Really suggest Kabam watch KarateMike's rating system.. it rates each champion (sadly only 2021 champions) base on his/her/its damage, utility and sustainability for game modes, AQ, AW, story mode or side quest.. I don't know how long it took him to get his rating system but you guys could ask him for advice..
YouTube title 'Every 2021 champion - individually RANKED!'
I don't mind the buff program , I think a game like this needs nerfs and balances. If this did not happen , the game would die super quick. The largest issue is they sell the champs. They need to re cycle the schedule and sell crystals after the cycle is gone
So how would they collect the data they need if no one has access to the champions?
There are more ways to collect data then selling crystals: featured crystals, arena, giving everyone TB and up a 4* version or 5* version in arena.
@DNA3000 I am curious from what you have said about the need for a large and wide range of the player base to play these new characters to generate sufficient data to determine the need for adjustments how this is really supposed to happen when they will make the decision after 3 months of the champ being released? I didn't think that many people who weren't huge spenders or arena grinders would actually have new champs at the higher rarities to be useful in more difficult content within 3 months of them entering the game to generate this kind of usage.
I don’t have access to the data but I believe it is reasonable to assume that three groups of players possess a champion more or less immediately after release. First, the whales and the grinders who are disproportionately likely to be higher tier players more likely to rank up and use the champions in higher tier content. My guesstimate is that this is on the order of hundreds of players, something between two hundred and a thousand players. Second, lucky players who grab a few crystals and hit the jackpot and land a high rarity drop. I believe this is in the low thousands of players, maybe a thousand, maybe a couple thousand, and their usage will be distributed more widely across moderate to high content. And then there are the players who get the champion at lower tier from the arena or crystals, 3* or 4*. I suspect this is tens of thousands of players, and these will be skewed towards being used at lower tiers of content (if at all).
Factoring in some ratio of players who get the champ and then actually use it, this is probably enough players to get a meaningful estimate of overall performance.
We wont have many low progress players using champs in high tier content, but such players don’t play such content in general. We will have low skill players using the champs, because skill and luck aren’t correlated. Outside the arena grinders and the blow out whales (who buy enough to increase their odds of getting a champ sky high) new champions should be distributed roughly randomly across all players buying crystals.
More players and longer time collection would continue to refine that estimate, but the longer you measure, the more players who have the champ and the more players get locked into an expectation for the performance of the champ. The data mining window is a compromise between adjusting the champ as fast as possible (ideally when *no one* has the champ, ala before release) and adjusting the champion as accurately as possible (which ideally would be when everyone has the champ and has been playing it long enough to have learned all its tricks to the best of their ability, i.e. going back and adjusting champs after they’ve been around for years).
Worth noting: when they look three months after release, they are going to then go into a two month beta period testing adjustments. During that time, if their three month look was “off” they will still have the opportunity to factor in additional data during the beta. If the five month look is substantially different from the three month look, they have an opportunity to factor that into adjustments being made during the beta. So there is some wiggle room here to try to collect data for as long as possible while factoring in the amount of time it takes to formulate adjustments and test them.
If Kabam looks at a champ that they wanted to be middling at a thing and they are better than they thought, why not just leave it? Sometimes you get a happy accident. If it won't actually break the game as in: this is the only champ people want, this champ can crush everything but Act 6/Abyss level content at low rarities/sig, and moonwalk through that at high rarities/sig. Outside of those scenarios, what difference does it make? It's not like they wouldn't be able to introduce champs and nodes to counter faster and with less aggravation generated as opposed to directly nerfing a champ.
There are different degrees of game-breaking. At least in the sense of the way the term is used. There is game-breaking, in a sense that it will literally break the game, then there is game-breaking in a sense that it will cause such an imbalance that it will create long-term problems and create more work down the line. People sometimes think of it as not literally breaking the game, but there's more to it than that.
I don’t think this new champ balance system is a real pro player move in how it's being implemented.
If I understand the announcement properly, the main focus for champion tuning will be on the NEW champs every month of which the only way we’ll be able to get them are with: 1. Excessive arena grind where only 1000 people out of hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of people will get a 5 or 6* version of the new champ this way (focus on 5 and 6* rarity because they’re the most sought after rarity) 2. Money spent on preview bundles with a very low chance of luck 3. Units/money spent on special Cav/featured crystals with a very low chance of luck. So a main focus will be put on a small percentage of the community that will have the new champs in a 6 months window. So the main focus of this balance system will be to initially affect a small percentage of the overall community
The area of champs balance where the MAJORITY of the community has been excited for and wants to continue (buffing existing under performing champs) will now take a backseat and will only be taken on IF there’s time depending on how excessive the new champ tunning is. As a point of reference there are currently 216 champs in the game and (in my opinion) these are the champs that are pretty useless in the game and making overall champion balance garbage (synergies to buff champs are not taking into consideration, just how the champ themselves perform on their own: 1. Abomination 2. Agent Venom 3. Air Walker 4. America Chavez 5. Ant Man 6. Beast 7. Black Bolt 8. Black Panther CW 9. Black Widow 10. Captain America 11. Captain America WW2 12. Captain Marvel 13. Cyclops 14. Cyclops Red 15. Daredevil 16. Dr Strange 17. Dormamu 18. Drax 19. Electro 20. Elektra 21. Green Goblin 22. Groot 23. Heimdall 24. Hulk 25. Invisible Woman 26. Iron Fist 27. Iron Fist Immortal 28. Iron Man 29. Iron Patriot 30. Jubilee 31. Korg 32. Loki 33. Moon Knight 34. Ms Marvel 35. Kamala Kahn 36. Nightcrawler 37. Nova 38. Phoenix 39. Sentry 40. Rogue 41. Rocket Racoon 42. Rhino 43. Red Skull 44. Spider Man 45. Spider Man Symbiote 46. Super Skrull 47. Superior Iron Man 48. Taskmaster 49. The Champion 50. Thor 51. Thor Jane Foster 52. Ultron Prime 53. Unstoppable Colossu 54. Winter Soldier 55. Yondu
55 out of 216 champs works out to 25% of the Champion pool needing attention and re-balancing to make relevant with the current game Meta, and those 55 champs are existing in likely 50%+ of the community’s roster as a 5 or 6* rarity. If the interest is to serve the player community in offering a better balanced game experience then the MAIN focus should be continuing to improve the large pool of pretty useless champs and not the new champs released every month. I’d say with the new balance team you’ve created, a 75% focus should be on continuing the popular old champs buffing monthly (still 2 per month) and 25% focus on reviewing the new champs. Given my list above, and 2 old champ buffs a month we’re looking at almost 2.5 YEARS to address your underperforming champs which is kind of ridiculous to think THAT wouldn’t be your main focus.
Last, with the new balance system, one important point that was never addressed (that I can find) is Kabam fairly giving us the opportunity to change our mind on rank up decisions we made to these champs in their 6 month Beta/Balance window. If we acquired a new champ through means of time and/or money, AND ranked up those champs with resources acquired again through means of time and/or money, then we should 100% have the opportunity to rank them down and get back those resources (at a min.) if you decide to change them from their initial state. Generic rank down tickets are not the answer for this, but champion specific rank down tickets should 100% be implemented to be fair to the community that are lucky enough to acquire, play and essentially BETA TEST these champs FOR YOU! I personally have way less drive to push for newer champs now knowing any base utility they have that I’m excited for (and possibly fill a niche role in my roster) could change after I’ve invested in them.
I don’t think re-balancing champs is a bad idea, I jus don’t think this is the right way to go about it, and not much about this new system gives the community a lot of confidence in how this will end up going (given the recent track record from Kabam in the last year), and now one of the only reliable things to be excited about (WHO WILL BE THE NEXT 2 CHAMPS TO BE BUFFED THAT I MIGHT ALREADY HAVE??1?!!!!), isn’t a guarantee anymore, so 1 less consistent thing to be excited for every month. Personally, with how poorly the game has performed across the board the last year (game controls, stability, bugs, champ bugs, etc.) the one thing I always looked forward to was the new buffs announcement and then testing.
I hope this all goes well, I’m just honestly not optimistic at all… the last 9 months of playing a pretty broken game and mis-managed community has taken its toll on me.
I realized I left out the champs that are announced to be buffed, so I'll put them back on the list for now
56. Deadpool X Force 57. Storm 58. Psycho Man 59. Gamora
That makes 59/216 champs that desperately need a buff which will go much farther in balancing the game rather than focusing most attention on 2 new champs per month. Catch up on the backlog of 59 underperforming champs..... THEN ramp up this new champ balance system (but in a way that doesn't rip off anyone)
Rating system issues: So you rate the damage 5/5, but where is the dmg coming from? Is it instantly there from the start of the fight? Is it a ramp up champ? Does it depend on buffs or debuffs and are the buffs/debuffs active or passive? Is it energy dmg or physical dmg? Incinerate, shock, bleed, crit? Basically, how do we get that 5/5 dmg and where does it come from? Just stating a champion has dmg means nothing in MCOC if we can’t access the dmg. Having such a general rating system that only states “Damage 5/5” without expanding on the details of that damage will not only make that rating system useless, but also a burden. A burden to the already ever slowing servers that have begun to freeze on a 1 year old phone (Note 20 Ultra 5g). Just a pile of data taking up unnecessary space and creating more lag in the game.
I hope that gives an idea of how complicated a true rating system would have to be for an end user to find it useful, because if I have to continue into Utility, Defense, and other layers of consideration, this post can go on for a while.
However, I can see how such a simple, generalized rating system can be helpful to a developer trying to get an idea of how to shape the champion. For a developer, that’s an outline of the shape a champion can take, the perimeters they can work in as they draw in the finer details of the structure. For an end user, it’s just a blank map that shows land without showing the roads and how to traverse it. That is the gap dividing employee from player, and from a positive perspective, that is the gap I believe you’re trying to close with this attempt at communication.
To make this attempt at “Balancing” future champs successful, I believe we would need to change the structure of how future champs are released into the game.
My thoughts and ideas: 1. You need 6 months to achieve a proper balance on a champion? Then introduce the “work in progress” champion for preview 6 months before its release. We should not have to deal with bugs and adjustments once the champion is fully released and permanently available in the live game.
2. Next question is how to introduce the preview champion without disrupting the game and giving unfair advantages? A) The most obvious way would be to release a public test server. Don’t know why that’s not a thing yet, but my first guess is there’s a financial reason (Kabam being cheap).
B.) Another thought is to make the preview champ available on the live server, in a test store for anyone who wanted to test it out and give feedback, with limited use of course. To avoid the unfair advantage it would have to be blocked out of AW, AQ, and arena. All solo content and incursions are great places for testing, the only possible exception being the EQ and SQ since they do change monthly anyway. Different tiers should be available for different levels of progress starting with 5* for UC players and 6*+5* for higher progress tiers. Rank 1 max level or Rank 2 level 1 should be enough for testing purposes, that way it doesn’t have to get over complicated with additional ranking resources or over power any account that doesn’t already have higher ranking champs. The preview champion should be available for testing for about 3 to 7 days, then be put back into the balance system with the players feedback for consideration. After further development from the initial feedback, the preview champion should be released into the testing store again for another round of feedback. Rinse and repeat till the champion’s quarks are all figured out and ready for full release.
Those are my thoughts for now. The key to the new system being successful is figuring out the issues and making the final adjustments to new champions BEFORE they are released into the game for sale and arenas.
Kabam needs to take a step back releasing new characters until they fix the old ones first I’m fine with that. honestly fine with them releasing less because most people won't even get them for a while anyway. If they took a break on new champions and event quests to just go hard and ALL in on buffing champions until the vast majority of the old champs are good then I think they'll be in a good place to focus on new stuff. Constantly keeping up with 2 new characters EVERY month for 7+ years straight is nuts. I can't be the only one who's burning out of monthly event quests too. The past year, the most hype thing every month was the buffs, and new characters are really starting to falter. It really sucks when a new champ comes out and the consensus is that we should hope for a buff in the future. Too many of the recent characters fall into that category (by recent I really mean from the past year/year and a half). And I don't even mean just the ones that REALLY suck like psycho man, even the ones that are kind of ok but just feel like they don't hold up with champs from past years, like Sauron for example. He seems really cool, and he doesn't suck, but he just doesn't have a place in the game. He's not bad enough to warrant a buff any time soon but he's not good enough to be chosen for doing any content over other champs in the game.
I think — JMO, nobody needs to take my head off — my discomfort is based on the fact that I am totally baffled at what the developers want the players to actually do, and what they want the players to want to feel excited about doing, for the game.
Are we supposed to collect characters and therefore be excited about new releases, spend money on Featureds/Advance bundles or grind for them in Arena, in order to get the newest releases?
Are we supposed to rank up as many characters as possible, or only the best characters, or only the characters that we like playing the best? Which then makes acquiring rank-up materials the thing we’re supposed to plan on spending or grinding for?
Are we supposed to progress in the game via story content and monthly EQs, which means that we need counters to specific nodes and situations, which therefore means we need as many characters as possible on our roster?
Are we supposed to join alliances and spend on items to make sure lanes can be completed and AW defenses can be diverse? Which means acquiring defenders and using rank-up materials on defenders who aren’t fun to actually play is actually really important? Plus the importance of Prestige?
Are we supposed to spend money/units on potions/revives to clear the hardest content, which means that by definition, all characters can only be so good? But that should also mean that all characters should only be so bad, because if clearing the content is most important, then all characters should be able to reasonably do it?
If it’s the last one, I totally get a rating system to this degeee: If the game can only have a modest difference between the best character and the worst character, because all characters are expected to be able to clear the same content, then you have to rebalance. You can’t let that gap get too big.
But at the same time, you also can’t let the bottom of the listing be so far below the bar, it’s frustrating for players to pull them, because they have no use in any of the scenarios above.
That’s the part that truly baffles me — I am honestly baffled at what it is we’re supposed to want to do enough to spend money on, because the game needs to be profitable.
We can’t be expected to do all the things. It’s impossible
Hello summoners old and new, Welcome to a thread for the discussion of the new Balancing Initiative by Kabam. This thread has been made by a veteran F2P player who has played the game for 5+ years and has completed all available content excluding Abyss. I hope this thread will be informative and constructive and I hope Kabam takes into account any feedback given. With all that said I would like to begin the discussion with my thoughts on the subject at hand.
Champion Balancing and the End of the Buff Program Let me be completely honest, in my opinion, this new change is a downgrade and overall a loss for players and the community as a whole. The game has been in a very sensitive state the past year or so and during that period the buff program was arguably the best part of the year. The consistent updates to lackluster champs provided the community with an incentive to play and collect new champs. Champs typically considered bad pulls were made better by the hope of buff and champions that did get buffed were able to be used and enjoyed by a large variety of the player base. Additionally, the buffed champs were often older champs that many had access to or had the ability to get, unlike new champs which aren't available to most of the player base for 1-2 years after release. The buffs kept the game fresh and were a major factor in exciting players to log in every month.
The new balancing initiative seems to be a heavily watered-down version of the current buff program, instead of the consistent 2 monthly buffs we have been given a vague promise of occasional adjustments to some characters, heavily favoring new characters. The major drawback of the balancing initiative is that firstly it seems to be a slower process of buffing champs. The new plan is to only have occasional tweaks to characters and from the description given by Kabam, it seems like it will no longer be large-scale changes to champs like we currently have but instead minor tweaks to balance champs. Secondly, the new balancing initiative is most likely going to affect mainly new champions. This means that the characters being balanced will be characters that the majority of the player base don't have access to and can't access for a long period of time. These are in my opinion the two major drawbacks of the new initiative.
Positives Some positives of Kabam's announcements were that they are including a community figure in their balancing figure and opening the champion testing beta to more players. I think the inclusion of a community figure in the process is a good sign but at the end of the day, it is just one player included in the process which still doesn't give me too much confidence. On the other hand, opening the beta to more players is a great change and I hope that it is implemented in the game regardless of what happens in the contest's future.
Champion Rating System The proposed champions rating system by Kabam is a bad idea. The game is far too complex and I think that the five-star system with the three categories including damage, utility, and ease of use will in no way cover all the nuances and intricacies of the game. Furthermore, no offense to Kabam, but they are the last people I think the community would want champion ratings from. Most of the community doesn't respond well to ratings and tier lists made by people who play the game for a living and I doubt they will listen to Kabam. Looking just at champion spotlight videos on youtube, Kabam always seems to have a worse understanding of champions than the player base. I think the rating system will only confuse new players and ultimately become obsolete as most players decide to ignore it. I just can't see a system like this accurately accounting for all the in-game variables such as synergies, type of damage, sustainability, support, etc. Rather than spend resources on this Kabam should shift its focus elsewhere.
Final thoughts, I think the announcement made by Kabam was tone-deaf. It seems that they are unaware of what the players are responding well to and what the players don't appreciate. The buff program was universally agreed to be a good addition and I can't imagine what reason there would be to change it instead of addressing other issues in-game. Issues such as lackluster new champions, the outdated nature of major game modes such as alliance war, alliance quest, incursions, and arena. It doesn't make sense why these issues seemingly aren't being given priority or thought while something that the player base actually appreciates is being changed so drastically. A complete miss from Kabam.
Overall Thoughts and TLDR The changes proposed by Kabam are tone-deaf and rather than addressing actual in-game issues they are instead taking away an aspect of the game most of the community loves. Kabam should take a step back and reassess what they need to address in the game and understand what players enjoy and what players don't.
Please leave your thoughts below but keep it civil and constructive. Hopefully, this post won't be taken down and we and Kabam can have a discussion about the game.
There is a lot of people setting their hair on fire over this rebalancing plan.
I am going to give it a chance. Then decide whether it works.
Six months after they start this program, each month we'll get: -- two new champs that are starting in the balancing program -- two champs that just finished going thru rebalancing and are being released in their finished form -- one or two updated champs
IMO the rebalancing will lead to weaker new champs on initial release, and then improved champs on final release. It makes little sense for Kabam to initially release a champ that is OP and then to pull back on that champ six months later.
Think of how this would have benefitted the 2021 champs that no one uses: Super Skrull, Jubilee, Purgatory, Chavez, Mangog, Psychoman, Anti-Venom, Kraven.
Disappointed 100%. What's the point now in putting sig stones into my 6* Herc? You guys are going to nurf like there's no tomorrow. Complete BS. Screw trying to get new champs, I hope this blows up in your faces.
This does not affect older Champions, but those coming starting in March.
So your Balancing new champs that are going to be released? Isn't that just part of releasing a new champ anyways? You guys were not looking at this before?? You should be balancing the champs we have. Old champs like you were before. That's what the game needs, not this. Sound like fake news, a reason to not buff terrible champs that we all have.
How does a rating system make the game more fun to actually play?
I am totally serious — how does a rating system make OG Iron Man more fun to select for a quest and actually use?
No one wants a rating system. No one asked for it. This community has been begging for buffs to basically unusable characters for years — I know, because I was here at the beginning — and it seems the one thing that basically every single player actually wants for weak characters is the one thing that becomes so complicated, it’s like trying to win the lottery
Bro really look at this possibility, once a tier rating is set , now gone would be the days of cab quest or content restricted to tags or class advantages u might need specific tier champs to open gates or even be eligible for particular quests
Honestly that sounds terrifying. A quest where only rank 1 damage champs are allow 🤢
That…would be…suboptimal
Miike has already said that's not what the tier or rating system is for. It's strictly for the purpose of balancing and only applies to champs released after March. That means all of the other champs before won't be in that rating system because they won't be a part of the balancing program.
Inaccurate, the rating system will apply to all champions.
The rating system solely exist for the purpose of balancing new champs that are released. Miike already stated in this thread that no champ released before March will be subject to this balancing program. So what would the point be for them to put ratings to older champs if they aren't part of the rebalancing program?
The post states: In the coming months, we are going to be introducing a new Champion Rating system to help better visualize the strengths and weaknesses of any given Champion, giving you all a better understanding of the Champion at a glance.
Coinciding with this new rating system, we are creating a new rebalancing process for that will apply to all new Champions coming to The Contest.
This new balancing cadence means that reworks for older Champions will slow somewhat but will still occur!
As I can understand:
all champions will be part of the Champion Rating system;
only new champions will be rebalanced, starting from March and taking roughly 4 months;
the rebalancing of new champions will slow down the buffs of older champions.
For me, that sounds like a bad idea.
Is this not already part of creating a new champ for release though. If not why was it not? seems silly, they would just release them all willy nilly..
Think of how this would have benefitted the 2021 champs that no one uses: Super Skrull, Jubilee, Purgatory, Chavez, Mangog, Psychoman, Anti-Venom, Kraven.
Agree with everything you said, however don’t turn a blind eye to champs like Kitty Pride and Hercules that might’ve gone down the other way. Just highly cautious about a subjective rating determining if a champion was op.
Don’t want Herc to get nerfed because he is rated 2/5 in utility. If the program was in effect a year ago he probably would have been.
Kabam just listen to Seatin he’s the Messiah of this game the voice for the community he just posted this video this morning in response to this please listen because what your doing is wrong: https://youtu.be/N_EH3roT_As
Kabam your relationship with your community is on thin ice. Whales will stop hoarding because new rebalancing will nerf champs and new and moderate players will take them 6 months before they even see a new champs.
Why do people think every new Champ will be nerfed? Why do people think that monitoring new Champs is a new thing? These are the questions I ponder. Lol.
Why do people think every new Champ will be nerfed? Why do people think that monitoring new Champs is a new thing? These are the questions I ponder. Lol.
Do you support them paying more attention to the 2 new champs a month, and only focusing on old champs buffs IF they have time?
Kabam just listen to Seatin he’s the Messiah of this game the voice for the community he just posted this video this morning in response to this please listen because what your doing is wrong: https://youtu.be/N_EH3roT_As
Kabam your relationship with your community is on thin ice. Whales will stop hoarding because new rebalancing will nerf champs and new and moderate players will take them 6 months before they even see a new champs.
This man gets it..! Not much to add.
Yes, that's all! Just want to add another post to thread here to register another thumbs down for this idea that no one asked for...
Why do people think every new Champ will be nerfed? Why do people think that monitoring new Champs is a new thing? These are the questions I ponder. Lol.
If this is not a new thing then why package this as a new thing? And why at the cost of overhaul/update of old champs? These are the questions I ponder over. Lol
If we want to go solution focused mode. The reason we don’t have Quake as a 6* is because she’s to OP.
So instead of buffing champions, Kabam should take all the champions that fall into the 3 lowest categories in Seatin’s old Tier list (or a community voted equivalent) and take them out of the 6* and 5* pools. Kabam should then reimburse all of the shards used to open these champions so we can then use them to pull champions who are actually worthy of being 5 and 6* champions.
So it works both ways, if you’re not gonna put champions into the 6* pool because they are too powerful then all the rubbish ones should be taken out so we don’t waste all our efforts pulling champs that that absolutely suck and have no hope of being buffed.
If we want to go solution focused mode. The reason we don’t have Quake as a 6* is because she’s to OP.
So instead of buffing champions, Kabam should take all the champions that fall into the 3 lowest categories in Seatin’s old Tier list (or a community voted equivalent) and take them out of the 6* and 5* pools. Kabam should then reimburse all of the shards used to open these champions so we can then use them to pull champions who are actually worthy of being 5 and 6* champions.
So it works both ways, if you’re not gonna put champions into the 6* pool because they are too powerful then all the rubbish ones should be taken out so we don’t waste all our efforts pulling champs that that absolutely suck and have no hope of being buffed.
If we want to go solution focused mode. The reason we don’t have Quake as a 6* is because she’s to OP.
So instead of buffing champions, Kabam should take all the champions that fall into the 3 lowest categories in Seatin’s old Tier list (or a community voted equivalent) and take them out of the 6* and 5* pools. Kabam should then reimburse all of the shards used to open these champions so we can then use them to pull champions who are actually worthy of being 5 and 6* champions.
So it works both ways, if you’re not gonna put champions into the 6* pool because they are too powerful then all the rubbish ones should be taken out so we don’t waste all our efforts pulling champs that that absolutely suck and have no hope of being buffed.
I agree with this, This should be what Kabam does to actually make everyone happy instead of consistently making us mad by bad pulls in Crystals
As a company, I get that Kabam is trying to introduced new ideas into the game.This maybe good for the game in the long term I'm assuming they think but the idea needs further improvement. There are real concerns that needs to be addressed, many of which has been pointed out in this thread. Above all, this new idea requires faith and trust from the community which is very low now. We have to trust that it will be good, they will improve on it along the way and make the needed changes, even stop it if need be but does the community trust or have this kind of faith in Kabam? You guess is as good as mine. There are sincere concerns we'd have the short end of the stick, are familiar position for customers when companies are in question. Regard buffs, DDHK and Guillotine for example where majority of the community were dissatisfied but Kabam was satisfied. What happens when Kabam's satisfaction with a certain balancing and rating doesn't agree with the community's? How do we come to a good middle ground where we're all parties happy and content? Do you have faith this this can be achieved?
My real concern is: Of all the things they could be doing with the game and the community to improve it, they chose to pitch a this new idea to a community that is struggling and trying hang on to the game. This is where they failed imo. And if they didn't anticipate majority will dislike this idea especially at this time, then they are the real problem. Some of the issues many are having with the game will take some time to be solved, but have we had any recent updates on it. The problems we want solutions to and the other things we want in-game but it's taking forever, how are they compared to this new idea in execution? The one thing almost everyone liked, monthly buffs, we were starving what we get instead is no buffs but take this new idea (that has many concerns). I;m not sure if it was outlined in the roadmap but the timing is bad if you ask me and the condition of the community imo wasn't even prepared for receive and accept it. Then again, who are we not some premium clients.
We're looking at performance and testing differently, I'm assuming it's due to our backgrounds. If I'm performance testing a product, a device, or a compound, I'm not testing in a vacuum with no prior knowledge of the intended use, interactions, and environment of usage and I have full knowledge of prior testing of similar subjects to avoid duplicate efforts or collecting and sifting through an infinite number of in-limit variables that add nothing of value and simply waste time. If they've been collecting data all this time, what is the value in repeating so much of it forever every time they introduce a champ?
it is a difference in backgrounds. I'm aware of the concept of "performance" you're talking about. You're talking about performance in terms of the performance envelope of a product. If a product performs in a certain way, that means if anyone else uses it as directed in the environments it is created for, they can expect to get a certain result within a certain margin.
That makes sense for most commercial or industrial products, because reliability, predictability, and dependability are core requirements of most such products. But they don't make as much sense in the context of games, particularly massively multiplayer progressional games, because those are not important metrics. I mean, at one level they are; at the mechanical level you want everything you design to function as designed and implemented. The game itself as a product should be reliable, predictable, and dependable. But the *gameplay* of a game when played by humans is not. In that respect, the way elements of a game function is more closely related to the rules of a sport than components of a product. The rules are not just intended to do what their letter of the law states. They are also intended to serve the higher purpose of either stabilizing or improving the game itself. Was (American) football broken before the pass interference rule? Was basketball broken before the shot clock was implemented? Is the reason why these two rules didn't originally exist because the people who designed the rules for those rules stupid? No: there was no way to know those games would need those rules until you actually watched humans play the game and saw how humans chose to evolve the meta of those games.
The ultimate requirements on the "products" of MCOC are three-fold; fun to play, desirable to chase, and generates rewards. Those are the "higher purpose" of champions. I know what X-23's bleeds do: that's obvious. And I have a pretty good idea what a new champion will do mechanically when I look at its abilities on paper. But those things are not performance in a game like this. Or to avoid the semantic quibbles, those performance metrics are not critical to balance. The higher tier performance metrics of how engaged players are with the champ, how much they spend in time and money to get them, and how much rewards they earn when they use them are the performance metrics that are critical to game balance. And it is those performance metrics that are the ones paper analysis is notoriously poor at predicting.
Why do people think every new Champ will be nerfed? Why do people think that monitoring new Champs is a new thing? These are the questions I ponder. Lol.
If this is not a new thing then why package this as a new thing? And why at the cost of overhaul/update of old champs? These are the questions I ponder over. Lol
It's not new that they keep track of data to make adjustments when needed later. What's new is the Rating System which will show a visual representation of what they're looking at. The overhaul program lasted quite a while and they're looking at a better approach. That's about it.
In April, we’ll be moving back to our 2 updates per month, but will not guarantee what kind of updates they will be (overhaul, moderate, or value only). We’re also spending some time to give some more love to Champion animation updates, so look forward to animation and ability updates coming for Gamora, Storm, and Deadpool (X-Force)!
Kabam, is there any chance of Storm's look being changed, especially her hair?
In April, we’ll be moving back to our 2 updates per month, but will not guarantee what kind of updates they will be (overhaul, moderate, or value only). We’re also spending some time to give some more love to Champion animation updates, so look forward to animation and ability updates coming for Gamora, Storm, and Deadpool (X-Force)!
Kabam, is there any chance of Storm's look being changed, especially her hair?
Totally agree — wish we saw more updated looks, tbh
Champion Rating System The proposed champions rating system by Kabam is a bad idea. The game is far too complex and I think that the five-star system with the three categories including damage, utility, and ease of use will in no way cover all the nuances and intricacies of the game. Furthermore, no offense to Kabam, but they are the last people I think the community would want champion ratings from. Most of the community doesn't respond well to ratings and tier lists made by people who play the game for a living and I doubt they will listen to Kabam. Looking just at champion spotlight videos on youtube, Kabam always seems to have a worse understanding of champions than the player base. I think the rating system will only confuse new players and ultimately become obsolete as most players decide to ignore it. I just can't see a system like this accurately accounting for all the in-game variables such as synergies, type of damage, sustainability, support, etc. Rather than spend resources on this Kabam should shift its focus elsewhere.
Since this seems to be a common theme I've been seeing in feedback since last week, I'll state what I think is happening here in a more structured way. But I will preface this by saying this is my best guess as to what's happening. Reminder: Forum Guardians are not Kabam spokespersons. Nor do I have an official statement that I'm absolutely correct (although no one has yet told me that I'm completely wrong either).
The rating system has a short term purpose and a long term purpose, and neither of them is intended to "rate" the champions globally, in the sense of which champ is better or worse. The long term purpose is to summarize the information in the champion spotlights, to serve as a starting point for beginning and casual players who do not want to deep dive champions. For those that just want a ten second summary of the champ, here you go: the champ has a lot of damage, a little utility, and it is moderately hard to learn to play effectively.
This of course doesn't encapsulate the in-game value of each champ accurately, nor could any short summary do so. But some players don't interact with the game on a level where anything except a short summary is acceptable. For players that want more than a superficial description of the champion, they can invest the time into reading the spotlights in more detail, or going to community resources.
All things being equal, Kabam's long term intent is for the ratings to accurately encapsulate the information they contain. They hope that eventually the data collected on the champion backs up those summary numbers so the players get what they expect when they play the champ. They don't expect those summary numbers to completely describe the champs, but they don't have to. If the champ rating system says the champ has 5/5 damage, all it is saying is the champ deals among the most damage in the game, all things being equal.
For a really old champ, Kabam can determine if a champ is in the top 20% of damage dealers, or the middle fifth of damage mitigators. It can back fill those ratings for champs that are old enough and well understood enough that both the data and player understanding would likely be in general agreement on the simple attributes of damage output, survivability, and ease of use. We're all going to be arguing about what "utility" means, but for these purposes it means "everything else." If there's something useful a champ has that cannot be described as damage or survivability, and it is not related to the skill level required to play the game, it is utility.
I believe there's an idea that these ratings are problematic because if Kabam gets them "wrong" then they'll nerf a champ that doesn't deserve to be nerfed. For existing champions, that's not going to happen, because that's not what the ratings are for. For old champs, the ratings *describe* the champs. If Kabam is going to nerf them, Kabam is going to nerf them. It doesn't matter what the ratings are. Conversely, if Kabam has no reason to nerf a champ, the ratings aren't going to change their minds. There's no "proper rating" for a champ. No one's rating is "too high."
However, things change for new champs. There is no pre-existing data for new champs. Kabam has no idea what the data says about the champion, because there's no data. Instead, in the short term the rating will be the developer *target* for the champ. Until they have data on the champ, the rating numbers tell us what Kabam was aiming for. In a perfect world, they'd hit the target every time. But in practice, that's not going to happen. As Kabam collects data on the champ, they may decide that the data says something different from what they wanted to do. They might have aimed for survivability being 3/5, but the data says the champ appears to be a 4/5 - it is in the top 40% of all champs. Now what?
Maybe nothing. Just because the champion "misses" the target, doesn't mean it is broken. For one thing, the targets are huge. A 4 out of 5 could include all champs that are between the 70 and 90 percentile. They might have been aiming for 80%, but a 72% is still perfectly fine, as is 89%. Only if the champ misses by so much that it is obviously broken too high or too low will the devs be compelled to act. And this has nothing to do with the rating system. The devs look at this stuff already, and were making evaluations like this before any formal system for quantifying it existed (this is a numerical example: I don't know how the values are going to be computed).
Eventually, the idea is that after the balancing phase when Kabam decides the champ doesn't need any adjustments, either the champion's data will back up the rating numbers or (presumably) the rating numbers will be amended to match the champion's data. But during the balancing phase, the ratings numbers communicate to us what the expected performance of the champion is, so we (the players with more knowledge and experience with the game) have an idea when a champion appears to not perform as advertised, so we aren't surprised if the devs make changes to the champion after launch during the balancing phase.
The champion rating system is just a structured method of communication. It doesn't define champion value, and it doesn't control when champions are adjusted. There's no such thing as a right or wrong number, or a too high number or too low number. The complaint that the rating system is bad because it is incomplete is missing the point of the rating system. All discussions of champion performance are incomplete. The developers need a way to summarize and encapsulate the way they are going to be communicating about champion performance, and this is their starting point. Without this, we're back to the devs saying "this was unintended." This tells us nothing. The champion rating system is a step forward, to give players more detail than the devs are not happy with a champ. Furthermore, the notion that Kabam shouldn't be making ratings systems is also missing the point. Kabam is trying to communicate their position about the champs. You might disagree with their position, but the point to the rating system is not to assert an opinion that everyone else is supposed to agree with, it is to communicate *their* position when it comes to balance. Their position is a thing we players need to know. They can make a rating system and tell us what the ratings are, or they can make a rating system and *not* tell us what the ratings are. But on what basis do we tell the devs not to quantify their design decisions and balancing processes? That's ludicrous: we can't do that. It is only to our benefit that they expose these numbers to us. Or we can tell them we don't want them, and they can keep them secret. Those are the only two options.
We're looking at performance and testing differently, I'm assuming it's due to our backgrounds. If I'm performance testing a product, a device, or a compound, I'm not testing in a vacuum with no prior knowledge of the intended use, interactions, and environment of usage and I have full knowledge of prior testing of similar subjects to avoid duplicate efforts or collecting and sifting through an infinite number of in-limit variables that add nothing of value and simply waste time. If they've been collecting data all this time, what is the value in repeating so much of it forever every time they introduce a champ?
it is a difference in backgrounds. I'm aware of the concept of "performance" you're talking about. You're talking about performance in terms of the performance envelope of a product. If a product performs in a certain way, that means if anyone else uses it as directed in the environments it is created for, they can expect to get a certain result within a certain margin.
That makes sense for most commercial or industrial products, because reliability, predictability, and dependability are core requirements of most such products. But they don't make as much sense in the context of games, particularly massively multiplayer progressional games, because those are not important metrics. I mean, at one level they are; at the mechanical level you want everything you design to function as designed and implemented. The game itself as a product should be reliable, predictable, and dependable. But the *gameplay* of a game when played by humans is not. In that respect, the way elements of a game function is more closely related to the rules of a sport than components of a product. The rules are not just intended to do what their letter of the law states. They are also intended to serve the higher purpose of either stabilizing or improving the game itself. Was (American) football broken before the pass interference rule? Was basketball broken before the shot clock was implemented? Is the reason why these two rules didn't originally exist because the people who designed the rules for those rules stupid? No: there was no way to know those games would need those rules until you actually watched humans play the game and saw how humans chose to evolve the meta of those games.
The ultimate requirements on the "products" of MCOC are three-fold; fun to play, desirable to chase, and generates rewards. Those are the "higher purpose" of champions. I know what X-23's bleeds do: that's obvious. And I have a pretty good idea what a new champion will do mechanically when I look at its abilities on paper. But those things are not performance in a game like this. Or to avoid the semantic quibbles, those performance metrics are not critical to balance. The higher tier performance metrics of how engaged players are with the champ, how much they spend in time and money to get them, and how much rewards they earn when they use them are the performance metrics that are critical to game balance. And it is those performance metrics that are the ones paper analysis is notoriously poor at predicting.
My problem is that if a champ was so strong as to throw the game (including the game within), with everything that entails, out of balance, how would that make it out of testing? Too strong should be their concern with balancing (hence our big concern) because too weak already had an established program to address it. The metrics you pointed out, engagement, what champs that are strong have poor engagement? Poor engagement is left for champs that suck. Time and money spent is also a function of strength, look, popularity, prestige, etc. Rewards earned with them would be a function of their overall strength. Earned rewards will be better, the stronger a champ is. A team with Air-Walker and Mangog isn't getting the same class of rewards as a team featuring Corvus and Aegon. If they're revisiting over an extended period, they aren't revamping, those will be value tweaks, not animation and they don't have input into basic popularity. Mangog looks how he looks with minimal popularity and Kabam can't really change up Marvel characters willy-nilly like their Kabam originals. Kabam already has fight data they're constantly collecting. This isn't real-time PvP, there's no reason they couldn't set up an environment with a representative sample of AQ AW setups and quest fights for testing. How long would it take to go through a couple hundred fights when you already know the parameters of interest? I could see a champ hitting the streets too weak, because if you're going to err, that's the best way to do it. You know a champ being too weak isn't destabilizing anything and buffing them later could bring a nice revenue bump at that time.
As for the rating system, IMO, it's just a waste of time unless it will be accompanied with other tools like an enhanced tag system and attribute search. That will help new and old players.
The 5 point ability rating system seems pretty useless, unnecessary, and unwanted.
Releasing a champ, collecting data over next months, and possibly reworking the champ really just makes it seem like testing and data collection before release did not occur. We are players/users/customers; not your testers or guinea pigs.
If you don't have enough resources in the company to do the champ buffs that you stated you would, pull resources from other useless or unsuccessful parts of the company. Stop working on the useless rating system. Why spend time and resources on something no one wants? How did this ever get vetted and approved?
If you still can't squeeze in the buffs, release only one new champ per month. This might be unpopular but I doubt we need 2 new champs every month just because it has always been this way. It's obvious the champs are not tested across the game thoroughly which prompted this rebalancing nonsense, so just pump the brakes here and focus on release one greatly designed champs vs 2 champs of questionable design. We can get by with 1 per month and if the buffs continue for those garbage can champs we all have in our rosters, the overwhelming majority of the play base will be satisfied, maybe even happy.
The 5 point ability rating system seems pretty useless, unnecessary, and unwanted.
Releasing a champ, collecting data over next months, and possibly reworking the champ really just makes it seem like testing and data collection before release did not occur. We are players/users/customers; not your testers or guinea pigs.
If you don't have enough resources in the company to do the champ buffs that you stated you would, pull resources from other useless or unsuccessful parts of the company. Stop working on the useless rating system. Why spend time and resources on something no one wants? How did this ever get vetted and approved?
If you still can't squeeze in the buffs, release only one new champ per month. This might be unpopular but I doubt we need 2 new champs every month just because it has always been this way. It's obvious the champs are not tested across the game thoroughly which prompted this rebalancing nonsense, so just pump the brakes here and focus on release one greatly designed champs vs 2 champs of questionable design. We can get by with 1 per month and if the buffs continue for those garbage can champs we all have in our rosters, the overwhelming majority of the play base will be satisfied, maybe even happy.
I 100% agree with this. Would much rather have two buffs a month and only one new champ (similar to the kraven month).
I also don’t understand why they pulled resources away from the buff program.. that was literally the one thing that everyone was unanimously excited about each month.
Also definitely agree with the fact that they should have their own testers. Don’t see why they need 6 months of player data. Set up unique tests and TDD it.
Comments
I don't know how long it took him to get his rating system but you guys could ask him for advice..
YouTube title
'Every 2021 champion - individually RANKED!'
Factoring in some ratio of players who get the champ and then actually use it, this is probably enough players to get a meaningful estimate of overall performance.
We wont have many low progress players using champs in high tier content, but such players don’t play such content in general. We will have low skill players using the champs, because skill and luck aren’t correlated. Outside the arena grinders and the blow out whales (who buy enough to increase their odds of getting a champ sky high) new champions should be distributed roughly randomly across all players buying crystals.
More players and longer time collection would continue to refine that estimate, but the longer you measure, the more players who have the champ and the more players get locked into an expectation for the performance of the champ. The data mining window is a compromise between adjusting the champ as fast as possible (ideally when *no one* has the champ, ala before release) and adjusting the champion as accurately as possible (which ideally would be when everyone has the champ and has been playing it long enough to have learned all its tricks to the best of their ability, i.e. going back and adjusting champs after they’ve been around for years).
Worth noting: when they look three months after release, they are going to then go into a two month beta period testing adjustments. During that time, if their three month look was “off” they will still have the opportunity to factor in additional data during the beta. If the five month look is substantially different from the three month look, they have an opportunity to factor that into adjustments being made during the beta. So there is some wiggle room here to try to collect data for as long as possible while factoring in the amount of time it takes to formulate adjustments and test them.
56. Deadpool X Force
57. Storm
58. Psycho Man
59. Gamora
That makes 59/216 champs that desperately need a buff which will go much farther in balancing the game rather than focusing most attention on 2 new champs per month. Catch up on the backlog of 59 underperforming champs..... THEN ramp up this new champ balance system (but in a way that doesn't rip off anyone)
So you rate the damage 5/5, but where is the dmg coming from? Is it instantly there from the start of the fight? Is it a ramp up champ? Does it depend on buffs or debuffs and are the buffs/debuffs active or passive? Is it energy dmg or physical dmg? Incinerate, shock, bleed, crit?
Basically, how do we get that 5/5 dmg and where does it come from? Just stating a champion has dmg means nothing in MCOC if we can’t access the dmg. Having such a general rating system that only states “Damage 5/5” without expanding on the details of that damage will not only make that rating system useless, but also a burden. A burden to the already ever slowing servers that have begun to freeze on a 1 year old phone (Note 20 Ultra 5g). Just a pile of data taking up unnecessary space and creating more lag in the game.
I hope that gives an idea of how complicated a true rating system would have to be for an end user to find it useful, because if I have to continue into Utility, Defense, and other layers of consideration, this post can go on for a while.
However, I can see how such a simple, generalized rating system can be helpful to a developer trying to get an idea of how to shape the champion. For a developer, that’s an outline of the shape a champion can take, the perimeters they can work in as they draw in the finer details of the structure. For an end user, it’s just a blank map that shows land without showing the roads and how to traverse it. That is the gap dividing employee from player, and from a positive perspective, that is the gap I believe you’re trying to close with this attempt at communication.
To make this attempt at “Balancing” future champs successful, I believe we would need to change the structure of how future champs are released into the game.
My thoughts and ideas:
1. You need 6 months to achieve a proper balance on a champion?
Then introduce the “work in progress” champion for preview 6 months before its release. We should not have to deal with bugs and adjustments once the champion is fully released and permanently available in the live game.
2. Next question is how to introduce the preview champion without disrupting the game and giving unfair advantages?
A) The most obvious way would be to release a public test server. Don’t know why that’s not a thing yet, but my first guess is there’s a financial reason (Kabam being cheap).
B.) Another thought is to make the preview champ available on the live server, in a test store for anyone who wanted to test it out and give feedback, with limited use of course. To avoid the unfair advantage it would have to be blocked out of AW, AQ, and arena. All solo content and incursions are great places for testing, the only possible exception being the EQ and SQ since they do change monthly anyway. Different tiers should be available for different levels of progress starting with 5* for UC players and 6*+5* for higher progress tiers. Rank 1 max level or Rank 2 level 1 should be enough for testing purposes, that way it doesn’t have to get over complicated with additional ranking resources or over power any account that doesn’t already have higher ranking champs. The preview champion should be available for testing for about 3 to 7 days, then be put back into the balance system with the players feedback for consideration. After further development from the initial feedback, the preview champion should be released into the testing store again for another round of feedback. Rinse and repeat till the champion’s quarks are all figured out and ready for full release.
Those are my thoughts for now. The key to the new system being successful is figuring out the issues and making the final adjustments to new champions BEFORE they are released into the game for sale and arenas.
people won't even get them for a while anyway. If they took
a break on new champions and event quests to just go
hard and ALL in on buffing champions until the vast
majority of the old champs are good then I think they'll be
in a good place to focus on new stuff. Constantly keeping
up with 2 new characters EVERY month for 7+ years
straight is nuts. I can't be the only one who's burning out of
monthly event quests too. The past year, the most hype
thing every month was the buffs, and new characters are
really starting to falter. It really sucks when a new champ
comes out and the consensus is that we should hope for a
buff in the future. Too many of the recent characters fall
into that category (by recent I really mean from the past
year/year and a half). And I don't even mean just the ones
that REALLY suck like psycho man, even the ones that are
kind of ok but just feel like they don't hold up with champs
from past years, like Sauron for example. He seems really
cool, and he doesn't suck, but he just doesn't have a place
in the game. He's not bad enough to warrant a buff any
time soon but he's not good enough to be chosen for
doing any content over other champs in the game.
Are we supposed to collect characters and therefore be excited about new releases, spend money on Featureds/Advance bundles or grind for them in Arena, in order to get the newest releases?
Are we supposed to rank up as many characters as possible, or only the best characters, or only the characters that we like playing the best? Which then makes acquiring rank-up materials the thing we’re supposed to plan on spending or grinding for?
Are we supposed to progress in the game via story content and monthly EQs, which means that we need counters to specific nodes and situations, which therefore means we need as many characters as possible on our roster?
Are we supposed to join alliances and spend on items to make sure lanes can be completed and AW defenses can be diverse? Which means acquiring defenders and using rank-up materials on defenders who aren’t fun to actually play is actually really important? Plus the importance of Prestige?
Are we supposed to spend money/units on potions/revives to clear the hardest content, which means that by definition, all characters can only be so good? But that should also mean that all characters should only be so bad, because if clearing the content is most important, then all characters should be able to reasonably do it?
If it’s the last one, I totally get a rating system to this degeee: If the game can only have a modest difference between the best character and the worst character, because all characters are expected to be able to clear the same content, then you have to rebalance. You can’t let that gap get too big.
But at the same time, you also can’t let the bottom of the listing be so far below the bar, it’s frustrating for players to pull them, because they have no use in any of the scenarios above.
That’s the part that truly baffles me — I am honestly baffled at what it is we’re supposed to want to do enough to spend money on, because the game needs to be profitable.
We can’t be expected to do all the things. It’s impossible
Welcome to a thread for the discussion of the new Balancing Initiative by Kabam. This thread has been made by a veteran F2P player who has played the game for 5+ years and has completed all available content excluding Abyss. I hope this thread will be informative and constructive and I hope Kabam takes into account any feedback given. With all that said I would like to begin the discussion with my thoughts on the subject at hand.
Champion Balancing and the End of the Buff Program
Let me be completely honest, in my opinion, this new change is a downgrade and overall a loss for players and the community as a whole. The game has been in a very sensitive state the past year or so and during that period the buff program was arguably the best part of the year. The consistent updates to lackluster champs provided the community with an incentive to play and collect new champs. Champs typically considered bad pulls were made better by the hope of buff and champions that did get buffed were able to be used and enjoyed by a large variety of the player base. Additionally, the buffed champs were often older champs that many had access to or had the ability to get, unlike new champs which aren't available to most of the player base for 1-2 years after release. The buffs kept the game fresh and were a major factor in exciting players to log in every month.
The new balancing initiative seems to be a heavily watered-down version of the current buff program, instead of the consistent 2 monthly buffs we have been given a vague promise of occasional adjustments to some characters, heavily favoring new characters. The major drawback of the balancing initiative is that firstly it seems to be a slower process of buffing champs. The new plan is to only have occasional tweaks to characters and from the description given by Kabam, it seems like it will no longer be large-scale changes to champs like we currently have but instead minor tweaks to balance champs. Secondly, the new balancing initiative is most likely going to affect mainly new champions. This means that the characters being balanced will be characters that the majority of the player base don't have access to and can't access for a long period of time. These are in my opinion the two major drawbacks of the new initiative.
Positives
Some positives of Kabam's announcements were that they are including a community figure in their balancing figure and opening the champion testing beta to more players. I think the inclusion of a community figure in the process is a good sign but at the end of the day, it is just one player included in the process which still doesn't give me too much confidence. On the other hand, opening the beta to more players is a great change and I hope that it is implemented in the game regardless of what happens in the contest's future.
Champion Rating System
The proposed champions rating system by Kabam is a bad idea. The game is far too complex and I think that the five-star system with the three categories including damage, utility, and ease of use will in no way cover all the nuances and intricacies of the game. Furthermore, no offense to Kabam, but they are the last people I think the community would want champion ratings from. Most of the community doesn't respond well to ratings and tier lists made by people who play the game for a living and I doubt they will listen to Kabam. Looking just at champion spotlight videos on youtube, Kabam always seems to have a worse understanding of champions than the player base. I think the rating system will only confuse new players and ultimately become obsolete as most players decide to ignore it. I just can't see a system like this accurately accounting for all the in-game variables such as synergies, type of damage, sustainability, support, etc. Rather than spend resources on this Kabam should shift its focus elsewhere.
Final thoughts,
I think the announcement made by Kabam was tone-deaf. It seems that they are unaware of what the players are responding well to and what the players don't appreciate. The buff program was universally agreed to be a good addition and I can't imagine what reason there would be to change it instead of addressing other issues in-game. Issues such as lackluster new champions, the outdated nature of major game modes such as alliance war, alliance quest, incursions, and arena. It doesn't make sense why these issues seemingly aren't being given priority or thought while something that the player base actually appreciates is being changed so drastically. A complete miss from Kabam.
Overall Thoughts and TLDR
The changes proposed by Kabam are tone-deaf and rather than addressing actual in-game issues they are instead taking away an aspect of the game most of the community loves. Kabam should take a step back and reassess what they need to address in the game and understand what players enjoy and what players don't.
Please leave your thoughts below but keep it civil and constructive. Hopefully, this post won't be taken down and we and Kabam can have a discussion about the game.
I am going to give it a chance. Then decide whether it works.
Six months after they start this program, each month we'll get:
-- two new champs that are starting in the balancing program
-- two champs that just finished going thru rebalancing and are being released in their finished form
-- one or two updated champs
IMO the rebalancing will lead to weaker new champs on initial release, and then improved champs on final release. It makes little sense for Kabam to initially release a champ that is OP and then to pull back on that champ six months later.
Think of how this would have benefitted the 2021 champs that no one uses: Super Skrull, Jubilee, Purgatory, Chavez, Mangog, Psychoman, Anti-Venom, Kraven.
Don’t want Herc to get nerfed because he is rated 2/5 in utility. If the program was in effect a year ago he probably would have been.
Just want to add another post to thread here to register another thumbs down for this idea that no one asked for...
My real concern is: Of all the things they could be doing with the game and the community to improve it, they chose to pitch a this new idea to a community that is struggling and trying hang on to the game. This is where they failed imo. And if they didn't anticipate majority will dislike this idea especially at this time, then they are the real problem. Some of the issues many are having with the game will take some time to be solved, but have we had any recent updates on it. The problems we want solutions to and the other things we want in-game but it's taking forever, how are they compared to this new idea in execution? The one thing almost everyone liked, monthly buffs, we were starving what we get instead is no buffs but take this new idea (that has many concerns). I;m not sure if it was outlined in the roadmap but the timing is bad if you ask me and the condition of the community imo wasn't even prepared for receive and accept it. Then again, who are we not some premium clients.
That makes sense for most commercial or industrial products, because reliability, predictability, and dependability are core requirements of most such products. But they don't make as much sense in the context of games, particularly massively multiplayer progressional games, because those are not important metrics. I mean, at one level they are; at the mechanical level you want everything you design to function as designed and implemented. The game itself as a product should be reliable, predictable, and dependable. But the *gameplay* of a game when played by humans is not. In that respect, the way elements of a game function is more closely related to the rules of a sport than components of a product. The rules are not just intended to do what their letter of the law states. They are also intended to serve the higher purpose of either stabilizing or improving the game itself. Was (American) football broken before the pass interference rule? Was basketball broken before the shot clock was implemented? Is the reason why these two rules didn't originally exist because the people who designed the rules for those rules stupid? No: there was no way to know those games would need those rules until you actually watched humans play the game and saw how humans chose to evolve the meta of those games.
The ultimate requirements on the "products" of MCOC are three-fold; fun to play, desirable to chase, and generates rewards. Those are the "higher purpose" of champions. I know what X-23's bleeds do: that's obvious. And I have a pretty good idea what a new champion will do mechanically when I look at its abilities on paper. But those things are not performance in a game like this. Or to avoid the semantic quibbles, those performance metrics are not critical to balance. The higher tier performance metrics of how engaged players are with the champ, how much they spend in time and money to get them, and how much rewards they earn when they use them are the performance metrics that are critical to game balance. And it is those performance metrics that are the ones paper analysis is notoriously poor at predicting.
The rating system has a short term purpose and a long term purpose, and neither of them is intended to "rate" the champions globally, in the sense of which champ is better or worse. The long term purpose is to summarize the information in the champion spotlights, to serve as a starting point for beginning and casual players who do not want to deep dive champions. For those that just want a ten second summary of the champ, here you go: the champ has a lot of damage, a little utility, and it is moderately hard to learn to play effectively.
This of course doesn't encapsulate the in-game value of each champ accurately, nor could any short summary do so. But some players don't interact with the game on a level where anything except a short summary is acceptable. For players that want more than a superficial description of the champion, they can invest the time into reading the spotlights in more detail, or going to community resources.
All things being equal, Kabam's long term intent is for the ratings to accurately encapsulate the information they contain. They hope that eventually the data collected on the champion backs up those summary numbers so the players get what they expect when they play the champ. They don't expect those summary numbers to completely describe the champs, but they don't have to. If the champ rating system says the champ has 5/5 damage, all it is saying is the champ deals among the most damage in the game, all things being equal.
For a really old champ, Kabam can determine if a champ is in the top 20% of damage dealers, or the middle fifth of damage mitigators. It can back fill those ratings for champs that are old enough and well understood enough that both the data and player understanding would likely be in general agreement on the simple attributes of damage output, survivability, and ease of use. We're all going to be arguing about what "utility" means, but for these purposes it means "everything else." If there's something useful a champ has that cannot be described as damage or survivability, and it is not related to the skill level required to play the game, it is utility.
I believe there's an idea that these ratings are problematic because if Kabam gets them "wrong" then they'll nerf a champ that doesn't deserve to be nerfed. For existing champions, that's not going to happen, because that's not what the ratings are for. For old champs, the ratings *describe* the champs. If Kabam is going to nerf them, Kabam is going to nerf them. It doesn't matter what the ratings are. Conversely, if Kabam has no reason to nerf a champ, the ratings aren't going to change their minds. There's no "proper rating" for a champ. No one's rating is "too high."
However, things change for new champs. There is no pre-existing data for new champs. Kabam has no idea what the data says about the champion, because there's no data. Instead, in the short term the rating will be the developer *target* for the champ. Until they have data on the champ, the rating numbers tell us what Kabam was aiming for. In a perfect world, they'd hit the target every time. But in practice, that's not going to happen. As Kabam collects data on the champ, they may decide that the data says something different from what they wanted to do. They might have aimed for survivability being 3/5, but the data says the champ appears to be a 4/5 - it is in the top 40% of all champs. Now what?
Maybe nothing. Just because the champion "misses" the target, doesn't mean it is broken. For one thing, the targets are huge. A 4 out of 5 could include all champs that are between the 70 and 90 percentile. They might have been aiming for 80%, but a 72% is still perfectly fine, as is 89%. Only if the champ misses by so much that it is obviously broken too high or too low will the devs be compelled to act. And this has nothing to do with the rating system. The devs look at this stuff already, and were making evaluations like this before any formal system for quantifying it existed (this is a numerical example: I don't know how the values are going to be computed).
Eventually, the idea is that after the balancing phase when Kabam decides the champ doesn't need any adjustments, either the champion's data will back up the rating numbers or (presumably) the rating numbers will be amended to match the champion's data. But during the balancing phase, the ratings numbers communicate to us what the expected performance of the champion is, so we (the players with more knowledge and experience with the game) have an idea when a champion appears to not perform as advertised, so we aren't surprised if the devs make changes to the champion after launch during the balancing phase.
The champion rating system is just a structured method of communication. It doesn't define champion value, and it doesn't control when champions are adjusted. There's no such thing as a right or wrong number, or a too high number or too low number. The complaint that the rating system is bad because it is incomplete is missing the point of the rating system. All discussions of champion performance are incomplete. The developers need a way to summarize and encapsulate the way they are going to be communicating about champion performance, and this is their starting point. Without this, we're back to the devs saying "this was unintended." This tells us nothing. The champion rating system is a step forward, to give players more detail than the devs are not happy with a champ. Furthermore, the notion that Kabam shouldn't be making ratings systems is also missing the point. Kabam is trying to communicate their position about the champs. You might disagree with their position, but the point to the rating system is not to assert an opinion that everyone else is supposed to agree with, it is to communicate *their* position when it comes to balance. Their position is a thing we players need to know. They can make a rating system and tell us what the ratings are, or they can make a rating system and *not* tell us what the ratings are. But on what basis do we tell the devs not to quantify their design decisions and balancing processes? That's ludicrous: we can't do that. It is only to our benefit that they expose these numbers to us. Or we can tell them we don't want them, and they can keep them secret. Those are the only two options.
As for the rating system, IMO, it's just a waste of time unless it will be accompanied with other tools like an enhanced tag system and attribute search. That will help new and old players.
I also don’t understand why they pulled resources away from the buff program.. that was literally the one thing that everyone was unanimously excited about each month.
Also definitely agree with the fact that they should have their own testers. Don’t see why they need 6 months of player data. Set up unique tests and TDD it.