Auto-exchange is a mistake

Auto-exchange is a serious misstep.

I’ll start with the most immediate problem: the vast majority of the seasonal items (and event items, for that matter) are filler content that people have deliberately avoided and refuse to exchange tix for. There is an overrepresentation of things people don’t want or need. Why do we even have title cards in a game that’s not PvP? Even in games that flash player IDs at you, it’s a feature that many people don’t care for. To have these things forced upon us for diligently saving our tickets is a slap in the face.

Furthermore, the quality of in-game content is very poor. Stickers, clothing prints, and board art are overwhelmingly cutesy and child-oriented, lacking any form of countercultural nous or flair. It’s AI slop that ought to embarrass all involved.

This is a naked attempt to revitalise daily playing numbers by forcing people to come back and grind, instead of using the cushion of the prior month’s leftovers to dip their toes into the new content.

Besides being an obvious affront to the player base, it is a self-defeating move: if people can’t get going quickly enough with the new content, they won’t bother pushing through. The grind in this game is terrible and starting over again on a new, uninspiring unlock list will seem insurmountable, so players are likely to lose what little of their morale they still have and simply disengage.

The worst part about this change? Despite being so obviously to the detriment of players, it has been mooted as a response to player wants and needs. It comes with the familiar “we’ve been listening” rhetoric to justify what is clearly a business decision at the expense of player experience.

It’s insulting, because no-one asked for this system, yet we’re being told it’s being made in our name. We’ve called for plenty of other things, but those have curiously been ignored. But, no: Tix exchange is the big idea we’re being presented with as the panacea to this game’s myriad problems.

Bravo, team. Bravo.