Community Choice Buff: Guillotine Clarification + Live AMA with a very special Kabam dev!

DESIGN

Original
Keeping topped up on health, dealing with opponents healing, and gaining strength the more HP you take away from the opponent.

Now (Changes)
New Design: Keeping topped up on health, dealing with opponents healing, and gaining strength through debuffs, or hitting HP thresholds on the opponent or Guillotine.

Biggest Changes:

New “Unshackled” Mechanic. This will increase her special attack effects, and make them unblockable if she has 10 or more souls!
Bleed Curse on Heavy, giving you guaranteed Bleeds, and thus guaranteed Souls if you strike an opponent with any hit of a special while active.
Guillotine can now apply Ruptures instead of Bleeds to Bleed immune opponents!
Moved Regen from random chance, to be all the time but lower potency.

FUTURE PLANS

Upon review of Guillotine’s initial performance, the team determined that she could benefit from some more regeneration in the future.

While the team is satisfied with the current state of most of Guillotine’s kit, they will be keeping a close eye on her healing during an average fight. The team is approaching the continuous form of healing with caution and some reserve when it comes to tuning.

Currently, the team will continue to examine all available data and will endeavour to release a buff for her regeneration some time in the foreseeable future. Rest assured that the team will prioritize this as much as they can.

Below are the main statistics that the team uses to track Guillotine’s regeneration (regeneration per second). This graph tracks how much a Champion regenerates on average, at a consistent scale.

Regen per second for Guillotine vs others across MCoC Pre-Rework

Regen per second for Guillotine vs others across MCoC Post-Rework

EXCLUSIVE

Questions or thoughts about the above? Join @Kabam Boo , featuring the one and only @Kabam John , in a live AMA session tomorrow, Friday, November 5, 2021 from 11AM (PT) to 12PM (PT).

***NOTE that this thread will open tomorrow, Friday, November 5, 2021 at 10:30AM (PT). Please hold all your questions and thoughts until then! We look forward to chatting with you all very soon!

Comments

Shadowstrike

So who else has the developer worked on, including buffs, so we have an idea of some of their previous work?

Xnmfjx_13

Love what you guys are doing and can’t wait to hear from you about Guillotine!

BitterSteel

I have 3 questions.

Firstly, I think one thing that needs to be remembered is that new Guilly has a much different playstyle than old Guilly, namely the need to parry heavy and heavy spam to build up bleed curse debuffs in order to achieve max potential. This means that with her fairly low block proficiency, and focusing on parrying, you lose a lot more health than you would have before, when you simply played Guilly MLLLM 5 hit combos.

As a result of this, even if new Guilly had exactly the same regeneration capability as old Guilly, the new playstyle leads to a net worse health gain, as the chip damage suffered to achieve her max potential wasn’t there with the old Guilly.

Q1) Has this been, or will this be considered when balancing her?

Secondly, when Hercules was selected for the community vote, in all of the Dev Diaries episodes there was an air of great care. An air of “this is the community selected champion, we *need* to do right by them”. And Kabam really felt like they poured the community’s heart and soul into Herc. He can be used suicides or not, by lower skilled players but has a high skill cap for higher skilled players. He is THE community’s champion.

I think as a result of that, there has been this same expectation by the community that when we’ve put effort into voting for a champion, whether by campaigning for them, debating about them or actually doing a whole arena for them. But then for her to come out as a champion that quite evidently doesn’t have the utility to be effectively used past act 5, which is clear from her spotlight alone, is just a real shame.

Q2) So my question is this, are you aware of the hype that a community vote creates? And if so, is that something that can be held at the forefront of the designers minds for the next one?

Lastly, regarding her utility and the rest of her kit. You say you’re happy with the rest of it, but a lot of people I’ve talked to feel like this is just rearranging the deck chairs of the titanic. Even if Guilly has some pretty good regen after this, she has a lot of issues as a member of the mystic class with no way to deal with tricky buffs, and no other meaningful utility at all.

Q3) Are there any plans at all to address the other issues of her buff? Or to make any improvements on any other front?

unknown

This content has been removed.

Dragonfei

Hey there, thanks for doing an AMA!

The last several months have seen multiple champions that are very, very powerful in terms of healing (King Groot, Diablo) get reworks.

While their "regen per second" is higher than hers by quite a bit per this chart - it's a night and day difference in game and even more exaggerated than shown here. Guillotine is not viable as a healer in end-game content (Act 6/7, Cavalier EQ, Map 7), whereas the other two are. She doesn't see near the levels of healing of either King Groot or Diablo, but all three were reworks that had regeneration as core parts of their kit. Why was there more concern with how powerful her healing might be, with those two already out and in the game?

Thanks!

Chovner

Get it back to where she can do this kind of regen, and this kind of special damage again please and thanks (pic right after an sp3 with 14 souls) :

This is obviously a rare case, and with synergies, but just to show that there was POTENTIAL for huge SP3 damage and huge healing, which isn't really the case anymore

TheBair123

First, thanks for doing this. I think it’ll help to clear the rift between the devs and the players. I have two different questions. First, what is the reasoning for changing things about champions that do not currently need to be changed or altered. For example, removing Karnak’s ability to shrug off class disadvantages. We all know that Karnak is not overpowered and I’m just confused about why this would need to be removed. Another example is Guillotine’s regeneration. I don’t think many people were complaining about her regeneration and that was not one of the things in her kit that needed to be overhauled. This goes directly into my next question.

TheBair123

If possible, in detail, what is your process for testing new and buffed champs. There have been many, many examples in the past few months of champs that have needed to be changed or adjusted because they were either too good/not good enough. For example, I’ll pick Shang Chi. WIthin days of him being released, it was found that he had an infinite stun cheese and was removed. Another example, I’ll pick Psycho Man. Again, within days of him being released, it was found that he had an infinite heavy spam and was adjusted. One more example, I’ll pick Ikarus. Within an hour of his abilities being released, it was found that his damage would be insanely high. Because of this, they were adjusted. How is it possible that players have found things like this in a matter of hours or a day while the team has been working on them for many weeks? I personally think that it would be beneficial to have players test buffs and new champs because so many flaws would be found and changed before they were released to most of the playerbase. Thanks.

imaginejim

When you all decide who is getting buffed, what is the thought process behind who gets overhauls vs moderate or value?

imaginejim

With many of the OG champs like the first two caps, Iron Man, Iron Patriot, Both Cyclops, etc, are they being held off until later because they will also require VFX updates?

Stagedear85

appreciate you taking a second Look at Guillotine to tune her, however i do feel that regeneration is the lease of her problem i would say easier access to damage and utility would be a place to start, as i had said before usually a community choice Buff should be a champ the community would be excited about and a champ that if you pull from a Feature crystal excited about however with her buff that's not the case pulling her from any crystal seems like a let down..

Stagedear85

Please stay with Guillotine see alot of questions about things that has nothing to do with Guillotine buff if im not mistaken this live AMA is in regards to Guillotine..

Xnmfjx_13

When it comes to regenerate effects and tuning them what is the how complicated is the process and how often does it get tweaked?

Xva23

Have you considered setting your overhaul order based on year? Since most 2015 champs can't hold a candle to those in 2021, and those who do have already been reworked

Apocalypse189

With Updates to Champions coming so fast, was there a point in the process where you read it back and had to change some of it because it was too complex or didn't fit in with their gameplay mechanics? Also when can we expect Groot to be overhauled?

Rockypantherx

I think my main question is, where does the developer believe Guillotine will be used after her buff that she wasn’t before?

Pre-buff Guillotine and Buffed Guillotine have the exact same utility set, a utility set that by even 2017 standards is weak. If it was to balance her damage and sustainability out, then the sustainability we know didn’t work, and I think most developed players would tell you damage is meaningless if the champ is not useful.

But some supplementary questions.

Who was this buff aimed to benefit?

What was the point of Pain Link?

Why was the unblockable and regen stuff not caught before release?

What timeline can we expect for any changes to Guillotine? And will this take up a buff spot like the Hood rebuff did?

Was the initial buff impacted by the 3 champ per month cadence that was cut back on?

And some more general questions on the buff programme going forward:

Is there any possibility that the community could get to see what categories champs lined up for buffs are falling into? Because there have been some buffs recently that the devs and the community have significantly disagreed on what kind of buffs they should have gotten (including Guillotine)

What is the focus of most buffs? As in, are they focused on damage, utility or practicality?

What buffs have been released that the devs believe need to be looked at again? (Looking at you Nova and Gamora)

And one final question:

Is my beloved Killmonger up for a value buff at some point (or at least just letting his bleeds stack)?

I understand I’ve kind of bombarded you with questions here but I’m very invested in the buff programme, and champion kits in general. I find it fascinating. I’m also a journalism student, so what can I say? Asking questions is kind of my nature

RandomlyGenerated

Hey y'all thanks for doing this AMA

I'm a bit of a forum noob, so my apologies if this isn't formatted correctly.

> While the team is satisfied with the current state of most of Guillotine’s kit
I'd love to hear some clarification regarding this point. Her regen has been nerfed based on what your graphs are showing, but from an overhauled champ, I personally expected a lot more in terms of utility as well. The only new part of her kit is the Sp1 reflect (mostly defensive). I understand that the heal reversal is more accessible now, especially compared to how she was before the changes without a synergy team.

She has no impactful ability that makes her feel like a mystic at all. No nullify, no real big benefit from buffs, no way to deal with buffs, or power.

Hearing that the regen is the only point being looked at as a possible further improvement is very disappointing.

Kabl

How far do you plan ahead on who will be buffed?

Are there plans to rebuff some champs that didn't improve as much, i.e. nova, ronan, maw?

When can we expect the Community Choice Champs to be buffed? Is it possible early next year?

BitterSteel

Is there any possibility that the community could get to see what categories champs lined up for buffs are falling into? Because there have been some buffs recently that the devs and the community have significantly disagreed on what kind of buffs they should have gotten (including Guillotine)

This is something I feel very strongly about and would love to know the answer. I did write a thread on it here

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/283063/is-there-a-problem-with-the-buff-program/p1

And the consensus seemed to be that I think Kabam have too many champions slated for overhauls, when they just don’t need to be.

ZeiramMR

Could you elaborate on the conditions and data collection methods that are represented in the two charts? Because it looks like values for other champions are not consistent.

Shadowstrike

For any future Buffs including the potential Community Choice buff, but have you ever considered opening up a specific thread just to gauge the community's feelings towards core capabilities? Kind of a column A of things we like and don't want changed as opposed to column B featuring things that could really improve the character like adding utility or increasing certain numbers even block proficiency, that kind of thing?

The reason I'm asking is because like a lot of people I felt that the things that Guillotine was missing could have been added in through a moderate update as opposed to an overhaul but I wanted to also understand the approach from the dev team.

Psy26

A lot of people are asking about buffs so I'll add something from myself, is there a plan to balance out invisible woman? She was supposed to be looked at long time ago but nothing really happend. She's a very cool character but her stressful gameplay makes very impracticable to use

Kabam Boo

Welcome everybody to our live AMA!

Joining me is @Kabam John, Balance Designer, who has been with us for 4 years now. John is a Thronebreaker player, and his favourite all-time Champion is Doc Ock; although he has been swayed lately to Knull. John's day to day involves Character, content and game mode balancing, running the revamp process, and helping design champions. As you can see, John has quite a full plate!

I would like to remind everybody to please remain respectful during this AMA as John has taken time out of his busy schedule to speak to us today. Please direct any questions, thoughts or suggestions at the present topic only. Any further and off-topic discussions may be answered at a separate time.

Finally, we will also be moderating this thread, so please remain respectful at all times to John, and your fellow Summoners! We hope to have an amazing AMA today!

Without further ado, I give you............... the one.......... the only..........

@Kabam John !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

KILLMФИGЕЯ

My main issue with this buff besides the fact that she will just never get used almost anywhere for me ever! Is the fact that this was a COMMUNITY CHOICE BUFF! We voted and put our trust in you guys to deliver a complete overhaul of a champ and make her great.
Instead we got a nerf to her top qualities, no utility and overall just a bad champ honestly. From what I can tell, she will definitely not get played by me personally and all the old gully fans are mad cause she’s worse, so who was this “buffs aimed at?

This has personally made me want to not participate in any future polls/voting with you guys.

Stagedear85

Hello @kabam John Thanks for taking the time out your day to do this hopefully we can get some clarity on what goes into a community choice buff like Guillotine..

Koolaid7g

When you were planning out the Guilly buff, were you targeting improving her for early game players, mid or late game? A bit of all three?

Rockypantherx

Is there any possibility that the community could get to see what categories champs lined up for buffs are falling into? Because there have been some buffs recently that the devs and the community have significantly disagreed on what kind of buffs they should have gotten (including Guillotine)
This is something I feel very strongly about and would love to know the answer. I did write a thread on it here

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/283063/is-there-a-problem-with-the-buff-program/p1

And the consensus seemed to be that I think Kabam have too many champions slated for overhauls, when they just don’t need to be.

Exactly, I think this was clearly seen with the buff vote. Jane and Guillotine could have gotten away with moderates.

I’ve come to think of value, moderated and overhauls not in terms of what they explicitly mean, but more the level of effort required to buff them. I think that’s why we see values that are more like moderates and overhauls that are more like moderates.

Vespasian

How was the decision to give Guillotine less potent Bleeds with a lower base chance to proc (compared to pre-buff) arrived at? Why was it decided to not give her any buff-control mechanics?

"While Guillotine is Unshackled and the opponent is suffering from Bleed Curse, any buffs the opponent triggers are converted to a Bleed debuff" would do a lot on those fronts.

DrDrill

Best solution for now is to revert her back.
If you plan to only buff her regen back to what she was, then why bother? No one gonna use her, she lack damage, you literally changed her sp3 damage from 80-90k to 3k!! I mean, WTH?

Zeronaut81

Guillotine lost the additional layer of armor that was part of her old base kit. She didn’t get a bump in block proficiency, and as your chart shows, her healing decreased. She takes more damage, she is now reliant on a parry/heavy play style, and she regens less than her previous iteration. A 5*R5 would have to cause 1.4M damage to an opponent to fully heal her 28,045hp. An opponent with that much health will probably chip damage Guilly to death with her low block prof & armor values.

Her damage output seems lower, as well. While the increased attack per soul is nice, it comes at the cost of her utility. She used to trade in 0 souls on her sp1, 2 souls on her sp2, and all souls on her monster sp3. You could use sp1 on a loop and continue to build up souls. She lost the additional crit damage rating per soul, which allowed her to get some awesome crit damage/critical bleeds in with synergies. She now has long periods of time with lackluster damage if she uses a special attack, since she now trades in all of her souls with unshackled specials.

Her chance to place bleeds decreased in general, and tying them into buff-heavy opponents only makes sense if she got an increase in crit rating and damage per buff. In order to get a guaranteed bleed on a crit, the opponent would need 13 buffs. I guess the question is “why would I use guillotine on such a buff-heavy opponent, especially if she can’t benefit all that well from MD?”

The Pain link mechanic only makes sense if you could pass the damage along 100% to the opponent, a la Namor, or somehow benefit from it like pseudo-immune champs like OR. Otherwise, why use Guillotine instead of an immune champ?

Her sp3 degen is disappointing, as well. Guilly had a really fun sp3 in her old kit. Now it’s underwhelming.

The specter debuff is still nice, and I like the rupture ability in her new kit. But there are too many hard trade-offs in her new kit, and they aren’t balanced within her kit.

Her old kit may have been dated, but it was at least balanced. Her style was fun, and she had a niche in the game. There wasn’t a constant trade-off of damage for the utility she offered, she was relatively reliable, and she had some synergies that made her a pretty good champ. The only real issue was her reliance on RNG.

I hope you folks roll her back to pre-buff and start this one over from scratch. Disappointing buffs happen, but they rarely make the champ subjectively worse. This one basically made Guilly worse in every way: lower regen, less damage mitigation, lower damage, lower bleed damage, removed her massive sp3, etc.

Her new mechanics, outside of Ruptures, are bad. Pain link isn’t worth using. Her degen is meh. Having to trade off all of her souls at 10 to use a special attack locks her useable utility (specter) into losing the bulk of her ramp-up damage