Best Of

So What’s the Plan? We do not want to be in this situation any more than players do. There isn’t a member of the dev team who wouldn’t love Alliance Quest to pay for our salaries just by existing, but that world is gone. We do not believe trying to force monetization back into our existing game modes is going to work, either for us or our players. So the plan is to try some new things, and the new thing we announced today is First Appearance Champions.

Force feeding it no, re-invigorating. it maybe. As is, yup I hate AQ, occasionally I will play a plat war season. It doesn’t mean they can’t still be used in a more digestible and new way.

AQ itself is a good concept, just need to keep it fresh.

Doing AQ every week, for years on the same map without updates, no thanks.

Logging in three times a day or else you get booted from Ally for not completing AQ and miss out on the rewards, not cool.

I should be able to do my entire lane in one sitting so I don’t get kicked.

No one likes feeling like they have to log in from the bathroom at work to play a game for 10 minutes or else they will let others down and get kicked off the team. Don’t want to think about this game while I’m working sorry you are not that important.

• All maps (even the highest ones) should be able to be completed with only 8 player lanes leaving a 2 player reserve cushion in each BG for real life responsibilities.
• Re-invest in AQ, defenders that change daily or are random to keep it more fresh, new maps and rewards updates.
• Put Ally events on a one week rotation. AQ week, Raid week, Incursions week, then off week, repeat monthly. This gives the players the last week or the first week of each month to do EQ/SQ and other content or nothing.
• Keep investing in AW/AQ. Keep top tiers more challenging than lower tiers, consumables may be required to complete higher tiers. But make the lower tiers more enjoyable, more about participating and less about using consumables. Folks can find their own sweet spot.
• Consider replayable permanent content – First pass completion/exploration, rewards are what they are when launched. “Replays” tab (like corinas) refresh every 90 days. Replay previous content for radiance. Re-Entry cost nominal units entry fee after initial completion. Keep re-running ROL no sweat 10 units every time you enter. (pays for the potions they will get and a fair unit sink.
• Refresh rewards on older uncompleted content or maybe add radiance to give reason to play it after rewards are outdated.

Why So Many Sales? The shift in player behavior and content design has directly led to the current monetization strategy for the game. As Baseline revenue has disappeared, we have had to find ways to replace it… [EDIT}…As Baseline disappeared, more revenue had to come from offers. This trend started at least five years ago and continues today. And the best way to make money from offers is to have big offer events, which are sales.The team knew years ago that creating more sales could result in a self-reinforcing feedback loop, but they didn’t think they had any other choice but to proceed down this road. So as the team added more sales, players were trained to save their money and Units for sales, which resulted in further decreases in Baseline, which resulted in more sales. Because players only spent on sales, their perception of the value of resources also shifted, meaning we had to continually offer more for less, leading to more aggressive sales. As players saved for sales and free Unit sources increased, average Unit balances increased substantially, which led to inflation and more expensive sales.

Sometimes when faced with an either-or decision, the answer is AND/BOTH. If you understand the root cause to be a decrease in baseline revenues and the decision landed on further decreased the baseline, why not target some resources to rebuild or re-invent the baseline initiatives instead of further eliminating it?

If the data suggests that players only spent on sales, How can you increase micro purchasing in between sales events without feeding the more for less loop? More for less is ok if it doesn’t impact the game balance. Allowing players to more aggressively strengthen their rosters laterally with great value in rank up gems and other non-leading edge resources will not hurt anyone. Sell it sell it sell it . Make more frequent offers for units that people will actually buy into. If the current meta is 7 star rank4. The rank 2 and rank 3 materials should be flowing more freely in valuable offers for units. No one will care how many rank 2 or rank 3 someone has when rank 4’s are the meta. No one cares how high someone has ranked their relics. Those resources should be following better for purchase with units. A mutually beneficial unit sink. Consider that the other game economics are out of balance and you overvalue and over price your deals so people don’t buy them.

You are behind on many economy updates and the next progression.

The in game rank up store is a great example. Great idea, poor execution. The prices are too high for the materials. They need to better align to a persons progression. An end game valiant will never spend 15 units per t2 Alpha. You hope folks will spend 15 units on one when they are one short for a rank up. But I don’t need t2 alpha. The last place needed for t 2 Alpha is 6 star rank 2 to rank 3 you will need 8. You’re much more likely to get me to buy the whole 8 required for a rank up for 25-30 units if needed to do a rank up on a 6 star for some reason at this point in my account. The store is just not on point to be effective as a unit sink. If no one is using the stores consider you missed the mark on pricing and adjust it more frequently.

FTP strategies and FOMO has players hoarding units for the big sales and inflation loop you mentioned further worsened by increasing ways units enter the contest (making it easier to get units) without adjusting ways they exit the contest. Less currencies will make the IN vs OUT easier to balance.

Right now Units are easier than ever to obtain for free, but units exiting the game (sinks) are all voluntary. Engage and entice the unit hoarders to spend their units more on lateral roster development and progress rather focusing solely on making content to be a unit sink.

You can always protect the leading edge of vertical progression with monetization of the next level resources.

Make Crystals Great Again. Don’t ignore the collectors and roster builders they are just as important as the completionism.

• Overhaul the entire champion acquisition order of operations to make it fun and profitable. In some cases you can play actively for years a never get a specific champ. By the time you actually get the champ you are looking for they have become irrelevant or what you wanted to use them for is now outdated in rewards.

• Consider adding existing selectors, 3 choice, 5 choice and 10 choice Nexus, Class choice Nexus. etc. all to the basic crystals as rare drops. It will add to the excitement and will help target more specific champs in the ever growing basic pool crystals. Continue to monetize those type Nexus but having a rare change ot get one free with RNG adds value to the basic crystal.

Why Can’t We Go Back to “The Good Old Days?”

{EDIT..If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” The problem with this sentiment is that..{EDIT}..players clearly don’t want The Contest of the past. Players have told us..{EDIT}… they do not want to spend Units on consumables. This has been very apparent in the last five years, exemplified by the incident a few years ago when we removed the major revive farms players were using. A Contest that looks like it did 8 years ago is one where most players are spending substantial Units on consumables across most major content, one in which it’s effectively impossible to complete a new Story chapter the week it’s released, and one in which very few Alliances can complete the top AQ Map. You have told us this isn’t what you want.

I think there’s an opportunity to better interpret data points, game analytics and survey responses. Many things have been removed, ignored or pivoted away from further development even though they were working. Maybe reinvest in what worked and what you have been ignoring.

It is doubtful that an overwhelming number of players asked to remove revive farming. They may have said “ I hate having to farm 100 revies to do new content”. But, I can’t imagine anyone asked to remove it and then design more ways to make us use revives, potions and units. It was a means of engagement, and habit, to farm 100 revies before you try certain content OR you will have to spend units. People still farm ROL for health potions, and no one changed that. Those who had TIME farmed, those who did not have time SPENT units.

Farming did not make people good at the game, it just made them smart at the game. Many players did not get better at playing the game (Skill related stuff) They just got better at resource management. The more you change design, the more players change how they acquire and manage their resources. Non spenders will always find ways not to spend. Many gamers understand part of gaming is grinding and storing resources in preparation for content or progress. I don’t think revive farming was game breaking either, providing players who otherwise would not spend anyway (FTP) the means to grind out some revives and resources before completing content only gave them something to do. It did give a spender the opportunity to save his budget for something else instead of revives, You were still going to get the spenders money on something they wanted just not on a revive to do content. A spender doesn’t suddenly have a different budget for the game because what he can spend it on changed.

That single change forced FTP players to grind the arena for units instead of farming. Then forced them to spend their even harder earned units on content designed to sink resources to complete or not to play it at all. The harder the resources are to earn the more likely you will hoard them. Forcing people who likely would not spend anyway to grind units to be able to afford to play the newer content or forcing them to not want to play it at all doesn’t sound like an ideal business plan for an entertainment business.

Make Arena fun again. Overhaul it and the champion acquisition Order of Operations.

We all understand new champions and reworks need to be monetized. Feel free to overhaul it. This isn’t working. We don’t like it and you’re not making money from it.

Many players enjoyed grinding Arena for the newest rarity champs also which is also gone.

A small amount of arena on the routine is fun. As we see in the occasional arena events i.e, 2 star events and such. These can be fun if they are not too grindy and don’t take much brain power or time to complete. Get the milestones and get out. More people may engage in the arena fun that built this game if there is a reason to do it and it’s not too grindy.

When I forget how fun the game was or when I’m not interested in doing anything, I go play some arena for quick fix and its still fun in small doses.

Arena was a fundamental part of the game that got everyone hooked years ago, don’t let it die, make it more engaging for small sessions. Those who want to grind it to oblivion can benefit from it but those who will want to get in and get out can also enjoy just doing the milestone with little time to play.

This used to be a staple of MCOC. Have 20 minutes to kill? Play some MCOC arena, that’s how I got here 10 years ago.

To be clear, I like arena in occasional, short doses but I don’t miss constantly grinding for 3 days only to find out I missed the champ. Some folks do miss that chase.

• Consider halving the milestones score in 4 star arena to make them less time consuming to complete (most value in that is for the newer and smaller roster folks). Most players stop at the milestones anyway so it may get more engagement back in the arena. I don’t do this one often at all.
• Put new champ releases back in arena rank rewards after the first runs during the pre-release. Buy the crystals for a chance to get it now or chase it in arena (that was a good model)
• If you want cosmetics for first run champs (for purchase) great idea but add a small bump in prestige for first run only for it to actually work - The more first run champs you can collect the higher your prestige. If that creates a match maker mismatch in new Prestige 30 matching for those with first run over those who don’t it should be negligible enough to not prevent doing it.

As I’ve said before, I think the biggest problem is that the prices in this game are really expensive. The cheap offers, like the Sigil, honestly isn't worth it. I just buy it for arena. With inflation not only in the game but all around the world, every country is struggling, we just don’t feel like spending $100–$1000 every now and then is worth it, in my opinion. Yes, there are players which can spend so much but u're losing a big ammount of income ignoring casual players.
Maybe only the battle pass and some casual offers are worth it. But spending thousands of dollars for a new character that we don’t even know if it’ll stay the same after release is ridiculous. And even if it does, the price is still crazy.
If you guys release these cosmetic items at a reasonable price, maybe it would help a bit but this still isn’t the real solution.

Here's an example for what i'm saying, 40 usd for x25 t2 dust? wtf? not even for 5 usd is worth it tbh.

As valiant, what's the motivation to reach these bonus track goals?

There are a LOT of examples… prices are just not good. I’d rather spend on full games on Steam or PS5, or on cosmetics in other games that are cheaper and more stable. This is a game for rich players.

hes not a dark mirror of anyone though

he's awesome

What about him?