Hulkbuster total timeline and next fan vote champion buff
Chovner
Member Posts: 1,228 ★★★★★
So we're finally getting to the end of the long LONG road that is the Hulkbuster buff and I'm hoping someone from the Dev team can answer some questions:
1. With the process for the Hulkbuster buff estimated to take ~9 months from time of the fan vote (early October 2019) to the planned release date (early July 2020), was this the planned timeline to re-work this champ (~9 months)?
2. Can we expect every upcoming champion buff/re-work to take the same ~ 9 month timeline from fan vote to release?
3. During the BETA we see there were no animation/design changes done to the character, so if that is an aspect in upcoming champion buffs/re-works, how much time could that realistically add to the process?
4. When can we expect to vote on the next champion buff? Since it's apparently going to be 1 champ re-work/year can we get the process started on voting on another champ ASAP?
Thanks, and I'm hoping your upcoming announcements on the revised roadmap have some good information on how you'll be better addressing champion buffs and re-works sine it's an aspect of the game that all summoners are very excited about, but don't want to be left waiting so long for turnaround times.
1. With the process for the Hulkbuster buff estimated to take ~9 months from time of the fan vote (early October 2019) to the planned release date (early July 2020), was this the planned timeline to re-work this champ (~9 months)?
2. Can we expect every upcoming champion buff/re-work to take the same ~ 9 month timeline from fan vote to release?
3. During the BETA we see there were no animation/design changes done to the character, so if that is an aspect in upcoming champion buffs/re-works, how much time could that realistically add to the process?
4. When can we expect to vote on the next champion buff? Since it's apparently going to be 1 champ re-work/year can we get the process started on voting on another champ ASAP?
Thanks, and I'm hoping your upcoming announcements on the revised roadmap have some good information on how you'll be better addressing champion buffs and re-works sine it's an aspect of the game that all summoners are very excited about, but don't want to be left waiting so long for turnaround times.
19
Comments
Hope for iron patriot... I duped Him recently. Lol
I think the issue is they're not on a routine. They can crank out 2 brand new champs each month because they've got that on a routine. If they could devote a few extra resources, I don't think 1 rework every 2 months is unreasonable.
As soon as a champ A is selected, spend a full month developing their abilities and doing the programming.
The following month, run the beta for champ A. At the same time, pick the next champ and start developing champ B.
During the following update, let the re-work go live for champ A. Send Champ B into beta. Select champ C for the next revamp.
I just hope they make champion buffs a more regular thing going forward because it's an easy change aspect of the game you know ALL summoners can positively get on board with, so give the game some good PR and keep us excited for some good changes instead of the same routine of the same EQ rewards, same AQ/AW rotation, same Incursions rewards (even though it's only new and I like Incursions).
My pipe dream is they randomly come out with a list of 15 old champs they've made kit improvements to and just roll it out to everyone with the message that these changes are here so we can get some more use out of these forgotten champs, but additional animation, synergy larger kit improvements aren't out of the question in the future. Then let everyone test them all out and you'd get the normal Forum feedback to work off of organically, instead of a rigid single champ BETA/re-work process. They can help out the whole class a little, instead of just 1 slow student in a year.
My issue isn't so much that I want to know about them working on it. My issue is that it's taking far too long to these reworks to go live. The point of the post you quoted is just to show that a beta test certainly isn't necessary and it may be advantageous to drop them completely in the interest of timely releases. I could be satisfied with 4 updates a year. 1 update in 9 months? That's pretty slow.
I assume that Kabam will eventually pick up speed and drop buffs more frequently. Kabam has started actually responding to the communities complaints, and one of the most frequented complaints that I have seen, is the lack of balance in Champions.
Since Colossus/OML and now Hulkbuster's buffs were announced and also polled, it would make sense for Kabam to do betas for the player base to play around with their buffed versions. If there was no beta, then Kabam might not know for certain if their proposed buff lived up to the standards of the player base.
As for the new champs, the reason they don't run public betas is that they do internal testing, as with silent buffs and reworks. This is also paired with the fact that Kabam doesn't take any outside suggestion into their new characters, meaning Kabam don't know how the player base feels about that certain champ, since it's never been in the game before, and they don't announce new characters until they're almost ready for release.
To their credit, they've done a really nice job with all the champion re-works so far. Luke Cage, She-Hulk, Spider-Gwen, Venom, and Carnage are all pretty great champs. I don't think the beta gave Kabam any information that they couldn't have received in-house had they done reasonable testing. To my knowledge, the betas have not resulted in any major adjustments to a champ that was being reworked. Is Hulkbuster getting a final re-tuning? Who knows?...but I doubt it. All the beta seemed to do was push back his live release another 2 months.
Beta's for new story modes? Sure. Keep those going just to make sure that player goals and developer goals are in line with one another. For now, it seems that Betas only serve to slow down the process of reworking old champs who are otherwise useless. If removing beta tests can get speed up these updates, that's 100% what they should do.
I don't think many of us would want to pick a champ to buff, only to have Kabam rework it and give it back to us in a final state without consulting us first. The beta is also a way to gather a second opinion. By allowing the player base to play around with the champ, we can highlight any highs/lows of the champ that Kabam might not have foreseen.
So no motivation to buff then
I don't think many of us would want to pick a champ to buff, only to have Kabam rework it and give it back to us in a final state without consulting us first. The beta is also a way to gather a second opinion. By allowing the player base to play around with the champ, we can highlight any highs/lows of the champ that Kabam might not have foreseen.
The top champion is a 5 star hulkbuster, maybe showing that’s who they are currently buffing. The next three champs are Spider-Gwen, Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan), and Groot. I believe these may be accounts in which kabam is merely testing out the buffs for these champs.
Also, all of the champs are around 6,300 power index at r4 l55, implicating that no masteries are in use. Another thing I wondered was why these accounts came up when you searched “Kabam.”