An Update to Balancing in MCOC!

te_dua_shum

Demonzfyre said:

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?

From the original post:

Starting in March, we will be adding a brand new 5-Point Ability Rating System to all Champions in the game.

They are doing this to give players an idea of what the devs wanted the champion to be before its release. For what I've understood, Kabam isn't creating a rating system to rate how the champion is performing now because that would require a dynamic rating system that gets updated every X weeks to reflect the current perfomance of the champion; what they are doing is telling people what they wanted the champion to be, and then it will be up to us to decide, subjectively, if the champion met the criteria ^_^

EricZachary1977

I prefer to scrap this new rating system and community balance program out of the gate and continue to rework older and clearly weaker champs. It's nearly impossible to create an objective rating for champs, and why some of the re-works Kabam has released over the last few years have been duds that weren't well received (the hood and guillotine come immediately to mind) many more resulted in extremely powerful and fun to play champs like Magento, Colossus, Diablo, and Mole Man. There are so many other issues with the game that could use manpower and other resources, please don't budget in non-issues.

geoff78

My $0.02

As someone that used to whale out in this game, I've learned my lesson. I purchased several Odins chasing both Namor and Cull Obsidian when they came out. I didn't end up getting either of them before I watched them both get "balanced" (nerfed). I'll still drop a few hundred for the special times of year (July 4th, cyber weekend, gifting....), but I no longer chase champs, or RNG rewards (except GGCs of course).
As an end game player, and moderate spender, I feel like I should tell you guys that you're losing touch with the players that got you 7+ years into this mobile game. The transparency we were promised never came. The bugs that effect players take way too long to get fixed (if ever at all), but the bugs that benefit players get patched in record time. No matter how you word posts like this one, we hear "OP champs will progressively get nerfed, and meme champs will get buffs". Lots of people spent a ton of money getting through Corina's challenges, act 7, several cash offers, and trading GGCs just to get their OP champs to r4. Now you're telling us that there's a strong chance they could fall victim to getting "balanced". It really is no wonder why end game players are dropping like flies.

My suggestion....
Start with fixing the damn bugs we've been complaining about for over a year now.
Test your updates before releasing them so you can stop introducing more bugs into the contest.
Buff the champs that aren't up to par, but leave the strong ones alone. People dump rare resources, and often times actual money into the strong champs. By changing them that much later is ripping people off.
Stop wasting time on useless features like strikers. You literally had to create nodes just to make strikers even make any sense. The team of developers it took to do that on arguably the dumbest side quest in ages, could've spent that time and resources fixing bugs or buffing crappy champs.

You've lost touch with your long term player base. I genuinely hope you get it back. I do enjoy this game.

Demonzfyre

te_dua_shum said:

Demonzfyre said:

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?

From the original post:

Starting in March, we will be adding a brand new 5-Point Ability Rating System to all Champions in the game.

They are doing this to give players an idea of what the devs wanted the champion to be before its release. For what I've understood, Kabam isn't creating a rating system to rate how the champion is performing now because that would require a dynamic rating system that gets updated every X weeks to reflect the current perfomance of the champion; what they are doing is telling people what they wanted the champion to be, and then it will be up to us to decide, subjectively, if the champion met the criteria ^_^

Which is fine. So all of them will have the ratings but for people to be thinking they'll add this to Cav MEQ requirement rotation is a bit ridiculous. These ratings will strictly for the rebalance and yes, I see all champs will have them now but it's only being created for this new program.

Maverick75

As said previously : so many useless champions widely gotten by the players and a so limited focus on few champions...

Among them the most popular characters of Marvel and its movies! How will the original Cap Am, Iron Man, Strange and so on be ranked ? 1 or 2 stars at best per criteria! This will only show what the experienced players already know: they are useless.

Surprising that there remain lessons to learn from all the past errors, to the point that it is necessary to monitor the brand new champions, instead of working on the large crappy legacy.
Some characters must be modified several times after their initial go-live.
With at best 2 reworks per month and so many changes to make on the oldest champions...
This is not efficient nor effective.

With a so large legacy and not the effort where it should be invested, the game will end before all of the champions could have been balanced.

CyborgNinja135

People are forgetting that a lot of games have balancing programs and sometimes nerfs are needed. R6 Siege (even though it is a mess right now) nerfs and buffs characters constantly. Same could be said about almost every fighting game. If newly released characters continue to get stronger and stronger every single month, eventually the ones considered to be a the top of the tier lists will also get phased out. That's why we have power creep in MCOC and why it is such a big problem. Kitty is stupidly broken and Herc's ability to tank sp3s with his immortality was broken too. Power creep is always bad.

Now reducing the cadence of buffs, that's something I'm not happy with. January has been a very dry month content wise and now we have to wait until March before we get ONE, just one buff? Old champions getting buffed was always exciting, even if I didn't have them. It's nice seeing champs once considered memes being used in high-level content. Hopefully the DPX buff more than makes up for it.

Skydad23

I just don’t know why Kabam would put themselves in a position so big spenders would want to spend less when you champs come out? I mean one of the biggest times to spend especially for whales is when the featured cavalier crystals for new champs come in the new champ bundle packages in the unit store. But why would anyone especially Whales whale out with thousands of dollars trying to get a new champ which isn’t guaranteed only to have the new champ possibly be Nerfed six months down the line. Sounds way too risky. It’s already risky trying to get said Champion much less event champion could be toned down six months later.

Nobody was asking for this not a very smart business move. With everything else going on bugs problems with the game no new contact no new game feature once again this is where they’re putting their precious man power?

GroundedWisdom

It takes more than a couple fights against WS to provide the data they need.

Colonaut123

I want to give Kabam the benefit of the doubt here, but seeing the past record I just don't know how to do that without looking gullible.

Due to years of neglect, dozens of champions have fallen out of grace, or were bad from the start.
At the end of 2020 Kabam started to long due process of buffing champions. The results are mixed: some buffs had zero impact on that champion (Nova, Ronin, Gamora), some buffs skyrocketed the champion (Falcon, Magneto, Diablo, Moleman, Kingpin), some buffs weren't meta-changing but solid (Crossbones, Howard the Duck, Vulture, Bishop) and sadly some buffs made the champion worse (The Hood 1.0., Guillotine).

Regardless of the results, the buffs were happening. But now Kabam decided they will downscale it, not doing any buffs in the first trimester AT ALL (Psycho-Man doesn't really count, as a value-only update won't cut it for him) and then introduce a lengthy beta testing process. I get the reasoning behind it, but if Kabam wants to delay buffing so hard it will take 4 months (!) to get it released, what is the value of this?

GroundedWisdom

thepiggy said:

GroundedWisdom said:

It takes more than a couple fights against WS to provide the data they need.

Everyone gets the champ on the beta server on launch all the way up to and including any nerf. That's 6 months of testing, full transparency, and it won't affect the live game. That should give them enough data.

You can't do that. The game IS the data.

Colonaut123

Demonzfyre said:

Fredhorst23 said:

Demonzfyre said:

ESF said:

BigBlueOx said:

SPARTAN0078 said:

ESF said:

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

Think abt it @LibertyPrimeV1 ,@Playerslasher , @ESF ,@Mokkie, @BigBlueOx

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.

GroundedWisdom

thepiggy said:

GroundedWisdom said:

thepiggy said:

GroundedWisdom said:

It takes more than a couple fights against WS to provide the data they need.

Everyone gets the champ on the beta server on launch all the way up to and including any nerf. That's 6 months of testing, full transparency, and it won't affect the live game. That should give them enough data.

You can't do that. The game IS the data.

Are you sure? How sure are you?

Besides the fact that the staff has confirmed as much multiple times, as well as the people whose knowledge is more extensive than my own, not at all. Lol.
By all means if you can devise a Beta environment that replicates thousands of Players playing 24/7 in all different scenarios and levels of progress, I'd be interested in hearing it.

KDoggg2017

.

Kabam Miike said:

caustic said:

An overwhelming majority of people have not asked for this and simply do not want you spending time on it. Just look at the Disagree ratio on your original post. There are 4-5 YouTubers I can name off the top of my head that have their own tier/rating system. And let's be real, their assessments of the champions are likely to be far better than any rating system you guys come up with.

Will you listen to the gaming community or ignore them (yet again)?

P.S. There's no reason to discontinue buffing old champions, especially if you're asking the community to do the testing on all the new champs for you. If anything, that should free up resources.

While maybe not in this exact implementation, I think a lot of people have wanted to make sure that a new Champion they've been looking forward to had been better than what they got. I'm sure that many would have loved for something like this to be in place for somebody like Super Skrull when he was released. The bones are there, but his numbers need some juicing.

The numbers are not Assessments, they are visual interpretations of Data that show how Champions stack up in different aspects. This is not a Tier list, but a summary of their abilities to do damage, sustainability in a fight, and more.

We are not asking for anybody to be doing any testing. Players will continue to play as they always have, and we will collect Data exactly as we always have, but will now be actioning on that Data instead of just looking at it.

Prior to this statement I was slightly uncomfortable with this program's potential. But Kabam interpreting their own "data" scares the heebee geebees out of me. None of their data graphs 📊 have ever looked remotely like what we as players see happening in-game. 😱 😨 🙀

BigPoppaCBONE

CyborgNinja135 said:

People are forgetting that a lot of games have balancing programs and sometimes nerfs are needed. R6 Siege (even though it is a mess right now) nerfs and buffs characters constantly. Same could be said about almost every fighting game. If newly released characters continue to get stronger and stronger every single month, eventually the ones considered to be a the top of the tier lists will also get phased out. That's why we have power creep in MCOC and why it is such a big problem. Kitty is stupidly broken and Herc's ability to tank sp3s with his immortality was broken too. Power creep is always bad.

Now reducing the cadence of buffs, that's something I'm not happy with. January has been a very dry month content wise and now we have to wait until March before we get ONE, just one buff? Old champions getting buffed was always exciting, even if I didn't have them. It's nice seeing champs once considered memes being used in high-level content. Hopefully the DPX buff more than makes up for it.

It was 1 SP3 and then he'd lose it for the rest of the fight. Not nearly broken at all. The other champs who can tank multiple SP3s didn't break the game, so why was Herc's single an urgent "bug" that they needed to rush to fix?

Sinister_Ratcoon

Kabam Miike said:

mgj0630 said:

I'm shocked no one was asked this yet, so I'll go first.

What will the policy be regarding preview bundles that you sell, when there will clearly be a risk of you down-tuning the champ?

For example, March's champion drops, the champion preview looks amazing, and he/she seems amazing as a boss in EQ. You release his crystal for sale on Thursday, and I buy 10 of them. What assurances will you give to the community that you will compensate them if you need that champ later?

Rank down tickets alone don't begin to cut it, as people are likely spending real money on them.

Will you commit to refunding the units spent? Or will you commit to not selling a new champ until after all balancing has taken place?

This is one of the reasons behind the Ability Ratings and feedback process, so we can avoid the situation of people not understanding what is intended when choosing to chase a Champion, so we don't have anything planned at this time.

I don’t think you fully got the question @Kabam Miike . The op is asking if there are plans or assurances that if the dev team makes material changes the champs and effectively neuters them after they have been sold for real money to offer refunds of units or something similar. The fact that there will be a “ratings system” in place before a new champ is released means literally nothing if the dev team makes changes to the champ as this will ultimately impact the “ratings system.” Why implement any ratings if the intent is to make changes to the champ over time? Ultimately I’m concerned that I’m now investing resources and potentially money in champions that have a bigger possibility of alteration now. Without a 100% guarantee of refunds for purchases we make that get altered it becomes terribly unethical and a bit of a cash grab. I would never go to a store a purchase a tshirt if it had a disclaimer on it that read “could potentially transform into a bikini if the manufacturer deems necessary.” Seems a bit off.

Crine60

@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.

BigPoppaCBONE

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.

Demonzfyre

Sinister_Ratcoon said:

Kabam Miike said:

mgj0630 said:

I'm shocked no one was asked this yet, so I'll go first.

What will the policy be regarding preview bundles that you sell, when there will clearly be a risk of you down-tuning the champ?

For example, March's champion drops, the champion preview looks amazing, and he/she seems amazing as a boss in EQ. You release his crystal for sale on Thursday, and I buy 10 of them. What assurances will you give to the community that you will compensate them if you need that champ later?

Rank down tickets alone don't begin to cut it, as people are likely spending real money on them.

Will you commit to refunding the units spent? Or will you commit to not selling a new champ until after all balancing has taken place?

This is one of the reasons behind the Ability Ratings and feedback process, so we can avoid the situation of people not understanding what is intended when choosing to chase a Champion, so we don't have anything planned at this time.

I don’t think you fully got the question @Kabam Miike . The op is asking if there are plans or assurances that if the dev team makes material changes the champs and effectively neuters them after they have been sold for real money to offer refunds of units or something similar. The fact that there will be a “ratings system” in place before a new champ is released means literally nothing if the dev team makes changes to the champ as this will ultimately impact the “ratings system.” Why implement any ratings if the intent is to make changes to the champ over time? Ultimately I’m concerned that I’m now investing resources and potentially money in champions that have a bigger possibility of alteration now. Without a 100% guarantee of refunds for purchases we make that get altered it becomes terribly unethical and a bit of a cash grab. I would never go to a store a purchase a tshirt if it had a disclaimer on it that read “could potentially transform into a bikini if the manufacturer deems necessary.” Seems a bit off.

You've never had a 100% guarantee of rank downs or refunds of materials for champ changes. They've just been nice about it in the past.

Nameless_IW

who asked for Psycho-Man to be buffed? i know kabam aren't taking names for the buff program but still. New players download the game to play with the most popular mcoc heroes - OG like iron man, spiderman, hulk, captain america, etc. i doubt anybody knows who psycho- man LOL

Texas_11

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