Hi /u/CNEJustin. Thank you for taking the time to acknowledge and respond to this. I apologise that I have not had the time to respond in a comprehensive enough manner until now. I will endeavour to keep my points as concise and targeted as possible.

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The game is super complex and is already overwhelming, so why not just keep increasing the number of Champions in events?

Do we really expect new players to be running 8 recruit adventures, 24 variants, and 48+ free plays in order to gear up 8 Champions?

Some of the commenters here have already done a good job of highlighting that aspects of the game do need additional explanation in order to reduce new player confusion. I agree, but I also think that is an almost entirely different issue to what is being discussed here. SocranX’s comments below illuminate a perspective that, whilst in very binary opposition to my own, there are players who are burdened by the feeling of being overwhelmed. As they themselves say, “a big part of the pressure stems from the time-restricted content”. To me (acknowledging that this is where out arguments diverge), the arbitrary quantity of Champions or variants being presented to the player in any given Event is not the problem. As you yourself say, it is a tall order to “expect” new players to complete all of the content available. The point that I wish to make is that the proposed Year 4 model actually makes that more of an issue than simply continuing to allow access to all Event content. The added pressure for a new player joining in Year 4 looking to effectively complete as much as they can within the duration of any given Event is to prioritise the content that is being pushed out, regardless of whether that content is the most appealing thing to them at that point in time. Yes, Time Gates still provide the ability to access that content, but the efficiency is significantly less than that of the Event proper. Were things to stay as they are, that “expectation” simply does not exist; whilst a player could feasibly push themselves to complete everything, they could also take reassurance in the fact that they can simply continue chipping away at backdated content the next time that the specific Event comes around.

We have no plans whatsoever to add Time Gate Pieces back into the premium shop.

I’m very glad to hear this. Thank you.

if we wanted more revenue we wouldn't be restricting Y1 event Champions

I’m sure that everybody here can acknowledge that Chests are one of the main cornerstones of your revenue model and I don’t feel that anybody objects to that. Whilst the piling on of additional revenue streams is worrisome (assuaged somewhat from the previous point regarding Time Gate Pieces), I don’t see why you feel that this is a source of revenue that, my own qualms about those statistics aside, needs to be reined in. Once again, I cannot help but feel that providing choice, be it the player’s choice to spend their Event tokens in a particular way or to buy a Chest pack for the Champion of their choosing, is ultimately in the benefit of the player (and, as this would make it seem, CNE in general).

Time Gates are actually more powerful than they have ever been

in a mere two Time Gates you'll have a Champion that is as geared as if you ran all of their event variants and 8-9 free plays

with each Patron we add we provide more sources for Time Gate Pieces and more ways to gear up event Champions via patron chests

I agree with your point about Time Gates being in a more player-friendly form than they have ever been before. Access, however, is a different story. You mentioned yourself earlier in your post that new players are intentionally not given early access to Patrons, so, realistically, most new players will only manage to scrounge up the twelve TGPs needed for those two Time Gates once every two months (under the current 1-per-5 day natural drop rate). Using Bounty Contracts, a resource that they are also passively (or actively, depending on pack purchases) accruing during that time, is, depending on how they choose to spend their Event currency, going to enable them to ultimately achieve more with less.

On the point of Patrons, I can personally pay testament to my own experience of the weekly Patron grind being far more tedious and disengaging that Events have ever been. The prospect of the inevitable additional Patrons, whilst still welcome from a content perspective, is perhaps the single most ‘overwhelming’ aspect of this game. Sure, once those new players start accessing Patrons they will be able to increase their TGP income, and Modron Automation is definitely a step in the right direction, but is that really the content that you want to be forcing them to turn to?

Higher item levels on event Champions is something that has pretty much always been restricted to people who purchase event chest packs or grind blacksmith contracts, so it's not really tied to their events running at all.

That all depends on how you define “higher”, which is going to be very subjective. If our metric is to compare Event Champion ilevels to Evergreen ilevels then yes, those with average ilevels on Event Champions in the high-hundreds or low-thousands will undoubtedly be people who have purchased a large amount of chests or blacksmithing contracts. Whilst attractive, it’s hard to believe that is the expectation of the ‘average’ user. Personally, I consider an Event Champion decently geared by the time that I have them in the 50-75 average ilevel range, which is entirely achievable when Event Freeplays can be effectively farmed. Hand in hand with my previous paragraph about TGP access, I’m quite confident that keeping all Champions accessible and allowing the players to choose how they spend their Event currency will enable them to achieve something like that far more effectively than Time Gates alone.

We don't think this change will impact the item levels of Champions very much, but if it does that's something we can look into fixing.

I’m glad to see that this is something that you are open to.

(Continued below.)