Let’s Talk - BGs is Failling Behind, why?
BigBlueOx
Member Posts: 2,543 ★★★★★
Yet another lack luster season in BGs participation in the Gladiators circuit with 100 points landing you in Quantum and above. A score that would have been lucky to get Arcane in past years. More and more players seem to give up on this mode each season, so why’s that?
Here's my thoughts. Feel free to debate and add your own:
1.) Staleness - The game mode has become monotonous. 2 meta seasons make the game mode feel more like arena. And if one of those metas is unenjoyable it really impacts motivation for the season. The staleness is even worse feeling with the seasonal class nodes that make it more like 2 pseudo metas under a season long meta too. Yes it means more time to plan for a meta in the current configuration but honestly it’s stale compared to 4 meta seasons where you might need to reset your deck and rescheme each week. This also gave you more freedom to target a week that better fit your roster. 2 meta seasons are stale, recommend increasing to 3 or even back to 4.
2.) Bad A.I./Latency/Missing Frames in AI animations - Something about competitive content always makes this set of universal and interconnected problems seem so much worse. MCOC operates on a platform where you can’t always trust your eyes, and getting clipped by a stunned enemy, having hits bypass your block, strikers getting automatically blocked by recovering foes or 0 recovery time for A.I. specials turning into light intercepts for them when they get should be exposed always feels bad… but it just feels worse in BGs
3.) Cash offers making the pay to play feel out of balance with free to play - I say this as a player that buys far too many deals. And when it’s possible to purchase a roster of 7stars over the course of a few sales, it’s possible to bypass 5years of roster development in that same time frame. That leaves smaller f2p rosters feeling like the game mode might as well be locked behind a gated community. The Valliant bundles definitely make this problem feel worse, as every dolphin and whale out there (me included) can just fork over a $100 dollars to get access to the best defender out there now. Not sure what can be done here that isn’t being done already though as there are many ways via content to earn rewards right now. So I think the teams on the right course here.
4.) Content fatigue… too much g things that feel grindy at the same time. It’s awesome to always have things to do, but when there’s seemingly always another brutal defender to learn, or difficult mountain of content dropped people will prioritize elsewhere. Nothing wrong with that either but at some point too much to do has diminished returns when it’s the same player bases being asked to spend more and more time in game.
Ok, long enough from me, and I’m sure I missed something so feel free to discuss. My top ask is to revisit the metas, go back to the drawing board and give us more diversity between metas with more than two each season.
Here's my thoughts. Feel free to debate and add your own:
1.) Staleness - The game mode has become monotonous. 2 meta seasons make the game mode feel more like arena. And if one of those metas is unenjoyable it really impacts motivation for the season. The staleness is even worse feeling with the seasonal class nodes that make it more like 2 pseudo metas under a season long meta too. Yes it means more time to plan for a meta in the current configuration but honestly it’s stale compared to 4 meta seasons where you might need to reset your deck and rescheme each week. This also gave you more freedom to target a week that better fit your roster. 2 meta seasons are stale, recommend increasing to 3 or even back to 4.
2.) Bad A.I./Latency/Missing Frames in AI animations - Something about competitive content always makes this set of universal and interconnected problems seem so much worse. MCOC operates on a platform where you can’t always trust your eyes, and getting clipped by a stunned enemy, having hits bypass your block, strikers getting automatically blocked by recovering foes or 0 recovery time for A.I. specials turning into light intercepts for them when they get should be exposed always feels bad… but it just feels worse in BGs
3.) Cash offers making the pay to play feel out of balance with free to play - I say this as a player that buys far too many deals. And when it’s possible to purchase a roster of 7stars over the course of a few sales, it’s possible to bypass 5years of roster development in that same time frame. That leaves smaller f2p rosters feeling like the game mode might as well be locked behind a gated community. The Valliant bundles definitely make this problem feel worse, as every dolphin and whale out there (me included) can just fork over a $100 dollars to get access to the best defender out there now. Not sure what can be done here that isn’t being done already though as there are many ways via content to earn rewards right now. So I think the teams on the right course here.
4.) Content fatigue… too much g things that feel grindy at the same time. It’s awesome to always have things to do, but when there’s seemingly always another brutal defender to learn, or difficult mountain of content dropped people will prioritize elsewhere. Nothing wrong with that either but at some point too much to do has diminished returns when it’s the same player bases being asked to spend more and more time in game.
Ok, long enough from me, and I’m sure I missed something so feel free to discuss. My top ask is to revisit the metas, go back to the drawing board and give us more diversity between metas with more than two each season.
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Comments
Then there's the store. It got one update only, I think after season 2, and has been the same ever since.
4) I agree, too much to do, we now have to chose what to play when login in. I remember Kabam saying it was their intension, pushing us to make choices. Ok why not. You just have less players per game mode but still the same amount of time to develop said content. I'll leave Kabam make their opinion on this one.
5) abysmal rewards. Still no valiant shop
It's sad really as the whole idea of bgs is great and Kabam did really decent work at getting it to the point it is now with a much smaller amount of modders. We saw whenever Kabam gives the special rewards buffs to the solo and alliance events, bgs gets played much more frequently, so I think a good start would be to just make those rewards permanent if Kabam want bgs to still be at the forefront of people's minds.
I would add - they had it right for a few seasons on the medals and then flipped everything back on its head. Everyone wanted 2 medals for a win/ 1 medal for a loss. Implemented. Fun times for all.
Then came the “hey we will give you all the lower rewards” after playing 5 matches (fine) and goodbye 2 medals for a win with all new levels of victory track (ugh).
End game players who coast to GC lauded the extra rewards. The average player just saw victory track as like starting out at bronze again. Especially with multiple levels where you have to get 5 medals.
When all these technical things mentioned above take place, in addition to an AI that is downright hopeless, with this season's nodes, it does not inspire terribly many people to participate actively.
There aren't terribly good rewards for paragon+ players either, for a TB it's probably still interesting. If you run a BG, EQ/PG and SQ, you manage 1 R4 upgrade per month.
Its just not good enough. It takes too long to rank up champs from R3 to R4/5. From R1 to R3 is done quickly, thats a few hours in the arena, but R3 is not good enough in BG.
The supply of R4/5 material must be increased, otherwise interest dies.
Then you add the past couple Seasons of Global choices which made it painful, to be honest.
It's a shame cause I had a ton of fun last season with that very restrictive meta, this one wouldn't be too bad if the rewards were worth it but they're not.
The solo milestones are simply a joke... a 6 star crystal
The store still has some decent stuff in it, but it is definitely outdated with where the game is currently.
Look at the seasons when participation was up... it was when the rewards were increased.
About 10 minutes a round is a decent chunk of investment. And the juice from this game mode simply isn't wort the squeeze anymore.
1) While starting higher up in the seeding and getting a bunch of rewards as a lump sum feels great, it's also kind of annoying to almost immediately have to win five matches in a row to advance anywhere at all. Every season the last few months, I've advanced through the Diamond tier fairly quickly, and then gotten stuck in Vibranium for weeks. Granted, I don't really push hard for getting into the Gladiator's Circuit (the "why?" of which I'll explain in gripe #2), but it's still really annoying to just jojo up and down those five required wins. It's not so much that they are there at the end that I have a problem with, it's more that I start there and then stay there for an extended period of time. I liked climbing the ladder before. However, since I also like the seeding system, I'm not sure what the solution to this problem is. I just hope there'd be a solution.
2) When you reach the Gladiator's Circuit, the rewards just die. This was the main reason why I stopped pushing hard to get to the GC quickly. When you advance through the Victory Track, you're constantly rewarded and it's fun. In the GC, you get nothing. You still have the bidaily objectives that give you paltry sums of BG tokens, but nowhere near what you got from the VT. I just feel like my incentive to push dies completely. I really wish there was something more to do in there than simply trying to get a better placement two or three weeks down the line.
As it stands, I mostly just casually stroll through BG each season. I do a final push towards the end in order to get into the GC and then do a couple of matches there in order to qualify for some ranked rewards, but I feel very little incentive to do anything wholeheartedly.
Even more so when more and more content has come into the game that requires me to use my energy refills.
???
1. BUFF THE REWARDS. The store is ok, but as a valiant, there isn't anything in it to make me want to play them more. The solo and alliance rewards are AWFUL. 8 months ago they were solid. 12 months ago they were great. For the last 3-4 months, they are terrible. Participation has dropped every season for the last 6 and this is the main reason.
2. As said already, the disparity of accounts is ridiculous and the cadence of brutal defenders being released with no counter makes it worse. As I said, I am valiant, but going against accounts that have every single new champ at 7r2 or 6r5 is BS. I love the whales because they keep the game afloat, but it's getting really old. I have no suggestion on how to fix this, just pointing out that it is a problem. One fix, and I would not like this, is to have your full 30 champ roster available to pick from instead of the RNG selections each round, but that would also make the mode less fun and more dull, even if it's does make it slightly more fair.
3. I have never liked the 2 metas. I miss the 4 meta, even though it made rosters more important than skill/knowledge. But what has dulled this mode for me is this. Before if there was a meta I didn't like or sucked at, I could just sit out a week or paly minimally. That is not an option anymore. And PLEASE, go away from the AW style metas of certain classes benefiting on attack and defense. I am tired of having a month long fest of using primarily one class.
4. Something needs to be done to freshen up this game mode. Again, I have no solution for this, but in all fairness, I am not getting paid to do it either. I'm sure the dozens of Kabam employees that work on MCOC can figure something out to make it better.
Obviously rewards are also outdated now. Nobody above cav needs 6* shards anymore and even most of the items in the store feel overpriced with few exceptions.
Bottom line is it’s just not fun to me anymore. I only play a few matches here or there usually later in the season so matchups aren’t so bad. I think there’s still plenty of ways to fix bgs but kabam would need to change directions with it.
VT is a grindy chore even for Valiant players.
No one likes to waste time and resources going up and down 1-2 medals, and remain at the same tier despite the effort.
Now that rewards got outdated and there is no bribe to play BGs, it’s very reasonable that players choose to limit their participation there as much as they can.
Bring back 2-1 medal system throughout VT, make all GC tiers below Celestial placements percentage based, update solo/ally rewards and store.
If Kabam wants to keep the mode relevant, they should make it more appealing to players 🙂
For the difference in the free to play vs the spenders deck’s I dont know. I do spend in game but run up on accounts half my size that still have stacked decks. It isn’t so hard to get 30 champs together. Mostly what I have seen is a lot of people with champs that they dont know how they work. They will have a perfect counter to my defender but choose a different champ instead.
As far as not enough people in gc It’s great. I am in Quantum 2 with 62 points. That is some pretty sweet rewards for 4 wins.
Is the AW player count lower than AW Season 1-10, and is it now generally stable regardless of whatever changes Kabam implements (good or bad changes)?
Most players will try the shiny new thing, boosting the initial player count. Over time, the number generally dwindles regardless of the quality of the mode.