Best Of

I have 2 heads about this, and they are kinda similar: first as a player, second as a former software tester and UI/UX lead.

First, as a player, these changes from the dev team are throttling my ability play and making me play less. While I enjoy playing more, my partner, she likes that I spend less time playing the game. I'm FTP, so I'm not going to be putting a dime into buy resources to play a game. I'm from the generation that started playing games on cartridges and when we paid for a game we expected to be able to play it forever.

Second, as a software tester and UI/UX pro, I started in the mid-90s, and I see the same patterns that developed in the mid-2000s happening here. Software developers went from being partners with testers and the users, to being adversaries and "better thans."

For example, early in my career, there used to be meetings with devs, QA leads, UI leads, users and user advocates to understand what's good and bad and how to make things better for the users. Then we'd figure out how to makes things better for the users.

Then, in the mid-2000s, the devs would attend these same meetings and push back and say the users have "no idea what they are talking about, they just don't know how to use it!" Eventually, the test teams would have bugs rejected with comments like, "not valid unless a user finds it in production." Then when the user found the bug in production it would likely go unfixed.

Then, in the 2010s, it got even worse. Devs would refuse to meet with the users when we had the team meetings. After the rest of us came up with a direction and solution, the devs would go behind the teams' back to meet with the users and tell them, "this is WAY too difficult for me to do. It would take too long. What I can do is this… instead." What this was made things far more complex for the user, but easier for the devs. Eventually, in many cases the users got so frustrated with the complexity the devs built, that they ended up looking for a new solution and dropped the software that we were developing. This also lead me to say, after a 27 year career, "f*** it, I'm out." The devs driving the ship makes for inferior user experience.

I see this here… they laid off the majority of the QA team a few years ago and pushed testing off to us. Not only is the game so much more buggy, the changes we are getting are making things more complex and difficult for us.

The only way out now is for a major paradigm shift at the top or suffer a huge defection of players to a new game.

(and now for deluge of dislikes!)

Hearing is one thing, actually doing something about it is another. Look at World of Warcraft who didn't do anything for years. A lot of companies don't change to help their players and it hurts them in the long run. Pride is a dangerous thing.

They’ll say ‘we hear your feedback,’ but - the only feedback that actually makes them move is revenue loss. No forum post, no survey, no wall of text hits harder than numbers dropping on their end. That’s the only feedback they truly value.

It’s not an airport, and we don’t need to know YouTubers’ departures. Quit and move along, whiners.

Honestly, the entire concept of energy is outdated.

Any company, not just Kabam, is saying "we really want you to play our game, but only in limited amounts for free, otherwise pay us".

Don't get me wrong, I completely understand any company needs to make money to exist, but it doesn't have to be from simply playing the base content.

As an example, Guild Wars 2 makes the vast majority of their money from the cash shop which is all cosmetic stuff. They do not have a monthly subscription like many MMOs do (or did). I still spent more a month on that game on optional purchases than what a normal monthly sub would have cost.

The same is true for my spending in MCOC. I spend on stuff I choose to, which often includes crazy sales I shouldn't spend on but do anyway. I do not, and will not, spend money either directly on the Energy Card or indirectly by getting refills with Units.

I am not crazy enough to think they will just get rid of energy, I know better than that, but I don't think most people were ever saying "man I have too much energy this is a bad thing".

Now, they could take the approach of another Marvel phone game and you just build up extra energy over the limit, so that any refill you got never went wasted. They could also make it so refills don't expire so even if we get less of them we don't have to worry about when/how to use them.

There are ways to solve this, but limiting the amount we get while increasing the required daily spend is not going to end well.

Comspiracy theory number 726494924

They lost the micro transactions, no one buys units outside of special sales, they can't encourage you to do it, so they will make you spend units.

No more revive farming, well there was too much energy left, now they gotta target energy. Specially since eveything nowadays has become a gaunlet (yes Kabam is over using it by now), reset a quest and try again? With all that free energy? Nonsense!! Take away energy now!

Well now some people can think.. oh well a peter parket wallet, thats almost 5 energy refills i can finish my quest for 5 bucks...

At this point I seriously question how well they are doing, cause it seems like they are trying too hard to make some money. Its starting to look desperate.

With all due respect, I see more dedication from Netmarble in Marvel Future Fight.

Energy is a unit metric, lots of games have this mechanic…none has ever thought removing it would be the answer.

Communication, we need more of it, but seeing some reactions, I can appreciate why the mods stay away.

Monetization, well, we can see it going in that direction with so many sales, but I think even whales who spend on sales are going to be annoyed spending on little things like energy.

Crash taking the hit, its corporate politics….he has to say yes to the boss because, he needs his job, he likes his job…

We can blame everyone linked to the game, praise past mods for their vision, hate how corporate has taken over…or

We limit our playtime and enjoy life, not take this so seriously anymore…breath and catch our breath…or be more interested in the drama and want to just be pissed off like the rest of the world…

10 plus years in, I'm at a point where I just don't care too much, I play for fun, I don't spend anymore, I don't need that "new" champ as badly as everyone else because the state of the game renders it useless.

This game is on the same track as many others, at some point First Fight, Marvel Rivals or something else will take over my interests…the money I've spent (and not a small amount), well lets say it was for my hobby, like snowboarding trips or scuba diving in Bali…its gone.

They will take the energy now, next will be units in Arenas…whats afetr that…who knows…

Guys, catch your breath, for those of you that work in the real world, these guys are doing their jobs to maintain their livelihood, whether their decisions are good or not…doesn't matter…their humans trying to pay bills. Vitriol and Anger and Mob mentality… just dumb.

It ain't that serious….its a mobile game and even after 10 years…it hurts but it is what it is.

Go hug a loved one….

Peace

it’s been a long time coming and not all of it is tied to the latest changes — but it’s the straw that broke camel’s back

With the frequent sales and game modes, it definitely feels cash grabby. It makes sense to charge for champs, but now it feels like we need to pay to use the champs we have.. and that feels a bit much.

Elder marks used to give a boost for solo rewards points and cost units — fair; once solo rewards were removed, its days were numbered.

Raids are another thing that bother me — I get that you can buy tokens with “free” currency, but you’re also selling entry for $30. It isn’t exactly game breaking rewards; all fine.. but why make it impossible to one shot bosses? I understand paying for revives if you slip up, but paying to enter and paying more to finish something that’s around for a couple days? You realize entire games cost less than $30?

P.S. to the Kabam knights telling me to go play that game, I’m already on my way out before these changes, so it doesn’t really matter to me if any of these ideas make a difference or not. But I do hope they are at least considered, the surveys are inadequate to capture this information, and I’m leaving the game due to obligations outside the game, I still love the game and want it to succeed — it has gotten me through a few difficult spots in my life and I’ll always be grateful.

I love Deathless She-Hulk. I can't tell you how many times she's just been my go too for end game content. I have her max sig rank 4. Honestly I regularly run Deathless Guilotine (degen and healing can be incredible), Deathless She-Hulk and Deathless Thanos just about everywhere (they're all rank 4 max sig), honestly, they're my favorite team in the game. Totally do it.

This game is going through something right now. It definitely feels like they're trying to set up the game for the next 10 years but at the same time it also feels like they're trying to squeeze out every possible last drop from the people who loved this game and are willing to spend on it. I'm not quite sure if these two things will find harmony and the game will last. Right now though, I think it's a great time to take your resources and stop thinking about the future and just enjoy and go full send on whatever it is that makes you happy in the game or whatever it is you've wanted to do that still available. From experience, the deathless event and the champs that came with it are by far and it's not even close my favorite thing this game has ever done and I've played this game for about eight years.

Deathless She-Hulk IS worth it, for sure.