for me the big let down came with 12.0. Not because I had amazing champs (I got DS and duped him a week later ... 1 week before 12.0).
Instead, the real problem is that with 12.0 they shattered the illusion that I was actually investing money in something that had intrinsic value.
They didn't lie ... they didn't cheat ... their terms and conditions CLEARLY state that tomorrow they can make ALL champs have the same abilities as SheHulk or IP or whatever they want.
I was just living under the illusion that my DS would be as much of a god as he had been for others.
So, really, we are all just playing in THEIR sandbox. You can spend as much money as you want, for the privilege of building pretty castles, but they can knock all the castles flat, and level out all the sand whenever they want, because it is THEIR sandbox. This is the "no intrinsic value" part. There is nothing inherent in any champ that gives it permanence in the world.
Honestly this is the way with every online digital game that I know. but somehow, I was able to trust other game companies, or at least trust that they would want to keep their player base happy to secure revenue.
12.0 for me was the Loss of Innocence.
Since 12.0 there hasn't been a single release that didn't contain bugs. (some more catastrophic than others).
Now I have moved from not trusting Kabam's vision, to not trusting their skills.
I still enjoy the social aspect of the game, but it is sad when I am more excited about a new sticker/emoji pack in Line, than a release in the game.
Might as well throw my own hat into the ring of opinion.
For me, the game has gotten staler lately, but mainly due to a few big things:
Progression) I am also holding onto my 5* shards, waiting for a shot at getting some of the few decent champs coming into the pool later. I don't get a huge number of shards, so I don't feel like I can afford to open crystals now. And even if I did, I can't rank anyone up until I am certain they are The One, due to how slowly I can acquire t4cc. I cannot use them on even mid-tier champs, because there is that chance of pulling the higher-strength champs that really advance my ability to move through content. They said that 5* resources would become more available, and while that one calendar was great, and the increase to event quest rewards is nice, I would like to see more, especially as we get closer to the 6* release. Currently, my roster feels stagnant, as there is little point to ranking 4* champs when their 5* version is just around the corner, and the release of new champs into the 5* pool is so damn slow, as if I want a chance to pull IceMan or AA, it's going to be another two months just to have that chance (featured crystals aside). They need to go ahead and release all of the champs as 5*, except for the 2-4 most recent ones, who can wait a month or so.
Content) Act 5.1 and 5.2 were fine. Sure, the Collector was a massive PitA, and so were a few other fights, but on the whole, the quests made you think more about team composition and strategy than most. 5.3 sucks in this regard. The GrandMaster's Battleream debut is weaksauce in comparison to his brother. A few lines of noded champs, and a basic global pushing the use of a single class of champs. That's it? Just copy paste and change the class each quest, that's 95% of 5.3. The maps are large and long, and the boring nodes just turn it into a slog. Slogs are never fun. At least LoL looks to be fun, if by fun I mean long sloggy fights, but the rewards most certainly are up to par there, so it's a balance. The event quest... Well, it needs to be basic in order to cover the majority of the playerbase, so I understand why it does not change much. Please add Grandmaster/Uncollected difficulty with proper rewards, unlock Master mode based on Heroic Completion rather than exploration. Move Legends runs to Master/GM exploration. Have the difficulty and setup of GM mode based more along a Bautista/Chloe's style event, not a rehash of the EQ maps, given that by then you have already gone through its story multiple times.
War) Not until they changed War to the Diversity model did I realize how much of my focus on the game came down to improving my War teams. While there were/are some champs I wanted for Quest purposes, by and large my crystal openings, and thus my grinding amounts, were predicated upon getting good defenders or improving the ones I had. AQ was for t4cc to rank defenders and attackers, Arenas and EQ for shards to pull champs for defenders or attackers, etc, etc. Because War was the most interactive and interesting mode. And now it's not. It's barely of interest, just another box to check. And that kills the excitement from opening crystals as well. While I still hold out for better champs to release, the number of champs I want to pull has dropped dramatically, and will stay low until War is fixed, and defender kills matter again. I wanted to get a duped 5* Dormammu for War defense, but now his only strength would be from a higher PI, which is boring. Same for NC (well, unduped), Hype, a few others.
So... what am I really playing for right now? Mostly just to help with Alliance, and waiting for the resources to have a go at LoL. AQ stale, War boring, quests stale and boring, arenas are mindless grind. But exciting Wars make all of the other stale parts fade into the background a good bit, and makes it all more palatable by far.
Although OP didn't ask for this I would like to add some (very basic) suggestions to make the game more enjoyable. But I'll preface it by saying, I am surprised this game has lasted this long. When I first started playing I looked at the game and thought, well, it's a very simple game at its heart. How much longevity could it have? Then more complex champions started arriving (Joe Fixit was actually one of the first, if not THE first), and then nodes bumped up the complexity again. So the team at Kabam (and I don't know how many members are still there) has done a really incredible job in keeping the game going at this strength for so long. The fact that people would rather organise a boycott than simply give up and walk away is just incredible. Kabam has done a shockingly good job at keeping the game interesting for this long.
So anyway, what would strengthen the game?
Lots of bugs make the game a very unenjoyable experience. Basically, fix the bugs! I know this is easier said than done but it's just what I expect as a customer. MCOC is like... I don't know. A casino, or a bar, or a cinema. People go there to escape from frustrations. They don't want to get more frustrated. I still remember how my Black Panther was my only r3 5-star and he kept whiffing on his medium after the enemy did a heavy. That was really, really frustrating and I nearly quit. This is basic, honestly.
There need to be more champs people get excited about, and for that to happen, there need to be more viable champs in a variety of roles. Before 15.0, good defenders fulfilled this role. They were a bit of a consolation prize - everyone prioritised attack, but a good defender (duped Juggernaut, duped Spiderman, Mordo etc.) still made you feel special and your alliance would be pretty pleased. Now all that is gone. There needs to be more content that non-god-tier characters can help with so the 5-star champs aren't just separated into "god tier" and "do not rank". Otherwise we're back in the pre-12.0 era, when only a handful of champs were desirable and everyone else was just meh.
Finally, rewards are no longer as exciting as they used to be because of the 6-star announcement. I'll be honest, I can't suggest anything that might change this. I like some of the YouTubers' suggestions regarding artefacts that adapt champions in new and creative ways instead of just releasing 6-stars, but I also understand the nightmare in balancing this would create. Maybe @TillerTheKiller is right and it's mainly a matter of timing.
Ideally, I would like to see many more refreshes of champions instead of constant new releases. However, I also understand that Kabam has its own loop that it must maintain. The effects of stopping new releases for a couple of months would be disastrous for the company and impact a ton of things like the contract with Marvel, revenue and manpower. So while I wish Kabam would take a break from new releases I know it probably won't happen and I can live with that.
Wow, I'm really optimistic to see that this thread, started by just another random player was able to promote and really create a dialogue that remained honest and constructive. I feel like threads like this are important for the community to come together to have a much needed conversation so that the powers that be can read the voices of the community and make the decision to address us and our concerns. Thanks again for all the feedback guys, if you have something constructive to add, please continue to do so.
#cornflakes
In my opinion, the majority of issues with this game currently come down to two things: Quality Assurance and Customer Relationship Management. Summarized constructive feedback in bold.
With a competent QA team in place, game breaking bugs like the ones seen in 15.1 wouldn't make it into production. I am legitimately at a loss as to how things like champions freezing after specials or specials not firing at all could possibly make it past testing. If beta testing is truly happening, it needs to be widened to get more eyes on game performance because HUGE bugs are slipping through completely undetected.
A competent QA team would have had the foresight to crunch some numbers and see that AW was hilariously broken from the start in that placing zero defenders was the easiest path to victory. That has since been fixed, but the problem of Defender Rating as the sole decider of war is still in place. Reducing the points from defender diversity doesn't change that fact at all, it only lowers the final scores for both teams while wars are still won and lost on 1-10 points of defender rating. Increasing difficulty of the nodes might help, but those changes didn't even make it into production last week as Miike stated they would.
Updates need to slow down and more time and money needs to be put into QA to have more brains and eyes reviewing both major and minor updates to game mechanics and meta.
As for CRM, the lack of transparency and follow-through has this community at our wit's end. The 5* Punisher issue is one of the most disgusting responses that I've ever witnessed from a gaming company. Players pour countless hours of work into the arena and when we have legitimate suspicions of a zero-probability item sale the only response we get is "we don't discuss drop rates". We aren't asking for drop rates. We are asking for evidence that there was ANY chance at 5* Punisher with the millions of BCs that were spent trying to obtain him.
We submit reports of bugs and get a blanket response "Thanks for this, sending to the team to review" and then never hear anything back for months. This is extremely frustrating from a player perspective. Not only are we tasked with identifying and providing evidence of bugs that make game play difficult, but we don't even get meaningful responses to the work we put into proving the issues.
And then to top it all off, we get slapped in the face with $30 offers for items that we need to deal with bugs that are no fault of our own. It's honestly insulting. It feels as though the players care more about and have greater attention to detail in the game than the developers who are profiting from our passion. The relationship with your customers is extremely strained right now.
CRM needs to be more transparent with your passionate customer base and more proactive in following through on issues.
Hey everyone, there's a lot of great critique and feedback here, and I very much appreciate that this is for the most part a respectful and honest discussion surrounding how everyone feels about the game.
With that being said, I've had to clean up a couple of posts there to make sure this doesn't get derailed, so please do try to keep the thread constructive. Thank you!
So.... Is anything actually being done by kabam with the great critique and feedback found here @Kabam Pertinax ?
If they would stop trying to tilt aspects of the game in their favor and just get creative with new content it wouldn’t be so disasterous..but the regurgitate the same tired **** just with a bigger price tag..a pile of **** with a bow is just a well dressed pile of ****
Do anything for over 2 years, it starts getting mundane. That's just how it is.
But what other issues have come up? 5* crystals and **** champs. You spend all your time grinding and saving for a 5* champ and you get Colossus (yay, I have him in every star level now, can't wait to get that 6*! -_- ) and Kamala Khan. These are garbage champions, and after getting them AGAIN as you progress from 2* to 3 and 4 and 5*, you start getting pissed. Kabam needs to remove the garbage champions from the higher crystals. I will spend money to get a crystal once, but if I get someone who is complete garbage, who I don't want or need, and who isn't good under a single circumstance, then I am not spending money again. Period.
Quick fix? Some champions aren't available as 3 or 4 stars normally. Original Vision, for example. Well, make some champions so bad they don't exist as higher tiers. There won't be a 5* Wolverine released? Great, but people WANT HIM. NOBODY WANTS ANOTHER COLOSSUS OR HULKBUSTER. NOBODY. Delete these champions, return the resources used to rank them - including a crystal representing whatever star level they were - and let us build rosters we care more about.
A better, but harder solution for you, would be to fix champions. You guys fixed Rhino and did a great job. Fix the other **** champs.
Also, rewards. We need them back, seriously. That's not a greed thing, necessarily. We used to get PHC crystals and potions and gold crystals and such when the game was down for two hours unexpectedly. Now? The game will go down so long as to ruin arena runs and threaten AQ completion, but no apology. The game is so loaded of bug that basic gameplay mechanics aren broken. No apology. Posting on the forum is NOT an apology. That's posting to a small percentage of users. You need in game messaging that says "we are **** up, have something to feel better about it." Remember when the Collector actually had standards and said "sorry"? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Kabam is simply not rewarding and making amends to game users, they are only apologizing to people who read their blogs and social content. If i weren't in an alliance, if I weren't reading the forums or watching Seatin or involved in the community beyond playing the game itself: I would have deleted this broken trash a long time ago because there is no longer in-game messaging, apologizing, notice of bugs, or compensation.
Wish I would have recorded a fight earlier. Just an arena fight so why would I. Using OG Vision against gwenpool. Between his specials not draining power and doing damage when they hit and the failure to launch specials, I had an amazing display of how broken things are now. With his power gain I must have launched 20 specials and probably 4 actually worked. So about 1 in 5 worked. Just brilliant Kabam. Granted it's usually not that bad but nothing surprises me now.
Yes quite the snake eating its own tail isn't it? But let's say we are talking cornflakes... I have a routine that I eat the same cornflakes every morning and my children eat the same cornflakes because they see me eating them... well this hypothetical cornflake company totally jacks up my routine and changes the recipe and now I hate the cornflakes....I stop buying the cornflakes.... next thing you know the kids are asking why they can't have 'their' cornflakes....
So to oversimplify, do I say screw you cornflakes and the company who makes them and tell the children to eat oatmeal? Sure...but should I not also have the option where I say to the cornflake company, hey your really screwing up a family tradition here, and I know it's just cornflakes but I'd really like my tradition back....
I'm confused whose side your on? I posted this as an avenue to create community and feedback in the hopes I could just.. as corny as it is...just get my cornflakes back...
Should we not have an opinion or give feedback and instead just throw in the towel? Or should we collectively and constructively hold the cornflake line so to speak?
I honestly think bugs are awful, and I generally agree with everything that has been said. However, the deal breaker for me is the customer service. I'm completely aware that customer service employees don't have any control over the bugs/requests/issues, but the placeholder responses only add insult to injury. It honestly feels like you aren't even taken into consideration. They simply flip you the bird in a polite way in what absolutely feels like no effort at all. Hell, even if you reply to them you get assigned to a different person every time, losing every chance for a single assistant to keep track of your case. Like I said, I'm aware customer service is more of a "crowd control" job, but still, there are better ways to handle it. They even used to introduce themselves when they answered a ticket, and that's no longer the case. I'm not saying I want free stuff (never asked, never got any), but the standard "oh we're aware of the issue and we're working on it" response makes me feel like you're not even listening. Don't give us the finger and expect us to be happy about it.
As a player that has been love with this game from the 1st day I downloaded it. I agree with the whole. I've spent literally thousands on this game in hopes of obtaining one of the holy grail champs with no reward. It was only after the Nerfs to Many of the Great champs did I pull Strange, Thor, Sw and Star Lord. Then came the 12.0 debacle and Scarlett Witch & the others were rendered useless.
I've yet to pull BW, or SIM... Not to mention NC, GP or Ice Man from a Crystal. Instead I've duped champs like Hulk, War Machine, Joe Fix It and Luke Cage enough to max 99 them all 6 x's a piece only to receive useless 5 star shards that got Me rewarded 15 even Useless champs, I Literally have No Dupes or anyone worth ranking above 1/25 they only serve a purpose to reach milestones in arena.
Just a Suggestion Kabam should Issues rank down tickets "again" so that we can change our champs to bring us in line with the content they are shoveling.
I can attest that like me many in my alliance are ready to join the masses and walk away from the game, we've already agreed not to spend another dime for a sub par product. If we as a community can band together, just as we did with 12.0 and affect their bottom line, they'll have to hear our cry's. .... MCOC is not Fun anymore
Hey everyone, there's a lot of great critique and feedback here, and I very much appreciate that this is for the most part a respectful and honest discussion surrounding how everyone feels about the game.
With that being said, I've had to clean up a couple of posts there to make sure this doesn't get derailed, so please do try to keep the thread constructive. Thank you!
So.... Is anything actually being done by kabam with the great critique and feedback found here @Kabam Pertinax ?
more than likely not ... game companies mostly view their forums as a place for the players to have their temper tantrum .... then eventually accept the bad changes to the game (not always ... but in general).
@Mano73 and @Sith_slayer our alliance has decided to do the same. Gunna make AW a bit tricky but it was suggested by a teammate that we should reach out to the opposition leader and see if we are on the same page before attacking. I'm really hoping we will get word soon though and we won't start losing our teammates.
What I can’t understand, is after time and time again w these bugs, and the fact that Kabam is aware of them...aware of the items people are having to use....and aware how furious the playerbase is....that when these instances occur, a simple statement to the effect of “hey all we goofed hardcore, realize the expenditures this is causing and a compensation package of sorts will be given after fixes are in place and working as intended”.
That statement would go so far with the community and looked at as more of a “genuine” apology rather than just the copy and pasted monthly “we sincerely apologize for this inconvenience” garbage....
Time, Money, effort - which ever one or all of the above.
Bugs that cost items, money ,effort
Fixes that don't fix bugs that cost items, money and effort.
You could really go on and on and on and on........
Hey Kabam! If you’re reading this, there have been some really good ideas that have already been planned out by Seatin and another by ContestChampion. Check out my discussions for links and details. A new game mode makes people stream to the game especially if it is fast paced, like those detailed in my discussion.
But yeah, I’m sure you guys know there are bugs and they need to be fixed, however, the community doesn’t seem to realize how tedious it is to debug software. I only do tiny coding projects on OOP sites and it takes me days to debug like 50 lines of code if I’m not careful.
I’d also like to mention AQ timers.
Having 1hour timers is really frustrating. Especially if you are in a multi time zoned alliance or have a full time job.
What is the reasoning behind 1hour timers? Why can’t they be shorter? It still requires the same level of skill to complete, no matter what the timer is, but by having 1hour between moves makes AQ such a huge time investment and has quickly become a chore.
My idea of games is to have fun and escape from reality every now and then, but having the huge timers on AQ and war makes this feel like a second job. Add that to the number of bugs and other issues the game faces us with and you can see why people are getting frustrated.
Please consider making the game more user friendly and I think you’ll find you get a happier player base.
Hey Kabam! If you’re reading this, there have been some really good ideas that have already been planned out by Seatin and another by ContestChampion. Check out my discussions for links and details. A new game mode makes people stream to the game especially if it is fast paced, like those detailed in my discussion.
But yeah, I’m sure you guys know there are bugs and they need to be fixed, however, the community doesn’t seem to realize how tedious it is to debug software. I only do tiny coding projects on OOP sites and it takes me days to debug like 50 lines of code if I’m not careful.
Actually, players don't object to bugs themselves. Players object to bugs that cost them money. Why should we pay because Kabam isn't doing its job? It's like releasing a credit card that has a bug that charges the user 2% more on every transaction.
Kabam used to have a system where they said, hey, cleaning up bugs is hard. We'll take a while. In the meantime, here are some items so you can overcome the bug without having to pay for my mistakes. That system is gone but the bugs keep coming.
And, while I sympathise with debuggers because I know it is a very tough job, it's still their job. Brain surgery is hard, rocket science is hard. Building a mobile phone that doesn't explode is hard. But the consumer expects to have workable product and shouldn't have to pay extra for a company's mistakes just because "it's hard".
It may be hard, but it’s their job to provide a stable working product. If I made this many mistakes at my job and just passed the buck all the time, I’d be looking for a new job. I work at a company that delivers products ppl order online. If I send them the wrong product, or one that doesn’t work I’m responsible to send them the right product and refund them any extra expenses that it may have caused them due to my error. This should be no different
Don't worry guys! This game will eventually go the same route as, what's that other pay to play game? Um,uh,...clash of...clash of something....anyways, does anyone still play that one? Oh yeah! Clans!
Lol, just playing.
Wow, just read this whole thread, and you all have eloquently stated exactly how I feel at this moment. I have been asking myself WHY i play? I can't bring myself to grind for shards that mean nothing to me. I feel 4* are a waste at my level and can't get access to resources to rank my 5* so why grind. Making a run at LOL, which is the only place for those resources is a ridiculous without the right rosters. It's sad I do find the game enjoyable only because of my alliance, but have been overly frustrated having to waste units and items do to the recent bugs.
Kabam was once a company that supported its player base, when bugs like the most recent ones would arise, they would send care packages and reimbursements. You could actually send a support ticket in and get real support. They would send you units or items. They cared! They built that relationship, they favored the players, they took care of us. In return we took care of them. They have long offered that kind of relationship. You get no support and canned responses. This always confused me, there is no expense in reimbursing players for mistakes, sure there are no monetary profits from it either. But happy customers will always spend.
I'm so disheartened at the state of the game currently and the wall Im against that Im really struggling to keep playing. I like the friendships I've built, but I just don't have a reason other than that. We were told resources were coming, and maybe I was wrong in thinking that meant over the next few months I would be able to earn resources to rank up another r4 or get all my 5* to r3. Maybe it was my fault for feeling excited that I could do more with my 5*
instead of just running boring arenas, which are just a time suck and only get me shards for what more Luke Cages or spider gwens. I can't even watch the youtubers and get excited, It's constant disappointment, bad calendars (hell we don't even have a GM crystal this month), bad rewards, same quests, and nothing new and absolutely zero signs of it changing. So maybe, just maybe it's light at the end of the tunnel for many of us. Yes the game will go on, the new summoners will carry it forward until they hit this same wall and the loop will continue.
It's funny as constructive as this thread has been and as well thought out as it is, I will always feel like this a tree falling in a forest with no-one around. We are told of beta teams, and feedback they take in. But none of that is consistent with what the forums show. No one was happy with DS, but they say feedback says he's fine, No where on this forum is there a thread stating people were upset about defender kills in AW. We constantly hear from them that they beta test things, but never hear from anyone who actually beta tests it. Having a dialogue with those tester after the release could help improve what they should test for next time. The RDT threads are over the top, but when it comes to the new AW they have some merit. Sure they didn't change any specific champ and that is there sticking point, but you changed the mode so now the alliance has 27 useless mordos, dormammu's, magiks, NC, Spideys and so on. Because they have to sit the bench or you can't win. Im not asking for them, to be sure but there is a merit there. I've rambled so much this incoherent mess is just my release from my mind so I can move onto something productive.
Here's to hoping that they hear some of you, and that real change comes our way.
being capped at level 60 since January of 2016
no tier 5 basic cats
the availability of tier 2 alpha
cant sell 5* to get 6* shards
truth is if it wasn't for my friends in my alliance I would quit the game but as long as they hang in there I will keep putting up with nerfs, bugs, crappy deals (I don't spend $$$ anymore) and push through
Actually, players don't object to bugs themselves. Players object to bugs that cost them money. Why should we pay because Kabam isn't doing its job? It's like releasing a credit card that has a bug that charges the user 2% more on every transaction.
Kabam used to have a system where they said, hey, cleaning up bugs is hard. We'll take a while. In the meantime, here are some items so you can overcome the bug without having to pay for my mistakes. That system is gone but the bugs keep coming.
And, while I sympathise with debuggers because I know it is a very tough job, it's still their job. Brain surgery is hard, rocket science is hard. Building a mobile phone that doesn't explode is hard. But the consumer expects to have workable product and shouldn't have to pay extra for a company's mistakes just because "it's hard".
You don’t need to spend money on the game if it’s buggy, and I know it’s their job, but I was trying to remind those who know LITTLE TO NOTHING about programming is that it takes TIME. Debugging can fix one bug, but that fix makes another logic error that needs to be fixed and that can cascade quickly if you aren’t very very careful. The 3 main parts to debugging are finding where in the code the error is even located, thinking of a way to fix it, and then makeing sure it doesn’t make bugs on its own, which it does a lot of the time.
For a game that is free, it is a huge game that I would probably pay as much as your average Xbox game if it was only made for it. The revenue>>kabam budget>>design teams would be better and the game would be fine. But In reality, it’s a free mobile game that has years worth of play value, so I don’t really see why you guys expect so much. Yes, 6* are a little much; yes, we need bases or some new game mode; yes, we need bugs fixed; but think realistically and take a step back.
This is a little irrelevant, but if for such a bad game, you guys sure play it a ton. You say “because it’s bad, I need to spend cash on it”. If it’s a bad game, don’t play it
Comments
Instead, the real problem is that with 12.0 they shattered the illusion that I was actually investing money in something that had intrinsic value.
They didn't lie ... they didn't cheat ... their terms and conditions CLEARLY state that tomorrow they can make ALL champs have the same abilities as SheHulk or IP or whatever they want.
I was just living under the illusion that my DS would be as much of a god as he had been for others.
So, really, we are all just playing in THEIR sandbox. You can spend as much money as you want, for the privilege of building pretty castles, but they can knock all the castles flat, and level out all the sand whenever they want, because it is THEIR sandbox. This is the "no intrinsic value" part. There is nothing inherent in any champ that gives it permanence in the world.
Honestly this is the way with every online digital game that I know. but somehow, I was able to trust other game companies, or at least trust that they would want to keep their player base happy to secure revenue.
12.0 for me was the Loss of Innocence.
Since 12.0 there hasn't been a single release that didn't contain bugs. (some more catastrophic than others).
Now I have moved from not trusting Kabam's vision, to not trusting their skills.
I still enjoy the social aspect of the game, but it is sad when I am more excited about a new sticker/emoji pack in Line, than a release in the game.
For me, the game has gotten staler lately, but mainly due to a few big things:
Progression) I am also holding onto my 5* shards, waiting for a shot at getting some of the few decent champs coming into the pool later. I don't get a huge number of shards, so I don't feel like I can afford to open crystals now. And even if I did, I can't rank anyone up until I am certain they are The One, due to how slowly I can acquire t4cc. I cannot use them on even mid-tier champs, because there is that chance of pulling the higher-strength champs that really advance my ability to move through content. They said that 5* resources would become more available, and while that one calendar was great, and the increase to event quest rewards is nice, I would like to see more, especially as we get closer to the 6* release. Currently, my roster feels stagnant, as there is little point to ranking 4* champs when their 5* version is just around the corner, and the release of new champs into the 5* pool is so damn slow, as if I want a chance to pull IceMan or AA, it's going to be another two months just to have that chance (featured crystals aside). They need to go ahead and release all of the champs as 5*, except for the 2-4 most recent ones, who can wait a month or so.
Content) Act 5.1 and 5.2 were fine. Sure, the Collector was a massive PitA, and so were a few other fights, but on the whole, the quests made you think more about team composition and strategy than most. 5.3 sucks in this regard. The GrandMaster's Battleream debut is weaksauce in comparison to his brother. A few lines of noded champs, and a basic global pushing the use of a single class of champs. That's it? Just copy paste and change the class each quest, that's 95% of 5.3. The maps are large and long, and the boring nodes just turn it into a slog. Slogs are never fun. At least LoL looks to be fun, if by fun I mean long sloggy fights, but the rewards most certainly are up to par there, so it's a balance. The event quest... Well, it needs to be basic in order to cover the majority of the playerbase, so I understand why it does not change much. Please add Grandmaster/Uncollected difficulty with proper rewards, unlock Master mode based on Heroic Completion rather than exploration. Move Legends runs to Master/GM exploration. Have the difficulty and setup of GM mode based more along a Bautista/Chloe's style event, not a rehash of the EQ maps, given that by then you have already gone through its story multiple times.
War) Not until they changed War to the Diversity model did I realize how much of my focus on the game came down to improving my War teams. While there were/are some champs I wanted for Quest purposes, by and large my crystal openings, and thus my grinding amounts, were predicated upon getting good defenders or improving the ones I had. AQ was for t4cc to rank defenders and attackers, Arenas and EQ for shards to pull champs for defenders or attackers, etc, etc. Because War was the most interactive and interesting mode. And now it's not. It's barely of interest, just another box to check. And that kills the excitement from opening crystals as well. While I still hold out for better champs to release, the number of champs I want to pull has dropped dramatically, and will stay low until War is fixed, and defender kills matter again. I wanted to get a duped 5* Dormammu for War defense, but now his only strength would be from a higher PI, which is boring. Same for NC (well, unduped), Hype, a few others.
So... what am I really playing for right now? Mostly just to help with Alliance, and waiting for the resources to have a go at LoL. AQ stale, War boring, quests stale and boring, arenas are mindless grind. But exciting Wars make all of the other stale parts fade into the background a good bit, and makes it all more palatable by far.
So anyway, what would strengthen the game?
Lots of bugs make the game a very unenjoyable experience. Basically, fix the bugs! I know this is easier said than done but it's just what I expect as a customer. MCOC is like... I don't know. A casino, or a bar, or a cinema. People go there to escape from frustrations. They don't want to get more frustrated. I still remember how my Black Panther was my only r3 5-star and he kept whiffing on his medium after the enemy did a heavy. That was really, really frustrating and I nearly quit. This is basic, honestly.
There need to be more champs people get excited about, and for that to happen, there need to be more viable champs in a variety of roles. Before 15.0, good defenders fulfilled this role. They were a bit of a consolation prize - everyone prioritised attack, but a good defender (duped Juggernaut, duped Spiderman, Mordo etc.) still made you feel special and your alliance would be pretty pleased. Now all that is gone. There needs to be more content that non-god-tier characters can help with so the 5-star champs aren't just separated into "god tier" and "do not rank". Otherwise we're back in the pre-12.0 era, when only a handful of champs were desirable and everyone else was just meh.
Finally, rewards are no longer as exciting as they used to be because of the 6-star announcement. I'll be honest, I can't suggest anything that might change this. I like some of the YouTubers' suggestions regarding artefacts that adapt champions in new and creative ways instead of just releasing 6-stars, but I also understand the nightmare in balancing this would create. Maybe @TillerTheKiller is right and it's mainly a matter of timing.
Ideally, I would like to see many more refreshes of champions instead of constant new releases. However, I also understand that Kabam has its own loop that it must maintain. The effects of stopping new releases for a couple of months would be disastrous for the company and impact a ton of things like the contract with Marvel, revenue and manpower. So while I wish Kabam would take a break from new releases I know it probably won't happen and I can live with that.
Edit: tagged the wrong guy!
#cornflakes
With a competent QA team in place, game breaking bugs like the ones seen in 15.1 wouldn't make it into production. I am legitimately at a loss as to how things like champions freezing after specials or specials not firing at all could possibly make it past testing. If beta testing is truly happening, it needs to be widened to get more eyes on game performance because HUGE bugs are slipping through completely undetected.
A competent QA team would have had the foresight to crunch some numbers and see that AW was hilariously broken from the start in that placing zero defenders was the easiest path to victory. That has since been fixed, but the problem of Defender Rating as the sole decider of war is still in place. Reducing the points from defender diversity doesn't change that fact at all, it only lowers the final scores for both teams while wars are still won and lost on 1-10 points of defender rating. Increasing difficulty of the nodes might help, but those changes didn't even make it into production last week as Miike stated they would.
Updates need to slow down and more time and money needs to be put into QA to have more brains and eyes reviewing both major and minor updates to game mechanics and meta.
As for CRM, the lack of transparency and follow-through has this community at our wit's end. The 5* Punisher issue is one of the most disgusting responses that I've ever witnessed from a gaming company. Players pour countless hours of work into the arena and when we have legitimate suspicions of a zero-probability item sale the only response we get is "we don't discuss drop rates". We aren't asking for drop rates. We are asking for evidence that there was ANY chance at 5* Punisher with the millions of BCs that were spent trying to obtain him.
We submit reports of bugs and get a blanket response "Thanks for this, sending to the team to review" and then never hear anything back for months. This is extremely frustrating from a player perspective. Not only are we tasked with identifying and providing evidence of bugs that make game play difficult, but we don't even get meaningful responses to the work we put into proving the issues.
And then to top it all off, we get slapped in the face with $30 offers for items that we need to deal with bugs that are no fault of our own. It's honestly insulting. It feels as though the players care more about and have greater attention to detail in the game than the developers who are profiting from our passion. The relationship with your customers is extremely strained right now.
CRM needs to be more transparent with your passionate customer base and more proactive in following through on issues.
So.... Is anything actually being done by kabam with the great critique and feedback found here @Kabam Pertinax ?
But what other issues have come up? 5* crystals and **** champs. You spend all your time grinding and saving for a 5* champ and you get Colossus (yay, I have him in every star level now, can't wait to get that 6*! -_- ) and Kamala Khan. These are garbage champions, and after getting them AGAIN as you progress from 2* to 3 and 4 and 5*, you start getting pissed. Kabam needs to remove the garbage champions from the higher crystals. I will spend money to get a crystal once, but if I get someone who is complete garbage, who I don't want or need, and who isn't good under a single circumstance, then I am not spending money again. Period.
Quick fix? Some champions aren't available as 3 or 4 stars normally. Original Vision, for example. Well, make some champions so bad they don't exist as higher tiers. There won't be a 5* Wolverine released? Great, but people WANT HIM. NOBODY WANTS ANOTHER COLOSSUS OR HULKBUSTER. NOBODY. Delete these champions, return the resources used to rank them - including a crystal representing whatever star level they were - and let us build rosters we care more about.
A better, but harder solution for you, would be to fix champions. You guys fixed Rhino and did a great job. Fix the other **** champs.
Also, rewards. We need them back, seriously. That's not a greed thing, necessarily. We used to get PHC crystals and potions and gold crystals and such when the game was down for two hours unexpectedly. Now? The game will go down so long as to ruin arena runs and threaten AQ completion, but no apology. The game is so loaded of bug that basic gameplay mechanics aren broken. No apology. Posting on the forum is NOT an apology. That's posting to a small percentage of users. You need in game messaging that says "we are **** up, have something to feel better about it." Remember when the Collector actually had standards and said "sorry"? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Kabam is simply not rewarding and making amends to game users, they are only apologizing to people who read their blogs and social content. If i weren't in an alliance, if I weren't reading the forums or watching Seatin or involved in the community beyond playing the game itself: I would have deleted this broken trash a long time ago because there is no longer in-game messaging, apologizing, notice of bugs, or compensation.
Great Analogy, I whole-heartly agree
I've yet to pull BW, or SIM... Not to mention NC, GP or Ice Man from a Crystal. Instead I've duped champs like Hulk, War Machine, Joe Fix It and Luke Cage enough to max 99 them all 6 x's a piece only to receive useless 5 star shards that got Me rewarded 15 even Useless champs, I Literally have No Dupes or anyone worth ranking above 1/25 they only serve a purpose to reach milestones in arena.
Just a Suggestion Kabam should Issues rank down tickets "again" so that we can change our champs to bring us in line with the content they are shoveling.
I can attest that like me many in my alliance are ready to join the masses and walk away from the game, we've already agreed not to spend another dime for a sub par product. If we as a community can band together, just as we did with 12.0 and affect their bottom line, they'll have to hear our cry's. .... MCOC is not Fun anymore
more than likely not ... game companies mostly view their forums as a place for the players to have their temper tantrum .... then eventually accept the bad changes to the game (not always ... but in general).
That statement would go so far with the community and looked at as more of a “genuine” apology rather than just the copy and pasted monthly “we sincerely apologize for this inconvenience” garbage....
Bugs that cost items, money ,effort
Fixes that don't fix bugs that cost items, money and effort.
You could really go on and on and on and on........
Has Kabam employed a new developer?
But yeah, I’m sure you guys know there are bugs and they need to be fixed, however, the community doesn’t seem to realize how tedious it is to debug software. I only do tiny coding projects on OOP sites and it takes me days to debug like 50 lines of code if I’m not careful.
Having 1hour timers is really frustrating. Especially if you are in a multi time zoned alliance or have a full time job.
What is the reasoning behind 1hour timers? Why can’t they be shorter? It still requires the same level of skill to complete, no matter what the timer is, but by having 1hour between moves makes AQ such a huge time investment and has quickly become a chore.
My idea of games is to have fun and escape from reality every now and then, but having the huge timers on AQ and war makes this feel like a second job. Add that to the number of bugs and other issues the game faces us with and you can see why people are getting frustrated.
Please consider making the game more user friendly and I think you’ll find you get a happier player base.
Actually, players don't object to bugs themselves. Players object to bugs that cost them money. Why should we pay because Kabam isn't doing its job? It's like releasing a credit card that has a bug that charges the user 2% more on every transaction.
Kabam used to have a system where they said, hey, cleaning up bugs is hard. We'll take a while. In the meantime, here are some items so you can overcome the bug without having to pay for my mistakes. That system is gone but the bugs keep coming.
And, while I sympathise with debuggers because I know it is a very tough job, it's still their job. Brain surgery is hard, rocket science is hard. Building a mobile phone that doesn't explode is hard. But the consumer expects to have workable product and shouldn't have to pay extra for a company's mistakes just because "it's hard".
Lol, just playing.
Kabam was once a company that supported its player base, when bugs like the most recent ones would arise, they would send care packages and reimbursements. You could actually send a support ticket in and get real support. They would send you units or items. They cared! They built that relationship, they favored the players, they took care of us. In return we took care of them. They have long offered that kind of relationship. You get no support and canned responses. This always confused me, there is no expense in reimbursing players for mistakes, sure there are no monetary profits from it either. But happy customers will always spend.
I'm so disheartened at the state of the game currently and the wall Im against that Im really struggling to keep playing. I like the friendships I've built, but I just don't have a reason other than that. We were told resources were coming, and maybe I was wrong in thinking that meant over the next few months I would be able to earn resources to rank up another r4 or get all my 5* to r3. Maybe it was my fault for feeling excited that I could do more with my 5*
instead of just running boring arenas, which are just a time suck and only get me shards for what more Luke Cages or spider gwens. I can't even watch the youtubers and get excited, It's constant disappointment, bad calendars (hell we don't even have a GM crystal this month), bad rewards, same quests, and nothing new and absolutely zero signs of it changing. So maybe, just maybe it's light at the end of the tunnel for many of us. Yes the game will go on, the new summoners will carry it forward until they hit this same wall and the loop will continue.
It's funny as constructive as this thread has been and as well thought out as it is, I will always feel like this a tree falling in a forest with no-one around. We are told of beta teams, and feedback they take in. But none of that is consistent with what the forums show. No one was happy with DS, but they say feedback says he's fine, No where on this forum is there a thread stating people were upset about defender kills in AW. We constantly hear from them that they beta test things, but never hear from anyone who actually beta tests it. Having a dialogue with those tester after the release could help improve what they should test for next time. The RDT threads are over the top, but when it comes to the new AW they have some merit. Sure they didn't change any specific champ and that is there sticking point, but you changed the mode so now the alliance has 27 useless mordos, dormammu's, magiks, NC, Spideys and so on. Because they have to sit the bench or you can't win. Im not asking for them, to be sure but there is a merit there. I've rambled so much this incoherent mess is just my release from my mind so I can move onto something productive.
Here's to hoping that they hear some of you, and that real change comes our way.
-Cheers.
being capped at level 60 since January of 2016
no tier 5 basic cats
the availability of tier 2 alpha
cant sell 5* to get 6* shards
truth is if it wasn't for my friends in my alliance I would quit the game but as long as they hang in there I will keep putting up with nerfs, bugs, crappy deals (I don't spend $$$ anymore) and push through
Actually, players don't object to bugs themselves. Players object to bugs that cost them money. Why should we pay because Kabam isn't doing its job? It's like releasing a credit card that has a bug that charges the user 2% more on every transaction.
Kabam used to have a system where they said, hey, cleaning up bugs is hard. We'll take a while. In the meantime, here are some items so you can overcome the bug without having to pay for my mistakes. That system is gone but the bugs keep coming.
And, while I sympathise with debuggers because I know it is a very tough job, it's still their job. Brain surgery is hard, rocket science is hard. Building a mobile phone that doesn't explode is hard. But the consumer expects to have workable product and shouldn't have to pay extra for a company's mistakes just because "it's hard".
You don’t need to spend money on the game if it’s buggy, and I know it’s their job, but I was trying to remind those who know LITTLE TO NOTHING about programming is that it takes TIME. Debugging can fix one bug, but that fix makes another logic error that needs to be fixed and that can cascade quickly if you aren’t very very careful. The 3 main parts to debugging are finding where in the code the error is even located, thinking of a way to fix it, and then makeing sure it doesn’t make bugs on its own, which it does a lot of the time.
For a game that is free, it is a huge game that I would probably pay as much as your average Xbox game if it was only made for it. The revenue>>kabam budget>>design teams would be better and the game would be fine. But In reality, it’s a free mobile game that has years worth of play value, so I don’t really see why you guys expect so much. Yes, 6* are a little much; yes, we need bases or some new game mode; yes, we need bugs fixed; but think realistically and take a step back.
This is a little irrelevant, but if for such a bad game, you guys sure play it a ton. You say “because it’s bad, I need to spend cash on it”. If it’s a bad game, don’t play it