@Shirokami07 said in GMs, is this legit or a hack?:
The facts are wronged by the context and time.
Not... really. No amount of time makes Novel better than Atlas Ex or most 15* weapons, or stops it having been an accessible exchange in JP the likes of which we'll probably also get.
The timing of content arrival is a separate point worth discussion, sure, but it's not fair to say Matt's demonstrably true statements are wrong.
@Shirokami07 said in GMs, is this legit or a hack?:
Yeah but end of Q4 is at the turn of a corner
Firstly I'm glad you're agreeing now. Second, for my own benefit, have they said Episode 6 part 1 will be the end of Q4? The roadmap announcement just says Q4. Episode 4 lasted four maintenances (eight weeks). If Episode 5 is the same we'd see the start of Episode 6 Part 1 on 25 November. Given that they probably want a quiet Christmas I don't personally expect it to be any later than early December.
Second, doesn't this mean the content progression is actually being staggered pretty well? Right now we have Nemesis, Raven, Invade, Ivlida, demonic and Jutus 13* weapons accessible through badge exchanges or collection folders. Most of these are already 60% light too! Next week we'll get Val 13* weapons the same way (and can now get it from Crimson Fellwyrm in advance). From these we can presently get Lumiere and Atlas 14* through a series of exchanges.
Yes we can get better 15* and for some weapons 14* drops from UQs or ultimate if you're willing to sink tens of hours into that or spend a fortune. I'm not sure how that's meant to be a problem though. Would you want high-level content to be meaningless for a couple of months?
It seems we're heading for the Atlas Ex exchange during Episode 5, and that's looking to be stronger than Novel. Then likely sometime after that the upgrade from Novel to Liberate will make that the strongest, and then maybe future upgrades will overtake that too. That's power creep in a nutshell.
@Shirokami07 said in GMs, is this legit or a hack?:
Novel goes into Liberate and wins.
Now this is a fact that is "wronged by the context and time".
A quick check-in with Zig shows we don't have that trade yet. We don't know when we're going to get that trade either. It might not be in Episode 5 at all (or it might, I don't really see how it'd be a problem either way).
For that context, let's take a quick look at when JP got certain content with reference to the ever-helpful bumped update notes:
Your assertion is that since Liberate is better than Atlas Ex (a point SeriPSO2 above disagrees with and which I will stay out of), there's no point in undertaking the exchange progression. You mention Q4 as when you expect that to be available. But do you know what JP also got in the same patch that added Liberate? Étoile. This places Liberate as Episode 6 Part 2 which is not the Q4 entry on our roadmap.
Supposing a likely best-case of eight weeks (four maintenances) per major update, no delay for seasonal events like Christmas, and the Liberate exchange on the maintenance that brings us Episode 6 Part 2, we shouldn't expect the Liberate exchange to arrive any earlier than 20 January 2021. Meanwhile we might get the Atlas Ex trade this month.
Moreover, by the time Liberate is available or very soon after, as Matt references JP having done the same thing, we are likely to have an easier way to obtain Novel weapons than we have at this point in time.
That's why the rare availability of Novel at the moment does not obsolete the exchange progression we are undertaking right now.