State of the Game - an open letter

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  • LordSmasherLordSmasher Member Posts: 1,576 ★★★★★
    Stellar said:

    3 days after nearly 400 of Like, Agree and awesome, KABAM answer...finally



    Well it has been the weekend.
  • RanunculusRanunculus Member Posts: 73
    Thanks to you, OP!
  • CrimsonBadgerCrimsonBadger Member Posts: 88
    I agree! Thank you OP for capturing the thoughts of so many summoners!
  • Fit_Fun9329Fit_Fun9329 Member Posts: 2,185 ★★★★★
    Almost 15 k views. This thread here simply nailed it
  • MauledMauled Member, Guardian Posts: 3,957 Guardian

    Imran said:

    I don't have the patient to read all, but if it’s for the good of the game. I'm agree.

    Mauled said:

    plot twist, concernedplayer999 is actually a high ranked kabam employee :o

    Would tickle me if it was actually Kabam Mike after finally breaking over having to defend the state of the game for the last year.
    And then he comes with his main account and argues why this is wrong lol
    Gotta pay the bills 😂 it must be a hard job though in fairness.
  • SearmenisSearmenis Member Posts: 1,626 ★★★★★
    MojoHater said:

    An open letter to Kabam,

    The last few months has seen this game riddled with input errors and countless other bugs that players are experiencing at various levels. Some have barely been able to play since early in the summer months, others are not experiencing them at all. Despite these issues, much of the player base has proven their loyalty and stuck with the game regardless.

    This loyalty, it would seem, is a completely one way street.

    The vast majority of players understand that the input and timing issues that we are experience has been caused by a build up of technical debt and the sole solution is for Kabam to create their own game engine from scratch. To do this correctly takes a lot of time and is projected to be complete sometime in early 2022 (details to come). We understand that this technical debt was built by Kabam trying to make the game a better playing experience and because of the increasingly complex coding required to run a game with so many game modes, playable characters, events, nodes, and other necessary gaming components.

    Those issues set aside, Kabam has completely failed to uphold their end of the bargain when it comes to addressing recurring issues facing players in the Battle Realm that could show the players some good faith and keep things lively, entertaining, and uphold the “Commitment” Kabam made in the original Dev Diary.

    COMMUNICATION

    For lack of a better word, Kabam’s communication with the progress of game development is pathetic. Maybe twice a year they release a Dev Diary outlining what they “might” be providing the player base, just hoping that these “improvements” and “commitments” will entice players to hang around just that few months more (improvements is in quotes as, depending who you ask, the improvements are often a 50/50 toss up as to the impact of the change).

    These Dev Diaries have done a good job in detailing some Quality of Life changes and other concrete items have been implemented since, but the major themes and messaging is either ignored, forgotten, or completely and purposely thrown out the window nearly as soon as they are released. Some examples:

    “The Commitment” to Content, Community, and Creativity. Is there a player in existence that things this commitment has been upheld? The last few months have definitively proven it has not. How many fights have had to end in a light attack to fulfill an objective in the last 3 months? Forums, alliance chats, and YouTube videos are often debating whether the creative genius at Kabam has died.

    “Keep Alliance Wars Dynamic” and nearly every other goal listed in an Alliance War Dev Diary. Some absolute top tier alliances and players will experience this but for the most part Alliance War has become a chore that too high a percentage of the player base does not truly enjoy. Constantly adding more Attack/Defensive Tactics just is not cutting it. Refer back to “the Commitment”. How has this been acted upon?

    “Reduce Player Mental Load” – to quote the dev diary: “Asking players to draft complex battle plans to accomplish a single path in Story Content is a big ask, which is why we’re reducing the size and complexity of all our maps. We’re focusing more on designing less complex Buffs, as well as layering fewer overlapping Buffs on encounters.” Kabam did a fantastic job maintaining the less than 70 energy and 6 lanes per map practice that was started in 7.1 but anyone who has ventured into 7.3 realizes their commitment to less complex, easier to plan routes has been completely done away with. This issue applies to Alliance Wars as well.

    Even when Kabam took the risk of addressing player concerns and having an Ask Me Anything session, the responses seemed structured, to the point of being scripted. Major questions were ignored, the “party line” answers were on repeat, and not much of worth came out of this event. Prof Hoff had a much more informative, entertaining, and real experience with the Kabam Broccoli interview as this designer was leaving the company.

    To summarize, Kabam has a lot of work to be done in this area. The constant “let them eat cake” responses to true player concerns and criticisms, the patronizing and passive aggressive responses from Forum Mods, and the lack of follow through on their own commitments to better communication needs to end.

    RESOURCE GATEWAYS

    Marvel Contest of Champions has relied on resource gateways to bar progression since its inception. It is a good mechanic and keeps players working towards the next level when it is not handed to them. Over the last year or so, these gateways have become incredibly unbalanced and need immediate reworking to restore some semblance of control for players wanting to progress, control their champion growth, and general enjoyment of the game.

    ISO and Gold – these two resources have become the focal pinch point for a variety of players and there has been zero recognition/change from Kabam to address the issue. The demands for these resources have increased dramatically with the introduction of Rank 5 5 star champs and the ability for many players to regularly take 6 stars to Rank 3. Demand has increased, yet Kabam has done literal nothing to address the supply. This equation needs to be addressed immediately.

    T4B/T4CC – somehow midgame gateways have respawned as a major hindrance for end game players. How is it that advancing in the game actually inhibits your ability to get what is now a common place resource? This does not make any sense and needs to be addressed immediately.

    COMPLETELY BUGGED NEW CONTENT

    This is the most self explanatory and most recent issue experienced by the players. How is it even possible that nearly every single level of the new Variant is absurdly bugged in one way or another? How is it even possible for bosses, with mechanics that have been in the game for years now, are functioning in the completely wrong way? How is it even possible that the final boss cannot even be beaten by the specified champions the entire event is centered around?

    Again, for lack of better words, it is absolutely, utterly, and completely pathetic.

    Minor bugs here and there are expected, understood, and played around for the most part. To be experiencing game breaking mechanics in nearly every single piece of content released over the last year is wearing down the players and getting to be too much. Even the pinnacle summer event, Summer of Pain, was given to the public with such obvious issues that a single play through by an experienced player would have caught the issue.

    Champions are regularly being released and take months to develop. Deep Dives and Spotlights available in advance. Yet when they are playable, it is only a day or two before some mechanic is “not working as intended” or the most basic of game mechanics have not even being accounted for? Kitty Pride and Ikarus being the most recent examples that come to mind right away. The Guillotine “rework” won’t be mentioned.

    How are the project managers of this company not completely embarrassed by the quality of their work and ensuring a better job is done?

    It should not be up to the players to find the problems created by the design team.

    MISCELLANIOUS ISSUES

    In absolutely no part of the game should the value of a 6* be weighted the same, let alone less, than a 5* in regular parts of the game. ISO payouts, event point values, max dupe returns, etc.

    Rewards in the vast majority of the game need to be retuned to player progression. Cav EQ, 4 hour events, 3 Day Alliance, Summoner Advancement, etc.

    Rewards need to be equivalent to difficulty. This months Cav EQ Terrax mini boss and Side Quest are prime examples of this issue.
    Content has become incredibly stale, repetitive, overcomplicated, and creatively dead.

    Some sort of targeting mechanic needs to be implemented. The “Wish List” crystal Kabam spoke about years ago now would have been a step up here. Even dual crystals returns are a rare return for the champions players are wanting to acquire and do not do anything for acquiring a relevant 6* champion.

    To conclude this open letter, Kabam needs to realize how quickly its player base is dwindling and struggling to find reasons to continue playing. Players that have been here since the beginning, with 5+ years of investment, are wondering why they should bother to continue on this road? It has been years and years of Kabam committing to be better then abjectly doing nothing to listen to the major concerns, doubling down on their misguided decrees about the game, and doing the most minimal patch work to “fix things” each month.

    The most disheartening part of all this is that these issues listed barely cover player concerns and the fixes are beyond blatantly obvious.

    Listen to your players, Kabam. We want you to do well. Many of us want to give you our money. All of us want to keep playing this game… just not the way it is and not down the road you’re taking it.

    Sincerely,

    An extremely concerned, 5 year + player.

    Get those agrees and open a bank
    Change your name to communityhater. it suits you more.
  • SearmenisSearmenis Member Posts: 1,626 ★★★★★

    MojoHater said:

    Hazzalec1 said:

    Very eloquently written. Points were very clear and just straight facts.

    Not really sure how anyone can disagree.

    It's not all facts. Actually most of it is feelings. There's no way to prove 100's of people are leaving daily. That's assumption.
    I "assume" you "feel" the weight of how much people disagree with you?
    No. Most of those are pettiness.
    It’s not pettiness it just that everyone disagrees with you and your Kabam is awesome no matter what posts.
    If that were true, I'd have 0 "agrees". It literally doesn't matter what I say. There are people that click it regardless. Doesn't bother me either way.

    But again, you're wrong again. I've already said in this thread that Cav MEQ is a disappointment and has been since launch. AQ is also incredibly boring and needs an overhaul. There's many things I don't like but because I'd don't agree with your incredibly jaded view on everything, you think that I think Kabam is the most awesome thing ever. I'll continue to have my view point just like will. You'll go on playing a game you dislike so much made by a company you hate even more. Life goes on.
    Saying that you're disappointed because MEQ bores you, is completely different than being disappointed because MEQ is harder than it should have been lately.
  • MadEyeMoody_333MadEyeMoody_333 Member Posts: 192 ★★
    Waiting for Kabam to respond on this really amazing, constructive post.
    Will they!!????
  • the_eradicatorthe_eradicator Member Posts: 393 ★★★
    @Demonzfyre and @GroundedWisdom Are trolling lolllllllllll. Calm down and just ignore them guys ez
  • DemonzfyreDemonzfyre Member Posts: 22,052 ★★★★★
    Searmenis said:

    MojoHater said:

    Hazzalec1 said:

    Very eloquently written. Points were very clear and just straight facts.

    Not really sure how anyone can disagree.

    It's not all facts. Actually most of it is feelings. There's no way to prove 100's of people are leaving daily. That's assumption.
    I "assume" you "feel" the weight of how much people disagree with you?
    No. Most of those are pettiness.
    It’s not pettiness it just that everyone disagrees with you and your Kabam is awesome no matter what posts.
    If that were true, I'd have 0 "agrees". It literally doesn't matter what I say. There are people that click it regardless. Doesn't bother me either way.

    But again, you're wrong again. I've already said in this thread that Cav MEQ is a disappointment and has been since launch. AQ is also incredibly boring and needs an overhaul. There's many things I don't like but because I'd don't agree with your incredibly jaded view on everything, you think that I think Kabam is the most awesome thing ever. I'll continue to have my view point just like will. You'll go on playing a game you dislike so much made by a company you hate even more. Life goes on.
    Saying that you're disappointed because MEQ bores you, is completely different than being disappointed because MEQ is harder than it should have been lately.
    It's not harder.
  • DemonzfyreDemonzfyre Member Posts: 22,052 ★★★★★
    Wozzle007 said:

    MojoHater said:

    Hazzalec1 said:

    Very eloquently written. Points were very clear and just straight facts.

    Not really sure how anyone can disagree.

    It's not all facts. Actually most of it is feelings. There's no way to prove 100's of people are leaving daily. That's assumption.
    I "assume" you "feel" the weight of how much people disagree with you?
    No. Most of those are pettiness.
    It’s not pettiness it just that everyone disagrees with you and your Kabam is awesome no matter what posts.
    If that were true, I'd have 0 "agrees". It literally doesn't matter what I say. There are people that click it regardless. Doesn't bother me either way.

    But again, you're wrong again. I've already said in this thread that Cav MEQ is a disappointment and has been since launch. AQ is also incredibly boring and needs an overhaul. There's many things I don't like but because I'd don't agree with your incredibly jaded view on everything, you think that I think Kabam is the most awesome thing ever. I'll continue to have my view point just like will. You'll go on playing a game you dislike so much made by a company you hate even more. Life goes on.
    With respect you state it’s a been a disappointment since launch, but in reality it’s a disappointment to you. Earlier in this thread you said that this post wasn’t fact, it’s feeling and you can’t prove 100s of people are leaving the game. Your assertion that Cav MEQ is a disappointment is a feeling and it’s your feeling. The historic issue people had was related to the time taken to complete it. This has been largely fixed with the class based nodes and difficulty hasn’t really come up as an issue. The number of dislikes on your post compared to likes show (at least for this self selecting sample) your in the minority that’s it’s a disappointment. The SEQ this month is pretty far away from the bench mark difficulty/fight effort at least for week 2.
    The class based nodes have always been there and it's never been a difficult piece of content. Since the release of the Cav difficulty, people have complained about the rewards. They added more in like 2 months after. And I don't know a single person who enjoys doing cavalier month to month.

    The only ones who find it hard are the new Cav players who haven't developed their rosters yet.

    This community never thinks rewards match the difficulty. I have yet to see anything released where everyone agrees the rewards are fine for what the content is. It's either too good of rewards because it's too easy or too "hard" making rewards not good enough. If it were up to the community, rewards would be whatever 6* they want, 6* generic AGs, R5 6* materials and 10k units for Act 1 difficulty. OP literally only points out 1 fight in Cav that's touch more difficult (for them) and wants more rewards when Cav difficulty has varying levels each month and always has.

    So again I ask, if this month is "harder" and deserves better rewards but next month is easier, does Kabam take away those better rewards?
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