Trade talk:IOS Post/@comment-108.218.238.141-20121204092212/@comment-96.49.248.99-20121204105511

I'm sure the change was made because it fit the goals of an app business. Nothing so drastic is changed without lots of careful thought on the potential advantages and consequences.

If I were Applibot, what I see is a handful of people spending TONS of cash (like hundreds weekly) to draw URs and place high on rankings. Then a few thousand who spend maybe a couple bucks a week on things like Sacred Orbs for special events. Then there are the leeches who play and complain, but generate no revenue for the company (that's where I fit in).

This is not a sustainable business because it depends only on a small number of dedicated players. In essence, 90%+ of their revenue is coming from 1% of their gamers. These people are limited, and once they quit playing, it's very hard to replace them. Having the same 200 people and guilds rank at the top also makes the game boring for casual players. There's no way they could ever commit to playing and spending so much to get those URs. So when they quit, it's a potential paying customer lost.

As a strategic move, they would have come to the conclusion that they need to get casual players to shell out cash. If they could get the 50,000+ users to spend $2-5 per week, it would put Applibot at lower risk compared to 100 users who spend $200 per week.

By allowing duplicate backline cards, here's the following effects on the game:

1. Rare cards with high ATK/DEF efficiency will rise in price. The highest efficiency ATK rares are: Umbral, Atar, Atum, Daemon, Rockface and Undine.

2. Rare cards with moderate ATK/DEF efficiency will rise in price slightly. These are the "cheap man's" cards. Moderate efficiency, but still strong enough to get the job done. These include: Sauron, Celestial, Herolord, Ammit.

3. Rare cards with low ATK/DEF efficiency will become junks, regardless of their skill or their total attack output. These include: Demon Giant, Flameseer, Gallant Squire.

4. Ultra Rares as a whole, will drop in price. Their value will be based more on their skill, than their ATK/DEF efficiency. UR's are still valuable because only they carry the GREAT BOOST and GREAT DROP, so they're still valuable as Front Liners for Battle Royale. URs that have higher attack efficiency than the best rare (Umbral), will be valued more for Raid Events.

Here's the expected effect for the game and Applibot:

1. Battle Royale rankings will show a considerable shift. Weaker guilds have a chance at smashing the defense of top ranking guilds in Battle Royale, provided they have sufficiently strong duplicates. This could act as an incentive for casual players to spend that $2-5 to boost their guild ranking, without commiting to the $200+ that top guilds spend.

2. Raid Events rankings will be unaffected, since raid attacks only use the Front Line cards. This is where URs retain their value if they have high efficient ATK.

3. Odyssey Event rankings will be unaffected, since it's based on the number of Special Items gathered as a function of the Energy you have and the ED you drink.

Any guild that is determined to rank high, can stll do so. I suspect the top ranking guilds will still spend lots of money to buy items and PPs, so that they can rank highly. However, the incentive is somewhat diminished because the UR cards are less valuable.

I predict the following changes in the near futute to "balance" the effect of this back line change.

There will be no more unbound PPs and EDs awarded for bosses or events, or a SIGNIFICANT reduction in free ones. At some point in time, all PPs and EDs will have come from cash purchases. Applibot needed to give free PPs and EDs to get a user base. Once they have enough users, they will give out only bounded potions. This was hinted in the creation of the bounded "Half-PP" and "Half-ED" potion in lieu of unbound PPs and EDs in the last event. They obviously don't like giving so many potions out for trading. But giving bound potions allows users to build up their stock and utilize them at some point in a dash for that UR. For example, chugging all your bounded EDs in an Odyssey Event and spending $10 for those 3x Item Finds. I suspect a lot of people will find that an acceptable amount to spend, which is what Applibot wants.