**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.
Options
Comments
Let's say that, for example, Kabam creates content that is so difficult that it cannot be overcome without using a bunch of resources. Kabam has, in the past, employed pretty simple solutions to that... Create a Champion that is the best possible counter for that content. It seems like a pretty good business model, right? Create a problem to solve, then solve it. People will rush to spend money on the game in order to get through this challenging new content. Kabam makes money, people can "play through". Everyone wins, right?
Well... Not quite. A lot of people see such a move as insulting (or worse). They don't have to spend money to get through the content; they just have to wait until the Random Number Generator blesses them and they acquire the necessary Champion to move forward. Instead of becoming a skill game, it becomes a waiting game, and no one plays this game to wait, especially if it's not the "end game" (or it won't always be the "end game").
I had this discussion recently with someone else on Twitter. His position was that it was a good business model for Kabam to restrict Champions behind a "rarity wall" (my words, not his). Essentially, his position was that if a Champion was rare enough, people would try to find all sorts of ways (including spending money) to acquire the Champion. My position is that the game isn't awesome because certain Champions are difficult to acquire (read: rare). I come from a tabletop role-playing game experience (I'm a published TTRPG freelance writer in two different gaming systems). My argument is that people don't come to buy my products because they're "rare". If that were the case, most TTRPG publishers would never make money, since we deal in bulk sales to really make anything. If my publisher doesn't sell a thousand copies of whatever content I write, they cannot afford to pay me to write more (and that's if I get a rate; if I get a percentage, it's even more of a gamble). My friend finally understood the argument when I pointed out that the Hand of Vecna isn't cool because it's a rare (in game terms, it's unique) magical artifact. It's cool because it's interesting, powerful, and fun. The same holds true of Champions in this game. Most of the members of my Alliance have a 5-star or 6-star Corvus Glaive. Corvus Glaive isn't cool because only one or two of us in the Alliance have him. He's cool because he is fun to play, and in most cases, he gets the job done. The same holds true for every single God-tier or Beyond-God-tier Champion in the game. No one liked playing with Colossus (a very common Champion) before he was reworked, and now tons of people talk about how awesome he is. In the Red Room Ops quests, I pretty much exclusively use my 2-star Colossus to take on Taskmaster on Epic difficulty because he's become fun to play and he gets the job done.
So... The argument from anyone (I don't mean to pick on you) that it's "end game" content as a reason for annoying node combinations, stupid-high Attack values and Health pools, or Champion/Node combinations that make the game frustrating or a slog don't hold any water. It doesn't remain end-game content, and future content has to "outdo" that difficulty level in order to provide a "greater challenge". It's an arms race that leads to only one inevitable conclusion; the game ends. I don't want that, and I don't think that Kabam does, either. I'd be interested to see what cool new tricks 7-star Champions bring to the table (once 6-star Champions can finally be maxed out). I'd be interested to see what awesome new Masteries (finally) come out, what new Nodes are created, what new Champions are introduced to the game, and so on for years to come. 5 years in, and I'm not ready to set it down. Does the content get tedious at some points? Sure. But, then Kabam pulls yet another rabbit out of their hat and adds in something new and fun, or revamps something older to make it fresh and enjoyable again (Variants, for example).
Best wishes, all!
This burden should fall on to the other areas of the game like arena, eq, aw and aq which kabam really needs to rework so players don’t feel they need to rush into story mode and things like abyss, but this wouldn’t solve everything because there’s 2 camps. Endgame players like seatin who’ve done everything and feel the need to do all content that drops to fight off boredom and the players who can’t do act 6 let along book 2 because they’re not there yet in terms of their accounts and or skill, who would just as equally have no fun in abyss, but why don’t they complain about abyss? Why didn’t seatin? Whose using ghost, quake or Corvus in there? Abyss is locked to mostly the “4 horsemen” the crux of what players don’t like about act 6 and plus. Would making book 2 easier for them suddenly fix seatins problem?
If book 2 is made easier with seatins roster he would just burn through it and get bored again which is why eq, aq, aw and arena are so important. All these areas need to be revamped so theyre more engaging and actually fun. This means releasing the next level of eq difficulty more variants, more game modes, they did a fantastic job on incursion and now they just have to improve aq, aw and arena so players dont feel like they have to rush story quest because it’s the last thing left to them and they’re not ready.
This all also means Kabam has to release better and more useful champions along with the approximate amount of rank up resources to keep players growing at an engaging rate so they don’t hit that wall and complain. Players have to be kept busy and engaged. Aw, aq, arena shouldn’t be as frustrating as story quest, because that only leaves eq, which is easy and boring. Another level to it some people enjoy playing aq and aw casually because they’re playing at their level and not over exceeding their grasp. The prestige race and cavalier crystals have only made things worse compounded by mercs and bots. You have players like hector who bust there butts and still can’t catch up, bgs similarly in the same position, but that’s an end game problem not mid tier.
I just dont see what forcing Kabam to make book 2 easier will do. It cant be as easy as act 6 because players don’t like act 6, but going backwards in difficulty doesn’t make sense either. The last option left is to hit the champs with a nerf because there’s nothing left, but to rework and release better champs along with easier to obtain resources. The game will either die because players think content is too hard and walk away or everything is made too easy, all the players burn through it and Kabam can’t keep on up on making content and everyone is bored running it into the ground. There’s a clear difference between what players like bg and lagacy want, what seatin wants and mid tier players want and they’re all different yet everyone thinks it’s such a simple and unified voice.
This game is about progression and it has always been. Part of the problem is new players get op champs burn through act 5 and get stuck in act 6, but that’s not my problem and it wasn’t my problem when I first started years ago, it’s not seatins problem, nor bgs or lagacys. So should new accounts, mid tier accounts all of sudden be flooded with champions to match end game players like seatin, lagacy and bg. Would that be fair to them or the whales after all the time and money they spent. I love arena, but because I started later then others I will never catch up to going for the 5* in arena without spending money on cavaliers. I use to hate it and wanted Kabam to do something about it, but I understand now. It’s just the way it is.
People talk about op champions breaking the game, but I don’t think so. After 12.0 nerf og Ironman didn’t suddenly became fun or useful. He was still as irrelevant as ever so does that mean end game content should be design to be done with him? The game would get boring. I already did that in the 1st acts and have no interest in using champions like Ironman again unless they’re reworked. Should players be rewarded with act 6 or book 2 rewards for beating easy content with Ironman? What broke the game in my opinion is the cavalier crystals because it threw the games rhythm completely off.
Anyway whatever happens I don’t care I went though 12.0 fine and whatever comes good or bad it’ll be the same as always I’ll keep playing because I think it’s fun and it’s all subjective and relative. People just have to accept Kabams isnt bringing the difficulty down to accommodate players who want to use Ironman for everything. I can’t imagine youtubers or whales would want their rosters to be on par with Ironman at this point. The idea of turning a champion like hectors 6* doom into an Ironman is laughably sad.