An Update to Balancing in MCOC!

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Comments

  • IRQIRQ Member Posts: 327 ★★
    I'm baffled why Punisher is not a top priority list when it comes to animation update. At least DPX and SIM have the excuse of being the reskin of the character they completely ripped off in this regard.

    I mean, how does this superpowered punch knocking opponent into a wall that WS uses during S3 even work with him?
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  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Member Posts: 36,573 ★★★★★
    It's literally the same as the game has always been. I find it somewhat confusing that people are on board with a buff program for older Champs, and not on board with this. As long as the game has existed, they've reviewed their product and made changes when the data showed a need.
    As for spending, it's never been a purchase, much less a guarantee that the product is as-is. We don't purchase to own anything. We rent access to aspects of their product. That product is a part of a live matrix that's constantly changing and evolving. That doesn't mean every Champ that comes out is at risk for being altered, and history has shown that. It simply means things CAN be changed when necessary.
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  • SkyLord7000SkyLord7000 Member Posts: 4,000 ★★★★★
    @Kabam Miike one last question:

    If a new champion is becomes more useful then initially rated in the program (eg. Corvus, Quake). Will they be more subject to a nerf then before the program?
  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Member Posts: 36,573 ★★★★★

    I find it somewhat confusing that people are on board with a buff program for older Champs, and not on board with this.

    If this clears up your confusion, people tend to like for a buff program that gives their old “low value” champs a chance to be useful again. Not a rework program in replacement of that does not give the same guarantee of the buffing champs that need full reworks.
    If there's a system that allows them to monitor and make adjustments more preemptively than the current setup, that's more useful in my opinion than a constant cycle of catch-up.
  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Member Posts: 36,573 ★★★★★
    At least in theory. I'll have to see the execution.
  • BigManOnCampusBigManOnCampus Member Posts: 376 ★★★
    I find that hard believe , with 12.0 players didn't know it would be a large scale game balance update. The Balancing program let you know in advance that the champs will be balanced within a six month period .
  • SkyLord7000SkyLord7000 Member Posts: 4,000 ★★★★★

    At least in theory. I'll have to see the execution.

    With some days to process I can see the potential of this program. So I almost agree with you.

    However, when you say that you are confused about why summoners are concerned. I’d think anyone would be concerned that this system would allow kabam a way to nerf more champs. I wouldn’t of wanted this system when Herc was released. But would of loved it when super Skrull and psycho man were released. This system will be awesome until they go trigger happy on the nerfs (which is improbable)
  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Member Posts: 36,573 ★★★★★

    At least in theory. I'll have to see the execution.

    With some days to process I can see the potential of this program. So I almost agree with you.

    However, when you say that you are confused about why summoners are concerned. I’d think anyone would be concerned that this system would allow kabam a way to nerf more champs. I wouldn’t of wanted this system when Herc was released. But would of loved it when super Skrull and psycho man were released. This system will be awesome until they go trigger happy on the nerfs (which is improbable)
    It's less about open-season and more about aligning with goals in my opinion.
  • zaspacerzaspacer Member Posts: 116

    Also, as an addendum, they weren't intentionally left out to make money. They were cautiously added because a number of them are already powerful.

    I appreciate and like the creative brainstorming on possible reasons for Kabam choosing Champions. However, we also don't have any certainty with regards to knowing the specific choices, motives, or plans behind Kabam's actions.

    It is also very likely that even the individual current persons and groups behind MCOC development (including all past and current staff at Kabam, Netmarble, Unity Technologies, Disney, etc.) do not know (or understand) the full picture of choices, motives, or plans behind many actions taken. Such are the realities of game development. Giant collaborations in chaos.

    The food gets to the table (the game content gets launched)... sometimes. But there is never really a diligent accounting audit of the chaotic marathon from farm to table (a planned, tracked, and accounted full development process). And I've worked in accounting and game development (and project management).

    All possible options remain viable.
  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Member Posts: 36,573 ★★★★★
    edited February 2022
    zaspacer said:

    Also, as an addendum, they weren't intentionally left out to make money. They were cautiously added because a number of them are already powerful.

    I appreciate and like the creative brainstorming on possible reasons for Kabam choosing Champions. However, we also don't have any certainty with regards to knowing the specific choices, motives, or plans behind Kabam's actions.

    It is also very likely that even the individual current persons and groups behind MCOC development (including all past and current staff at Kabam, Netmarble, Unity Technologies, Disney, etc.) do not know (or understand) the full picture of choices, motives, or plans behind many actions taken. Such are the realities of game development. Giant collaborations in chaos.

    The food gets to the table (the game content gets launched)... sometimes. But there is never really a diligent accounting audit of the chaotic marathon from farm to table (a planned, tracked, and accounted full development process). And I've worked in accounting and game development (and project management).

    All possible options remain viable.
    They've been commented on. At least in a general sense.
  • DNA3000DNA3000 Member, Guardian Posts: 19,676 Guardian
    Chovner said:

    @DNA3000
    Fair points, so maybe I'll just rephrase all my questions this way that hopefully doesn't seem loaded.

    With the goal of improving game balance, what would have the greater impact?: Bringing 56 underperforming champs up to match the current game meta or ensure 2 new champs per month aren't overpowered or underpowered?

    I don't think properly balancing new champs is a bad deal at all, in fact I think that it's what should happen, I just think they have such a backlog of champs to deal with that their main focus should be on that. They almost should have bumped up the old champ buff system now that they have this new team to deal with all the champs they know are underperforming, then tackle the new champ balance.

    With the poor state of the game, I think they should have at least waited to roll this out until after their new engine is rolled out and working.

    Fairer, but you're comparing years of buff program to one month of balance program. After the initial ramp up period of settling into the new balancing program, they said in the announcement that they hope to return to old champ updates at a two a month cadence. That's lower than the original three to four month cadence, but there's been some evidence that that original rate was unsustainable anyway: it was slipping at times, and players were also complaining that the quality of the new champions was also slipping. That implies to me the pipeline was overloaded. And the one thing we know is never going to happen is slowing down new champions. They are the engine that powers the game in multiple ways.

    Only Kabam can directly answer your question, but from my perspective the balancing program appears to be an attempt to tackle both problems: devote more time to new champions so they don't release buggy or broken as often, and separately reduce the pressure on cranking out more buffs and updates than is currently sustainable by the dev team. Whether they succeed or not is a matter of execution, but that seems to be a reasonable approach to me.
  • DNA3000DNA3000 Member, Guardian Posts: 19,676 Guardian
    zaspacer said:

    Also, as an addendum, they weren't intentionally left out to make money. They were cautiously added because a number of them are already powerful.

    I appreciate and like the creative brainstorming on possible reasons for Kabam choosing Champions. However, we also don't have any certainty with regards to knowing the specific choices, motives, or plans behind Kabam's actions.

    It is also very likely that even the individual current persons and groups behind MCOC development (including all past and current staff at Kabam, Netmarble, Unity Technologies, Disney, etc.) do not know (or understand) the full picture of choices, motives, or plans behind many actions taken. Such are the realities of game development. Giant collaborations in chaos.

    The food gets to the table (the game content gets launched)... sometimes. But there is never really a diligent accounting audit of the chaotic marathon from farm to table (a planned, tracked, and accounted full development process). And I've worked in accounting and game development (and project management).

    All possible options remain viable.
    This is true to a certain extent, in the sense that the people today may not know the full reasons for why some decision was made in the past. Even the question "why did this happen" can have no real answer, because in a collaboration the reason why something happens is that collectively that's what the group decided to do, but since every member of the group may have had different reasons for advocating different positions, there's no one ultimate reason. It depends on the narrative you want to tell.

    However, the champions in or not in the current basic pools are now the ultimate responsibility of the people actually there. It is possible a champion was excluded in the past by a developer no longer there, for reasons no one else knows, but that's the sort of decision that gets revisited, and even if it is a standing decision, the devs know what it is (because they have to, to manage the situation correctly). For example, I know why Deadpool is only available in cash offers, because I was told why. I'm not the only player that knows by a wide margin, but I'm not sure if I can say as I don't know if this is public knowledge. But I do know this with reasonable certainty, because this is not something that can be chalked up to collective chaos.

    I believe there are unlikely to be many champions excluded from the basic pools just to monetize them directly. The reason being, with very few exceptions (such as the aforementioned Deadpool) this would be inconsistent with how Kabam monetizes the game as i understand it. However, that's a judgment based on my previous experience with game development and my interactions with the MCOC developers. It is not a possibility that I can say I can rule out with reasonable certainty. But I would be very, very surprised if this was the case.

    If you've been involved directly with game development, then you know that organized chaos is half the explanation for everything. Inertia is the other. There are never enough hours in the day to do everything the devs want to do, much less what the players want them to do. So a lot of things that look like active decisions are really deferred decisions. A champ might not be in the basic pool because someone decided it shouldn't be, but it is also possible a champ might not be in the basic pool because no one has revisited that decision recently because no one can spare the time to do so. Sometimes the reason why inertia is so important is because while players think about things in terms of the work that has to be done, developers think in terms of the approvals that have to be gotten. Adding a champ to the basic pool that got passed on earlier might require a balance designer, reward designer, economy designer, and a couple producers to all sign off. How many developers would want to advocate for that, instead of working on a new Relic?
  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Member Posts: 36,573 ★★★★★
    Then there's the obvious logical evidence that it's a damn long time to have ulterior motives on monetization when they could have done it when people were begging for them to be added. Lol.
  • winterthurwinterthur Member Posts: 8,061 ★★★★★
    DNA3000 said:

    zaspacer said:

    Also, as an addendum, they weren't intentionally left out to make money. They were cautiously added because a number of them are already powerful.

    I appreciate and like the creative brainstorming on possible reasons for Kabam choosing Champions. However, we also don't have any certainty with regards to knowing the specific choices, motives, or plans behind Kabam's actions.

    It is also very likely that even the individual current persons and groups behind MCOC development (including all past and current staff at Kabam, Netmarble, Unity Technologies, Disney, etc.) do not know (or understand) the full picture of choices, motives, or plans behind many actions taken. Such are the realities of game development. Giant collaborations in chaos.

    The food gets to the table (the game content gets launched)... sometimes. But there is never really a diligent accounting audit of the chaotic marathon from farm to table (a planned, tracked, and accounted full development process). And I've worked in accounting and game development (and project management).

    All possible options remain viable.
    There are never enough hours in the day to do everything the devs want to do, much less what the players want them to do. So a lot of things that look like active decisions are really deferred decisions. A champ might not be in the basic pool because someone decided it shouldn't be, but it is also possible a champ might not be in the basic pool because no one has revisited that decision recently because no one can spare the time to do so. Sometimes the reason why inertia is so important is because while players think about things in terms of the work that has to be done, developers think in terms of the approvals that have to be gotten. Adding a champ to the basic pool that got passed on earlier might require a balance designer, reward designer, economy designer, and a couple producers to all sign off. How many developers would want to advocate for that, instead of working on a new Relic?
    I am trying to get a document signed-off since Nov last year and it is moving from one person to another and getting delayed as each has their own priorities. So, this point I can understand.
  • winterthurwinterthur Member Posts: 8,061 ★★★★★
    MCOC Team said:

    Greetings Summoners!

    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.

    Will the champs have a champion rating for each of its unawakened and awakened state respectively?
  • _Gray_ChA0S__Gray_ChA0S_ Member Posts: 1
    DON'T TOUCH ULTRON
  • PapaMidnite007PapaMidnite007 Member Posts: 1,622 ★★★★
    Well done Kabam

    DON'T TOUCH ULTRON

    Ultrons permanent cauterise via synergy was a bug.. he only needed to have extended duration of his cauterize function lol with the synergy and we all knew it
  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Member Posts: 36,573 ★★★★★

    DON'T TOUCH ULTRON

    OK!
This discussion has been closed.