**Mastery Loadouts**
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
MCOC market offering - A case study by some finance guy
Jank39
Posts: 139 ★
Kabam,
I don’t post much but am a pretty active member and part of an alliance that has a great mix of players from those that have spent heavily to guys like me; “Uncollected” with your standard r4 5* SL, numerous 5/50s, who just love the comradery of an alliance and up until this year loved playing the game without letting it rule our lives.
So I woke up one morning this week to find our upper tier players deciding to take a step back from MCOC and look for a new game we could all play together. And while I was initially surprised, it has made sense for them and for me!
While I am sure you won’t be too sad to lose me given I only make selective purchases of your “good” offers such as the recent t4cc daily card, you have effectively alienated a swathe of high to midrange players who are caught in bit of holding pattern. You obviously want us to spend money which is fine, but like with any investment (time and/or money), we need a level of consistency from the product and a return on investment (perceived or real). You are failing on both fronts.
Consistent product:
Your product offering has too many bugs that go unfixed for too long, while you work on making fundamental changes to game mechanics and structure. When we as investors sink our resources (in this case time and money that translates into upgrade items) into something (in this case the game and building up our roster) we want to know that they will hold their value. Unfortunately what you have effectively said with the changes to war (as just one example) is:
“Your investment into defensive champs is now almost worthless please rank up others (ie invest into other champs) so you not only have a diverse defence but a competitive one also”. – (Just as a side note we have gone on a massive win streak off the back of diversity as our players have Kang, Deadpool red etc so it’s not sour grapes, wars just aren’t quite right anymore…)
When you make fundamental changes like this it leads to a lack of confidence from “the market”. Imagine a government providing companies incentives to invest into a particular market and then once they get that investment they suddenly change those conditions and then provide incentives to invest into a competing market. Do you think these/other investors will be likely to invest there in future with this level of instability/lack of certainty?
Which leads to the “return on investment” point:
In completing 5.2 I got 1500 4*, 700 5* shards and the uncollected title which I must say is not game changing a pleasant touch. In order to fully explore 5.2 I will need to invest a significant amount of time and resources for what? Not much more… so let’s just say it’s not on a lot of people’s radar. Then there is 5.3 harder content and unless I commit to fully exploring it for the 5* awakening and rank up gem, nothing there is overly attractive/game changing – 25% of a 5* (which I can get by winning 5-6 wars) and 75% of a 4* (that I don’t really need). So for my time it leaves me to concentrate on monthly events which I finish in a week and a bit and AQ/AWs. The later which as most will agree will only be run as an opportunity to get 5* shards despite the community’s disdain for it. i.e. you are no longer engaging me/incentivising me to play/invest.
So having read all this, lets revisit my alliance’s situation in wanting to find a new game/step back. It is now obvious to see why this has happened. Your market offering has slipped. You don’t provide a suitable return on investment for us mid to upper tier players, nor do you provide a consistent product that gives the market confidence that any new investment they make will hold its value going forward. As such with our roster of r5 4*s we do not need/want to upgrade any more 4* as they will not provide any real competitive advantage and if they do (in the case of AW defence) we don’t know if you will just change the rules again and we lose our investment (upgrade resources). Then there is the drop rate of 5*s and the respective shards (which could spur us on to attacking latter content like 5.3). Let’s face it, it is so low that there is a minimal drive to play just to get these 5*s so it’s no wonder we are looking for the “next” MCOC as it was in “back in the day”. By not listening to your market you’ve tried to turn a “cash cow” into a “star” (refer to BCG matrix) but are slowly turning it into a “?” and possibly a “dog”.
I don’t post much but am a pretty active member and part of an alliance that has a great mix of players from those that have spent heavily to guys like me; “Uncollected” with your standard r4 5* SL, numerous 5/50s, who just love the comradery of an alliance and up until this year loved playing the game without letting it rule our lives.
So I woke up one morning this week to find our upper tier players deciding to take a step back from MCOC and look for a new game we could all play together. And while I was initially surprised, it has made sense for them and for me!
While I am sure you won’t be too sad to lose me given I only make selective purchases of your “good” offers such as the recent t4cc daily card, you have effectively alienated a swathe of high to midrange players who are caught in bit of holding pattern. You obviously want us to spend money which is fine, but like with any investment (time and/or money), we need a level of consistency from the product and a return on investment (perceived or real). You are failing on both fronts.
Consistent product:
Your product offering has too many bugs that go unfixed for too long, while you work on making fundamental changes to game mechanics and structure. When we as investors sink our resources (in this case time and money that translates into upgrade items) into something (in this case the game and building up our roster) we want to know that they will hold their value. Unfortunately what you have effectively said with the changes to war (as just one example) is:
“Your investment into defensive champs is now almost worthless please rank up others (ie invest into other champs) so you not only have a diverse defence but a competitive one also”. – (Just as a side note we have gone on a massive win streak off the back of diversity as our players have Kang, Deadpool red etc so it’s not sour grapes, wars just aren’t quite right anymore…)
When you make fundamental changes like this it leads to a lack of confidence from “the market”. Imagine a government providing companies incentives to invest into a particular market and then once they get that investment they suddenly change those conditions and then provide incentives to invest into a competing market. Do you think these/other investors will be likely to invest there in future with this level of instability/lack of certainty?
Which leads to the “return on investment” point:
In completing 5.2 I got 1500 4*, 700 5* shards and the uncollected title which I must say is not game changing a pleasant touch. In order to fully explore 5.2 I will need to invest a significant amount of time and resources for what? Not much more… so let’s just say it’s not on a lot of people’s radar. Then there is 5.3 harder content and unless I commit to fully exploring it for the 5* awakening and rank up gem, nothing there is overly attractive/game changing – 25% of a 5* (which I can get by winning 5-6 wars) and 75% of a 4* (that I don’t really need). So for my time it leaves me to concentrate on monthly events which I finish in a week and a bit and AQ/AWs. The later which as most will agree will only be run as an opportunity to get 5* shards despite the community’s disdain for it. i.e. you are no longer engaging me/incentivising me to play/invest.
So having read all this, lets revisit my alliance’s situation in wanting to find a new game/step back. It is now obvious to see why this has happened. Your market offering has slipped. You don’t provide a suitable return on investment for us mid to upper tier players, nor do you provide a consistent product that gives the market confidence that any new investment they make will hold its value going forward. As such with our roster of r5 4*s we do not need/want to upgrade any more 4* as they will not provide any real competitive advantage and if they do (in the case of AW defence) we don’t know if you will just change the rules again and we lose our investment (upgrade resources). Then there is the drop rate of 5*s and the respective shards (which could spur us on to attacking latter content like 5.3). Let’s face it, it is so low that there is a minimal drive to play just to get these 5*s so it’s no wonder we are looking for the “next” MCOC as it was in “back in the day”. By not listening to your market you’ve tried to turn a “cash cow” into a “star” (refer to BCG matrix) but are slowly turning it into a “?” and possibly a “dog”.
38
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
I've never seen a company that gets this much feedback that is spot on ignore it as much as this one does.
Thanks for the advice. It is done!
Thank you for the well thought out and eloquent post, and for expressing your feelings and the feelings of your Alliance. You’ve made a lot of points here, and I’m going to try my best to touch on as many of them as I can.
Firstly, we do understand the frustration that you feel about the changes to war, and how you think that affected your Champions. We have mentioned that we are committed to making further changes to Alliance Wars that will achieve the goals we set forth for this latest iteration, and believe me, making you feel like some of your champions are now obsolete is definitely not one of the goals we had.
It’s important to keep in mind that this is a live game. We’re continuously adding new content, making adjustments, and giving players more to do and work towards. There will always be something new or different coming, and things will always change. This can come in the form of Champion balance updates, new iterations of game modes, or like in the case of 6-Star champions, new levels of progression to hit. Besides being for the continuous health of the game, it’s also to give our players new things to do and play!
There will always be items or goals we want to achieve in the game, but seem just a touch out of reach, but there is reasons for that. Some items are meant to be much rarer than others! This includes things like Tier 2 Alphas, or 5-Star Awakening gems. They’re never going to be “easy” to obtain, although we have started to make some of those Rank Up materials more accessible and will continue to do so in the future. Yes, sometimes it can be a struggle to complete content in order to get the rewards that we want, but the choice of whether or not you’d like to make that commitment is up to each individual player, as is the choice of whether or not they deem the rewards worthy of the effort.
As for the first point you made on bugs. We are constantly on the lookout for bugs, and step up to fixing them as quickly as we can. Sometimes this takes longer than we would like, but if fixing a bug was always just a flip of a switch, they’d all be taken care of in no time. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. Some of them are easy and can be done server side, which are the ones that get taken care of quickly. Some bugs are much more difficult, and can need engineering time, or the help of our partners.
We are always sad to hear of someone leaving The Contest. Our forums aren’t the place to post announcements of departure, but this is something that always saddens us. Our goal is to create a fun and engaging experience for Summoners, where they can work together with in-game friends and escape the outside world for a little bit. When someone leaves it means they feel we are no longer offering them this experience, and that is definitely sad. There are a great deal of things that we are working to improve upon, but we are very thankful for any time you choose to spend with us in The Contest.