Dev Diary: The Future of Quests

Summoners!

Part 1 of our Roadmap is live! Head over to our blog to read thoughts on the past, present, and future of Quests in Marvel Contest of Champions! Our team goes over what we've learned from the Book 2 Act 1 Beta Test and how we'll be moving forward revisions to Act 6 and the Champion Boss Fight, and much more! Read all about it on our Blog! Click here!

As we mention in the post, we'd like to hear from you, our players, on what your Act 6 Pain Points with certain bosses were. We have some of our own plans and targets in the works, but they’re still early on and we don’t want to limit the possibilities by talking specifics just yet.

We're going to set up a player focus group with a selection of 20-30 Summoners from across The Battlerealm and work with them to do some discovery surrounding what made some of the more troubling fights problematic. We're looking for players that have attempted Act 6 and can identify areas in which they felt they faced a challenge that was more difficult than they expected.

Apply to be part of the Act 6 Pain Point Player Focus Group here.

Comments

SparkAlot

Are there reward issues? Sure. There's obviously a problem with champion acquisition at or higher than UC: the game doesn't give enough of the right rewards to fuel player's roster progress into Act 6. There's obviously a problem with champion rank up rewards for Cavalier players because the devs want players to be experimental and broaden their champion use, but rank up rewards for 5* champs are still balanced around having a few high ranks and not broadly ranked up rosters. There are certain specific targeted reward issues that need specific targeted solutions.

In a nutshell, yes, that is the problem, Kabam threw up gates in Act 6, and if you don't have the right champs you are stuck spinning your wheels hoping to get the right champs to get Cav status.

Look at this month's side event, they offered exactly ZERO 5* shards in the hotel store for uncollected people.

Thus, they are holding people back for no logical reason other than Kabam wants people to spend their way out of the hole that Kabam themselves created.

That is why I am saying all their rewards need a buff to help people to overcome the problem that Kabam caused.

Stuch

@Kabam Miike Can we get more timeframes for when each changes is coming. As of right now, we’ve gotten very few times, which just makes all of these changes seem like hypotheticals that aren’t really coming (soon)

DNA3000

They know what the pain points are. Can we just stop it? They have data on item usage. They don’t need a freaking conversation to tell them what has cost the most items. It’s just a delay tactic.

If you don't want to participate in a dialog with the developers on how to improve the game, fortunately for you it isn't mandatory to participate. But how about let everyone else who does want to have that conversation have it without being told their contribution is irrelevant, because Kabam should just know everything already.

I personally would love to sit down with the Act 6 designer and discuss how to make it better. I doubt I'm going to get that sort of access of course, but the idea that you would just know what to do and wouldn't benefit at all from that conversation if you were the developers, they should just datamine potions and do whatever, is pretty much exactly the attitude so many players accuse Kabam of having. Of just looking at the data, hearing a bunch of complaints, and then just doing whatever they want without any player perspective involvement.

This is what so many players have asked for over the years. This is what *I* have asked for over the years. And now that its here, we have to deal with the fact that there will be a segment of the player population that basically says what we have fought for and now see the light at the end of the tunnel to get was something that was worthless. That in fact, we're actually part of the problem, we're just enabling Kabam to do unproductive things.

There comes a point when you have to realize you can't help everyone, you can't save everyone, and you shouldn't even try. You have to decide you're going to try to contribute positively, or not. And if you are going to try, you aren't going to drag anyone else kicking and screaming. You're going to leave them behind.

I don't know about any we, but no, I'm not going to stop it. I'm going to go forward, and I hope the game goes forward also. And everyone else has to make their own choices. But the attitude that hey, we all know what's going on here really? Anyone who has that attitude is entitled to it, but I'm just saying for the record I want nothing to do with it, or anything remotely connected to it.

ESF

For example, there was no mention of any kind of reward boosts at all for the event quest, even though everyone knows they badly need a boost, the same with arena rewards, and basically everything in the game needs a reward boost. They are all stuck in 2017 levels.
Everyone doesn't know this. I don't know this, for example, and I know many people who also don't know this, but have better things to do with their life than accumulate anonymous disagree flags and have people say they are out of touch.

I'm already on record as saying just randomly boosting rewards causes problems, and what's more I've been right twice in a row in the past: when the devs boosted 5* shards to the point of forcing 6* champs into the game, and when they opened the floodgates on T4CC, which put us into a permanent catalyst arms race that is still ringing today, with people saying the game's gold rewards are broken because they can't use the hundred T2A they have expiring.

Saying rewards are stuck at 2017 levels is like saying the ladder you own has steps still stuck in 2017 levels, and you now need a ladder where the steps are now three feet apart instead of eighteen inches apart. Rewards should be balanced around the content and progression of the game, not around humans who need increasingly shiny things.

Are there reward issues? Sure. There's obviously a problem with champion acquisition at or higher than UC: the game doesn't give enough of the right rewards to fuel player's roster progress into Act 6. There's obviously a problem with champion rank up rewards for Cavalier players because the devs want players to be experimental and broaden their champion use, but rank up rewards for 5* champs are still balanced around having a few high ranks and not broadly ranked up rosters. There are certain specific targeted reward issues that need specific targeted solutions.

But the event quest, the arena, the calendar? The main complaint about those rewards is that they are "outdated" not that they fail to serve the progress requirements for them. Progress requirements don't change over time. Players expectations do, but we can't satisfy the people who demand more and more and more just because they got a new free calendar at the bank. Nor should Kabam even try, if it comes at the expense of a more reasonable future of the game for everyone else. I'm not looking forward to Kabam racing through the last two ranks of 6* champs and introducing 7* champs that restarts the top tier power arms race again. No player in the game is more than one rank higher than me, because rank 3 is the only rank above me that even exists. And I myself am not that much higher than any other Cavalier player, although my roster is probably a bit wider. And the game is much better that way for everyone, with a compressed progress range.

So yeah, everyone doesn't know that Kabam should just be announcing reward increases everywhere. Increasing rewards just because of what year it is causes tremendous harm. It is just hard to point to that harm because it is spread out over all the players, and because anyone that points that out gets slammed in public. I just don't care as much, and I'm a less easy target to try to portray as not understanding the game.

That's where I am -- we don't need more rewards. We need the content to be tuned to a wider range of people so the middle consolidates again

I can't use the technical terms like DNA does, but I do know this: This game didn't/doesn't have a reward problem or giveaway problem

The game has had a content tuning problem and a champion kit problem, and I do think it's being addressed

Mcord11758

You know they know already DNA. Why act like you dont

Buttehrs

They know what the pain points are. Can we just stop it? They have data on item usage. They don’t need a freaking conversation to tell them what has cost the most items. It’s just a delay tactic.
If you don't want to participate in a dialog with the developers on how to improve the game, fortunately for you it isn't mandatory to participate. But how about let everyone else who does want to have that conversation have it without being told their contribution is irrelevant, because Kabam should just know everything already.

I personally would love to sit down with the Act 6 designer and discuss how to make it better. I doubt I'm going to get that sort of access of course, but the idea that you would just know what to do and wouldn't benefit at all from that conversation if you were the developers, they should just datamine potions and do whatever, is pretty much exactly the attitude so many players accuse Kabam of having. Of just looking at the data, hearing a bunch of complaints, and then just doing whatever they want without any player perspective involvement.

This is what so many players have asked for over the years. This is what *I* have asked for over the years. And now that its here, we have to deal with the fact that there will be a segment of the player population that basically says what we have fought for and now see the light at the end of the tunnel to get was something that was worthless. That in fact, we're actually part of the problem, we're just enabling Kabam to do unproductive things.

There comes a point when you have to realize you can't help everyone, you can't save everyone, and you shouldn't even try. You have to decide you're going to try to contribute positively, or not. And if you are going to try, you aren't going to drag anyone else kicking and screaming. You're going to leave them behind.

I don't know about any we, but no, I'm not going to stop it. I'm going to go forward, and I hope the game goes forward also. And everyone else has to make their own choices. But the attitude that hey, we all know what's going on here really? Anyone who has that attitude is entitled to it, but I'm just saying for the record I want nothing to do with it, or anything remotely connected to it.

No hes not mad at having a discussion. Hes mad at the fact we having one again when weve given them tons of feedback already

ESF

For perspective, my opinion is that this game has been unbalanced since 5-stars were introduced. It was a simpler game back in the day, and I acknowledge that, but the content was tuned for a wider group of players when all we had were duped 4-stars

I am not complaining or being critical. The game is doing what it felt it needed to do to move forward, and they are clearly acknowledging that some things need to change

But this problem didn't happen overnight. It's been festering for years, and while I would love for everything to be perfect tomorrow, the reality is it's gonna take a minute to reset this thing

GroundedWisdom

I've worked in movies, and I can tell you that this is not how that works. Game Development is also a very different beast and you can't compare. We don't have timelines yet because we don't have a final list of what we want to do. Exploration of Data takes time, and then so does coming up with what changes we need to make to address those issues, and depending on the scale... we could be looking at weeks or months just to implement them.
So what I got out of this was; 1; you guys don't fully know what your doing as far as changes. 2; you guys are in the early stages, so I shouldn't expect 'weeks', but instead 'months.' Thanks Mike

Movies have their setbacks, and they also don't have to deal with people being disappointed when those goals aren't met like this community. There are also some things they don't know yet. Things don't happen overnight.
Guess you weren't around when 12.0 hit. Kabam argued, listened, tested and then added changes within two weeks. Gotta give them credit for that fast turn around. But yes, big changes can happen sooner rather then later. And yes, people do get upset when movies are postponed. I get this industry has more delays then movies, but we still get timeframes for a release.

I was here during 12.0, and the major bulk of the changes they planned, months ahead of time mind you, had gone ahead. There were some minor tweaks after the reactions, but what we're talking about here is not minor tweaks. These are significant changes that require significant time to implement.
Oh that is not true at all, after 12.0 the changes made WERE significant.
12.0 was a mess, they made huge changes after the outcry. They aren’t giving us much more than we already knew. I can’t even consider this a “glimpse” into the future. Because we already knew these aspects.

Tell us when act 6 is going to be toned down. So we can play our game effectively.

The bulk of the changes was the new Diminishing Returns/Flat Rate system. They made some adjustments to that, and the Champs, but the majority of what they planned stayed on. I remember. I was around.

DNA3000

You know they know already DNA. Why act like you dont

First, maybe they know where the pain points are. But maybe they are fallible. And maybe many pain points are not visible in the data. If a fight kills you a lot, that's in the data. If a fight looks like it requires so narrow a choice of champions that most players just plain avoid trying it until they pull the right champ, that *isn't* obviously in the data. How do you tell the difference between a fight that everyone uses the same champ on because its obviously the best, and a fight that everyone avoids like the plague until they pull the same champ to do it because they don't think it is possible without it? Good luck.

But more important, that's all also irrelevant. The point to focus groups is not only to discover what the players think the pain points are, but more importantly to discuss what options the players think are more and less palatable to address them.

That's what dialog does that a suggestion box doesn't. It allows Kabam to respond to feedback, and lets the players respond to the response.

GroundedWisdom

I've worked in movies, and I can tell you that this is not how that works. Game Development is also a very different beast and you can't compare. We don't have timelines yet because we don't have a final list of what we want to do. Exploration of Data takes time, and then so does coming up with what changes we need to make to address those issues, and depending on the scale... we could be looking at weeks or months just to implement them.
So what I got out of this was; 1; you guys don't fully know what your doing as far as changes. 2; you guys are in the early stages, so I shouldn't expect 'weeks', but instead 'months.' Thanks Mike

Movies have their setbacks, and they also don't have to deal with people being disappointed when those goals aren't met like this community. There are also some things they don't know yet. Things don't happen overnight.
Guess you weren't around when 12.0 hit. Kabam argued, listened, tested and then added changes within two weeks. Gotta give them credit for that fast turn around. But yes, big changes can happen sooner rather then later. And yes, people do get upset when movies are postponed. I get this industry has more delays then movies, but we still get timeframes for a release.

I was here during 12.0, and the major bulk of the changes they planned, months ahead of time mind you, had gone ahead. There were some minor tweaks after the reactions, but what we're talking about here is not minor tweaks. These are significant changes that require significant time to implement.
Oh that is not true at all, after 12.0 the changes made WERE significant.
12.0 was a mess, they made huge changes after the outcry. They aren’t giving us much more than we already knew. I can’t even consider this a “glimpse” into the future. Because we already knew these aspects.

Tell us when act 6 is going to be toned down. So we can play our game effectively.
The bulk of the changes was the new Diminishing Returns/Flat Rate system. They made some adjustments to that, and the Champs, but the majority of what they planned stayed on. I remember. I was around.

In fact, I remember very clearly because that's when I was branded for not jumping on the Boycott.

Menkent

He's saying they might know the problems but not the solutions. Personally, I think that's absurd. They've had months to get feedback. The could have been DMing people who participated in the giant - and apparently completely ignored because it was "too many voices" - feedback thread. They could have asked the CCP. They could have already had focus groups. They could have had beta testing for new boss fights. Fine let's move forward, but first let's all agree that nothing has changed. There is a huge disconnect between the game team and people who play the game and a one-off chat with +/-20 people won't solve that. They need people on the team with actual game experience. Hire Brian Grant full time. He's not my favorite youtuber but he's completely reasonable and would be able to solve half these issues before they ever get out of the design phase.

Mcord11758

The point of the focus group is to continue he to play lip service and eventually make the changes they already know they should make. Whatever, I know you are smart enough to see this, it is what it is. Personally I have beaten most of the pain points I am not even arguing for myself or do I care if I receive any compensation whatsoever. I object to this blatant disregard of months of feedback and empirical data to release a statement that acts like they already don’t know. It’s flat out bs. You can be ok eating ****, I am not.

Stellar

Here are the act 6 bosses that I would classify as “pain points” (Mostly the fights I HAD to use quake for): 6.1.2 (Ultron), 6.1.5 (Crossbones), 6.1.6 (Sentinel), 6.2.2 (Sinister), 6.2.5 (Mordo), 6.2.6 (The Champion), 6.3.1 (Medusa- big pain point), 6.3.4 (Iron Man), 6.3.5 (Mysterio), 6.4.3 (Darkhawk), and 6.4.5 (Hydra Adaptoid)

6.1.2 (Ultron) : annoying yes but not a "pain point" as you can do it without specific champion or synergy

6.1.5 (Crossbones) : this one was more annoying than the ultron, the bane node was horrible, even more when Crossbone didn't want to do its SP and the bane was transferred to you

6.1.6 (Sentinel) : not a "pain point" but a very long fight, especially with no cosmic. venom was nice as it cannot lose power from the node against the sentinel

6.2.2 (Sinister) : Ok this one was a real "pain point" if you didn't have the right champions with the right synergy !

6.2.5 (Mordo) : This one is a real pain in the... The different path are hard too. the 6.2.5 is one of the hardest to do for me.

6.2.6 (The Champion) : well the champion is quite hard the first time you do it. i did 5 paths in 2 runs so i can't really complain about this one. As for the no retreat node, it's the only left so i guess i will wait

6.3.1 (Medusa- big pain point) : yes maybe for those without killmonger or symbiote supreme or some decent bleeding champion. the only pb i see is the lenght of the fight that can make you do fatal errrors.

6.3.4 (Iron Man) : this one is terrible if you can't manage the power and/or reduce its healing ability. and as for Medusa, the longer the fight the more errors you can do

6.3.5 (Mysterio) : The tunnel vision node is horrible with this one

6.4.3 (Darkhawk) : one of the more frustrating fight with its raptor upgrade node.

6.4.5 (Hydra Adaptoid) : as horrible as the first time i met it in a monthly quest, but thanks to stealth spidy, it was more easy to manage

I would add some frustrating paths like the nearly all the path of the 6.2.5, the "gimme path" of the 6.4.1 where the VTD is far more difficult than the iceman boss

DNA3000

He's saying they might know the problems but not the solutions. Personally, I think that's absurd. They've had months to get feedback. The could have been DMing people who participated in the giant - and apparently completely ignored because it was "too many voices" - feedback thread. They could have asked the CCP. They could have already had focus groups. They could have had beta testing for new boss fights. Fine let's move forward, but first let's all agree that nothing has changed. There is a huge disconnect between the game team and people who play the game and a one-off chat with +/-20 people won't solve that. They need people on the team with actual game experience. Hire Brian Grant full time. He's not my favorite youtuber but he's completely reasonable and would be able to solve half these issues before they ever get out of the design phase.

You wouldn't happen to have Ghost on your roster, would you?

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GroundedWisdom

Alright then, let them just go in and make a bunch of incalculable changes overnight. That way in 3 months time we can all meet back here for another mess. Sound like fun?

Menkent

He's saying they might know the problems but not the solutions. Personally, I think that's absurd. They've had months to get feedback. The could have been DMing people who participated in the giant - and apparently completely ignored because it was "too many voices" - feedback thread. They could have asked the CCP. They could have already had focus groups. They could have had beta testing for new boss fights. Fine let's move forward, but first let's all agree that nothing has changed. There is a huge disconnect between the game team and people who play the game and a one-off chat with +/-20 people won't solve that. They need people on the team with actual game experience. Hire Brian Grant full time. He's not my favorite youtuber but he's completely reasonable and would be able to solve half these issues before they ever get out of the design phase.
You wouldn't happen to have Ghost on your roster, would you?

Five star r4 but I only use her in arena. Can't get the timing right. I also have quake at r3. But I don't see how that's relevant.

Mcord11758

Look at the war changes and tell me they are listening to our feelings and concerns and putting forth changes to ease them

Markjv81

Let’s just make getting, awakening and siging up ghost, aegon, doom, nick fury etc then we don’t have to worry about changes and focus groups and compensation etc

Mcord11758

I have ghost r5 at a reasonable sig level, she is not the answer to everything in fact I barely used he for the parts of 6.4 I have done

ESF

I mean, for real: Call it what it is. Act 6 was broken from Day 1.

Some people completed/explored it as is, and those folks deserve compensation for pain and suffering.

But come on, now -- the Brit pulled the band-aid off, what, two months ago?

Kabam probably had no intention of reworking Act 6 to the extent they now are before then. I understand that people want change quickly because I truly do understand being impatient, but come on, man -- they are explaining what they're gonna do with attack values and the Champion boss, you know they're gonna do something about Sinister and Mysterio.

It's gonna take a minute, folks -- I yell and scream, too, but you gotta know by now that we get one update a month and this is gonna take a minute.

They're doing Cavalier difficulty and trying to get a Variant out the door, Boss Rushes...give them a minute, people

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Crumb3307

Compensation for earlier acts being on a fixed timeframe makes sense since someone who turned cavalier has no use for act 2 rewards. On the other hand compensation for act 6 should have no timeframe. There should be no "recently". The rest of the stuff looks quite good and promising!

This depends. If they’re adding like 500 units to act 2 the way the did act 1, I’d have a use for that.

DNA3000

He's saying they might know the problems but not the solutions. Personally, I think that's absurd. They've had months to get feedback. The could have been DMing people who participated in the giant - and apparently completely ignored because it was "too many voices" - feedback thread. They could have asked the CCP. They could have already had focus groups. They could have had beta testing for new boss fights. Fine let's move forward, but first let's all agree that nothing has changed. There is a huge disconnect between the game team and people who play the game and a one-off chat with +/-20 people won't solve that. They need people on the team with actual game experience. Hire Brian Grant full time. He's not my favorite youtuber but he's completely reasonable and would be able to solve half these issues before they ever get out of the design phase.
You wouldn't happen to have Ghost on your roster, would you?
Five star r4 but I only use her in arena. Can't get the timing right. I also have quake at r3. But I don't see how that's relevant.

I suppose not.

The idea that the problem here is Kabam's developers "lack experience" is part of the myth that "real game players" all understand games the same way, and we're all in agreement about what's wrong and how to fix it and what the priorities should be, and it is just Kabam that's wrong. But that's a serious delusion. I probably don't agree with you, the devs probably don't always agree with me, I don't agree with Brian. There's no Youtuber out there whom I agree with all the time, and maybe even most of the time. And they don't agree with each other. And that's why without a representative sample of a wide range of player perspectives, there's no way anyone could know how the players collectively will react to any change.

If you think it is absurd to think the solutions to everything shouldn't be obvious, stick *your* neck out and just tell us all what the obvious solutions to all the balance and reward problems are. I do that regularly, and I see for myself just exactly how often there's unanimity on the forums, or in the past on the reddit. When I can get 75% of the players to agree with me, that's cause for celebration. I should say, when I can get 75% of the players to agree with me on a solution that's cause for celebration. It is trivially easy to get everyone to agree with me when I point out a problem.

That's the illusion of consensus. If all you do is complain, you'll have plenty of agreement. Try telling people how you intend to solve those problems. See how easy it is to formulate solutions that a sizeable percentage of the players won't think you're an idiot for proposing. Unless it is free rewards for everyone.

Markjv81

Look at the war changes and tell me they are listening to our feelings and concerns and putting forth changes to ease them
Bare in mind today wasnt even the road map war changes. Will likely hear a lot more on the 25th

What more is there to add? Maybe stuff for future season but 19 will be set as is at this stage.

MSRDLD

So is nothing being done with these outdated, boring masteries?

That’s a shame.

GroundedWisdom

Compensation for earlier acts being on a fixed timeframe makes sense since someone who turned cavalier has no use for act 2 rewards. On the other hand compensation for act 6 should have no timeframe. There should be no "recently". The rest of the stuff looks quite good and promising!
This depends. If they’re adding like 500 units to act 2 the way the did act 1, I’d have a use for that.

To the best of my knowledge, no Units were added. That was the Units already there.

Stellar

So is nothing being done with these outdated, boring masteries?

That’s a shame.

Kabam said the masteries wil get some changes too. but we don't have more information for now

Menkent

No, its absurd that they wait two months after starting the feedback thread to tell us they need feedback... but not that feedback, different feedback. And yes, anyone with decent experience could look at some of the troll node combinations (626 champion + no retreat?) and simply laugh it off.

Mcord11758

I mean, for real: Call it what it is. Act 6 was broken from Day 1.

Some people completed/explored it as is, and those folks deserve compensation for pain and suffering.

But come on, now -- the Brit pulled the band-aid off, what, two months ago?

Kabam probably had no intention of reworking Act 6 to the extent they now are before then. I understand that people want change quickly because I truly do understand being impatient, but come on, man -- they are explaining what they're gonna do with attack values and the Champion boss, you know they're gonna do something about Sinister and Mysterio.

It's gonna take a minute, folks -- I yell and scream, too, but you gotta know by now that we get one update a month and this is gonna take a minute.

They're doing Cavalier difficulty and trying to get a Variant out the door, Boss Rushes...give them a minute, people

I do hear what you are saying, I know it’s reasonable. the issue is it took the YouTuber to say something and then 2 months for them to say, hmm we get things done feel right, tell me where it hurts and maybe we will do something, eventually, at an unknown date, if we feel like it. I do this stuff all day long professionally, it’s amazing what you can get people to be happy to accept when you frame it a certain way.

Ok, piece said, celebrate the victory community. I will keep up with the YouTube updates on the periphery to see if I was right or a salty a hole