**Mastery Loadouts**
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
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I’m a below average spender at around $50 a month. I’m single with lots of disposable income so I can easily afford to spend more but not until I see changes. I know Kabam Mike says there are things in the works, and I know new content and changes take a long time to put into effect, but give us a plan and an idea in where the game is headed. I personally would like at least one of the following changes
Change AW, make it less tedious
Make new unique fun nodes for act 7. Make the nodes not to where only 3 champs are effective, but make it so many champs are effective and we can play with whoever is the most fun
Massive rework. I know this would take a long time to happen, bu give us a rework of champs like venompool, miles morales, groot and iron patriot at the same time.
If nodes in act 7 are like act 6, make it easier for us to pull the champs needed, for example giving us nexus crystals to be purchased with shards. This does not mean throw more offers at us that cost money and units. This needs to be equally available to free to play players
I know not all these ideas are realistic but this is what I personally would like to see in the game before I start spending again
Story has its own continuity and line of progression and Rewards to consider. It's built up over Chapters and Acts, and not as liberally designed as Variants.
People may enjoy Variants. That doesn't mean everything can be just like them.
But his video and this thread opened the door to an opportunity to discuss a larger problem that I think has been brewing for a while, and that affects a much larger class of players than just the tiny minority of top tier players. It is something I've been tangentially chipping at since maybe just after I12, certainly by I14 in the context of Alliance War, and was definitely on my mind when I posted my "How to make Challenges Interesting" thread. No matter where you are in the game, no matter how much you spend, and no matter how much rewards the game piles onto you, at the end of the day the game can't bribe you to play. It can't give you more rewards to make up for punishing or boring challenges. Because if the game keeps giving you more and more rewards, eventually we all become Seatin.
*Before* we all become Seatin, we have to ask what the game can give us that can slow down the day when we all have everything and have done everything and have nothing to look forward to. And the way to extend the longevity of the game is by making sure that the content is challenging in an entertaining way, so the game play itself is significantly rewarding, and by making sure that the more unique and challenging the content the player faces, the less disappointing the rewards become. There's a finite amount of content in the game and a finite amount of rewards in the game that are meaningful. The game has to make sure that it focuses the most rewarding rewards in the most important places.
The most important lesson I think is not that we're all Seatin and we all have his problems. It certainly isn't that we should all be afraid of losing him as a player. No one player matters all that much. I think it is that most of us shouldn't want to get to where Seatin is, and that's a place where we have everything and have done everything and there's nothing left. The game CANNOT just keep piling more content and more rewards and more content and more rewards in an upward spiral, because players like Seatin consume them way too fast. The only way to make players like Seatin happy is to make sure the game he's playing is entertaining for its own sake, because we can't bribe him with rewards.
But we should be doing that for everyone. Because the player who stalls out at 5.1 is no different than Seatin. If we think that the person who stalls out at 5.1 just needs to "get gud" but Seatin's problems are different, then I think this was all a complete waste of time. At the end of the day, Book 2's difficulty only matters to a tiny fraction of players. Even Act 6's difficulty only matters to a small percentage of players. But the problem that ESF's friend had, that's a problem that affects everyone from beginners to Seatin and above. Tackle that one, and everyone benefits.
We’re saying that compared to other quests variants, particularly variant 4, offered the most fun gaming experience it is by far the most balanced in terms of roster viability, difficulty, and rewards. Why Kabam chose not to emulate and build upon the success of variant 4 based on the overwhelming positive community reaction and apply it across other content is beyond me.
There's no questions it is a hard job to balance things and Incursions are fun (but not much to get from it as rewards goes), however I'm not sure what you mean about contradictions. True that there are many different ideas out there, but there's plenty of agreement, so why we don't focus on that.
As many, was disheartened to play Act. 7. Likewise I don't know anyone who enjoyed Act 6 (well to be far 6.2 and forward). No player, no youtuber we all enjoy watching. Nobody! Got stuck due to lack of helpful champs who could address specific nodes for months. Still working on completion of 6.4. So when I see a mini boss like Sabretooth is beyond disappointing. From what I can tell only Red Guardian can deal with that node. The idea of creating specific nodes, which can only be addressed with an upcoming champ is very limiting and puts a wall on player progression. You are forcing players to obtain a new champ, rather than give content to be enjoyed. It reminds me of the drama we have a few weeks ago with BWCV/Morningstar nefs/fix related to the Champion boss months after lots of players invested in these champs. There were videos out there for months showing them as a feasible option. As they would no longer be an option, a new champ was release to address that very issue.
It feels to me all complaints about Act 6 is relevant to Act 7, but one step further in the wrong direction. Kabam's staff better start playing their content... of course I understand that is the whole idea of a Beta, but when the same complaints are valid for your upcoming content I am not sure what else to say, when our feedback is ignored.
Most of us have the groundhog day feeling. Hitting a wall for not having an specific champ or not enjoying the content, rinse and repeat AQ and AW. Trying to keep guild mates excited/active in the game is beyond old. Finding replacements is a separate job. I personally no longer get excited opening crystals... I have been told I get Kabammed. There's still a passion for this game, however it feels like the community frustration is at new heights. We hope Kabam can rethink their ideas of player progression by giving us enough tools to keep going and excited with the progress. As reported Act 6 is nowhere close to a fun time. If you keep missing the mark, people will end up finding another place to have fun... and that will be sad. I have been in an alliance for 5 years. There's camaraderie and friendships that lasted for years. People seem to be burning out left and right.
Some quick thoughts:
1) Act 7, as I understand is suppose to be book 2, Act 1. Knowing that people really enjoyed Variant 4 why don't you start book 2 with similar idea? Have a hard content which can only be used by 3 stars for instance. Most players would have a number of choices to use, followed by 4 stars and etc. It seems to be a new beginning so, going back to use seems appropriated;2) Little control of champs you obtain; (I have been playing for 5 years and have yet to obtain a 6 star worth ranking 2)3) Relevant rewards: for instance if you are Cavalier the majority of daily, 3 days events are irrelevant. I imagine there were a reason as to why the have been set up like that, but they have been outdated for a long time.4) Additional mastery points for end game content.
5) Older end game content such as LOL has outdated rewards. The content is still hard, however there's no incentive to people work on that now.
If my luck remains horrible with 6 star champs, I'm afraid with the ideal of limiting the use of only 6 stars for future content. As of now they are used only for arena. Limiting to 2, 3 and 4 stars, is a limitation on how powerful players' champs can be in a quest. On the other hand limiting content to 6 stars that will limit or stop progression altogether.
TL:DR - It shouldn't be THAT easy.
From a profits perspective, it probably makes sense to push players to need champs for specific niches who also require high sig to succeed. From a game enjoyment perspective, perhaps not so much.
Dr. Zola
So I totally agree that Kabam should use all aspects a player's roster, including tier and class. Quests could have certain requirements that require 2*s, or 3*s to be on the team, or even gates for certain champions. Remember the extra nodes in variant 3 that were champion specific, and if you used that specific champ, such as Venom, you would gain extra buffs? They could do that. They could make all sorts of crazy nodes that would play on the tier of a champ. They could make nodes that benefit certain classes in a lane.
They already built this wonderful array of champs that can be used. Why make them unusable for content? That's like telling someone to dig a hole with a bunch of screwdrivers. It can be done, but it's going to take time, and it's going to be damn near impossible. Now how about giving them a screwdriver, some tape, and some cardboard? Now the person can create something that can be used creatively. They could make a shovel. They could make something else, anything. The same logic applies to games. If Kabam could somehow take bad champs like Joe Fixit or Abom and combine them with a set of nodes that they would shine in, the game would not only challenge the player, it would make it fun as well. The same thing goes with champion tiers. You have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6*s, but you only use two out of the six to complete content. What happens to the rest? Kabam have spent so much time working on the rest of the tiers, but just throw them to the side. That's just called a waste of time. If you want your work to be efficient and effective, use all of it. Use all the champion tiers.
Now the main problem would be rewards. How are you going to give someone enough resources to max out their 6*? Are you going to give it to them for completing a quest with 2*s? The answer has to do with difficulty.
Are you going to reward a skilled player who can effectively counter challenging nodes and play perfectly or near perfectly with a six star if they completed Act 6? Yes.
So then are you going to reward a player who could also do the same, but in a quest made for 2*s, but still requires the same amount of skill, or more, to complete Act 6? Yes, and you should. Just because the quest requires a lower quest doesn't mean it requires less skill. For example, the beginner EQ is low skill and low tier. That's why the rewards are low-tier in nature as well. On the other hand, V4.3.2 is high skill, but low tier. That's why the rewards can be considered high-tier. Now I know that V4 also consists of content for 6 and 5*s, but it still somewhat illustrates my point. High skill content needs to be reflected by high-tier rewards.
Several big issues here:
1. Champion acquirement: the pools are to damn big. Something needs to be done about this. In conjunction with garbage act 6 content being very niche has made this even worse. I’ve got a pretty expansive roster and spend very little $$. I’m sitting on 30 t2a and a ton of other junk. Why? Can’t get 5/6*s worth ranking up. Too many trash champs. After an abyss run I should be happy, not deflated for pulling a Psylocke and ThorJF. Great rewards for my efforts....
Solutions:
A) All 5/6* crystals should be nexus crystals (10k shards)
C) pools similar to dungeon crystals for 10k
D) arenas should be milestones, not top 150. Something like 50mil the first time through, 30 mil the next time for example.
E) Cav crystals. It’s great getting Cav crystals from act 6. Nothing like pulling 3 3*s for clearing content that I couldn’t use anything below a 5*........ how this was allowed by Kabam is mind boggling. Drop the 3*s at the very least and it should be 45% 4*, 40* 5*, 15% 6*
2. AQ: stale, boring content for garbage rewards. I’m in a map 6 alliance. What motivation do we have for map 7? We are all sitting on resources we can’t use and the map 7 crystals are terrible. I think it’s time for crystal shards to be added here, too.
Solutions:
A) 30 MIN TIMERS
C) add champ crystals.
D) revamp the whole stale game mode. Build off incursions. How cool would it be to buff your champs? Maybe spread a few buff nodes on each path, then give a boss hack to the person who drops the mini boss. A nice extra incentive to get people to fight the boss.
3. AW: AW is terrible right now (actually always has been, you’ve never been able to get this content right/fun). Rewards don’t match the cost.
Solutions:
A) Take those season rewards and multiply them by 4 or 5, double or triple the war win/loss rewards.
C) 30 min timers. Huge, easy quality of life improvement for both AQ and AW
D) war crystals: how are these still the same from like 2016? It would take like an hour to update these crystals....
4. Monthly quests: monthly quests suck for endgame players. Many don’t even do them anymore. Long overdue for an overhaul.
Anyway. There’s more but some of this would be a good start. I do really enjoy the Incursions overhaul even though the crystals still suck.
The fundamental difference between Variant and the Story arcs is the story arcs must reflect for the most part how rosters progress, which is upward towards higher rarity champions. Content like Variants or the Abyss don't have that requirement, and can make up any restrictions in roster that they want.
The whole reason why 5* and 6* champs are more coveted by players is that they intrinsically stronger than lower rarity champs (in general) and that is only true if you can actually use them that way. That doesn't have to be everywhere, but the one place where that has to be true is in the core progressional content. Because that's the *definition* of progressional content.
To put it another way, if you starting restricting people from using their 5* and 6* rosters in the Story arcs, they would cease to be progressional content. Because you couldn't use your fundamental upward roster growth in it. Then the question would become, what is the core progressional content of the game?
In a perfect world the game would be one long progressional ladder, where completing Act 6 gave you exactly what was necessary to tackle Act 7, then Act 7 would give you exactly what was necessary to tackle Act 8, and so on. But no progressional game is perfect like that (at least no multiplayer one) so there exists non-progressional content to among other things give players a variety of things to do and to pause at one progressional rung of the ladder while they build up the skills and resources to tackle the next rung. The core progressional content is not normally where you make detours in progress, because that's not what it is there for. It is there to drive progress forward. If that is not its primary purpose, it isn't progressional content.
Progressional content doesn't have to get subjectively harder: some games don't do that. But progressional content always pushes progress forward, within the context of that game's progress.
Now I do agree that we should have some sort of Nexus crystal, and I like your idea of a class specific crystal. However, I don't agree with your prices for those crystals. The regular crystals should stay. The Nexus crystals should at least be the price of a featured, and so should all the other specific crystals you mentioned. The game was built on luck. I feel that altering or changing that luck would require more of a sacrifice, and in this case, a higher cost.