[Editorial] Should Shard Shields be removed from the game?

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Do you want to see Shard Shields removed from the game?

No
3
43%
Yes
4
57%
 
Total votes: 7

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Link [HOT]
the Legendary

Post Tue Mar 21, 2017 7:40 am

This is an opinion piece, that is not based on any upcoming game changes.

It is going to be a great thing if the change to make Power Scrolls shard-bound goes through. Low activity shards will no longer be exploited for easy completion of champion spawns. Hopefully this will start to bring back the competitive spawning communities that existed before character transfers.

One complaint that is coming up now is the issue of shard transfer shields. They were added as a 14th year veteran reward. Once a month each shield gives you a free transfer token to the shard represented on the shield. The monetary advantage given by these shields is huge since it saves you $20 per month per shield.

Even before this proposed Power Scroll change, Shard Shields have been an ongoing complaint. With a very high threshold of having to achieve a 14 year account, not many can or ever will have access to them. If you are a very active intra-shard trader, the real money saved per month could be over $100 with half a dozen shields. And I've seen houses with 2 dozen in them!

If it were decided to remove Shard Shields from the game, or at least the character transfer tokens they give, then the people that own them would need to be compensated. I would like to see them leave the shields as a decoration. But if an owner was unhappy with the loss of functionality, then let them be recycled for another veteran reward pick.

If they are removed the expected outcome should be
  • People who don't like them will be happy, which should be the majority since most people don't own them
  • People who own them would be indifferent because they can keep them or turn them into another reward
  • Traders would be the most unhappy and would have to be more frugal on when to transfer between shards
Economic balancing is something the development team should look into now that gold duping has effectively been eliminated. By having Shard Shields as completely free travel between shards, you now have one gigantic economy instead of 2 dozen separate ecosystems.

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Cutter [HOT]
the Posting Master

Post Tue Mar 21, 2017 2:57 pm

No.

What they should do is lower the age requirement (or make them like charger of the fallen). Then give everyone below that age cutoff 1 or 2 free reward picks since so many already used their picks up on other things, figuring they'd never be old enough for shields.

Another option could be to make the shield non account bound until claimed out of token form.

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the Legendary

Post Tue Mar 21, 2017 4:24 pm

But making Shard Shields usable by anyone would make Transfer Tokens pointless.

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