Pro player quality of life changes that can be done right away with immediate impact. 1. Remove all mastery change costs. Once you buy the mastery you can change it unit free moving forward. 2. AQ 30 min timers- No brainer can be done right away 3. Remove AQ costs period. This would be pro player and resolve all of the issues at once. 4. More 5 star sig availability. I understand 6 star sig stones are rare but we have moved backwards in terms of 5 star sig availability. 5. Remove 2014-2016 champions from 6 star basics. Most are garbage and you can repackage them in a deal for people who want to collect every champion.
1, 3 and 4 are all QoL pro skill pro player suggestions. Would like to see them asap.
Especially points 1 and 3. That should take zero effort. Heck, if they argue that removing AQ costs messes with the economy or whatever, at LEAST the mastery point thing shouldn't at all.
I'd be keen to know just how much players spend, and how much time taken, on changing their mastery set up.
I have barely changed anything in my mastery for a couple of years, purely down to the repetitive cost of paying for stuff you have already unlocked, and the user un-friendly process of how it works.
Do some people change it regularly, like every month?!
I like it when Walmart keeps trying to charge me every time I change into different clothes I bought from them years ago.... oh wait....... #freemasterieschanges
Why not re-release Act 1-5 as an alternate mode. Almost variant of it. Keep everything the same but with the health pools at 200% - 500% more than currently. No extra attack than is already in place. Gate the content so act 1 and 2 are only up to 2* champs. Act 3 up to 3* champs. Act 4 up to 4* champs and Act 5 up to 5* Would it take that long to literally take content already made and just up the health pools of defenders? I think this would give some fun content to play that challenging. Give a reason to break out some of those 3 and 4* champs again. And also give content that can continuously be played so we don’t have to wait months and months on end for a new Act or Variant to play. Some may hate this idea but you don’t need to play if you don’t want to and it gives a huge influx of content to play through.
In principle, this is a variation on the theme many players have suggested in various forms, which I'm generally referring to as "challenge mode." Take existing content, add some form of additional challenge to it, and allow players to run it for ancillary rewards. However, if the devs are serious about doing something like this, I would like them to spend time thinking about it and making a mode that is challenging, rewarding to play (not necessarily raining in loot) and most importantly extensible. Absolutely nothing we do will indefinitely be fun and entertaining. The system has to be designed in such a way that small tweaks don't look like small tweaks, and can continue to challenge players into the future.
Quick and dirty implementations are quick, but they are also dirty in the sense that they can set expectations in a particular direction and make it much more difficult to get the better version. Inertia can be the enemy of creativity. So while something like you suggest might be an interesting mode, I would prefer if it shows up within a larger system that can accommodate a wider range of challenges from the beginning. Even if it takes longer to develop.
Why not re-release Act 1-5 as an alternate mode. Almost variant of it. Keep everything the same but with the health pools at 200% - 500% more than currently. No extra attack than is already in place. Gate the content so act 1 and 2 are only up to 2* champs. Act 3 up to 3* champs. Act 4 up to 4* champs and Act 5 up to 5* Would it take that long to literally take content already made and just up the health pools of defenders? I think this would give some fun content to play that challenging. Give a reason to break out some of those 3 and 4* champs again. And also give content that can continuously be played so we don’t have to wait months and months on end for a new Act or Variant to play. Some may hate this idea but you don’t need to play if you don’t want to and it gives a huge influx of content to play through.
In principle, this is a variation on the theme many players have suggested in various forms, which I'm generally referring to as "challenge mode." Take existing content, add some form of additional challenge to it, and allow players to run it for ancillary rewards. However, if the devs are serious about doing something like this, I would like them to spend time thinking about it and making a mode that is challenging, rewarding to play (not necessarily raining in loot) and most importantly extensible. Absolutely nothing we do will indefinitely be fun and entertaining. The system has to be designed in such a way that small tweaks don't look like small tweaks, and can continue to challenge players into the future.
Quick and dirty implementations are quick, but they are also dirty in the sense that they can set expectations in a particular direction and make it much more difficult to get the better version. Inertia can be the enemy of creativity. So while something like you suggest might be an interesting mode, I would prefer if it shows up within a larger system that can accommodate a wider range of challenges from the beginning. Even if it takes longer to develop.
I suppose if they were going in that direction, they might as well go the way of selecting Difficulty. (Beginner, Normal, Expert, eg.)
So I posted this on another thread and was told to put it here. Here's the thing. A lot of people keep saying that stuff in Act 6 needs nerfed like Sinister, The Champion, DarkHawk, etc. I don't think that's the cade. An alternate solution to kill 2 birds with one stone is to keep buffing old and outdated champs. When you update them, add stuff into their kit that allows them to counter the crazy fights in Act 6. This would work so well because the main problem with Act 6 is that so much of it isn't doable without the right champ. Then you're just sitting there, waiting for that champ to come along. The champs you need are so specific that it's really aggravating. We don't need simpler problems, but more solitions. By buffing the old champs to counter stuff in Act 6, you're making sure that more people have counters and it becomes about skill rather than your crystal pulls. Everyone's been accumulating these old, outdated champs for so long that counters will be more available, rather than occasionally adding counters in with new champ's kits that could take months or years to get. This even benefits the Endgamers that have finished exploring Act 6 already because these champs they've had for a long time that they really enjoy finally become usable. This fixes so many problems and I really don't understand why it's not already taking place much more readily.
Pro player quality of life changes that can be done right away with immediate impact. 1. Remove all mastery change costs. Once you buy the mastery you can change it unit free moving forward. 2. AQ 30 min timers- No brainer can be done right away 3. Remove AQ costs period. This would be pro player and resolve all of the issues at once. 4. More 5 star sig availability. I understand 6 star sig stones are rare but we have moved backwards in terms of 5 star sig availability. 5. Remove 2014-2016 champions from 6 star basics. Most are garbage and you can repackage them in a deal for people who want to collect every champion.
1, 3 and 4 are all QoL pro skill pro player suggestions. Would like to see them asap.
Seriously, though. Honest question: Why does it cost us anything to switch Masteries?
I mean, I guess Kabam could say "why should it be free" and that is an answer, but we already know they can turn the respec costs off whenever they want and that players have to pay to unlock them with units they either grinded for or purchased in the first place.
At some point, maybe it would be OK to admit that cow has been milked dry and unlock respec costs permanently for those who have done what it takes to get them
My frustration is usually centered around the inconsistency in gameplay from fight to fight. For instance, parry will work correctly (or at least will work as it has over my experience) for a few fights and then the next fight it won’t seem to register with the same timing. I’ve also noticed the spacing for dexes and heavy counters seems to be less consistent for me lately.
I find it tough to document/prove that effectively (open to suggestions), but it seems like I’m not the only one that notices the difference when I read posts here or discuss with guys/gals in my alliance. I’m ok with having to practice and try not to feel entitled to all of the available rewards. It’ll take some time for me to practice and save up for Abyss, for instance, and I’m ok with that.
But when it comes to dealing with random heavies, missed parries, and varying spacing, I just have stopped enjoying the harder/challenging content. I’d be happiest with return to more consistent gameplay.
I also struggle with the implicit (e.g. need armor break AND poison) and explicit (e.g. 6* tech) champion gates in Act 6. I’m losing interest with most of my crystal openings and other related content. Not worth grinding arena for enough shards to dupe my 5* Groot for the sixth time. Not motivated in AW for season rewards to get 1/5th of a 6* Iron Patriot. That value proposition has been going steadily downhill for me. Don’t think that’s the same for everyone but it’s been weighing on me.
Just my 2 cents. Want to speak up while the topic is at hand. Appreciate the other folks pushing to help discuss the larger issues with the community.
Seriously, though. Honest question: Why does it cost us anything to switch Masteries?
I mean, I guess Kabam could say "why should it be free" and that is an answer, but we already know they can turn the respec costs off whenever they want and that players have to pay to unlock them with units they either grinded for or purchased in the first place.
At some point, maybe it would be OK to admit that cow has been milked dry and unlock respec costs permanently for those who have done what it takes to get them
This is just my opinion, based on my experience with other games. Most games go through an evolution on this. To start, the idea is that masteries, or other build-like structures in the game, are something that players should think about as they unlock and enable. There must be some opportunity cost associated with picking this mastery over that mastery. If you take this one, you can't take that one. Because if you can have everything, then the choices are meaningless. So the choices are irreversible.
As the game matures, you enter a period where a sizeable percentage of your more veteran players have already done everything they can do with these builds, and are stuck with them forever. The irreversibility start looking less like a way to make the choices interesting and more like a shackle where players cannot explore other possibilities anymore. So the game starts to allow for respecification - you can change your build, but it costs something. This way you can't just turn on whatever you want whenever you want in an unlimited fashion, because again, that would make choices meaningless. You're almost in the situation where you have everything on all the time, just situationally. But you can now explore what the game looks like with a different build.
At some point, the meta gaming situation often changes again, to where the idea of build switching becomes less the exception and more the norm in dealing with content. As content continues to get more complex, the developers of the content increasingly leverage differences in builds to offer increasingly high advantages and disadvantages to certain build options. And with that comes the belief that players should have the ability to change builds to counter content challenges. And that's usually when build-switching starts to become the norm, and most of the friction associated with it goes away, at least to a point. This is where you get switchable setups, and this is often where you get low or zero cost switching.
So my answer to the question of why mastery switches have costs is I believe the Kabam developers currently see masteries as something players should be allowed to explore, but not allowed to leverage situationally. You're supposed to be able to see what it is like to play for a week or a month with one set up, and then another week or month with another set up, so the costs need to be high enough to make it difficult to switch constantly, but low enough to be reasonable if done infrequently. Costs will disappear when the devs decide that masteries are supposed to be a tool players can use per map, or even per fight if they want to, and they no longer care about the opportunity costs of having different masteries as much.
My frustration is usually centered around the inconsistency in gameplay from fight to fight. For instance, parry will work correctly (or at least will work as it has over my experience) for a few fights and then the next fight it won’t seem to register with the same timing. I’ve also noticed the spacing for dexes and heavy counters seems to be less consistent for me lately.
I find it tough to document/prove that effectively (open to suggestions), but it seems like I’m not the only one that notices the difference when I read posts here or discuss with guys/gals in my alliance. I’m ok with having to practice and try not to feel entitled to all of the available rewards. It’ll take some time for me to practice and save up for Abyss, for instance, and I’m ok with that.
But when it comes to dealing with random heavies, missed parries, and varying spacing, I just have stopped enjoying the harder/challenging content. I’d be happiest with return to more consistent gameplay.
I also struggle with the implicit (e.g. need armor break AND poison) and explicit (e.g. 6* tech) champion gates in Act 6. I’m losing interest with most of my crystal openings and other related content. Not worth grinding arena for enough shards to dupe my 5* Groot for the sixth time. Not motivated in AW for season rewards to get 1/5th of a 6* Iron Patriot. That value proposition has been going steadily downhill for me. Don’t think that’s the same for everyone but it’s been weighing on me.
Just my 2 cents. Want to speak up while the topic is at hand. Appreciate the other folks pushing to help discuss the larger issues with the community.
Kabam could solve the problem by further differentiating Crystal and Crystal Shard rewards. They already have 2015, 2016, 2017, etc... Hero Crystals. They could break down rewards in terms of 2019 (or any other year) 6* Crystal Shards. It would make Champion acquisition slower if they didn't increase the amount of Shards given, but you'd at least know what you're likely to be getting. No more duplicating a 5* Groot or Iron Patriot unless you built a 2015 5* Hero Crystal. If Kabam had a "rating system" (they can develop that system in cooperation with the community before putting it out) that rated good and bad Champions, they could fine-tune how many of the yearly crystal shards you receive for clearing specific content. 2015 has 4 decent Champions in the game out of 33 that were released that year (Magik, Venom, Spider-Gwen, and Luke Cage). 2019 was a much better year for Champions, since Thing, Havok, Mister Sinister, Captain Marvel (Movie), Nick Fury, Human Torch, Cull Obsidian, Namor, Invisible Woman, Spider-Man (Stealth Suit), Sunspot, Warlock, Black Widow (Claire Voyant), Guillotine 2099, Doctor Doom, and Mister Fantastic all debuted in 2019 (16 out of the 25 total Champions that entered the Contest in 2019), making a 2019 Hero Crystal far more valuable than a 2015 Hero Crystal.
This would give players agency in having reasonable chances to fill out their rosters, especially if they were divided up into Year Crystal Arenas or Daily Hero Crystal Quests for specific years. Kabam likes to advertise that a primary goal in the game is to collect Champions, and it's widely acknowledged that the larger the pool grows, the more difficult it is to get a specific Champion.
Personally, I'd propose this to be implemented for 4*, 5*, and 6* Crystals at the very least. I'd be much happier to choose a 5* or 6* 2019 Crystal than to pull an Iron Patriot or a Groot out of a Featured Crystal as they function now (unless I was looking for them to round out my collection). Cavalier Crystals or Grandmaster Crystals would be another great place to make this a feature, since by the time you start acquiring them, you're likely to have a robust roster that includes both good and trash Champions anyway.
Two different types that alliances can choose between.
1. As it is just scaled back slightly, but with buffed rewards that make doing them worth it and that appeals to end gamers looking for a challenge and also for those looking for rewards that progress their accounts. 2. Retro wars that have simple nodes, similar to the wars of the past before they got too complex, but the trade off is that the ais are incredibly jacked stat wise for that element of difficulty with rewards scaled back, basically war for those that just want a simple fun war and aren’t necessary looking to progress their accounts from it.
To really grow and be at the top, alliances should run hardest war with rewards that reflect difficuity, others just looking for fun run retro war.
So one thing I haven't seen mentioned or maybe I missed it but is kabam ever going to look at pure skill again. Some of us older players shelled out cash to unlock it to 5 back when it helped skill champs. Any chance of a rework like was done to mystic dispersion in the future?
Seriously, though. Honest question: Why does it cost us anything to switch Masteries?
I mean, I guess Kabam could say "why should it be free" and that is an answer, but we already know they can turn the respec costs off whenever they want and that players have to pay to unlock them with units they either grinded for or purchased in the first place.
At some point, maybe it would be OK to admit that cow has been milked dry and unlock respec costs permanently for those who have done what it takes to get them
This is just my opinion, based on my experience with other games. Most games go through an evolution on this. To start, the idea is that masteries, or other build-like structures in the game, are something that players should think about as they unlock and enable. There must be some opportunity cost associated with picking this mastery over that mastery. If you take this one, you can't take that one. Because if you can have everything, then the choices are meaningless. So the choices are irreversible.
As the game matures, you enter a period where a sizeable percentage of your more veteran players have already done everything they can do with these builds, and are stuck with them forever. The irreversibility start looking less like a way to make the choices interesting and more like a shackle where players cannot explore other possibilities anymore. So the game starts to allow for respecification - you can change your build, but it costs something. This way you can't just turn on whatever you want whenever you want in an unlimited fashion, because again, that would make choices meaningless. You're almost in the situation where you have everything on all the time, just situationally. But you can now explore what the game looks like with a different build.
At some point, the meta gaming situation often changes again, to where the idea of build switching becomes less the exception and more the norm in dealing with content. As content continues to get more complex, the developers of the content increasingly leverage differences in builds to offer increasingly high advantages and disadvantages to certain build options. And with that comes the belief that players should have the ability to change builds to counter content challenges. And that's usually when build-switching starts to become the norm, and most of the friction associated with it goes away, at least to a point. This is where you get switchable setups, and this is often where you get low or zero cost switching.
So my answer to the question of why mastery switches have costs is I believe the Kabam developers currently see masteries as something players should be allowed to explore, but not allowed to leverage situationally. You're supposed to be able to see what it is like to play for a week or a month with one set up, and then another week or month with another set up, so the costs need to be high enough to make it difficult to switch constantly, but low enough to be reasonable if done infrequently. Costs will disappear when the devs decide that masteries are supposed to be a tool players can use per map, or even per fight if they want to, and they no longer care about the opportunity costs of having different masteries as much.
Thanks for taking the time to explain this -- obviously, you are honest that you don't know for sure, but it helps someone like me who really has never seen it this restrictive before.
My memory gets foggy as I get older and I honestly never really embraced online games before...Avengers Alliance, maybe? So it could easily be a common thing and I just had never run across it before.
I am simply not familiar with a lot of how this game operates, the reasons why, so it's helpful to get some insight and I do appreciate the time
Talk about today offer (5k unit,seriously ?), I wish kabam could bring back $1 crystal but 5* this time that community vote for which champ each class to add into that crystal, that way everyone could get their god-tier champ , everyone happy
There will still be complaints. There will always be complaints.
Seriously, though. Honest question: Why does it cost us anything to switch Masteries?
I mean, I guess Kabam could say "why should it be free" and that is an answer, but we already know they can turn the respec costs off whenever they want and that players have to pay to unlock them with units they either grinded for or purchased in the first place.
At some point, maybe it would be OK to admit that cow has been milked dry and unlock respec costs permanently for those who have done what it takes to get them
This is just my opinion, based on my experience with other games. Most games go through an evolution on this. To start, the idea is that masteries, or other build-like structures in the game, are something that players should think about as they unlock and enable. There must be some opportunity cost associated with picking this mastery over that mastery. If you take this one, you can't take that one. Because if you can have everything, then the choices are meaningless. So the choices are irreversible.
As the game matures, you enter a period where a sizeable percentage of your more veteran players have already done everything they can do with these builds, and are stuck with them forever. The irreversibility start looking less like a way to make the choices interesting and more like a shackle where players cannot explore other possibilities anymore. So the game starts to allow for respecification - you can change your build, but it costs something. This way you can't just turn on whatever you want whenever you want in an unlimited fashion, because again, that would make choices meaningless. You're almost in the situation where you have everything on all the time, just situationally. But you can now explore what the game looks like with a different build.
At some point, the meta gaming situation often changes again, to where the idea of build switching becomes less the exception and more the norm in dealing with content. As content continues to get more complex, the developers of the content increasingly leverage differences in builds to offer increasingly high advantages and disadvantages to certain build options. And with that comes the belief that players should have the ability to change builds to counter content challenges. And that's usually when build-switching starts to become the norm, and most of the friction associated with it goes away, at least to a point. This is where you get switchable setups, and this is often where you get low or zero cost switching.
So my answer to the question of why mastery switches have costs is I believe the Kabam developers currently see masteries as something players should be allowed to explore, but not allowed to leverage situationally. You're supposed to be able to see what it is like to play for a week or a month with one set up, and then another week or month with another set up, so the costs need to be high enough to make it difficult to switch constantly, but low enough to be reasonable if done infrequently. Costs will disappear when the devs decide that masteries are supposed to be a tool players can use per map, or even per fight if they want to, and they no longer care about the opportunity costs of having different masteries as much.
All of this is generally true in other games, but by now other games would usually include a second "page" for a second set of masteries. A very simple solution to the mastery issue is after using cores, there's no cost to respec. You get a second page that costs a nominal cost to swap to, say 25 units, at level 60. At level 60, you unlock the ability to purchase additional pages on a sliding scale. Page 3 is say $5, page 4 is $10, page 5 is $15. You still keep the nominal fee for switching but the time to switch is reduced, Kabam still makes money off the pages, and players can switch up their masteries on the fly for different game modes.
If I understand what you're saying, they way I've seen it most often is not to charge for swapping, but to charge for the additional builds. So you do XYZ to unlock build #2, but then you have to buy build #2 when it is unlocked. Once you've bought it, you can populate it with a different build and switch between B1 and B2 (which for MCOC would be a complete mastery setup). If you're concerned about over-switching, you use a cooldown. So rather than pay to switch, once you switch build you can't switch again for some period of time, a day, and hour, something.
So I'm just wondering what happened to the communication with the community from Kabam. When this was a "hot" issue Kabam at least communicated by saying they were listening to us (although they only actually addressed like 1 of hundreds of concerns) but now they do not even acknowledge any problems. The least they can do is say something like they are slowly working to address some of the communities concerns, but instead they are quiet and it seems they are trying to ignore the issues and hope they go away. Lack of communication is demotivating and frustrating.
Oh good, they deleted the boycott post and didn’t close down the thread.
At the risk of giving this more attention than I should, it is impossible to convince anyone you represent them. Either they believe you do based on your actions, or they don't. And if they don't, but you assert you do, that's going nowhere.
People will climb mountains and swim oceans just to tell you that you don't represent them. I think people with current situational awareness will understand my point, regardless of what side you might be on.
Oh good, they deleted the boycott post and didn’t close down the thread.
At the risk of giving this more attention than I should, it is impossible to convince anyone you represent them. Either they believe you do based on your actions, or they don't. And if they don't, but you assert you do, that's going nowhere.
People will climb mountains and swim oceans just to tell you that you don't represent them. I think people with current situational awareness will understand my point, regardless of what side you might be on.
I’m sorry but I have no idea what that is in reference to.
These are some changes I would like to see in the game, many of these may have been addressed earlier but I have not read the whole thread and these are issues I think are important 1. Mastery Changes Reason: All the mastery I have unlocked have cost over $300 in units but I still have to pay over 100 units (approximately $5) every time I want to switch masteries I bought? This cost should be reduced as people in AW focused alliances have to switch their masteries pretty much every day, if not multiple times per day. Also, the interface of switching masteries is horrible. We should be able to have 3 saved mastery builds that we can switch between with the touch of a button. 2. Champion Acquisition Reason: I think every crystal should be a nexus crystal as it will decrease the RNG factor of the game while keeping the core of the game intact. Also, people will feel like they have more control of their accounts which is a great feeling. 3. Daily/Weekly Events/Arena Reason: The solo daily, alliance daily, alliance 3 day, summoner advancement all need revamped rewards. I don't think I need to explain anymore as cavalier players do not care about 3 and 4 star sig stones and everything else from those. After thought here but arena milestones are garbage too. 4. Deal 90% Less Damage Unless X Effect Reason: Can't Stop Won't Stop, Do You Bleed, Acid Wash, etc. need to be give and take nodes. For example can't stop won't stop reduces your damage by 90% unless you are unstoppable but should give you a bonus if you fulfill the demands of the node like +200% damage while unstoppable. Also the do you bleed path in 6.2.6 was just stupids as it had almost impossible champions (Emma frost, rogue, etc.) to bleed on a path where you can only deal bleed damage. Also, while on the topic of act 6, attack values need to be decreased.
Now to just list a few more things. Incursions are fun, but the rewards are very underwhelming. They should have been a lot better if Kabam really wanted people to play them as they claimed they worked on them for like 8 months (I think 8 months, can't remember the exact number). AQ energy timer should be reduced. The ticket system made AQ cheaper but I still don't think we should have to pay to play the game. Make the top rewards available by completing content and playing the game, not by paying. Currently the most skilled free to play player can not join a top alliance, but someone who sucks but is a whale can. I know AOL exploration rewards are being increased but I actually thought they were fair, far better than any other rewards in the game. Act 6 100% rewards are what should be looked at as it requires was more skill, a more diverse roster, and more time than AOL and the rewards are extremely disappointing compared to the effort required.
Oh good, they deleted the boycott post and didn’t close down the thread.
At the risk of giving this more attention than I should, it is impossible to convince anyone you represent them. Either they believe you do based on your actions, or they don't. And if they don't, but you assert you do, that's going nowhere.
People will climb mountains and swim oceans just to tell you that you don't represent them. I think people with current situational awareness will understand my point, regardless of what side you might be on.
I’m sorry but I have no idea what that is in reference to.
I believe he's referring to those organizing said action, and how they don't feel represented in these discussions. It's impossible to convince them that they're being represented here. They either believe it, or they don't. Forgive me if I'm mistaken.
Oh good, they deleted the boycott post and didn’t close down the thread.
At the risk of giving this more attention than I should, it is impossible to convince anyone you represent them. Either they believe you do based on your actions, or they don't. And if they don't, but you assert you do, that's going nowhere.
People will climb mountains and swim oceans just to tell you that you don't represent them. I think people with current situational awareness will understand my point, regardless of what side you might be on.
I’m sorry but I have no idea what that is in reference to.
I believe he's referring to those organizing said action, and how they don't feel represented in these discussions. It's impossible to convince them that they're being represented here. They either believe it, or they don't. Forgive me if I'm mistaken.
Ah, I think that’s what he meant. I doubt the boycott would even happen if Kabam would just give regular updates and announcements of what they are working on.
Comments
I have barely changed anything in my mastery for a couple of years, purely down to the repetitive cost of paying for stuff you have already unlocked, and the user un-friendly process of how it works.
Do some people change it regularly, like every month?!
#freemasterieschanges
Quick and dirty implementations are quick, but they are also dirty in the sense that they can set expectations in a particular direction and make it much more difficult to get the better version. Inertia can be the enemy of creativity. So while something like you suggest might be an interesting mode, I would prefer if it shows up within a larger system that can accommodate a wider range of challenges from the beginning. Even if it takes longer to develop.
I mean, I guess Kabam could say "why should it be free" and that is an answer, but we already know they can turn the respec costs off whenever they want and that players have to pay to unlock them with units they either grinded for or purchased in the first place.
At some point, maybe it would be OK to admit that cow has been milked dry and unlock respec costs permanently for those who have done what it takes to get them
I find it tough to document/prove that effectively (open to suggestions), but it seems like I’m not the only one that notices the difference when I read posts here or discuss with guys/gals in my alliance. I’m ok with having to practice and try not to feel entitled to all of the available rewards. It’ll take some time for me to practice and save up for Abyss, for instance, and I’m ok with that.
But when it comes to dealing with random heavies, missed parries, and varying spacing, I just have stopped enjoying the harder/challenging content. I’d be happiest with return to more consistent gameplay.
I also struggle with the implicit (e.g. need armor break AND poison) and explicit (e.g. 6* tech) champion gates in Act 6. I’m losing interest with most of my crystal openings and other related content. Not worth grinding arena for enough shards to dupe my 5* Groot for the sixth time. Not motivated in AW for season rewards to get 1/5th of a 6* Iron Patriot. That value proposition has been going steadily downhill for me. Don’t think that’s the same for everyone but it’s been weighing on me.
Just my 2 cents. Want to speak up while the topic is at hand. Appreciate the other folks pushing to help discuss the larger issues with the community.
As the game matures, you enter a period where a sizeable percentage of your more veteran players have already done everything they can do with these builds, and are stuck with them forever. The irreversibility start looking less like a way to make the choices interesting and more like a shackle where players cannot explore other possibilities anymore. So the game starts to allow for respecification - you can change your build, but it costs something. This way you can't just turn on whatever you want whenever you want in an unlimited fashion, because again, that would make choices meaningless. You're almost in the situation where you have everything on all the time, just situationally. But you can now explore what the game looks like with a different build.
At some point, the meta gaming situation often changes again, to where the idea of build switching becomes less the exception and more the norm in dealing with content. As content continues to get more complex, the developers of the content increasingly leverage differences in builds to offer increasingly high advantages and disadvantages to certain build options. And with that comes the belief that players should have the ability to change builds to counter content challenges. And that's usually when build-switching starts to become the norm, and most of the friction associated with it goes away, at least to a point. This is where you get switchable setups, and this is often where you get low or zero cost switching.
So my answer to the question of why mastery switches have costs is I believe the Kabam developers currently see masteries as something players should be allowed to explore, but not allowed to leverage situationally. You're supposed to be able to see what it is like to play for a week or a month with one set up, and then another week or month with another set up, so the costs need to be high enough to make it difficult to switch constantly, but low enough to be reasonable if done infrequently. Costs will disappear when the devs decide that masteries are supposed to be a tool players can use per map, or even per fight if they want to, and they no longer care about the opportunity costs of having different masteries as much.
This would give players agency in having reasonable chances to fill out their rosters, especially if they were divided up into Year Crystal Arenas or Daily Hero Crystal Quests for specific years. Kabam likes to advertise that a primary goal in the game is to collect Champions, and it's widely acknowledged that the larger the pool grows, the more difficult it is to get a specific Champion.
Personally, I'd propose this to be implemented for 4*, 5*, and 6* Crystals at the very least. I'd be much happier to choose a 5* or 6* 2019 Crystal than to pull an Iron Patriot or a Groot out of a Featured Crystal as they function now (unless I was looking for them to round out my collection). Cavalier Crystals or Grandmaster Crystals would be another great place to make this a feature, since by the time you start acquiring them, you're likely to have a robust roster that includes both good and trash Champions anyway.
Best wishes!
Two different types that alliances can choose between.
1. As it is just scaled back slightly, but with buffed rewards that make doing them worth it and that appeals to end gamers looking for a challenge and also for those looking for rewards that progress their accounts.
2. Retro wars that have simple nodes, similar to the wars of the past before they got too complex, but the trade off is that the ais are incredibly jacked stat wise for that element of difficulty with rewards scaled back, basically war for those that just want a simple fun war and aren’t necessary looking to progress their accounts from it.
To really grow and be at the top, alliances should run hardest war with rewards that reflect difficuity, others just looking for fun run retro war.
My memory gets foggy as I get older and I honestly never really embraced online games before...Avengers Alliance, maybe? So it could easily be a common thing and I just had never run across it before.
I am simply not familiar with a lot of how this game operates, the reasons why, so it's helpful to get some insight and I do appreciate the time
There will always be complaints.
People will climb mountains and swim oceans just to tell you that you don't represent them. I think people with current situational awareness will understand my point, regardless of what side you might be on.
1. Mastery Changes
Reason: All the mastery I have unlocked have cost over $300 in units but I still have to pay over 100 units (approximately $5) every time I want to switch masteries I bought? This cost should be reduced as people in AW focused alliances have to switch their masteries pretty much every day, if not multiple times per day. Also, the interface of switching masteries is horrible. We should be able to have 3 saved mastery builds that we can switch between with the touch of a button.
2. Champion Acquisition
Reason: I think every crystal should be a nexus crystal as it will decrease the RNG factor of the game while keeping the core of the game intact. Also, people will feel like they have more control of their accounts which is a great feeling.
3. Daily/Weekly Events/Arena
Reason: The solo daily, alliance daily, alliance 3 day, summoner advancement all need revamped rewards. I don't think I need to explain anymore as cavalier players do not care about 3 and 4 star sig stones and everything else from those. After thought here but arena milestones are garbage too.
4. Deal 90% Less Damage Unless X Effect
Reason: Can't Stop Won't Stop, Do You Bleed, Acid Wash, etc. need to be give and take nodes. For example can't stop won't stop reduces your damage by 90% unless you are unstoppable but should give you a bonus if you fulfill the demands of the node like +200% damage while unstoppable. Also the do you bleed path in 6.2.6 was just stupids as it had almost impossible champions (Emma frost, rogue, etc.) to bleed on a path where you can only deal bleed damage. Also, while on the topic of act 6, attack values need to be decreased.
Now to just list a few more things. Incursions are fun, but the rewards are very underwhelming. They should have been a lot better if Kabam really wanted people to play them as they claimed they worked on them for like 8 months (I think 8 months, can't remember the exact number). AQ energy timer should be reduced. The ticket system made AQ cheaper but I still don't think we should have to pay to play the game. Make the top rewards available by completing content and playing the game, not by paying. Currently the most skilled free to play player can not join a top alliance, but someone who sucks but is a whale can. I know AOL exploration rewards are being increased but I actually thought they were fair, far better than any other rewards in the game. Act 6 100% rewards are what should be looked at as it requires was more skill, a more diverse roster, and more time than AOL and the rewards are extremely disappointing compared to the effort required.