The crazy part is in the past Kabam has said they want us to "diversify" and use more champs. But yet they put nodes in war and act 6 that completely contradict that notion! If I can play well, I should be able to use almost any champ, anywhere in the game. That would be a skill based game. Sorry to break your hearts but once you get to 6.1 (maybe) but for sure 6.2, kabam has made this a pay to play game. If you are free to play and don't want to grind your heart out in arena and don't want to take 8 months to finish 6.2 itemless like BG did, you might as well delete the game and move to another game. The game ends for free to play players in 6.2. Yeah you can complete it one time with skill but unless you have the skill, roster, and 8 months of patience like BG, you won't 100% it. Game over, delete it, go to another game.
I don't want to discourage you from looking at this issue. but I think there's a problem that throws a spanner in the works. In the past the content was simpler, and our needs as players were simpler. So called "God Tier" champs were more likely to be useful in a wide range of content, because the requirements for being a God Tier champ mostly revolved around delivering a lot of damage. If you could kill quickly, it didn't matter what the defender was going to throw back at you. As the saying goes: death is the strongest debuff.
But as the game went along, Kabam started trying to move the focus away from having one great champ be the answer to everything. And sometimes they did okay by making other abilities more valuable, for example power control. But sometimes they did it by making a small subsets of champions practically necessary for a particular fight, as that fight would be designed to require a very specific set of either counter-abilities or workarounds, which few champs possessed.
So while a lot of players complain they aren't getting "useful" champs from crystal pulls, I see a lot of people complain about that when the champs are clearly useful. Their response is always that the champ isn't useful *to them* which is generally code for "I need champ X or Y to do a piece of content, and all 148 other champs are useless to me."
If you're targeting one specific champ, or only a tiny number, then of course the longer the game moves on, the lower the chance becomes to pull that one specific subset of champs, since the number of champs is rising. But there's another separate problem, and that is that even if that player pulls that magic champ, they'll just be searching for the *next* "useful" champ they need to do the next thing.
Perhaps even more important than the crystal percentages is this progression of what players need. In 2015 we needed one of eight champs and then we could wreck everything. In 2020 we need champ X, then champ Y, then champ Z, just to get past one thing. Then we need champ A and B, then we need champ C, D, and E. I think being perpetually missing something amplifies the sense that the crystals don't contain "useful" champs. If you only need one, then no matter how long it takes to get, once you get it, you're good. That's not true anymore. You need to get that champ as quickly as possible, because there's still another champ you know you're going to have to chase after next, and then another.
I'm oversimplifying here, but I think Kabam trying to make more champs "useful" is making more champs "necessary" and that makes the crystal RNG more psychologically punishing to players. To put it another way, I think the important thing is not that the odds of getting what you need are getting lower, but rather the odds of getting everything you need is getting lower because we need a lot more than we used to, separate from how the crystal ratios change. It is one thing if it used to be 20% chance to hit the jackpot and now it is 10%. But it is much worse if it used to be 20% chance to hit the jackpot and now you have to hit the jackpot ten times in a row.
That's a much more complicated analysis to put numbers to. But I think the general idea is relatively easy to relate to.
I agree. I started in 2018 but even I noticed the big shift. My ranking strategy has been to focus on a core 5 team and do pretty much all content with it. Which 5 these were, is based on chance. I started with 4* Red Hulk, Iceman, Killmonger, Mephisto (later replaced by Ghost Rider), Blade, Sentinel and 5* Medusa. That team countered most if not all Kabam thrown at me. I could safely focus all my resources on those, it is way too costly to rank up every other good pull.
Now, I need to diversify, focussing on a lot of champions to counter ever more defenders and combination of nodes. I don't need one but at least two counters, just in case my main is somehow not an option.
While my rank-ups used to be a steep pyramid, it has flattened. I've few R4 5* but plenty R3 5* and R5 4*, all of them with unique utility. I have Medusa to shut down robots, but also Vision Aarkus in case of empowered immunity. I have Doom for power control, but Magik for Terrax. The list goes on and on. I get the feeling I'm in a rat race I can't win. I don't have the resources to rank up all the counters to an useable level. There is a point I need to stop and just use unit man if I don't have the counter.
Regardless, the house wins. Either you pursuit champions and resources or you spend units.
That's really as it should be, and a fair amount of that is successful design. If the game were about acquiring 5 main Champs, there would be very little longevity, or growth and progress overall. It's important to remember that requirements were different because the game was at a different place. Now, perhaps that's become a bit too accelerated and hard to keep up with, but in general I think that is the preferred direction to go. Albeit at a different pace. It's very limiting to have just the same type of Champ 170 ways.
It has gone way out of control. The game is pretty much getting designed of you being a whale, having all champions and possible counters, and still having a tough fight. So for people who don't have that counter, the fight will be impossible. Couple that with the crazy exponential increase in defender stats, this game is getting almost unbearable for casual players. With Red Guardian, I guarantee new nodes or node combinations will pop-up that requires you to use Red Guardian.
@Cendar333 you used the best possible database that exists (Seatin tier list). I don't know of any other list with the same 1) Longevity 2) Consistency of updates 3) Broad base of agreement 4) Willingness to correct oversights (Quake used to be a Demi-God, when I started) 5) Whale level spending that allows actual hands-on testing of EVERY champ.
I have looked for other lists and found a 5% variance (at most), so I went back to his list.
I've been following this thread, and I think @Cendar333 analysis is very interesting. I also, like many, think that the tier list used is a pretty good stand-in for what is very likely borne out by Kabam's statistics. Now, it's hard to find any statistics from Kabam, but I seemed to remember them at one time releasing some.
A quick Google search brought me to this graphic. I couldn't find it on a Kabam link, only Reddit, but it seems to jibe with my recollection.
A few years ago, Kabam released this, and I'd be very interested to see comparable 'Most Used Champions' information for Act 6, for players who have at least completed 6.1. Completely my opinion, but I'd bet a small amount that the list would align quite a bit with what most players and those who compile tier lists consider top champs.
For me, this is very difficult content. I'm not ftp, I usually buy the Sigil, but not much else, so I have to try to complete content as efficiently as possible, and that means using the champ that does it the "best". In monthly content, and before Act 6.2, that list felt rather long. In my roster, I'd have at least a couple candidates for "best", and a couple more that are passable. After 6.1, it felt like if you didn't have "best", you were left with miserable or impossible, especially if you're a bit of a palooka like me.
When 6.2 dropped, I went immediately to The Champion boss in 6.2.6 and hit a wall. No CAIW, MS, BWCV, She-Hulk or SymS. No way with my skills was it getting done. I had to wait months, pull BWCV, try twice more and get over the memories of the units spent before I could finally put just completion in the rearview. And I had explored 6.1 before 6.2 dropped.
It just left a really bad taste in my mouth. I'm gearing up now for 6.3-6.4 completion, but honestly I'm not looking forward to it the way I did for Act 5 and 6.1. I'll do it, because obviously, I really like this game, but a lot of diversity has gone out the window in champ selection.
I've seen some people mention nexus crystals as a possible solution and just wanted to add my thoughts...
When we look at just a "desirable" outcome it increases the odds from ~42.7% chance to a ~81.2%. This is pretty darn amazing.
When we look at "highly desirable" champions it increases odds from 18.2% to ~45.3% which is also a pretty darn good chance
However, as was mentioned above. Given current prestige and act 6 path requirements, just pulling a "demigod" or "god tier" champion doesn't lead to a "useful" or psychologically rewarding pull for the player.
What we really need to consider is the odds for a "specific" pull. For a specific outcome the nexus crystal changes the odds from ~0.8% per crystal to ~2.4%. While this is 3x better it is still a pretty low percentage overall.
So personally, although i would love it and i think from a generically "desirable" sense nexus crystals are almost OP, i don't believe that increasing nexus crystal availability really solves the issues most players are facing right now due to having random t5cc crystals for high prestige rankups and the path requirements for act 6.
Comments
I don't know of any other list with the same
1) Longevity
2) Consistency of updates
3) Broad base of agreement
4) Willingness to correct oversights (Quake used to be a Demi-God, when I started)
5) Whale level spending that allows actual hands-on testing of EVERY champ.
I have looked for other lists and found a 5% variance (at most), so I went back to his list.
Thank you for doing this project.
A quick Google search brought me to this graphic. I couldn't find it on a Kabam link, only Reddit, but it seems to jibe with my recollection.
A few years ago, Kabam released this, and I'd be very interested to see comparable 'Most Used Champions' information for Act 6, for players who have at least completed 6.1. Completely my opinion, but I'd bet a small amount that the list would align quite a bit with what most players and those who compile tier lists consider top champs.
For me, this is very difficult content. I'm not ftp, I usually buy the Sigil, but not much else, so I have to try to complete content as efficiently as possible, and that means using the champ that does it the "best". In monthly content, and before Act 6.2, that list felt rather long. In my roster, I'd have at least a couple candidates for "best", and a couple more that are passable. After 6.1, it felt like if you didn't have "best", you were left with miserable or impossible, especially if you're a bit of a palooka like me.
When 6.2 dropped, I went immediately to The Champion boss in 6.2.6 and hit a wall. No CAIW, MS, BWCV, She-Hulk or SymS. No way with my skills was it getting done. I had to wait months, pull BWCV, try twice more and get over the memories of the units spent before I could finally put just completion in the rearview. And I had explored 6.1 before 6.2 dropped.
It just left a really bad taste in my mouth. I'm gearing up now for 6.3-6.4 completion, but honestly I'm not looking forward to it the way I did for Act 5 and 6.1. I'll do it, because obviously, I really like this game, but a lot of diversity has gone out the window in champ selection.
When we look at just a "desirable" outcome it increases the odds from ~42.7% chance to a ~81.2%. This is pretty darn amazing.
When we look at "highly desirable" champions it increases odds from 18.2% to ~45.3% which is also a pretty darn good chance
However, as was mentioned above. Given current prestige and act 6 path requirements, just pulling a "demigod" or "god tier" champion doesn't lead to a "useful" or psychologically rewarding pull for the player.
What we really need to consider is the odds for a "specific" pull. For a specific outcome the nexus crystal changes the odds from ~0.8% per crystal to ~2.4%. While this is 3x better it is still a pretty low percentage overall.
So personally, although i would love it and i think from a generically "desirable" sense nexus crystals are almost OP, i don't believe that increasing nexus crystal availability really solves the issues most players are facing right now due to having random t5cc crystals for high prestige rankups and the path requirements for act 6.