Eliminate Help (and Loyalty)

I get stuck at this screen a lot. Usually after requesting help.

And we’ve been told a “Help All” button would be too onerous to implement and would put extra load on the game system. Today, the loyalty store feels like an afterthought and hasn’t seen real updating in a long time.

So why not eliminate loyalty as a currency and the help function in its entirety?

The items in the loyalty store could easily be moved elsewhere. In fact, UC as an attraction has lost his luster for most veteran Summoners. It’s cool to have a UC, but he’s not a terribly useful champ in most areas of content apart from AW D at certain levels (and the creation of champs like IW Cap diminishes him further).

If loyalty absolutely needs to remain as a link between AW and AQ, then keep loyalty around for that purpose alone. Making up a new currency seems counterproductive, since we’ve already got more than a few to keep up with currently.

Additionally, since the new meta seems to reducing a lot of the “I’ve got the check in and clear red numbers” urgency (peak milestones, for example), eliminating help would fit nicely. And I don’t think anyone would miss it.

Always happy to hear other thoughts...

Dr. Zola

Comments

Eb0ny-O-M4w

Don't click Help if you're an android player... Is a waste of time

DrZola

will-o-wisp wrote: »

Don't click Help if you're an android player... Is a waste of time

Not opposed, then?

Dr. Zola

Mitchell35

Glory and loyalty are the two fallbacks for ftp players that don’t want to spend units on potions and boosts. Also, all of the top tier aw boosts are in the loyalty store and nowhere else. An auto ask for help feature could be implemented, but if not, I find that just not pressing help is the way to go.

But for sure leave loyalty (as a currency) alone.

Alzkabet

I think that a button that says Help ALL it's better than Help 4 ...

DrZola

Mitchell35 wrote: »

Glory and loyalty are the two fallbacks for ftp players that don’t want to spend units on potions and boosts. Also, all of the top tier aw boosts are in the loyalty store and nowhere else. An auto ask for help feature could be implemented, but if not, I find that just not pressing help is the way to go.

But for sure leave loyalty (as a currency) alone.

That’s a good point—loyalty does have a use for players who don’t want to spend units. It also could be helped somewhat by making the AW crystals actually have useful items in them, or maybe award multiple crystals that throw off only pots/boosts depending on points scored/bosses downed/milestones reached during an AW season.

Dr. Zola

Mitchell35

DrZola wrote: »

Mitchell35 wrote: »

Glory and loyalty are the two fallbacks for ftp players that don’t want to spend units on potions and boosts. Also, all of the top tier aw boosts are in the loyalty store and nowhere else. An auto ask for help feature could be implemented, but if not, I find that just not pressing help is the way to go.

But for sure leave loyalty (as a currency) alone.

That’s a good point—loyalty does have a use for players who don’t want to spend units. It also could be helped somewhat by making the AW crystals actually have useful items in them, or maybe award multiple crystals that throw off only pots/boosts depending on points scored/bosses downed/milestones reached during an AW season.

Dr. Zola

Good idea, I agree war crystals are irrelevant, but buffing they with boosts and pots adds an element of RNG to the equation. You might get an invulnerability boost, you might get a science power boost. If you’re low on one and overflowing on others, you would have to pop war crystals and hope as little goes to overflow as possible. Like t4cc crystals.

With a store, you can choose EXCATLY what you want. Think rifts vs rockets scrapyard.

DrZola

Mitchell35 wrote: »

DrZola wrote: »

Mitchell35 wrote: »

Glory and loyalty are the two fallbacks for ftp players that don’t want to spend units on potions and boosts. Also, all of the top tier aw boosts are in the loyalty store and nowhere else. An auto ask for help feature could be implemented, but if not, I find that just not pressing help is the way to go.

But for sure leave loyalty (as a currency) alone.

That’s a good point—loyalty does have a use for players who don’t want to spend units. It also could be helped somewhat by making the AW crystals actually have useful items in them, or maybe award multiple crystals that throw off only pots/boosts depending on points scored/bosses downed/milestones reached during an AW season.

Dr. Zola

Good idea, I agree war crystals are irrelevant, but buffing they with boosts and pots adds an element of RNG to the equation. You might get an invulnerability boost, you might get a science power boost. If you’re low on one and overflowing on others, you would have to pop war crystals and hope as little goes to overflow as possible. Like t4cc crystals.

With a store, you can choose EXCATLY what you want. Think rifts vs rockets scrapyard.

Of course. I’m against adding any more RNG risk into the game because it always feels like you get what you least want/need. It may be simple, unbiased statistics, but it always feels personal.

Good points. There has to be some way to streamline it without getting rid of the valuable stuff. I honestly like the idea of adding valuable items into “milestones” for AW and potentially removing some of the inclination to break rules in that mode.

Dr. Zola

Mitchell35

DrZola wrote: »

Mitchell35 wrote: »

DrZola wrote: »

Mitchell35 wrote: »

Glory and loyalty are the two fallbacks for ftp players that don’t want to spend units on potions and boosts. Also, all of the top tier aw boosts are in the loyalty store and nowhere else. An auto ask for help feature could be implemented, but if not, I find that just not pressing help is the way to go.

But for sure leave loyalty (as a currency) alone.

That’s a good point—loyalty does have a use for players who don’t want to spend units. It also could be helped somewhat by making the AW crystals actually have useful items in them, or maybe award multiple crystals that throw off only pots/boosts depending on points scored/bosses downed/milestones reached during an AW season.

Dr. Zola

Good idea, I agree war crystals are irrelevant, but buffing they with boosts and pots adds an element of RNG to the equation. You might get an invulnerability boost, you might get a science power boost. If you’re low on one and overflowing on others, you would have to pop war crystals and hope as little goes to overflow as possible. Like t4cc crystals.

With a store, you can choose EXCATLY what you want. Think rifts vs rockets scrapyard.

Of course. I’m against adding any more RNG risk into the game because it always feels like you get what you least want/need. It may be simple, unbiased statistics, but it always feels personal.

Good points. There has to be some way to streamline it without getting rid of the valuable stuff. I honestly like the idea of adding valuable items into “milestones” for AW and potentially removing some of the inclination to break rules in that mode.

Dr. Zola

Now I’m thinking remove help, make the war crystals have a 100% chance for a loyalty drop, (5,000-30,000) therefore making loyalty more attainable while at the same time making war crystals useful and removing help.

As for war milestones, great idea, although I think this would have to be an alliance event to prevent people from not taking their path and mooching a boss kill.

Werewrym

So I am a F2P and I have to say that loyalty has almost no use to me. I have never used it to buy potions, and only on occasion used it to buy the AW boosts. I am currently saving it for 6* UC and I am at 1.45 mil. Besides wanting a 6* UC for my collection there really is no use for it. If I had the choice I would like to see some sort of conversion of resources to other resources. For example I am always low on gold but I seem to have an overabundance of loyalty. If we could trade it in for gold, even at a 1 to 1 ratio (in reality it should be much higher though) I would definitely take advantage of that. In the mean time, however, I await 6* UC.

unknown

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krauserhunt

Kabam on Android (huh!! Long sigh)

1) Press help when absolutely necessary and just for important champs. I usually just do the 5 stars.

2) Loyalty is absolutely necessary, I just bought 11 of the Level 3 alliance pots. Without that, I'd be running low and not able to top up my champ before taking on a boss.

UC is useless, Agreed, so he can be ignored.

DrZola

This is good. I didn’t think about several of the points you’ve all made. Almost makes me feel like it’s the old forums, where people kicked around advice and ideas.

One thing is for sure: the War Victor crystal is terrible. Just got a 3* arena boost out of mine. Really?

Dr. Zola

Werewrym

DrZola wrote: »

This is good. I didn’t think about several of the points you’ve all made. Almost makes me feel like it’s the old forums, where people kicked around advice and ideas.

One thing is for sure: the War Victor crystal is terrible. Just got a 3* arena boost out of mine. Really?

Dr. Zola

I made a thread about the war victor crystal being "out of the times" a while back but it died pretty quick I think cause more people were worried about overheating... Suffice to say the victor crystal should be exciting to open and have a shot at some unique rewards, but as is it is pretty pathetic.

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/83095/replace-war-victor-crystal#latest

There's the thread if anyone has an interest in reading it.

Maat1985

1. remove help
2. add loyalty rewards to aq based on individual points scored
3. add loyalty rewards to aw based on % performance
4. update loyalty store to have revives, potions and boosts, available more. maybe not always have everything but atm it could be 2-3 weeks before the same item appears twice.
5. update alliance crystals to contain more useful drops; boosts, ppotions and revves should be the major things here. things that are used to help your alliance. it is after all 'ALLIANCE" crystal
6. update war challenger and war victor crystals. the rewards are seriously outdated and do not match wat the effort of war is worth.

DrZola

Lots of solid, actionable ideas. All we need now is for the game team to drop by...

Of course, once they do, this thread will get relegated to the dead letter office that is the Suggestions and Ideas Page...

Dr. Zola

unknown

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Mitchell35

Maat1985 wrote: »

1. remove help
2. add loyalty rewards to aq based on individual points scored
3. add loyalty rewards to aw based on % performance
4. update loyalty store to have revives, potions and boosts, available more. maybe not always have everything but atm it could be 2-3 weeks before the same item appears twice.
5. update alliance crystals to contain more useful drops; boosts, ppotions and revves should be the major things here. things that are used to help your alliance. it is after all 'ALLIANCE" crystal
6. update war challenger and war victor crystals. the rewards are seriously outdated and do not match wat the effort of war is worth.

If it’s based on your personal points in war and quest, people will fight over who gets to put their champ in the boss slot (source of a lot of war percentages) and only take valuable fights (e.g. Dormammu) in aq.

That said, I agree with the rest of your points.

DrZola

I wouldn’t base it on personal points. That’s asking for trouble. There’s already enough in game that tears alliances apart.

Dr. Zola

RogerRabs

I agree with the Help part. If the Help system puts any sort of extra strain on the servers it should be removed. I barely request help as it is, as it takes too long and is often laggy.

I suspect many others would feel the same.

DNA3000

Since it seems like the help system is broken in a way the dev team cannot fix in any reasonable amount of time (or won't prioritize in that fashion) I've come around to wanting to see it eliminated as a gameplay mechanism myself. The help mechanism is intended to do three things: speed up arena cooldown, earn quest energy, and earn loyalty. In my opinion, the way to cut through this Gordian Knot is to simply add a daily alliance event that allows players to earn loyalty, small energy refills, and (arena) stamina charges. That way, the loyalty currency is preserved, and you replace cooldown acceleration and quest energy help with mechanically different but conceptually similar sets of rewards.

There's no question in my mind that the way help was implemented it places very odd synchronization load on both the servers and the client-server communications system in ways that are simply not worth it. But we have to make every reasonable effort to replicate the benefits of the current system while eliminating its problems. I think this does that in as simple a manner as possible. And simple seems to be important when it comes to implementing game changes these days.

becauseicant

Totally agree that the Help system needs to be either removed or get a significant overhaul. Based on the large delays and crashing when requesting help in addition to what Kabam has said regarding the servers being overloaded it's clear that the help system causes a massive and unnecessary strain on the servers that could be better utilized on other modes like dungeons.

Speaking from personal experience (and I'm sure many others would agree) at this point the social connection intended to be gained from "helping" an alliance member really isn't there anymore. You could argue it was never really there to begin with either. It's simply become a daily routine/habit of click this menu, tap this button 20 times, done. I don't feel like I'm actually helping anybody, rather that I'm just completing a little checklist to grab my loyalty and move on.

If they removed the help system they could easily incorporate the few benefits we received directly into the game. Make the arena refresh timers the shortened help duration by default and make the energy request button just give a player 20 energy when clicked every 8 hours.

As for loyalty it's still a somewhat useful currency and although you can't get too many valuable things from it we could keep it around and reward players with it in other ways. It serves as a good way to get some decent boosts from the daily loyalty crystal and of course those juicy war boosts from the loyalty store.