The reality is that the current datacron set needed to be nerfed - It was beyond powerful, and CG just didn't understand its own game mechanics well enough to understand just how detrimental the 'wordy attacker cron' was going to be. It wasn't as simple as "oh it's 25%, and like maybe you'll have 10 buffs and get 250% damage," but rather so many hidden background buffs [like multiple instances of taunt being on at once, amplifying damage to absurd degrees.
It truly made GAC a spectacle of stupidity.
It was so absurd that the only people who "won" in that exchange were the people who could afford insane amounts of rerolls because of how rare wordy attacker crons actually are [we already know from testing in the past that datacron rolls are not equal percentages] - As an example, in a normal datacron set I am able to typically get 7-10 datacrons that I deem "the ones I want," whereas in this set I was able to get. . .1.
The problem wasn't nerfing the set. . .The problem was how they handled the nerfing of the set. . .
If we're being honest with ourselves, we truly don't know what the legal implications are, and how the lawyers may have instructed developers to handle this in order to protect their **bleep** [no dont quote the ToS to me, that's not always as ironclad as you might think], and it was an absurd overcorrection after a botched attempt to fix the set without thinking about the overall implications of what they were doing. . .It was a big problem.
The nice thing? I win. . .Players who spent only small amounts have completely won this exchange, and players who normally only minimally engage in datacrons have completely won by getting basically "free" rerolls as long as they had one attacker cron previously [it didn't even have to be a wordy one], the people who spend tons on this game?. . .Like absurd amounts?. . They got completely screwed as consumers, and I honestly feel bad for them and how this was handled. Especially after talking to many of these players who expressed they spent between 3-4x the amount they normally would on a datacron set.
Additionally, those players who were at the top and already spent to have 30 datacrons literally needed to destroy all their datacrons in order to get the makegood and capitalize on the rerolls, forcing them to waste tons of their time.
But all of that is to say that now that everyone is running around with perfect L3/6/9 and stats on their crons has made GAC unbearable and the next 3 months are going to suck. . .
What about the next set? Doesn't matter - If the next set is stronger than this set we're back to square one. . .And if it's worse than this set it'll mostly be ignored as "well when this dusts. . ."
I am not looking forward to playing GAC, and while I used to turtle I had just gotten into the swing of streaming my matches and playing in K1. . Now I am very strongly considering going back to turtling.
How should this have been handled?
Realistically I don't have CG's legal department at my disposal, but in a perfect world where I don't have to worry about how long it takes to recode things over the holiday?
- Attacker cron gets nerfed and no rollback happens
- All current crons get "free" rerolls on L3/6/9 for levels that were already rolled [an L6 cron doesn't get free L9 rerolls if it wasn't already unlocked]
- All current crons get 1 free "focused" stat reroll per stat level already rolled, which will allow them to be set to the 50% for the stat they select.
- Players who spent money or crystals in any form on datacrons [store, webstore, $$ and even conquest refreshes] receive a refund equal to 25-50% their spend, but in crystals ["store credit"].
- An all player make good of a starter set of datacron mats for the next set [likely equal to like 3-4 L9 datacrons].
