Is driving your Kabam Car on your Marvel Vacation Fun?
SLipMCOC
Member Posts: 6 ★
Kabam Crashed said:
When I think about how we plan the Contest...
... In order for us to continue to play this game, we need a number of things: ( this is not an exhaustive list but I think these are the three most important requirements)If at any point in time we don’t have any one of these three things, we risk entering a death spiral where a negative feedback loop results in fewer players, which results in less revenue, which results in a smaller team, which results in fewer players …. you get the picture. This is how pretty much every successful mobile game eventually dies.
- A sufficiently large player base to support the game at scale
- Enough development resources to keep those players entertained and engaged so they don’t leave the game (what we call churn)
- Things to sell to those players so we can make revenue and pay for the development resources
So I spend a lot of my time thinking about how we can make sure we have enough of these things...
...If our goal was to make as much money as possible on every offer, it would indeed be dumb not to follow that advice, but that isn’t our goal. Our goal (or at least my goal) is for us to keep making this game for the next decade and beyond.
The infinite game is really a marathon, not a sprint. It isn’t enough to just think about us having enough players, resources and revenue this year, but we need to think about it for at least the next ~3 years or we definitely would run out of something important be it players, developers or things to sell.
How does player sentiment impact the infinite game?
When I first started working at Kabam three years ago, I was hired as an economy designer. One day I proposed an offer to the Live Ops team which they agreed to build and put in the game. I was pretty confident there was a market for the offer that I had uncovered in our data. The day the offer went out, I looked around to see if players were talking about it and was absolutely devastated by what I found. There were threads on the forums talking about how out of touch Kabam was to make such an insulting offer. There were multiple YouTube videos with titles like “Whichever Kabam Employee Made This Offer Should Be Fired!”
The next day I started work expecting to see that I had proposed the first offer in the game’s history to be bought by nobody, and looking at our revenue dashboards I discovered that, not only had the offer been bought by some players, it had significantly overperformed our revenue estimates. It was, for lack of a better phrase, broadly very popular.
That anecdote is just one example of something I have come to learn over the last three years: there is no consistent correlation between player sentiment in our social channels and short-term revenue. Our engaged players are really really good at a lot of things, including our game, but their opinions on how we make money have little to no predictive value.
To be clear I’m not saying players are always wrong. I remember one sale (I think J4 2023?) in which there was a lot of chatter about how Thronebreaker players were getting shafted, and the Thronebreaker offers in that sale did indeed perform well under our expectations. Sometimes players are spot on. But what I am saying is there is no way for us to see player reaction to an offer or sale on the Forums and YouTube and know if those opinions will impact revenue or not.
I have long had suspicions as to why this was the case, and one of the reasons I wanted to wait for the analysis before making this post is because for the first time our data science group is working on exactly this question. There are a few interesting results from that work, but
the key finding is pretty simple: players engaged in our social channels are not a representative sample of our player base. This should be obvious to everyone reading this, but I’ll be honest the more I dig into this, the more differences I find between what the Forums, Discord and YouTube talk about and what our average players care about. We make the majority of our revenue from a much more casual group of players that are often not represented in these channels.
Kabam Crashed
A feedback thread -
First of all, I feel like I am of the "more casual group not represented in these channels" that spend significantly on this game for 10 years, playing in the back ground, watching YT to find a way to beat the guy or do the thing that has to do damage to the the dude... not a top skill player just a customer trying to enjoy the game. I am 7.7 mil account -1430+ champs- Valiant player my roster is significant and robust but my skill is very average, champ knowledge is mid. Cant dex worth a damn.
Do you all like the intentional design of bosses and nodes that make your roster useless, not doing any damage at all for the first two minutes, fights that you cannot do any damage, nodes that cancel your champ abilities, that you cannot practice duel any bosses?
Yes, you can grind units easier than before but now, you must use many more revives and potions or units than ever before to complete content.
Are the design trends of no damage nodes and boss fights the new norm?
Is making your entire roster investment meaningless the gold standard now? to get you to use many more units, revives and potions to even do a quest?
In my opinion, It is ok to still have vanilla content like the EQ, SQ (pretty straight forward content) and the 10 yr Chronology Quest (had no nodes) that allow your champs and abilities to do what they are intended to do against defenders.
You know, Fun content that just allows my champs to wreck **** the way they were designed.
The complexity, champ knowledge needed and skill required scale is getting way out of control for the average paying customer that wants to just play a marvel fighting game with good graphics, collect and rank up champs and have some fun along the way.
Remember the good old days , play quest , get stuff, spin crystals, get new dudes, play more stuff , get more stuff, level up and rank up your dudes , repeat!!!.. you know, fun stuff, big yellow/red numbers and champs that played at their full potential without BS nodes or damage protection while you smashed, tapped and swiped while chatting it up with the wife watching TV.
In the Kabam Crashed post mortem post (excerpt above) he mentioned player sentiment and churn as a concern to the longevity of the game, but yet later (paraphrasing in the context that I took it as) takes the attitude of well if you are player A whose happiness depends on B then this content probably isn't for you because its not going to change and will only be more of the same in the future. Sort of a sorry but, get used to it or don't play it attitude
full post here:
https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2736166#Comment_2736166
All one needs to do is go to the App Store and filter the comments to the critical low star reviews to understand player sentiment is waning.
I’ve have spent money on this game for over 10 years and unfortunately I think I'm done doing so. The last couple years I frequently feel scammed and want a refund after you make what you sold me worthless in new content or remove farming a resource that others had for years (revives farming) or nerf something after 10years (power boosts and EQ bundles). The last couple years you removed revive farming, shrunk the ability to store and earn revives, made content harder to require many most folks to use multiple revives and unit spending to complete. You call it skill based. But you cannot lower the difficulty, you can only pay to continue or lose out on the rewards (FOMO) if you’re not the top 1% skill player that can do it cheaply. You can now watch even the most skilled player YouTube creators now have to use revives and potions to clear stuff. Everything is intentionally designed to create a FOMO and have you chasing crumbs only to find out the crumbs change nothing, because you cannot do any damage or champs don't work on this node.
You will need more revives and units to get anything done in the best content/rewards. Most players will have to use Unit man to complete anything with good rewards. Even if i suck, my champ should do a decent amount of damage even if its reduced by something, it should never do zero damage because i can line up the skill hoops to do so.
It’s masochistic and not fun. It used to be fun when your champs did Damage no matter what, when their abilities you bought them for actually worked and were not cancelled by the node. Grief content is not fun content.
Imagine you buy a car sold to you by Kabam. They promise you all the latest and newest upgrades and accessories. Some time after you buy it, you realize you will need to get the oil for it to run, then the gas for it to work but you can only buy it from the special Kabam gas station and only pay for it with special Kabam money that you have to buy or earn by grinding out some part of the game you don’t enjoy. Then you will need to upgrade the tires, the engine and the infotainment center, after 3, 6 months or 12 months when you have done that , your car is outdated and you need to get the new one. You can use all your old cars to go on the dream vacation they created for you this month where you can get the best rewards to upgrade all your cars but all your old cars won’t work. They went by your house one day and swapped the engines to a lesser engine and told you it’s better. To complete this vacation trip, You will also have to drive in reverse the entire time, a can only go max speed of 5mph even though your cars top speed is 200mph, you can only make left turns, and only when the traffic signal is red and then you also will have to stop every 10 miles to refill your Kabam gas, with Kabam money for the entire 700 mile trip if you want to get the rewards. So no matter what fancy car you bought or choose to use, you all have to pay for this vacation as you go, in order to get the rewards. Sounds like some B.S right?
Sell you a champ this week and make it worthless in the next thing they create by either making you use less than ideal champs to get rewards or a node that is immune to all your abilities. They remove or change how you can obtain all the lower progression items that should stockpile and contribute to your overall resources as you progress, and they continue to find ways to make your entire roster worthless in new content that contains the best rewards or rewards you need to be competitive.
It’s free to play, but very pay to win. In Battlegrounds, one persons fun (the winner) cannibalizes the other persons fun (the loser) so you will eventually get tired of losing and quit that too, unless you enjoy grinding losses for meaningless shard crumbs.
In 2023, 2024 and 25 they continue to intentionally design and over tune champs, and new content so they can sell you revives/units and maybe later the so called hard counter to a miserable defender they create.
They continue to make boss fights that you can not do any damage no matter what champ you use.
There is no way to practice or duel these bosses either, you must pay and use your saved resources over and over until you learn the desired skill or give up.
If you choose to pay your way through a boss fight it’s very expensive and mentally frustrating beyond gamer rage (not fun). But you must beat this boss that you cannot Damage in order to progress. So pay to play or miss out.
Endure the pain and frustration to maybe enjoy the in between stuff.
You can choose not to do the content, or wait until someday that you may have enough revives to try it or higher ranked champs. but even higher ranked champs wont do damage. then there is new new content and the rewards you waited to do are no longer even relevant.
They have sucked all the fun out of this game and try to convince you ‘it’s supposed to be challenging, grief content or Everest end game content. Well it’s supposed to be fun at its core. Fun for the masses that aren’t skilled as the top players like MSD. If top players are using revives, units and potions to complete one run at something then what do you think the rest of the population has to do, save up 50,100 or more revies to do one run at 25 or so revives a month is one path every one or two months so by the time you complete anything the rewards are not worth the time and unit cost.
Now they starve you for revives because someone thought farming was killing the game.
You have to grind units, so they now make you go back and play arena continuously if you want to play this game at all.
If you hate to grind units then you must buy them and they of course know that most players HATE GRINDING ARENA, so eventually you will need to buy units if you don't stay FTP.
FTP players will either get tired off grinding units and spending them to keep up and leave the game or they will have to pay for units.
In the current state of this game , YOU WILL SPEND REVIVES and/or UNITS to complete content and boss fights. Or you make one attempt at content and fail then have grind some more units to try again.
Soon only CCP, YouTube players, Discord and Forums folks will be playing and Kabam will have an over tuned game with and under tuned economy that tries to please only the top, smallest population of most skilled players and the content creators from their CCP that need to make a video. The ones that have already proven to not be the majority opinion of the player base - so Why tune the game to this madness.
I hope those players spend enough to keep the doors open because this could be a great forever game with the right direction. If you want my money, it’s supposed to be entertaining and what you sell me should always work. What you sell me is supposed to do damage (all the damn time) If you want my money. The game is also not supposed to break every time I update it if you want my money.
If you want my money , get it together Kabam!
Respectfully, Your Customer
15
Comments
I thought it was something that contributed towards the game ( without reading ofc ) and was going to read it
turns out just one of many rants so saved me some time there 🙂
We agree to disagree but at least understand where the OP is coming from
But from your own self-praise for your own car analogy, it sounds like you enjoyed your own writing, which at the end of the day, is really all that matters.
MCOC is the main product of Kabam but there are only about 1 million players which is pretty small by industry standards
When it comes to modes like Battlegrounds, an even smaller number of players are actively playing bcos the nodes are not easy for casual players
Suggestions has been made to create a separate casual league for casual players who want to have some casual fun
I want it, can't get it, therefore design is bad.
One fight I can recall in 10 yrs that could not be brute forced.
Is the OP your alt account? I can't imagine anyone else reading that fan fiction.
Up until about Act 6, the game was a much simpler game. It did not lean into what Kabam calls "RPG-like" mechanics. In the very early stages of the game, the game was almost completely one-dimensional: higher attack was all that mattered on offense, and blocking was all that mattered on defense. Hit, block, that's it. This was the age of Starlord and perfect block synergy teams. But even then it was moving, in the obvious direction of more damage, more damage mitigation. Defenders were scaling up in difficulty by making them hit harder and have gigantic piles of health the player had to chew through. This was the direction of the game. More numbers, bigger numbers, practically without limit.
The devs tried to introduce new difficulty mechanics, but in a world where numbers scaled so high, and champion design was itself very one-dimensional, you had situations where any non-standard difficulty mechanic either introduced a skill hurdle no one had any experience with (think 6.2 Champion) or roster checks that were extremely narrow (think Acid Wash Mysterio). The game simply wasn't designed to allow for anything else other than a billion points of attack and a gazzilion points of health to grind down.
The game you look back on with nostalgia contained the seeds of its own destruction. This all came to a ahead in the post Act 6 era with the Act 7.1 beta, where the roster checks were extremely narrow, and the defender boosts were astronomical. Even Kabam understood, before the mass complaints started coming in, that there was no way the game could continue on its original trajectory. They had data that showed Act 6 itself was acting as a roadblock to player progress, on top of the mass defections by a sizeable fraction of 7.1 beta testers.
I'm not sure when the seeds were planted to change direction, it probably happened before 7.1 beta, but 7.1 beta definitely accelerated and crystalized that new direction in both champion design and content design. The idea became rather than scale up, scale outward. Instead of just a few champs being the best attackers and the best defenders, absent extremely tricky nodes, the game would focus on diversifying the champion roster and changing the content so that rather than just have binary roster checks, it was balanced more around rewarding some options while penalizing others, so there was a range of possible roster options to choose from. And we can see with the current Act 7, 8, and 9 designs that by in large they succeeded at that: complaints about Book 2 chapters are far lower than they were for Act 6. There are more options available to players, and those options don't just escape node penalties, in many cases they benefit the player over and above that. Players are rewarded for having optimum roster choices. There is a lot more carrot to the roster chase than just running away from the sticks.
However, this does come at a cost. The post Act 6 world has become the new norm, and with that players now judge everything on the *easiest* examples of post Act 6 design. And simultaneous with the change in content design was a deliberate expansion of end game content, which is something else that there was a dearth of until the post Act 6 world. Players can now see what the net effect is when the current roster design methodology and the current content design methodology meets top tier end game content difficulty. The much wider roster checks become narrower, the skill thresholds become higher, and the RPG-like node designs become more complex. Just as the old school design methodology when pushed far enough became a horrible numbers grind, the current design school when pushed far enough becomes a highly complex affair that can exceed many players' mental headspace. For me, that happens when I'm asked to keep track of too many timers in fights, for example.
Thing is, we're never going back. Ever. The direction we're heading in is a consequence of the place we are now, just like the direction we used to be heading was a consequence of where we were then. Just like with the old game, we're reaching (in my opinion) some limits of how far the game can push players to accept increasing levels of complexity - roster complexity, node complexity, fight design complexity. However, this is largely happening in the end game now, not in the core progressional game. The vast majority of the game is still monthly EQ and story Act content. The fact is, while you say:
You are in fact far, far away from the average player, much less the typical casual player. The problems you are seeing are probably affecting a tiny percentage of the player population. The vast majority of the player population, casual, average, is still trying to catch up to you. They are still seeing a game that hasn't reached that breaking point in complexity yet (at least, not in the same way). Those who are, are still among the fastest progressing players in the game. And frankly, the game can afford to tolerate slowing them down while they decide what's next.
This is probably not what you want to hear, but on the one hand, the issues you see are in fact real issues that the game will eventually have to deal with. But on the other hand, they are currently affecting the players they sort of are intended to affect. This game is not going to be an ultra casual play with one eye on the screen type game ever again. It was never going to be such a game for long no matter what, as it was moving away from that literally from day one. Unless you want to live in the arena, that is, in which case you'll at least have tons of units to show for it. And before the problems you're seeing actually start to impact the real average progressing players, Kabam will have to make adjustments. But the days when the players at the end game could simply idle through mindless fights while waiting for the next progression title are long gone, and never coming back. The game is not going to lose hundreds of thousands of players due to the problems the end gamers see, because they are never going to see them. But the end gamers are always going to be seeing some variation of them, because that's what it means to be an end gamer. We're always going to be out in front, and always seeing the difficulty horizon first.
I *have* been playing since day 1 and can somewhat sympathize with OP. I spend a significant amount of time and money in the game, and think I'm a bit above average of a player with an extremely strong roster. So similar to OP but with a better skillset and perhaps a better understanding of the game mechanics.
While I don't agree with everything he said, it is undeniable that the game has evolved into a state where it's almost a necessity to watch Youtubers tackle end game content before you jump in. Unless you just want to waste a ton of resources on roadblocks you didn't foresee. I don't fault Kabam for shifting the way they generate revenue (they've shifted it several times since the beginning of the game and I'm sure will again); however, the new end-game content is so overly complicated and champ-specific that it feels like it's taking the fun out of the game for me.
The new champs have so many intricate and specific play styles that it's become burdensome to learn them. I used to look forward to reading the Champion Spotlight and deciding if this champ will be someone I need on my roster. Now I don't even bother. Now I hoard shards until the new champs are available, acquire them, and then figure out how to use them when I encounter a node/everest content/roadblock that requires I use one of them.
I think there is something to be said about wanting to "get back to the basics" that the OP alludes to. There is plenty of content that is easy and boring, and I don't think that's what he means. At least that's not what I mean. I mean a shift in content like they did when they introduced Act 7. It was new, a little different, and FUN. Sure, for the very top players it might have been too easy, but it required knowledge, skill, and a sizeable roster. There were new things to learn but it wasn't ridiculously complicated and once you learned them it wasn't an item suck like Necro or Carina's Challenges. I think BGs best encapsulates this and therefore has been my favorite game mode since release.
And there is something to be said about moving back to champs like Hyperion, who are extremely well designed, good at both attacking and defending, intricate enough yet not super difficult to learn. There are several ways to use/play him on offense without having to memorize a book. You need a counter for him on defense, but there are many champs that can be that counter. He's good, but not so OP that they need to design nodes to specifically counter him.
Things like that can help bring back the fun that me, and many others, have lost over the evolution of the game the past few years.
Anyways, that's my 2 cents, from a guy that has been there "since day 1."
Kabam knows it and they are just milking it, we already have another big sale coming up.
Then probably another one
Then 4th July sales right after that.
I just know epoch at launch there’s gonna be bugs and next month update aswel.
just know if I write something like this all my haters will just say I’m complaining 😂🤣😂
This is a question of degree. Yes, abilities like bleed immunity are RPG-like tools but they do not automatically give a game significant RPG-like flavor. The early game was dominated by high damage and defensive blocking. Ultron did nothing to warrant focusing on anything different. At least until he started showing up in Alliance War. If there's an early RPG-like moment in the game, it might have been requiring specific counters for Ultron there. But for the most part, if you were investing in the heavy hitters of the time, Star Lord, Thor, Scarlet Witch, those guys would rip through Ultron just as easily as they would Iron Man.
The RPG-like stuff actually impacting players' roster choices did not really permeate the game until probably post 12.0, and did not really smack the players in the face until Act 6.
"Halfway" through don't know exactly when, the game became Marvel Contest of Reading Champions Long List Of Abilities Before I Can Finally Fight Em And Die Immediately Bcos I Din Read Carefully Enough And I Have To Read Em All Over Again To Find Out Why I Died So Quickly
Never have I seen so much reading of small text in game before
You are in fact far, far away from the average player, much less the typical casual player. The problems you are seeing are probably affecting a tiny percentage of the player population. The vast majority of the player population, casual, average, is still trying to catch up to you. They are still seeing a game that hasn't reached that breaking point in complexity yet (at least, not in the same way). Those who are, are still among the fastest progressing players in the game. And frankly, the game can afford to tolerate slowing them down while they decide what's next.This is probably not what you want to hear, but on the one hand, the issues you see are in fact real issues that the game will eventually have to deal with. But on the other hand, they are currently affecting the players they sort of are intended to affect. This game is not going to be an ultra casual play with one eye on the screen type game ever again. It was never going to be such a game for long no matter what, as it was moving away from that literally from day one. Unless you want to live in the arena, that is, in which case you'll at least have tons of units to show for it. And before the problems you're seeing actually start to impact the real average progressing players, Kabam will have to make adjustments. But the days when the players at the end game could simply idle through mindless fights while waiting for the next progression title are long gone, and never coming back. The game is not going to lose hundreds of thousands of players due to the problems the end gamers see, because they are never going to see them. But the end gamers are always going to be seeing some variation of them, because that's what it means to be an end gamer. We're always going to be out in front, and always seeing the difficulty horizon first.
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DNA,
Sounds like you have a pretty good grasp on what's going on and thanks for that explanation it helps gain a bit more perspective. I understand players of all different levels of progress are seeing a different game and different challenges which makes it even harder for each other to empathize with another.
I have all the deathless champs and completed the deathless saga but not all the deathless carinas. It kept me engaged but not all of it was fun, but I endured and embraced the suck to get the thing.
I completed the crucible and enjoyed the entire thing. More like this should be developed
I have made one pass through Act 7, and Act 8 and have not even started Act 9. Nott because they were hard but I didn't have the time when they came out. Now i don't want to fight the bosses at all. so there they sit. And no i cannot even farm the revies like those did when it came out.
Right now I am completing and enjoying Act 7. parts i didn't finish.
I have not interest in fighting the most recently developed boss fights with phases and several things to line up to do damage.
I wish they would keep Story content more like EQ, pretty straight forward so you can progress when needed and normal folks have something to do as well. NO B.S Boss you cant damage. Like you mentioned its too much to mentally focus on to do the thing to line up the thing to do damage before you die. Yes skill related but it costs time and resources to practice because there is no Boss duels to develop skill, you have to pay and fail and pay and fail until you learn. That's intentional. Why not let players practice boss duels in a limited fashion to develop the skill required without having to do a whole lane and quit when you fail.
After reading your insights I can say i suppose my biggest disappointment is that the hardest and most challenging content is repeatedly and intentionally being copy and pasted into all areas of the contest when it used to be easy to avoid.
If you didn't like EOP content , it was not to hard to just skip it. Don't like long form content (Necro, Abyss)? Ok skip it.
But now that is harder to avoid. Definitely if you want to keep up with your peers in an ally or risk having to drop to lower stuff.
This Ares boss and EPOCH content sounds horrible so i will abstain from that content even though it will have the best rewards available.
Maybe they should just keep some areas of the game fun and still rewarding to keep others engaged, Everything doesn't need to be unit grab.
Calculating how many units and revives you think you will need to clear one path of content is the new norm and without revive farming like the many players did before. That is not skill, that is resource management.
Funny how many players claim others have "skill issues" but forget they too used revives and maybe even units to get the content done. Farming 150 revies before you do something is not skill, its smart planning.
Could probably at least keep the B.S. bosses (no damage, mini game, wounded, nonsense and nodes the makes your champs abilities useless) in the hardest content and out the Story quests, monthly EQ and SQ. Don't hide chase items (saga deathless pieces) that folks must complete in only the hardest stuff some **** carina challenge. Not fun
Bahahaha!!
You can just as easily "filter the comments to the 5-star reviews to understand people love the game" with that logic.
The vast majority of the game can be done by average players with average rosters (within the target audience of the content itself) with minimal resource usage. When you say they should keep some areas "run and rewarding" that implies most isn't. But I just don't see that as being true.
Respectfully, they don't mind your money, but just one of these customers:
is worth, oh, 100 of your type of customer, if not more. This game has always been built on units and time and revives and whatnot. If you were on board in 2015 there was no "unit farming" using your 3* champs to beat Act 3, the highest Act available at the time, and in between the time there was a "unit farm" to take advantage of and when they paved over it, there became enough revive millionaires who skewed the statistics enough to make the ensuing content assume a wealth of revives on hand.
Everyone wants everything catered to the exact skill level they're comfortable with and be rewarded for the exact amount of effort they feel like putting into it. Some here saying Skill Issue are not wrong, as their skills matched with your expectations for an enjoyable experience would leave you undoubtedly even further behind them in game. Conversely they'd become bored with unchallenging content and undoubtedly would voice their displeasure.
Make no mistake, there are many an alliance mate over the years that left because getting to Cavalier was too hard, or they just had no interest in finishing Act 6. There's a wall most players will hit eventually, and it's fine if you've hit yours and you're frustrated because you remember having more fun in the past. Just keep this in mind:
1) this is a 10 year old live service mobile game that, despite what anyone working the boards says, will last only as long as Kabam/Netmarble is willing to pay the exorbitant Disney license fee, coupled with the aging game's inherently pricey infrastructure. Google EA Simpsons: Tapped Out for a preview of how this game will end eventually. Crashed can tell you Netmarble is spending on elements of the game, but he can't tell you an entire bug-free new build from scratch will replace this lurching Frankenstein's Monster of an app anytime soon. They'll spend on what they think will help generate revenue, and just enough to allow the game to open and not immediately catch fire.
2) this is trial and error for the present game team as well. Think about it: Crashed came into a game that was looking to Relics, Back Issues and toying with old champ retooling as viable paths forward, but things changed. If the returns on this new path forward yield less than ideal results, they very might return to a path more to your liking.
3) this is MCOC. If you wait long enough, you'll get those elusive rewards eventually without having to do any undesirable content.