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.
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?
That's not happening though. They're just collecting data for 3- 3 1/2 months for each released champ. Not only that, the people doing the buffs aren't the ones designing champs. All this is being done by different departments. Just like everything else Kabam does.
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?
That's not happening though. They're just collecting data for 3- 3 1/2 months for each released champ. Not only that, the people doing the buffs aren't the ones designing champs. All this is being done by different departments. Just like everything else Kabam does.
Too bad they can't bring in more people from another place, perhaps a Realm even, with an aptitude for that work... Or can they? 🤔
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?
That's not happening though. They're just collecting data for 3- 3 1/2 months for each released champ. Not only that, the people doing the buffs aren't the ones designing champs. All this is being done by different departments. Just like everything else Kabam does.
Too bad they can't bring in more people from another place, perhaps a Realm even, with an aptitude for that work... Or can they? 🤔
Pretty sure they said they were doing that already.
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?
This also gets to the core difference in what is being balanced. Perhaps the best way to unambiguously distinguish is to say that in a very real sense champions are not balanced, players are balanced. We want human performance when using the champions to fall within certain ranges. So to answer your question, although this is a ridiculous extreme just to explain the concept, if hypothetically every champion in the game was "balanced" according to the normal game design principles of balance, and then everyone quit the game and were replaced with a million other players, the strong likelihood is that the champions would no longer be balanced.
I should also specifically address the implication here of "throws out of balance." No one champion - or anything else - is usually so broken that it is capable of instantly breaking critical elements of the game. Rather, things can be sufficiently outside their intended performance envelope that they would cause, like the Matrix, an increasing escalating probability of failure.
A simpler example to explain is the notion of "game breaking rewards." We could double the 6* shards the game handed out and not "break" the game. However, we would be accelerating to the moment when the reward structures would not be able to accommodate that increase. The increase in 5* shards didn't break the game, but they mandated the release of 6* champions, whether players wanted them or not. An increase in 6* shards would force the devs hand when it came to 7* champs. Champs usually aren't "bullseyes" or "completely broken." Rather, there's the target, and the farther you are from the target (assuming you've picked the right target - that's a different topic) the more likely it is that the difference will accumulate into the game into eventual problems.
That's why games like this are so often primarily balanced around primary metrics like reward earning rates, not direct performance metrics like dps. Because no amount of dps can break a game directly, but there are rewards/time rates that can break the game. DPS can translate to rewards, but it is the rewards that are the issue, not the DPS to earn them. But the direct performance metrics can be useful - that's where expertise and experience can help. We know DPS tends to directly translate into rewards moreso than survivability, up to a point. We know ease of use has a significant impact on a mobile game that doesn't have a disproportionate percentage of hard core players. We can try to guess as best we can how the directly measurable attributes of a champion will end up affecting how the champion is perceived, how it is valued, how well it translates its performance into rewards.
But just as we can test a drill to see how that product performs intrinsically, we cannot tell which drill will improve carpenters' overall performance without testing with actual carpenters. We can guess, and a good designer's guesses will tend to be accurate more often, but we won't know if four out of five carpenters will prefer that drill until we let them use it for a while and see. Because it isn't about which drill is better. It is about which drill they think is better. That's what product testing can only approximate.
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?
This also gets to the core difference in what is being balanced. Perhaps the best way to unambiguously distinguish is to say that in a very real sense champions are not balanced, players are balanced. We want human performance when using the champions to fall within certain ranges. So to answer your question, although this is a ridiculous extreme just to explain the concept, if hypothetically every champion in the game was "balanced" according to the normal game design principles of balance, and then everyone quit the game and were replaced with a million other players, the strong likelihood is that the champions would no longer be balanced.
I should also specifically address the implication here of "throws out of balance." No one champion - or anything else - is usually so broken that it is capable of instantly breaking critical elements of the game. Rather, things can be sufficiently outside their intended performance envelope that they would cause, like the Matrix, an increasing escalating probability of failure.
A simpler example to explain is the notion of "game breaking rewards." We could double the 6* shards the game handed out and not "break" the game. However, we would be accelerating to the moment when the reward structures would not be able to accommodate that increase. The increase in 5* shards didn't break the game, but they mandated the release of 6* champions, whether players wanted them or not. An increase in 6* shards would force the devs hand when it came to 7* champs. Champs usually aren't "bullseyes" or "completely broken." Rather, there's the target, and the farther you are from the target (assuming you've picked the right target - that's a different topic) the more likely it is that the difference will accumulate into the game into eventual problems.
That's why games like this are so often primarily balanced around primary metrics like reward earning rates, not direct performance metrics like dps. Because no amount of dps can break a game directly, but there are rewards/time rates that can break the game. DPS can translate to rewards, but it is the rewards that are the issue, not the DPS to earn them. But the direct performance metrics can be useful - that's where expertise and experience can help. We know DPS tends to directly translate into rewards moreso than survivability, up to a point. We know ease of use has a significant impact on a mobile game that doesn't have a disproportionate percentage of hard core players. We can try to guess as best we can how the directly measurable attributes of a champion will end up affecting how the champion is perceived, how it is valued, how well it translates its performance into rewards.
But just as we can test a drill to see how that product performs intrinsically, we cannot tell which drill will improve carpenters' overall performance without testing with actual carpenters. We can guess, and a good designer's guesses will tend to be accurate more often, but we won't know if four out of five carpenters will prefer that drill until we let them use it for a while and see. Because it isn't about which drill is better. It is about which drill they think is better. That's what product testing can only approximate.
Kabam would and should be testing with actual players, I just don't think it needs to take anywhere near as long as they're talking about and if anything, they should be making champs better after release, and that's it. At this point, they should know who will have staying power and who won't, and I wonder if they can give some examples of champs they really thought would be a hit and they actually bombed (I really would be interested in hearing that to see what they think we like vs what we actually like when given options). They can put their thumb on the scale to help matters in the direction they choose since they have total control over the game. The best champs will naturally bubble to the top. The few people using meme tiers, can have their data checked to see if Kabam can figure out why they aren't using the best champ for the job. There's absolutely no way possible they don't have our preferred and their optimal champs and strategies for every node and champ combination in a given mode and an idea of where new champs will fit into that.
That's not happening though. They're just collecting data for 3- 3 1/2 months for each released champ. Not only that, the people doing the buffs aren't the ones designing champs. All this is being done by different departments. Just like everything else Kabam does.
@Demonzfyre .... ummm their announcement verbatim says they'll focus on older buffs if the new champs don't need work and they have extra time/resources... and that it's the same team.. I mean I see that you clearly like going against people not supporting this, but at least read the whole announcement properly....
That's not happening though. They're just collecting data for 3- 3 1/2 months for each released champ. Not only that, the people doing the buffs aren't the ones designing champs. All this is being done by different departments. Just like everything else Kabam does.
@Demonzfyre .... ummm their announcement verbatim says they'll focus on older buffs if the new champs don't need work and they have extra time/resources... and that it's the same team.. I mean I see that you clearly like going against people not supporting this, but at least read the whole announcement properly....
This program starts with the champs released in March. The evaluation period ends around June to mid August. They don't have to worry about balancing the march champs during those first 3 months. Even then, they'll divert ONLY if those champs need to be balanced. Y'all out here acting like it's a guaranteed thing that they'll balance every single champ they'll release from here on out.
And they said EXTRA development time. They said buffs aren't going away, we just don't know what kinds they will be each month. That means there's 2 teams working on this. I know you clearly like going against Kabam, maybe you should try having some comprehension skills.
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?
This also gets to the core difference in what is being balanced. Perhaps the best way to unambiguously distinguish is to say that in a very real sense champions are not balanced, players are balanced. We want human performance when using the champions to fall within certain ranges. So to answer your question, although this is a ridiculous extreme just to explain the concept, if hypothetically every champion in the game was "balanced" according to the normal game design principles of balance, and then everyone quit the game and were replaced with a million other players, the strong likelihood is that the champions would no longer be balanced.
Would Hela be an example? She has the potential and even has done tons of fights in abyss and elsewhere and had the highest DPS in game. But not enough people use her for her to be 'unbalanced'
Wasn't the she hulk heavy fix done because too many players(Merced accounts) were going through the champion too fast?
Popularity is not an automatic indication of an imbalance. However, in these situations, most things that are overtuned or "imbalanced" become popular very quickly. Word spreads fast.
That's not happening though. They're just collecting data for 3- 3 1/2 months for each released champ. Not only that, the people doing the buffs aren't the ones designing champs. All this is being done by different departments. Just like everything else Kabam does.
@Demonzfyre .... ummm their announcement verbatim says they'll focus on older buffs if the new champs don't need work and they have extra time/resources... and that it's the same team.. I mean I see that you clearly like going against people not supporting this, but at least read the whole announcement properly....
This program starts with the champs released in March. The evaluation period ends around June to mid August. They don't have to worry about balancing the march champs during those first 3 months. Even then, they'll divert ONLY if those champs need to be balanced. Y'all out here acting like it's a guaranteed thing that they'll balance every single champ they'll release from here on out.
And they said EXTRA development time. They said buffs aren't going away, we just don't know what kinds they will be each month. That means there's 2 teams working on this. I know you clearly like going against Kabam, maybe you should try having some comprehension skills.
It s funny how you assume that the buff program will continue as it is, with 2 of em every month from what you read in the announcement.
Yes, they probably won't go and "fix" every champ released, they ll probably just nerf the good ones. I know I know, they didn't said that in the announcement, so it's not going to be like that, right?
That's not happening though. They're just collecting data for 3- 3 1/2 months for each released champ. Not only that, the people doing the buffs aren't the ones designing champs. All this is being done by different departments. Just like everything else Kabam does.
@Demonzfyre .... ummm their announcement verbatim says they'll focus on older buffs if the new champs don't need work and they have extra time/resources... and that it's the same team.. I mean I see that you clearly like going against people not supporting this, but at least read the whole announcement properly....
This program starts with the champs released in March. The evaluation period ends around June to mid August. They don't have to worry about balancing the march champs during those first 3 months. Even then, they'll divert ONLY if those champs need to be balanced. Y'all out here acting like it's a guaranteed thing that they'll balance every single champ they'll release from here on out.
And they said EXTRA development time. They said buffs aren't going away, we just don't know what kinds they will be each month. That means there's 2 teams working on this. I know you clearly like going against Kabam, maybe you should try having some comprehension skills.
It s funny how you assume that the buff program will continue as it is, with 2 of em every month from what you read in the announcement.
Yes, they probably won't go and "fix" every champ released, they ll probably just nerf the good ones. I know I know, they didn't said that in the announcement, so it's not going to be like that, right?
It literally says we're getting 2 still. What it also says is they're not adhering to the cadence it currently is on. That means we could get full a full rework in April and a value. We could get 2 value or 2 moderates. It literally says that in the announcement.
Again, I get it, you need to believe what you believe so you can stay mad at Kabam. 12.0, She Hulk and Bishop we're the only times there were nerfs. There's not enough history to have the stance you do on nerfs because in 7 years it hasn't happened as much as you all are making it out to be.
That's not happening though. They're just collecting data for 3- 3 1/2 months for each released champ. Not only that, the people doing the buffs aren't the ones designing champs. All this is being done by different departments. Just like everything else Kabam does.
@Demonzfyre .... ummm their announcement verbatim says they'll focus on older buffs if the new champs don't need work and they have extra time/resources... and that it's the same team.. I mean I see that you clearly like going against people not supporting this, but at least read the whole announcement properly....
This program starts with the champs released in March. The evaluation period ends around June to mid August. They don't have to worry about balancing the march champs during those first 3 months. Even then, they'll divert ONLY if those champs need to be balanced. Y'all out here acting like it's a guaranteed thing that they'll balance every single champ they'll release from here on out.
And they said EXTRA development time. They said buffs aren't going away, we just don't know what kinds they will be each month. That means there's 2 teams working on this. I know you clearly like going against Kabam, maybe you should try having some comprehension skills.
It s funny how you assume that the buff program will continue as it is, with 2 of em every month from what you read in the announcement.
Yes, they probably won't go and "fix" every champ released, they ll probably just nerf the good ones. I know I know, they didn't said that in the announcement, so it's not going to be like that, right?
It literally says we're getting 2 still. What it also says is they're not adhering to the cadence it currently is on. That means we could get full a full rework in April and a value. We could get 2 value or 2 moderates. It literally says that in the announcement.
Again, I get it, you need to believe what you believe so you can stay mad at Kabam. 12.0, She Hulk and Bishop we're the only times there were nerfs. There's not enough history to have the stance you do on nerfs because in 7 years it hasn't happened as much as you all are making it out to be.
Where exactly does it says "the buff program will continue as it is, with two buffs every month"? I may have missed the passage
That's not happening though. They're just collecting data for 3- 3 1/2 months for each released champ. Not only that, the people doing the buffs aren't the ones designing champs. All this is being done by different departments. Just like everything else Kabam does.
@Demonzfyre .... ummm their announcement verbatim says they'll focus on older buffs if the new champs don't need work and they have extra time/resources... and that it's the same team.. I mean I see that you clearly like going against people not supporting this, but at least read the whole announcement properly....
This program starts with the champs released in March. The evaluation period ends around June to mid August. They don't have to worry about balancing the march champs during those first 3 months. Even then, they'll divert ONLY if those champs need to be balanced. Y'all out here acting like it's a guaranteed thing that they'll balance every single champ they'll release from here on out.
And they said EXTRA development time. They said buffs aren't going away, we just don't know what kinds they will be each month. That means there's 2 teams working on this. I know you clearly like going against Kabam, maybe you should try having some comprehension skills.
It s funny how you assume that the buff program will continue as it is, with 2 of em every month from what you read in the announcement.
Yes, they probably won't go and "fix" every champ released, they ll probably just nerf the good ones. I know I know, they didn't said that in the announcement, so it's not going to be like that, right?
It literally says we're getting 2 still. What it also says is they're not adhering to the cadence it currently is on. That means we could get full a full rework in April and a value. We could get 2 value or 2 moderates. It literally says that in the announcement.
Again, I get it, you need to believe what you believe so you can stay mad at Kabam. 12.0, She Hulk and Bishop we're the only times there were nerfs. There's not enough history to have the stance you do on nerfs because in 7 years it hasn't happened as much as you all are making it out to be.
Where exactly does it says "the buff program will continue as it is, with two buffs every month"? I may have missed the passage
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?
This also gets to the core difference in what is being balanced. Perhaps the best way to unambiguously distinguish is to say that in a very real sense champions are not balanced, players are balanced. We want human performance when using the champions to fall within certain ranges. So to answer your question, although this is a ridiculous extreme just to explain the concept, if hypothetically every champion in the game was "balanced" according to the normal game design principles of balance, and then everyone quit the game and were replaced with a million other players, the strong likelihood is that the champions would no longer be balanced.
Would Hela be an example? She has the potential and even has done tons of fights in abyss and elsewhere and had the highest DPS in game. But not enough people use her for her to be 'unbalanced'
Probably more precise to say not enough people use her in that way for her to be seen as an unbalancing force in the game. Hela's super high potential doesn't cause enough people to pursue her for that purpose, it doesn't cause enough people to benefit from that dps enough, she doesn't add enough rewards to players accounts for her to be considered a problem. However:
Wasn't the she hulk heavy fix done because too many players(Merced accounts) were going through the champion too fast?
Maybe. Perhaps even probably.
When I say that devs balance based on average performance, that's in general. To be specific, the devs want the average performance of a specific champ as measured by a set of metrics to be within some range relative to the average performance of all champions. In other words, a champ might be better than other champs in some areas, but it shouldn't be overwhelmingly better than all other champs in all areas. Taken as a whole, that's probably the single most important balancing relationship the devs tune. But there are other constraints on champions besides average performance. A champ that is below average everywhere else, but could solo the Abyss in ten minutes is totally broken. In terms of average performance, the champ might be fine. It might even lag most other champions. And over the lifetime of a player's account, getting the Abyss rewards in ten minutes may not even average out to a very high reward boost over years. BUT we all know that's broken, and the devs know that's broken, because while averages are important, specific performance in specific important areas can be singularly important if they fall too much out of line.
To put it another way, taken as a whole we might judge a student who gets all Bs to have a similar academic performance to a student who gets mostly Bs, but a couple As and a C. One has the fewest low grades, the other has the most high grades. We might say one is better than the other, but they are at least similar. But we might decide that no amount of As compensates for a single F. The student with all As except for one F could potentially average out to a higher GPA than the student with all Bs (with enough grades), but that first student still failed something and that's significant over and above the averages.
There is performance that is too much for everyone to have, and then there's performance too much for anyone to have.
Not sure, Why kabam wants to release a champ if its not matching their expectations. Simple approach would be to do a testing for 6 months, then make sure all the issues are fixed and then make a release to public after 6 months.
You would then have a beta program where the beta testers had to test twelve champions at a time constantly. There is no reasonable way to run such a beta program.
The balancing makes no sense RIGHT NOW!! The buff program was MOST summoners only good thing to look forward to each month. Keep the buff program.. leave it alone it was one good thing you had going for ya. Before kabam lovers start saying it is not left it will be back in April. We will see but that is still 3 months of no champ buffs. There is overwhelming amount of us that don’t want this other than the few who LOVE kabam and would defend anything they do.
Comments
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.
I should also specifically address the implication here of "throws out of balance." No one champion - or anything else - is usually so broken that it is capable of instantly breaking critical elements of the game. Rather, things can be sufficiently outside their intended performance envelope that they would cause, like the Matrix, an increasing escalating probability of failure.
A simpler example to explain is the notion of "game breaking rewards." We could double the 6* shards the game handed out and not "break" the game. However, we would be accelerating to the moment when the reward structures would not be able to accommodate that increase. The increase in 5* shards didn't break the game, but they mandated the release of 6* champions, whether players wanted them or not. An increase in 6* shards would force the devs hand when it came to 7* champs. Champs usually aren't "bullseyes" or "completely broken." Rather, there's the target, and the farther you are from the target (assuming you've picked the right target - that's a different topic) the more likely it is that the difference will accumulate into the game into eventual problems.
That's why games like this are so often primarily balanced around primary metrics like reward earning rates, not direct performance metrics like dps. Because no amount of dps can break a game directly, but there are rewards/time rates that can break the game. DPS can translate to rewards, but it is the rewards that are the issue, not the DPS to earn them. But the direct performance metrics can be useful - that's where expertise and experience can help. We know DPS tends to directly translate into rewards moreso than survivability, up to a point. We know ease of use has a significant impact on a mobile game that doesn't have a disproportionate percentage of hard core players. We can try to guess as best we can how the directly measurable attributes of a champion will end up affecting how the champion is perceived, how it is valued, how well it translates its performance into rewards.
But just as we can test a drill to see how that product performs intrinsically, we cannot tell which drill will improve carpenters' overall performance without testing with actual carpenters. We can guess, and a good designer's guesses will tend to be accurate more often, but we won't know if four out of five carpenters will prefer that drill until we let them use it for a while and see. Because it isn't about which drill is better. It is about which drill they think is better. That's what product testing can only approximate.
And they said EXTRA development time. They said buffs aren't going away, we just don't know what kinds they will be each month. That means there's 2 teams working on this. I know you clearly like going against Kabam, maybe you should try having some comprehension skills.
Wasn't the she hulk heavy fix done because too many players(Merced accounts) were going through the champion too fast?
Yes, they probably won't go and "fix" every champ released, they ll probably just nerf the good ones. I know I know, they didn't said that in the announcement, so it's not going to be like that, right?
Again, I get it, you need to believe what you believe so you can stay mad at Kabam. 12.0, She Hulk and Bishop we're the only times there were nerfs. There's not enough history to have the stance you do on nerfs because in 7 years it hasn't happened as much as you all are making it out to be.
When I say that devs balance based on average performance, that's in general. To be specific, the devs want the average performance of a specific champ as measured by a set of metrics to be within some range relative to the average performance of all champions. In other words, a champ might be better than other champs in some areas, but it shouldn't be overwhelmingly better than all other champs in all areas. Taken as a whole, that's probably the single most important balancing relationship the devs tune. But there are other constraints on champions besides average performance. A champ that is below average everywhere else, but could solo the Abyss in ten minutes is totally broken. In terms of average performance, the champ might be fine. It might even lag most other champions. And over the lifetime of a player's account, getting the Abyss rewards in ten minutes may not even average out to a very high reward boost over years. BUT we all know that's broken, and the devs know that's broken, because while averages are important, specific performance in specific important areas can be singularly important if they fall too much out of line.
To put it another way, taken as a whole we might judge a student who gets all Bs to have a similar academic performance to a student who gets mostly Bs, but a couple As and a C. One has the fewest low grades, the other has the most high grades. We might say one is better than the other, but they are at least similar. But we might decide that no amount of As compensates for a single F. The student with all As except for one F could potentially average out to a higher GPA than the student with all Bs (with enough grades), but that first student still failed something and that's significant over and above the averages.
There is performance that is too much for everyone to have, and then there's performance too much for anyone to have.