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This was a decision by Ukie back in 2023, and they just started enforcing it heavier this year. This sounds more like a miscommunication between Kabam and the platforms than anything. Kabam has always had a histoty of following required guidelines.

My assumption the Magik in the store is just going to become a normal Magik.

If there is another chance of first appearance then its not really a first appearance.

A little late to the party, so I'll just focus on one thing, the thing I think you're post is primarily interested in: if I may paraphrase, the disparity between how the changes in the game as a whole has causes a lot of resources - rank up resources in particular - to be revalued and reassessed by players, and the fact that the reward channels for those resources haven't been updated to reflect those new values.

I think that's normal. Rarely does the game change in a way that alters players' perceptions - objective or otherwise - of the value of a resource and simultaneously adjust how that resource is handed out in the game. Supply tends to follow demand, sometimes quite a bit behind. Some of that is practical limitations, and some of that is deliberate by design.

Practically speaking, it can be very difficult to anticipate how players will respond to changing game conditions. Sometimes they burn resources in certain ways, sometimes they don't. Imbalances are often difficult to predict because they aren't a static consequence of the game economy, they are also the result of players actions. Remember the days when players complained about lacking T1 alpha and when they were told they could just buy T1A with glory the response was often "I'm not going to spend my precious glory on something small like that, I need to save it for the important stuff." And in the process self nerf their rank up capabilities. That's an extreme example, but players do this sort of thing on micro scales all the time. They aren't robotic economy calculators. Balancing game economies in that sort of environment is difficult.

But there's also, at least in my opinion, a certain deliberate by design element to allowing supply to follow demand. This game would not exist if there didn't exist players willing to spend money on it. And players don't spend on what they can easily get. They spend on what is hard to get, where supply is constrained. MCOC doesn't permanently paywall much, so most of the time scarcity is temporary. Players will only spend on a scarcity for a limited amount of time, because scarcities literally don't last for long in this game. So every time the game creates a demand for something, the fact that supply lags behind that demand by several months creates that scarcity gap that the game can monetize, and that most F2P players won't notice for too long.

Demand shifts. Kabam monitors that demand and what players do to try to react to it. Spenders try to erase that scarcity with spending. The data tells Kabam what the gap between spenders and non-spenders is. They adjust the game economy to lower that gap, after the spenders have had some time to play with their toys. And then the cycle repeats.

For the record, this is my own take on what's happening here, and it is, like all economic discussions, extremely oversimplified. I of course cannot speak for the economy team here, but I would say my opinion is an informed, if completely unofficial one.

TL;DR: Kabam tends to make supply changes based on data-driven processes when demand changes. These data processes take time. That time window not coincidentally creates monetization opportunities in a game that actually has few such opportunities that are permanent in nature, so the process is self-reinforcing.

Now, give another trusted source

Thanks Kabam 🥳

I see what op means and I agree... I have champs I like that are ascendable, and would love to rank them up, like gentle I have at R4, bpcw and even high Evo at R5. All sig 200, so the investment is there, but I can guarantee I won't be pulling the Ascension on those 3.. I have however got Sam Wilson at a natural sig 200, and patriot.. a little more freedom would be nice, especially as these are rank ups, not new champs. maybe a nexus ascension 7 star crystal here or there.. or even a generic ascension token to be used once as high end content reward for elders.. it's way too random for me. And R&G isn't on my side..

Im sitting on thousands of dust on overflow, and I have way more class tokens than I'll ever use this year.. not a nice feeling.

I do however really like ascension.

I would like to see ascension mats in Sig 200 pulls on titans.. I'm back hoarding titan shards again as sigg 200 pulls ARE USELESS, when you guys promised there is now incentive...

We're getting Titan shards and rank up stuff hand over fist now, but new champs are tuned for Ascension. So I feel like, unless they've got an OP ability set, why bother if I can't Ascend them? Might as well keep saving.

Resources that were once precious and hard to come by are getting stockpiled. I can't be the only one with a ton of rank up stuff, sig stones, and awakening gems. It has to be the perfect storm of early access luck and a kit/playstyle I enjoy to use resources. A new champ like M'baku is so tragically weak even his very few pieces of showcase content are sad. The YouTubers can't even fake enthusiasm for him long enough to get through a Short.