Diamond Guys: In hindsight, what are your thoughts?

DFBBDFBB Registered Users, Moderators, Member, Moderator 6,602 Posts
Many have shared their opinions on the diamond life. It's obviously not for everyone, but for those on the fence for the rest of '19 and for '20, I think it's worth discussing. 
I would've preferred to be gold for a few months, but I saw the writing on the wall fairly quick. Like many, I'm a tsb addict and essentially, playing once a week(Mondays) just wasn't going to cut it for me. My main 'issue' with diamond is FP. It is great and all, but I also felt compelled to get it fairly often. If I had been gold all year, I'm confident that I'd still be at $10 spent. Instead, I'm at level 7 in the All Stars Progression. I know that's peanuts for some, but I'm a grinder. I enjoy that aspect of gaming and that's my idea of fun. All that considered, I had an absolute blast and if I have a future in TSB, it will always be in diamond. 


If you're not having fun, you're losing.

Diamond Guys: In hindsight, what are your thoughts? 33 votes

Diamond was great and I'm glad I made the jump.
48%
MattattackDFBBDantemavericksMulderkenEamusCatulinwaredstar77dustyhunksJCAM80sarge268bobremjrichmanesqAgulierspeedjalapenocubbiesTyroneEastwoodHorse42sucios08 16 votes
Diamond is fun, but it's not worth the time/money.
39%
Bigpredfanredlegs2018u2003cobranavyjack77DomerHomerJTPASTORsullipa8eman0023More2Most2First25Jackiejerrye23cooldowncanadacubszanderman 13 votes
Diamond was a terrible decision and I wish I had stayed silver/gold.
12%
matt_sackettretirepujolsMillecorsMarcuh 4 votes
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Comments

  • BigpredfanBigpredfan Registered Users 3,306 Posts
    Diamond is fun, but it's not worth the time/money.
    I need the option “Diamond is great and I’m glad I made the jump, but it isn’t worth the time/effort”. 
  • TyroneEastwoodTyroneEastwood Registered Users, Member 424 Posts
    Diamond was great and I'm glad I made the jump.
    I need the option “Diamond is great and I’m glad I made the jump, but it isn’t worth the time/effort”. 
    Neither is bronze/silver/gold/plat/this game in general 
  • 2003cobra2003cobra Registered Users, Member 2,720 Posts
    Diamond is fun, but it's not worth the time/money.
    Diamond had been a lot of fun. I knew that it was going to be a grind and I was prepared for that. My biggest issue is that lxp has been pretty scarce and when they made that horrible bump to hof is when I had enough. Not necessarily enough of the grind but tired of getting glued. Being in diamond is really the only reason that I’ve spent money. So next year if I play I will stay at gold and save my money. 
  • More2Most2FirstMore2Most2First Registered Users, Member 777 Posts
    Diamond is fun, but it's not worth the time/money.
    My full feelings are that I love being able to cycle for gold and cap players to their highest ratings, but at Diamond, you either have to spend a bunch of money or be able to cycle at least 3-5 times per week...the cycles get old fast.  However, I do wish I would have stayed at gold because I have no shot of fully capping any ATG, unless I win the lottery. Capping just one regular legend is task enough.  For TSB 2020, I plan to stay silver or gold and not worry about placing high in events because even with the improved rewards, it’s still not close to worth it.  Just focus on building my team through WoH and buy $99.99 deals on select holidays.  At least, that’s my plan 🤞
  • BigpredfanBigpredfan Registered Users 3,306 Posts
    Diamond is fun, but it's not worth the time/money.
    2003cobra said:
    Diamond had been a lot of fun. I knew that it was going to be a grind and I was prepared for that. My biggest issue is that lxp has been pretty scarce and when they made that horrible bump to hof is when I had enough. Not necessarily enough of the grind but tired of getting glued. Being in diamond is really the only reason that I’ve spent money. So next year if I play I will stay at gold and save my money. 
    If we had the premium XP boxes like last year, the XP situation would not be so bad. 
  • retirepujolsretirepujols Registered Users, Member 4,855 Posts
    Diamond was a terrible decision and I wish I had stayed silver/gold.
    I'm in between the last two personally. 
    "It's amazing how much work you can put in without gangly-ass legs in the way" - Sir Tdub71
  • JCAM80JCAM80 Registered Users, Member 606 Posts
    Diamond was great and I'm glad I made the jump.
    I plan on racing there sooner in TSB20 & hoarding resources & gold until Glu shows its hand.... more easy to gain great players or great amount of resources...
  • nwaredstar77nwaredstar77 Registered Users, Member 222 Posts
    Diamond was great and I'm glad I made the jump.
    I need the option “Diamond is great and I’m glad I made the jump, but it isn’t worth the time/effort”. 
    Agreed, also like to note that if I play 2020 I'll definitely end up going diamond on 1 team... It's really fun honestly, but it's an entirely different  game than silver/gold. You have to maxize resource management and not be impulsive, even if you do spend too much money
  • eman0023eman0023 Registered Users, Member 156 Posts
    edited January 2020
    Diamond is fun, but it's not worth the time/money.
    Overall, I enjoyed it. Particularly I enjoy games where grinding for success is possible. However, I’ll not move past gold unless changes happen with XP. 

    Pros
    - D6 cycles for gold and evo
    - “easier” in WoH - easier being if you can maintain getting top of the line closers, which is difficult in diamond
    - players reach max value
    - skills are easier to level
    - chase players a lot easier
    - do better in events with increased multiplier 

    Cons
    - D6 cycles are so tedious, so many clicks and hours of playing. I hate Tourneys since it takes forever to mass play them (stupid specials tab)
    - I never spent money until I went Diamond, FP is almost a necessity 
    - WoH you need to cycle cap a player if you plan on using him long term and rewards are no where near good enough for Diamond players
    - insanely difficult to level players
    - most of the gold I make goes towards a combination of WoH, skills, Mega boxes and rarely for chasing players.
    Edits- CvC is terrible for a while
    - upgrades are crazy expensive and 50k gold a pop to go from 84-100.

    I’m sure I forgot some.

  • JTPASTORJTPASTOR Registered Users, Member 456 Posts
    Diamond is fun, but it's not worth the time/money.
    Club wise it’s great to have a diamond club. Team wise I just don’t have the time to stay competitive. I went diamond in August which was probably later than I should have. I’ve thought about going diamond early next year and seeing what a full season would look like. Not sure yet. IMO 19 has had a lot of ups and downs. A lot of positive changes but some really crappy stuff too. 🤣
  • navyjack77navyjack77 Registered Users, Member 1,299 Posts
    edited January 2020
    Diamond is fun, but it's not worth the time/money.
    I am not quite sure what I’m going to do in ‘20, but I’ll definitely be playing. I am Diamond with a TS just under 200K. I am very close to All Star 13, and am at the point now that I’m cycling D6 at least 3-4 times a week. I know there are those that do it much more than that and spend much less that have a much stronger team than I do. My problem is boxes. I wish I had the discipline to not buy boxes when all I really want to do is save my gold for when something really worth spending on comes along. I feel that I put too much pressure on myself though to put up club points for every event to the greatest extent possible, which causes me to use resources I would much rather save for only my top players. I am the leader of my club and am the only one who is over 10K games played (over 50K for me). I am one of only two in Diamond and close to 25X the amount of club points as the 2nd place guy. I honestly don’t think they would care if I slowed down and started playing mo@drsmartassphd for myself and not the club, but that is on me to decide. I am undecided if I want to stay in my current club, start my own solo, or join one of the upper echelon clubs in ‘20. What I really want is to be able to have one of the strongest WOH teams in the game. Sorry about the long post. I blame it on @drsmartassphd. He’s definitely to blame. 
  • redlegs2018uredlegs2018u Registered Users, Member 1,048 Posts
    Diamond is fun, but it's not worth the time/money.
    I had a bit of fun with diamond I struggled with when exactly to go was waiting for the other shoe to drop (WoH difficultly jumps) and it did in a sense I went before there was more than one diamond pitcher.  I had to recalibrate my leveling strategy to get to 6 bats vs just a few.  I lost pace once I didn’t have the ambition to pound out 3,000 games a week combined with premium exp never really loosening up which meant I would have to combine more money in addition to the time which I can’t really afford to do.  I’ll spend the first month of ‘20 trying to read how the game is going to go.  If similar to this year I may yet go diamond again and would do so earlier to get keepers in better position to win at HoF earlier to get out ahead a little better on premium exp stockpiling.  Also will have to exercise more restraint on what I purchase (I was very much a club first player). If they make slugfest more engaging/allow us to use our regular roster I will factor that in to how high I want to climb.
  • dustyhunksdustyhunks Registered Users, Member 1,672 Posts
    edited January 2020
    Diamond was great and I'm glad I made the jump.
    Loved trading in slog for gold with vids for bonus game grind. Diamond I feel is a mechanism for using the whole game. In silver and gold there were events I never considered or game modes that I shrugged off mostly due to taking a loss too often for my taste but in diamond they are a necessity. Don't feel like I understood the game economy at all until I went diamond.

    I think I'm a rare one in that I actually love bonus games. The 1k wins to restart the loop never bothered me though I was unsure at first and there's so much that goes on in the middle of that grind that's important to your team's future. You also get to know the pool of teams pretty well and end up with a deeper sense of your own team's strengths and weaknesses when the heavy hitters come up.

    FP requirement was a bit of a drag (wish there was a daily/weekly cheaper option without gold and boxes) but the only thing that really I feel needs work is the UI. Tournaments are huge in diamond and the interface feels like it was designed, implemented and never thought about again. Almost like it's significance (the tournament box) was an accident. Main screen has to be customizable or have less clutter in general but stepping into the process of playing a tourney is so convoluted. Guess it's not a diamond only thing but we use those boxes the most and it's a big dread for any diamond team when running low on bonus games. Hopefully it's not overlooked in 20.
  • nwaredstar77nwaredstar77 Registered Users, Member 222 Posts
    Diamond was great and I'm glad I made the jump.
    Very good point there @dustyhunks , actually several good points, and hopefully Glu does change up the UI some. I know they try to make it convoluted and a stress to deter autoclickers, but it doesn't stop people from using them. It just makes it slower and annoying for everyone (mostly talking about tournies there)
  • eman0023eman0023 Registered Users, Member 156 Posts
    Diamond is fun, but it's not worth the time/money.
    eman0023 said:
    Overall, I enjoyed it. Particularly I enjoy games where grinding for success is possible. However, I’ll not move past gold unless changes happen with XP. 

    Pros
    - D6 cycles for gold and evo
    - “easier” in WoH
    - players reach max value
    - skills are easier to level
    - chase players a lot easier
    - do better in events with increased multiplier 

    Cons
    - D6 cycles are so tedious, so many clicks and hours of playing. I hate Tourneys since it takes forever to mass play them (stupid specials tab)
    - I never spent money until I went Diamond, FP is almost a necessity 
    - WoH you need to cycle cap a player if you plan on using him long term
    - insanely difficult to level players
    - most of the gold I make goes towards a combination of WoH, skills, Mega boxes and rarely for chasing players.

    I’m sure I forgot some.

    I will add that I think I went Diamond at a terrible time.  I believe it was mid-August.  It was just after the All-Star break and then Glu decided to greatly reduce XP from boxes (from those that remember that far back).  I was terrible in CvC due to my jump and I ended up creating a solo club which took several weeks to get into Platinum.  Once I got a Plat club, won 90%+ of my CvC matchups, I started having more fun again and my XP went up again. If I had to do it again, and maybe in the future, I would've definitely jumped earlier in the game.  
  • DFBBDFBB Registered Users, Moderators, Member, Moderator 6,602 Posts
    Diamond was great and I'm glad I made the jump.
    I need the option “Diamond is great and I’m glad I made the jump, but it isn’t worth the time/effort”. 
    I thought about a 4th option along those lines, but it felt a bit contradicting. 

    Thanks to those who put a lot of thought into the topic. I think many will find it helpful. 
    If you're not having fun, you're losing.
  • MattattackMattattack Registered Users 1,971 Posts
    Diamond was great and I'm glad I made the jump.
    I don’t love the money I have spent this year.   But in general I can’t imagine having played at a different tier and gotten as much out of the game that I have.  If I’ve wanted a player, I have gotten him for the most part.   And that part of the game is cool.   I think the main question is do I want to continue to put in the amount of time it takes to stay ahead of the curve.   Regardless diamond is a grind which is good and bad.  Still not 100 % sure how I want to play other then spending less so I’ll have to see how that works   
  • nwaredstar77nwaredstar77 Registered Users, Member 222 Posts
    Diamond was great and I'm glad I made the jump.
    DFBB said:
    I need the option “Diamond is great and I’m glad I made the jump, but it isn’t worth the time/effort”. 
    I thought about a 4th option along those lines, but it felt a bit contradicting. 

    Thanks to those who put a lot of thought into the topic. I think many will find it helpful. 
    Thanks for starting the poll! I feel like diamond gets ragged on too often and that may keep people from ever trying it. If you know what you're doing tho it's very fun, even moreso if you can play A LOT. I always tell people to stockpile resources for their closers in woh before evolving to the next lvl. I made that mistake myself 2 times in 19. Although I knowingly made those jumps... So no regrets there. Glu has done lots to improve on how tedious the game can be at diamond, with field pass and not requiring gold to lvl players, but it clearly isn't enough. I think the most necessary thing would be bringing back the old system of when you get a new player they start out at the tier you're at, so they'd be d1 instead of b1 for diamond players
  • sullipa8sullipa8 Registered Users, Member 564 Posts
    Diamond is fun, but it's not worth the time/money.
    It seems I’m always just behind the curve. I went to Diamond when everyone was saying to go to Diamond. But as soon as I did, they changed the game to make it a little harder at Diamond. Then once I feel I caught back up, it got harder again. And because it takes so much LXP to level a player to Diamond, I couldn’t keep up. If you got in Diamond early and could cycle cap players, then you could keep up even when the game got harder. But if you were like me and just struggling to keep up, the game left you behind. I went Diamond to see what it was like as I never went too high in past versions. I’m not mad I went there as it did allow me to freely play everyone game as much as I wanted. But the cost to level players is so much it’s not worth it. I suggested in another thread that the rewards should be better for higher players as it takes so much to XP to level. I remember a few years ago that player rewards would start at the level you are at. That made it easier, but that was before bonus players and special edition players out every week. It’s just a weird dynamic that it’s easier to level a player at lower levels, and you can have and advantage at that level. The game isn’t necessarily easier at Diamond so I’m not sure why it’s this out of balance. But I do see how if you can level every available players with the highest max, you’d be never lose a game. So I do get what they are trying to do. I just wish they would adjust it some. 

    As for next year, if I have a second device and can have 2 teams, I’d go to Diamond with one and staying at Gold with the other. Then I could have the best of both worlds.
  • BigpredfanBigpredfan Registered Users 3,306 Posts
    Diamond is fun, but it's not worth the time/money.
    DFBB said:
    I need the option “Diamond is great and I’m glad I made the jump, but it isn’t worth the time/effort”. 
    I thought about a 4th option along those lines, but it felt a bit contradicting. 

    Thanks to those who put a lot of thought into the topic. I think many will find it helpful. 
    If you know what you're doing tho it's very fun, even moreso if you can play A LOT. 
    I enjoyed diamond a lot more when I could play 500-700 games while at work. I didn’t like diamond so much when I couldn’t play when at work. 
  • sarge268sarge268 Registered Users, Member 80 Posts
    Diamond was great and I'm glad I made the jump.
    The gold and the evo were great, the tedious non stop tapping got to be a grind after awhile. In Gold I was cycling HOF 5-6 times each Monday. In Diamond I struggled to level my legends to the point I haven’t cycled HOF in three weeks. It’s the lack of Xp that is the most annoying. I don’t spend a lot of money but felt like I had to buy FP a couple times just to get a couple guys capped.  For 2020 I’ll probably stay gold longer and watch videos more often to earn gold. 
  • nwaredstar77nwaredstar77 Registered Users, Member 222 Posts
    Diamond was great and I'm glad I made the jump.
    I'm also curious to hear from people that went diamond - why did you go diamond? I know last year i was silver from when i first discovered the game until '19. Never had a problem winning games. I noticed in '19 though the game throttles your wins insanely early on! In silver I would start losing at 3k-5k wins, after 8k-10k it was just rediculous (my views on that may be a bit drastic... My last main acc - nwaredstar - was diamond and had less than 1k losses, always tried to stay ahead of the throttling)
  • DFBBDFBB Registered Users, Moderators, Member, Moderator 6,602 Posts
    edited January 2020
    Diamond was great and I'm glad I made the jump.
    I'm also curious to hear from people that went diamond - why did you go diamond? I know last year i was silver from when i first discovered the game until '19. Never had a problem winning games. I noticed in '19 though the game throttles your wins insanely early on! In silver I would start losing at 3k-5k wins, after 8k-10k it was just rediculous (my views on that may be a bit drastic... My last main acc - nwaredstar - was diamond and had less than 1k losses, always tried to stay ahead of the throttling)
    I went diamond about 2 months prior to the end of '18 and I absolutely loved it. My only regret was that I didn't go sooner. I knew I'd make the jump in '19, but went much quicker than anticipated because the game changed. Royale was essentially a tourney/bg day and then, we had another bg day on top of that. I was also silver/gold for maybe 80% of the '18 season and that style simply wasn't as fun anymore. I also value club points more than most so that definitely factored into my decision as well. 
    I love collecting players and I make no secret of my thirst for eye candy...and man, diamond is purdy! Capped legends/atgs are fairly common in the lower tiers, but you don't see them often in diamond. I know it's silly, but that stuff does matter to me. :smile:
    If you're not having fun, you're losing.
  • WaveburnerWaveburner Registered Users, Member 290 Posts
    I've never been diamond so I didn't vote on the poll. But just wanted to add one consideration in the decision to go diamond or not that I don't think has been mentioned here yet. It's the main reason I wouldn't really consider the move myself.

    The importance of free time during event hours on Mondays cannot be overstated IMO when it comes to going diamond or not. If you can't do 8-10 cycles almost every Monday then going Diamond is unlikely to be much fun unless you're willing to drop huge money on the game. You'll never stockpile enough xp to level players without all those cycles. 


    I have 2 or 3 hours at most on Monday and average only 2-5 cycles because of it. Diamond just isn't realistic for me unless they change the game drastically for 2020. I'm not going to play next year anyways but for other people it's something to consider.
  • DFBBDFBB Registered Users, Moderators, Member, Moderator 6,602 Posts
    edited January 2020
    Diamond was great and I'm glad I made the jump.
    I've never been diamond so I didn't vote on the poll. But just wanted to add one consideration in the decision to go diamond or not that I don't think has been mentioned here yet. It's the main reason I wouldn't really consider the move myself.

    The importance of free time during event hours on Mondays cannot be overstated IMO when it comes to going diamond or not. If you can't do 8-10 cycles almost every Monday then going Diamond is unlikely to be much fun unless you're willing to drop huge money on the game. You'll never stockpile enough xp to level players without all those cycles. 


    I have 2 or 3 hours at most on Monday and average only 2-5 cycles because of it. Diamond just isn't realistic for me unless they change the game drastically for 2020. I'm not going to play next year anyways but for other people it's something to consider.
    I definitely agree. Thanks for reminding everyone the importance of HoF Mondays. If you don't have the time on Mondays, the diamond life will not be kind. 
    If you're not having fun, you're losing.
  • 2003cobra2003cobra Registered Users, Member 2,720 Posts
    Diamond is fun, but it's not worth the time/money.
    There were plenty of Monday’s where I had less than 2 hours to play so certainly held me back. That’s the easiest way to obtain lxp. 
  • criffycriffy Registered Users, Member 625 Posts
    Do you diamond guys wish that this wasn't a progressive game only meaning you could retrofit your team based on event? Maybe you could pay gold to access different tiers (such as silver / gold) for events such as slugfest / WoH (if you don't want to take guys to d10). You've already invested the xp in players to d10, so you've spent all the resources you could on a player and should be able to go back and forth between s10, g10, p10, d10 if you're willing to spend gold or actual $$ on it. Players don't have the option of rolling back to tiers below and it would give players the option of keeping the team that they have built rather than starting all over if they realized it was a mistake. Would prevent players from straight up quitting and provide Glu some $$ for a player to fix his/her mistake.

    Obviously, Glu isn't going to do this given their ultimate goal of converting you into a weekly subscriber player at diamond or pay to play at lower levels, but wouldn't this make the game more fun for some of you season long diamond burnouts? The goal is to keep user engagement high which converts into revenue - sounds like many are in the camp of trying diamond out this year and vowing to not go back. Seems like this could be one way to address the loyal users that just don't have the time to keep a competitive diamond team all year long while keeping them as customers.
  • rmouse511rmouse511 Registered Users, Member 185 Posts
    We have no idea how the game will change at the Diamond level for the 2020 version of the game. The biggest change this year was removing the cost of gold to take a player up from D1-D10. Even with the reduction of the availability of lxp and pxp, I still think it was easier to level a player in diamond this year as opposed to last year. 

    To me, deciding what level to take your team, depends on three factors.
    1. How much money you are able or willing to spend
    If you don't want to spend any money on the game, or as little as possible, then diamond probably isn't the right level for you. I haven't spent money on gold purchases this year, but I have for Field Pass. I would rather spend my money on FP to help level up players I already have, as a opposed to spending it on gold/boxes chasing players that I might not get.

    2. Amount of time playing the game
    Grinding videos or bonus games/tournaments are both a huge investment of time. I have done both and don't feel that there is much of a difference. If you are on the app a lot to get free gold, the d6 cycle earns gold at a faster rate than videos (even at 8 per video). If you get gold by spending money, then it makes sense to have a silver/gold team. 

    3 Why you play the game- this is the most important to me
    I like to play the game most days and contribute to my club and improve my team. When I was a silver/gold team, I felt like I was only focused on Mondays. I couldn't help my club much outside of WOH days, so I was really only playing once a week. 
    As a diamond team, I am able to improve my team every day, while also helping my club. Since I plan on playing the entire year, I view the challenge to build my diamond team as a marathon and not a sprint. I enjoy the process and strategy of building a team. It is cool to have a player reach their full rating at diamond. I know I won't be able to level up every player I get, and that I have to be selective with my resources. 

    After saying all of this, who knows what the 2020 version will look like. Cooldown, diamond leveling costs, rewards for cycling d6, game events, and new features will all impact my strategy for next year. I can't really say how I will play next year, but I will probably end up as a diamond team again next year. If you have never gone all the way to diamond, might as well give it a shot during the last month of this version. You could use all the gold you gain to buy boxes to chase players to use as keepers next year. 
  • 2003cobra2003cobra Registered Users, Member 2,720 Posts
    Diamond is fun, but it's not worth the time/money.
    I know that I’ve had my negative comments about diamond but this is by far the best thing about it. The excitement of the pull and being able to cap him instantly was very rewarding. Unfortunately I haven’t done this since a 470 player. 
  • rmouse511rmouse511 Registered Users, Member 185 Posts
    Choosing what level you take your team depends on 3 factors:

    1. Money spent on the game
    -If you don't have or want to spend money on the game, then having a diamond team probably isn't for you. Fast Pass is extremely helpful to leveling up diamond players. I haven't spend a bunch this year, but I would rather spend my money on FP to save on resources for players I already have, as opposed to buying gold/box bundles chasing a player I might not get. I was very picky with how I spent my gold when I was a silver/gold team. As a diamond team, I am more willing to spend my gold. 

    2. Time spent getting gold
    -If you spend money to get gold for your team then this doesn't apply to you. I know that there are some players that don't want or have the time needed to earn free gold from videos or cycling d6. If you are willing to invest time in getting free gold, cycling d6 is more effective. I know it has been discussed on here in the past, but I really don't see much of a difference in watching videos and playing bonus games/tournaments. More bang for your buck with cycling d6...even when it is 2x gold videos. 

    3. Why you play the game
    -I like the ability to improve my team and get club points during all events. WOH, bonus games, and Royale allow me to do both of these at the same time. When I had a silver/gold team, I really only did both of these on WOH days. It was easy for me to not play on non WOH days. I kept losing interest when only playing 1 day a week. I know that building a solid diamond team is a marathon and not a sprint. I enjoy the process and strategy of building a diamond team. It is not a big deal to me that I can't level up every new player I get. Being selective with how I spend my resources is required as a diamond team. It is a challenge to get a player to d10, but it is nice to see a player reach their full rating on the game. 

    Of course all of this could change with the new version coming out in a month and a half. Who knows what changes GLU will make to cooldown, diamond leveling costs, club events, and other game features. I don't have a plan in place for next year. Once I get a feel for the new version, I will develop a strategy, and probably end up with a diamond team again.
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