All those things are merely speculations, the main problem is that Kabam is not communicating their struggles. Most of us work and understand that now more than ever companies are asking us to do more with less resources. If they were to tell us "guys, the buff did not come out as intended, give us some time to fix it, we will take your feedback into consideration", no one would complain, but what we are getting is "we are happy with the buff, we will just some minor updates to her regen" or "this is a homage to her previous kit" or simply avoiding the topic as they did in the AMA when the whole community has expressed their sentiments about this decision, with no validation whatsover from Kabam, is just not acceptable. What we need from Kabam is straight forward COMMUNICATION, we are their customers. Again if the final decision will be "we will keep her the way she is now", just send the rank down tickets and they can continue with whatever projects they have for the future, and we all just move on with a dissatisfaction feeling, but we all move forward.
You say you want communication, but your example of communication is "guys, the buff did not come out as intended, give us some time to fix it, we will take your feedback into consideration." In other words, your definition of communication is "admit you're wrong." That's problematic, because they don't believe they are wrong, and saying the first step to better communications is to admit you're wrong wouldn't work on me, wouldn't work on you, and won't work with them either.
Communication is not about one side admitting their wrong while the other side talks. Communication is about the free exchange of ideas. Somewhere in there you hope that the free exchange of ideas gets people to think beyond their experience, and that sometimes causes people to learn something new. But you can't get there in one jump.
You don't change people's minds by getting them to admit they are wrong. You get them to change their minds by surrounding them with your best ideas, and hope that they recognize on their own that some of them are better than the ones they had.
but i think they should admit that they are wrong about guilly buff. i can agree with whatever you said but cant stand the fact they ignored us
They didn't ignore us. They told us what they thought. I disagree with what they thought, but I don't disagree with them saying what they thought honestly. If we don't make a safe space for the devs to express what they think, even if we disagree with it, the next step isn't that next time they admit they are wrong, the next step is for them to not do these anymore.
An admission from Kabam that they were wrong with the Guilly update is worthless if they don't honestly believe it. It would be lip service to placate us, while they went back to doing what they were doing. Remember they don't work for us. They work for their supervisors, and through them for Kabam management, and through *them* for their Netmarble overlords. Being honest with us tells us something that might be useful. But they don't have to be honest. They can hide behind corporate messaging, or they can be completely silent. We can't force them to exposes their thinking to us. Most game developers do not do that with their playerbases.
If we want the developers to sit with us at the table and tell us what they were thinking, we can't tell them they said the wrong things. We have to distinguish disagreeing with their *position* while accepting that their *expression* of their position is at least honest.
I don't let them off the hook just because they agreed to do an AMA. However, I choose to take them at their word, and critique their position about the buff, which they so kindly helped me to understand. I thank them for honestly explaining their position, because it now gives me a clearer understanding of what to challenge, and how to challenge it directly. I can only try to change their minds if I know what their minds are, and guessing is not as good as knowing. I want them to *honestly* tell me why they think they are right, so I can try to prove to them that they are wrong. At the risk of sounding more confrontational than intended, honesty is radar: it tells me where to aim.
as i said i agree with you. they need to express what they think freely without any harsh behavior from community. but they did ignored us actually. if you check back AMA again, most questions didnt get an answer and most of those that were answered, werent related to guilly buff. and again if you read this answer, you'll see this ignorance from kabam
as i said i agree with you. they need to express what they think freely without any harsh behavior from community. but they did ignored us actually. if you check back AMA again, most questions didnt get an answer and most of those that were answered, werent related to guilly buff. and again if you read this answer, you'll see this ignorance from kabam
They did in fact answer that question, although just as with most people they often answer a slightly different question than the one posed thinking it covers more ground.
The question that was asked was, and I'm paraphrasing here: why wasn't Guillotine targeted as a champion that would be useful to high tier players? And the answer was: Kabam learned that champions that get voted on need to be designed in such a way that higher tier players have a way to show off more performance with higher levels of skill.
That is an answer, it just takes some thought to parse. It says the reason Guillotine wasn't targeted as a "high tier player champion" is simply because: it didn't occur to anyone to consider that was a requirement of the update. Guillotine 2.0 is clearly designed to be a relatively flat performance champion. Her skill requirements aren't high, and there aren't a lot of ways to squeeze extra performance out of her once you learn how to player her at all. She's much more of a champ that beginning players might appreciate, playing early parts of the game where her higher damage matters more, and rosters are smaller and her toolset isn't as likely to be eclipsed. That all seems deliberate.
When you have a community vote, you expect a wide cross section of players to vote, and you might assume you'll be updating the champion based on what the playerbase needs as a whole, just as when you're making new champions. But in fact that's not a safe assumption, because when you engage the playerbase, you are actually engaging the active player community - in other words you're more likely to engage players who are already active participants in other areas of the game's community (aside from playing the game itself). These players are more likely to be veteran players, and your voting pool will skew towards the higher tier higher skill veteran players. If you make something most of them won't find useful, that will disproportionately impact the very people you asked to participate.
That seemed obvious to me (and I posted such elsewhere) but Kabam is saying this was not obvious to them.
It's just sad what this has turned into. Not only did it make what seems to be a large percentage (nearly all?) of Guillotine fans feel cheated out of what could have been, but also what already was... As I said earlier.. it's not the buff, it's the response to our feedback that was so upsetting. The other part is that it's also completely destroyed the concept of holding a community choice vote. No one will ever participate in something like this again. Or if they do, they will vote for their LEAST favorite character. As they won't want their favorite character to be in danger of the same fate as Guillotine. It's just sad that they let it go down like this.
All those things are merely speculations, the main problem is that Kabam is not communicating their struggles. Most of us work and understand that now more than ever companies are asking us to do more with less resources. If they were to tell us "guys, the buff did not come out as intended, give us some time to fix it, we will take your feedback into consideration", no one would complain, but what we are getting is "we are happy with the buff, we will just some minor updates to her regen" or "this is a homage to her previous kit" or simply avoiding the topic as they did in the AMA when the whole community has expressed their sentiments about this decision, with no validation whatsover from Kabam, is just not acceptable. What we need from Kabam is straight forward COMMUNICATION, we are their customers. Again if the final decision will be "we will keep her the way she is now", just send the rank down tickets and they can continue with whatever projects they have for the future, and we all just move on with a dissatisfaction feeling, but we all move forward.
One of the worst customer service I've seen for a company with a huge potential of doing very well financially if they're not already doing so. Everything is wrong about this buff, not a single thing right honestly. Community choice buff and the community is complaining yet Kabam don't see they dropped the ball. You didn't have to buff her into Hercules, some of us don't have him and we're doing fine. We don't need Guillotine to clear contents, we've done that already and can do so without her. We needed another playable and enjoyable character that fits today's meta. This buff is cosine 90^. If you pulled Guillotine before and felt not worth the resources cos of your progression level, you won't change your mind now buff wasted. And if you enjoyed her before, you most likely won't enjoy her now which is actually < cosine 90^.
I think the Kabam response to the player base has largely become a bigger issue than the buff itself. I think their response indicates either a childish level of hurt pride and stubbornness, or is masking an inability to correct the problem. Perhaps they don’t know HOW to fix her. Either way, no business can survive treating its customers this way. I’ve spent a lot of money on this game, and it’s a big part of my free time, and believe me, I hate to use the dreaded boycott word, but with cyber weekend approaching, it would be an opportunity to really express our displeasure. I also think people would be well within their rights to ask for refunds on any rank up offers, or sig stone offers they bought and used on Guillotine. You don’t listen to your customers, you lose them. Simple as that.
This is my first comment ever. I really like Guillotine design and I was looking forward to her getting buffed. Kabam's response is disrespectful, and I think that a Boycott is needed to remind them of the correct way to treat customers. I myself will not invest a dime, until Guillotine is rebuffed.
"This is my first comment ever..." If I'm reading this correctly, it means this is the first time this player has felt strongly enough about an issue here on the forums to comment? I feel that fact alone speaks for itself. As to how strongly some players feel about the way this has been handled.
Maybe it's time for a new vote. I'm sure if given a choice, most of us would vote for a full revert to previous state AND a new buff that preserves all of her previous qualities. One that adds utility, and improves upon her EXISTING playstyle. Which provided damage from basic attacks and sp3. Not heavy spam into sp1 or 2.
But, if that is simply not an option, we would absolutely prefer to have her reverted even without a new buff. And/or rdt, as an option to recover our investment and move on.
In my opinion, Hood is an example that a champion can successfully be rebuffed. I think his final state is perfect. A great mix of his old identity and the addition of a more useable phase mechanic and access to more damage. It's also my opinion that the notion that you have to take something away in order to add something has been successfully debunked with the Hood buff. Does anyone actually find him to be overpowered in his new state? I really doubt it. He's fun and effective enough that I do use him from time to time, but he has in no way become my go-to overpowered lane clearing champ or anything. 🙂
So, we know it's possible. The question becomes, is Kabam willing to spend the time to make it happen for Guillotine as well? If the answer is no, that is certainly disappointing considering the vote was held and that she's an original Kabam character. But, if that's the answer.. so be it. But please revert her back and/or offer a way to rank down if this is the final position of the company. That you aren't capable or willing to allocate any further dev time to her. If that's the case, just say so. Rather than tell us our opinion is wrong.
as i said i agree with you. they need to express what they think freely without any harsh behavior from community. but they did ignored us actually. if you check back AMA again, most questions didnt get an answer and most of those that were answered, werent related to guilly buff. and again if you read this answer, you'll see this ignorance from kabam
They did in fact answer that question, although just as with most people they often answer a slightly different question than the one posed thinking it covers more ground.
The question that was asked was, and I'm paraphrasing here: why wasn't Guillotine targeted as a champion that would be useful to high tier players? And the answer was: Kabam learned that champions that get voted on need to be designed in such a way that higher tier players have a way to show off more performance with higher levels of skill.
That is an answer, it just takes some thought to parse. It says the reason Guillotine wasn't targeted as a "high tier player champion" is simply because: it didn't occur to anyone to consider that was a requirement of the update…
That seemed obvious to me (and I posted such elsewhere) but Kabam is saying this was not obvious to them.
I think you’re giving them to much benefit of the doubt here. As you say at the end, this seemed obvious to you (and presumably others), but somehow we’re supposed to find it credible that Kabam just “learned” this through this Guilly buff experience?
The most glaring counterpoint to this is the Hercules community choice buff that happened prior. Yes, there’s some variables to consider vs a new original champ vs a buff, but we were exposed to a lot of the process and I dare say in some of those Dorky Dave deep-dives it was underscored that in designing the champs they wanted to… do everything they said they’re learning now w Guillotine buff. We saw and heard Kabam Broc talking about different mechanics and making a champ that wasn’t too complicated but also allowed for the “skill expression” we recognize as missing from the Guilly buff. Perhaps their minds are erased after every champion design or buff is completed?
If not that, then we’re supposed to believe all that considering of the community needs wrt skill levels etc for Hercules then totally disappeared because… this was a buff and not an original champ. They’re not saying we swung and missed. They’re saying “we just learned this now! Thanks guys!” I think it’s fair to see it as a slight to our own ability to connect the dots and speculate on more legitimate reasons they don’t want to revisit her buff. There’s a designers/community exchange here that ends w same results that feels far less insulting.
My theory is they know/hope they have amazing champs and/or buffs coming December and those will make people forget about this debacle. Otherwise this is just Kabam botching the buff then doubling down w bad PR afterwards. I can’t even credit them w “at least they engaged” because it came off so disingenuous.
But if the December Dr. Strange buff brings that iconic character back to relevancy, I think that’s another viable road to redemption.
It seems Kabam target the Guilly buff mainly for begenning and median players only. But my question is how about AA, Hyperion, falcon, ultron, venom, iceman, etc? Are those for beginners, median or endgame players? I believe the answer is clear. There are lots of characters for all levels of players but Kabam just refuse to do so on guilly buff.
Honestly at this point I'm more annoyed by the customer service than the original buff. Instead of logically describing the reasoning behind the nerf to the regen or the purpose of pain link in any content except as an annoying defender they dodged around the important topics and instead restated already known facts. At this stage I'm already tired of their train wreck of a game this past 6 months but I seriously think this has gone way too far. Please do better Kabam, a lot of people have made a lot of good suggestions and the players need to see that they are still actually being considered.
as i said i agree with you. they need to express what they think freely without any harsh behavior from community. but they did ignored us actually. if you check back AMA again, most questions didnt get an answer and most of those that were answered, werent related to guilly buff. and again if you read this answer, you'll see this ignorance from kabam
They did in fact answer that question, although just as with most people they often answer a slightly different question than the one posed thinking it covers more ground.
The question that was asked was, and I'm paraphrasing here: why wasn't Guillotine targeted as a champion that would be useful to high tier players? And the answer was: Kabam learned that champions that get voted on need to be designed in such a way that higher tier players have a way to show off more performance with higher levels of skill.
That is an answer, it just takes some thought to parse. It says the reason Guillotine wasn't targeted as a "high tier player champion" is simply because: it didn't occur to anyone to consider that was a requirement of the update. Guillotine 2.0 is clearly designed to be a relatively flat performance champion. Her skill requirements aren't high, and there aren't a lot of ways to squeeze extra performance out of her once you learn how to player her at all. She's much more of a champ that beginning players might appreciate, playing early parts of the game where her higher damage matters more, and rosters are smaller and her toolset isn't as likely to be eclipsed. That all seems deliberate.
When you have a community vote, you expect a wide cross section of players to vote, and you might assume you'll be updating the champion based on what the playerbase needs as a whole, just as when you're making new champions. But in fact that's not a safe assumption, because when you engage the playerbase, you are actually engaging the active player community - in other words you're more likely to engage players who are already active participants in other areas of the game's community (aside from playing the game itself). These players are more likely to be veteran players, and your voting pool will skew towards the higher tier higher skill veteran players. If you make something most of them won't find useful, that will disproportionately impact the very people you asked to participate.
That seemed obvious to me (and I posted such elsewhere) but Kabam is saying this was not obvious to them.
dude i'm not talking about this part. read the last line. "we wont be making any massive changes to guillotine regarding this, but your voice is heard on the matter." this is what i'm actually talking about. they heard us. they saw all of the negative feedbacks players wrote for them. they knew how disappointed players are. but still they said we will keep it the way she is. so doesnt this sound ignoring the whole unsatisfied community?
I remeber the good old days of og guilly. Get 25 souls and fire sp3, that damage was so satisfying. Her regen was great as well. Personally, the regen is fine now but the sp3 has gone from top to rock-bottom.
A community choice buff which turned out to be only good for a small part of the community, the beginning players. Very weird.
Thing is, she's actually more complicated to play now. So I've never understood the claim that her buff had beginning players in mind. Even though it obviously doesn't make sense for a community choice buff regardless.
I remeber the good old days of og guilly. Get 25 souls and fire sp3, that damage was so satisfying. Her regen was great as well. Personally, the regen is fine now but the sp3 has gone from top to rock-bottom.
Solid agree here. The regen change isn't the deal killer for me. It's the nerfing of existing abilities to "balance" new ones. But no one really likes the new abilities (if we use that term liberally) that I know of.
Pain Link: Essentially a defensive ability... given to a community choice buff?
There was an opportunity to add viable utility to her sp1 here. And apparently they said "pass, let's add something to make her more annoying to fight *against* instead." Like, just choose one.. Buff mitigation, some form of Power Control, something Mystic-ish.. idk. Or simply a combat mechanic such as miss or autoblock mitigation?
Bleed Curse: This is my least favorite change. As it essentially changes her entire original playstyle. I/we enjoyed her original playstyle. Aggessive basic attacks. Her basic attack animations are fantastic. Smooth, quick fluid sword animations. Her heavy is a little clunky imo, but I hadn't really noticed in the past because it wasn't required to access her bleed damage before this. Also, Bleed Curse has no utility. It just locks the bleed damage she already had from basic attacks behind heavy and special spam now.
Delete Bleed Curse and restore original bleed values to basic attacks please. If you wish to add a viable utility to her heavy instead, great, but I'm ok either way as long as Bleed Curse it scrapped and her original bleed values are restored to her basic attacks and call it a day.
The sp3: The degen is neat, I guess, but the attack itself was gutted. With zero exaggeration it now hits for less than a single medium attack... As mentioned, this was one of my (and many others) favorite parts of her original kit. Was legitimately shocked the first time I tested it after the buff. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I can only guess that this was nerfed so badly out of fear of how it would react with her new regen values? Idk, I really don't have any idea. But I truly don't understand how it wasn't obvious that her fans would be so disappointed in this change.
It was like our worst fears about the buff were unfolding as we play tested her for the first time. 😅 I can be quoted in my alliance chat saying things like: "As long as they don't mess with her bleed abilities, regen or sp3.. I'm sure I'll be happy with the buff..." prior to the update. Never did it occur to me they would literally change all 3 of my favorite things about her.
As I started playing her for the first time (before reading, I wanted a completely blind test) I already noticed a reduction in bleed procs/damage. It also seemed like her health wasn't topping up. Then, I built a lot of souls and launched the sp3... I was shocked. No other way to say it.
That being said, the increased damage based on number of souls was a great idea. That does actually fit perfectly with her previous aggressive basic attack playstyle. Her sig ability is pretty cool too. But that's kind of where it ends for my positive feedback unfortunately.
Not sure if anyone realized this or not about her SP3, but what happens against debuff immunity/Purify champs? Her SP3 is useless beyond useless in those fights. You might as well just have thrown another light attack
Not sure if anyone realized this or not about her SP3, but what happens against debuff immunity/Purify champs? Her SP3 is useless beyond useless in those fights. You might as well just have thrown another light attack
According to Auntm.ai her SP3 base damage is poor.
It is actually outdamaged by four lights... and that's not accounting for crits
Deadpool and Joe Fixit have similar issues where their SP3 "damage" is a result of a debuff rather than the actual Special.
Please, Kabam. At this stage why won't you just revert her? My usage and the usage of some other gilly fans has just completely gone away. You took away everywhere she was good and just made her bad-below average across the board. No one here thinks she is better now so what harm is reverting her going to do. Can we at least have a reason why? Or another AMA where the important questions are actually answered?
Comments
The question that was asked was, and I'm paraphrasing here: why wasn't Guillotine targeted as a champion that would be useful to high tier players? And the answer was: Kabam learned that champions that get voted on need to be designed in such a way that higher tier players have a way to show off more performance with higher levels of skill.
That is an answer, it just takes some thought to parse. It says the reason Guillotine wasn't targeted as a "high tier player champion" is simply because: it didn't occur to anyone to consider that was a requirement of the update. Guillotine 2.0 is clearly designed to be a relatively flat performance champion. Her skill requirements aren't high, and there aren't a lot of ways to squeeze extra performance out of her once you learn how to player her at all. She's much more of a champ that beginning players might appreciate, playing early parts of the game where her higher damage matters more, and rosters are smaller and her toolset isn't as likely to be eclipsed. That all seems deliberate.
When you have a community vote, you expect a wide cross section of players to vote, and you might assume you'll be updating the champion based on what the playerbase needs as a whole, just as when you're making new champions. But in fact that's not a safe assumption, because when you engage the playerbase, you are actually engaging the active player community - in other words you're more likely to engage players who are already active participants in other areas of the game's community (aside from playing the game itself). These players are more likely to be veteran players, and your voting pool will skew towards the higher tier higher skill veteran players. If you make something most of them won't find useful, that will disproportionately impact the very people you asked to participate.
That seemed obvious to me (and I posted such elsewhere) but Kabam is saying this was not obvious to them.
Maybe it's time for a new vote. I'm sure if given a choice, most of us would vote for a full revert to previous state AND a new buff that preserves all of her previous qualities. One that adds utility, and improves upon her EXISTING playstyle. Which provided damage from basic attacks and sp3. Not heavy spam into sp1 or 2.
But, if that is simply not an option, we would absolutely prefer to have her reverted even without a new buff. And/or rdt, as an option to recover our investment and move on.
In my opinion, Hood is an example that a champion can successfully be rebuffed. I think his final state is perfect. A great mix of his old identity and the addition of a more useable phase mechanic and access to more damage. It's also my opinion that the notion that you have to take something away in order to add something has been successfully debunked with the Hood buff. Does anyone actually find him to be overpowered in his new state? I really doubt it. He's fun and effective enough that I do use him from time to time, but he has in no way become my go-to overpowered lane clearing champ or anything. 🙂
So, we know it's possible. The question becomes, is Kabam willing to spend the time to make it happen for Guillotine as well? If the answer is no, that is certainly disappointing considering the vote was held and that she's an original Kabam character. But, if that's the answer.. so be it. But please revert her back and/or offer a way to rank down if this is the final position of the company. That you aren't capable or willing to allocate any further dev time to her. If that's the case, just say so. Rather than tell us our opinion is wrong.
The most glaring counterpoint to this is the Hercules community choice buff that happened prior. Yes, there’s some variables to consider vs a new original champ vs a buff, but we were exposed to a lot of the process and I dare say in some of those Dorky Dave deep-dives it was underscored that in designing the champs they wanted to… do everything they said they’re learning now w Guillotine buff. We saw and heard Kabam Broc talking about different mechanics and making a champ that wasn’t too complicated but also allowed for the “skill expression” we recognize as missing from the Guilly buff. Perhaps their minds are erased after every champion design or buff is completed?
If not that, then we’re supposed to believe all that considering of the community needs wrt skill levels etc for Hercules then totally disappeared because… this was a buff and not an original champ. They’re not saying we swung and missed. They’re saying “we just learned this now! Thanks guys!” I think it’s fair to see it as a slight to our own ability to connect the dots and speculate on more legitimate reasons they don’t want to revisit her buff. There’s a designers/community exchange here that ends w same results that feels far less insulting.
My theory is they know/hope they have amazing champs and/or buffs coming December and those will make people forget about this debacle. Otherwise this is just Kabam botching the buff then doubling down w bad PR afterwards. I can’t even credit them w “at least they engaged” because it came off so disingenuous.
But if the December Dr. Strange buff brings that iconic character back to relevancy, I think that’s another viable road to redemption.
Get 25 souls and fire sp3, that damage was so satisfying.
Her regen was great as well.
Personally, the regen is fine now but the sp3 has gone from top to rock-bottom.
Pain Link: Essentially a defensive ability... given to a community choice buff?
There was an opportunity to add viable utility to her sp1 here. And apparently they said "pass, let's add something to make her more annoying to fight *against* instead."
Like, just choose one.. Buff mitigation, some form of Power Control, something Mystic-ish.. idk. Or simply a combat mechanic such as miss or autoblock mitigation?
Bleed Curse: This is my least favorite change. As it essentially changes her entire original playstyle. I/we enjoyed her original playstyle. Aggessive basic attacks. Her basic attack animations are fantastic. Smooth, quick fluid sword animations. Her heavy is a little clunky imo, but I hadn't really noticed in the past because it wasn't required to access her bleed damage before this. Also, Bleed Curse has no utility. It just locks the bleed damage she already had from basic attacks behind heavy and special spam now.
Delete Bleed Curse and restore original bleed values to basic attacks please. If you wish to add a viable utility to her heavy instead, great, but I'm ok either way as long as Bleed Curse it scrapped and her original bleed values are restored to her basic attacks and call it a day.
The sp3: The degen is neat, I guess, but the attack itself was gutted. With zero exaggeration it now hits for less than a single medium attack... As mentioned, this was one of my (and many others) favorite parts of her original kit. Was legitimately shocked the first time I tested it after the buff. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I can only guess that this was nerfed so badly out of fear of how it would react with her new regen values? Idk, I really don't have any idea. But I truly don't understand how it wasn't obvious that her fans would be so disappointed in this change.
It was like our worst fears about the buff were unfolding as we play tested her for the first time. 😅 I can be quoted in my alliance chat saying things like: "As long as they don't mess with her bleed abilities, regen or sp3.. I'm sure I'll be happy with the buff..." prior to the update. Never did it occur to me they would literally change all 3 of my favorite things about her.
As I started playing her for the first time (before reading, I wanted a completely blind test) I already noticed a reduction in bleed procs/damage. It also seemed like her health wasn't topping up. Then, I built a lot of souls and launched the sp3... I was shocked. No other way to say it.
That being said, the increased damage based on number of souls was a great idea. That does actually fit perfectly with her previous aggressive basic attack playstyle. Her sig ability is pretty cool too. But that's kind of where it ends for my positive feedback unfortunately.
It is actually outdamaged by four lights... and that's not accounting for crits
Deadpool and Joe Fixit have similar issues where their SP3 "damage" is a result of a debuff rather than the actual Special.
As long as people spend, keep their levels of play up, the data will never back up the dissatisfaction that players are experiencing.
Until the data (including financial data) reflects what people are saying, Kabam has zero motivation to do anything.