There are a few things here that make me very nervous as someone who finishes the Victory Track at a comfortable pace over the season and then calls it quits.
I hate the concept of spending countless hours getting to a score of 100+ and potentially losing all that progress with a streak of bad luck or being off my game.
I ADORE battlegrounds, but only VT. And I’m not a small account. About half my deck is rank 3s and two rank 4s. I hope people like me who only enjoy VT aren’t going to get shafted by these upcoming changes since it sounds like 90% of the focus is on GC.
Great post, the only thing I want to interject is “if the rewards are weak why are people progressing so fast” I feel like 95% of the game’s rewards have been coming from real money offers. You spend some money and all the regular repeated content becomes pretty pointless for rewards. Really only a couple game modes have made a big impact on my progress along with some spending. Not sure what the solution is but that’s a pretty big issue.
I mean why you guys are so mean?! The game team is really trying hard to make the game better and as CRASH said if everything is accessible to every summoners the game will cease to exist and yes I do agree with bugs and low tier rewards but let them do their work they're hearing us and seeing us so let's be patient and wait is all we can do, sorry if this comment is irrelevant to you :-)
They released a raid that was bugged or most likely wasnt tested, claimed they were listening and then released Battlegrounds news and no update to rewards( but a buff to timer points something a lot of people hate). Last bugs after bugs after bugs on updates. People get tired of eventually lies and mistakes and words just aren't enough. Even if his words are sincere, his got a long way to go to mend things with the mcoc community
You brought up that the team is facing a strange duality where players are progressing faster than ever while complaining that rewards aren't good.
You also stated that your focus has been progressively challenging everest pve content.
These 2 points are directly connected. The game team has entirely changed the modus operandi of game progression with these constant everest quests that have also given everest+ rewards. With the new meta the team has created, accounts no longer have a linear progression. It's now spiked with the exploration of each new piece of content. Meanwhile, the rewards of our daily and weekly grinds, accross the entire game, have fallen off in a bad way. These daily grinds used to be what pushed your account forward overall.
So consider the environmental change this creates. For the vast majority of the life of this game, we have constantly progressed our accounts at a steady but controlled rate with our daily grinds, with decent spikes in progression with the completion of everest content. Now, our accounts are all but stagnant with our daily grinds as we wait with baited breath for the next everest quest to come out so that our accounts can leap forward. From a day to day standpoint, rewards ARE bad. But because of the insane rewards tied to everest content, our accounts ARE growing faster than ever. This duality is of your own making.
We dont need a rebalance of everest content via this new currency either. Releasing a standardized currency to effectively "reign in" our progression is not a solution centered around player retention. The rewards in these areas just need to be more reasonable, while you bring the daily grind back into the fold. Not to sound 100, but for the love of Stan Lee, please work on a fix that returns us to the old ways. I want to feel like I have an actual reason to log in every day.
Nice. While I was reading, I was thinking a universal currency and a mega store would be good, and then I got to the Radiance section. Looking forward to that. If I(we) can concentrate on the parts of the game that we like without it being considered a utter waste of time from a progression standpoint, it would be great.
I was super bummed after pushing hard (for me) to get into GC early and find out I didn't get any if the stuff shown there until the end of the season. "And with that, I was out" Glad that's getting a look.
Alliance stuff (AW, AQ) super sucks and I only grudgingly participate with a token effort (if that) outside of Raids week. I look forward to that Dev Diary.
I'm not going to say thank you for the changes just yet cause I am a little concerned about some of these like the moving solo milestones to VT, those rewards are useless no matter where you put them, but I do appreciate the quick response and all the info given, more importantly the fact that we won't have to wait til August which was one of my main concerns. I seriously hope you guys actually know what you're doing with all these changes this time though, and please revert scoring system cause time > health is bollocks when defenders like DThanos and Serpent exist.
There are a few things here that make me very nervous as someone who finishes the Victory Track at a comfortable pace over the season and then calls it quits.
I hate the concept of spending countless hours getting to a score of 100+ and potentially losing all that progress with a streak of bad luck or being off my game.
I ADORE battlegrounds, but only VT. And I’m not a small account. About half my deck is rank 3s and two rank 4s. I hope people like me who only enjoy VT aren’t going to get shafted by these upcoming changes since it sounds like 90% of the focus is on GC.
Is supposed to make your life easier but it will cost some rewards of course , but I believe you will have a better time playing the game with those changes .
The juice isn't worth the squeeze + Being forced to continually chase the carrot at the end of the stick while trying to cross a goal line that's constantly shifting = The game just isn't fun. Period. It's a nonstop chore with pittance for rewards...
So these Radiancea are going to be similar to the mysterium and it's store? Which was outdated when it launched and is now just spent to stay under cap. Not sure that feels like a solution.
I'm concerned when you say you're moving the rewards from the solo event to the vt and gc. The language implies that the rewards will be exactly the same, just put somewhere else which just simply cannot be the case because that is frankly insane
Exactly that ain’t no freaking buff that’s called a scam
Man, I'm wordy and even I don't hit the word limit, jeez Crashed
But seriously, like I said this morning, I know its just words till we can act on em, but hopefully these (many many many) words show that there's already quite a bit of action underway behind the scenes. As always Crashed is the best, really appreciate the gargantuan task it is putting a post like this together as eloquently as he does, and I look forward to reading more of y'all's feedback on the ideas laid out here
Haven’t read it all yet, but if you have any control over it, you need to overhaul your customer service. Waiting 48 hours for a response is unacceptable, especially when it involves REAL money spent on limited time offers.
I can deal with underwhelming rewards and glitchy gameplay, but when I spend and don’t get what’s advertised I have a real problem. Most companies accommodate their paying customers quickly, but not Kabam. They’ll leave you in the dark for days while they “investigate”.
Fun game, addicting game, garbage customer service.
So these Radiancea are going to be similar to the mysterium and it's store? Which was outdated when it launched and is now just spent to stay under cap. Not sure that feels like a solution.
I think it'll replace that and some of the other currencies and their stores will be combined into one store with the one currency. I imagine the periodic side currencies will stay, units will stay, and of course cash will stay.
Thanks Crashed, your words are appreciated, it was a good grounding of the challenges faced and provided nice insights.
I dunno though, at this point, as nice and as genuine as that was to read I still find myself apathetic towards the state of the game. I think you’ve nailed the problems though. The game is too big with too many reward channels. More simplification is needed and a radiance currency and a competitive store that aims to funnel things into a single place sounds good in theory but execution is where so many things continue to implode…. So ultimately I’m in a wait and see mode. It may be too late for me to care by the time things are better but for now…. Still here and I hope the plan works out.
Thanks again for the respectful and genuine words.
if there's going to be a radiance store like the mysterium one, will that be updated regularly?
just speculating, but i think one of the issues with mysterium store is that it was outdated almost immediately (on average across all player segments it might not be) is a big sore spot for the community every time they look at it. and i imagine a radiance store that accounts for a much larger area of the game is much more rigid and difficult to balance and tune? could that lead to bigger complaints if not updated fast enough?
hmm this seems convincing, but then again, this is not the first time that we criticized the way the game was handled and we were met with, "Yes, we here you; dont worry, we have planned out this amazing thing that would solve the problem of yours." and that plan matter of fact, didn't wholeheartedly address the disastisfaction of playerbase. will wait till i see these changes fully implemented to even give a comment but just wanted to put it out here that the approach which kabam follows of looking at the numbers and deciding if they want to try few things or not while being a reliable one and seemingly the right approach would cost if the sentiments of players are thrown out of the window fro long enough time, as in reality emotions run everything, even the economy itself is run by the emotions of people as how the perceived things lead to what decisions they make. if the players for a long enough time start to feel that their voices are not heard (even though what they are voicing for doesnt really impact the game on that grand of level where it needs to be voiced, which in this case was bgs engagement) they would detest and loathe you only, which would in turn lead to losing the most active and engaged players and have an overall impact on the game itself as not playing the game mode they love would result in them not opening the game itself throughout the day and things would just spiral downwards from there.
Thank God this game is run by people like Crashed. Reversing post-covid player decline is no small feat, despite what the loudest minority of the player pool thinks about the state of the game from their own narrow and largely irrelevant perspectives...
I don't know how I feel about this overall. I'll have to wait until I see it. I see a lot of some of the things suggested, but I also have concerns for how this will go. I will reserve my judgment for the time being. I'm concerned that it might have the opposite effect, but I remain open-minded.
if there's going to be a radiance store like the mysterium one, will that be updated regularly?
just speculating, but i think one of the issues with mysterium store is that it was outdated almost immediately (on average across all player segments it might not be) is a big sore spot for the community every time they look at it. and i imagine a radiance store that accounts for a much larger area of the game is much more rigid and difficult to balance and tune? could that lead to bigger complaints if not updated fast enough?
I’m sure it won’t have a ridiculously low cap either like all there other currencies
Extremely well written. I think there are still a lot of questions regarding details but this level of detail and transparency is definitely a huge step in the right direction.
My main concern is the deletion of the Solo track, and spreading it over the VT ranks (if I’m reading it right). Because this last season (26), I hit a point around VB4 where I could no longer win. I lost literally 11-12 matches in a row, and the only “wins” I got were from forfeits. However, if I was willing to either save up Elder Marks or buy them with units, I could eventually max out the Solo track even if it was through Elder Mark losses. Now with the Solo Track being moved to the VT, if I hit a wall like that in subsequent seasons, I will get nothing for my losses (no solo track points) and get fewer rewards going forward because I’ll be unable to rank up and collect the rewards in those tiers that used to be in the solo track.
Comments
I hate the concept of spending countless hours getting to a score of 100+ and potentially losing all that progress with a streak of bad luck or being off my game.
I ADORE battlegrounds, but only VT. And I’m not a small account. About half my deck is rank 3s and two rank 4s. I hope people like me who only enjoy VT aren’t going to get shafted by these upcoming changes since it sounds like 90% of the focus is on GC.
You also stated that your focus has been progressively challenging everest pve content.
These 2 points are directly connected. The game team has entirely changed the modus operandi of game progression with these constant everest quests that have also given everest+ rewards. With the new meta the team has created, accounts no longer have a linear progression. It's now spiked with the exploration of each new piece of content. Meanwhile, the rewards of our daily and weekly grinds, accross the entire game, have fallen off in a bad way. These daily grinds used to be what pushed your account forward overall.
So consider the environmental change this creates. For the vast majority of the life of this game, we have constantly progressed our accounts at a steady but controlled rate with our daily grinds, with decent spikes in progression with the completion of everest content. Now, our accounts are all but stagnant with our daily grinds as we wait with baited breath for the next everest quest to come out so that our accounts can leap forward. From a day to day standpoint, rewards ARE bad. But because of the insane rewards tied to everest content, our accounts ARE growing faster than ever. This duality is of your own making.
We dont need a rebalance of everest content via this new currency either. Releasing a standardized currency to effectively "reign in" our progression is not a solution centered around player retention. The rewards in these areas just need to be more reasonable, while you bring the daily grind back into the fold. Not to sound 100, but for the love of Stan Lee, please work on a fix that returns us to the old ways. I want to feel like I have an actual reason to log in every day.
I was super bummed after pushing hard (for me) to get into GC early and find out I didn't get any if the stuff shown there until the end of the season. "And with that, I was out" Glad that's getting a look.
Alliance stuff (AW, AQ) super sucks and I only grudgingly participate with a token effort (if that) outside of Raids week. I look forward to that Dev Diary.
Battlegrounds is dead for me now.
No solo milestones no justification for me to play it.
Now I can spend my time doing something else
But seriously, like I said this morning, I know its just words till we can act on em, but hopefully these (many many many) words show that there's already quite a bit of action underway behind the scenes. As always Crashed is the best, really appreciate the gargantuan task it is putting a post like this together as eloquently as he does, and I look forward to reading more of y'all's feedback on the ideas laid out here
I can deal with underwhelming rewards and glitchy gameplay, but when I spend and don’t get what’s advertised I have a real problem. Most companies accommodate their paying customers quickly, but not Kabam. They’ll leave you in the dark for days while they “investigate”.
Fun game, addicting game, garbage customer service.
I dunno though, at this point, as nice and as genuine as that was to read I still find myself apathetic towards the state of the game. I think you’ve nailed the problems though. The game is too big with too many reward channels. More simplification is needed and a radiance currency and a competitive store that aims to funnel things into a single place sounds good in theory but execution is where so many things continue to implode…. So ultimately I’m in a wait and see mode. It may be too late for me to care by the time things are better but for now…. Still here and I hope the plan works out.
Thanks again for the respectful and genuine words.
just speculating, but i think one of the issues with mysterium store is that it was outdated almost immediately (on average across all player segments it might not be) is a big sore spot for the community every time they look at it. and i imagine a radiance store that accounts for a much larger area of the game is much more rigid and difficult to balance and tune? could that lead to bigger complaints if not updated fast enough?
Reversing post-covid player decline is no small feat, despite what the loudest minority of the player pool thinks about the state of the game from their own narrow and largely irrelevant perspectives...
I appreciate your analysis and thinking. While I don’t agree with everything you say, I respect your opinions and where you are coming from.
While I think we all miss Jax (I do), you engaging the community is one of the biggest positives for this game in a long time. Kudos.
Because this last season (26), I hit a point around VB4 where I could no longer win. I lost literally 11-12 matches in a row, and the only “wins” I got were from forfeits.
However, if I was willing to either save up Elder Marks or buy them with units, I could eventually max out the Solo track even if it was through Elder Mark losses.
Now with the Solo Track being moved to the VT, if I hit a wall like that in subsequent seasons, I will get nothing for my losses (no solo track points) and get fewer rewards going forward because I’ll be unable to rank up and collect the rewards in those tiers that used to be in the solo track.