It's a response. I appreciate and respect that. Regardless of the outcome, they're in a no-win situation when it comes to communicating. They don't say anything, they're ignoring the issues. They say something, it's empty promises or too late or vague or manufactured or whatever else the response. At some point, you have to acknowledge that communication is a two-way street. When they make an effort, we can't just flip the bird at it.
I’d like to comment on this because this is an issue I’ve had with communication both here and with my job and such. While I understand the no communication means no updates approach, for some people, including me, even saying that there is no update every now and then goes a long way. It shows that there is still work being done and the issues hasn’t been forgotten. Once a month could be a good starting point, but there have been times when things have been discussed or mentioned and after that it goes radio silent until the mods respond to something in a thread.
This is more difficult than it sounds, because frankly it is no one's job to do this. The devs don't have an alarm clock that goes off periodically to ask them to provide updates on what they are doing (and I would rather shoot myself in the head than function like that in general), and the moderators' job is to moderate, not specifically drive the conversations.
What you're describing is the kind of thing that a player advocacy position would try to take care of. Sometimes this is done internally with an official position, and sometimes this is done with a player advocacy representative or representatives from the player community empowered to communicate directly with the developers and report back on issues of interest.
This is a tricky task to perform because no matter where such a person comes from, they must be capable of representing the interests the player community without regard to their own biases or predispositions, and must also be capable of communicating with the developers on their own terms and providing feedback to the players within the limits that Kabam places on that communication while maintaining credibility on both sides. This is balancing a pencil tip on another pencil tip.
It is not a bad idea, but I don't know if that's the sort of thing Kabam is interested in doing.
Basically, silos. Unless the team specifically designates someone or allows the community to designate someone to fill the role.
This is a really unique way to say "We fully expect this to be pay to play for the majority of people who want to advance in this game" 🤷🏻♂️
Also all this post is is basically saying "Yeah, there are problems, we know this, and TRUST US, we're working on it 😉"
No concrete details. No solutions given. No indications on time-frames or making it up to players adversely impacted by cheating... just a whole lot of acknowledgement with zero substance.
Would it kill them to give the players a temporary boon while we wait the "few seasons" for it to be "fixed"?
Why not send everyone 20 Sheilds today for the rest of Season 6?
Why not try season 7 with no token loss to see how that works?
Why not try season 8 with 2 tokens for a win to see how that works?
Why not do something concrete that the players can see and feel instead of the "small tweaks" that they've said they're doing? They know that people don't like the mode and they need to get people back into playing. Take 3+ more months w/o changes that the players can feel or see is just going to kill it.
Also, what "new tech" needs to be built to put the lower rewards into BG objectives? You already have BG objectives. What had to be built that will take 3 months?
This is a really unique way to say "We fully expect this to be pay to play for the majority of people who want to advance in this game" 🤷🏻♂️
Also all this post is is basically saying "Yeah, there are problems, we know this, and TRUST US, we're working on it 😉"
No concrete details. No solutions given. No indications on time-frames or making it up to players adversely impacted by cheating... just a whole lot of acknowledgement with zero substance.
Give acknowledgement, problem Give no acknowledgement, problem
This is a really unique way to say "We fully expect this to be pay to play for the majority of people who want to advance in this game" 🤷🏻♂️
Also all this post is is basically saying "Yeah, there are problems, we know this, and TRUST US, we're working on it 😉"
No concrete details. No solutions given. No indications on time-frames or making it up to players adversely impacted by cheating... just a whole lot of acknowledgement with zero substance.
Give acknowledgement, problem Give no acknowledgement, problem
You know what's better than saying "There's a problem"? Insight in to time frames, solution ideas, short term fixes (such as doling out some free elders marks like they... stopped doing), things like that.
Saying that there is a problem means nothing, taking steps to inform, address and compensate for said problems while in the transition phase would actually mean something. Saying "well you'll just have to spend in the interim" isn't only not helpful, it's the opposite of helpful.
This is a really unique way to say "We fully expect this to be pay to play for the majority of people who want to advance in this game" 🤷🏻♂️
Also all this post is is basically saying "Yeah, there are problems, we know this, and TRUST US, we're working on it 😉"
No concrete details. No solutions given. No indications on time-frames or making it up to players adversely impacted by cheating... just a whole lot of acknowledgement with zero substance.
Give acknowledgement, problem Give no acknowledgement, problem
You know what's better than saying "There's a problem"? Insight in to time frames, solution ideas, short term fixes (such as doling out some free elders marks like they... stopped doing), things like that.
Saying that there is a problem means nothing, taking steps to inform, address and compensate for said problems while in the transition phase would actually mean something. Saying "well you'll just have to spend in the interim" isn't only not helpful, it's the opposite of helpful.
You’ve played this game a long time. Those of us who have done so realize there has to be a literal towering inferno for meaningful change to occur.
What does the pausing exploit do? Is there a way to tell if someone you’re facing is doing it? I’ve never heard of it until recently & I’ve been doing Battle Grounds competitively since Season 2. Also, thanks for looking into all the BattleGrounds related issues @Kabam
Pausing lets you finish the fight with more health that you generally would have if you had not paused, thus leading to more points scored. An example of how - the node pushes, Ai extremely passive or you accidentally push the defender to L3 (which will kill you) - you are at or near full health so you pause and force the match to time out for the rest of the match. You score ~15k points for near full health on Attacker HP Remaining and you lose out on all points in Fight Duration. The difference is a net positive points and you have a better chance of winning with more points.
How do you tell if they paused? The main fight screen summary shows Fight Duration (in seconds) - a full time out is generally around 115 - 118 seconds (varies pending on load time?). Click on the 'i' icon of your opponent to see more details about the match. That screen also shows Fight Duration (in Minute/Seconds) - unfortunately it's displayed differently - wish both were seconds or both were Minutes/Seconds or just showed both ways of depicting time. A full fight on the secondary screen would show somewhere between a 1:54 - 1:57 time but if they paused, it will be less, maybe like 1:03. This means they sat there for about half the fight paused.
This is good to hear Kabam, but you have to follow this up with frequent communication on progress for the points raised in this post. Too often we have unreasonable stretches of silence from you which erodes confidence in your team.
Kabam, PLEASE explain this. You mentioned the videos of lower accounts in GC that were posted (by me). You also said that most of those accounts cheated to get to GC. Okay, sounds fair enough to BUT the last video I did was a day or two before the season ended and had over 100 very low accounts, which Kabam has now confirmed got there by cheating.
BUT, even though this video was quickly removed from forums NONE of those lower accounts were banned and remained in GC at the end of the season as I checked.
Additionally, you can say that they were removed but didn't get removed from leaderboards so please explain why no ones rank in top 2,000 went up? If any of the accounts from my videos that Kabam is acknowledging cheated to get there, then why did NO ONE increase rank after the season ended?
Also, why throwing shade? DNA got a deserving shout-out for his suggestions, but when but comes to the videos that I Recorded and I Posted, you refer to it as "some summoners"?!
"For those Uncollected or Cavalier players who in past seasons have climbed high up on the VT, it’s time to focus on growing your accounts if you want to continue to compete at that level." This gotta be my favorite part of all this...being saying since day 1.. U can't expect to have a fair competition between 4 different progression titles.. and UC & Cav should focus on progressing not on competing with their limitations and blaming matchmaking for not being able to compete...
You know what's better than saying "There's a problem"? Insight in to time frames, solution ideas, short term fixes (such as doling out some free elders marks like they... stopped doing), things like that.
Saying that there is a problem means nothing, taking steps to inform, address and compensate for said problems while in the transition phase would actually mean something. Saying "well you'll just have to spend in the interim" isn't only not helpful, it's the opposite of helpful.
You’ve played this game a long time. Those of us who have done so realize there has to be a literal towering inferno for meaningful change to occur.
Dr. Zola
Sadly we both know this entirely too well.
Hope all is well my guy!
All good here…
I just reread the announcement. You are on point.
It sounds like the main messages are:
(1) bugs (a) won’t get any redress for what’s in the past and (b) the team is working to reproduce bugs currently, which suggests there’s no actionable resolution in sight; (2) there’s an idea of a seeding methodology, but it’s in its nascent stages and won’t be around for a few months at best; (3) the seeding system is how the team hopes to make the climb better; (4) there may also be different medal allocations, but there isn’t currently a plan and it may require marks to access if/when it happens; and (5) still working on getting better at catching cheaters.
I lost of Matches due to system i am unable to choose Defenders/Attackers during the draft & When Opponents forfeiting the Match i am getting Loss .
in every alliance now we need to do minimum score in BG event or else they will just Kickout us ... So i hope you will rectify problem fast and plz give us little compensation so, we can continue few fights
Just end BG until it’s the fixes are in place, run it for a season to see any outstanding issues, bring it down again to fix any issues, then put it back on.
Personally, I’d rather not have the game mode around causing balancing issues around rewards, coupled with rampant cheating. Just get it done properly instead of letting it linger around as people getting more frustrated.
Just end BG until it’s the fixes are in place, run it for a season to see any outstanding issues, bring it down again to fix any issues, then put it back on.
Personally, I’d rather not have the game mode around causing balancing issues around rewards, coupled with rampant cheating. Just get it done properly instead of letting it linger around as people getting more frustrated.
As opposed to letting things thrash for three or more seasons waiting for a resolution that may not come even then—100% agree.
I think that it’s a big step in the right direction though I’m not sure how it’s going to take months to adjust the matchmaking if this is allegedly a priority task.
The reset system does NOT have to be complicated. Look at AQ, giving you a peak milestone and rank rewards. BGs could distribute solo rewards, alliance rewards, and reset rewards, which include the milestones below the reset point.
Let’s say GC players restart in gold next season, platinum players restart in silver and others restart in bronze. Assign the appropriate number of trophies and marks to each set, and mail them out accordingly.
I’m beginning to hate battlegrounds. Players with stronger accounts should have easier time climbing when the season starts. Yet, I’m facing someone with similar strength and can’t climb unless I win consecutively.
I don’t think I’ll like seeding. Looks like seeding will allow me to get rewards below where I’m seeded. That’s nice. But I’ll be stuck at that seed as I face someone at similar level. Win/loss 50/50 isn’t fun. I’d rather climb up by winning.
I just want to say thank you for acknowledging these issues and for committing to fix them. It becomes easier for me to deal with the suboptimal experience when you’ve acknowledged the issues, agreed they need to be addressed and committed to doing so . Thank you and please prioritize finding solutions to BG because I think this mode is vital to the longevity of this game. BG breathed some new life into this game for a lot of people and having quick accessible solo competitive game play with great rewards is really important to keeping people engaged in this game who don’t love AQ, AW and who want something more than story mode that isn’t Everest style challenge. If you get BG right I feel like you’ll keep people who otherwise might be looking to move on from MCOC.
I’m beginning to hate battlegrounds. Players with stronger accounts should have easier time climbing when the season starts. Yet, I’m facing someone with similar strength and can’t climb unless I win consecutively.
I don’t think I’ll like seeding. Looks like seeding will allow me to get rewards below where I’m seeded. That’s nice. But I’ll be stuck at that seed as I face someone at similar level. Win/loss 50/50 isn’t fun. I’d rather climb up by winning.
Battlegrounds has become so repulsive to me lately because of this. Realistically, what’s the most “competitive” part of Battlegrounds? The Gladiator Circuit. There’s no reason the Victory Track should feel like a sweat fest or feel like I have to strive to make SOME progress. This win 1, lose 1; win 2 lose 2 is some of the worst experience of Battlegrounds.
Battlegrounds Victory Track should be filled with bot accounts based on Progression Level (similar to how there are Kang Teams and Thanos Teams in Arena). That way, those with stacked accounts can get through the Victory Track with relative ease and enjoy true competition at the Circuit. And those with less experience, a less developed roster can learn the ins and outs of Battleground’s facing these Bot teams. Speaking of Gladiator Circuit, this is where most of the rewards should be found (including the Tokens). With the way Battlegrounds is currently designed, it feels like you have to force yourself to play in order to “stay afloat” which is one of the worst feelings when playing.
The fact that the devs would rather keep Battlegrounds live as it is is such a disappointment to me.
First and foremost, let me say kudos, and thank you for finally taking the time to offer a fairly detailed response to the overwhelming issues facing battlegrounds.
I'd like to ask a few specific questions related to matchmaking. In the post, you stated:
As mentioned above, implementing the seeding system will take some time. In the meantime, we will continue to tweak the matchmaker every season. We know members of our forum have posted videos showing many low power accounts in the Gladiator’s Circuit in Seasons 5, but pretty much all of those accounts were cheaters who got there illegitimately. For those Uncollected or Cavalier players who in past seasons have climbed high up on the VT, it’s time to focus on growing your accounts if you want to continue to compete at that level.
This is promising, but will you commit to informing the community of what those changes are each season? I understand you don't want to share specifics of the algorithm in place, as that leads to folks trying to manipulate that system, but without some clarity, anything you do, or don't do, would just be met with skepticism. Heck, right now the community doesn't even know if matching is based on prestige, total hero rating, or some modified version of one of those that looks at a higher number of champs for the average.
As a follow up topic, why is matchmaking even something that warrants a great deal of investigation? It seems to me you could simply revert back to whatever system was in place in season 3, but ban use of anything below 5* champs to prevent the impact of sandbagging with 1* champs. You have the tech to do that today, as it's already in place in story content in Act 6 and beyond.
@mgj0630 They can’t ban anything below 5*, because many UC players are using 4* in their deck. Also, matchmaking ain’t top5 prestige definitely. It seems to be around the top30 prestige mark. This seems consistent to Kabam’s statement in the past, that they will solve sandbagging problem, by implementing a system that forces players to use their top champs on their BGs deck. Additionally I did an experiment myself on that last two seasons: I kept my top5 prestige exactly the same, though I kept upgrading my rest top champs extensively leading to higher average prestige of my top30 champs. My matches got significantly harder and getting matched with significantly stronger accounts. Kabam needs to speed up seeding implementation and open up matchmaking to random, as it should be in the first place. If seeding needs time to get implemented, meanwhile they can loosen Prestige matchmaking criteria by 10% on each VT tier till it gets completely random at higher tiers. But apart from matchmaking main problem is the win ratio needed to progress. 65% that is needed will kill the mode sooner or later. That number should be much lower and be around 35-40% to keep participation and ultimately the mode alive. Shield system needs to be calibrated to be more forgiving with losing a match.
Comments
Dr. Zola
No concrete details. No solutions given. No indications on time-frames or making it up to players adversely impacted by cheating... just a whole lot of acknowledgement with zero substance.
Why not send everyone 20 Sheilds today for the rest of Season 6?
Why not try season 7 with no token loss to see how that works?
Why not try season 8 with 2 tokens for a win to see how that works?
Why not do something concrete that the players can see and feel instead of the "small tweaks" that they've said they're doing? They know that people don't like the mode and they need to get people back into playing. Take 3+ more months w/o changes that the players can feel or see is just going to kill it.
Give no acknowledgement, problem
Saying that there is a problem means nothing, taking steps to inform, address and compensate for said problems while in the transition phase would actually mean something. Saying "well you'll just have to spend in the interim" isn't only not helpful, it's the opposite of helpful.
Dr. Zola
How do you tell if they paused?
The main fight screen summary shows Fight Duration (in seconds) - a full time out is generally around 115 - 118 seconds (varies pending on load time?). Click on the 'i' icon of your opponent to see more details about the match. That screen also shows Fight Duration (in Minute/Seconds) - unfortunately it's displayed differently - wish both were seconds or both were Minutes/Seconds or just showed both ways of depicting time. A full fight on the secondary screen would show somewhere between a 1:54 - 1:57 time but if they paused, it will be less, maybe like 1:03. This means they sat there for about half the fight paused.
BUT, even though this video was quickly removed from forums NONE of those lower accounts were banned and remained in GC at the end of the season as I checked.
Additionally, you can say that they were removed but didn't get removed from leaderboards so please explain why no ones rank in top 2,000 went up? If any of the accounts from my videos that Kabam is acknowledging cheated to get there, then why did NO ONE increase rank after the season ended?
Also, why throwing shade? DNA got a deserving shout-out for his suggestions, but when but comes to the videos that I Recorded and I Posted, you refer to it as "some summoners"?!
This gotta be my favorite part of all this...being saying since day 1.. U can't expect to have a fair competition between 4 different progression titles.. and UC & Cav should focus on progressing not on competing with their limitations and blaming matchmaking for not being able to compete...
I just reread the announcement. You are on point.
It sounds like the main messages are:
(1) bugs (a) won’t get any redress for what’s in the past and (b) the team is working to reproduce bugs currently, which suggests there’s no actionable resolution in sight;
(2) there’s an idea of a seeding methodology, but it’s in its nascent stages and won’t be around for a few months at best;
(3) the seeding system is how the team hopes to make the climb better;
(4) there may also be different medal allocations, but there isn’t currently a plan and it may require marks to access if/when it happens; and
(5) still working on getting better at catching cheaters.
Dr. Zola
I lost of Matches due to system
i am unable to choose Defenders/Attackers during the draft &
When Opponents forfeiting the Match i am getting Loss .
in every alliance now we need to do minimum score in BG event or else they will just Kickout us ... So i hope you will rectify problem fast and plz give us little compensation so, we can continue few fights
Personally, I’d rather not have the game mode around causing balancing issues around rewards, coupled with rampant cheating. Just get it done properly instead of letting it linger around as people getting more frustrated.
Dr. Zola
Let’s say GC players restart in gold next season, platinum players restart in silver and others restart in bronze. Assign the appropriate number of trophies and marks to each set, and mail them out accordingly.
I don’t think I’ll like seeding. Looks like seeding will allow me to get rewards below where I’m seeded. That’s nice. But I’ll be stuck at that seed as I face someone at similar level. Win/loss 50/50 isn’t fun. I’d rather climb up by winning.
Battlegrounds Victory Track should be filled with bot accounts based on Progression Level (similar to how there are Kang Teams and Thanos Teams in Arena). That way, those with stacked accounts can get through the Victory Track with relative ease and enjoy true competition at the Circuit. And those with less experience, a less developed roster can learn the ins and outs of Battleground’s facing these Bot teams. Speaking of Gladiator Circuit, this is where most of the rewards should be found (including the Tokens). With the way Battlegrounds is currently designed, it feels like you have to force yourself to play in order to “stay afloat” which is one of the worst feelings when playing.
The fact that the devs would rather keep Battlegrounds live as it is is such a disappointment to me.
I'd like to ask a few specific questions related to matchmaking. In the post, you stated:
As mentioned above, implementing the seeding system will take some time. In the meantime, we will continue to tweak the matchmaker every season. We know members of our forum have posted videos showing many low power accounts in the Gladiator’s Circuit in Seasons 5, but pretty much all of those accounts were cheaters who got there illegitimately. For those Uncollected or Cavalier players who in past seasons have climbed high up on the VT, it’s time to focus on growing your accounts if you want to continue to compete at that level.
This is promising, but will you commit to informing the community of what those changes are each season? I understand you don't want to share specifics of the algorithm in place, as that leads to folks trying to manipulate that system, but without some clarity, anything you do, or don't do, would just be met with skepticism. Heck, right now the community doesn't even know if matching is based on prestige, total hero rating, or some modified version of one of those that looks at a higher number of champs for the average.
As a follow up topic, why is matchmaking even something that warrants a great deal of investigation? It seems to me you could simply revert back to whatever system was in place in season 3, but ban use of anything below 5* champs to prevent the impact of sandbagging with 1* champs. You have the tech to do that today, as it's already in place in story content in Act 6 and beyond.
Thanks in advance,
They can’t ban anything below 5*, because many UC players are using 4* in their deck.
Also, matchmaking ain’t top5 prestige definitely.
It seems to be around the top30 prestige mark.
This seems consistent to Kabam’s statement in the past, that they will solve sandbagging problem, by implementing a system that forces players to use their top champs on their BGs deck.
Additionally I did an experiment myself on that last two seasons:
I kept my top5 prestige exactly the same, though I kept upgrading my rest top champs extensively leading to higher average prestige of my top30 champs.
My matches got significantly harder and getting matched with significantly stronger accounts.
Kabam needs to speed up seeding implementation and open up matchmaking to random, as it should be in the first place.
If seeding needs time to get implemented, meanwhile they can loosen Prestige matchmaking criteria by 10% on each VT tier till it gets completely random at higher tiers.
But apart from matchmaking main problem is the win ratio needed to progress.
65% that is needed will kill the mode sooner or later.
That number should be much lower and be around 35-40% to keep participation and ultimately the mode alive.
Shield system needs to be calibrated to be more forgiving with losing a match.
Whether you do Kanban or Scrum, I bet the developers are terrified of that massive backlog.