rerun legendary at a lower threshold than 400K it's completely false to say that only the biggest whales are capable of reaching it.
Momentarily I am ranked within the best 5,000 people. And this without any boosts at all. Before I had to use all my boosts up for getting all 3 rare crew. I guess, many players are upset.
My suggestion in my first post would be a win-win-win-situation for all the paying players as DB as well. The biggest whales would scarcely generate double-your-crew-purchases at all when they get an old legendary. If they could reach a new and the smaller whales an old, both type of whales would.
Yes, unless you have been saving time boosts for more than the last 2-3 weeks, you should expect to have to pay about $10 for the GoE legendary, if you've got the time and willpower to slog it through.
Sorry, getting a little chuffed at the casual "anyone who is competitive must be a high-roller from Dubai" implication here. Everyone's not thrilled with the threshold change. Bad card at the end of the rainbow that even at a not-unreasonable $10 investment point still would require mountains of work, which is less reasonable. But please think twice before assuming anyone who is competitive is dumping piles of cash in. It's simply not true, and an easy out for the frustration pointed in the wrong direction.
(Old system + 400k next week preview bonus)
And even then I think 400k is a bit too high.
I'm almost thankful that the first two weeks of the upcoming mega event are events I won't bother trying to rank in and aren't faction events. I'm glad I won't see another full faction event for nearly a month, and I never thought I'd say that.
This ramped up system is burning me out.
We need to utilize the full spectrum of events to their full potential.
Galaxy
(New event type, super gauntlet)
Skirmish
Faction
Expedition
Repeat event
(Over and over)
The way things are now is not sustainable.
I agree that it's a nice thing to have an additional threshold reward for people who want to rank in the top 1k and fail, but this one is not very useful and not nearly as valuable as the ranked reward. They could have added a second copy of the existing legendary at 400k, which would have annoyed fewer people and might have turned out to be actually of some use for those who are able to get there.
It's not so much about increased competition or incentives to spend money, it's that it makes things more difficult without adding anything new to the game. If they added some new ranked rewards or a new threshold reward at 400k to entice people to keep playing and spend more money, most people would be fine with it.
I think you summed it up well. And I think some would have been much happier with the challenge had the 400K prize been a much better card. GoE as crew belongs at a much lower VP level, no two ways about it; she's effectively a good SR's worth of play value.
And @guest_1037599502354433, my apologies if I set up a strawman to knock down at your expense - cumulative frustration with the casual "whales" comments elsewhere when much progress can be made through smarter play and learning to avoid all the unwise ways to spend resources the game happily throws at you. I do think Timelines is a strategy game masquerading as a mindless-clicker, and learning to play smarter is part of the fun for me. It's also part of the reason people can get legitimately frustrated when bars are raised. Many probably came on board probably thinking "casual" and suddenly it's "intense" (without new value, to Emperor Borg Drone's point).
Fair definition of whale = VIP14+. Though I'd say it's possible to get halfway there over time with a very modest amount of weekly spending not much different than what one might spend IRL on reasonably priced forms of entertainment. Cumulatively, yes, it's way more than the calibration for game costs I grew up with, but we're in a different era, for better or worse, and I tend to judge now by $ per hour of entertainment (heck, I live in a city where one drink in a bar is going to set me back $10-$15, thank goodness I don't do bars much anymore).
I don't think anyone would dispute the game is moving towards encouraging more spending. I don't begrudge DB this, but I do feel for anyone lured into buying 9-hour doublers and rental tokens for $9.99, and hope they quickly discover it's not a good idea, the same way I might switch to a beer if my favorite establishment served watered-down cocktails. But I haven't yet seen any fundamental barrier-to-entry type walls that would make it truly P2W, unless *maybe* you're talking top 25, and even there we see reports of long-term players with careful hoarding being able to succeed.
The very idea that this would work as an "incentive" to make people "play harder" on a damn pay-2-win fest like this game makes me laugh. The only hard thing here is the idea, to me, to burn money buying boots and dilithium to go for this nonsense.
People using words like "effort" when all you have to do is buy your way to the top shows me how delusional players of this kind of game are. No wonder the state of the gaming industry nowadays is ridiculous. Look what Bethesda is doing. And every other major company. Some people really want to be mocked and pay for it.