**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.
Cyber Weekend Sales Feedback [Merged Threads]
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As for "allowing" people to spend, what part of spending requires permission from us?”
Wonder who US is...?
source: Torulf Jernström, "Let’s go whaling"
Part of what makes MCOC work is the integration of the playerbase with each other. It's not just a shared game experience, or even just a shared game space. Players are made to feel like they are competing directly with each other. And that specifically a combination of the "competitive factors" of spending, grinding, luck, and skill combine to matter in the outcomes of that competition.
Players have learned, can understand, can appreciate, and can handle that huge differences between two players in their spending, grinding, luck, and skill will mean different outcomes for those two players. But these same players have a very, very hard time with a circumstance where only a very slight difference in "competitive factors", can lead to a massive difference in competitive outcome.
Players are not angry they can't chase those who outperform them as Whales, Pros, Super Grinders, or Serial Luckers... in those distinct pillars of the game that favor those factors. But players can't stand, they can't handle, they can't deal with any surprise, universal, major progression gate that re-routes the whole game through a very small number of competitive factor or factors.
Players can't handle a gate (especially a new surprise gate) to determine which of the people just like them can progress, and which can't... if they are the losers in that outcome (or if they have empathy, or if their wellbeing depends on the wellbeing of some number of the losers). Whether that progression gate is a Good 6-Star + T5CC match, or it's a major Unit vs. Cash deals disparity of a major yearly sale day, or a major TB vs. Cav deals disparity of a major yearly sale day, or a major July 4th Cav vs. Cyber Weekend Cav deals disparity of a major yearly sale day. And especially if you stack these things on top of each other, or the availability of a gate key becoming scarce in the game and impacting players without it.
Even if you don't understand the above, or can't conceptualize it, or can't reconcile it with reality, or disagree with it, or just don't like it; look at the sizeable player response and how it conforms to the above behavioral model. And decide what the pattern of player behavior merits in terms of the importance of understanding it and addressing it.
Duck Unlimited only works if you have both Duck and Hunters. If you drive off either, it fails.
Kabam has said multiple times throughout the forum who this new content is coming out for.
Well they didn’t actually said they were quitting, but specifically said they were eliminating pain points in act 6 to help summoners progress.
1) where to set the title
2) how to set the title
For #1, it's a consideration of (A) where and how Kabam wants to apply the split to the playerbase demographics, and (B) how players have personally experienced added title progression in the past.
With "B", players will likely feel agitation and a sense of despair/anger/etc., if they were more successful with passing earlier title progressions in the past. They will feel a loss in their prowess or a game that is changing to exclude them, and this will will leaving them dealing with feelings of rejection, failure, and/or betrayal.
For #2, if the title is set based on a small number of perceived arbitrary factors, then (A) those players falling short will feel arbitrarily or otherwise discriminated against (or otherwise failing), and (B) some number of the playerbase may react to the idea that the game is now creating arbitrary winners and losers outside of the customary competitive factors (ongoing cumulative outcome of spending, grinding, luck, and skill).
(NOTE: I did not apply "Disagree" or any other tag to your comment) This becomes a weird issue due to the nature of the game.
There are in fact some ways in which payment can provide more players a way to beat The Champion boss:
1) Payment can provide much greater access to practicing the matchups (muscle memory*, focus allocation**, pattern familiarity, etc.)
2) Payment can provide much better roster choices, boosts, etc. to provide some extra benefits in the fight
2) Some players may have paid others to complete content for them, in violation of game policy
I personally don't think a hard "skill floor" gate (especially one that does not erode away over time) such as The Champion boss is a good fit for MCOC. But it depends on Kabam's goals.
I am currently recently stuck on The Champion fight. But I know from personal experience that it's just me getting down the patterns, muscle memory, focus allocation, etc. My current method is to review videos and use the daily 5 free duels to practice the patterns. If I paid, I could improve my rate of daily practicing. Or, if I could find a suitable The Champion in the quest maps to use (which actually was available last month's monthly side quest, but I didn't know I needed). But I am in no rush, so I will just get there slowly.
(NOTE: I did not apply "Disagree" or any other tag to your comment)
* muscle memory - a form of procedural memory that involves consolidating a specific motor task into memory through repetition
** focus allocation - how the brain routes focus levels and allocation when juggling multiple different tasks; the more each task's required focus level can be reduced (through experience, knowledge, automation, etc.), the more focus that is freed up for other tasks or the less that the overall focus is taxed. For example, experienced drivers can access tasks at lower required focus levels in order to react to things. A computer's memory and its use in running multiple programs is another example of this.
Basically, if you want to get detailed, what you do is put the playerbase into different conceptual pie charts. With each pie chart breaking down and dividing up the playerbase for different relevant factors needed in that fight. Things like dexterity, patience, interest, etc. All the different things that could result in a player not getting through the fight.
Then you just tally up all the non-overlapping players from each pie that don't make the cut. Maybe some just don't have the dexterity. Maybe some don't have the patience. Maybe some lose interest during the process and never return. Etc., etc., etc.
I'm sure we can all reference games where we just stopped playing. Maybe it we felt we'd never have the skills to hit a certain mark, or get past a certain level or level difficulty. Maybe we just didn't want to train up the skills. Maybe we got stuck and couldn't figure it out. Maybe we didn't have the patience to get through it. Maybe we just lost interest in playing the game. But you'll often find when you review this data across many players, that you start to see a pattern in the reasons for the failure: players quitting around the same time period, players quitting at a specific point in the progression, etc.
Lots of players never bowl a 300 or never dunk. Lots of players stop playing a game when its sequel comes out, or if it was a fad and the popularity dies out.
I'm not trying to be a jerk here. I'm not saying that given infinite in-game resources that most players who ever hit The Champion boss couldn't just brute force him. I'm just saying that in game design you can tally up the projected value and impact of content to players, and adjust accordingly (or note the observed impact in testing or live, and then adjust then).
It can get really hard for some game developer staff to do there job really well, because many of them don't really play the game (or care to), or they have access to the game in god-mode, or they know how to beat a puzzle going in, or they are trying a new mechanic and don't know how players will react or how it will stack with other variables in the game, or they don't know what the game feels like for someone at a different level of ability than them and have weak play empathy, etc.
But no it would 'break the game'
Prior to the title being announced, my plan was to just piddle along accruing t5cc in all classes then choose my best from each class to rank, going from no 3/45 champs to having 4-5 in a short window of time after a very long wait.
Now we’ve got deals, glory store benefits, and crystals to incentivize making the otherwise-irrational decision to rank up a substandard champ.
Now that there's a new title everyone that sits on content, which is a whole lot of those same people, is scrambling trying to rush to get a R3.
If my back of the napkin notes are right, the general trade off is lose 3 5* Nexus and 3 T5B for a net gain of 5k 5* shards and 23k 6* shards?
If they had left the T5B probably would have pulled the trigger. Now? Still on the sidelines and let my unit card expire.
Oh well....
The fear now is that these deals serve as an announcement that this is what cavalier deals look like moving forward - a focus on 5-stars and t2a even though game progression requires t5b and title progression requires t5cc.
My only fear is that the unit deals are too good. I went up in prestige almost 1,000 points and I had 2 people in my alliance go up 1400. I still want end game content to matter. That's my only issue.