Why I'm Letting My Summoner Sigil Expire - Thoughts from the End Game

Let me preface this by saying I have been subscribed to the sigil since its introduction, I cavalier and have completed through 6.3 as well as the labyrinth (but not the abyss).

The sigil does not scale well to end game play. For players who are beginning their MCOC journey, or even experienced players like uncollected or early cavalier, the sigil is a great way to earn additional 4 and 5* shards, units, (low level) rank up materials, and discounted mastery cores.

The issue lies in the fact that none of the above is terribly hard to find in the end game. I currently have the majority of 2, 3, and 4* champions maxed out, I also have an expansive roster of 5* champions and a decent selection of 6* champions. My main focuses in game are 6* champions (which the sigil does not offer), t4b (the sigil offers a total just over 1/4th over the course of an entire month), t2a (the sigil offers a total of just over 1/4th over the course of the entire month), t5b (sigil offers none), and t5cc (sigil offers none).

Had the featured 5* purchase limit been adjusted then maybe the sigil would hold better value in the end game for collecting new champions, but it wasn't. Had the legendary been priced reasonably (5000 3* shards or maybe up to 3000 4* shards) then maybe the sigil would hold better value, but it wasn't.

The game, as of this February 2020, needs a new progressional milestone. Uncollected has become too easy, master and below is laughable, and now even the sigil has lost its appeal. Hopefully we will be getting a new progression alongside 6.4 that will make monthly EQ and the sigil feel more worthwhile, until then I am going to retire my sigil.

Comments

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Neotwism

When they introduced the sigil I thought it was a great idea. It really needs to scale better for your progression. If I remember correctly the only difference between uncollected and cavalier is an additional 2k 5* shard savings for the 5* featured crystal twice a month. That's a nice addition but isn't worth the $10 a month alone. It would be great if the sigil was more progression based to include what the majority of players at that level need. Most cav players are after 6* shards, t4b, t5b, t5cc, and alphas. Uncollected players are after t4b, t4cc, t5b, and alphas. Ppl not yet cav are after the majority of what's in the black iso market now.

BowTieJohn

Hopefully Kabam listens and adds more progression items/rewards that scale accordingly. This seems the logical next step.

StevieManWonder

I will be unsubscribing from it as well once I finish my initial Abyss run, until then I need the extra inventory and the extra units it provides.

DrZola

I don’t claim to be endgame, but I agree with the assessment at the top of the thread.

I’m hunting for maybe 3-4 5* champs in total and spinning crystals is the least efficient way to get them (even with the reduced featured cost—spinning the max during my Sigil in December yielded all old, tired champs for me).

What I do need is a stronger roster of 6* champs, and the Sigil doesn’t help there. As far as rankup materials, it’s a modest boost that’s hindered by the current item purchase caps.

What would convince me to buy again? Reduced cost for the current setup might, but I’d at least be tempted to investigate it again at its current price point if (a) the available items were significantly increased in quantity (b) overall purchase limits were relaxed.

Frankly, for something comparable to the price of a one-screen TV streaming subscription, Sigil members should be rolling in items like T1a, T4b and even T4c. Its current state doesn’t come close to realizing that.

Dr. Zola

DNA3000

Frankly, for something comparable to the price of a one-screen TV streaming subscription, Sigil members should be rolling in items like T1a, T4b and even T4c. Its current state doesn’t come close to realizing that.

This is something I fundamentally disagree with. When you're buying a thing in general, like a content streaming service, the question is whether the intrinsic value of what you're getting is equal to or greater than what you're spending. But when you're spending money in a massively multiplayer progressional game, you aren't buying things. You aren't really even buying content. What you are actually buying is relative progress increases. And that relative is relative to other players. So in effect, you're paying to jump ahead of other people. The value doesn't come from Kabam, it actually really comes mostly from the other players.

The more stuff in there, the more players you're jumping ahead of, which is tantamount to pushing them relatively downward. That's why MCOC is a game not a store, and why the goal is not to sell as much stuff as possible, and why game items aren't valued the way most players value them. The more stuff you give to Sigil players, the more stuff you are invisibly taking away from non-Sigil players.

That's why all rewards, and in particular all purchasable rewards, have to be balanced between the desire to give *enough* value to make the thing worth selling at all, while giving *as little* value as possible to take as little away from all other players as possible. I believe if you don't believe in this principle, you have no business designing monetization for any F2P microtransaction game. I've seen monetization systems obviously designed by people who don't believe in this principle, and I find them abhorrent.

DalBot

Except it doesn’t have to just be about rewards. If they structured the Sigil based on game progress then maybe they could add things like Uncollected players get free mastery rebuild tokens or something to that effect or the ability to trade 10000 5* shards for 5000 6* shards. As the OP said it’s a great bargain for early to mid-tier players, even most higher level played but us end game folks really don’t get much value out of it 🤷🏻‍♂️

DNA3000

Except it doesn’t have to just be about rewards. If they structured the Sigil based on game progress then maybe they could add things like Uncollected players get free mastery rebuild tokens or something to that effect or the ability to trade 10000 5* shards for 5000 6* shards. As the OP said it’s a great bargain for early to mid-tier players, even most higher level played but us end game folks really don’t get much value out of it 🤷🏻‍♂️

The Sigil currently is structured to offer better rewards or opportunities based on progress. The solo Sigil event has milestones based on progress. The Black ISO market either improves upon or adds new options based on progress. For example only Uncollected or higher players can trade 4* shards for 5* shards, and the Cavalier trade is better than the UC trade (UC trades 2k 4* for 750 5*, Cav trades 2k 4* for 1k 5*).

A Cavalier player can currently earn 1000 5* shards in the event milestones (which are trivial to max out) and exchange 4k 4* shards for 2k 5* shards every week, which is 3k 5* shards per week practically for free for most Cavalier players (who if they are at all active are maxing out the milestones and earning tons of 4* shards automatically).

Adding something like trading 10k 5* shards for 5k 6* shards would be a huge reward. Even if you could only do that once every two weeks that would be a full 6* champ every month just by itself. That's four times the 6* shards currently available per month from monthly quests, and would likely be even higher than the amount of 6* shards you could get from a theoretical Cavalier difficulty. For comparatively little effort. That's either right on the edge of being reward-system breaking, or completely over the line.

Skary75

I have to agree that while it’s nice they upped they reset to weekly instead of biweekly they really didnt do anything to help the players at cavalier and hat they need. T5b T5cc even to be able to trade t4cc for t5cc shards would of been a nice move or something anything along those types of lines. Also blows my mind that we cannot sell t4cc as you would think we were at that place in the game for that to start to happen. I’ll be holding off renewing my signal for a while until it has better worth for cavalier players.

Evangelionlovr

6* Shards, T2A and T5B should be included for Cav+ players.

Maybe even a couple "trade 4* shards for cav crystals" too.

As is the case with most of you, I am not want for 5* champions. I have 8 R5, all beyond God Tier, and a ton of fantastic R4. What I don't have is a single good 6* (out of 15). 6* champs in general need to be easier to get considering we are at a point where one's 6* roster can make or break their progression and the 6* pool was such garbage for so long that many of us have a bunch of useless 6* champions. If Sigil offered 6* champions in some form (shards or cav crystals) I would be wayyyy more inclined to keep my sub, as it is now, I won't be renewing in 8 days when it's up.

DalBot

Adding something like trading 10k 5* shards for 5k 6* shards would be a huge reward. Even if you could only do that once every two weeks that would be a full 6* champ every month just by itself. That's four times the 6* shards currently available per month from monthly quests, and would likely be even higher than the amount of 6* shards you could get from a theoretical Cavalier difficulty. For comparatively little effort. That's either right on the edge of being reward-system breaking, or completely over the line.

Don't know if you play the game but that's basically how AW and AQ just allow the rich to get richer now. At least this would be a pure revenue thing

DNA3000

Adding something like trading 10k 5* shards for 5k 6* shards would be a huge reward. Even if you could only do that once every two weeks that would be a full 6* champ every month just by itself. That's four times the 6* shards currently available per month from monthly quests, and would likely be even higher than the amount of 6* shards you could get from a theoretical Cavalier difficulty. For comparatively little effort. That's either right on the edge of being reward-system breaking, or completely over the line.
Don't know if you play the game but that's basically how AW and AQ just allow the rich to get richer now. At least this would be a pure revenue thing

Don't know if you play the game, but AQ doesn't award 6* shards. Also, even the Master 1 season reward has only 20k 6* shards for twelve wars in four weeks of fighting war. 5k 6* shards every two weeks would be a higher rate of earning 6* champs than the seasonal rewards of most Platinum bracket alliances, and in terms of absolute earning rate the Master 1 alliance can only earn 20k in a six week cycle, plus 18 x 380 = 6840 if they fight and win every single war constantly both in and out of season. That's 26840/6 = 4473 per week, or 8946 every two weeks. The hypothetical 5k 6* trade even limited to every two weeks would be 56% of the theoretical maximum amount of 6* shards the absolute highest war alliance could earn in alliance war. For a comparable level of effort that it would be reasonable in this comparison to describe as "zero."

If you don't think that's broken, then your brain doesn't contain "broken" as a concept.

AW and AQ both increase the rewards for higher effort from higher tier players and alliances, but that's not "allowing the rich to get richer" that's called "progress" and "competition." If you see people with higher progress, stronger rosters, and doing more difficult things getting more rewards as just "the rich getting richer" I honestly have no idea why you would play this game, or any other progressional online game. There's a huge difference between players earning things in-game with gameplay, and a subscription service selling players things or giving them better opportunities for cash. The latter is a necessary evil to keep the game running, the former is "the game."

awesomesauce

I feel a lot of that same, there isn't much "geared" towards end-game content individuals, but there are a few minor perks that i do enjoy.
Pros:
Faster energy (not a huge deal, but helpful)
Weekly "test of the cavalier", which over the course of a month net (noteworthy)=
- 4k 5* shards
- 300 units
In addition to that, the expanded inventories is one of the key factors for myself
and the kicker, black market iso store:
t1a/t2a/t4b to pad resources a bit
roll up some of the shards earned in arenas into better rewards

Nothing earth-shattering. I do spend money in this game. and I think even approaching 50x 6* champs, if I was offered 4k 5* shards and 300 units for 9.99 USD, thats hard deal to pass on. Anything else beyond that isn't terrible options. (Especially considering that you get 275 units for 9.99USD), then throw in 4 5* Signature stones, some PHC, 4x energy refills, few potions, etc.

With all that in mind, there will be people that aren't cavalier that will get upset for spending the same amount but getting a "lesser value" in their subscription deal. Just something else kabam needs to keep in mind when tailoring these types of things.

I do agree it would be nice to see some sort of 6* shard option or maybe a lesser refresh rate on the 5* feature, along with a better way for t2a and incorporating t5b in there (personally I dont like trading in t1a for t2a shards unless I am overflowing in the stash and about to expire) since 5* champs are still relatively valuable, it takes what 22 t1a to go from R1 to R5 for a 5*? (Another discussion for another day)

I would also really enjoy seeing more options to buy things with gold. All I can do with 50m gold is buy 3 potions every 2 weeks and rank up champs. And gold donations I guess? Should be more avenues to which I can spend this stuff. Heck, offer a gold-for-unit option in the black market iso store where its like 100k gold for 10 units or something.

Overall, I'll probably keep it for a little while longer, but probably not long-term unless there are some good changes that can really benefit me personally.

RogerRabs

Adding something like trading 10k 5* shards for 5k 6* shards would be a huge reward. Even if you could only do that once every two weeks that would be a full 6* champ every month just by itself. That's four times the 6* shards currently available per month from monthly quests, and would likely be even higher than the amount of 6* shards you could get from a theoretical Cavalier difficulty. For comparatively little effort. That's either right on the edge of being reward-system breaking, or completely over the line.
Don't know if you play the game but that's basically how AW and AQ just allow the rich to get richer now. At least this would be a pure revenue thing
Don't know if you play the game, but AQ doesn't award 6* shards. Also, even the Master 1 season reward has only 20k 6* shards for twelve wars in four weeks of fighting war. 5k 6* shards every two weeks would be a higher rate of earning 6* champs than the seasonal rewards of most Platinum bracket alliances, and in terms of absolute earning rate the Master 1 alliance can only earn 20k in a six week cycle, plus 18 x 380 = 6840 if they fight and win every single war constantly both in and out of season. That's 26840/6 = 4473 per week, or 8946 every two weeks. The hypothetical 5k 6* trade even limited to every two weeks would be 56% of the theoretical maximum amount of 6* shards the absolute highest war alliance could earn in alliance war. For a comparable level of effort that it would be reasonable in this comparison to describe as "zero."

If you don't think that's broken, then your brain doesn't contain "broken" as a concept.

AW and AQ both increase the rewards for higher effort from higher tier players and alliances, but that's not "allowing the rich to get richer" that's called "progress" and "competition." If you see people with higher progress, stronger rosters, and doing more difficult things getting more rewards as just "the rich getting richer" I honestly have no idea why you would play this game, or any other progressional online game. There's a huge difference between players earning things in-game with gameplay, and a subscription service selling players things or giving them better opportunities for cash. The latter is a necessary evil to keep the game running, the former is "the game."

AQ does reward 200 6 star shards per cycle for Map 7 alliances

Mcord11758

Personally I have never found any value in the sigil. I used it for the week it was free and then let it go away. Occasionally I think maybe I am missing something, then I read what it offers and look at the market and realize I am not. I pick up the $5/month unit card. I would be more than willing to up my spend to $15 but I just don’t see the sigil as being worth the expense

PsyLife

I am nowhere near endgame, but I agree. The seven day trial made my second account skyrocket up so quickly. It’s kinda sad how easy it is to get points in the weekly test of the blah blah blah.

DrZola

Frankly, for something comparable to the price of a one-screen TV streaming subscription, Sigil members should be rolling in items like T1a, T4b and even T4c. Its current state doesn’t come close to realizing that.
This is something I fundamentally disagree with. When you're buying a thing in general, like a content streaming service, the question is whether the intrinsic value of what you're getting is equal to or greater than what you're spending. But when you're spending money in a massively multiplayer progressional game, you aren't buying things. You aren't really even buying content. What you are actually buying is relative progress increases. And that relative is relative to other players. So in effect, you're paying to jump ahead of other people. The value doesn't come from Kabam, it actually really comes mostly from the other players.

The more stuff in there, the more players you're jumping ahead of, which is tantamount to pushing them relatively downward. That's why MCOC is a game not a store, and why the goal is not to sell as much stuff as possible, and why game items aren't valued the way most players value them. The more stuff you give to Sigil players, the more stuff you are invisibly taking away from non-Sigil players.

That's why all rewards, and in particular all purchasable rewards, have to be balanced between the desire to give *enough* value to make the thing worth selling at all, while giving *as little* value as possible to take as little away from all other players as possible. I believe if you don't believe in this principle, you have no business designing monetization for any F2P microtransaction game. I've seen monetization systems obviously designed by people who don't believe in this principle, and I find them abhorrent.

Spoken like a video game designer.

It’s all video entertainment. And like most other forms of video entertainment, MCoC needs eyeballs and revenue to prosper.

I only have two eyeballs and a finite amount of money, despite my best efforts—which means I have to choose where I burn my time and my income.

Streaming is a useful analogy because it is similarly priced, competes for my time and money, I don’t really “own” anything there nor am I buying a “thing” through streaming. Basically, I pay for a subscription license to view content.

I’ve recently canceled two services, not because of their intrinsic value but because I’ve found them less useful than the other two I kept. And I am still currently *swimming* in streaming content, so much so that it would take me years if not decades to see it all even if I watched 24/7–assuming nothing new is added.

Contrast that with the Sigil, which looks downright parsimonious by comparison for a similar price. I hardly think letting Cavalier players swim in T1a, T4b and even T4c for a monthly fee would break the game, especially for a cohort already well ahead of most Summoners.* Failure to do something like that simply makes it less useful to me and, from the looks of things, a few others on this thread.

Dr. Zola

* If balance and buying game progress is the concern, then why not suggest Kabam put a 7/14 day “cooling down” purchase limit on Featured Cavs or even unit transactions from the Unit Store? I’d like to hear what they say about that.

awesomesauce

DNA3000

Frankly, for something comparable to the price of a one-screen TV streaming subscription, Sigil members should be rolling in items like T1a, T4b and even T4c. Its current state doesn’t come close to realizing that.
This is something I fundamentally disagree with. When you're buying a thing in general, like a content streaming service, the question is whether the intrinsic value of what you're getting is equal to or greater than what you're spending. But when you're spending money in a massively multiplayer progressional game, you aren't buying things. You aren't really even buying content. What you are actually buying is relative progress increases. And that relative is relative to other players. So in effect, you're paying to jump ahead of other people. The value doesn't come from Kabam, it actually really comes mostly from the other players.

The more stuff in there, the more players you're jumping ahead of, which is tantamount to pushing them relatively downward. That's why MCOC is a game not a store, and why the goal is not to sell as much stuff as possible, and why game items aren't valued the way most players value them. The more stuff you give to Sigil players, the more stuff you are invisibly taking away from non-Sigil players.

That's why all rewards, and in particular all purchasable rewards, have to be balanced between the desire to give *enough* value to make the thing worth selling at all, while giving *as little* value as possible to take as little away from all other players as possible. I believe if you don't believe in this principle, you have no business designing monetization for any F2P microtransaction game. I've seen monetization systems obviously designed by people who don't believe in this principle, and I find them abhorrent.
Spoken like a video game designer.

It’s all video entertainment. And like most other forms of video entertainment, MCoC needs eyeballs and revenue to prosper.

$250 million from over a million (roughly concurrent) players is not bad on either score. And you say "spoken like a video game designer" like their goals are substantially divergent from ours. The Kabam devs don't make a percentage cut from the revenue. They are professionals who would like to still have a job in a year. Their goal is to make a game that is as successful as possible, and long-lived as possible, that they can continue to work on. As someone who plays the game, that's exactly the goal I would like them to set for themselves.

* If balance and buying game progress is the concern, then why not suggest Kabam put a 7/14 day “cooling down” purchase limit on Featured Cavs or even unit transactions from the Unit Store? I’d like to hear what they say about that.

To be candid, because I don't think that's a particularly good idea. Microtransactions are a compromise. In a perfect utopia games would cost nothing to make or operate, and players would not have to pay to play them. We don't live in that world. In our world, someone has to pay. Either everyone pays, which makes the game a subscription, or some people pay, in which case the people who do pay have to pay more than if the game was a subscription for obvious reasons. Either they all pay the same, much higher amount, which is unlikely to work, or you allow them to spend more or less money based on what they voluntarily choose to spend, offering some thing - usually in-game advantages - that the people who don't spend don't get, and that those who spend more get more of.

The system we have is a compromise where most players don't have to pay anything to play the game, which prior to the age of free to play microtransactions was a value something on the order of $100 - $200 a year. They are supported by the people who pay, who self-segregate into groups who pay more or less and get more or less in return, over and above what the free to play players get. Personally, I think this is a reasonable trade, so I wouldn't suggest something that would disrupt that compromise in a way I see no net benefit from.

There is no "the concern." Games are about balancing different, often conflicting priorities. No "concern" is a problem to solve, it is a factor to consider among all other concerns, none of which are generally preeminent.

Reference

Whilst I agreed with OP, I tend to think this Summoner Sigil is not to cater for endgamers as majority of added advantages in the Sigil means little or nothing if you are focusing on 6* champ level up. Joining a higher tier alliance offer endgamers more than that Sigil.

Although I have seen players with over three 6* r3 (I dunno if he has more in roster) still buying Sigil, I think Endgamers benefits little from it.

unknown

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