A few things to keep in mind before Black Friday
Suros_moon
Member Posts: 477 ★★★
Hey all I just wanted to revisit a few things that I think we should all think long and hard about before making decisions purchase wise today. Remember that, for all the words and whining, there’s only one place that companies derive meaning from: financials. So here we go:
- Quicksilver/SW synergy NERF (thats what it was and no amount of downplaying will change it). There was significant alarm about how the synergy had obviously not been tested (as evidenced by the immediate feedback they received and extremely easy play testing) followed by deflection and vague claims that an “appropriate amount of testing was done”. The synergy was then nerfed down, however, the icing on the cake was that these changes all occurred AFTER the bundle was done selling while the concerns were brought up that day. After having all this splayed out, the response was that we can change anything whenever we want and that “this will continue to happen in the future“. Note also, that this was not a unit based offer but rather plain dollars which kabam is now proudly touting that they will play fast and loose with.
- VFX debacle. Upon the release of 8.1 the game was plagued by a bug causing dozens of effects to become invisible. While annoying in its own right, the resulting fallout for 8.1’s final boss was game breaking. Without being able to see the trap, the entire mechanic for being able to combat the boss was made a guessing game at best and downright unfair at worst. It is not unlikely to say that this bug caused an inflated usage of items on the part of every player who stumbled into it. In fact, Im sure that we could compare metrics for average items spent during the bugs duration inside of 8.1.6 to the following weeks and the dropoff would be statistically significant. Now, this situation obviously warrants action on the side of kabam- and, in the wake of the bug fix, there was three days of silence followed by the announcement that the situation was “being monitored” to gauge how we were affected (implying heavily that items would be calculated and sent put based on the fiasco). Of course, we know how this story ends and, almost a full month later, the real news was dropped, once again, that nothing was being done. Note that this response didn’t say that “we determined the effects were minimal” or that “no significant change in item usage was detected” but rather that they simply weren’t responding to whatever the mess was.
- Day of the Deadpool. Ah yes, one of the biggest controversies this year and not without reason. To summarize, kabam took out free aspects of the event, namely: gold offers, but retained every monetized aspect. This news was relayed using an account previously known for trolling leaving many confused about its legitimacy (made even worse by the fact that the slashing of gold offers was referred to as “trying something new”). The master-thread racked up 23 pages of disappointed, confused, or otherwise angry summoners over the course of 8 days without a single word from kabam.
- Battlegrounds. Writhe with modders, dozens of threads on this exist and most, if not all, top players have said that the game mode is often unplayable. Additionally the rampant monetization it was introduced with showcased exactly where their head is with the future of the game. A funny note is that kabam responded early in this thread by saying that changes would only occur if there was something “egregious” only to later bend to the complaints which implies that even they saw how over the top the process had gone.
With all this in mind I cannot, in good conscience, spend anything this weekend. Without the gifting event I am, frankly, scared of how hard kabam is going to push this model. If, for no other reason, remember that the relevance of 6 stars is about to see its twilight and no amount of spending can change that. Additionally feel free to drop your own grievances below, I just wanted to list those that I felt most strongly about so I didnt cover every terrible response we’ve had
- Quicksilver/SW synergy NERF (thats what it was and no amount of downplaying will change it). There was significant alarm about how the synergy had obviously not been tested (as evidenced by the immediate feedback they received and extremely easy play testing) followed by deflection and vague claims that an “appropriate amount of testing was done”. The synergy was then nerfed down, however, the icing on the cake was that these changes all occurred AFTER the bundle was done selling while the concerns were brought up that day. After having all this splayed out, the response was that we can change anything whenever we want and that “this will continue to happen in the future“. Note also, that this was not a unit based offer but rather plain dollars which kabam is now proudly touting that they will play fast and loose with.
- VFX debacle. Upon the release of 8.1 the game was plagued by a bug causing dozens of effects to become invisible. While annoying in its own right, the resulting fallout for 8.1’s final boss was game breaking. Without being able to see the trap, the entire mechanic for being able to combat the boss was made a guessing game at best and downright unfair at worst. It is not unlikely to say that this bug caused an inflated usage of items on the part of every player who stumbled into it. In fact, Im sure that we could compare metrics for average items spent during the bugs duration inside of 8.1.6 to the following weeks and the dropoff would be statistically significant. Now, this situation obviously warrants action on the side of kabam- and, in the wake of the bug fix, there was three days of silence followed by the announcement that the situation was “being monitored” to gauge how we were affected (implying heavily that items would be calculated and sent put based on the fiasco). Of course, we know how this story ends and, almost a full month later, the real news was dropped, once again, that nothing was being done. Note that this response didn’t say that “we determined the effects were minimal” or that “no significant change in item usage was detected” but rather that they simply weren’t responding to whatever the mess was.
- Day of the Deadpool. Ah yes, one of the biggest controversies this year and not without reason. To summarize, kabam took out free aspects of the event, namely: gold offers, but retained every monetized aspect. This news was relayed using an account previously known for trolling leaving many confused about its legitimacy (made even worse by the fact that the slashing of gold offers was referred to as “trying something new”). The master-thread racked up 23 pages of disappointed, confused, or otherwise angry summoners over the course of 8 days without a single word from kabam.
- Battlegrounds. Writhe with modders, dozens of threads on this exist and most, if not all, top players have said that the game mode is often unplayable. Additionally the rampant monetization it was introduced with showcased exactly where their head is with the future of the game. A funny note is that kabam responded early in this thread by saying that changes would only occur if there was something “egregious” only to later bend to the complaints which implies that even they saw how over the top the process had gone.
With all this in mind I cannot, in good conscience, spend anything this weekend. Without the gifting event I am, frankly, scared of how hard kabam is going to push this model. If, for no other reason, remember that the relevance of 6 stars is about to see its twilight and no amount of spending can change that. Additionally feel free to drop your own grievances below, I just wanted to list those that I felt most strongly about so I didnt cover every terrible response we’ve had
Post edited by Kabam Miike on
26
Comments
Do you see how you have to substantiate claims or they are meaningless? I offered evidence of every single point I made- your counter to me, is that you think the post is bad. You didnt offer a single counter argument or reason why you think my arguments are invalid which leads me hastily to the idea that you dont have any (granted our time in the nimrod forum shows what happens when you do try to provide them so I understand).
I didnt “have” to post. You didnt “have” to respond. Im a bit confused at what youre getting at? Oh wait- nothing
Ultimately there's only one thing you need to consider before parting with your money on a game like this: can you actually afford it? A lot of people get a bit green when they watch the Youtubers or the whales in their alliance dropping £100s on these offers and are tempted to follow suit even though it's beyond their means.
If you like the game and have some disposable income why not support it? If you haven't got the disposable income, don't; it's just a game.
Inane posts like this aren't helpful. 6* will be relevant for years to come, especially with Ascension, however that's implemented. 5* are still relevant in some contexts to end game players 3+ years after the advent of 6* coming into the game.
Of course support games you like- just remember that the climate were in is a result of blindly spending regardless of the precedent thats being set. When you dont like the direction, stop spending and hope they alter course
Well we did get this amazing BG compensation because of BG finished earlier than scheduled, which affect a lot of players (especially in Europe).
Sure there were a few people complaining, but Kabam have no time to deal with it, so easiest way is just close the thread without any explanation.
https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/320306/cancelling-alliance-quests-november-24-2022/
That is how much Kabam care about the players.
🤣🤣🤣
I know that might not be what people want to hear, in a world where people like to think that all opinions are valid, even if it’s about other people’s business
But that’s the truth. Life goes better for people if they don’t worry about other people’s money and what they do or don’t do with it
2. If you know there's a VFX issue, don't do the content if it's costing you items. They said this when it happened and you want to be compensated for going ahead with it. Your problem.
3. Gold offers- The event changed. And it doesn't matter what forum personality said it. Thrillson's posts were always well received before that day and all the sudden when they say something you don't like, they're a troll account now. You guys are too predictable with that nonsense.
4. Heaven forbid they make something to generate revenue. They've revamped that game mode because of the feedback and you're still whining about it. Do modders suck? Yes. Are they parasites? Yes. Are they trying to fix it? Yes. it's not like there's an easy way to make the modders go away. Every game in the world has issue with cheaters and modders and no one has been able to prevent them.
5. 6*'s are not in their twilight. We won't even be able to open crystals until spring of next year and even then, can't even rank them up. 6*'s still have another rank to achieve plus relics and ascensions to keep them viable and in the meta for some time to come.
Has there been some negatives? Absolutely. Has there been some really good things this year? Even more so. Don't spend, or spend. Whatever floats your boat but you're making it seem like Kabam kicked you in the shin and took your lunch money. Why even keep playing when you feel so offended by all of this?
As to the rest, I know Kabam historically haven't delivered on their road maps, and frankly I don't often pay much heed to them for that reason. I'm not going to be spending this BF, because frankly I'd rather put the heating on and I've got a wedding to pay for in September.
The thing that I don't like is this vilification of players who do spend. It is these same players who are funding this game and allowing it to be ad-free, making sure that I don't have to pay £5/month or whatever to play it etc. You even have to pay £1 for Temple Run to be ad free these days. For all its faults, this has got to be the best F2P mobile game on the market.
If you enjoy the game and want to spend: do so
If you don't want to spend, that's cool too.
Do whatevers best for you, only you can decide that.
2) There wasnt a way to know about the issue until AFTER you started fighting the boss. For many you had to have items just to arrive at that point. What are you even getting at?
3) Did you just try to conflate “well received” with “not being a troll account”? Thrillsons posts were known to be jokes and thats why people laughed at its appearance. When you suddenly use it to distribute information that is meant to be serious, and even worse, disappointing, that’s obviously going to confuse and get a lot of people frustrated (as it did).
4) Ah yes, the “they need money” which justifies the most aggressive over the top egregious monetization schemes possible argument. Theres a balance- they missed. Simple
5) Theyve been out for 5 years. If their large portion of relevancy is the going to get shifted in the next year and a half that makes this their twilight