Now, this does not address all of the comments and concerns that you guys have raised, but as we mention in the post, we're taking time to step back and look at our long term plans, your comments/concerns, and making pivots where we need to.
This is just a look at the changes in the next 1-3 months. We're also going to do a bigger longer-term piece next month, including some information on our priorities in-game, and how they have changed due to your feedback.
I will hold you to the last paragraph of your statement, because all I read in that road map doesn't even touch the surface, where are the talk about removing and changing the bs nodes in map 6 and 7?
The roadmap is precisely why many struggle to give themselves reasons to continue playing. There is basically nothing in the announcement to look forward to outside of a variant in 3 months which to be honest I was surprised didn’t come out in may.
No one likes tactics but oh well I guess they are not going anywhere
New alliance donation plan has so many pitfalls that are so obvious on first read it is hard to imagine how any body in any way that this was passable.
There looks to be no vision anymore for this game for anything that resembles interesting. Nothing in the announcement gives hope that is about to change. I know it takes a long time to change the direction of the ship but this announcement is just full speed ahead with no attempt to make a meaningful change. It’s a shame, but it is what it is. I am not mad, just confused and let down
And y'all better rethink the alliance ticket thingy because it's gonna ruin alot of alliances, at least enable donating of tickets to others so it makes for a fair move. Those who will run map 5 can donate to the map 6 guys because we all collect the same rewards at the end of the day.
And y'all better rethink the alliance ticket thingy because it's gonna ruin alot of alliances, at least enable donating of tickets to others so it makes for a fair move. Those who will run map 5 can donate to the map 6 guys because we all collect the same rewards at the end of the day.
Agreed! @Kabam Miike our alliance is at odds just talking about this. This new “payment” method is seriously flawed. The alliances that run split maps have to way to split the costs! Map six people have to pay for it all and the people that run map 5 have no way to split the costs. Doesn’t seem like much thought put into this for any alliances other than the top few running map 6 and 7 all the time.
And y'all better rethink the alliance ticket thingy because it's gonna ruin alot of alliances, at least enable donating of tickets to others so it makes for a fair move. Those who will run map 5 can donate to the map 6 guys because we all collect the same rewards at the end of the day.
Agreed! @Kabam Miike our alliance is at odds just talking about this. This new “payment” method is seriously flawed. The alliances that run split maps have to way to split the costs! Map six people have to pay for it all and the people that run map 5 have no way to split the costs. Doesn’t seem like much thought put into this for any alliances other than the top few running map 6 and 7 all the time.
How about you only get the rewards for the map you run. Personally I don’t mind the trade off as it delivers a big blow to the merc community. It may even have the add on effect of reducing the use of arena bots since their main purpose was treasury dumps.
I mean, I respect everyone's right to voice what bothers them. I really do. I can also relate to the feeling of pulling something we don't want. However, that's not going to change because it's a part of RNG. We're going to pull what we don't want at times. If that's the issue people have, by all means say it. I just don't see the expectation of never pulling a "trash Champ" coming to pass.
I am neither encouraged nor discouraged by the newest communication, and I do appreciate the effort that is being put forth -- I could be dead wrong, but I honestly think that the feedback has had some impact on what the future of this game will look like.
My hesitation is that at some point, when the next round of information is presented, it will feel more like this round in this way: There is no real plan, focus or consideration for SOLO players.
When this game started, there were no Alliances. It was a simpler game then, and I understand why Kabam has implemented the Alliance structures and I also understand why it is important to them.
But at the same time... I am a solo player. That is not going to change. Alliance changes, quality of life improvements, mean absolutely nothing to me.
That is NOT a criticism. That is simply being honest, truthful. I would likely not have committed the time, effort and resources I have to this game if it was shaped this way from the start. Again, just being honest.
So my honest feedback is this: No, I am not gonna "quit the game" if MCoC can't implement ANYTHING that allows Solo players an opportunity to play Incursions, for example, or if we just can't figure out a way to do consistent, open-ended content like a weekly Realm of Legends challenge mode, or Daily Boss Rushes, stuff like that. If Kabam doesn't view that kind of thing as important to the present or future, then that will be made clear.
At some point, the game is what it is. They make decisions. We have to decide how to react.
But for me, if there are no Solo modes coming or possible, no buff packages for older characters coming or possible, and/or Crystals remain the same...there just won't be much for me to look forward to for the future of the game.
This is the most underwhelming endeavor in The history of the contest. I’m an ancient one been around along time. For the first 3 years I was able to keep up with the meta with skill and moderate spending. I loved this game. Chloe’s challenge Realm of legends. Hunting T4 class catalyst it was awesome. I’m not sure we were appreciative enough there was a lot of complaints back then. Since Labrynth of Legends the game has been on the steady decline with a couple crash and burns like 12.0. Through it all I have stuck around in various capacity slowly weaning myself down off of bigger alliances. Now I barely play AW AQ. I built up expectations for this road map and must say it is the definition of MEH. Of course there are good things but in no way do I feel there is a future or a bright one at that. I was hoping to see a move away from AQ AW. Instead I feel like there is another ban aid over cancer fix coming. AW AND AQ just suck they are riddled with cheating and nefarious acts as well it is a time consuming frustration fest. Increasing the rewards will just force some people to play or fall further behind in the “META WARS”. I’m begging you Kabam Flood this game with awesome permanent CONTENT. Give us the power to target champions. BRING the old featured crystals. One of my favorite days in MCOC history was save for Blade. I also pulled 2 archangel 5 stars out of 3 crystals was so much fun. That’s was after musing Hyperion 3 times. So it wasn’t all good but at lest I felt like there was a CHANCE.
I am neither encouraged nor discouraged by the newest communication, and I do appreciate the effort that is being put forth -- I could be dead wrong, but I honestly think that the feedback has had some impact on what the future of this game will look like.
My hesitation is that at some point, when the next round of information is presented, it will feel more like this round in this way: There is no real plan, focus or consideration for SOLO players.
When this game started, there were no Alliances. It was a simpler game then, and I understand why Kabam has implemented the Alliance structures and I also understand why it is important to them.
But at the same time... I am a solo player. That is not going to change. Alliance changes, quality of life improvements, mean absolutely nothing to me.
That is NOT a criticism. That is simply being honest, truthful. I would likely not have committed the time, effort and resources I have to this game if it was shaped this way from the start. Again, just being honest.
So my honest feedback is this: No, I am not gonna "quit the game" if MCoC can't implement ANYTHING that allows Solo players an opportunity to play Incursions, for example, or if we just can't figure out a way to do consistent, open-ended content like a weekly Realm of Legends challenge mode, or Daily Boss Rushes, stuff like that. If Kabam doesn't view that kind of thing as important to the present or future, then that will be made clear.
At some point, the game is what it is. They make decisions. We have to decide how to react.
But for me, if there are no Solo modes coming or possible, no buff packages for older characters coming or possible, and/or Crystals remain the same...there just won't be much for me to look forward to for the future of the game.
We'll see. Just being honest
I feel you on this definitely more work needs to be done. Seatin says kabam will share a mid-term and a long-term roadmaps in the coming months so we’ll have to wait and see if more of our concerns will be addressed then
I hope so. As I said, I am not happy or mad. I think that the game needs a harder pivot, but I also recognize that others might not agree and that I am not always right
This is a small step in the right direction Thanks @Kabam Miike there's still work to be done but its a start, i would like to have changes for quality of life for the average player and not just input of people that's in the CCP, i do watch their Youtube channel and respect their opinion but i find it that most of them cant relate to the average player base, most of them finish content day one and have a stack roster and to be honest their level of progression and experience is a lot different from myself and many others.
Most important change should be in RNG Crystals. Lots of games when roll a crystal, box or card give you an opportunity to choose between some options. All Actual crystals must be replace by Nexus. Community welcomed this crystal as an improvement but is a rare option. Guys, Nexus increase from a 0,6% to 1,8% the option of a champ. Almost 180 champs in the game and when you pull same **** champs during last months, you lost the interest to continue playing.
Now, this does not address all of the comments and concerns that you guys have raised, but as we mention in the post, we're taking time to step back and look at our long term plans, your comments/concerns, and making pivots where we need to.
This is just a look at the changes in the next 1-3 months. We're also going to do a bigger longer-term piece next month, including some information on our priorities in-game, and how they have changed due to your feedback.
Variant 4 was released on December 11th last year, whether Variant 5 was coming in September or is now coming in August that's still Over Half A Year of development making it the biggest gap between Variants we've had. Is there any particular reason why? I completely understand if the Virus Situation made things slow down, but it still seems like quite a long development period and there has been next to no info on the project besides the fact it's the Blood and Venom Event, is it something like a Smaller Team is working on the Variants now due to the Development of Act 7 and all the Monthly Event Quests?
The Variants are arguably some of the best content you guys have ever put out, with their range of Utility and Usability spreading out to the more Unorthodox Champions but still having the option to Brute Force it with some of the more "Top Tier" Champions for those that have them and have become Skilled enough, so a lot of us are clambering for any info we can get on the next one!
Now, this does not address all of the comments and concerns that you guys have raised, but as we mention in the post, we're taking time to step back and look at our long term plans, your comments/concerns, and making pivots where we need to.
This is just a look at the changes in the next 1-3 months. We're also going to do a bigger longer-term piece next month, including some information on our priorities in-game, and how they have changed due to your feedback.
Here's my biggest concern. This quote is in the section on Alliance Wars, but it could also be a summary for the majority of the post:
Summoners put in a lot of effort, and don’t feel that they are receiving proportionate rewards for it.
Increasing rewards is the easiest way to entice players to play content, but in my opinion it is also creates the most long-term damage. If we're dealing with content you're only going to do once or a limited amount of times, then boosting rewards can have a positive effect. Boost the rewards to the Abyss, or maybe Act 6, and you'll get some people to think the pain is worth it, especially if the pain eventually ends. But with repetitive things like AQ or AW, if it is painful and you boost the rewards to get people to think the pain is worth it, you are also basically forcing them to experience that pain over and over again, because the rewards make it too difficult to walk away from it. This will accelerate burn out for many players. In fact, wasn't this the lesson of Dungeons back in the day? If the rewards are too high and the content too intense in difficulty, players will just keep running it over and over until they get so sick of it no amount of rewards will be enough.
I also took note of this:
Alliance Quests are a fundamental part of the Alliance experience in The Contest, and they require commitment from before you even start the Map.
When you put this together with other statements about AQ, you reach the conclusion that Alliances are only for people who want to push hard as an alliance. If AQ is fundamental to alliances, and AQ is structured in a way that penalizes, or at least strongly discourages casual play, then MCOC doesn't believe in casual alliances. They are more of a marginal aberration than something the game explicitly tries to accommodate.
In most games, the primary purpose of alliance-like groups is to encourage players to engage with other players, to improve the entertainment they get from the game. And, to be honest, to reduce the chances that a player will get bored and quit. If you're playing with friends, you're more likely to stick around. If AQ is a fundamental part of the Alliance experience, shouldn't AQ be trying to diversify the opportunities for all different kinds of alliances? Heterogenous alliances that have players of different progress and skill level, for example. Alliances with people with different time availability or time zone or both. Even with small caveats, the AQ structure as a whole is explicitly targeted at homogeneous alliances with near-identical availability.
In another thread I talked about escalating difficulty in story quests. AQ has an analogous exponential increase in participation requirements. As you go up in map, you must simultaneously be able to fight harder fights, and devote more time to AQ, *and* have more absolutely consistent availability day by day, *and* have higher intra-day availability as well. If you fail any one of these requirements, if you can't keep up with the difficulty, or if you can easily do the difficulty but can't log in constantly throughout the day (and sometimes night), or if you can do all of that but you need one or two days off randomly, then you quickly hit an AQ ceiling. But requiring all of those things simultaneously basically says only a narrow subset of all players are really intended to experience Alliances as they were intended to be. And that seems weird to me.
I was reading through the roadmap again and noticed this line that troubled me: "As a diverse group of Summoners, you all have a variety of different priorities and concerns, many of which will contradict those of another Summoner." For the most part, this thread has been relatively unanimous about what needs to be changed
I'm not going to go back through the entire thread, first because that would be very long and second because I don't want to specifically target individual players' feedback, but I will say that I've been saying since nearly the beginning that the feedback in the thread wasn't obviously unanimous to my eyes, and even when it agreed superficially the approaches to tackle the issue were often mutually contradictory.
I'll just point this one out: two solutions you gave for the "targeting champ" problem are incompatible, even if it doesn't seem so. They boil down to: significantly increase the rate at which players can get any champ they want, and change the content so that specific champs aren't necessary. You might be able to get away with a tiny bit of both, but if you actually do both aggressively you end up with a situation where the range of champs you need drops and the ability to target them rises, and then players too easily have counters for everything. This will only compel the devs to make content even harder, which then amplifies the problem of content being too "cash grabby." Or worse, make them thing about other ways to make content difficult besides requiring champion counters, like brute force numerical ways (i.e. cranking up attack).
Aggressively making the content require less specific counters works, and aggressively making champion acquisition better works, but doing both to only a tiny extent increases the odds that players don't get a visible benefit, requiring years of iteration to drift to an acceptable level of both, and doing both aggressively can create an unavoidable content backlash.
Also, even in cases where the issues are not in dispute, the priority of addressing them certainly is. And many of your bullet points would be long term projects. Deprioritizing any one of them can effectively make addressing it "over the horizon" for many players, in effect tantamount to eliminating it as an issue to be worked on. Even if we all unanimouosly agreed with the list, except for a few low hanging fruit we might get significant progress on just a couple over the next year or two. Which ones would everyone agree we should see happen in the foreseeable future?
Defense tactics are supposed to encourage diversity is honestly the funniest sh*t I've heard today.
But it gets even better, because in the near future even offensive champs will benefit from them, meaning our offensive options will also become less diversity encouraging.
What kind of a joke even is that? Diversity literally becomes a complete non-factor in tier 5+. Not having defense tactics is what encourages diversity.
By the way we tanked our first war this season. And surprisingly enough, our opponent also only places a half-a**ed defense and only went for the bosses.
I couldn't help myself and still placed my 5/65 mojo as a boss in bg1 amongst mostly 1-2* champs. He still got 26 kills.
When has diversity ever been an issue for Offense? People use the same Champs regardless, overall. If anything, it will encourage more diversity. Unless I'm playing another game where Corvus isn't in every Attack Team.
Defense tactics are supposed to encourage diversity is honestly the funniest sh*t I've heard today.
But it gets even better, because in the near future even offensive champs will benefit from them, meaning our offensive options will also become less diversity encouraging.
What kind of a joke even is that? Diversity literally becomes a complete non-factor in tier 5+. Not having defense tactics is what encourages diversity.
By the way we tanked our first war this season. And surprisingly enough, our opponent also only places a half-a**ed defense and only went for the bosses.
I couldn't help myself and still placed my 5/65 mojo as a boss in bg1 amongst mostly 1-2* champs. He still got 26 kills.
When has diversity ever been an issue for Offense? People use the same Champs regardless, overall. If anything, it will encourage more diversity. Unless I'm playing another game where Corvus isn't in every Attack Team.
Offensive diversity has already been heavily impacted by defense tactics. However, you need to have at least some tier 5 experience to comprehend that.
Now with additional bonuses in an already broken and horribly balanced system it is to be expected that there will also be an objectively best defense tactic in consideration of both defense and offense. Just as flow is objectively the best tactic to use, as in placing a diverse tactic or even somewhat decent non-flow defenders is to be frank stupid, considering what even 5/50 defenders can do on flow.
But, yeah. Again, you'd need to have a picture of tier 5+ wars to understand that. The difference between tier 6- and tier 5+ is absurd.
You mean the last 2 Seasons? Doesn't change the fact that it's been the same Champs primarily used for Offense, and that's been true for a number of years. Offense Tactics can open the door to using other Champs that aren't commonly used.
Defense tactics are supposed to encourage diversity is honestly the funniest sh*t I've heard today.
But it gets even better, because in the near future even offensive champs will benefit from them, meaning our offensive options will also become less diversity encouraging.
What kind of a joke even is that? Diversity literally becomes a complete non-factor in tier 5+. Not having defense tactics is what encourages diversity.
By the way we tanked our first war this season. And surprisingly enough, our opponent also only places a half-a**ed defense and only went for the bosses.
I couldn't help myself and still placed my 5/65 mojo as a boss in bg1 amongst mostly 1-2* champs. He still got 26 kills.
When has diversity ever been an issue for Offense? People use the same Champs regardless, overall. If anything, it will encourage more diversity. Unless I'm playing another game where Corvus isn't in every Attack Team.
This would be a case where I am compelled to say it before anyone else does: if you aren't playing the game at a level where defense tactics is in play, or higher tier AW in general, you really cannot have any idea how the DT changes will affect the attacker and defender meta. *I* haven't been in tier 5/6 in a long enough period of time that I can only hazard a guess myself.
Also, Corvus is path-specific in war, even in intermediate tiers. If you're on a path where you aren't going to get any charges, he's not always going to be the best choice. Or sometimes even a good choice. Can anyone tell me if Corvus is a good choice for a map full of Dooms? Because I don't know how to do a path with multiple Dooms without Void or CapIW, honestly.
Defense tactics are supposed to encourage diversity is honestly the funniest sh*t I've heard today.
But it gets even better, because in the near future even offensive champs will benefit from them, meaning our offensive options will also become less diversity encouraging.
What kind of a joke even is that? Diversity literally becomes a complete non-factor in tier 5+. Not having defense tactics is what encourages diversity.
By the way we tanked our first war this season. And surprisingly enough, our opponent also only places a half-a**ed defense and only went for the bosses.
I couldn't help myself and still placed my 5/65 mojo as a boss in bg1 amongst mostly 1-2* champs. He still got 26 kills.
When has diversity ever been an issue for Offense? People use the same Champs regardless, overall. If anything, it will encourage more diversity. Unless I'm playing another game where Corvus isn't in every Attack Team.
Offensive diversity has already been heavily impacted by defense tactics. However, you need to have at least some tier 5 experience to comprehend that.
Now with additional bonuses in an already broken and horribly balanced system it is to be expected that there will also be an objectively best defense tactic in consideration of both defense and offense. Just as flow is objectively the best tactic to use, as in placing a diverse tactic or even somewhat decent non-flow defenders is to be frank stupid, considering what even 5/50 defenders can do on flow.
But, yeah. Again, you'd need to have a picture of tier 5+ wars to understand that. The difference between tier 6- and tier 5+ is absurd.
Rubbish there only 4-5 reliable counters to flow wars how is that heavily impacting diversity on offense. Outside of tier 5 and above players do use the same 5-10 champs every war 5-10 out of 170+ does not equal diversity
Comments
The roadmap is precisely why many struggle to give themselves reasons to continue playing. There is basically nothing in the announcement to look forward to outside of a variant in 3 months which to be honest I was surprised didn’t come out in may.
No one likes tactics but oh well I guess they are not going anywhere
New alliance donation plan has so many pitfalls that are so obvious on first read it is hard to imagine how any body in any way that this was passable.
There looks to be no vision anymore for this game for anything that resembles interesting. Nothing in the announcement gives hope that is about to change. I know it takes a long time to change the direction of the ship but this announcement is just full speed ahead with no attempt to make a meaningful change. It’s a shame, but it is what it is. I am not mad, just confused and let down
My hesitation is that at some point, when the next round of information is presented, it will feel more like this round in this way: There is no real plan, focus or consideration for SOLO players.
When this game started, there were no Alliances. It was a simpler game then, and I understand why Kabam has implemented the Alliance structures and I also understand why it is important to them.
But at the same time... I am a solo player. That is not going to change. Alliance changes, quality of life improvements, mean absolutely nothing to me.
That is NOT a criticism. That is simply being honest, truthful. I would likely not have committed the time, effort and resources I have to this game if it was shaped this way from the start. Again, just being honest.
So my honest feedback is this: No, I am not gonna "quit the game" if MCoC can't implement ANYTHING that allows Solo players an opportunity to play Incursions, for example, or if we just can't figure out a way to do consistent, open-ended content like a weekly Realm of Legends challenge mode, or Daily Boss Rushes, stuff like that. If Kabam doesn't view that kind of thing as important to the present or future, then that will be made clear.
At some point, the game is what it is. They make decisions. We have to decide how to react.
But for me, if there are no Solo modes coming or possible, no buff packages for older characters coming or possible, and/or Crystals remain the same...there just won't be much for me to look forward to for the future of the game.
We'll see. Just being honest
3 month plan is laughable
what we WANT is this
Cavalier level added to monthly event quest
Variants released every 2 to 3 months
New 6* arena its time for Arena to he revamped and an actual arena to win 6*s
6*s added to incursion crystals
6* UC added to loyalty store
6* Punisher added to New Cavalier level arena crystals
ability to sell t4cc for t5cc shards
updated Solo events
increased Inventory across the board especially more revives and potions capacity
Cavalier crystals should NoT have 3*s
All Actual crystals must be replace by Nexus.
Community welcomed this crystal as an improvement but is a rare option.
Guys, Nexus increase from a 0,6% to 1,8% the option of a champ. Almost 180 champs in the game and when you pull same **** champs during last months, you lost the interest to continue playing.
Is there any particular reason why? I completely understand if the Virus Situation made things slow down, but it still seems like quite a long development period and there has been next to no info on the project besides the fact it's the Blood and Venom Event, is it something like a Smaller Team is working on the Variants now due to the Development of Act 7 and all the Monthly Event Quests?
The Variants are arguably some of the best content you guys have ever put out, with their range of Utility and Usability spreading out to the more Unorthodox Champions but still having the option to Brute Force it with some of the more "Top Tier" Champions for those that have them and have become Skilled enough, so a lot of us are clambering for any info we can get on the next one!
I also took note of this: When you put this together with other statements about AQ, you reach the conclusion that Alliances are only for people who want to push hard as an alliance. If AQ is fundamental to alliances, and AQ is structured in a way that penalizes, or at least strongly discourages casual play, then MCOC doesn't believe in casual alliances. They are more of a marginal aberration than something the game explicitly tries to accommodate.
In most games, the primary purpose of alliance-like groups is to encourage players to engage with other players, to improve the entertainment they get from the game. And, to be honest, to reduce the chances that a player will get bored and quit. If you're playing with friends, you're more likely to stick around. If AQ is a fundamental part of the Alliance experience, shouldn't AQ be trying to diversify the opportunities for all different kinds of alliances? Heterogenous alliances that have players of different progress and skill level, for example. Alliances with people with different time availability or time zone or both. Even with small caveats, the AQ structure as a whole is explicitly targeted at homogeneous alliances with near-identical availability.
In another thread I talked about escalating difficulty in story quests. AQ has an analogous exponential increase in participation requirements. As you go up in map, you must simultaneously be able to fight harder fights, and devote more time to AQ, *and* have more absolutely consistent availability day by day, *and* have higher intra-day availability as well. If you fail any one of these requirements, if you can't keep up with the difficulty, or if you can easily do the difficulty but can't log in constantly throughout the day (and sometimes night), or if you can do all of that but you need one or two days off randomly, then you quickly hit an AQ ceiling. But requiring all of those things simultaneously basically says only a narrow subset of all players are really intended to experience Alliances as they were intended to be. And that seems weird to me.
I'll just point this one out: two solutions you gave for the "targeting champ" problem are incompatible, even if it doesn't seem so. They boil down to: significantly increase the rate at which players can get any champ they want, and change the content so that specific champs aren't necessary. You might be able to get away with a tiny bit of both, but if you actually do both aggressively you end up with a situation where the range of champs you need drops and the ability to target them rises, and then players too easily have counters for everything. This will only compel the devs to make content even harder, which then amplifies the problem of content being too "cash grabby." Or worse, make them thing about other ways to make content difficult besides requiring champion counters, like brute force numerical ways (i.e. cranking up attack).
Aggressively making the content require less specific counters works, and aggressively making champion acquisition better works, but doing both to only a tiny extent increases the odds that players don't get a visible benefit, requiring years of iteration to drift to an acceptable level of both, and doing both aggressively can create an unavoidable content backlash.
Also, even in cases where the issues are not in dispute, the priority of addressing them certainly is. And many of your bullet points would be long term projects. Deprioritizing any one of them can effectively make addressing it "over the horizon" for many players, in effect tantamount to eliminating it as an issue to be worked on. Even if we all unanimouosly agreed with the list, except for a few low hanging fruit we might get significant progress on just a couple over the next year or two. Which ones would everyone agree we should see happen in the foreseeable future?
Also, Corvus is path-specific in war, even in intermediate tiers. If you're on a path where you aren't going to get any charges, he's not always going to be the best choice. Or sometimes even a good choice. Can anyone tell me if Corvus is a good choice for a map full of Dooms? Because I don't know how to do a path with multiple Dooms without Void or CapIW, honestly.