That is the problem nobody understands their rational. We are not asking for an incomprehensible answer we want to understand why they choose to make this decision
It makes perfect sense to me, and to be blunt I don't think most of the people claiming to not understand it actually don't understand it. They just don't agree with it, and can't wrap their minds around the fact that some people do things for reasons they don't agree with, so they must be lying or obfuscating when they express those reasons.
Game development is always trying to implement compromises among a large number of often opposing priorities and criteria. Almost everything you do as a game developer has at least one really good reason to *not* do it, but you're doing it because there are more reasons to do it than not. To try to accommodate all of those differing priorities you often end up with something that doesn't absolutely honor one priority to the exclusion of all others, which can be used against you when players claim that what you did obviously doesn't "correctly" implement any clear priority.
This game has always had progression gates. A progression gate segregates players into those on one side of the gate and those on the other side of the gate. Whenever you implement a gate, some players will complain when they find themselves on the wrong side of the gate. But that's working as intended: that's the purpose of the gate. If everyone who wanted to be past the gate was past the gate, the gate's worthless.
The gates in the game have generally, but not completely, been implemented from the bottom up, because the nature of the game is that it has grown upward in complexity and difficulty (it can't really be otherwise). The earliest gates could use simple metrics that existed in the game, for example level gates. But as the game continued to grow upward, those metrics simply "ran out" and they had to resort to other progression metrics to continue to gate the game. Uncollected, for example, is a novel (in this game) gate: it isn't just a prerequisite to get to the next piece of content, it unlocks a lot of other development opportunities in the form of enhanced crystals and higher reward monthly content. Importantly, this kind of gate didn't exist until it did: it set the precedent that the devs were willing to add new kinds of gates to the game.
Level is an obvious metric that measures progress. Which content you complete is another one. But another measure of progress that has always existed in the game is roster strength. It factors into prestige which influences AQ rewards (and at one time prestige was *the* metric for progress for level-capped players). It has in the past been the metric used to calibrate things like compensation packages based on progress. It is a highly imperfect metric of progress, but it was *used* in the game.
The devs wanted a new progress gate leading into Act 6 and the ones that had been used previously were seen as inadequate. They didn't want it to be a trivial prerequisite like do 5.1 and you get to do 5.2. Prerequisites aren't progress gates, because there's no well-defined barrier to overcome beyond just keep playing (players can argue that this should be sufficient, which is tantamount to saying no progress gates should exist at all, but that's a separate complicated argument).
The obvious option is roster-based progress gates. But prestige is too narrow and player rating is too disconnected from actual progress. If the top five champs is too small and counting everything is too large, then measuring a subset of the top champs would be a reasonable compromise between the two. There are a couple of ways to do this. One way would be to extend prestige to a larger number of champs; say there was a fifteen champ version of prestige, and it took a certain minimum rating to enter Act 6.
This sort of thing emphasizes rank ups, because it doesn't matter how many champs you have, what matters more is how highly ranked they were. And rank up decisions are heavily influenced by which champs you pull randomly from crystals - some are more "deserving" of rare rank up materials than others. Back before Alliance War was really important and AQ was the primary game in town, players often ranked up champs with the highest rating, not the ones they wanted to play the most, because prestige was emphasized by AQ.
I wouldn't want to repeat that situation, and I'm guessing the devs don't want to either. So it is worth looking for an alternative to roster-metrics that emphasize ranking up the highest rating champs. But if we aren't going to use a ratings lock, is there a softer way to do it? Sure: we can limit which champs the players can bring in, so that instead of emphasizing reaching the highest possible rating with rank ups, the game instead tends to reward players with the widest rosters, from which those players will have more options available from the entry limits.
The entry limit can't be too low: it can't simply be "everything 4* and higher" or even "everything CR100 and higher (which includes 5/50 champs)" because that makes the options pool too large: the progress gate isn't rewarding particularly large rosters, because the limit allows almost anything (among players for whom Act 6 is even a possibility). It could be CR110 and higher, or it could be 5* and higher. And of those two options, once again 5* and higher deemphasizes high rank ups relative to CR110.
To me, this all seems entirely reasonable. I'm not saying it should necessarily be convincing for anyone else, only that a reasonable person could reach this conclusion. And yes, there are side effects that many players would argue are unacceptable, such as the impact on synergy tactics. But the question of whether those are acceptable or unacceptable is a value judgment, not an objective conclusion. Two different reasonable rational actors can differ on that judgment. The devs may simply have a different option. That isn't something you can demand someone "justify" or explain to one's satisfaction.
I’m not one to complain about free stuff but.........
With everything going on in this thread...... I spit my drink out all over my keyboard at work. Thanks for the laugh!
Maybe they need send out another package which says 4*s are trash here is a 5* and 6* crystal. Of course that most likely won't happen.
If people are waiting for an in-game Email with everything they need to do Act 6, that'll likely be a long wait.
I'm not asking for a simple give me everything to beat Act 6 instantly, but instead something to help people be able to even compete especially if they are banning 4*s.
So I can bring a Rank 1 Level 1 unduped 5* Antman to Act 6, but I can't bring a 5/50 Sig 99 4* Archangel.
In all seriousness, @Kabam Miike would you guys consider gating it by challenger rating instead of star level/rarity?
i.e. 4* 5/50 and 5* 3/45 and above only?
My point is, you guys invented challenger rating to essentially say a 5/50 is the same power level as a 3/45. They take similar amount of catalysts to rank, and have similar stats. Yet the way you are gating Act 6 doesn't take this into consideration. You can bring an extremely low level 5*, but not your most powerful 4*.
I am personally not for any gating, however I think this would be a good compromise. It would be more about making sure players have the right roster for the job, and less about who is getting lucky with 5* pulls.
I like this. If you are going to gate it at all, gate the content to Challenge Rating >= 90 or 100.
So I can bring a Rank 1 Level 1 unduped 5* Antman to Act 6, but I can't bring a 5/50 Sig 99 4* Archangel.
In all seriousness, @Kabam Miike would you guys consider gating it by challenger rating instead of star level/rarity?
i.e. 4* 5/50 and 5* 3/45 and above only?
My point is, you guys invented challenger rating to essentially say a 5/50 is the same power level as a 3/45. They take similar amount of catalysts to rank, and have similar stats. Yet the way you are gating Act 6 doesn't take this into consideration. You can bring an extremely low level 5*, but not your most powerful 4*.
I am personally not for any gating, however I think this would be a good compromise. It would be more about making sure players have the right roster for the job, and less about who is getting lucky with 5* pulls.
I like this. If you are going to gate it at all, gate the content to Challenge Rating >= 90 or 100.
Humm... would be even better if you had to become a Summoner Level 70... might actually give me a reason to use all those XP Boosts....
I'm wondering if the people complaining about this have done every other piece of content in the game 100% yet. This has been advertised as the final Act to the story. They probably intend it to be done after all other content is completed.
I can empathize with those with terrible RNG though. I like @Hulk_77 post above about Challenger Rating being a requirement rather than star level.
I've done everything in the game 100%. Act 5. LOL. Variant.
I have 101 5* champs
I have 13 6* champs
My total hero rating is 1.18M
My Prestige is 10.2K
I'm in an ally that\s top 30 in AQ
Do you consider me worthy enough to voice my hatred of this stupid rule?
Lol sure. I bet you're ready for Act 6 though despite the gate.
@GroundedWisdom okay buddy. We get it, you’re on the payroll.
Not on the payroll at all. I just don't agree with the dramatics. It's not the end of life as we know it, people will get through it with their 5*s. It's just a roadblock. We've seen a number before.
I agree. I play to have fun, and I'll be jumping in with my 5*s on Day 1.
That is the problem nobody understands their rational. We are not asking for an incomprehensible answer we want to understand why they choose to make this decision
It makes perfect sense to me, and to be blunt I don't think most of the people claiming to not understand it actually don't understand it. They just don't agree with it, and can't wrap their minds around the fact that some people do things for reasons they don't agree with, so they must be lying or obfuscating when they express those reasons.
Game development is always trying to implement compromises among a large number of often opposing priorities and criteria. Almost everything you do as a game developer has at least one really good reason to *not* do it, but you're doing it because there are more reasons to do it than not. To try to accommodate all of those differing priorities you often end up with something that doesn't absolutely honor one priority to the exclusion of all others, which can be used against you when players claim that what you did obviously doesn't "correctly" implement any clear priority.
This game has always had progression gates. A progression gate segregates players into those on one side of the gate and those on the other side of the gate. Whenever you implement a gate, some players will complain when they find themselves on the wrong side of the gate. But that's working as intended: that's the purpose of the gate. If everyone who wanted to be past the gate was past the gate, the gate's worthless.
The gates in the game have generally, but not completely, been implemented from the bottom up, because the nature of the game is that it has grown upward in complexity and difficulty (it can't really be otherwise). The earliest gates could use simple metrics that existed in the game, for example level gates. But as the game continued to grow upward, those metrics simply "ran out" and they had to resort to other progression metrics to continue to gate the game. Uncollected, for example, is a novel (in this game) gate: it isn't just a prerequisite to get to the next piece of content, it unlocks a lot of other development opportunities in the form of enhanced crystals and higher reward monthly content. Importantly, this kind of gate didn't exist until it did: it set the precedent that the devs were willing to add new kinds of gates to the game.
Level is an obvious metric that measures progress. Which content you complete is another one. But another measure of progress that has always existed in the game is roster strength. It factors into prestige which influences AQ rewards (and at one time prestige was *the* metric for progress for level-capped players). It has in the past been the metric used to calibrate things like compensation packages based on progress. It is a highly imperfect metric of progress, but it was *used* in the game.
The devs wanted a new progress gate leading into Act 6 and the ones that had been used previously were seen as inadequate. They didn't want it to be a trivial prerequisite like do 5.1 and you get to do 5.2. Prerequisites aren't progress gates, because there's no well-defined barrier to overcome beyond just keep playing (players can argue that this should be sufficient, which is tantamount to saying no progress gates should exist at all, but that's a separate complicated argument).
The obvious option is roster-based progress gates. But prestige is too narrow and player rating is too disconnected from actual progress. If the top five champs is too small and counting everything is too large, then measuring a subset of the top champs would be a reasonable compromise between the two. There are a couple of ways to do this. One way would be to extend prestige to a larger number of champs; say there was a fifteen champ version of prestige, and it took a certain minimum rating to enter Act 6.
This sort of thing emphasizes rank ups, because it doesn't matter how many champs you have, what matters more is how highly ranked they were. And rank up decisions are heavily influenced by which champs you pull randomly from crystals - some are more "deserving" of rare rank up materials than others. Back before Alliance War was really important and AQ was the primary game in town, players often ranked up champs with the highest rating, not the ones they wanted to play the most, because prestige was emphasized by AQ.
I wouldn't want to repeat that situation, and I'm guessing the devs don't want to either. So it is worth looking for an alternative to roster-metrics that emphasize ranking up the highest rating champs. But if we aren't going to use a ratings lock, is there a softer way to do it? Sure: we can limit which champs the players can bring in, so that instead of emphasizing reaching the highest possible rating with rank ups, the game instead tends to reward players with the widest rosters, from which those players will have more options available from the entry limits.
The entry limit can't be too low: it can't simply be "everything 4* and higher" or even "everything CR100 and higher (which includes 5/50 champs)" because that makes the options pool too large: the progress gate isn't rewarding particularly large rosters, because the limit allows almost anything (among players for whom Act 6 is even a possibility). It could be CR110 and higher, or it could be 5* and higher. And of those two options, once again 5* and higher deemphasizes high rank ups relative to CR110.
To me, this all seems entirely reasonable. I'm not saying it should necessarily be convincing for anyone else, only that a reasonable person could reach this conclusion. And yes, there are side effects that many players would argue are unacceptable, such as the impact on synergy tactics. But the question of whether those are acceptable or unacceptable is a value judgment, not an objective conclusion. Two different reasonable rational actors can differ on that judgment. The devs may simply have a different option. That isn't something you can demand someone "justify" or explain to one's satisfaction.
You do know forums points aren’t based on word count, right?
That is the problem nobody understands their rational. We are not asking for an incomprehensible answer we want to understand why they choose to make this decision
It makes perfect sense to me, and to be blunt I don't think most of the people claiming to not understand it actually don't understand it. They just don't agree with it, and can't wrap their minds around the fact that some people do things for reasons they don't agree with, so they must be lying or obfuscating when they express those reasons.
Game development is always trying to implement compromises among a large number of often opposing priorities and criteria. Almost everything you do as a game developer has at least one really good reason to *not* do it, but you're doing it because there are more reasons to do it than not. To try to accommodate all of those differing priorities you often end up with something that doesn't absolutely honor one priority to the exclusion of all others, which can be used against you when players claim that what you did obviously doesn't "correctly" implement any clear priority.
This game has always had progression gates. A progression gate segregates players into those on one side of the gate and those on the other side of the gate. Whenever you implement a gate, some players will complain when they find themselves on the wrong side of the gate. But that's working as intended: that's the purpose of the gate. If everyone who wanted to be past the gate was past the gate, the gate's worthless.
The gates in the game have generally, but not completely, been implemented from the bottom up, because the nature of the game is that it has grown upward in complexity and difficulty (it can't really be otherwise). The earliest gates could use simple metrics that existed in the game, for example level gates. But as the game continued to grow upward, those metrics simply "ran out" and they had to resort to other progression metrics to continue to gate the game. Uncollected, for example, is a novel (in this game) gate: it isn't just a prerequisite to get to the next piece of content, it unlocks a lot of other development opportunities in the form of enhanced crystals and higher reward monthly content. Importantly, this kind of gate didn't exist until it did: it set the precedent that the devs were willing to add new kinds of gates to the game.
Level is an obvious metric that measures progress. Which content you complete is another one. But another measure of progress that has always existed in the game is roster strength. It factors into prestige which influences AQ rewards (and at one time prestige was *the* metric for progress for level-capped players). It has in the past been the metric used to calibrate things like compensation packages based on progress. It is a highly imperfect metric of progress, but it was *used* in the game.
The devs wanted a new progress gate leading into Act 6 and the ones that had been used previously were seen as inadequate. They didn't want it to be a trivial prerequisite like do 5.1 and you get to do 5.2. Prerequisites aren't progress gates, because there's no well-defined barrier to overcome beyond just keep playing (players can argue that this should be sufficient, which is tantamount to saying no progress gates should exist at all, but that's a separate complicated argument).
The obvious option is roster-based progress gates. But prestige is too narrow and player rating is too disconnected from actual progress. If the top five champs is too small and counting everything is too large, then measuring a subset of the top champs would be a reasonable compromise between the two. There are a couple of ways to do this. One way would be to extend prestige to a larger number of champs; say there was a fifteen champ version of prestige, and it took a certain minimum rating to enter Act 6.
This sort of thing emphasizes rank ups, because it doesn't matter how many champs you have, what matters more is how highly ranked they were. And rank up decisions are heavily influenced by which champs you pull randomly from crystals - some are more "deserving" of rare rank up materials than others. Back before Alliance War was really important and AQ was the primary game in town, players often ranked up champs with the highest rating, not the ones they wanted to play the most, because prestige was emphasized by AQ.
I wouldn't want to repeat that situation, and I'm guessing the devs don't want to either. So it is worth looking for an alternative to roster-metrics that emphasize ranking up the highest rating champs. But if we aren't going to use a ratings lock, is there a softer way to do it? Sure: we can limit which champs the players can bring in, so that instead of emphasizing reaching the highest possible rating with rank ups, the game instead tends to reward players with the widest rosters, from which those players will have more options available from the entry limits.
The entry limit can't be too low: it can't simply be "everything 4* and higher" or even "everything CR100 and higher (which includes 5/50 champs)" because that makes the options pool too large: the progress gate isn't rewarding particularly large rosters, because the limit allows almost anything (among players for whom Act 6 is even a possibility). It could be CR110 and higher, or it could be 5* and higher. And of those two options, once again 5* and higher deemphasizes high rank ups relative to CR110.
To me, this all seems entirely reasonable. I'm not saying it should necessarily be convincing for anyone else, only that a reasonable person could reach this conclusion. And yes, there are side effects that many players would argue are unacceptable, such as the impact on synergy tactics. But the question of whether those are acceptable or unacceptable is a value judgment, not an objective conclusion. Two different reasonable rational actors can differ on that judgment. The devs may simply have a different option. That isn't something you can demand someone "justify" or explain to one's satisfaction.
You do know forums points aren’t based on word count, right?
So I can bring a Rank 1 Level 1 unduped 5* Antman to Act 6, but I can't bring a 5/50 Sig 99 4* Archangel.
In all seriousness, @Kabam Miike would you guys consider gating it by challenger rating instead of star level/rarity?
i.e. 4* 5/50 and 5* 3/45 and above only?
My point is, you guys invented challenger rating to essentially say a 5/50 is the same power level as a 3/45. They take similar amount of catalysts to rank, and have similar stats. Yet the way you are gating Act 6 doesn't take this into consideration. You can bring an extremely low level 5*, but not your most powerful 4*.
I am personally not for any gating, however I think this would be a good compromise. It would be more about making sure players have the right roster for the job, and less about who is getting lucky with 5* pulls.
I like this. If you are going to gate it at all, gate the content to Challenge Rating >= 90 or 100.
They aren't gating to power level of the champs, but rather (to oversimplify a lot) the effort required to acquire them. A 5/50 has similar strength to a 3/45, but the 3/45 is much harder to acquire.
That is the problem nobody understands their rational. We are not asking for an incomprehensible answer we want to understand why they choose to make this decision
It makes perfect sense to me, and to be blunt I don't think most of the people claiming to not understand it actually don't understand it. They just don't agree with it, and can't wrap their minds around the fact that some people do things for reasons they don't agree with, so they must be lying or obfuscating when they express those reasons.
Game development is always trying to implement compromises among a large number of often opposing priorities and criteria. Almost everything you do as a game developer has at least one really good reason to *not* do it, but you're doing it because there are more reasons to do it than not. To try to accommodate all of those differing priorities you often end up with something that doesn't absolutely honor one priority to the exclusion of all others, which can be used against you when players claim that what you did obviously doesn't "correctly" implement any clear priority.
This game has always had progression gates. A progression gate segregates players into those on one side of the gate and those on the other side of the gate. Whenever you implement a gate, some players will complain when they find themselves on the wrong side of the gate. But that's working as intended: that's the purpose of the gate. If everyone who wanted to be past the gate was past the gate, the gate's worthless.
The gates in the game have generally, but not completely, been implemented from the bottom up, because the nature of the game is that it has grown upward in complexity and difficulty (it can't really be otherwise). The earliest gates could use simple metrics that existed in the game, for example level gates. But as the game continued to grow upward, those metrics simply "ran out" and they had to resort to other progression metrics to continue to gate the game. Uncollected, for example, is a novel (in this game) gate: it isn't just a prerequisite to get to the next piece of content, it unlocks a lot of other development opportunities in the form of enhanced crystals and higher reward monthly content. Importantly, this kind of gate didn't exist until it did: it set the precedent that the devs were willing to add new kinds of gates to the game.
Level is an obvious metric that measures progress. Which content you complete is another one. But another measure of progress that has always existed in the game is roster strength. It factors into prestige which influences AQ rewards (and at one time prestige was *the* metric for progress for level-capped players). It has in the past been the metric used to calibrate things like compensation packages based on progress. It is a highly imperfect metric of progress, but it was *used* in the game.
The devs wanted a new progress gate leading into Act 6 and the ones that had been used previously were seen as inadequate. They didn't want it to be a trivial prerequisite like do 5.1 and you get to do 5.2. Prerequisites aren't progress gates, because there's no well-defined barrier to overcome beyond just keep playing (players can argue that this should be sufficient, which is tantamount to saying no progress gates should exist at all, but that's a separate complicated argument).
The obvious option is roster-based progress gates. But prestige is too narrow and player rating is too disconnected from actual progress. If the top five champs is too small and counting everything is too large, then measuring a subset of the top champs would be a reasonable compromise between the two. There are a couple of ways to do this. One way would be to extend prestige to a larger number of champs; say there was a fifteen champ version of prestige, and it took a certain minimum rating to enter Act 6.
This sort of thing emphasizes rank ups, because it doesn't matter how many champs you have, what matters more is how highly ranked they were. And rank up decisions are heavily influenced by which champs you pull randomly from crystals - some are more "deserving" of rare rank up materials than others. Back before Alliance War was really important and AQ was the primary game in town, players often ranked up champs with the highest rating, not the ones they wanted to play the most, because prestige was emphasized by AQ.
I wouldn't want to repeat that situation, and I'm guessing the devs don't want to either. So it is worth looking for an alternative to roster-metrics that emphasize ranking up the highest rating champs. But if we aren't going to use a ratings lock, is there a softer way to do it? Sure: we can limit which champs the players can bring in, so that instead of emphasizing reaching the highest possible rating with rank ups, the game instead tends to reward players with the widest rosters, from which those players will have more options available from the entry limits.
The entry limit can't be too low: it can't simply be "everything 4* and higher" or even "everything CR100 and higher (which includes 5/50 champs)" because that makes the options pool too large: the progress gate isn't rewarding particularly large rosters, because the limit allows almost anything (among players for whom Act 6 is even a possibility). It could be CR110 and higher, or it could be 5* and higher. And of those two options, once again 5* and higher deemphasizes high rank ups relative to CR110.
To me, this all seems entirely reasonable. I'm not saying it should necessarily be convincing for anyone else, only that a reasonable person could reach this conclusion. And yes, there are side effects that many players would argue are unacceptable, such as the impact on synergy tactics. But the question of whether those are acceptable or unacceptable is a value judgment, not an objective conclusion. Two different reasonable rational actors can differ on that judgment. The devs may simply have a different option. That isn't something you can demand someone "justify" or explain to one's satisfaction.
While you can rationalize this the majority of the playerbase cant because this gate has separated the community into 2 groups. Those willing to spend to get 5 and 6* champs from crystals and those who wont. They are basically saying if you want new content you need to meet the requirement by buying the crystals that have a 5% drop rate of a useable champ while at the same time telling players they are trying to maintain balance and an enjoyable experience. for those of us who have completed all other in game content to be told that half or more of our profiles are now worthless is unacceptable. Again I'm fine with spending on a game I feel is enjoyable but this forced spending with poor rng odds is not right. Rationalize it how you want but I'd like a response from kabam explaining why they feel it's right to create this gate and force loyal players and customers away from their game.
So I can bring a Rank 1 Level 1 unduped 5* Antman to Act 6, but I can't bring a 5/50 Sig 99 4* Archangel.
In all seriousness, @Kabam Miike would you guys consider gating it by challenger rating instead of star level/rarity?
i.e. 4* 5/50 and 5* 3/45 and above only?
My point is, you guys invented challenger rating to essentially say a 5/50 is the same power level as a 3/45. They take similar amount of catalysts to rank, and have similar stats. Yet the way you are gating Act 6 doesn't take this into consideration. You can bring an extremely low level 5*, but not your most powerful 4*.
I am personally not for any gating, however I think this would be a good compromise. It would be more about making sure players have the right roster for the job, and less about who is getting lucky with 5* pulls.
I like this. If you are going to gate it at all, gate the content to Challenge Rating >= 90 or 100.
They aren't gating to power level of the champs, but rather (to oversimplify a lot) the effort required to acquire them. A 5/50 has similar strength to a 3/45, but the 3/45 is much harder to acquire.
Not hard at all...38 minutes left to get that increased chance 5* Ghost just now. It’s only money.
That is the problem nobody understands their rational. We are not asking for an incomprehensible answer we want to understand why they choose to make this decision
It makes perfect sense to me, and to be blunt I don't think most of the people claiming to not understand it actually don't understand it. They just don't agree with it, and can't wrap their minds around the fact that some people do things for reasons they don't agree with, so they must be lying or obfuscating when they express those reasons.
Game development is always trying to implement compromises among a large number of often opposing priorities and criteria. Almost everything you do as a game developer has at least one really good reason to *not* do it, but you're doing it because there are more reasons to do it than not. To try to accommodate all of those differing priorities you often end up with something that doesn't absolutely honor one priority to the exclusion of all others, which can be used against you when players claim that what you did obviously doesn't "correctly" implement any clear priority.
This game has always had progression gates. A progression gate segregates players into those on one side of the gate and those on the other side of the gate. Whenever you implement a gate, some players will complain when they find themselves on the wrong side of the gate. But that's working as intended: that's the purpose of the gate. If everyone who wanted to be past the gate was past the gate, the gate's worthless.
The gates in the game have generally, but not completely, been implemented from the bottom up, because the nature of the game is that it has grown upward in complexity and difficulty (it can't really be otherwise). The earliest gates could use simple metrics that existed in the game, for example level gates. But as the game continued to grow upward, those metrics simply "ran out" and they had to resort to other progression metrics to continue to gate the game. Uncollected, for example, is a novel (in this game) gate: it isn't just a prerequisite to get to the next piece of content, it unlocks a lot of other development opportunities in the form of enhanced crystals and higher reward monthly content. Importantly, this kind of gate didn't exist until it did: it set the precedent that the devs were willing to add new kinds of gates to the game.
Level is an obvious metric that measures progress. Which content you complete is another one. But another measure of progress that has always existed in the game is roster strength. It factors into prestige which influences AQ rewards (and at one time prestige was *the* metric for progress for level-capped players). It has in the past been the metric used to calibrate things like compensation packages based on progress. It is a highly imperfect metric of progress, but it was *used* in the game.
The devs wanted a new progress gate leading into Act 6 and the ones that had been used previously were seen as inadequate. They didn't want it to be a trivial prerequisite like do 5.1 and you get to do 5.2. Prerequisites aren't progress gates, because there's no well-defined barrier to overcome beyond just keep playing (players can argue that this should be sufficient, which is tantamount to saying no progress gates should exist at all, but that's a separate complicated argument).
The obvious option is roster-based progress gates. But prestige is too narrow and player rating is too disconnected from actual progress. If the top five champs is too small and counting everything is too large, then measuring a subset of the top champs would be a reasonable compromise between the two. There are a couple of ways to do this. One way would be to extend prestige to a larger number of champs; say there was a fifteen champ version of prestige, and it took a certain minimum rating to enter Act 6.
This sort of thing emphasizes rank ups, because it doesn't matter how many champs you have, what matters more is how highly ranked they were. And rank up decisions are heavily influenced by which champs you pull randomly from crystals - some are more "deserving" of rare rank up materials than others. Back before Alliance War was really important and AQ was the primary game in town, players often ranked up champs with the highest rating, not the ones they wanted to play the most, because prestige was emphasized by AQ.
I wouldn't want to repeat that situation, and I'm guessing the devs don't want to either. So it is worth looking for an alternative to roster-metrics that emphasize ranking up the highest rating champs. But if we aren't going to use a ratings lock, is there a softer way to do it? Sure: we can limit which champs the players can bring in, so that instead of emphasizing reaching the highest possible rating with rank ups, the game instead tends to reward players with the widest rosters, from which those players will have more options available from the entry limits.
The entry limit can't be too low: it can't simply be "everything 4* and higher" or even "everything CR100 and higher (which includes 5/50 champs)" because that makes the options pool too large: the progress gate isn't rewarding particularly large rosters, because the limit allows almost anything (among players for whom Act 6 is even a possibility). It could be CR110 and higher, or it could be 5* and higher. And of those two options, once again 5* and higher deemphasizes high rank ups relative to CR110.
To me, this all seems entirely reasonable. I'm not saying it should necessarily be convincing for anyone else, only that a reasonable person could reach this conclusion. And yes, there are side effects that many players would argue are unacceptable, such as the impact on synergy tactics. But the question of whether those are acceptable or unacceptable is a value judgment, not an objective conclusion. Two different reasonable rational actors can differ on that judgment. The devs may simply have a different option. That isn't something you can demand someone "justify" or explain to one's satisfaction.
While you can rationalize this the majority of the playerbase cant because this gate has separated the community into 2 groups. Those willing to spend to get 5 and 6* champs from crystals and those who wont. They are basically saying if you want new content you need to meet the requirement by buying the crystals that have a 5% drop rate of a useable champ while at the same time telling players they are trying to maintain balance and an enjoyable experience. for those of us who have completed all other in game content to be told that half or more of our profiles are now worthless is unacceptable. Again I'm fine with spending on a game I feel is enjoyable but this forced spending with poor rng odds is not right. Rationalize it how you want but I'd like a response from kabam explaining why they feel it's right to create this gate and force loyal players and customers away from their game.
At the end of the day, my perspective is all I can offer in a public forum, and it is a perspective informed from long before MCOC was an idea on a whiteboard. But if every perspective that disagrees with yours is something you're just going to dismiss as "rationalization" then I have no idea why Kabam or anyone else should spend any time "explaining" anything to you. You don't want explanations, you just want target dummies to shoot at.
So I can bring a Rank 1 Level 1 unduped 5* Antman to Act 6, but I can't bring a 5/50 Sig 99 4* Archangel.
In all seriousness, @Kabam Miike would you guys consider gating it by challenger rating instead of star level/rarity?
i.e. 4* 5/50 and 5* 3/45 and above only?
My point is, you guys invented challenger rating to essentially say a 5/50 is the same power level as a 3/45. They take similar amount of catalysts to rank, and have similar stats. Yet the way you are gating Act 6 doesn't take this into consideration. You can bring an extremely low level 5*, but not your most powerful 4*.
I am personally not for any gating, however I think this would be a good compromise. It would be more about making sure players have the right roster for the job, and less about who is getting lucky with 5* pulls.
I like this. If you are going to gate it at all, gate the content to Challenge Rating >= 90 or 100.
They aren't gating to power level of the champs, but rather (to oversimplify a lot) the effort required to acquire them. A 5/50 has similar strength to a 3/45, but the 3/45 is much harder to acquire.
Not hard at all...38 minutes left to get that increased chance 5* Ghost just now. It’s only money.
Shhh, don't tell anyone but I just snagged one of those crystals without having to spend money. However, it seems harder to get a 5* from them than you thought: mine only had a 3* in it. Maybe I need to try harder next time.
That is the problem nobody understands their rational. We are not asking for an incomprehensible answer we want to understand why they choose to make this decision
It makes perfect sense to me, and to be blunt I don't think most of the people claiming to not understand it actually don't understand it. They just don't agree with it, and can't wrap their minds around the fact that some people do things for reasons they don't agree with, so they must be lying or obfuscating when they express those reasons.
Game development is always trying to implement compromises among a large number of often opposing priorities and criteria. Almost everything you do as a game developer has at least one really good reason to *not* do it, but you're doing it because there are more reasons to do it than not. To try to accommodate all of those differing priorities you often end up with something that doesn't absolutely honor one priority to the exclusion of all others, which can be used against you when players claim that what you did obviously doesn't "correctly" implement any clear priority.
This game has always had progression gates. A progression gate segregates players into those on one side of the gate and those on the other side of the gate. Whenever you implement a gate, some players will complain when they find themselves on the wrong side of the gate. But that's working as intended: that's the purpose of the gate. If everyone who wanted to be past the gate was past the gate, the gate's worthless.
The gates in the game have generally, but not completely, been implemented from the bottom up, because the nature of the game is that it has grown upward in complexity and difficulty (it can't really be otherwise). The earliest gates could use simple metrics that existed in the game, for example level gates. But as the game continued to grow upward, those metrics simply "ran out" and they had to resort to other progression metrics to continue to gate the game. Uncollected, for example, is a novel (in this game) gate: it isn't just a prerequisite to get to the next piece of content, it unlocks a lot of other development opportunities in the form of enhanced crystals and higher reward monthly content. Importantly, this kind of gate didn't exist until it did: it set the precedent that the devs were willing to add new kinds of gates to the game.
Level is an obvious metric that measures progress. Which content you complete is another one. But another measure of progress that has always existed in the game is roster strength. It factors into prestige which influences AQ rewards (and at one time prestige was *the* metric for progress for level-capped players). It has in the past been the metric used to calibrate things like compensation packages based on progress. It is a highly imperfect metric of progress, but it was *used* in the game.
The devs wanted a new progress gate leading into Act 6 and the ones that had been used previously were seen as inadequate. They didn't want it to be a trivial prerequisite like do 5.1 and you get to do 5.2. Prerequisites aren't progress gates, because there's no well-defined barrier to overcome beyond just keep playing (players can argue that this should be sufficient, which is tantamount to saying no progress gates should exist at all, but that's a separate complicated argument).
The obvious option is roster-based progress gates. But prestige is too narrow and player rating is too disconnected from actual progress. If the top five champs is too small and counting everything is too large, then measuring a subset of the top champs would be a reasonable compromise between the two. There are a couple of ways to do this. One way would be to extend prestige to a larger number of champs; say there was a fifteen champ version of prestige, and it took a certain minimum rating to enter Act 6.
This sort of thing emphasizes rank ups, because it doesn't matter how many champs you have, what matters more is how highly ranked they were. And rank up decisions are heavily influenced by which champs you pull randomly from crystals - some are more "deserving" of rare rank up materials than others. Back before Alliance War was really important and AQ was the primary game in town, players often ranked up champs with the highest rating, not the ones they wanted to play the most, because prestige was emphasized by AQ.
I wouldn't want to repeat that situation, and I'm guessing the devs don't want to either. So it is worth looking for an alternative to roster-metrics that emphasize ranking up the highest rating champs. But if we aren't going to use a ratings lock, is there a softer way to do it? Sure: we can limit which champs the players can bring in, so that instead of emphasizing reaching the highest possible rating with rank ups, the game instead tends to reward players with the widest rosters, from which those players will have more options available from the entry limits.
The entry limit can't be too low: it can't simply be "everything 4* and higher" or even "everything CR100 and higher (which includes 5/50 champs)" because that makes the options pool too large: the progress gate isn't rewarding particularly large rosters, because the limit allows almost anything (among players for whom Act 6 is even a possibility). It could be CR110 and higher, or it could be 5* and higher. And of those two options, once again 5* and higher deemphasizes high rank ups relative to CR110.
To me, this all seems entirely reasonable. I'm not saying it should necessarily be convincing for anyone else, only that a reasonable person could reach this conclusion. And yes, there are side effects that many players would argue are unacceptable, such as the impact on synergy tactics. But the question of whether those are acceptable or unacceptable is a value judgment, not an objective conclusion. Two different reasonable rational actors can differ on that judgment. The devs may simply have a different option. That isn't something you can demand someone "justify" or explain to one's satisfaction.
While you can rationalize this the majority of the playerbase cant because this gate has separated the community into 2 groups. Those willing to spend to get 5 and 6* champs from crystals and those who wont. They are basically saying if you want new content you need to meet the requirement by buying the crystals that have a 5% drop rate of a useable champ while at the same time telling players they are trying to maintain balance and an enjoyable experience. for those of us who have completed all other in game content to be told that half or more of our profiles are now worthless is unacceptable. Again I'm fine with spending on a game I feel is enjoyable but this forced spending with poor rng odds is not right. Rationalize it how you want but I'd like a response from kabam explaining why they feel it's right to create this gate and force loyal players and customers away from their game.
At the end of the day, my perspective is all I can offer in a public forum, and it is a perspective informed from long before MCOC was an idea on a whiteboard. But if every perspective that disagrees with yours is something you're just going to dismiss as "rationalization" then I have no idea why Kabam or anyone else should spend any time "explaining" anything to you. You don't want explanations, you just want target dummies to shoot at.
Actually I'd prefer a rational answer rather than mindlessly following like a sheep but whatever works for you. Just because you don't disagree with kabam's decision doesn't mean the rest of the community cant Express our dislike and ask for answers. I am not saying I will agree with the answer given but I'd like to hear a logical answer from them not just your interpretation of why you agree with them. This is the same thing that happened after 12.0 was released and if not for summoners asking for explanations or asking for kabam to reverse or modify the decisions they made we would not be having this conversation because the game would more than likely not exist
That is the problem nobody understands their rational. We are not asking for an incomprehensible answer we want to understand why they choose to make this decision
It makes perfect sense to me, and to be blunt I don't think most of the people claiming to not understand it actually don't understand it. They just don't agree with it, and can't wrap their minds around the fact that some people do things for reasons they don't agree with, so they must be lying or obfuscating when they express those reasons.
Game development is always trying to implement compromises among a large number of often opposing priorities and criteria. Almost everything you do as a game developer has at least one really good reason to *not* do it, but you're doing it because there are more reasons to do it than not. To try to accommodate all of those differing priorities you often end up with something that doesn't absolutely honor one priority to the exclusion of all others, which can be used against you when players claim that what you did obviously doesn't "correctly" implement any clear priority.
This game has always had progression gates. A progression gate segregates players into those on one side of the gate and those on the other side of the gate. Whenever you implement a gate, some players will complain when they find themselves on the wrong side of the gate. But that's working as intended: that's the purpose of the gate. If everyone who wanted to be past the gate was past the gate, the gate's worthless.
The gates in the game have generally, but not completely, been implemented from the bottom up, because the nature of the game is that it has grown upward in complexity and difficulty (it can't really be otherwise). The earliest gates could use simple metrics that existed in the game, for example level gates. But as the game continued to grow upward, those metrics simply "ran out" and they had to resort to other progression metrics to continue to gate the game. Uncollected, for example, is a novel (in this game) gate: it isn't just a prerequisite to get to the next piece of content, it unlocks a lot of other development opportunities in the form of enhanced crystals and higher reward monthly content. Importantly, this kind of gate didn't exist until it did: it set the precedent that the devs were willing to add new kinds of gates to the game.
Level is an obvious metric that measures progress. Which content you complete is another one. But another measure of progress that has always existed in the game is roster strength. It factors into prestige which influences AQ rewards (and at one time prestige was *the* metric for progress for level-capped players). It has in the past been the metric used to calibrate things like compensation packages based on progress. It is a highly imperfect metric of progress, but it was *used* in the game.
The devs wanted a new progress gate leading into Act 6 and the ones that had been used previously were seen as inadequate. They didn't want it to be a trivial prerequisite like do 5.1 and you get to do 5.2. Prerequisites aren't progress gates, because there's no well-defined barrier to overcome beyond just keep playing (players can argue that this should be sufficient, which is tantamount to saying no progress gates should exist at all, but that's a separate complicated argument).
The obvious option is roster-based progress gates. But prestige is too narrow and player rating is too disconnected from actual progress. If the top five champs is too small and counting everything is too large, then measuring a subset of the top champs would be a reasonable compromise between the two. There are a couple of ways to do this. One way would be to extend prestige to a larger number of champs; say there was a fifteen champ version of prestige, and it took a certain minimum rating to enter Act 6.
This sort of thing emphasizes rank ups, because it doesn't matter how many champs you have, what matters more is how highly ranked they were. And rank up decisions are heavily influenced by which champs you pull randomly from crystals - some are more "deserving" of rare rank up materials than others. Back before Alliance War was really important and AQ was the primary game in town, players often ranked up champs with the highest rating, not the ones they wanted to play the most, because prestige was emphasized by AQ.
I wouldn't want to repeat that situation, and I'm guessing the devs don't want to either. So it is worth looking for an alternative to roster-metrics that emphasize ranking up the highest rating champs. But if we aren't going to use a ratings lock, is there a softer way to do it? Sure: we can limit which champs the players can bring in, so that instead of emphasizing reaching the highest possible rating with rank ups, the game instead tends to reward players with the widest rosters, from which those players will have more options available from the entry limits.
The entry limit can't be too low: it can't simply be "everything 4* and higher" or even "everything CR100 and higher (which includes 5/50 champs)" because that makes the options pool too large: the progress gate isn't rewarding particularly large rosters, because the limit allows almost anything (among players for whom Act 6 is even a possibility). It could be CR110 and higher, or it could be 5* and higher. And of those two options, once again 5* and higher deemphasizes high rank ups relative to CR110.
To me, this all seems entirely reasonable. I'm not saying it should necessarily be convincing for anyone else, only that a reasonable person could reach this conclusion. And yes, there are side effects that many players would argue are unacceptable, such as the impact on synergy tactics. But the question of whether those are acceptable or unacceptable is a value judgment, not an objective conclusion. Two different reasonable rational actors can differ on that judgment. The devs may simply have a different option. That isn't something you can demand someone "justify" or explain to one's satisfaction.
You do know forums points aren’t based on word count, right?
Dr. Zola
Funny, but it was one of the more objective analyses presented by the forum.
I think this is the time for Kabam to finally start rolling out the 5* and 6* older champions that don’t exist that the summoners use. And I mean to the featured and basic pools like the others, not just in FGMC. SW, Thor, DS, BW, Wolverine, Gamora, War Machine, etc. if you’re going to create these random progress gates based on rarity and not something more meaningful like Challenger Rating, then you should make all champions available across all rarities. There is zero reason for you not to add those champs when you have champs like Omega, Ghost, Domino, and CAIW. It makes no sense to keep them exclusive to 4* tiers.
That is the problem nobody understands their rational. We are not asking for an incomprehensible answer we want to understand why they choose to make this decision
It makes perfect sense to me, and to be blunt I don't think most of the people claiming to not understand it actually don't understand it. They just don't agree with it, and can't wrap their minds around the fact that some people do things for reasons they don't agree with, so they must be lying or obfuscating when they express those reasons.
Game development is always trying to implement compromises among a large number of often opposing priorities and criteria. Almost everything you do as a game developer has at least one really good reason to *not* do it, but you're doing it because there are more reasons to do it than not. To try to accommodate all of those differing priorities you often end up with something that doesn't absolutely honor one priority to the exclusion of all others, which can be used against you when players claim that what you did obviously doesn't "correctly" implement any clear priority.
This game has always had progression gates. A progression gate segregates players into those on one side of the gate and those on the other side of the gate. Whenever you implement a gate, some players will complain when they find themselves on the wrong side of the gate. But that's working as intended: that's the purpose of the gate. If everyone who wanted to be past the gate was past the gate, the gate's worthless.
The gates in the game have generally, but not completely, been implemented from the bottom up, because the nature of the game is that it has grown upward in complexity and difficulty (it can't really be otherwise). The earliest gates could use simple metrics that existed in the game, for example level gates. But as the game continued to grow upward, those metrics simply "ran out" and they had to resort to other progression metrics to continue to gate the game. Uncollected, for example, is a novel (in this game) gate: it isn't just a prerequisite to get to the next piece of content, it unlocks a lot of other development opportunities in the form of enhanced crystals and higher reward monthly content. Importantly, this kind of gate didn't exist until it did: it set the precedent that the devs were willing to add new kinds of gates to the game.
Level is an obvious metric that measures progress. Which content you complete is another one. But another measure of progress that has always existed in the game is roster strength. It factors into prestige which influences AQ rewards (and at one time prestige was *the* metric for progress for level-capped players). It has in the past been the metric used to calibrate things like compensation packages based on progress. It is a highly imperfect metric of progress, but it was *used* in the game.
The devs wanted a new progress gate leading into Act 6 and the ones that had been used previously were seen as inadequate. They didn't want it to be a trivial prerequisite like do 5.1 and you get to do 5.2. Prerequisites aren't progress gates, because there's no well-defined barrier to overcome beyond just keep playing (players can argue that this should be sufficient, which is tantamount to saying no progress gates should exist at all, but that's a separate complicated argument).
The obvious option is roster-based progress gates. But prestige is too narrow and player rating is too disconnected from actual progress. If the top five champs is too small and counting everything is too large, then measuring a subset of the top champs would be a reasonable compromise between the two. There are a couple of ways to do this. One way would be to extend prestige to a larger number of champs; say there was a fifteen champ version of prestige, and it took a certain minimum rating to enter Act 6.
This sort of thing emphasizes rank ups, because it doesn't matter how many champs you have, what matters more is how highly ranked they were. And rank up decisions are heavily influenced by which champs you pull randomly from crystals - some are more "deserving" of rare rank up materials than others. Back before Alliance War was really important and AQ was the primary game in town, players often ranked up champs with the highest rating, not the ones they wanted to play the most, because prestige was emphasized by AQ.
I wouldn't want to repeat that situation, and I'm guessing the devs don't want to either. So it is worth looking for an alternative to roster-metrics that emphasize ranking up the highest rating champs. But if we aren't going to use a ratings lock, is there a softer way to do it? Sure: we can limit which champs the players can bring in, so that instead of emphasizing reaching the highest possible rating with rank ups, the game instead tends to reward players with the widest rosters, from which those players will have more options available from the entry limits.
The entry limit can't be too low: it can't simply be "everything 4* and higher" or even "everything CR100 and higher (which includes 5/50 champs)" because that makes the options pool too large: the progress gate isn't rewarding particularly large rosters, because the limit allows almost anything (among players for whom Act 6 is even a possibility). It could be CR110 and higher, or it could be 5* and higher. And of those two options, once again 5* and higher deemphasizes high rank ups relative to CR110.
To me, this all seems entirely reasonable. I'm not saying it should necessarily be convincing for anyone else, only that a reasonable person could reach this conclusion. And yes, there are side effects that many players would argue are unacceptable, such as the impact on synergy tactics. But the question of whether those are acceptable or unacceptable is a value judgment, not an objective conclusion. Two different reasonable rational actors can differ on that judgment. The devs may simply have a different option. That isn't something you can demand someone "justify" or explain to one's satisfaction.
They are basically saying if you want new content you need to meet the requirement by buying the crystals that have a 5% drop rate of a useable champ while at the same time telling players they are trying to maintain balance and an enjoyable experience.
I give my thoughts because of statements like this. That is not what they are basically saying. It’s your interpretation of what they said that isn’t based on anything other than the fact you don’t like their stance. If fine with disagreeing with them. I don’t agree with it. But don’t concoct conspiracy theories and attribute them to Kabam.
This really feels like an attack on synergies where you haven’t been lucky enough to pull a 5* GR so you drag around your 4*. We all know a 4* GR won’t do much damage but he really helps blade.
This does not gate contet only demands additional units from players to acquire the latest and greatest champs to play the game.
Why buy FGMC if I can only use 5% of the rewards for act 6?
That is the problem nobody understands their rational. We are not asking for an incomprehensible answer we want to understand why they choose to make this decision
It makes perfect sense to me, and to be blunt I don't think most of the people claiming to not understand it actually don't understand it. They just don't agree with it, and can't wrap their minds around the fact that some people do things for reasons they don't agree with, so they must be lying or obfuscating when they express those reasons.
Game development is always trying to implement compromises among a large number of often opposing priorities and criteria. Almost everything you do as a game developer has at least one really good reason to *not* do it, but you're doing it because there are more reasons to do it than not. To try to accommodate all of those differing priorities you often end up with something that doesn't absolutely honor one priority to the exclusion of all others, which can be used against you when players claim that what you did obviously doesn't "correctly" implement any clear priority.
This game has always had progression gates. A progression gate segregates players into those on one side of the gate and those on the other side of the gate. Whenever you implement a gate, some players will complain when they find themselves on the wrong side of the gate. But that's working as intended: that's the purpose of the gate. If everyone who wanted to be past the gate was past the gate, the gate's worthless.
The gates in the game have generally, but not completely, been implemented from the bottom up, because the nature of the game is that it has grown upward in complexity and difficulty (it can't really be otherwise). The earliest gates could use simple metrics that existed in the game, for example level gates. But as the game continued to grow upward, those metrics simply "ran out" and they had to resort to other progression metrics to continue to gate the game. Uncollected, for example, is a novel (in this game) gate: it isn't just a prerequisite to get to the next piece of content, it unlocks a lot of other development opportunities in the form of enhanced crystals and higher reward monthly content. Importantly, this kind of gate didn't exist until it did: it set the precedent that the devs were willing to add new kinds of gates to the game.
Level is an obvious metric that measures progress. Which content you complete is another one. But another measure of progress that has always existed in the game is roster strength. It factors into prestige which influences AQ rewards (and at one time prestige was *the* metric for progress for level-capped players). It has in the past been the metric used to calibrate things like compensation packages based on progress. It is a highly imperfect metric of progress, but it was *used* in the game.
The devs wanted a new progress gate leading into Act 6 and the ones that had been used previously were seen as inadequate. They didn't want it to be a trivial prerequisite like do 5.1 and you get to do 5.2. Prerequisites aren't progress gates, because there's no well-defined barrier to overcome beyond just keep playing (players can argue that this should be sufficient, which is tantamount to saying no progress gates should exist at all, but that's a separate complicated argument).
The obvious option is roster-based progress gates. But prestige is too narrow and player rating is too disconnected from actual progress. If the top five champs is too small and counting everything is too large, then measuring a subset of the top champs would be a reasonable compromise between the two. There are a couple of ways to do this. One way would be to extend prestige to a larger number of champs; say there was a fifteen champ version of prestige, and it took a certain minimum rating to enter Act 6.
This sort of thing emphasizes rank ups, because it doesn't matter how many champs you have, what matters more is how highly ranked they were. And rank up decisions are heavily influenced by which champs you pull randomly from crystals - some are more "deserving" of rare rank up materials than others. Back before Alliance War was really important and AQ was the primary game in town, players often ranked up champs with the highest rating, not the ones they wanted to play the most, because prestige was emphasized by AQ.
I wouldn't want to repeat that situation, and I'm guessing the devs don't want to either. So it is worth looking for an alternative to roster-metrics that emphasize ranking up the highest rating champs. But if we aren't going to use a ratings lock, is there a softer way to do it? Sure: we can limit which champs the players can bring in, so that instead of emphasizing reaching the highest possible rating with rank ups, the game instead tends to reward players with the widest rosters, from which those players will have more options available from the entry limits.
The entry limit can't be too low: it can't simply be "everything 4* and higher" or even "everything CR100 and higher (which includes 5/50 champs)" because that makes the options pool too large: the progress gate isn't rewarding particularly large rosters, because the limit allows almost anything (among players for whom Act 6 is even a possibility). It could be CR110 and higher, or it could be 5* and higher. And of those two options, once again 5* and higher deemphasizes high rank ups relative to CR110.
To me, this all seems entirely reasonable. I'm not saying it should necessarily be convincing for anyone else, only that a reasonable person could reach this conclusion. And yes, there are side effects that many players would argue are unacceptable, such as the impact on synergy tactics. But the question of whether those are acceptable or unacceptable is a value judgment, not an objective conclusion. Two different reasonable rational actors can differ on that judgment. The devs may simply have a different option. That isn't something you can demand someone "justify" or explain to one's satisfaction.
While you can rationalize this the majority of the playerbase cant because this gate has separated the community into 2 groups. Those willing to spend to get 5 and 6* champs from crystals and those who wont. They are basically saying if you want new content you need to meet the requirement by buying the crystals that have a 5% drop rate of a useable champ while at the same time telling players they are trying to maintain balance and an enjoyable experience. for those of us who have completed all other in game content to be told that half or more of our profiles are now worthless is unacceptable. Again I'm fine with spending on a game I feel is enjoyable but this forced spending with poor rng odds is not right. Rationalize it how you want but I'd like a response from kabam explaining why they feel it's right to create this gate and force loyal players and customers away from their game.
At the end of the day, my perspective is all I can offer in a public forum, and it is a perspective informed from long before MCOC was an idea on a whiteboard. But if every perspective that disagrees with yours is something you're just going to dismiss as "rationalization" then I have no idea why Kabam or anyone else should spend any time "explaining" anything to you. You don't want explanations, you just want target dummies to shoot at.
Actually I'd prefer a rational answer rather than mindlessly following like a sheep but whatever works for you. Just because you don't disagree with kabam's decision doesn't mean the rest of the community cant Express our dislike and ask for answers. I am not saying I will agree with the answer given but I'd like to hear a logical answer from them not just your interpretation of why you agree with them. This is the same thing that happened after 12.0 was released and if not for summoners asking for explanations or asking for kabam to reverse or modify the decisions they made we would not be having this conversation because the game would more than likely not exist
You said "nobody understands their rational" and are following it with anyone who claims to is just a sheep. Why should anyone, including Kabam, honor your request for anything?
And I was there at 12.0; I was one of those players asking for further information and explanations. And unlike you, I accepted those responses and used the information in them to work with other players to get actual things changed in the game, like Dr. Strange's heal (albeit not enough), Captain America's block proficiency, and Parry mechanics in general. I worked with other players to write guides for the mechanics of Diminishing Returns and Challenge Rating. I know the difference between advocating for change and waving my arms around like a lunatic.
I think this is the time for Kabam to finally start rolling out the 5* and 6* older champions that don’t exist that the summoners use. And I mean to the featured and basic pools like the others, not just in FGMC. SW, Thor, DS, BW, Wolverine, Gamora, War Machine, etc. if you’re going to create these random progress gates based on rarity and not something more meaningful like Challenger Rating, then you should make all champions available across all rarities. There is zero reason for you not to add those champs when you have champs like Omega, Ghost, Domino, and CAIW. It makes no sense to keep them exclusive to 4* tiers.
Honestly the easiest solution and one that will probably be implemented soon would be the introduction of the basic 5* arena. I'm sure this backlash was expected and a basic arena is their way of "making up for it" even though it is likely planned.
I think this is the time for Kabam to finally start rolling out the 5* and 6* older champions that don’t exist that the summoners use. And I mean to the featured and basic pools like the others, not just in FGMC. SW, Thor, DS, BW, Wolverine, Gamora, War Machine, etc. if you’re going to create these random progress gates based on rarity and not something more meaningful like Challenger Rating, then you should make all champions available across all rarities. There is zero reason for you not to add those champs when you have champs like Omega, Ghost, Domino, and CAIW. It makes no sense to keep them exclusive to 4* tiers.
Honestly the easiest solution and one that will probably be implemented soon would be the introduction of the basic 5* arena. I'm sure this backlash was expected and a basic arena is their way of "making up for it" even though it is likely planned.
Why not both? I have no time to do arena and I’m sure there are others too that hate the grind. 5* basic arena cutoffs will probably be like 10M+.
So I can bring a Rank 1 Level 1 unduped 5* Antman to Act 6, but I can't bring a 5/50 Sig 99 4* Archangel.
In all seriousness, @Kabam Miike would you guys consider gating it by challenger rating instead of star level/rarity?
i.e. 4* 5/50 and 5* 3/45 and above only?
My point is, you guys invented challenger rating to essentially say a 5/50 is the same power level as a 3/45. They take similar amount of catalysts to rank, and have similar stats. Yet the way you are gating Act 6 doesn't take this into consideration. You can bring an extremely low level 5*, but not your most powerful 4*.
I am personally not for any gating, however I think this would be a good compromise. It would be more about making sure players have the right roster for the job, and less about who is getting lucky with 5* pulls.
I like this. If you are going to gate it at all, gate the content to Challenge Rating >= 90 or 100.
They aren't gating to power level of the champs, but rather (to oversimplify a lot) the effort required to acquire them. A 5/50 has similar strength to a 3/45, but the 3/45 is much harder to acquire.
Not hard at all...38 minutes left to get that increased chance 5* Ghost just now. It’s only money.
Shhh, don't tell anyone but I just snagged one of those crystals without having to spend money. However, it seems harder to get a 5* from them than you thought: mine only had a 3* in it. Maybe I need to try harder next time.
Wait aren't you building your roster with those. I thoughts how we did it.
That is the problem nobody understands their rational. We are not asking for an incomprehensible answer we want to understand why they choose to make this decision
It makes perfect sense to me, and to be blunt I don't think most of the people claiming to not understand it actually don't understand it. They just don't agree with it, and can't wrap their minds around the fact that some people do things for reasons they don't agree with, so they must be lying or obfuscating when they express those reasons.
Game development is always trying to implement compromises among a large number of often opposing priorities and criteria. Almost everything you do as a game developer has at least one really good reason to *not* do it, but you're doing it because there are more reasons to do it than not. To try to accommodate all of those differing priorities you often end up with something that doesn't absolutely honor one priority to the exclusion of all others, which can be used against you when players claim that what you did obviously doesn't "correctly" implement any clear priority.
This game has always had progression gates. A progression gate segregates players into those on one side of the gate and those on the other side of the gate. Whenever you implement a gate, some players will complain when they find themselves on the wrong side of the gate. But that's working as intended: that's the purpose of the gate. If everyone who wanted to be past the gate was past the gate, the gate's worthless.
The gates in the game have generally, but not completely, been implemented from the bottom up, because the nature of the game is that it has grown upward in complexity and difficulty (it can't really be otherwise). The earliest gates could use simple metrics that existed in the game, for example level gates. But as the game continued to grow upward, those metrics simply "ran out" and they had to resort to other progression metrics to continue to gate the game. Uncollected, for example, is a novel (in this game) gate: it isn't just a prerequisite to get to the next piece of content, it unlocks a lot of other development opportunities in the form of enhanced crystals and higher reward monthly content. Importantly, this kind of gate didn't exist until it did: it set the precedent that the devs were willing to add new kinds of gates to the game.
Level is an obvious metric that measures progress. Which content you complete is another one. But another measure of progress that has always existed in the game is roster strength. It factors into prestige which influences AQ rewards (and at one time prestige was *the* metric for progress for level-capped players). It has in the past been the metric used to calibrate things like compensation packages based on progress. It is a highly imperfect metric of progress, but it was *used* in the game.
The devs wanted a new progress gate leading into Act 6 and the ones that had been used previously were seen as inadequate. They didn't want it to be a trivial prerequisite like do 5.1 and you get to do 5.2. Prerequisites aren't progress gates, because there's no well-defined barrier to overcome beyond just keep playing (players can argue that this should be sufficient, which is tantamount to saying no progress gates should exist at all, but that's a separate complicated argument).
The obvious option is roster-based progress gates. But prestige is too narrow and player rating is too disconnected from actual progress. If the top five champs is too small and counting everything is too large, then measuring a subset of the top champs would be a reasonable compromise between the two. There are a couple of ways to do this. One way would be to extend prestige to a larger number of champs; say there was a fifteen champ version of prestige, and it took a certain minimum rating to enter Act 6.
This sort of thing emphasizes rank ups, because it doesn't matter how many champs you have, what matters more is how highly ranked they were. And rank up decisions are heavily influenced by which champs you pull randomly from crystals - some are more "deserving" of rare rank up materials than others. Back before Alliance War was really important and AQ was the primary game in town, players often ranked up champs with the highest rating, not the ones they wanted to play the most, because prestige was emphasized by AQ.
I wouldn't want to repeat that situation, and I'm guessing the devs don't want to either. So it is worth looking for an alternative to roster-metrics that emphasize ranking up the highest rating champs. But if we aren't going to use a ratings lock, is there a softer way to do it? Sure: we can limit which champs the players can bring in, so that instead of emphasizing reaching the highest possible rating with rank ups, the game instead tends to reward players with the widest rosters, from which those players will have more options available from the entry limits.
The entry limit can't be too low: it can't simply be "everything 4* and higher" or even "everything CR100 and higher (which includes 5/50 champs)" because that makes the options pool too large: the progress gate isn't rewarding particularly large rosters, because the limit allows almost anything (among players for whom Act 6 is even a possibility). It could be CR110 and higher, or it could be 5* and higher. And of those two options, once again 5* and higher deemphasizes high rank ups relative to CR110.
To me, this all seems entirely reasonable. I'm not saying it should necessarily be convincing for anyone else, only that a reasonable person could reach this conclusion. And yes, there are side effects that many players would argue are unacceptable, such as the impact on synergy tactics. But the question of whether those are acceptable or unacceptable is a value judgment, not an objective conclusion. Two different reasonable rational actors can differ on that judgment. The devs may simply have a different option. That isn't something you can demand someone "justify" or explain to one's satisfaction.
They are basically saying if you want new content you need to meet the requirement by buying the crystals that have a 5% drop rate of a useable champ while at the same time telling players they are trying to maintain balance and an enjoyable experience.
I give my thoughts because of statements like this. That is not what they are basically saying. It’s your interpretation of what they said that isn’t based on anything other than the fact you don’t like their stance. If fine with disagreeing with them. I don’t agree with it. But don’t concoct conspiracy theories and attribute them to Kabam.
So how else do you attain more 5 and 6* champs in the next 6 days to fill the holes in your profile. oh and also have you looked at the ingame mail and the new offer for feature crystals to wait for it. Fill holes and expand your roster. Not a theory if the facts add up
So I can bring a Rank 1 Level 1 unduped 5* Antman to Act 6, but I can't bring a 5/50 Sig 99 4* Archangel.
In all seriousness, @Kabam Miike would you guys consider gating it by challenger rating instead of star level/rarity?
i.e. 4* 5/50 and 5* 3/45 and above only?
My point is, you guys invented challenger rating to essentially say a 5/50 is the same power level as a 3/45. They take similar amount of catalysts to rank, and have similar stats. Yet the way you are gating Act 6 doesn't take this into consideration. You can bring an extremely low level 5*, but not your most powerful 4*.
I am personally not for any gating, however I think this would be a good compromise. It would be more about making sure players have the right roster for the job, and less about who is getting lucky with 5* pulls.
I like this. If you are going to gate it at all, gate the content to Challenge Rating >= 90 or 100.
They aren't gating to power level of the champs, but rather (to oversimplify a lot) the effort required to acquire them. A 5/50 has similar strength to a 3/45, but the 3/45 is much harder to acquire.
Not hard at all...38 minutes left to get that increased chance 5* Ghost just now. It’s only money.
Shhh, don't tell anyone but I just snagged one of those crystals without having to spend money. However, it seems harder to get a 5* from them than you thought: mine only had a 3* in it. Maybe I need to try harder next time.
On a side note, I’m not sure who is flagging our dialogue. But they likely don’t spend a lot of time on forums if either of these comments offended them.
Comments
Game development is always trying to implement compromises among a large number of often opposing priorities and criteria. Almost everything you do as a game developer has at least one really good reason to *not* do it, but you're doing it because there are more reasons to do it than not. To try to accommodate all of those differing priorities you often end up with something that doesn't absolutely honor one priority to the exclusion of all others, which can be used against you when players claim that what you did obviously doesn't "correctly" implement any clear priority.
This game has always had progression gates. A progression gate segregates players into those on one side of the gate and those on the other side of the gate. Whenever you implement a gate, some players will complain when they find themselves on the wrong side of the gate. But that's working as intended: that's the purpose of the gate. If everyone who wanted to be past the gate was past the gate, the gate's worthless.
The gates in the game have generally, but not completely, been implemented from the bottom up, because the nature of the game is that it has grown upward in complexity and difficulty (it can't really be otherwise). The earliest gates could use simple metrics that existed in the game, for example level gates. But as the game continued to grow upward, those metrics simply "ran out" and they had to resort to other progression metrics to continue to gate the game. Uncollected, for example, is a novel (in this game) gate: it isn't just a prerequisite to get to the next piece of content, it unlocks a lot of other development opportunities in the form of enhanced crystals and higher reward monthly content. Importantly, this kind of gate didn't exist until it did: it set the precedent that the devs were willing to add new kinds of gates to the game.
Level is an obvious metric that measures progress. Which content you complete is another one. But another measure of progress that has always existed in the game is roster strength. It factors into prestige which influences AQ rewards (and at one time prestige was *the* metric for progress for level-capped players). It has in the past been the metric used to calibrate things like compensation packages based on progress. It is a highly imperfect metric of progress, but it was *used* in the game.
The devs wanted a new progress gate leading into Act 6 and the ones that had been used previously were seen as inadequate. They didn't want it to be a trivial prerequisite like do 5.1 and you get to do 5.2. Prerequisites aren't progress gates, because there's no well-defined barrier to overcome beyond just keep playing (players can argue that this should be sufficient, which is tantamount to saying no progress gates should exist at all, but that's a separate complicated argument).
The obvious option is roster-based progress gates. But prestige is too narrow and player rating is too disconnected from actual progress. If the top five champs is too small and counting everything is too large, then measuring a subset of the top champs would be a reasonable compromise between the two. There are a couple of ways to do this. One way would be to extend prestige to a larger number of champs; say there was a fifteen champ version of prestige, and it took a certain minimum rating to enter Act 6.
This sort of thing emphasizes rank ups, because it doesn't matter how many champs you have, what matters more is how highly ranked they were. And rank up decisions are heavily influenced by which champs you pull randomly from crystals - some are more "deserving" of rare rank up materials than others. Back before Alliance War was really important and AQ was the primary game in town, players often ranked up champs with the highest rating, not the ones they wanted to play the most, because prestige was emphasized by AQ.
I wouldn't want to repeat that situation, and I'm guessing the devs don't want to either. So it is worth looking for an alternative to roster-metrics that emphasize ranking up the highest rating champs. But if we aren't going to use a ratings lock, is there a softer way to do it? Sure: we can limit which champs the players can bring in, so that instead of emphasizing reaching the highest possible rating with rank ups, the game instead tends to reward players with the widest rosters, from which those players will have more options available from the entry limits.
The entry limit can't be too low: it can't simply be "everything 4* and higher" or even "everything CR100 and higher (which includes 5/50 champs)" because that makes the options pool too large: the progress gate isn't rewarding particularly large rosters, because the limit allows almost anything (among players for whom Act 6 is even a possibility). It could be CR110 and higher, or it could be 5* and higher. And of those two options, once again 5* and higher deemphasizes high rank ups relative to CR110.
To me, this all seems entirely reasonable. I'm not saying it should necessarily be convincing for anyone else, only that a reasonable person could reach this conclusion. And yes, there are side effects that many players would argue are unacceptable, such as the impact on synergy tactics. But the question of whether those are acceptable or unacceptable is a value judgment, not an objective conclusion. Two different reasonable rational actors can differ on that judgment. The devs may simply have a different option. That isn't something you can demand someone "justify" or explain to one's satisfaction.
Dr. Zola
the community into 2 groups. Those willing to spend to get 5 and 6* champs from crystals and those who wont. They are basically saying if you want new content you need to meet the requirement by buying the crystals that have a 5% drop rate of a useable champ while at the same time telling players they are trying to maintain balance and an enjoyable experience. for those of us who have completed all other in game content to be told that half or more of our profiles are now worthless is unacceptable. Again I'm fine with spending on a game I feel is enjoyable but this forced spending with poor rng odds is not right. Rationalize it how you want but I'd like a response from kabam explaining why they feel it's right to create this gate and force loyal players and customers away from their game.
Dr. Zola
This does not gate contet only demands additional units from players to acquire the latest and greatest champs to play the game.
Why buy FGMC if I can only use 5% of the rewards for act 6?
And I was there at 12.0; I was one of those players asking for further information and explanations. And unlike you, I accepted those responses and used the information in them to work with other players to get actual things changed in the game, like Dr. Strange's heal (albeit not enough), Captain America's block proficiency, and Parry mechanics in general. I worked with other players to write guides for the mechanics of Diminishing Returns and Challenge Rating. I know the difference between advocating for change and waving my arms around like a lunatic.
Dr. Zola