Meatballs Make Money! Revenue per completed end game fight. A question for Kabam, preferably Crashed

This morning I'm taking the time that I could've had to further attempt the Sinister Six objective in winter of Woe to give sincere feedback about some statements that have been made on live streams and forum posts by Kabam employees. (BTW, big fan of all of you!)

When Woe was announced we were told that the game "needs" certain things to be healthy. As a business owner, with employees, and customers to look after myself. I completely understand that. We were also told that we shouldn't expect to receive end game rewards for doing nothing. Also, totally understandable. We were told to expect five energy per step on a one fight quest. When there were two steps I think many of us just sort of laughed out loud. Jax is a clever wordsmith, you got us, no problem, ten energy it is.

Personally, with that sort of energy spend, I'm going to wait and see how KT, Lags, MSD, etc, approach the content. I'll study up and fight the fight in week two.

Before I go any further I'd like to share some details about my account. I'm a Valiant player who completed one path of Necro and purchased deals to earn the title right away. I then explored Necro by the end of the year. I love this game and it has become a big portion of my "entertainment budget". I'm very much a "free to pay" player and spend thousands of dollars on this game annually. To be honest, I don't really spend to get ahead. I spend because it enhances my fun in the game. I'm in a chill alliance and don't push very hard in PVP game modes. Except for Banquet, I was rank 258 there.

This brings us back to week two of winter of woe and my attempts. Personally, I have good options for all of the objectives.
7* R2 Hulk for Gamma
7* R1 Sandman for Sinister Six
7* R2 Guillotine 2099 for Robots

In addition to having good counters I have 20,000+ units and I've also been very diligent about making sure I have an overflowing stash of consumables. Additionally, I purchased 90% of the Valentines offers for the romance consumables.

I really can't express my level of excitement going into this year of challenges starting with Woe. I had honestly never been more excited about the game and so many of the things that are coming. Is it going to be difficult? Of course, but that is part of the rewarding process that I love about this game.

However, after starting to work on the gamma objective this just felt different. Seven full energy refills gone in less than 30 minutes. Now, I already know what many of you will reply here with "SKILL ISSUE". Guess what? You're right! It is a skill issue. I'm not good enough to solo that fight and will not be working towards it. But I would like to work on my "SKILL ISSUE" to get it down with less than my whole stash.....

But that brings us back to the energy cost doesn't it? We all approach this game differently. I can appreciate how hard it is to design around that. Some people will practice all day to get a solo and without the energy cost you didn't receive any form of "revenue" from that player. Other than their time. Which we've also been told does not factor into the MCOC economy. I might have to disagree with this sentiment because I just got the newest 6* Champion out of the arena for nothing but my time.... It feels like of all things MCOC should be like Ikea meatballs. It doesn't make you money BUT it makes you money.

So ultimately, it feels like Kabam wants a certain amount of guaranteed "revenue" from every player when they complete or maybe even attempt an "end game" fight in this event.

Is that fair? Absolutely!

You can do whatever you want. But, understand that these sorts of decisions change how I, and I'm sure many FEEL about the game. The fight itself is punishing, the energy cost is punishing, the farming needed to complete the content is punishing. By the time I was finally ready to attempt the final objectives I realized something. I'm not having any fun and I don't care anymore.

In closing, all content is optional and I get that. For the first time in a long time I think this content will be optional for me. My question would be, how long do you think it takes for all of the Odin's vaults, black panthers treasures, early access bundles, daily cards, daily specials, summoner sigils and so much more to also become optional for me if this is how I'm feeling about the content? It's a sincere question. Is creating hundreds of dollars in energy revenue worth losing thousands of dollars in other revenue?

It really doesn't feel good to players when they hear they aren't skilled enough take on certain content. When you then charge them a premium to work on those skills it feels as bad as I've felt doing anything in this game, and unfortunately I've broken many things over this game. You really outdid yourself here.

P.S. I don't even want to think about how this impacts low spenders or god forbid free to play.

Comments

Vanitelia

@Childofkrakoa Good read and thanks for sharing. Interesting point about the revenue from energy vs revenue-generating areas. We'll never know. I am valiant, competed the Gamma (7r2 Hulk) and Sinister 6 (7r1 Sandman) objectives. I didn't have Warlock, Viv, or G2099 ranked beyond 6r3 and no 7 star options either, so I skipped that objective. The energy cost was a tough pill to swallow, but I decided I'd blitz through EQ exploration and see where I stood with refills.

I had plenty but didn't want to waste them on WoW, so I did the 7 tries, and then stopped. After a few days of doing this, I went ahead and committed to a run. Got the solo with Sandman and then repeated the process with Hulk. I didn't get the solo, but did get him down with 1 revive and some potions. I didn't bother boosting for the practice runs, but did pop 20% for the committed runs.

Long story short, they energy requirement wouldn't be so bad if we didn't have a ton of other content to do. At the time, we had EQ, SQ, and Lunar New Year all requiring energy to go along with WoW. That's a lot. Despite it all, if we pace ourselves, it is possible to get our practice in, complete content, and get everything done without having to dip into the refill stash or purchase more.

5ra

I watched YouTubers instead of learning the WoW fights in game. It's too punishing with 10 energy per attempt. I'd much rather play the game and learn these fights myself, but I also hate the feeling of being punished for practicing. Was able to get all 3 requirements, but definitely a lot less fun than EoP and it feels like a chore.

PT_99

Mr fat whale please don't swim near me, I'm just a little goldfish. 🥺🫶

But in all fairness that Abs man fight was just total cash grab, bs, released before tested, like it was harder than Necro fights for god's sake. He just use special and boom from 29% to 80% 😃 All my progress just poofed. Thanks Kabam.

Another thing, if Whales like Childo are heaving this much trouble clearing that fight despite him having abundance of units and revives plus 7* versions then just imagine the kind of abuse avg players with avg wallet went through.

Childofkrakoa

@Vanitelia Exactly. Managing energy prior to WoW was difficult but I didn't mind buying energy refills here or there. I spent a few hundred units every month on refills. To me that seems reasonable considering I want to do most things. Spending a couple weeks worth of energy refills in no time at all felt terrible. And that was with my Hulk for the gamma objective (a champion I regularly use). I was lucky to have 7* Sandman but had never used him outside of arenas. I just didn't gravitate to him. So I knew the practice bill on that objective was going to be even worse. After 50+ sub thirty second fights it just didn't seem worth it. This after spending whole days on Necro.

Ironically, VIV is my favorite Champion in the game and I would've loved to mess around with her in the fight but once I didn't need the objective I couldn't justify the energy.

captain_rogers

Tldr:

" I'm a p2w player and spend a lotta money in this game, Despite that, this challenge is unfair for me even with my enormous roster and item/unit stash. So this might extremely affect ftp players. This Wow might drive p2w players to stop spending on Mcoc"

And Honestly Op, you're right. Let's hope this fight is not the trend for upcoming wow fights. If this is how all fights will end up in difficulty, atleast kabam should change the energy cost.

Squirrelguy

Here are some related thoughts that I had while burning through a large stash of energy refills trying to get a perfect Shehulk fight against Absorbing Man. Maybe some of these will resonate with players that need some commiseration, and maybe some of them will be instructive to Kabam about the thought process of their players. Maybe I need to see a therapist...... don't tell my wife.

For reference, I started playing back in 2016, bought two 5$ bundles after a year or two, and decided that I wanted to challenge myself to make the most of playing without paying (and haven't bought anything since like 2018). I'm about to start my 5th path of Necro because I wanted to get Valiant before 8.4 dropped, but I didn't have the free time to farm revives like it seems many did, and have had to take it a little "slow".

The thoughts I had while pushing through Absorbing Man with my 6* R3 SheHulk were, not in this order:

Ow. Yikes. Lol. Maybe I need to watch like ten more videos on how this fight works.
Wow. 40k damage through a perfectly-timed block. That's certainly fun.
I thought I dodged there.... I guess not.
You know, I feel like maybe I'm doing well. I can consistently do 80-100 hits, but that only gets him down to ~80%. Maybe I could just revive? LOL nope, no way to stop the regen without a solid ramp, which negates everything I just did. Guess I need to git gud.
Several full refills in, and I think there may be a conspiracy with the AI to somehow force me into a bad move whenever I pass 80%.
I GOT HIM DOWN TO 50%. I can totally just revive this.
*10 revives later* .....I was saving those for Necro..... guess I just need to quit out and maybe I'll have the emotional energy to try again for the single point another day.
Unless I have a massively ranked up Psychoman that I'm unaware of, there are basically three champions that can do this fight for two objectives, and I have none of them at R4 or above. Maybe I just give up on all of the deathless pieces, because there is no way I'm saving up 5000 units for just one. Guess the rest of my year will be a lot more free since I wont feel the need to put in effor to whatever ridiculous hurdles they have for the next pieces. Guilly was a decent chase but this is too much.
You know, if they had any sort of fights beyond Captain America in the tutorial mode, maybe they could add high hp fights like this that specifically teach things like reparry, or how to time a dash-in during a special attack, or other useful lessons that are tough to practice on shorter fights. Nah, they don't get money from teaching people things like that, fight #2 in Tutorials is probably gonna be coming early Summer 2030..... [Edit: Training Grounds. I literally had to go look it up because it wasn't even relevant when it was new. Great idea, but 0 follow through.]
Maybe I have the energy to practice on my own Absorbing Man one more time. Oh, looks like I actually am awake today. I have almost a fulll energy pool, so I guess that'll get me 5 fights and maybe one of those won't lag on startup, or have ridiculous animation timing or something.
WAIT I JUST GOT HIM DOWN TO 25%. Only took me 198 hits, and I died to a perfectly timed block that I subconsciously threw even though I knew I'd probably take some fun and interactive damage. Yup. I guess that was a way to spend 5 minutes of my life. Still unsure to go on and waste more revives with him automatically regening massive amounts, or to try for a solo. Scratch that, no way am I getting that lucky any time in the next week. It's now or never.
I had to do another 120-150 hits until I was able to get him back under 25%, but a total of 205 hits in and PHEW, I am never fighting him again. Not even gonna acknowledge the final gauntlet. Don't care about #robots. Just gonna take the win, set down my phone, and take some deep breaths to regain my nerves.
You know, I might have liked the fight if one or more of the following could have been fixed: ridiculous regen, essentially unavoidable damage if you arent' constantly hitting him, unstoppable that you have to constantly keep in check or wait out and take damage, damage reduction, super restrictive damage node, super restrictive champion pool, really costly to practice or restart when one of a million things goes wrong and you get KOed because revives are almost always a waste.
The worst incentive of all is that you almost need to fully explore every available objective, of every WOW fight, toget a single piece out of 5, that you need to get to complete a single character, out of 5, to get a super exclusive character that is guaranteed to dominate in a game that is increasingly offering PvP modes that FTP players have to fight to keep up in.
The other constant pressure building behind my game-management nerves these days has been maintaining any sort of revive stash, but I'll save that rant for another page, I've derailed this one long enough.

TLDR: I have one nerve left, and it's name is Woe. Winter used to be my favorite season.....

Colinwhitworth69

For a long while almost everything in this game feels like a chore. Do this insane challenge that lacks any semblance of fun so you can get some virtual doodads so you can rank up your champs and then do an even harder challenge for more doodads. Lather, rinse, repeat. Boring.

I have studied gamification theory, and it feels like Kabam is stuck on the FOMO stage ("you gotta do WoW/buy this rank up deal/grind BGs/etc., or else you'll miss out on what other players are getting"). That's pretty much the only driver in this game right now. Again, boring.

It's a beautifully designed game, and impressive from a software design POV even with the bugs. But it feels driven by Kabam's economics to the point where, for me at least, I dread having to log in.

Childofkrakoa

Squirrelguy Thank you for all of that!!! Oh my gosh. I can't express how much this thread turned out exactly how I wanted it to be. (Fingers Crossed) There is plenty of "actionable, constructive criticism" here that Kabam could run with. You aren't going to make money on every account. You signed up for that as a free to play mobile game. However, there is a very committed player base that you you earn a great deal of revenue from. You want to make more money? I would advise you to get more creative with offers. I'll give you money for offers that enhance my fun in the game. Hell, keep the awful fights the way they are in WoW and I'll pay with consumables. I just refuse to buy all of the offers, web store bundles that I do, pay with revives and health, AND THEN STILL PAY with energy because I will never have the skill to work towards a one shot even though I'm valiant and play with the highest power levels in the game. At least not on a fight like this.

M0NKEYNUTS

I am Valiant and 9+ yr player. As frustrating as this game can get (I have broken 3 iphones from MCOC induced gamer rage), I still do not make any demands or ultimatums where I threaten to stop being pay to play or quit the game. I am too addicted and have no willpower. Every time I see these kind of threads, even ones as eloquently as worded as this one, I chuckle and wonder if TS is as powerless as me in setting the game down.

I imagine for every person who actually does truly stop paying or quit for good, there are many more who continue trudging along because we are plugged in and can never escape.

Jefechuta

I personally enjoyed the fight, its amazing how hard it was, had to do like 50 tries overall to be able to beat him, got something like @Squirrelguy , Got him near 30% with She-Hulk, 2 revives and done, couldnt solo due to some random A.I. recovery interactions, but still; I only wasted 60 units on refills, not too much since thats just 2 and half days of 22h Solo events so...

But yeah, personally I found the fight enjoyable due to the amount of concentration and how difficult it was, and how skill restrictive it was aswell, since you have to intercept, punish properly, dont block, be careful with the unstoppable buffs and your own debuffs so he cannot regen or go unstop; BUT, this is not worth the rewards, I mean, this could be easily a Valiant Special Side Quest Boss fight that rewards half a 7*, or maybe a whole one, some T6CCats, a 6* Relic, etc, only by beating this guy with the required champs.

But for a single fight of this whole yearly event that only gives you 3 points of the whole bunch of points you need for the decent rewards? Nuh-uh

I hope the next fights are equivalent to the rewards, not this excessive overtune of an already hard defender.

P.S.: Really enjoyed both @Squirrelguy and @Childofkrakoa posts

jcphillips7

I do wonder what some of these other people do; the ones who have made MCOC a face for themselves (multiple YTbers). I'm well aware these people probably have everyday lives and stuff, but if the game were to just close down today, what other things would they move on to? Me for example, I've got a mile long backlog of PS5 games to play, but I don't think I would gravitate towards another mobile game. I can't say the same for some others. I feel they 'need' that fix, especially ones whose entire channels revolve around the game.

Childofkrakoa

M0NKEYNUTS I totally agree with everything you said here. I'm sure our addiction levels are comparable lol. I have no plans to quit, I don't want to, I'd probably even spend more money. But, if the things that the game is centered around feels so bad I'll just do something else in game. The question is if I go and do something else does Kabam make as much money?

If I decide to grind Champs out of arenas rather than getting the bundle because I'm not spending time on WoW.... Again, not a threat. I'm going to play the game, but if I change the way in which I do so that also changes the demands on my account. If I don't spend time on WoW, I'm probably not going to need those weekly revive refresh web store bundles that I purchased on four of my necro runs and other occasions. In no way am I threatening to not be a customer but I just know how I'll adjust if things feel bad like this. I want to chase the bleeding edge but I need to not feel like I'd rather clock back into work than fight this Abs Man. This needs to be fun on some level and the energy cost destroys that for me.

EgyptOverseer

Great reads. If only Kabam read it too...

Grub88

I mean the only way they will listen is everyone stops forking out money for stuff. I did my part 6 months ago just waiting for everyone else to join in. This is the only game I have ever played where the developers actually design content to encourage spending (not saying they don't exist) most other games I play spending only gives you an aesthetic advantage over non spenders. From what I have read and seen on youtube the bulk of revenue would come from there store offers anyway so it is very confusing why they continue to drive this narrative that energy and revives are there main income generator. They are the ones with the data so they should know, Ill believe it when I see the data for myself.

DNA3000

How do you square your feeling that Kabam wants guaranteed revenue from every player when most players don't spend? On average, only 5% of players spend on the mobile games they play, and it is unlikely MCOC is exceptional in that regard.

Most people seem to assume that the free to play players (gasp) are a tiny minority of people the game relegates to some ghetto. But they are almost all the players, and they exist at essentially every progression tier.

The fundamental operating principle of all massively multiplayer microtransaction supported free to play games is, more or less, let everyone play for free, and they will sort themselves into a hierarchy based on game play. And then let those willing to spend climb to the higher rungs they wish they could get to and they see their friends reach.

No content is designed to force players to spend. If they wanted to force players to spend, they would charge a subscription fee. Every piece of content, from Woe to Necropolis to Gauntlet to Proven monthly EQ sorts the players into those that can do it, those that cannot do it at all, and those who could do it with a little help. Five percent of those players will spend to buy themselves some help.

Every piece of content makes someone feel bad for not being able to do it. Proven EQ causes more people to quit than Winter of Woe, simply because multiple orders of magnitude of people encounter Proven. Something to think about. The difficulty of the 5.2 Collector almost certainly causes more pain than Winter of Woe Abs Man simply by virtue of pure numbers. How would you address that? Is that something you would address?

Grub88

Do you have data to support your 5%?

DNA3000

I have several data points. First, the industry averages are publicly available: I'm not going to Google search them all. Different sources specify different numbers under different circumstances: I've read dozens of such sources, and they all converge on about 5%. But here's an article that covers the subject: https://brightblack.co/blog/2018/12/10/player-to-payer-why-f2p-conversion-rate-is-so-important-to-your-games-success

Now, MCOC could be exceptional. And there are other studies that show other conversion rates for other games. I've never been told exactly precisely what the MCOC conversion rate actually is, and I wouldn't be able to say if I was. However, I was once told that MCOC was not a wild outlier relative to the industry, and I don't think that's especially sensitive information. Maybe they only convert 2% of their players into spenders. Maybe they are really great at it and convert 15% of their players into spenders. 5% is a reasonable proxy for the number, because no number anywhere near it would change the discussion much.

laserjohn26

You must be new

Stature

Reading OP's post, I think the compliant was regarding the energy cost for the fight and the restrictions it places on practicing the fight. "Revenue" is in quotes and they specifically mention energy costs multiple times in the post. In context of the whole post, it is pretty clear they are not suggesting that the team expects every player to make a cash purchase to get through WoW.

Crcrcrc

I really don’t want to be that guy but that source doesn’t have any actual studies backing it up, and across the internet I found numbers ranging from 1%-25% for it. Do you have a direct link to where that figure came from? I’m curious about it.

klobberintyme

I'm a big picture guy. Here's the big picture.

Here's MCOC(Kabam) in Netmarble's portfolio for 2023 q4:

Here's the current slate of Kabam offerings:

MCOC revenue needs to offset as much as it can for Kabam to justify these offerings (and it's existence in a way) which, as seen above, don't crack the top 10 but cost big bucks to develop.

See the trio below?

The highlighted company, SpinX, accounts for 3 of the top 10 and a combined 4% more than MCOC. The kicker? They cost a fraction of what Kabam spends on MCOC, and since there's no Disney cut, they're way more profitable for Netmarble.

So, how much revenue does Kabam need from every player in MCOC? Twice as much as it's currently getting, from Netmarble's perspective.

Kabam Crashed

Hello. I really like this thread! Lots of good thoughts and feedback. There is no possible way I can address everything that is touched on or asked in this thread right now, so I’m going to focus on the core question at the top: what exactly is the purpose of the energy cost in WoW? To do that I’m going to provide some insights into how we think about content as it relates to our systems.

When we started on the designs of this new content that we internally call Seasonal Everest Content, we took a look back at past designs of end-game content to see what was working and what was not. When it came to the meta systems of WoW, we identified two major things we wanted to change.

The first was that the Eternity of Pain events used peak milestones for rewards, which players really didn’t like because it required months of commitment before players saw any benefit. Even when the final objectives were completed, players had to wait for the event to end before the payout. There is a very good reason EoP used peak milestones, and that’s because many of the chase components of those rewards like Nexus Crystals and Abyss Nexus Crystals were indivisible. We couldn’t give out small amounts along the way, and so had we gone with regular milestones they would have felt really insufficient at the lower rungs as so much of the value would have necessarily been in the top few milestones. We also wanted to “upgrade” crystals as players progressed through the milestones, something that wasn’t really possible with regular milestones. We actually tried a draft of rewards with regular milestones you collect along the way and just couldn’t get it to work.

Thankfully with WoW, all of the chase resources in the game right now are easily divisible. We can award Titan Shards, 7-Star Shards and 7-Star Sig Stones across a number of milestones that build up to the top. So we were able to improve the player experience by providing regular rewards for regular progress.

The second thing we identified that we didn’t think was working was the completely riskless entry to the quests. Players could enter the quests hundreds of times, get knocked out hundreds of times, and there was zero jeopardy involved. To us this was very strange. It should be consequential when a champion gets knocked out in end game content, and in EOP it just wasn’t a lot of the time.

Given we wanted to change this aspect of the quests, we talked about a few options. The first we toyed with was entry limits, as I believe Kevin mentioned on stream. We decided that would swing too far in the other direction, completely preventing players from practicing or trying to go for the solo if that was how they preferred to play the content. So we settled on adding a substantial energy cost to the quests. It had to be something meaningful enough that getting knocked out would have consequences, but not so costly that players couldn’t retry the quest many times should they so choose to use their energy in that way.

I know some won’t believe me when I say this, but nobody on the game team sat down and did a calculation that we thought we could make X dollars by charging Y energy. We never even had a conversation about that. It was about adding risk to late game quests which we believe is a fundamental component of challenging content. Additionally, trying to predict the exact impact of the energy cost in terms of any measurable indicator (engagement, player time, player sessions or anything else) would have been a waste of time, as the late game energy economy has been so broken for so long that there is no real way to predict how this will impact the game. That’s why we have to wait for data to see how it impacts the game.

Finally, on a personal note, this is one of those times when as a designer my job was to act against my own personal play patterns. I am one of those players who will do these fights dozens or hundreds of times trying to get them perfect. I can say that personally, that felt bad for the Absorbing Man fight, in which I probably spent 15+ energy refills experimenting and perfecting my strategies. And it felt good for the Nebula fight today, where it took me a couple refills to finish the objectives. One of my solos today was a fight that started poorly and under the EoP zero energy economy I would have just backed out and gone again. With the energy cost I toughed it out and it was probably my favorite fight in this type of content ever. I was able to overcome a challenge I otherwise wouldn’t have even bothered to attempt had it not been for this design change.

At any rate, I hope that provides some insight on how these decisions are made. I wanted to take some time to write this down as I know a lot of members of the community have taken time to provide detailed feedback and I appreciate that effort. I have a vacation that starts tomorrow so I probably won’t be responding to anything for a few weeks, but I will be lurking and will definitely be back in March to answer questions about some new things coming to the Contest starting with our next build.

Thanks all,
Jon AKA Crashed

PT_99

Kabam crashed really is turning out to be my favourite 😍

DNA3000

Almost no individual company just comes out and says here, these are our monetization numbers, because that’s sensitive strategic information. You only get these numbers from attending conferences, watching industry presentations, and talking to people.

If you want some specific data point that allows you to determine what this is for any particular company by simple reference, I’m afraid no such thing exists. At least not that I’ve seen.

jdschw

Thank you for the very interesting post, @Kabam Crashed !

I do have one follow up question, whenever you happen to see this: you mentioned that the primary goal of the energy cost was to introduce some risk or jeopardy into this game experience. I think you accomplished that goal, but my question is: why is that a goal?

Is it based on an expectation that this will enhance the fun for some players, like you experienced with the Nebula fight? Is it intended to increase the challenge of the content? Or is it meant to increase the satisfaction and sense of accomplishment for players that complete it? Or maybe to keep players striving to improve so they stay engaged with the game? (Or maybe all of these, or something else that I haven't thought of?)

Speaking for myself, I can say that I enjoy this game even when there is minimal risk involved. I do feel a sense of accomplishment when I beat a tough act boss. But mostly I find those fights fun because they feel like a puzzle to solve, and I love solving puzzles. The risk of losing resources is not the fun part for me. Instead, the resources provide the means for me to have fun with the game. If I run out of resources, then I can't have any fun. And if I were to use up all my resources without anything to show for it, I think I would be very frustrated.

DNA3000

That’s not how I read it, because immediately prior the OP (mis)quotes Kabam statements about the value of time. They clearly state that they were fine spending time to work on this kind of content, but restricting such practice with high energy costs translates into spending money, or at least the pressure to spend money, because if it translated into pressure to do anything else, that would itself be comparable to spending time again.

In fact, the OP comes right out and says it later in the post: “is creating hundreds of dollars in energy revenue worth losing thousands of dollars in other revenue?” That is unambiguous.

KoiBoy18

First, many thanks for sharing a peek behind the strategic curtain; you're never required to share with us but doing so creates a much more vibrant discussion and community engagement (even if some if that engagement is from complaints).

I have never made an actual suggestion to Kabam before (I'm no @DNA3000 with actual game changing input!) but have one to proffer now having read both player and your feedback:

Can you possibly implement WoW Duel tokens like you do for regular Duel tokens today? This would let everyone have 5 (or whatever number you want) practices per day to learn mechanics of the fight without huge energy costs.

But it would let you keep the 5 energy cost and desired risk design of being KOed as players would still need to perform well in the actual fight. Hopefully this approach also let us you use existing Duel token programming so a WOW token system wouldn't require programming from scratch.

Intended result? Players are given a controlled number of practice runs but still require energy use in actual fight if they choose to keep quitting the fight over and over

Thanks again for sharing your decision making process. It means a lot to the community!

World Eater

Very insightful response from John /Crash.

Appreciate the response. And yes, it’s an awful feeling to throw away handfuls of energy refills and get nothing accomplished. The energy cost wouldn’t be as big of an issue if the first WoW wasn’t so punishing.

Vanitelia

@Childofkrakoa Thanks for the reply. I appreciate it. I really enjoyed Crashed's response as well. Thorough and had a ton of insight there. Glad you guys came to your senses with the entry ticket idea. That would have rained down fire and brimstone on the game team if we're being honest.

Week 2 felt different...definitely more in like with SoP last year. The enjoyable part was that there are a ton of counters and it wasn't nearly as restrictive as Week 1. My point is that when the nodes/fight design feel good, the cost of energy/consumables doesn't factor in as much...Play the fight well, and you get through it. Don't, and you get punished either by needing more practice (energy) or using potions/revives.

Ghostboytjie

Kabam crashed is DNA's second account. Change my mind