**Mastery Loadouts**
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Comments
That suggests he is open to continuing to work on his roster—just not via 7* rarity. He would prefer another way of working on his roster.
This is a common sentiment I hear expressed in a lot of places. Add-ons or gears or relics or other things are all potentially acceptable, but only on the existing base layer of champs. Creating a whole new layer of the same 200-300 champs isn’t nearly as popular.
Dr. Zola
I just gave at least 3 examples of alternatives that could be appealing. Several other suggestions have been given as well. Heck, I'm still waiting on bases and new masteries that would bring life into different champs I already have. Battle grounds is another example of thinking outside of the box, to some extent - more game modes.
Plus, Kabam is trying some new things with strikers (personally don't think the way its been implemented makes any difference) and potentially relics (TBD, but honestly not looking forward to that, but I could change my mind if it is done in a cool way that doesn't make the game interactions harder to follow than they already are).
So why, again, would 7* be the only way the game could keep going? It's the only way it could keep going like it has been, but that's not a direction that is going to entice me to stick around if it happens.
The problem is, that's not the problem new rarities are intended to solve in the first place. Yes, there are lots of ways to add more progression to the game. 7* champs are the least interesting way to do that. Alternate progression innovations built on top of the existing rarities have a lot of potential to add more interesting progression avenues, and would be great in general, which is why Kabam is actually looking at adding such things to the game. Relics addresses the issue of innovating more interesting ways to progress.
7* champs have absolutely nothing to do with that at all. 7* champs would address a completely different issue entirely. Namely, progression tier saturation. The fundamental element to the game is champion collection. Most of the rest of the game progression is built upon it. And there comes a time when chasing the two hundred fiftieth champion out of 250 dilutes that chase to the point of being impossible to use as a primary driver. Trying to get the 247th 6* champ out of 250 is only going to make completists excited. When the game reaches the point where the top tier players have all the 6* champs and the average players have only *most* of the 6* champs, the thing driving the engine of the game dilutes itself to the point of no longer functioning.
Before that happens, the race has to get reset. You can hide that reset or disguise that reset, but eventually everyone has to go back to trying to get the first twelve of something. It doesn't have to be 7* champs. We could introduce relics where to advance your 6* Corvus you need to find a special Corvus relic to do it. But that would just be disguising 7* champs as relics. Instead of having to hunt for a 7* Corvus, you would have to hunt for a Corvus relic instead. Same hunt, only worse because now you need both.
Suppose you were able to wave a magic wand and make both relics and 7* champs impossible to make in the game. What would happen then? The devs would resort to power hyperinflation. The 260th champion added to the game would just be designed to be twice as powerful as any previous champion, to force players to chase after it. It would be a 7* champion where the devs painted over one star. And it would take special catalysts to rank up beyond the standard 6* champion, just because. The rarity stars are just a paint job. The need to drive the chase compels making things worth chasing, and at some point those things need to be not just a little better, but a quantum leap forward better so that they stand out. 7* rarity is just a convenient metaphor that is easy for players to understand. But if we're forced to, we can make a new rarity without making a new rarity, just so players can't complaint about a new rarity. But that's just extra effort for no real benefit.
7* champs are just the means to an end. The core issue is the need to reset the chase. And if players say they don't want the chase to reset, well that's going to be a problem. Because the need to reset the chase is seen as an existential threat to the game: if they don't reset the chase, that's the end of the game. It doesn't matter if the devs are right or wrong (although they are right: not resetting the chase is something there's historical precedent to study). The point is if the devs believe a problem is an existential threat, there's nothing you can threaten them with to persuade them to not address that threat.
People complaining they will quit the game if it happens means nothing if the devs believe there will be no game to quit if they don't. That's the fundamental issue here, and that's why 7* rarity - even if it is disguised - is inevitable. This is just the reality of progressional games as a service.
@GroundedWisdom agree to disagree
The members of the community who say they are quitting are the people who feel like they've already been through enough, and don't want to be preyed upon any longer. They are people who love this game, payed their dues ,and see a future for the game that at least respects them. It's very clear to anyone who has played this since the beginning that far more money is going in than is coming out, and because of that, they envision an avenue of advancement that is adequate for the game to succeed. They just don't want to feel like they are buying every employee a yacht like they have for 7 years. As a community that has caught their community leaders dead to rights in countless mistruths, they struggle to believe that the game will die if the top alliances don't drop millions during the gifting event.
A nuclear option such as 7 stars without a tremendous increase to hero acquisition will most definitely have a temporarily devastating impact at least, on a community who is already frustrated by a year of paying for a nearly unplayable display of their money being used inefficiently. Whether the game can recover from that kind of impact is anyone's guess. This situation is unique, and there is no adequate precedent to calculate that risk. If developers don't care as you say, enough to at least consider the probability of that risk, then such illogical reasoning alone is enough to fear this ship is being steered into the ground.
Among the MANY other suggestions to make the game interesting without adding 7* - original, exciting, new content with proportional rewards is what drives me to play. Other than exploring abyss and the abyss Carina runs, I'm all out of that and only have the monthly EQ to look forward too for R4 materials. At this point, champion acquisition is about all that's left for me and the thought of having to repeat the same collection from scratch again is not appealing.
Is there a middle ground? Sure: there are ways to reset progress partially without resetting it completely. We do that now. 6* champs are completely different from 5* champs, but actually having 5* champs does help gettiong 6* champs. *Some* of that investment is preserved. How much needs to be preserved is the question.
And the answer is: it *cannot* feel like it is enough. If it feels like it is enough, it is too much, and the reset is wasted and they'll just have to do it all over again.
Also, as I said before, it doesn't matter what the players believe. What matters is what the developers believe. You cannot convince them to commit professional suicide. And this is an area where, if you don't actually know anything about game development, your opinion won't be able to effectively change anything. Sure, the devs know there's angst here, and sure they know they have to try to address it. But they could easily do that by just saying this is it, we've heard from the players, and progression resets stop here. Everything from now on will be built upon 6* champs. If they *believed* that was possible, this would be a trivial thing to say. It doesn't hold them to anything, except that one thing.
The one thing they can't promise.
If the players can't accept that, the game's dead. All we're doing is trying to give the Titanic a new coat of paint after striking the iceberg. Games as a service survive only so long as players continue to play them, and continue to pay for them. When too many players believe "they've done enough" then they will face the ultimate reset: finding a new game to play. The players have no say in that, and frankly the developers have no say in that either.
One catalyst for me is that I don’t want to chase the same champs again—even if a new rarity includes some exclusive mechanic like strikers. I like my roster, I still have champs I need to learn, and I still enjoy the rankup process for my 6* champs. I’ve invested plenty of time, effort and resources to get them where they are.
Another catalyst for me is the reliability of gameplay. New phone, router and modem don’t seem to have resolved my issues. Remaining content I have requires fairly high attention and skill, and a balky connection (or whatever it is) complicates my efforts. Gearing up to chase a new rarity in light of glaring game issues seems like an illogical response.
And yes, as for forums, we are on the same page. I nearly disappeared earlier this year, but when I do for good you won’t find a treatise from me on the how and why. I will just leave.
Cheers!
Dr. Zola
My personal advice is not to continue doing 7 stars, 8 stars or whatever, but i prove contenta and get a level where all player could have the same roaster but the ability of every player can make the difference. And obviously make good deals for players who like to shop items. But I think that shop Items shouldn't be the way to get faster to a certain point but to collect items that would have been difficult to find. That's it.
I'm sorry for my english but I'm writing from Italy.
I’d rather play MCoC 2 with a new game engine than deal with 7*s and/or relics.
As time goes on it gets harder and harder because the meta don’t change. Same crystals, same odds, same everything. Opening a Nexus crystal with 90 champions in game is quite different than opening one with 230 in game.
The problems still persist today that they did 5 years ago but are more obtrusive because the champion pool gets bigger each month. Champion acquisition and rank up is way slower than the pace of the game which creates an imbalance.
Not only talking 6* champions either. 2*, 3*, 4* champions and the amount of them that are still partially ranked. Part of the game should be collecting and maxing out all of them. Gold mainly and some resources are still a problem even today for the average players to complete their collections.
Not everyone can spend hours a day in arenas to for gold collection. IMO the introduction of 7* tips the imbalance even further and completely destroys an already imbalanced game.
01) I love playing this game right now. I'm not tired of it.
02) However, yes, I will be tired of it if the only thing it has to offer is another repeat of collecting the EXACT SAME CHAMPS ANOTHER TIME.
03) There are multiple ways to make the game continue to be interesting. Of the most importance, NEW CONTENT that is challenging, fun and interesting.
Please don't try to interpret how I feel about the game - you can't possibly. You are NOT ME and you get it WRONG EVERY... SINGLE... TIME. Instead of trying to change my mind, for once, try contributing to possible solutions that the devs may find to be unique and appealing as well. That would be much more constructive to the topic at hand.
So the question is: can the game survive when the fastest progressing players in the game are basically, you, and players similar to you, and everyone more than a little to the right of you is gone? I doubt it.
Plus, your premise is also false. It isn't getting harder to acquire and target champs. First of all, rarities lower than the top rank are far easier to acquire and target than before. I have approaching all of the 5* champs (outside of trophy champs). That would have been impossible in the days before 6* champs. We just have vastly more 5* shards, we have dual class crystals, and we have arenas that let people target 5* champs far more easily than before. The combination of all of that makes it easier for players to fill in 5* rosters. The pursuit is only difficult with 6* champions specifically (and 2* champs if you happen to be collecting them), and even there it is far easier to collect those than 5* champs used to be, even factoring in the larger pool of champs. We are getting far more 6* shards and crystals than we were ever getting 5* champions prior to the introduction of 6* champs. Things like Nexus crystals are far more common. We even had 6* calendar year selector crystals start to be introduced, which is the ultimate in targeting.
Yes, not everyone can grind arena. Yes, not everyone can purchase selector crystals. But those limitations were just as true when it came to 5* champions: not everyone could save up tons of shards to use on OG featured crystals: that was just as exclusive of a game then as some options are now. The "meta" (which is not a meta) of collecting champions has changed dramatically, and continues to change. People saying nothing changes except the number of champions to collect simply haven't been paying attention to the game for the last four years.
The bottom line is acquiring and Ranking Champions is what the game is all about. There is no end-game Roster.