Best Of

I have decided that I won’t be doing any more saga incursion carries, so if you were planning for a slot for next month for saga, you will have to make other plans.

I originally started out with the goal of just seeing if I could do it when the first saga came out, which was do-able. For the next saga, I decided that I would be doing it for another reason [which only two people ever asked about strangely] and decided to keep doing it for that reason.

But now the fun and joy of helping others has been slowly taken away. I have requirements/rules that I request of people, because, let’s be honest, does anyone actually like spending 45+ hours a month during saga on just incursions, and I have it done to the fastest way possible. Not following them makes it take longer, and thus wastes my time. But I have had too many people complain, and now it is no longer fun. Here are some examples:

1) Going ahead of me and taking my hacks so I can’t get any [one person even did this 4 times on separate runs]
2) Saying the time was wrong [even though they signed up]
3) saying I wasn’t on at the set time because they’re in a different time zone [why I put Pacific time zone in there]
4) Yelling [or the best you can do so on chat] at me and saying it’s easy so I should carry them in sector 6 and not just sector 7 [which is an additional hour since there are 10 more zones]
5) Dropping them after telling them that they kept taking the wrong path, taking my hacks before I got there, and then, after dropping them, them having the audacity to call me out on global saying I’m a scammer, that they recorded the fight, and were going to share it on their YouTube channel. Luckily, I had built up enough good will on global that no one believed them, they told him that he was complaining about getting free help, then we all had a laugh when I posted the screenshots of him not following directions on my small YouTube channel quickly [with his name removed].
6) People trying to take other people’s spots and saying that they signed up with the wrong name
7) Someone sending me over 200 friend requests in-game, on discord, sign-up emails and forum notifications.
8) The first day of the last saga, someone didn’t follow directions three zones in a row. I didn’t drop them because I was seeing if a carry was even possible and needed data. When I asked him if he read the directions, he said, “No. Was I supposed to read all that?” It just annoyed me.
9) And on Tuesday [which was the last straw as I was looking for a partner for my last friendship crystal for the month], someone on Discord DM me asking for help. They said that they can get to room 22, and just needed a partner. I told them that I only do carries because of time, and that waiting for a partner takes longer than me just running through it myself while the ‘partner’ follows. I explained that most fights are done in about 7-11 seconds, and that those who actually needs a partner just make me wait at the boss. That my time was important and that I do it to help people, and if he’d want a carry I would, but I don’t want a partner that does fights. They then didn’t ask for help, but rather said “I don’t know what kind of ego trip you’re on, but it’s not that hard. Anyone can do it. Especially Valiants like us.” I wanted to reply that if anyone could do it, why did he even need a partner and just do solo, but I just left the conversation.
10) Just something weird, but uncollected and below players telling me how to play while carrying them and telling me which hacks and champs to use. I know they were just trying to be nice/helpful/keep a conversation going, but . . .

****My favorite though was someone who signed up, but wanted to do Sector 6 so he could awaken his Herc. His PI was too low, so we had to exit and I told him to add boosts and try again. He kept sending the invites, so I could not select the sector. He selected 5 again because he said he couldn’t get sector 6. He didn’t boost up the second time, so we repeated. The third time, he boosted, but only did an attack boost. The 4th time, he got it correct, selected sector 6 finally, and then took the hack that was on my path. I dropped him [as it had now been 15+ minutes and didn’t want to waste any more time]. He then sent me messages saying that it wasn’t fair because he had spent money to purchase crystals to get Herc so he could awaken him. I took a screenshot of his profile to make sure that he wouldn’t sign up again, and if he did, I would drop him.

Later, he somehow was on the forums at the correct time and got an open slot that someone had dropped. However, he knew that he should change his name, so he bought a name change token and changed it. I didn’t say anything until zone 25 and asked him if he thought I didn’t know it was him [as he had the exact same champs and PI]. He said he was hoping I didn’t. But since he was honest, and I appreciate his effort to ‘conceal’ himself, he got his awakening gem for his Herc as we finished zone 25.

TL;DR – If you were hoping for a saga incursion carry next month, too many people have sucked the fun out of it, so there will not be one. You will need to find another plan [if anyone even cared about this post].

More to the point, it's a business. There's no such thing as too much. We can still play for free if we choose.

There absolutely is such thing as too much. The aggressive push for 600 dollars every 2-3 months is too much when you compare it to doing that only 2 times a year.

Too much for who?
For people who think they must buy everything, perhaps.
For a company who is trying to keep the lights on, not at all.
No one is forcing anyone to buy these. If it's too much for us personally, we're free to pass. The fact that people are still offended with EVERY Offer this game releases almost 11 years later is crazy to me. They're a business. They're going to try and make money.

When even the mega whales who buy everything says its becoming too aggressive and predatory, then something is obviously wrong. Just cause you either refuse or fail to see that doesn't make it any less true.

Predatory is a ridiculous word for a mobile game that offers optional sales.

I don’t have a particular opinion on the sales, hence my lack of comment, but this is just blatantly wrong. “Predatory” has been standard language used to describe all sort of gacha mobile game tactics designed to trick people into spending money, we’ve had literal legislation written because of it. We have drop rates on crystals because of this. Again, I make no comment on whether such language deserves to be applied here to MCOC but this feels like a ridiculous claim to make given the very real specter that hangs around similar games.

You can call it what you want. I don't agree. No one is being tricked into anything.

Gonna be real, this is the comment that makes me finally agree with everyone that you’re loony.

Predatory has never been a term that requires force or even strict coercion in anything but the literal predator/prey sense. Predatory lenders don’t force anyone to accept their loans. Predatory behavior doesn’t need to involve literal coercion, many victims engage willingly. It just means you’re preying on people in some way, often in a deceitful manner. Literally every industry engages in this sort of thing, intensive research into human psychology to figure out how to make people do what you want without them realizing there’s anything suspicious going on. The video game industry is no different, microtransactions and lootboxes especially. The idea that either these sort of things don’t exist or that it’s just a skill issue on consumer’s part is so offensive and divorced from reality that it’s kinda staggering.

And because you seem to really want to defend MCOC, I will restate from my original comment that I’m speaking generally and make no claims as to whether MCOC is predatory. I just find your apparent take that predatory tactics don’t exist or don’t matter to be fundamentally appalling. The human brain is a weird thing, and expecting that people just know how to avoid any and all ways that it can be taken advantage of is just myopic. People don’t work like that.

You can write as many paragraphs as you want, but I do not agree that the game is predatory. That kind of strong ideology for a game that is designed to entice people to enjoy it and play has never sat well with me, and I will never agree to that. You'd have a great time with the gambling debate with me. I disagree. Feel free to form whatever opinions you want. No one would play the game at all if it wasn't designed to appeal to people. That's much less nefarious than some people assert.

A lot of comments here from you about how you’re reading everything people are saying and just simply disagree, but saying that I can’t claim MCOC is predatory despite doing my damndest to emphasize I don’t have any opinion on MCOC being predatory seems to indicate otherwise.

More to the point, it's a business. There's no such thing as too much. We can still play for free if we choose.

There absolutely is such thing as too much. The aggressive push for 600 dollars every 2-3 months is too much when you compare it to doing that only 2 times a year.

Too much for who?
For people who think they must buy everything, perhaps.
For a company who is trying to keep the lights on, not at all.
No one is forcing anyone to buy these. If it's too much for us personally, we're free to pass. The fact that people are still offended with EVERY Offer this game releases almost 11 years later is crazy to me. They're a business. They're going to try and make money.

When even the mega whales who buy everything says its becoming too aggressive and predatory, then something is obviously wrong. Just cause you either refuse or fail to see that doesn't make it any less true.

Predatory is a ridiculous word for a mobile game that offers optional sales.

I don’t have a particular opinion on the sales, hence my lack of comment, but this is just blatantly wrong. “Predatory” has been standard language used to describe all sort of gacha mobile game tactics designed to trick people into spending money, we’ve had literal legislation written because of it. We have drop rates on crystals because of this. Again, I make no comment on whether such language deserves to be applied here to MCOC but this feels like a ridiculous claim to make given the very real specter that hangs around similar games.

You can call it what you want. I don't agree. No one is being tricked into anything.

Gonna be real, this is the comment that makes me finally agree with everyone that you’re loony.

Predatory has never been a term that requires force or even strict coercion in anything but the literal predator/prey sense. Predatory lenders don’t force anyone to accept their loans. Predatory behavior doesn’t need to involve literal coercion, many victims engage willingly. It just means you’re preying on people in some way, often in a deceitful manner. Literally every industry engages in this sort of thing, intensive research into human psychology to figure out how to make people do what you want without them realizing there’s anything suspicious going on. The video game industry is no different, microtransactions and lootboxes especially. The idea that either these sort of things don’t exist or that it’s just a skill issue on consumer’s part is so offensive and divorced from reality that it’s kinda staggering.

And because you seem to really want to defend MCOC, I will restate from my original comment that I’m speaking generally and make no claims as to whether MCOC is predatory. I just find your apparent take that predatory tactics don’t exist or don’t matter to be fundamentally appalling. The human brain is a weird thing, and expecting that people just know how to avoid any and all ways that it can be taken advantage of is just myopic. People don’t work like that.

You can write as many paragraphs as you want, but I do not agree that the game is predatory. That kind of strong ideology for a game that is designed to entice people to enjoy it and play has never sat well with me, and I will never agree to that. You'd have a great time with the gambling debate with me. I disagree. Feel free to form whatever opinions you want. No one would play the game at all if it wasn't designed to appeal to people. That's much less nefarious than some people assert.

A lot of comments here from you about how you’re reading everything people are saying and just simply disagree, but saying that I can’t claim MCOC is predatory despite doing my damndest to emphasize I don’t have any opinion on MCOC being predatory seems to indicate otherwise.

Just stop responding to him dude
I have been around the forums for 2-ish years and GW is the biggest kabam sucker I have seen