Ideas for QoL and QoS(erver)
Furrymoosen
Member Posts: 4,078 ★★★★★
Here are some ideas I have had regarding areas for minor improvement of the contest with meaningful impact for the players and the quality of the game. This may be long, so the TL;DR version is - remove some stuff, remove more stuff, and consistently address things that go untouched. Some of these ideas are pretty far outside the box and may be fairly dumb, but the worst idea is keeping everything the same.
Consumables:
Remove L1 health potions
The way the game has changed for new players has made these heals far less relevant than they once were. 3* champions are quickly gained and 375 health, while still useful, becomes nearly irrelevant quickly because struggling players would need multiple heals to get back to full. Rocket Raccoon has the lowest health in the game as a rank 2 3* champion and he already has 2,241 health before masteries. L1 heals could be removed with minimal impact on the player experience and would also be one less thing for the servers to support. Either replace their spawns 1-for-1 with L2 heals to slightly improve the early player experience (especially for those that tend to have more struggles learning) or replace them 2-for-1 and be left at the same place we are now. Another option would be to make all heals % based instead of flat health values.
Change AQ revives to % based to match AW
They don't have to be one glory, but if AW gets to be cheaper, then a non-competitive game mode like AQ should be also. There's no reason why AQ should cost units when it already costs a fairly significant (and by most players a fairly unwanted) amount of time. They don't need to be 1 glory for the revives (although that would be great!), but players should not have to drop hundreds of units to make their champs viable just because they had an off-day.
Inventory:
Remove unused Klyntar Catalysts
Honestly, how long ago did we get Steve? Why do many of us still have to look at 40/120 catalysts that we can't do anything with? Get rid of them, free up some space.
Remove Buff Randomizers
It's been over a year, maybe close to two years, since we had a lab event that required these. And let's be honest, they didn't really require them then either. I'm sure I'm not the only player with 8 of these sitting in their inventory for eternity.
Make Act 6.3 boosts sellable
Players that needed them once don't need them again aside from 1 or 2 Carina Challenges to this point. They're sitting in thousands of players inventory taking up space for no reason. Even if it's a single gold, let's free up some space. They're still purchasable if they're ever needed again, which for many players is highly unlikely once they have completed the chapter.
Crystals:
Remove Golden Crystal
I know many have raised the issue of a gold shortage. I have not personally experienced the issue (I usually have the catalyst shortage), but that doesn't mean it isn't very real for some players. This idea doesn't necessarily address that, but it can. It takes opening, depending on RNG, roughly 600-800 golden crystals to get enough gold to take a 6* champion to a now very common rank 3. That's a lot of opening piddly amounts of gold to do what is now a multiple times a week rank up for many players. The idea would be to remove the basic gold crystals altogether and replace their spawns with Greater Golden Crystals. It could be a 1:2 spawn ratio that keeps the status quo of the current gold market, or a minor boost could be brought to the gold market with a 1:1 trade.
Remove basic Arena Boost Crystals
Just swap them with the Greater Arena Boost Crystals. Those are the ones that matter. The basic ones just take up space and fill inventories with 3* and 4* boosts that while still usable just aren't good. How many players out there have a pile of hundreds or thousands of these things (non-Arena grinders not included)?
Remove or improve Crystal Shard Crystals
They're good for 1-3 week old players and that's about it. Give them meaningful upgrades for each progression level. Thronebreaker and Paragon shouldn't see less than 5* shards in these things, and it would also be a great way to introduce more legendary and mythic crystal shards into the game.
Improve Loyalty Crystals
I don't want to say remove because it is currently the only way for players to obtain the trophy champ of Unstoppable Colossus in 4* and lower. However, with the improvements to the loyalty store loyalty is now far too valuable to spend on these things. They need a serious overall. Higher level sig stones, more ISO-8, AW boosts, remove 5* UC from the store and add him into the crystal, etc. They need to be worth spending the loyalty on and they're frankly not.
Improve War Crystals
Increase loyalty, level of potions, frequency of boosts and for the love of all things holy remove arena boosts from these. Why are they even in there? War victor crystals should be an extra prize for winners and both crystals should help players in their next war. These are years overdue for an overhaul.
Improve Solo Crystals
Maybe add an extra level as well. But there's too many arena boosts in these. Why does everything have arena boosts!?! These obviously aren't supposed to be for helping players consistently progress their account, but once all your 4* are awakened and max sig these are borderline useless.
Objectives and Events:
Improve Level Up 22h Objective
It shouldn't be more valuable to a player based on cost to rank up 4* and 5* champs over 6* champions. Not that ranking 4* and 5* champions shouldn't be valuable, but the points are skewed excessively in their favor considering how much more expensive ranking and leveling 6* champs is. Adjust the points value so that 6*, the current most valuable champs, are appropriately valued for the objective.
Change Event Quest Completion solo objective
Include regular quest completion. For most players this objective is worthless toward the end of the month. Bring a bit of value back and give players the freedom to choose their completed content to get the rewards.
Introduce Test of the Paragon
It's been several months. This is overdue.
Improve Summoner Advancement
The rewards were improved a little over a year ago. Progress, but not enough. There should be move tiers for higher level alliances to achieve more meaningful rewards, but with that the means of achieving those rewards must also be improved. Currently the most impactful way to increase your points is opening preformed 4* crystals. Is it 2017? Dear Lord. Oh, and the next best thing is to just open gobs of T3CC crystals. While the rewards need more improvement, the more significant need is making so things that players beyond Act 4 regularly do have legitimate value.
Remove and replace 3-day Guardians objective
It's dumb. 6 out 234 champions. We've got villain use, why not do hero use or Spider-Verse/Symbiote/Sinister Six or literally anything but an objective with just 6 champs, at least half of which no one ranks or uses regularly.
Overdue Paragon Improvements
I'm sure they're coming, but we're still waiting on an updated Black Iso Market, updated Glory Store (hopefully coming in the next announcement!) and updated Side Quest rewards/store. A new event quest difficulty would also be a huge plus, even if it’s only Thronebreaker difficulty. The added objective for R4 materials is a nice addition, but it’s still cakewalk content with rewards that, while improved, just don’t line up with players progressing closer to the end game. Not that the event quest should be end game content, but it should be something that grabs the attention and playing time of those players. We won’t get start on variants…
Remove old and unused accounts
I’m sure I can’t be more specific without upsetting someone, but there are thousands upon thousands of accounts just taking up server space. My suggestion would be to remove all accounts Conqueror and lower that have not logged into the game in the last 400 days. Most of these accounts are likely old gifting accounts that completed their mission and haven’t been returned to, and others are new accounts with players that just didn’t stick. With the way the game has changed for newer players, it would not take long for returning players (although considering how far they made it it seems unlikely) to catch up to their progress. In addition, remove all accounts Uncollected and lower that have not logged into the game in the last 600 days. Likewise, eliminate all alliances with no active accounts in the last 100 days (would not eliminate accounts, just free them up). I imagine this move would not make the servers worse, but I will happily theorize that it will make them better.
End of list. Feel free to add more, feel free to hate, feel free to agree. Things have to change. And I’m not even touching on some of the other updates that are needed or how we need to get away from changing content once every few years and be more consistent and frequent with meaningful updates to all content.
Consumables:
Remove L1 health potions
The way the game has changed for new players has made these heals far less relevant than they once were. 3* champions are quickly gained and 375 health, while still useful, becomes nearly irrelevant quickly because struggling players would need multiple heals to get back to full. Rocket Raccoon has the lowest health in the game as a rank 2 3* champion and he already has 2,241 health before masteries. L1 heals could be removed with minimal impact on the player experience and would also be one less thing for the servers to support. Either replace their spawns 1-for-1 with L2 heals to slightly improve the early player experience (especially for those that tend to have more struggles learning) or replace them 2-for-1 and be left at the same place we are now. Another option would be to make all heals % based instead of flat health values.
Change AQ revives to % based to match AW
They don't have to be one glory, but if AW gets to be cheaper, then a non-competitive game mode like AQ should be also. There's no reason why AQ should cost units when it already costs a fairly significant (and by most players a fairly unwanted) amount of time. They don't need to be 1 glory for the revives (although that would be great!), but players should not have to drop hundreds of units to make their champs viable just because they had an off-day.
Inventory:
Remove unused Klyntar Catalysts
Honestly, how long ago did we get Steve? Why do many of us still have to look at 40/120 catalysts that we can't do anything with? Get rid of them, free up some space.
Remove Buff Randomizers
It's been over a year, maybe close to two years, since we had a lab event that required these. And let's be honest, they didn't really require them then either. I'm sure I'm not the only player with 8 of these sitting in their inventory for eternity.
Make Act 6.3 boosts sellable
Players that needed them once don't need them again aside from 1 or 2 Carina Challenges to this point. They're sitting in thousands of players inventory taking up space for no reason. Even if it's a single gold, let's free up some space. They're still purchasable if they're ever needed again, which for many players is highly unlikely once they have completed the chapter.
Crystals:
Remove Golden Crystal
I know many have raised the issue of a gold shortage. I have not personally experienced the issue (I usually have the catalyst shortage), but that doesn't mean it isn't very real for some players. This idea doesn't necessarily address that, but it can. It takes opening, depending on RNG, roughly 600-800 golden crystals to get enough gold to take a 6* champion to a now very common rank 3. That's a lot of opening piddly amounts of gold to do what is now a multiple times a week rank up for many players. The idea would be to remove the basic gold crystals altogether and replace their spawns with Greater Golden Crystals. It could be a 1:2 spawn ratio that keeps the status quo of the current gold market, or a minor boost could be brought to the gold market with a 1:1 trade.
Remove basic Arena Boost Crystals
Just swap them with the Greater Arena Boost Crystals. Those are the ones that matter. The basic ones just take up space and fill inventories with 3* and 4* boosts that while still usable just aren't good. How many players out there have a pile of hundreds or thousands of these things (non-Arena grinders not included)?
Remove or improve Crystal Shard Crystals
They're good for 1-3 week old players and that's about it. Give them meaningful upgrades for each progression level. Thronebreaker and Paragon shouldn't see less than 5* shards in these things, and it would also be a great way to introduce more legendary and mythic crystal shards into the game.
Improve Loyalty Crystals
I don't want to say remove because it is currently the only way for players to obtain the trophy champ of Unstoppable Colossus in 4* and lower. However, with the improvements to the loyalty store loyalty is now far too valuable to spend on these things. They need a serious overall. Higher level sig stones, more ISO-8, AW boosts, remove 5* UC from the store and add him into the crystal, etc. They need to be worth spending the loyalty on and they're frankly not.
Improve War Crystals
Increase loyalty, level of potions, frequency of boosts and for the love of all things holy remove arena boosts from these. Why are they even in there? War victor crystals should be an extra prize for winners and both crystals should help players in their next war. These are years overdue for an overhaul.
Improve Solo Crystals
Maybe add an extra level as well. But there's too many arena boosts in these. Why does everything have arena boosts!?! These obviously aren't supposed to be for helping players consistently progress their account, but once all your 4* are awakened and max sig these are borderline useless.
Objectives and Events:
Improve Level Up 22h Objective
It shouldn't be more valuable to a player based on cost to rank up 4* and 5* champs over 6* champions. Not that ranking 4* and 5* champions shouldn't be valuable, but the points are skewed excessively in their favor considering how much more expensive ranking and leveling 6* champs is. Adjust the points value so that 6*, the current most valuable champs, are appropriately valued for the objective.
Change Event Quest Completion solo objective
Include regular quest completion. For most players this objective is worthless toward the end of the month. Bring a bit of value back and give players the freedom to choose their completed content to get the rewards.
Introduce Test of the Paragon
It's been several months. This is overdue.
Improve Summoner Advancement
The rewards were improved a little over a year ago. Progress, but not enough. There should be move tiers for higher level alliances to achieve more meaningful rewards, but with that the means of achieving those rewards must also be improved. Currently the most impactful way to increase your points is opening preformed 4* crystals. Is it 2017? Dear Lord. Oh, and the next best thing is to just open gobs of T3CC crystals. While the rewards need more improvement, the more significant need is making so things that players beyond Act 4 regularly do have legitimate value.
Remove and replace 3-day Guardians objective
It's dumb. 6 out 234 champions. We've got villain use, why not do hero use or Spider-Verse/Symbiote/Sinister Six or literally anything but an objective with just 6 champs, at least half of which no one ranks or uses regularly.
Overdue Paragon Improvements
I'm sure they're coming, but we're still waiting on an updated Black Iso Market, updated Glory Store (hopefully coming in the next announcement!) and updated Side Quest rewards/store. A new event quest difficulty would also be a huge plus, even if it’s only Thronebreaker difficulty. The added objective for R4 materials is a nice addition, but it’s still cakewalk content with rewards that, while improved, just don’t line up with players progressing closer to the end game. Not that the event quest should be end game content, but it should be something that grabs the attention and playing time of those players. We won’t get start on variants…
Remove old and unused accounts
I’m sure I can’t be more specific without upsetting someone, but there are thousands upon thousands of accounts just taking up server space. My suggestion would be to remove all accounts Conqueror and lower that have not logged into the game in the last 400 days. Most of these accounts are likely old gifting accounts that completed their mission and haven’t been returned to, and others are new accounts with players that just didn’t stick. With the way the game has changed for newer players, it would not take long for returning players (although considering how far they made it it seems unlikely) to catch up to their progress. In addition, remove all accounts Uncollected and lower that have not logged into the game in the last 600 days. Likewise, eliminate all alliances with no active accounts in the last 100 days (would not eliminate accounts, just free them up). I imagine this move would not make the servers worse, but I will happily theorize that it will make them better.
End of list. Feel free to add more, feel free to hate, feel free to agree. Things have to change. And I’m not even touching on some of the other updates that are needed or how we need to get away from changing content once every few years and be more consistent and frequent with meaningful updates to all content.
4
Comments
One idea that's been scrambling around in my mind with regards to the Event Quest Completion 22h objective is to have a single month-long objective instead. Rather than forcing players to parse out their EQ completions over multiple 22h events, just let them complete it in whichever timeframe they feel like and give out the rewards at the end of the month. I think that would be a much better solution than several separate events that no one cares about.
I also agree that general questing should count, at least if they are kept in their current 22h format.
With regards to the health potions, I wouldn't mind if the random potions found throughout new content were based on progression. I'm not saying that lvl6 potions should be the standard drop for Paragon players, but it would be nice if maybe lvl3 potions were. Lvl1 potions are just an annoyance at this time.
I especially agree with the war crystal suggestion, please remove arena boosts from them, they shouldn’t be there. War rewards should have some relevance for wars and arena boosts are completely unrelated.
Improve incursion's friendship crystals