Is this a good or bad thing? I would say bad personally but I don't think I have too much knowledge to have a "strong" opinion about this
Recipes were good crown sinks, now many of em are given away for free in mission mode
Many recipes =/= Cobalt line and 4 other recipes.
Replicant, what I tried to say is that it was good when people had to spend crowns (so probably sell energy to get the crowns) to buy their first recipe of any star. Now you're given 5 so the decision to consider buying a recipe is less relevant. People arent encouraged to save crowns to buy recipes(and sell energy I say it again as this counts every player in the game). I played the game from launch, and I have sold energy lots of times for recipes because there wasnt any other choice.
Also strike needle and a 4* vt recipe, I believe. Maybe a shadow driver somwhere? Point is, that's not many recipes being given out for free, unless you are counting having access to HoH. But those takes crowns anyways.
How does having the entire cobalt line and associate weapons stop people from buying recipes elsewhere, and selling energy when they need the crowns? They'll most likely want better armour and weapons later on anyways.
Qualifying for most of those recipes requires getting 3-5* hall of heroes certifications, which costs gobs of crowns and energy. I certainly wouldn't have bothered making that much 5* gear unless I had some incentive to compete the 5* HoH... So the net effect was still a money sink for me.
Buy a 5* recipe now: 25k
Buy a 5* recipe before: 25k
You may say that AH was more expensive and recipes sold for like 30k, but that wasnt a true sink, you were giving money to another player.
I failed to check the wiki prior to buying a Plasma Capacitor recipe, didn't know they were a mission reward.
People doing business will lost one interest to sell stuffs, while the people who enjoy easy-going life will love it.
For me, I don't know how to put it on as well, there are pros and cons whatever we make sometimes.