New Energy Economy Will Lead To Serious Game-Changing Issues

Note: This is not directly related to the 5.3.6 Energy Refill Nerf.

MCOC has for a while struggled at times with major energy crunches, which sometime has ended with 0 power side quests and even a change to Act 4 to 2/power per tile. If the current battleground state stays the same 15/energy per match it is either dead on arrival because players will ignore it due to high energy cost or will ignore questing altogether. It is already very tight as my main account is thronebreaker wither 100% of Act 6 done and neither all content excluding Act 7 at least completed if not explored. Currently, I am exploring Act 7, 3-4 routes a week, fully exploring cavalier and uncollected, and the occasional run on ROL or down some high spawn rate map while getting ready for work. It is already a major energy crunch as Act 7 is 3 energy/tile and the later uncollected and cavalier are the same. I have ignored the beta for BG altogether because even with the energy objectives it's a major net loss. Something will have to change on BG release or it will become another incursions, a fun mode that just can be played maybe once a month.

It is not sustainable to have an already heavily hit category energy because the main source for another main mode. If BG is going to become a main MCOC staple then it cannot use the same energy as questing. Otherwise you are forced to choose between daily quest, event quest, side quest, story quest/special quests....or battlegrounds. Unless the plan is to do away with questing comepletely or make battlegrounds a nearly forgotten sideshow there must be something down about energy. Either all questing modes needs to be reduced to 1/power per route or preferably Battlegrounds has it's own energy system like AQ and AW or arena/incursions with the refill timer.

TLDR- Battlegrounds and questing being on same energy mode will cause an unsustainable power crunch where one will have to be nearly abandoned.

This is not meant to be entirely negative only to give an honest outlook on the coming energy crisis coming on battlegrounds release without significant changes to energy.

Comments

Vendemiaire

My thoughts exactly. 15/energy per match is just too much. It should have a separate energy resource.

LeNoirFaineant

If it becomes a problem I expect they will tweak it.

Schmittonyou2

Energy refills are cheap and they give them out like candy

TyEdge

Uncollected EQ costs 18-20 refills to complete per month and you get a quarter of a 6-star. I run EQ on autofight to farm units when I can’t play and energy is full. Otherwise, there’s nothing wrong with making choices. That’s especially true when you realize how much of the rewards you can capture off a first pass (6 paths)

GroundedWisdom

It's a balancing factor. If people are spending all their Energy on BGs, they're going to come up short for other content, and it's going to lead to larger problems. As much as people don't like limitations, they're necessary.

RicoShay

It's a balancing factor. If people are spending all their Energy on BGs, they're going to come up short for other content, and it's going to lead to larger problems. As much as people don't like limitations, they're necessary.

That's precisely why we need dedicated energy/ranked-fight-tokens (like duel credits). I think non-competitive fights should have no cost at all and just be in place for fun and friendly competition. If we had a dedicated energy/token to do competitive fights I think the mode would thrive but for now 15 energy and the extremely competitive nature won't work for all players which will seriously impact the player reception around the game mode and how it is to be played.
You're really off the rails today Grounded. Yes the game needs limitations but if these limitations change the overall enjoyment of the game then they shouldn't be in place.

GroundedWisdom

It's a balancing factor. If people are spending all their Energy on BGs, they're going to come up short for other content, and it's going to lead to larger problems. As much as people don't like limitations, they're necessary.
That's precisely why we need dedicated energy/ranked-fight-tokens (like duel credits). I think non-competitive fights should have no cost at all and just be in place for fun and friendly competition. If we had a dedicated energy/token to do competitive fights I think the mode would thrive but for now 15 energy and the extremely competitive nature won't work for all players which will seriously impact the player reception around the game mode and how it is to be played.
You're really off the rails today Grounded. Yes the game needs limitations but if these limitations change the overall enjoyment of the game then they shouldn't be in place.

You think Battlegrounds is Non-Competitive?

RicoShay

It's a balancing factor. If people are spending all their Energy on BGs, they're going to come up short for other content, and it's going to lead to larger problems. As much as people don't like limitations, they're necessary.
That's precisely why we need dedicated energy/ranked-fight-tokens (like duel credits). I think non-competitive fights should have no cost at all and just be in place for fun and friendly competition. If we had a dedicated energy/token to do competitive fights I think the mode would thrive but for now 15 energy and the extremely competitive nature won't work for all players which will seriously impact the player reception around the game mode and how it is to be played.
You're really off the rails today Grounded. Yes the game needs limitations but if these limitations change the overall enjoyment of the game then they shouldn't be in place.
You think Battlegrounds is Non-Competitive?

I think it should be available to both. I even suggested a competitive energy system to better assist the fairness in competitive play because if you have units or the refills you could have farmed from the quest that shall not be named you have an advantage. Imagine the alliance that could do the most wars in a season got to take 1st place rather than the best performing alliance. That's why we all have the same amount of war opportunities as any other alliance.

I take BG's competitively because I've pushed for top 200 in both betas and currently remain in top 300 but several of my friends and alliance mates (who're also in a competitive alliance) think the mode should support both comp and friendly play. Nothing wrong with wanting to play a game mode for fun rather than competitively. We all enjoy different things

GroundedWisdom

It's a balancing factor. If people are spending all their Energy on BGs, they're going to come up short for other content, and it's going to lead to larger problems. As much as people don't like limitations, they're necessary.
That's precisely why we need dedicated energy/ranked-fight-tokens (like duel credits). I think non-competitive fights should have no cost at all and just be in place for fun and friendly competition. If we had a dedicated energy/token to do competitive fights I think the mode would thrive but for now 15 energy and the extremely competitive nature won't work for all players which will seriously impact the player reception around the game mode and how it is to be played.
You're really off the rails today Grounded. Yes the game needs limitations but if these limitations change the overall enjoyment of the game then they shouldn't be in place.
You think Battlegrounds is Non-Competitive?
I think it should be available to both. I even suggested a competitive energy system to better assist the fairness in competitive play because if you have units or the refills you could have farmed from the quest that shall not be named you have an advantage. Imagine the alliance that could do the most wars in a season got to take 1st place rather than the best performing alliance. That's why we all have the same amount of war opportunities as any other alliance.

I take BG's competitively because I've pushed for top 200 in both betas and currently remain in top 300 but several of my friends and alliance mates (who're also in a competitive alliance) think the mode should support both comp and friendly play. Nothing wrong with wanting to play a game mode for fun rather than competitively. We all enjoy different things

The mode itself is competitive because it's a competition. I mean, I agree that people can play casually, but I don't see that as any different than people who play any other mode casually. Some go hard and go all-in, while others play some now and then.

Vendemiaire

It's a balancing factor. If people are spending all their Energy on BGs, they're going to come up short for other content, and it's going to lead to larger problems. As much as people don't like limitations, they're necessary.
That's precisely why we need dedicated energy/ranked-fight-tokens (like duel credits). I think non-competitive fights should have no cost at all and just be in place for fun and friendly competition. If we had a dedicated energy/token to do competitive fights I think the mode would thrive but for now 15 energy and the extremely competitive nature won't work for all players which will seriously impact the player reception around the game mode and how it is to be played.
You're really off the rails today Grounded. Yes the game needs limitations but if these limitations change the overall enjoyment of the game then they shouldn't be in place.
You think Battlegrounds is Non-Competitive?
I think it should be available to both. I even suggested a competitive energy system to better assist the fairness in competitive play because if you have units or the refills you could have farmed from the quest that shall not be named you have an advantage. Imagine the alliance that could do the most wars in a season got to take 1st place rather than the best performing alliance. That's why we all have the same amount of war opportunities as any other alliance.

I take BG's competitively because I've pushed for top 200 in both betas and currently remain in top 300 but several of my friends and alliance mates (who're also in a competitive alliance) think the mode should support both comp and friendly play. Nothing wrong with wanting to play a game mode for fun rather than competitively. We all enjoy different things
The mode itself is competitive because it's a competition. I mean, I agree that people can play casually, but I don't see that as any different than people who play any other mode casually. Some go hard and go all-in, while others play some now and then.

Yea, AQ and AW should also share the same Energy then.

TheBair123

here are some easy and quick solutions:
1. make all side quests energy-free
2. make energy refills more accessible
3. lower the energy cost in battlegrounds (maybe 5, maybe 10, would want to see some data first)

GroundedWisdom

The issue with both is you would need 2 separate game modes, like a practice and regular. That would be pretty taxing on the server, not to mention complicated to iron out, given that it's a new game mode.
I could see the possibility of earning Credits somehow in the future, but those would likely also be limited.

Graves_3

I'm not being argumentative for the sake of anything. I consider all aspects I can think of and respond with my opinions, just like anyone else. Stop and consider the servers and their capabilities. Consider how new this game mode is and how much work it will be to get it up and running optimally. All I'm doing is applying logic within the parameters of what is available and what they're working with. It seems limitations is the word of the day.

Non competitive mode is when you want to challenge your alliance mates or friends for a one on one. This shouldn’t have an energy requirement or rewards except bragging rights for the victor. Kabam miike had mentioned they are working on something of this sort. So all your talk of non feasibility of such a mode is just that..talk..and how on earth do you even know the server capacity. And if this is feasible or not? Are you one of the devs?

Kennado

If it becomes a problem I expect they will tweak it.

It's not a matter of "if" if you read the og post. Matter of fact, it will be a problem that will be fixed in 2023 if you've played long enough to know the pattern of operations.

GroundedWisdom

I'm not being argumentative for the sake of anything. I consider all aspects I can think of and respond with my opinions, just like anyone else. Stop and consider the servers and their capabilities. Consider how new this game mode is and how much work it will be to get it up and running optimally. All I'm doing is applying logic within the parameters of what is available and what they're working with. It seems limitations is the word of the day.
Non competitive mode is when you want to challenge your alliance mates or friends for a one on one. This shouldn’t have an energy requirement or rewards except bragging rights for the victor. Kabam miike had mentioned they are working on something of this sort. So all your talk of non feasibility of such a mode is just that..talk..and how on earth do you even know the server capacity. And if this is feasible or not? Are you one of the devs?

Are you new? Have you seen the issues caused by the limitations of the servers?
That could be more feasible I suppose, but it would likely be further down the road.

DNA3000

It's a balancing factor. If people are spending all their Energy on BGs, they're going to come up short for other content, and it's going to lead to larger problems. As much as people don't like limitations, they're necessary.
That's precisely why we need dedicated energy/ranked-fight-tokens (like duel credits). I think non-competitive fights should have no cost at all and just be in place for fun and friendly competition. If we had a dedicated energy/token to do competitive fights I think the mode would thrive but for now 15 energy and the extremely competitive nature won't work for all players which will seriously impact the player reception around the game mode and how it is to be played.

I originally advocated for battlegrounds to use its own energy currency, but the more I thought about why the devs would design it to burn quest energy, the more I've come to realize that's a dangerous suggestion, and I now advocate reducing the costs to manageable levels, not dedicate separate energy to it.

It is important to realize that the reason why AQ and AW have their own energy is not to give those modes more energy, it is to constrain them more than quest energy would allow. If we could use quest energy, even if a move had high costs like say ten or fifteen energy, that would still potentially allow players to move farther and faster than originally intended, because players could choose how to spend energy. That agency is actually a powerful choice when handed to the players, and it is a choice players get when battlegrounds burns quest energy.

Yes, it means the player might have to choose to do a bg match instead of a side quest path. In those situations, the player can choose which one is more important to them. That may seem like an agonizing choice, until you ask if you want the devs to make it for you. They aren't going to decide to let you do everything. They will instead choose for you, allowing you do to X side quests paths and Y battleground match ups. Don't like those numbers? Too bad.

With BGs having their own energy currency, you'll be able to do X matches per day, and that's it. Miss your matches that day? Eventually, just like all energy bars, you'll get full and start losing match opportunities. Would you rather do more BG matches than heroic side quest paths? Sorry, you can't.

The downside to burning quest energy is a lot of players have tight energy budgets, and doing battlegrounds will mean not doing something else. But that's not an entirely bad thing, when the alternative is the developers choose for you, and you don't get a say. With dedicated energy they can and will decide how many matches you can do per day, per week, per month. You won't have any choices (short of spending, which will always be an option).

Given those two options, I greatly prefer having the choice of where to burn my energy, and a system where the devs aren't micromanaging how I use it. I might not want to choose which thing to do, but I would rather make the choice myself than let someone else make it for me.

Wakandas_Finest

Energy is only a problem for the “try hards” in the community. Kabam has made it pretty clear in the past that they want players to have to make choices and/or pace themselves. Like the other poster said it’s about balance find your balance and stop whining for kabam to cater the game around what you want.

RicoShay

I partially agree with your point on dedicated energy being somewhat problematic but at the same time, it will keep the mode grounded enough that a skilled player will be defined "better" than a player with a rank 5 unit man and the will to spend units on refills. Kabam already decides how your energy can be used and limiting one area of the contest to make way for the content that is completely separate from regular questing isn't exactly a good move by the game team. Competitive modes have a unique energy system for a reason. No reason BG's has to be any different. Battlegrounds should facilitate all other types of players is all I've been clawing at. I plan on being competitive but what about the players that don't? They've just got to suck it up and find something better to do which is just outright stupid for a mode as enjoyable as BG's

Wakandas_Finest

I partially agree with your point on dedicated energy being somewhat problematic but at the same time, it will keep the mode grounded enough that a skilled player will be defined "better" than a player with a rank 5 unit man and the will to spend units on refills. Kabam already decides how your energy can be used and limiting one area of the contest to make way for the content that is completely separate from regular questing isn't exactly a good move by the game team. Battlegrounds should facilitate all other types of players is all I've been clawing at. I plan on being competitive but what about the players that don't? They've just got to suck it up and find something better to do which is just out right stupid for a mode as enjoyable as BG's

We’ll they did say that they were working on a more friendly BG where you can compete against your alliance mates and friends pretty sure that will be sufficient enough to facilitate all players

RicoShay

Maybe. We'll have to wait and see but for now I'll advocate for the new energy system. The mode is only in testing and betas so we'll likely see growth from the team. I just want a fair and enjoyable game mode for all

J0eySn0w

Maybe. We'll have to wait and see but for now I'll advocate for the new energy system. The mode is only in testing and betas so we'll likely see growth from the team. I just want a fair and enjoyable game mode for all

Alternatively, they could have left things the way they were and made changes along the road as they gather more data from the real and live game mode instead of the beta. Yeah they did say it went live earlier than expected but 🥱.
Why does there always have to be something major the majority of the player base complain about it. I don’t think it’s good for the game, people have their tolerance limit.

LilMaddogHT

Energy refills are cheap and they give them out like candy

Until they nerfed the 5.3.6 map this past weekend. At least you ‘could’ put time and effort into it farm refills and reallocate energy use for a later date…. Not anymore 😒

Wozzle007

Kabam have separated the way we can buy potions for AQ and AW, which we now have the 2 separate in game economies. They view AQ and AW separately. There is no reason that Battlegrounds and Questing should be grouped together and both use energy. They are totally separate modes and should not have crossover of resources required to take part in them.

Dart1981

It's a balancing factor. If people are spending all their Energy on BGs, they're going to come up short for other content, and it's going to lead to larger problems. As much as people don't like limitations, they're necessary.
That's precisely why we need dedicated energy/ranked-fight-tokens (like duel credits). I think non-competitive fights should have no cost at all and just be in place for fun and friendly competition. If we had a dedicated energy/token to do competitive fights I think the mode would thrive but for now 15 energy and the extremely competitive nature won't work for all players which will seriously impact the player reception around the game mode and how it is to be played.
I originally advocated for battlegrounds to use its own energy currency, but the more I thought about why the devs would design it to burn quest energy, the more I've come to realize that's a dangerous suggestion, and I now advocate reducing the costs to manageable levels, not dedicate separate energy to it.

It is important to realize that the reason why AQ and AW have their own energy is not to give those modes more energy, it is to constrain them more than quest energy would allow. If we could use quest energy, even if a move had high costs like say ten or fifteen energy, that would still potentially allow players to move farther and faster than originally intended, because players could choose how to spend energy. That agency is actually a powerful choice when handed to the players, and it is a choice players get when battlegrounds burns quest energy.

Yes, it means the player might have to choose to do a bg match instead of a side quest path. In those situations, the player can choose which one is more important to them. That may seem like an agonizing choice, until you ask if you want the devs to make it for you. They aren't going to decide to let you do everything. They will instead choose for you, allowing you do to X side quests paths and Y battleground match ups. Don't like those numbers? Too bad.

With BGs having their own energy currency, you'll be able to do X matches per day, and that's it. Miss your matches that day? Eventually, just like all energy bars, you'll get full and start losing match opportunities. Would you rather do more BG matches than heroic side quest paths? Sorry, you can't.

The downside to burning quest energy is a lot of players have tight energy budgets, and doing battlegrounds will mean not doing something else. But that's not an entirely bad thing, when the alternative is the developers choose for you, and you don't get a say. With dedicated energy they can and will decide how many matches you can do per day, per week, per month. You won't have any choices (short of spending, which will always be an option).

Given those two options, I greatly prefer having the choice of where to burn my energy, and a system where the devs aren't micromanaging how I use it. I might not want to choose which thing to do, but I would rather make the choice myself than let someone else make it for me.

Yes, but isn’t the fact that champs have limited entry use and a cool-down with a price to “re-energise” already a limiting factor determined by the developers in addition to questing energy cost? It should be one or the other not both. I know in the beta cooldown was 1 gold but I expect on go live this will work like incursions and be a unit expense which on top of the energy cost is steep.

laserjohn26

Last I checked you can buy energy refills for the really cheap price of 30 units. If you only do the 4* arena each week that's 560 units not including what you get from battlechips. Its pretty easy to get on average 2000 units a week if you spend a little more time in the arena.

Noobda

Last I checked you can buy energy refills for the really cheap price of 30 units. If you only do the 4* arena each week that's 560 units not including what you get from battlechips. Its pretty easy to get on average 2000 units a week if you spend a little more time in the arena.

You really use your units on refills? Seems like a new player to me. Kabam also wants the same thing that we use our units on refills that's why they nerfed 5.3.6 . No refills means no revives farming.

Ghostboytjie

The issue with both is you would need 2 separate game modes, like a practice and regular. That would be pretty taxing on the server, not to mention complicated to iron out, given that it's a new game mode.
I could see the possibility of earning Credits somehow in the future, but those would likely also be limited.

This is actually true. The moment bg got released we had bad connection issues cause of the load it took. Now if they made x2 of these , Competitive and Non-Competitive. The servers wouldn't be stable

RicoShay

Maybe. We'll have to wait and see but for now I'll advocate for the new energy system. The mode is only in testing and betas so we'll likely see growth from the team. I just want a fair and enjoyable game mode for all
Alternatively, they could have left things the way they were and made changes along the road as they gather more data from the real and live game mode instead of the beta. Yeah they did say it went live earlier than expected but 🥱.
Why does there always have to be something major the majority of the player base complain about it. I don’t think it’s good for the game, people have their tolerance limit.

It's not even a matter of complaining. It's a matter of suggesting a change for the betterment of the mode and that is why the beta should be exploring more than just the character energy cap and the defensive node. The 2nd, 3rd, 4th, however many betas should be making large changes and asking the community on how much they like the change. If they implement blind picks we can test to see why they do/don't work. If they implement an energy system we can see why it will/won't work. It's only a beta

The issue with both is you would need 2 separate game modes, like a practice and regular. That would be pretty taxing on the server, not to mention complicated to iron out, given that it's a new game mode.
I could see the possibility of earning Credits somehow in the future, but those would likely also be limited.
This is actually true. The moment bg got released we had bad connection issues cause of the load it took. Now if they made x2 of these , Competitive and Non-Competitive. The servers wouldn't be stable

I would assume a large reason behind why it crashed is because every player uncollected and above could matchmake and they did as soon as the mode was released. This is the first time in a long time a major piece of content was accessible to such a large portion of the player base and of course with the excitement that came along the servers were going to experience stress. What you neglect is that only the battlegrounds servers had issues, not the rest of the game which means Kabam is likely working on a solution which is the whole point behind a beta. Nobody said comp and non comp had to run on different servers. That's the same application as saying silver tier wars are one a different server to gold or plat wars and the same for AQ maps. You can run a separate version of the same mode on a shared server and it won't break the game. The biggest issue unfortunately is the number of players with access to the mode rather than if they were to facilitate a non-competitive version of the mode

Wicket329

I don’t agree with the contention I’ve seen here that somebody could spend their way to the top of the scoreboard via energy refills. No matter how many rounds of Battlegrounds you play, you will eventually plateau at the proper ranking for yourself. And a skilled player is going to climb the leaderboard with relative ease to the point at which they should be.

In my own case, I played exactly enough instances of Battlegrounds during this beta to get the 5,000 6* shards. That turned out to be 25 matches, I went 20 and 5 throughout my matches. During my games, I matched up with players who have played many, many more matches than I have. Hundreds more. But I have a higher rating than them having played only 25 over the course of a week.

Obviously practice will help you perform better, but other than that the ability to grind away endlessly at the mode does not promise any better results. If anything, that player who is just throwing energy refills at the mode is going to see diminishing returns as they become tired and frustrated by watching their rating decline.

Panchulon21

I don’t see a major problem with it if they provide energy refills consistently in solo objectives. Story mode isn’t around all the time and it’s permanent, variant is also permanent so you don’t need to do it quickly. EQ is temp but the way I do cavalier is only focus on it during event quest completion.