**Mastery Loadouts**
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Comments
The problem from my perspective is the change from very rare to relatively common happened so fast the playerbase didn't really have a chance to follow a scarcity curve upward: instead we just blinked and they were everywhere (at least in relative terms). So we haven't experienced what it is like for something to slowly transition from rare to uncommon to common. And I believe that is part of the reason why the moment T5CC arrived in the game people were pushing from day one to get enough to make it immediately usable. People were *literally* saying there's no point to them existing if they couldn't use them right now.
We're sort of cutting off the shallow tail of the exponential curve, and jumping immediately to the tipping point part of the curve when we do that.
4* champs drop 24 T5 ISO bricks, which is about 120k of ISO "points" per duplication. 4* champs require about 176,327 ISO points (minus things like overkill) to rank from rank 1 to rank 5. So it takes about 1.5 4* dups to rank up a 4* champ, in terms of ISO.
A 5* champ requires 537462 ISO to rank from rank 1 to rank 5 but drops the same amount of ISO. So that's almost 4.5 dups of 5* champs. That seems worse. But this ignores something. We aren't restricted to using only ISO from 5* dups to rank up 5* champs. We can also use ISO from lower rarity dups, like 4* champs.
When we were ranking 4* champs, we needed about 1.5 dups of 4* champs of ISO. But we could have also used ISO from 3* dups. 3* dups drop two T5 bricks or 10k. So we needed 1.5 4* dups, or we could also use about 18 3* dups, or some combination of the two. 3* dups help, but not all that much because they drop so little.
5* dups, on the other hand, benefit a lot from lower 4* rarity dups. 5* champs need 4.5 five star dups, or also 4.5 four star dups, or some combination thereof. So the question is how many 4* champs does a player open compared to 5* champs? I honestly don't know. But I can calculate the break even at what point earning the ISO from duplication is about as easy for 5* champs as it used to be for 4* champs. It is about 2.75. In other words, if the average player gets three times as many 3* champs as 4* champs, and three times as many 4* champs as 5* champs, then the extra assist from duplicating 4* champs makes it easier to rank up 5* champs using 5* and 4* dups than it was to rank up 4* champs with 4* dups and 3* dups.
In other words, 5* champs are not necessarily more expensive to rank up in ISO costs just because 5* dups don't drop way more than 4* champs. in fact, the high amount of ISO you get from 4* duplication helps both 4* rank ups and 5* rank ups.
This oversimplifies a few things and I haven't done the math to draw a conclusion here, but this is suggestive of the notion that players who think 5* champ duplication doesn't generate enough ISO and that's why they are ISO-constrained (a similar argument goes for gold because the costs are similar and you can sell ISO) might be in the bind they are in because they don't consider 4* champs to be "relevant" to their progress and so avoid making any attempt to acquire them.
As you say, there were two different strategies to dealing with the CM bug. Do you choose to give the same compensation to everyone whether they experienced the issue or not on the assumption that the issue affected everyone whether they avoided it or ran into it? What do you tell players that think that's unfair, that people who didn't even see the problem still get compensated for it? And if you try to mollify everyone by just giving out way more rewards, then what do you tell players who come along after the compensation, who claim they deserve to have an opportunity to get those compensation rewards. In effect you've created a temporarily extra difficulty with extra rewards, and now are taking it away. This would be a non-issue, except you've added a substantial reward package for technically "completing" it.
As I keep pointing out, this is not a question of what is fair to the players vs Kabam. People say if it is Kabam's fault then "the players" should get whatever compensation makes them whole, and then some. The compensation should err on the side of the players. But Kabam loses nothing from high compensation. The unfairness is actually between the players, as if bug compensation is worth *more* than the bug costs, that means every player that experienced the bug comes out ahead of all other players. It is basically rewarding players who rush into content hoping to snag a bug, and players who don't play the game that way are disadvantaged.
I actually tend to notice that compensation for bugs that affect everyone tend to be "surprisingly" generous, while bugs that affect only a small group of players tend to be "stingy." I wonder if this is the reason: Kabam is more comfortable lifting all boats when there's a game-wide compensation package, but more uncomfortable rewarding a small group of players for just happening to run into a bug first.
And we don't have to have only one set of Legends titles for any particular piece of content either. Monthly content comes and goes, but we could offer a Legends title for, say, Variant 2 where the first 100 to complete without using potions or revives gets a special title and some rewards. And then next quarter we could give a different Legends title and rewards for the first 100 to complete Variant 2 with an all Guardians of the Galaxy team with minimal potion use so you couldn't just spend through it fast. Just for example.
*Part* of the end game could be revolving challenge modes for different pieces of content. We could also tie it to the accomplishment system so many the first 100 get a legends-like title, but *everyone* could do the challenge at their own pace for at least some end-game appropriate rewards. It is a lot easier and quicker to make a challenge mode for existing content than make all new content, so end game players would get access to more content and more appropriate rewards.
In other words, if 6* champs in the Cav crystal is broken, Cavs without 6* crystals are probably also broken for the biggest spenders. But it is a kind of broken we probably have to accept if we aren't going to start charging subscriptions.
Cavalier crystals are unlikely to get any cheaper, but 6* shards from content are almost certainly going to go up over time, especially as they move to both Cavalier difficulty in EQ and Epic++ (whatever) in side quests. Content always starts lower, because content rewards inflate, or at least expand over time (meaning: a particular piece of content doesn't always increase its rewards over time, but at least there usually ends up being more opportunities to earn higher rewards). But cash offers (and unit offers) tend to improve much more slowly. Which is why I keep saying I'm glad so many people think Kabam's cash offers are "outdated." They are supposed to be. It might be small consolation, but I do think the cash vs grind balance in the game is not bad, even for 6* champs. It is only at the very extremes where this is not true, because there's only 24 hours in the day but a whale can spend an unlimited amount of money. But I think that also means any reasonable limits we try to place on those highest of the high will be futile. We can only drive them away, but we can't completely tame their spending.
Honestly I feel that the main issue with content nowadays is that players have too fast an accelerated progress rate, and earlier levels have been made trivial by attaining champs that outrank the content.
For example, there are multitudes of players who are Cavalier without Elder’s Bane. That, in itself, is a problem.
One suggestion I gave Kabam a long time ago, during 6.1 beta, was to gate story content and rank up resources. What I meant was to only allow players to access their next tier rank up materials upon clearing the quest that first granted it.
For example, T2A was first available upon the exploration of Act 4. This means players shouldn’t be allowed to spend T2A before acquiring it through A4 Exploration. Similarly, T5B upon A5 exploration, and T5CC upon A6 completion. Special quests such as Abyss should follow the same format too (eg, T5CC as quest rewards = clear a story quest that rewards T5CC to access it). Resources earned through AQ and AW can be locked until attained through story as well.
Although this slows down progress, it gives new players time to hone their skills, build their resources (and gold), and shifts the focus from “reward acquisition” to generally “enjoying the game”.
(On a side note, offers can also be tiered to different progression levels.)
Generally, what this means is, as players progress through story content, they unlock harder quests, stronger champs and rarer rank up materials.
One of the main reason people exploring abyss or act 6 are irritated is that they are not able to use the resource they get from completing content because of rng. Forcing the same is just going to get people riled up.
I do like the idea of making gates based on exploration. Exploring act 1 opens up act 2 , exploring act 2 opens up act 3 and so on. It forces people to either do arena for units and energy refills or buy the same for money, Either way, they will gain more experience and will make them learn the basics and "git good" so to speak.
As a counter, exploring the same map time and time again can be, well, really boring. There are little to no rewards for exploring a map for the second, third, fourth etc time - yes, it's working towards the exploration goal but it's still monotonous. Most of the story maps have so many paths exploring isnt fun. Act 4 Exploration particularly comes to mind, but that's just my opinion.
There is another opportunity here, to look at rewards from a story and progression perspective. Kabam could actually support this more by a better reward system for exploration.
So,two parts to this. First of all, any quest completion in Act 4 (which isn't the first completion or exploration) should have a token reward like 100 4 star shards. Act 5 should be 200 5* shards and then Act 6 should be 6* shards, up until the map is explored. This could encourage a slower progression through the chapters.
Secondly, Kabam could support this by offering 'Story Crystals' for exploring content. I'll give an example for Uncollected.
So, at Act 5.2 exploration, then at Act 5.3 exploration etc give out as a reward a crystal containing just 5* champs that were appropriate for story progression?
Champs in this crystal could be something like Aegon, Archangel, Black Widow (Claire Voyant), Brother Voodoo, Captain America (Infinity War), Corvus Glaive, Doctor Doom, Domino, Ghost, Guillotine 2099, Morningstar, Namor, Nick Fury, Omega Red, Quake, Spider-Man (Stark Enhanced), Warlock, Wasp. No Arena fodder, all useful to support getting Elders Bane and to then reaching Cavalier.
Maybe this story crystal could also appear as an occasional offer? Or maybe as a Christmas gift, that sort of thingy
If Kabam wanted to slow progression down, that's one way of maybe doing it and giving something back at the same time.
I also think too many player reach beyond their abilities because they want what’s available and all that’s available is done in the service of whales which really mucked up the players own idea of what player progression should be vs Kabams.
Just because somethings available doesn’t mean it should be or is available to anyone and everyone and I say this with act 6 plus, and more specifically map 7 in mind. After the whole Corvus debacle players were saying map 7 was impossible without him and maybe that’s the point, same with the time and energy constraints. Just because map 7 is there along with its rewards doesn’t mean it’s should be completed 100% all of the time by all of the players or even at all so it’s gated in its own way for only those really committed and with the right skills. I think initially Kabam didn’t expect for so many alliances to actually complete map 7 which would explain the item use limit. I also feel like Kabam would rather players grow into their content more naturally and gradually, but that mentality is long gone and dead in the players mind due largely to Kabams own fault, ironically enough
A4 was long, we still got it done at 50% higher energy than currently, whilst using much lower ranked champs, right?
Difficulty is, and always will be, a relative measure.
Unfortunately, I cannot agree with you that such a business strategy is a good way to extend the life of the game.
Your reasoning doesn't take into account the key factor: the level of customer satisfaction and people's emotions. You may know the numbers, but I don't think you understand people too well.
People want to be well rewarded for their efforts and want to get new things. And they don't want to wait months for a new thing, a new 6 star for example.
That's the way it is and you won't change it.
If you give too little to people for too long and too expensive, they will eventually leave you frustrated and angry.
In my opinion, this is what is happening right now in this game.
Such a strategy does not prolong this game, it only destroys it. This is the moment in time when Kabam gives too little and it damages the game.
A bare minimum is not enough if you want to keep customers with you, you have to give more from yourself. Maybe not every time, but certainly more often than less often.
Want a logical argument for developers to make changes to the game?
I haven't spent money on this game for weeks. And I won't spend them until I get more value and better rewards. If you want my money, give me more. And if you don't do it, then I will not only stop spending but also stop playing.
Then there's the point that people generally don't go out of their way to say something is too hard for them unless it genuinely is. In general, people don't complain because they just want easier Rewards. Conversely, there's always someone going out of their way to say "Git gud.".