As much as all the players who have unfairly profited from others work might complain, coupon plundering is hurting the game badly in more ways than one.
1. Revenue. Why would I spend $6 a month for 1800 coupons when I can plunder nearly 4000 per month completely for free? Aside from the major whales, it gives no active player any incentive to ever pay any money into the game again - terrible from a business point of view for a game which needs income to survive, and needs players to feel they are getting something for their money that they cannot get elsewhere.
2.Morale. Nobody likes being plundered, especially so when only the top 30 players on a server are allowed to do it, so you already know that there will be no fair fight and just an instant loss. A great way to cause resentment of high level players and drive more and more lower levels to leave the game. You high level guys can sermonise all you like about how others just need to "get stronger", unfortunately that will never EVER happen when you are getting 150 coupons per day compared to the convoy runners 15.
3,Cheating - it is well known on many servers that most low level players have quit and this means high level guys have to stand waiting for 3-4 hours a day to find any SS plunders..... or they make themselves three side accounts (a banned practise), level them up using their main to drag them through, sit them in an inactive guild and plunder at will. It cheats the developers out of more revenue, as well as putting needless extra strain on the servers with these false accounts.
I say get rid of coupon plunders entirely - if players want to get ahead they need to pay for it, otherwise those of us who do spend money and play the game honestly will stop doing so, and the game will fade and die.
The two first points do not conflict, for example if a 50k player decides he has had enough and wants to turn the tables on a 70k free player who keeps plundering him the option should be there for him to spend some money buying lots of ingots/coupons and catch up.
This is not possible, however, as the 70k guy can keep robbing coupons at a faster rate then the lower level guy can earn money to pay for them - one is trying to play in the right way, the other is a parasite leeching a free ride and killing the game.
At the absolute minimum, the game should make it that you only get one "free" coupon plunder every day and have to pay ingots to attempt more - the poor old convoys get worse rewards and have to pay for repeat attempts so why not the plunderers too?
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