Maybe this will seem better in time but for now, I don't like it. First, there is a thread that has been going on for a while asking who's getting buffed in February and we have gotten no response until now where you tell us, "no lol you have to wait until March for a psycho man tune up and in April, you'll get 2 buffs, but we're not promising anything." I really appreciated the champion buff cadence and I'm sure most will agree. It was always exciting to know that 2 champs would be improved. With a few exceptions, I'd say the buff program was very successful and kept me interested and excited for the next month.
Now You say that you will be focusing more on balancing newly released champs and less on consistent monthly reworks of older champs. I really hate that idea. There are so many terrible champs in the game who we all have. These champs offer no value and just cause heartbreak when you pull them as 6*s. But there was always hope that they would get buffed next month. NOT ANYMORE. Now the priority is to balance champs that 90% of the playerbase won't have access to. This honestly angers me because it's taking away the excitement I had for every new update. I don't care if you slightly tweak sauron,; I don't have him and I probably won't for months. It has no impact on my account or enjoyment of the game (and again, I can't imagine a significant amount of players have him either). Buffing someone like antman or captain america would be far more impactful. I like the idea of new champion animations because that is very much needed. Maybe it won't be so bad and I'll be happy to eat my words but this left a bad taste in my mouth.
As for the rating system, I'm still skeptical, especially if you think hercules doesn't have utility. Are these ratings based off quantity or quality? Hercules doesn't have a lot of utility but what he has is very valuable. Just because a champ has a lot of text doesn't mean 1) they are good, 2) their utility is good or 3) they are more valuable than a champ with less. Again, we'll have to wait and see but I'm not overly optimistic. Hopefully I'm wrong
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.
@Kabam Miike thank you for acknowledging the question. That said, I guess I'm still confused. How is the rating system going to sway an individual chasing a champion? The rating system you describe will obviously be incredibly subjective.
Say for example a champ is released with an incredible power control ability, and his "utility" rating is a 3 out of 5.
What does that mean to a summoner? How are we to know the champ's power control at release is behaving at a 5 out of 5 when the intent was to be a 3 out 5?
I'm sorry to say, these seems like an incredibly flawed approach, that can only be successful if Kabam is willing to forego selling crystals until after all rebalancing has been completed.
Anything less than that commitment inherently welcomes a system that is effectively at massive risk of a bait and switch scenario.
Really disappointed that you are back tracking on your commitment to do at least one tune up and one overhaul a month. Plus having no buffs except a Psychoman tune up for 3 months is a huge let down. I get more excited ( motivated) by buffs than new champs because it takes so long to get them at higher tiers. I’m not even mad I’m just disappointed.
Next round of Carinas... interested! 🤩 But a new rating system - I don't know... 🥱 I personally am not a fan of 'tier lists' to begin with. I like to get hands on and experience champions myself and make my own opinions/decisions where they will be useful in my roster. That kind of strategy, knowledge and experience is what is one the most fun parts about this complex game. Even if its formed by Kabam's original intentions, community feedback and data - rating system still feels pretty irrelevant to me.
Similar to how Kabam's Ai tries to pick the highest rated/healthiest champion on my questing team to match up with the next defender. Often I'm like - yeah right... I feel I would ignore this rating system as well but I'll keep my mind open.
That's a lot to unpack there, as has already been said, but the general essence of it is positive.
The rating system will probably need a bit of tweaking before it settles down, I think. As a measure of how much to buff/debuff a champion for balance, I suspect judgement calls will always be needed - it's a guide but just that.
The lack of buffs for February is a shame, especially as January had been a bit dry. It would have been better if there had been a very limited numbers tweak to a couple of champs, as a bit of a placeholder if nothing else.
I'd rather take the buffs over a system that tells me getting Thor Jane Foster is all 1 stars. Thank you, but I already know how terrible the champion is.
We don't have any major reworks lined up for February but you can look forward to a value update for Psycho-Man to go live in March.
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)!
So, we get no champ buffs in January, February and 1 in March? And then a 3rd buff for Gamora???
The champion buffs were the best thing going in this game for the last year, EASILY, and you know the community loved and looked forward to them. And now, you are essentially slowing them down even more so than they already were? Honest question --- Do you guys actually listen to the community at all?
I am disappointed with this new "system" and wonder how long it will last before it goes down the drain as well.
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.
So they're saying here the Rating System will help people understand (in this case when buying early access Crystals) that this specific Champion will be rated in this way compared to others so you can expect how they and other champions will be even after Balancing in the future.
But how do you quantify between "Small Amount Of Potent Utility" and "Large Amount Of Micro Utility"? -Someone could have an Ability that counters all Miss/Evade/Auto-Block and be Immune to 1 Debuff but nothing else but still be Solid. -Meanwhile someone who Resists 3 Debuffs, Counters Recoil Damage, as well can Refresh Debuffs Occasionally could be equally Solid. How do they decide what gets a higher Rating and when Balancing it how are we supposed to determine the outcome from that 1 to 5 base line when each rating could be so broad?
Not to mention how the game is constantly evolving with non permanent content always changing to keep relevant with the newest types of characters, some Utility that was great/rare now might not be as highly rated in the years to come as the game continues to evolve and makes certain things more common or less to match the changing meta which should change how the character is rated. (For example Coldsnap deals damage and has the Utility to shuts down Evade, it was and still is a pretty rare Debuff for champion kits but now we have the Slow Debuff which can effectively apply the same Utility but is on many more champions. Making the Coldsnap Debuff still a good effect but not as special as it was before the Slow Debuff was introduced.)
The 2 monthly champion buffs have been the most exciting thing for me so the fact that you’re slowing that down is incredibly disappointing. But yay for balancing new champs within 6 months that most won’t actually be able to pull within those 6 months I guess?
This is a change that could of been brought up earlier if a November/December/Early Jan. roadmap was released. I feel Kabam’s communication has fallen as opposed to the contrary said in the post.
The 2 monthly champion buffs have been the most exciting thing for me so the fact that you’re slowing that down is incredibly disappointing. But yay for balancing new champs within 6 months that most won’t actually be able to pull within those 6 months I guess?
I'm quoting this because I believe it needs to be emphasized and heard
Since you're considering champion ratings (and hopefully a moderator is reading through these comments so they can read my consideration), can you consider revamping the required base hero ratings for quests? This is without even checking the lower quests, the ones that are probably more important: 5.2.6 has a 32k recommended rating, so about 5.4k rating, which isn't that bad but definitely could be lower. 5.4.6 has a 50k recommended rating. 50k is absurdly high. 6.1.1 has 52k recommended, so an average of 10.4k PI per champion which is definitely not required for completion. Also, 6.4.6 has 98k reccomended, and I don't even think that was possible when it came out. This combined with the natural lower PI of some champions probably discourages players from completing content. Either that or nobody looks at the required base rating so it's been not ideal for a while, but I know I look at it.
Recommended ratings don't even matter anymore. I don't think I even looked at them once I got past act 3
The last time I saw any content myself or my alliance members used cull was 927363 years ago so… ya. Deep in my heart. I wish this is the final nail on the coffin for kabam because they’re just sucking and sucking and not giving.
Balancing is just another word for nerf. Takes a person 0.8sec to realised this but kabam probable thinks their players doesn’t.
Anyway. Good luck kabam. Do what you like and the players will react. Remember, there’s a word called “ consequences”.
I like the idea in general I guess except for the potential nerfs... We went from being excited every month for the buffs to now being kept in suspense to know if it's a buff or a nerf to many favorite champs such as Doom, Herc, Ghost, etc.
I'm gonna comment again because it needs to be said. Why do we need an official Kabam-made tier list that tells us our latest pull was bad? Instead, you could have put that energy towards improving that champ. Why focus on champs who won't be accessible for months? Instead, you could have focused on champs that would improve the experiences of the majority of players. Why would someone want to spend money when there is a possibility that you will nerf that champion 3 months later? I hope this gets back to the game team because it could be very bad for the game if no one feels comfortable spending money and if you can't use half your roster
Hm, the only thing that comes to mind after reading this - Disappointment.
This definitely will make "new" champs less enticing , why spend all that money or doing all that grinding only to have the champ rebalanced 5/6 months down the road.
So on day 1 of this system rollout, champion A who has great damage is rated a 5/5. Six month later, champion B is released, tuned, released again for real, and their damage is best in game. Does champion A get re-rated to a 4/5? See where I’m going? This all seems too subjective and a lot of unnecessary work for Kabam to keep up with, with almost zero value added for me personally as a player. Seems to me to be constantly evolving unless you plan to put a ceiling on future damage or utility or whatever category. From what I’ve seen over the years, power has crept.
(Kind of a patchworked together post from some conversations I had in a chat group)
I think that Rating System is a very bad idea, the game is waaay too broad to have a Rating System as simple as "A 1 to 5 Rating for ALL POSSIBLE Utility". For example Reverse Controls Immunity is only useful in like 20% of the game, but it's still exceptional Utility to have for someone who hasn't adapted to Reversed Controls...
(These are all pretty wide and basic examples, and are meant to be a comparative example instead examining the actual full examples, like comparing 1 Piece of Utility when the champion actually has 8 Pieces of Utility that could be compared to multiple cases in the same way.) It could give people the wrong idea on how certain Champion's are actually viable over others, like Shang-Chi for example has Exceptional Damage and Utility so let's say he gets a 5 in Damage and 4 in Utility. But then someone like Mr Negative who has equal, and in some cases better encounters than Shang-Chi, with a different cadence might be rated Damage of 4 and Utility of 4... Well now the less informed players are just going to think Shang-Chi is better than Mr Negative which in this very broad game isn't always true.
Then how do they scale damage, Shang-Chi as an example again has tons of Crits that also scale with each successive activation and charges that buff Attack for a Massive Sp2. But then you have Guardian who has a similar Massive Sp2 but his basic hits and ramp up till that point is comparatively less damage soaked but occasional big burst of Shock damage in place of his Crits. Do they make both of those a 5 in Damage Rating or does one go to 4 because Guardian's is less spread throughout, as well Guardian's Shocks replace his Crits which is Utility so does that make his Utility Rating equal or higher than Shang-Chi... And it just keeps escalating from there with the other 200+ Champions. One more example, what about Ikaris... If he has say a 2 or 3 in Utility but 5 in Damage, someone's gonna see him as a bad champion when compared to the Damage 5 Utility 4 Champions even though he has some fights he handles much better than others (like all those Incinerates activating Incursions Hacks or Regen Reversing).
On top of all this how does Ramp Up fit into the equation, Shang-Chi has an instant MM applying a Short (5 Second) to Long (20 Second) Slow Debuff. But not the Longest Slow out there, does that mean that Champion with the Longer Slow have a higher Rating even though they might have a longer Ramp Up to it like Spidey2099's Sp3? (Same thing applies to Damage and Survivability)
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
First off, stop taking away regular features from the game. REGULAR MONTHLY BUFFS. No buffs for January, no buffs for February, one value update for March, which means we'll have to wait till April to get the usual reworks and buffs. Despite the number of champions buffed dropping from 4 to 3 to 2 during 2021 I appreciate that at least we still got regular buffs to look forward to each month; dropping yet another regular monthly update even 'just' for three months feels like another step down on your part using this 'balancing-update' to slack off even more.
Secondly, the possibility of tune-downs. I do like the idea of having a rating system for tuning-up underwhelming new champions, which probably could've saved the likes of Purgatory & Chavez last year, but concurrently this also opens up the gate for future tune-downs. Which means you could sell off a champion as 'game-breaking, easy beyond-god tier!' and have everyone spend resources and time to get that champ, only to introduce a tune-down a few months down the road and significantly nerf that champ. There's really no guarantee on what would happen which means brand-new OP champs might not stay OP (or usable) as Kabam would simply give them tune-downs.
Lastly, there really isn't a quality guarantee for tune-ups. The fact that you'll be buffing Gamora AGAIN after her tune-up just a few months ago is saying a lot. As further examples the tune-ups for Nova & Ronin in 2021 did close to nothing for their kits. Tune-ups aren't guaranteed bad (Thor Rags, Nebula) but it'd be lame for a champion to get a worthless tune-up and THEN need waste another buff slot further down the road simply because the first one wasn't enough for them.
I guess we'll have to wait and see when this gets implemented (which would be half a year later lmao) but for now I really ain't impressed with these updates.
Very disappointed. We need those useless champs buffed. And need loads of them.
The team was going the right way for a while, now it feels like it's going in a million different directions and forgetting the basics. Keep it simple. Make the old and unused champs awsome for us to use.
Why are you wasting time changing DPX's animations only? So he'll look cool... and still suck pretty much
@Kabam Miike you guys should check out karatemikes video -https://youtu.be/OGHfGx6BKho. They way he rated the Champs were spot on. He even rated Champs that have value in different content in the game. I would be on board with you guys using him to rate Champs to help with balancing.
Comments
Now You say that you will be focusing more on balancing newly released champs and less on consistent monthly reworks of older champs. I really hate that idea. There are so many terrible champs in the game who we all have. These champs offer no value and just cause heartbreak when you pull them as 6*s. But there was always hope that they would get buffed next month. NOT ANYMORE. Now the priority is to balance champs that 90% of the playerbase won't have access to. This honestly angers me because it's taking away the excitement I had for every new update. I don't care if you slightly tweak sauron,; I don't have him and I probably won't for months. It has no impact on my account or enjoyment of the game (and again, I can't imagine a significant amount of players have him either). Buffing someone like antman or captain america would be far more impactful. I like the idea of new champion animations because that is very much needed. Maybe it won't be so bad and I'll be happy to eat my words but this left a bad taste in my mouth.
As for the rating system, I'm still skeptical, especially if you think hercules doesn't have utility. Are these ratings based off quantity or quality? Hercules doesn't have a lot of utility but what he has is very valuable. Just because a champ has a lot of text doesn't mean 1) they are good, 2) their utility is good or 3) they are more valuable than a champ with less. Again, we'll have to wait and see but I'm not overly optimistic. Hopefully I'm wrong
Say for example a champ is released with an incredible power control ability, and his "utility" rating is a 3 out of 5.
What does that mean to a summoner? How are we to know the champ's power control at release is behaving at a 5 out of 5 when the intent was to be a 3 out 5?
I'm sorry to say, these seems like an incredibly flawed approach, that can only be successful if Kabam is willing to forego selling crystals until after all rebalancing has been completed.
Anything less than that commitment inherently welcomes a system that is effectively at massive risk of a bait and switch scenario.
Similar to how Kabam's Ai tries to pick the highest rated/healthiest champion on my questing team to match up with the next defender. Often I'm like - yeah right... I feel I would ignore this rating system as well but I'll keep my mind open.
The rating system will probably need a bit of tweaking before it settles down, I think. As a measure of how much to buff/debuff a champion for balance, I suspect judgement calls will always be needed - it's a guide but just that.
The lack of buffs for February is a shame, especially as January had been a bit dry. It would have been better if there had been a very limited numbers tweak to a couple of champs, as a bit of a placeholder if nothing else.
The champion buffs were the best thing going in this game for the last year, EASILY, and you know the community loved and looked forward to them. And now, you are essentially slowing them down even more so than they already were? Honest question --- Do you guys actually listen to the community at all?
I am disappointed with this new "system" and wonder how long it will last before it goes down the drain as well.
But how do you quantify between "Small Amount Of Potent Utility" and "Large Amount Of Micro Utility"?
-Someone could have an Ability that counters all Miss/Evade/Auto-Block and be Immune to 1 Debuff but nothing else but still be Solid.
-Meanwhile someone who Resists 3 Debuffs, Counters Recoil Damage, as well can Refresh Debuffs Occasionally could be equally Solid.
How do they decide what gets a higher Rating and when Balancing it how are we supposed to determine the outcome from that 1 to 5 base line when each rating could be so broad?
Not to mention how the game is constantly evolving with non permanent content always changing to keep relevant with the newest types of characters, some Utility that was great/rare now might not be as highly rated in the years to come as the game continues to evolve and makes certain things more common or less to match the changing meta which should change how the character is rated. (For example Coldsnap deals damage and has the Utility to shuts down Evade, it was and still is a pretty rare Debuff for champion kits but now we have the Slow Debuff which can effectively apply the same Utility but is on many more champions. Making the Coldsnap Debuff still a good effect but not as special as it was before the Slow Debuff was introduced.)
Balancing is just another word for nerf. Takes a person 0.8sec to realised this but kabam probable thinks their players doesn’t.
Anyway. Good luck kabam. Do what you like and the players will react. Remember, there’s a word called “ consequences”.
I think that Rating System is a very bad idea, the game is waaay too broad to have a Rating System as simple as "A 1 to 5 Rating for ALL POSSIBLE Utility". For example Reverse Controls Immunity is only useful in like 20% of the game, but it's still exceptional Utility to have for someone who hasn't adapted to Reversed Controls...
(These are all pretty wide and basic examples, and are meant to be a comparative example instead examining the actual full examples, like comparing 1 Piece of Utility when the champion actually has 8 Pieces of Utility that could be compared to multiple cases in the same way.)
It could give people the wrong idea on how certain Champion's are actually viable over others, like Shang-Chi for example has Exceptional Damage and Utility so let's say he gets a 5 in Damage and 4 in Utility. But then someone like Mr Negative who has equal, and in some cases better encounters than Shang-Chi, with a different cadence might be rated Damage of 4 and Utility of 4... Well now the less informed players are just going to think Shang-Chi is better than Mr Negative which in this very broad game isn't always true.
Then how do they scale damage, Shang-Chi as an example again has tons of Crits that also scale with each successive activation and charges that buff Attack for a Massive Sp2. But then you have Guardian who has a similar Massive Sp2 but his basic hits and ramp up till that point is comparatively less damage soaked but occasional big burst of Shock damage in place of his Crits. Do they make both of those a 5 in Damage Rating or does one go to 4 because Guardian's is less spread throughout, as well Guardian's Shocks replace his Crits which is Utility so does that make his Utility Rating equal or higher than Shang-Chi... And it just keeps escalating from there with the other 200+ Champions.
One more example, what about Ikaris... If he has say a 2 or 3 in Utility but 5 in Damage, someone's gonna see him as a bad champion when compared to the Damage 5 Utility 4 Champions even though he has some fights he handles much better than others (like all those Incinerates activating Incursions Hacks or Regen Reversing).
On top of all this how does Ramp Up fit into the equation, Shang-Chi has an instant MM applying a Short (5 Second) to Long (20 Second) Slow Debuff. But not the Longest Slow out there, does that mean that Champion with the Longer Slow have a higher Rating even though they might have a longer Ramp Up to it like Spidey2099's Sp3? (Same thing applies to Damage and Survivability)
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
Secondly, the possibility of tune-downs. I do like the idea of having a rating system for tuning-up underwhelming new champions, which probably could've saved the likes of Purgatory & Chavez last year, but concurrently this also opens up the gate for future tune-downs. Which means you could sell off a champion as 'game-breaking, easy beyond-god tier!' and have everyone spend resources and time to get that champ, only to introduce a tune-down a few months down the road and significantly nerf that champ. There's really no guarantee on what would happen which means brand-new OP champs might not stay OP (or usable) as Kabam would simply give them tune-downs.
Lastly, there really isn't a quality guarantee for tune-ups. The fact that you'll be buffing Gamora AGAIN after her tune-up just a few months ago is saying a lot. As further examples the tune-ups for Nova & Ronin in 2021 did close to nothing for their kits. Tune-ups aren't guaranteed bad (Thor Rags, Nebula) but it'd be lame for a champion to get a worthless tune-up and THEN need waste another buff slot further down the road simply because the first one wasn't enough for them.
I guess we'll have to wait and see when this gets implemented (which would be half a year later lmao) but for now I really ain't impressed with these updates.
The team was going the right way for a while, now it feels like it's going in a million different directions and forgetting the basics. Keep it simple. Make the old and unused champs awsome for us to use.
Why are you wasting time changing DPX's animations only? So he'll look cool... and still suck pretty much