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

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Comments

  • obsidimanobsidiman Member Posts: 974 ★★★

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

    The two have never been seen in the same room together...
  • StatureStature Member Posts: 469 ★★★
    DNA3000 said:

    Stature said:

    DNA3000 said:

    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.

    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.
    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.
    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.
    Because some people are going to spend on refills to get through that content. Why would you conflate that to mean that OP assumes Kabam wants everyone to spend on clearing the content. That's what you picked on to write-off their entire complaint. At the end of the post they even mention that FTP players would be impacted the most due to the energy cost.

    Overall, its not a secret that the playerbase isn't happy about the energy cost for WoW and it feels restrictive. Crashed gave constructive feedback on why the company feels it is required. You just wrote off the complaint because you felt someone didn't understand the stats around spending patterns.
  • BigBlueOxBigBlueOx Member Posts: 2,336 ★★★★★
    Stature said:

    DNA3000 said:

    Stature said:

    DNA3000 said:

    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.

    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.
    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.
    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.
    Because some people are going to spend on refills to get through that content. Why would you conflate that to mean that OP assumes Kabam wants everyone to spend on clearing the content. That's what you picked on to write-off their entire complaint. At the end of the post they even mention that FTP players would be impacted the most due to the energy cost.

    Overall, its not a secret that the playerbase isn't happy about the energy cost for WoW and it feels restrictive. Crashed gave constructive feedback on why the company feels it is required. You just wrote off the complaint because you felt someone didn't understand the stats around spending patterns.
    This is more what I was referring to in my comment. Lots of text to obscure the original argument. Sometimes as they’ve correctly pointed out the original argument was built unfairly and maybe they feel it necessary to do so but that’s not always the case, as the OP was very constructive.

    Nothing against DNA either, just not sure how that’s similar to the communications from Crashed.
  • GhostOfYostGhostOfYost Member Posts: 59


    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.

    For my part, I think you shouldn't consider risk as mandatory in end game content, but as one of your levers to adjust how end game content lands. You can diversify the level of risk to diversify the kind of enjoyment the players get from the content. Learning how to defeat a hard mechanic is fun even if there's little-to-no cost involved, and that's a different kind of fun than the high risk of being 8 fights into a Necro run and realizing you're going to have to sink a lot more revives or potions into a fight than anticipated if you can't figure out the mechanic under pressure.

    Providing low risk end game content can also help alleviate some of the frustration that doesn't result from skill or roster issues, like an uncooperative AI (an opponent who does nothing but dash back when you need to intercept) or terrible RNG luck. I think most players don't find these aspects of the game fun at all, and they can turn fun high risk content into very un-fun content. Providing some--not all--end game content with low risk makes a run spoiled by bad AI feel like a speed bump rather than a wall.

    I would also add that the Absorbing Man fight was high risk regardless of the energy cost. It was a very difficult solo with the champs in the objective, and reviving meant you were susceptible to AM's huge regen triggering before you could do much to shut it down. That leads to an endless cycle of revives and a fight that can't be chipped away at. There's huge risk to your revive stash even if the energy cost is 0.

    Skill, roster strength, strategic thinking, and risk are all different spectrums along which you can tune content. End game content doesn't have to max out all 4 to be effective. Balance them separately to give us different kinds of fun experiences that don't all feel maximally oppressive.
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  • Ackbar67Ackbar67 Member Posts: 452 ★★★★

    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

    Thanks so much for the informative response! While my opinions on the energy haven't changed, and probably won't, I really appreciate the insight for what went into this decision. It does make me sad that so much of what made this content my favorite is now gone, but I can better understand why the change was made now
  • GreekhitGreekhit Member Posts: 2,820 ★★★★★


    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.

    Insightful post (the original), but to keep the forum tidy, I’ve cut out the part that I disagree.
    You are saying that in EOP getting knocked out and retrying isn’t a lot of time, compared to other high end content, but you forget two critical parameters:
    1. Other high end content is permanent and not available for only two weeks.
    2, Retrying an EOP fight might require much less time than an Abyss path f.e., given the fact people would attempt more tries (if the zero energy cost remained), it would still require a descent amount of time, that is additional to whatever other content the player has to do in these two weeks.
    So each time someone is getting knocked out and retrying, would still have time consequences, even if that is 2min per try, it add ups on several attempts.
    The time penalty still exists.
    And I really want to believe that the game team’s comment on the irrelevance of players time in the game economy, was just a miss comment, and they appreciate players time investment on the game.
    I can see the game team’s view on increasing the cost, and I personally side with it, but it is too much.
    4-5 energy per attempt along with the time investment, would be a good point, that I assume would satisfy both the game team’s goals and the players needs 🙂

  • Grub88Grub88 Member Posts: 360 ★★★



    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.

    This part confuses me in the way that there is clearly an energy spend goal as they have clearly stated they are reviewing the data from the fights. Energy equates to units which can be converted to dollars so maybe you haven't sat down and done the exact calculation but you clearly have an energy cost goal for the community.

    Ill admit the rest makes sense there has to be cost for content but why time in real life is not accounted for makes no sense. People will definitely pay money to not have to grind out content this is well know in the gaming community. This energy requirement for WoW (plus broken abs man) doesn't seem to be just affecting the F2P players but also the players with a large bank account too as seen in the OP comment.

    The energy management this month has been a straight up chore and we all know chores aren't fun
  • AntsiouAntsiou Member Posts: 184 ★★
    @Kabam Crashed
    I appreciate very much a clear and well articulated explanation and rationale for the decision made by you and the team. All the while I still don’t agree with the rationale behind the energy cost. And that’s ok.
    One thing that maybe illustrates my position as to why the energy cost isn’t something I support is this part of your post:
    “ 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 understand “toughed it out” as you either managed to avoid getting killed and made an amazing come back. Or you revived and had a better run. The first having probably created a great sense of accomplishment. But if it’s the latter, then using a revive instead of restarting doesn’t really accomplish anything in terms of accomplishment. For players like me, Valiant but far from the top skills, getting a solo is rare, but building a strategy and the skills to take off maybe 50% in one try is great. At this point I’m committed and I’ll revive until I get it done.
    But taking only 5-10% off because I’m still figuring out the fight, AI trips me, I need to git gud, etc doesn’t entice me to revive. Then the kicker comes in with 10 energy in the hope to have a better start.
    As some have suggested, having some practice tokens or 3 energy instead would make the learning and trying to master the fight a lot more enjoyable, or at least not feeling like we have to pay twice, with energy and time.

    Just my two cents.
  • Standardman1989Standardman1989 Member Posts: 553 ★★★
    I don't mind the energy if it's fights like Nebula, if it's like the man asborbant it's not for a bug / or a test that has not and tested well.
  • Ironman3000Ironman3000 Member Posts: 1,955 ★★★★★
    We'll have to see if the difficulty for the remaining fights is more like Abs Man or more like Nebs. If we get more Abs Man fights then it is a huge problem. If we get more Nebs fights is just a problem.
  • ArmoredGhostArmoredGhost Member Posts: 183 ★★★

    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.

    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

    Crashed, I really appreciate you taking the time to really dive in and explain the reasonings behind these decisions (and would appreciate more like this in the future). That being said, I do need to bring up something(s) you may have overlooked.

    1)A big part of these fights is experimentation, not only in terms of learning the ins and outs of the fight itself but also in terms of choosing the champions to use in the fight. For example, I really REALLY wanted to see if sentinel could work for Abs man but I just couldn't get a good enough run to really know if he worked or not. Eventually I just gave up on trying to use him and just did it with Warlock. After I defeated abs man I didn't go back into the quest to try other champs because that would just be a waste of energy. I wanted to try other champs who didn't fulfill any objectives (Like titania) just to have a fun fight or maybe even practice for the gauntlet down the road. But since the energy cost is too high I didn't want to do that since I need that energy for other content like questing or BG.

    2) The other thing it seems was brushed off is that if you are spending this much energy on WoW, that is energy not going towards BG, EQ questing, SQ questing, the lunar event (at the time), daily apothecary, story content, and even potion farming in RoL. Your post made it seem that you believe the only cost of the 10 energy is more limited entries into wow itself. With all the recent content coming out many people are low on energy as is + all the more difficult content coming out means more revives were used. People have limited stashes, units, and real money.

    3)On top of the energy cost, Abs man was just a very unfair fight for the robot objective and clearly wasn't intended to be as difficult for the objective as he was (as the members of kabam have mentioned themselves). I completed it with an r4 warlock and it cost me 8 revives which is a lot for any one fight (I didn't have any 7*s available for the fight, just unlucky that I haven't pulled warlock or G2099, and I would rather not ascend and r5 champions who already exist as 7*s). Additionally I used 1 revive for Hulk for the gamma objective, and 4 for shocker for the valiant objective. Is that not cost enough? I guess what I'm trying to ask is that the design intent doesn't seem clear. When you design these what is it you would rather the players do? Are they designed to be soloed with perfect fighting? Are they designed to force players to use revives? If it's designed to force players to use revives, why make it cost 10 energy per attempt anyway? (Not trying to be combative just want to get a little more insight and understanding).

    I'll agree that it may diminish the challenge a little bit if it only costs 1 energy but did it have to be 10? Couldn't it be 4 5 or even 6 energy? 14 (give or take) attempts per refill is too many but 7 is just right?
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