People forget they had Willpower, crit teams, perfect block teams, truly God tier champs before 12 etc. It was MUCH easier to get things done
I personally don't see the logic with all the pandering to the top players and whales etc. There are probably approx 50K of them that spend a fortune, can see that. But how many millions a year (literally) of the lower and newer players quit the game? If the player base doesn't keep growing then the game will slowly die and what will the top players do then? And Kabam will lose this income
Plus, 50K spending 5K a year is a lot. But an extra 20 million new players spending just £50 a year each is a lot more! And they will grow and stay with the game and spend even more
I am very Pro-Kabam as you will see from my post (they do a GREAT job) but this business plan doesnt make sense at all? The only logic I can see is a plan to milk the top players for as long as they can with new star characters and better rewards for them etc, and watch the total number of players drop until it is so low they move onto the next game
Really really hope I am wrong
you grossly overestimate how many players play this game.
when the rocket bomb came out, the stats of those who pushed vs didn't push added up to something like 150k players (i think). and while that may not be a super accurate number, i doubt there there are close to even 1 million that play, let alone "millions a year" that quit this game.
My recollection was that the total number of players (technically accounts) that claimed the button was around 1.3 million.
People forget they had Willpower, crit teams, perfect block teams, truly God tier champs before 12 etc. It was MUCH easier to get things done
I personally don't see the logic with all the pandering to the top players and whales etc. There are probably approx 50K of them that spend a fortune, can see that. But how many millions a year (literally) of the lower and newer players quit the game? If the player base doesn't keep growing then the game will slowly die and what will the top players do then? And Kabam will lose this income
Plus, 50K spending 5K a year is a lot. But an extra 20 million new players spending just £50 a year each is a lot more! And they will grow and stay with the game and spend even more
I am very Pro-Kabam as you will see from my post (they do a GREAT job) but this business plan doesnt make sense at all? The only logic I can see is a plan to milk the top players for as long as they can with new star characters and better rewards for them etc, and watch the total number of players drop until it is so low they move onto the next game
Really really hope I am wrong
you grossly overestimate how many players play this game.
when the rocket bomb came out, the stats of those who pushed vs didn't push added up to something like 150k players (i think). and while that may not be a super accurate number, i doubt there there are close to even 1 million that play, let alone "millions a year" that quit this game.
My recollection was that the total number of players (technically accounts) that claimed the button was around 1.3 million.
People forget they had Willpower, crit teams, perfect block teams, truly God tier champs before 12 etc. It was MUCH easier to get things done
I personally don't see the logic with all the pandering to the top players and whales etc. There are probably approx 50K of them that spend a fortune, can see that. But how many millions a year (literally) of the lower and newer players quit the game? If the player base doesn't keep growing then the game will slowly die and what will the top players do then? And Kabam will lose this income
Plus, 50K spending 5K a year is a lot. But an extra 20 million new players spending just £50 a year each is a lot more! And they will grow and stay with the game and spend even more
I am very Pro-Kabam as you will see from my post (they do a GREAT job) but this business plan doesnt make sense at all? The only logic I can see is a plan to milk the top players for as long as they can with new star characters and better rewards for them etc, and watch the total number of players drop until it is so low they move onto the next game
Really really hope I am wrong
At the risk of being flippant, I think you're wrong. Looking at the game as a whole, there's no obvious over-focus on the very top players or spenders that I can see. The in-game offers run across the range of different players, and the reward system itself isn't more top heavy than I would expect for a progressional system that has to have higher rewards for higher tiers of play.
It takes less effort to generate higher rewards now than it did before, which benefits lower tier players. There are more opportunities for lower tier players to earn rewards than in the past. For example, the milestone rewards in the arena are significantly higher now, which disproportionately benefits lower tier players (because those rewards are not limited to the top percentage of players and have lower requirements to achieve them). Quest rewards are higher now, which also disproportionately benefits lower players (because higher tier players cannot achieve more quest rewards than full completion earns, so those rewards saturate at a certain level of play). It is much easier to build 4* and 5* rosters now than in the past, while the standard content isn't getting harder which means standard content is getting easier over time relative to the strength of players of all tiers. Even calendar rewards, which didn't even exist at one point, are getting higher which again disproportionately benefits lower tier players who don't need to do anything besides log in to get them.
In exchange for all of that, the game has added higher end content over time to specifically target players that have effectively outleveled most of the existing content. LoL, master mode, and Act 5 are all examples of that. The Collector and uncollected status is another progressional gate to higher progress in the game. While everything below Act 5 is getting relatively easier compared to the strength of the average player and the rate of progress of lower players, new content above that is being introduced to target the players higher than that. I can quibble over the specifics, but none of that seems especially unbalanced to me.
In any case, all the statistics I can find on downloads and revenue say MCOC is still a very highly ranked game in terms of the number of people playing it and paying for in-game purchases. I don't see any obvious evidence that the game is not attracting new players or having problems generating revenue from its playerbase.
People forget they had Willpower, crit teams, perfect block teams, truly God tier champs before 12 etc. It was MUCH easier to get things done
I personally don't see the logic with all the pandering to the top players and whales etc. There are probably approx 50K of them that spend a fortune, can see that. But how many millions a year (literally) of the lower and newer players quit the game? If the player base doesn't keep growing then the game will slowly die and what will the top players do then? And Kabam will lose this income
Plus, 50K spending 5K a year is a lot. But an extra 20 million new players spending just £50 a year each is a lot more! And they will grow and stay with the game and spend even more
I am very Pro-Kabam as you will see from my post (they do a GREAT job) but this business plan doesnt make sense at all? The only logic I can see is a plan to milk the top players for as long as they can with new star characters and better rewards for them etc, and watch the total number of players drop until it is so low they move onto the next game
Really really hope I am wrong
you grossly overestimate how many players play this game.
when the rocket bomb came out, the stats of those who pushed vs didn't push added up to something like 150k players (i think). and while that may not be a super accurate number, i doubt there there are close to even 1 million that play, let alone "millions a year" that quit this game.
My recollection was that the total number of players (technically accounts) that claimed the button was around 1.3 million.
The article says the game was downloaded 33 million times, not that it had 33 million players. If you believe that downloads equals players, then based on the recent download rankings for MCOC it should be adding several thousand players per day, a couple hundred thousand a month.
Yes it takes a lot of time but there is no "catching up." Yeah the new players get stuff we didn't, they also face harder content than we did at a certain level...there was no act 4...and you are right! A lot of people coming in don't realize that if you want something it is hours and hours and hours of grinding..."casual players?" How is that even possible? If they are they have a roster of 2 stars cause 3s, 4s, and 5s seldom just pop up! But I believe in balance...work, family, self...this game does not accommodate balance. And it is pretty clear things are out of balance...
These new players didn't know what it was like to get a 4* 2 years ago
It was like you have won the game or pulled a fully formed t2a...
We welcomed any 4* that we'd received at that time and having a 3/30 4* was a pride
Only Summoner Advancement was the way to earn 5* shards and that too biweekly lol because we couldn't make it to the cut off every week l.
I still remember that i predicted with my alliance members that to get a 5* champ will take forever at this pace but now I'm standing on 18 5* champs.
Game has become too easy folks and rewards are raining, it's upto you how much you can receive
Yes it takes a lot of time but there is no "catching up." Yeah the new players get stuff we didn't, they also face harder content than we did at a certain level...there was no act 4...and you are right! A lot of people coming in don't realize that if you want something it is hours and hours and hours of grinding..."casual players?" How is that even possible? If they are they have a roster of 2 stars cause 3s, 4s, and 5s seldom just pop up! But I believe in balance...work, family, self...this game does not accommodate balance. And it is pretty clear things are out of balance...
A casual player that just played an hour a day on average should within a year have a roster of a significant number of 3* champions and at least a couple of 4* champs. That's achievable just by logging in every day and doing monthly quests at the heroic level and story quests at least through Act 3 if not Act 4.
A genuinely casual player should be fine with that: they are playing as often as they can and progressing through the game. Someone who wants to play only a few hours a week but needs to have what everyone else has quickly is not a casual player. They are an inpatient player.
Champs are raining...not the basics and class cats to raise them. I was there then and I remember it just like you discribed. But in our case things got ugly when we didn't hit the shards. It was the end of the world and someone was.to blame! Well we all bennifited from the generous amount of champ Chrystal shards introduced nit just those guys coming behind us. You collected 15 5s...it was easy I agree...I amassed 43 4s...but the shards for t4cc are just not available for solo players. And don't give me a "not willing to do the work" lecture...you think I just bent over and they magically appearef? You haven't played solo and you haven't done the math. It really is rediculous. Yes it does rain gifts...it doesn't rain basics and class cats...and they are key to any success not just in the Aw and Aqs but in the rest of the content as well. Really do you think new players really care if "we had to walk uphill to school? Both ways?"
I believe that it's great that those who invest more and play more should get more rewards. But the way it is now, everything, and I do mean every last thing, is done with alliances and alliance advantages in mind. That includes all the content! Everything has become dependant on being in an alliance...it should not be.
I believe that it's great that those who invest more and play more should get more rewards. But the way it is now, everything, and I do mean every last thing, is done with alliances and alliance advantages in mind. That includes all the content! Everything has become dependant on being in an alliance...it should not be.
You seem to be daring people to take you literally, in which case I have to point out that this statement is simply not true. A player can play the game without ever joining an alliance and the only deficit they will experience, if any, besides being unable to participate in actual alliance events, is being unable to buy the unstoppable colossus-es? colossi? in the loyalty store and earning rank up resources at a slower rate.
They can still run the story quests, they can still run the monthly quests, they can still run the special events, they can still grind arena. The calendars alone practically handed everyone a free 5* champion and generally hand out a significant amount of rank up rewards over time. A lot of people including me beat the Collector with 4* champions. If you are not in an alliance you don't need to rank up for defense so your only rank up resource expenditures could be focused on the absolute best attackers you have. And if you are an arena grinder, which you do not need to be in an alliance to do, your attack roster should be pretty good by now.
You do not need to rank up a lot of stuff as a solo player. You can only use five at a time anyway. A solo person could easily have champions like X-23, Rogue, Ghost Rider, Cap WWII, Vision, Hawkeye, Elektra,, and Ultron for relatively easy effort. Healing, power control, immunity, damage, that's a great Act 4 team and a decent Act 5 team. A solo player could have them all at 4/40 and a couple at 5/50 by now.
A solo player would be behind the curve relative to someone earning more resources by being in an alliance and frankly participating in more of the game. But the vast majority of the game does not require being in an alliance nor is it focused on alliances. Most of my time playing the game is not focused on thinking about my alliance, and I'm an actual officer (and a battlegroup admin) for my alliance.
People forget they had Willpower, crit teams, perfect block teams, truly God tier champs before 12 etc. It was MUCH easier to get things done
I personally don't see the logic with all the pandering to the top players and whales etc. There are probably approx 50K of them that spend a fortune, can see that. But how many millions a year (literally) of the lower and newer players quit the game? If the player base doesn't keep growing then the game will slowly die and what will the top players do then? And Kabam will lose this income
Plus, 50K spending 5K a year is a lot. But an extra 20 million new players spending just £50 a year each is a lot more! And they will grow and stay with the game and spend even more
I am very Pro-Kabam as you will see from my post (they do a GREAT job) but this business plan doesnt make sense at all? The only logic I can see is a plan to milk the top players for as long as they can with new star characters and better rewards for them etc, and watch the total number of players drop until it is so low they move onto the next game
Really really hope I am wrong
you grossly overestimate how many players play this game.
when the rocket bomb came out, the stats of those who pushed vs didn't push added up to something like 150k players (i think). and while that may not be a super accurate number, i doubt there there are close to even 1 million that play, let alone "millions a year" that quit this game.
My recollection was that the total number of players (technically accounts) that claimed the button was around 1.3 million.
People forget they had Willpower, crit teams, perfect block teams, truly God tier champs before 12 etc. It was MUCH easier to get things done
I personally don't see the logic with all the pandering to the top players and whales etc. There are probably approx 50K of them that spend a fortune, can see that. But how many millions a year (literally) of the lower and newer players quit the game? If the player base doesn't keep growing then the game will slowly die and what will the top players do then? And Kabam will lose this income
Plus, 50K spending 5K a year is a lot. But an extra 20 million new players spending just £50 a year each is a lot more! And they will grow and stay with the game and spend even more
I am very Pro-Kabam as you will see from my post (they do a GREAT job) but this business plan doesnt make sense at all? The only logic I can see is a plan to milk the top players for as long as they can with new star characters and better rewards for them etc, and watch the total number of players drop until it is so low they move onto the next game
Really really hope I am wrong
How is this quest "pandering to the top players and whales?" There has to be content for top players. As has already been pointed out, lower players still have lots of content to work on. Also, no one forgets that we had willpower, block teams, etc. We also had a much harder time getting champs and Act 4 was a lot harder. I really don't see the point. Not sure whether you were suggesting that this quest was part of the milking the whales strategy but it doesn't take units to complete...
No just that at a certain point it is impassable without t4cc which seems to only be available in an alliance or by spending. Until just this past week i habe never even gotten an offer for t4cc We don't get health and attack boosts without buying them. So can't drop a pair of those and go in...when a solo player asks for 40 months to build a t4cc using t3 to something a little shorter how is that negative impacting on the alliances and the overall game? The answer is none! It would have zero negative impact...so??? Where's the beef man?
No just that at a certain point it is impassable without t4cc which seems to only be available in an alliance or by spending. Until just this past week i habe never even gotten an offer for t4cc We don't get health and attack boosts without buying them. So can't drop a pair of those and go in...when a solo player asks for 40 months to build a t4cc using t3 to something a little shorter how is that negative impacting on the alliances and the overall game? The answer is none! It would have zero negative impact...so??? Where's the beef man?
Yes, if you won't join an alliance you will not progress as much. That is indisputable. For me, I wouldn't still be playing this game if I didn't have an alliance I liked. If you are too busy for an active alliance there are semi active groups, groups that run 2 BGs so that not everyone has to do AQ and AW every time they are up. Lots of options.
Comments
My recollection was that the total number of players (technically accounts) that claimed the button was around 1.3 million.
Edit: it was 1,370,974
see: https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/4364/rocket-death-button-discussion-thread/p1
Nearly 3 years ago they had 33 million players, then they extended into China and Asia, think they would have added a few there!!
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/kabam-and-longtu-games-announce-strategic-agreement-to-launch-marvel-contest-of-champions-in-china-2015-04-28
At the risk of being flippant, I think you're wrong. Looking at the game as a whole, there's no obvious over-focus on the very top players or spenders that I can see. The in-game offers run across the range of different players, and the reward system itself isn't more top heavy than I would expect for a progressional system that has to have higher rewards for higher tiers of play.
It takes less effort to generate higher rewards now than it did before, which benefits lower tier players. There are more opportunities for lower tier players to earn rewards than in the past. For example, the milestone rewards in the arena are significantly higher now, which disproportionately benefits lower tier players (because those rewards are not limited to the top percentage of players and have lower requirements to achieve them). Quest rewards are higher now, which also disproportionately benefits lower players (because higher tier players cannot achieve more quest rewards than full completion earns, so those rewards saturate at a certain level of play). It is much easier to build 4* and 5* rosters now than in the past, while the standard content isn't getting harder which means standard content is getting easier over time relative to the strength of players of all tiers. Even calendar rewards, which didn't even exist at one point, are getting higher which again disproportionately benefits lower tier players who don't need to do anything besides log in to get them.
In exchange for all of that, the game has added higher end content over time to specifically target players that have effectively outleveled most of the existing content. LoL, master mode, and Act 5 are all examples of that. The Collector and uncollected status is another progressional gate to higher progress in the game. While everything below Act 5 is getting relatively easier compared to the strength of the average player and the rate of progress of lower players, new content above that is being introduced to target the players higher than that. I can quibble over the specifics, but none of that seems especially unbalanced to me.
In any case, all the statistics I can find on downloads and revenue say MCOC is still a very highly ranked game in terms of the number of people playing it and paying for in-game purchases. I don't see any obvious evidence that the game is not attracting new players or having problems generating revenue from its playerbase.
The article says the game was downloaded 33 million times, not that it had 33 million players. If you believe that downloads equals players, then based on the recent download rankings for MCOC it should be adding several thousand players per day, a couple hundred thousand a month.
Most downloads don't lead to long term players.
It was like you have won the game or pulled a fully formed t2a...
We welcomed any 4* that we'd received at that time and having a 3/30 4* was a pride
Only Summoner Advancement was the way to earn 5* shards and that too biweekly lol because we couldn't make it to the cut off every week l.
I still remember that i predicted with my alliance members that to get a 5* champ will take forever at this pace but now I'm standing on 18 5* champs.
Game has become too easy folks and rewards are raining, it's upto you how much you can receive
A casual player that just played an hour a day on average should within a year have a roster of a significant number of 3* champions and at least a couple of 4* champs. That's achievable just by logging in every day and doing monthly quests at the heroic level and story quests at least through Act 3 if not Act 4.
A genuinely casual player should be fine with that: they are playing as often as they can and progressing through the game. Someone who wants to play only a few hours a week but needs to have what everyone else has quickly is not a casual player. They are an inpatient player.
You seem to be daring people to take you literally, in which case I have to point out that this statement is simply not true. A player can play the game without ever joining an alliance and the only deficit they will experience, if any, besides being unable to participate in actual alliance events, is being unable to buy the unstoppable colossus-es? colossi? in the loyalty store and earning rank up resources at a slower rate.
They can still run the story quests, they can still run the monthly quests, they can still run the special events, they can still grind arena. The calendars alone practically handed everyone a free 5* champion and generally hand out a significant amount of rank up rewards over time. A lot of people including me beat the Collector with 4* champions. If you are not in an alliance you don't need to rank up for defense so your only rank up resource expenditures could be focused on the absolute best attackers you have. And if you are an arena grinder, which you do not need to be in an alliance to do, your attack roster should be pretty good by now.
You do not need to rank up a lot of stuff as a solo player. You can only use five at a time anyway. A solo person could easily have champions like X-23, Rogue, Ghost Rider, Cap WWII, Vision, Hawkeye, Elektra,, and Ultron for relatively easy effort. Healing, power control, immunity, damage, that's a great Act 4 team and a decent Act 5 team. A solo player could have them all at 4/40 and a couple at 5/50 by now.
A solo player would be behind the curve relative to someone earning more resources by being in an alliance and frankly participating in more of the game. But the vast majority of the game does not require being in an alliance nor is it focused on alliances. Most of my time playing the game is not focused on thinking about my alliance, and I'm an actual officer (and a battlegroup admin) for my alliance.
i stand corrected.
How is this quest "pandering to the top players and whales?" There has to be content for top players. As has already been pointed out, lower players still have lots of content to work on. Also, no one forgets that we had willpower, block teams, etc. We also had a much harder time getting champs and Act 4 was a lot harder. I really don't see the point. Not sure whether you were suggesting that this quest was part of the milking the whales strategy but it doesn't take units to complete...
Yes, if you won't join an alliance you will not progress as much. That is indisputable. For me, I wouldn't still be playing this game if I didn't have an alliance I liked. If you are too busy for an active alliance there are semi active groups, groups that run 2 BGs so that not everyone has to do AQ and AW every time they are up. Lots of options.