I’m complaining about the fact that aside from Carina’s challenges (great content btw) , and perhaps the gauntlet and Mulvaney challenge to a lesser degree, there hasn’t been any hard and engaging content since prenerf 6.4. But not to worry, said Kabam, because we’re going to make this thing called the Summer of Pain, and it will be the most brutally difficult and challenging content ever made, that will shred even the most developed of rosters.
The rewards are perfectly fine to me. I just want engaging content and to feel like I earned the rewards, which I (and I’m sure many of the others here) don’t believe I did.
#MakeContentGreatAgain
Point well taken.
OPs thread title is literally complaining about the rewards though. Too good, for being too "easy".
But he also wants to nerf Quake and other things like that, so, it's really just another thread to get people riled up between those who agree and disagree and it has worked well.
What? Did you miss my point entirely? Remember when Kabam said we would suffer on this content, and it would be the hardest thing ever? If I’m able to do it it’s definitely not very hard. I’m not very good at this game And I said nothing about nerfing quake here.
I've been assured that he didn't miss him the point, and simply doesn't agree with it. Despite making comments that show he clearly missed the point, because he's too busy arguing to listen.
Classy. This is typically where you and crc take the discussion when you can't change someone's mind and not everyone agrees. If someone is not for your opinion, they must have missed the point.
Actually I’m doing it because you seem to be missing the actual purpose of the discussion entirely. I’m saying that this is going to throw off the game economy and make progression even easier for a lot of cavs, then when they hit a wall or tough content comes out the flood of “unit dump” complaints will be endless.
And nice job, resorting to “oh, typical crc” as a way to completely ignore the fact you are not comprehending the point I am trying to get across here
I still get your point and I still don't agree. I'm saying it won't throw off the game economy. It's the same progression of resource availability that has been here since the game has been around. You just don't like it this time because you think it's too fast. And? So what. It's happening and it's happened like this all along.
No it hasn't been the same progression of resource availabilty that has been there and that is our point.
Pretty sure Kabam's point is the only one that matters and I'm also pretty sure they have the data and business sense to do what's best for the bottom line, regardless of either of our opinions.
BTaw, T5cc was introduced to the game (at least that's when it was added to inventory) somewhere around Feb 22, 2019. After 2.5 years, you still don't think that making it more available now is reasonable? Wow.
More available in permanent content and "let's let nearly every cav playing the game get 75% of one" is a major difference
Lol. You can already buy your way to TB as far as t5cc goes. That is also going to be easier to do in the not too distant future. Why the concern that some players who are putting in the effort for the rewards are going to get it this way?
Every cav player is shooting for TB at some point, and even those with a t5cc have to have completed 6.4 and have a champ they're willing to rankup. Not every cav has completed act 6 and not every cav is going to hit the 75% on this event. And many cavs will come after this event and have to get the rankup materials a different way.
Wow, 100 disagrees. I guess we’ll see if I’m right when the rewards pay out
They think they're part of the club, but they can't see that it's temporary and don't realize they're about to be excluded again in the near future.
"You guys are discriminating against Thronebreakers! This is not right!"
This is the whole point of this thread. SOP was supposed to be everest content but it devalued resources and ended up raising more flags than it did anything positive.
Temporary content is never "everest". Either you make maze like super tough content with crappy rewards, or SOP (fun, relatively good content), with great rewards. the engagement SOP has created is a huge success. I have 15 r3s but ive not used a single one in any SOP so far. This is genuinely fun.
Wow, 100 disagrees. I guess we’ll see if I’m right when the rewards pay out
How will you know? Sure people are going to be moving on from CAV to TB from this... Probably a good chunk.
But, people are still going to complain that something is too easy and other people will still complain it's too hard. How is that different than today? But more importantly, how will others getting TB from these rewards impact you or your account... Specifically?
Wow, 100 disagrees. I guess we’ll see if I’m right when the rewards pay out
How will you know? Sure people are going to be moving on from CAV to TB from this... Probably a good chunk.
But, people are still going to complain that something is too easy and other people will still complain it's too hard. How is that different than today? But more importantly, how will others getting TB from these rewards impact you or your account... Specifically?
Because if this event causes them to push out r4s and the next title within like a month, it will affect my account
I'm not bothered in the slightest in cav players using SoP rewards to leapfrog the imaginary hurdles to TB that they made up existing in the first place to start. However your last point doesn't make much sense as someone needing SoP to even reach TB and someone that had 10 R3s and Act 6 explored before the title got introduced in the first place can't have content designed for them both while being one difficulty level. My problem has never been players becoming TB easier today, it was always that TB requirements were a joke to begin with.
Yeah they should have made it tougher. For instance suppose u are on 'n'th position on leaderboard than they should have made it available to only top n/10 players on leaderboard. I am sure u would have loved it.
Nah, Act 6 exploration and 3 R3s probably would have been fine.
But why only 3 rank3s?
If someone is at top 10 position on leaderboard than he would only want maybe top 30 players to get thronebreaker. You might be having like 7-8 rank3 s on the day thronebreaker title dropped so u want requirement to be 3 rank3s. If someone had no rank3 than he would have wanted that there is no requirement for any rank3 for getting the thronebreaker title. Why do u think your demand is more important than others?
Well first off, I didn't nor have I ever demanded anything. I'm not stupid enough to think I have the authority or importance to be able to do so. My desires are completely irrelevant just like yours are.
My opinion that TB requirements were an absolute joke from the start however stem from being someone who's account has been at least in the top 1% of the game for a significant period of time and likely a fair bit higher than that actually. If progression titles are meant to separate the player base into similar progression points so as to be able to aim content/offers at those players levels, they've done quite a poor job at that with this one. Cavalier was diluted somewhat quickly but TB was diluted on day 1. Now you have people struggling to get their first R3 in the same bracket as people with 30-40+ R3s. It's also why I don't have a problem with things like the SoP rewards as all that tells me is that another title is likely on the horizon. I just hope they do a better job with this one personally.
I'm not bothered in the slightest in cav players using SoP rewards to leapfrog the imaginary hurdles to TB that they made up existing in the first place to start. However your last point doesn't make much sense as someone needing SoP to even reach TB and someone that had 10 R3s and Act 6 explored before the title got introduced in the first place can't have content designed for them both while being one difficulty level. My problem has never been players becoming TB easier today, it was always that TB requirements were a joke to begin with.
Yeah they should have made it tougher. For instance suppose u are on 'n'th position on leaderboard than they should have made it available to only top n/10 players on leaderboard. I am sure u would have loved it.
Nah, Act 6 exploration and 3 R3s probably would have been fine.
act 6 exploration is a great idea but why 3 r3s it will take years of hard work, good RNG because if this happens many players will get bored and feel burn out then quit the game.
Years of hard work? I had 10 R3s and act 6 explored before the TB title existed...
No for real I’m lost in this discussion The initial post made no sense. The discussion in its entirety made me lose brain cells. What are y’all arguing about
That cavs can finally push for thronebreaker with a guarantee? And? Why so pressed?
This community is the worst sometimes. Stop worrying about other people’s progression compared to yours.
Yup, but keep in mind the people on the forums are especially interested in keeping their valuable superiority complex because they did something when it was harder or "back in their day" things were different.
All video games of this naturally evolve exactly like this.Yet I only see the MCOC community react like this. Get over yourselves.
I think this sort of tension is common in progressional games that live long enough. There is always a faction of players who think that natural game inflation devalues their investment in the game, and a faction that believes that devaluation is a reasonable price to expand the accessibility of the game over time. I've seen this fight take place in every MMO I played long enough to care about. Although to be honest, I probably didn't stick around long enough to see the first faction win in any game where I thought they had the upper hand.
Wow, 100 disagrees. I guess we’ll see if I’m right when the rewards pay out
How will you know? Sure people are going to be moving on from CAV to TB from this... Probably a good chunk.
But, people are still going to complain that something is too easy and other people will still complain it's too hard. How is that different than today? But more importantly, how will others getting TB from these rewards impact you or your account... Specifically?
Because if this event causes them to push out r4s and the next title within like a month, it will affect my account
Oh, I didn't realize other people's progression hurt your a
Wow, 100 disagrees. I guess we’ll see if I’m right when the rewards pay out
How will you know? Sure people are going to be moving on from CAV to TB from this... Probably a good chunk.
But, people are still going to complain that something is too easy and other people will still complain it's too hard. How is that different than today? But more importantly, how will others getting TB from these rewards impact you or your account... Specifically?
Because if this event causes them to push out r4s and the next title within like a month, it will affect my account
How? How does it actually impact your account? What does it take from your account, or is it you just don't want to feel like your accomplishments have been reduced? You should still be proud of your account progress for what you did, when you did it. Look at the collector now ... He was a beast when I tackled him with 4* OG Hulk, but it was a stepping stone to where I am now and nothing more. , No one should be crying now that guys are slapping him around with 6* R1/R2 or maxed 5*. Them's the break's, but it's not new.
6* R4s are coming either way. Kabam has a roadmap were not privy too, but if you don't think they've already mapped out the timelines at least 12 months down the road and probably more like 24-36, that's silly. Whatever day they decided, when that day comes, there's nothing you can do about it and having some CAVs get TB from SoP won't make a bit of difference, especially as T5B and T5CC keep getting more available... And it will because you still need them to R4 champs.
I will never understand why people are so concerned about player progression below their own progress. A lot of cav players have been done with Act 6 for ages but had either bad luck on t5CC or 6* crystal pulls that have gated them from advancing to TB.
Kabam have all the data they need to make informed decisions about player progression. If they feel it's time to graduate players who have the roster depth to beat SOP & have already completed Act 6, then it's probably time. Also, with t6b and t3a muddling about in the game now, I would expect that a new title is on the horizon within the next year or so.
I want to try to explain where the concern stems from, because I totally understand why it’s hard to get.
To me, this is a bit concerning not because lower level players are getting higher level rewards, but because of what it indicates is coming next.
From where I’m standing, it feels as though Kabam may be trying to shuffle more people from Cavalier to Thronebreaker because they want to shift the game’s economy more toward r4 6* materials and, potentially, create a new title beyond Thronebreaker in the not too distant future.
I, and players like me, are worried about this because we put a great deal of time and energy, and in some cases money, into growing our r3 rosters expecting them to be challenged at some point. To make it worth the effort to grow our rosters. Original Recipe Act 6 and Abyss did actually challenge 5* r5 and 6* r2 rosters, but there has been no such challenge to r3 6* champions.
Now with the influx of new Thronebreakers and r3 champions, Kabam will certainly start to push the r4 materials even harder. And many of us are left to ask what the point of making that rank up even is at this point. Prestige and Alliance War defense, is that it? That’s deeply underwhelming. Without content to aspire to, it just doesn’t seem worth it.
So that’s the concern. The game rushing along to the next thing when the current thing hasn’t even really had a chance to stretch its legs. If it weren’t for the introduction of the r4 stuff here, I don’t think we’d be having this problem. It’s not that we want you to struggle, it’s just that we want our work to have meant *something* in the context of the game before it’s made obsolete.
I think this is a valid concern in theory. Acceleration below a tier implies the strong potential for extending the progress ladder above that tier, which might not be desirable. However, in this particular case, I think this concern is problematic because it is mostly moot.
Kabam isn't "pushing" r4 materials into the game. That's not how it works at the top. Kabam has been doing the reverse: holding them back for as long as possible. Longer than many players believe was warranted, even. There was and is two different sides to this among end gamers: those that want to move on to the next higher thing, and those that do not want the massive effort they put into "the top" devalued by the next higher thing. There's no universal agreement on when the right time for R4 is: I know many players who think this was way too soon, and many others who think it was long overdue. Kabam has to navigate that chasm of opinion.
Now that R4 materials are here, they are going to accelerate their way into the game. You can hold them back indefinitely, but once they are here, they are subject to the progression resource treadmill. SoP's impact on that will be relatively small, because the content is time limited. People are focused on the instantaneous value of the rewards, but the reward economy isn't balanced around instantaneous value, it is balanced around reward rates. SoP is a ton of rewards all at once, it is a big pile of rewards for a two month event, but its impact on the rewards per year of the game is much smaller, and only affects the players who are actually here (and Cav or higher) now.
It is a lot of rewards to be sure, and a lot of rewards for relatively little effort, and a lot of rewards in one big burst. But on the timescale and scope of the game economy, it isn't much. This time next year TB+ players will be earning that much R4 materials regularly. That was going to be true with or without SoP.
It is also true that after SoP there will be more TB players, because of course. But does that create pressure to expand the progress ladder above TB? Maybe, but that requires making assumptions that are common, but I think are also baseless. The presumption seems to be that SoP will deplete the Cavalier tier and shove all those players into TB, which will then put pressure on Kabam to differentiate the TB layer because in effect, basically all the Cav and TB players will now be all in one tier and need segregating. But I don't think there's any evidence that's true beyond the notion that completing Act 6 is trivially easy and forming a T5CC is exceedingly difficult, so the vast majority of Cav players are sitting at Act 6 completion just waiting for their first R3 to move on.
More likely, there's a continuum of players from newly minted Cav to "almost TB" players evenly distributed within that range. What SoP is going to do is create what my physics background would call a depletion zone between Cav and TB. Instead of a continuum of players from early Cav through late Cav into early TB and upward, most of the late Cavs will be accelerated immediately into TB, and all the early TB will be accelerated into mid TB. The borderline between them will get depleted of players, and there will be a clearer gap between Cav and TB. And I suspect that this is desirable if not intentional. We want to reduce the number of players who think they are stuck just outside looking in. We want most of the work to get from Cav to TB to take place on the path to get there, not on the hurdle in the last ten feet.
Because we're talking about depleting that small gap of players, I don't think that changes the dynamics of TB much. There's huge pressure on Kabam to not proliferate progress tiers: they can only support so many, which is why they've been slowly deactivating lower tiers. They only want so many rungs on the ladder, and separating TBs into two tiers when the number of players in that tier is relatively small - and will remain relatively small even after SoP - seems unlikely given those changes.
SoP isn't triggering these things, and it can't accelerate them more than a tiny amount in practice. So while these concerns are legitimate concerns, I don't think SoP has the firepower to alter these forces by more than a trivial amount.
A single 6* R3 isn’t “carrying” anyone lol. A 15ish percent boost to one champs stats isn’t gonna carry anyone lmao. Hang on let me throw a 30% boost on and wham bam lama ham I can instantly breeze through act 6 paths 😂
Honestly just shut the hell up and play who cares if the end content is easier for the newer players! Just focus on yourself and if u think the rewards are too much don’t play it…
Or maybe, just maybe, people can see beyond their own accounts and realise that something may be happening that could have negative consequences for the game as a whole, and for the future of the game they love.
So frustrating when conversations devolve to "well you're just jealous" when that obviously wasn't the intent and just ignore the main point.
It’s got the same energy as “just use 3*s”
Lol there it is, knew this gem of an argument would show up
If progression titles are meant to separate the player base into similar progression points so as to be able to aim content/offers at those players levels, they've done quite a poor job at that with this one.
They are in general, but the very top is always the exception. The analogy is war ratings and war tiers. We want war tiers to contain alliances of roughly equal strength. The problem is that there are hundreds of alliances with approximately 1200 rating. There are only dozens with approximately 2200 rating. There's only a handful with higher than 2800 rating. At the very top the ratings spread is much wider, because there simply isn't enough alliances of similar rating.
The difference between the strongest and the weakest TB player is pretty wide, but the problem is there's probably still barely enough of us to sell out Dodger Stadium. It is simply impractical to have an early TB tier and a mid TB tier and a top tier TB tier, because there's just not enough of each.
Every progress tier is defined by a top and a bottom, forming a range. Except for two tiers: the beginner tier and the top tier. TB is not defined by a range. It is defined by a bottom, and the sky's the limit. That's unavoidable. There was never an attempt to define TB as a specific narrow range of players, because that was never practically possible.
I should point out though that progressional tiers are made in large part to help manage how the progressional needs of a group of players should be addressed. And all (or almost all) TB players fall into one of two groups: those working on "the last thing" and those that have done everything. By "the last thing" I mean whatever they are working on is not a prerequisite for something else: at the moment nothing else in the game comes next. So act 7, for example, is basically the last thing when it comes to story arc content at the moment. Rank 3s are basically the last thing when it comes to vertical roster progress. For all the players in this group, there's a certain range of rewards that are appropriate to fuel their progress in the game.
The other group, the ones that have done literally everything, are practically out of progress. There's nothing more they need, because there's nothing more they can do outside amassing larger and larger rosters with little to use them on (non-progressional game modes like Alliance War being the exceptions). If we could hypothetically make a "progress tier" containing only those players, we'd get the weird situation of players whose progressional requirements were basically zero. The normal rules for how we make appropriate rewards for a progressional tier would break down. And that's almost certainly why we'll never see such a progressional tier defined in the game. It would serve no practical purpose for the developers.
I love SoP so far, I think it’s been a wonderful event, and the rewards are awesome.
A bit too awesome at the moment
As of right now any cav players with mediocre skills or some unitd, even ones on 6.2, are going to receive 50% t5cc in selectors at the end. If the next 2 fights are close to the same difficulty, that will be 75% t5cc.
We are going to be having cav players working through 6.2 and beyond with a r3 6*, which are usually so difficult to obtain that it’s quickest to get abyss done. Nearly every cav player that has 6.4 done is guaranteed tb, and anyone before that is getting tb right with 6.4 completion.
Now, this sounds great for cavs, but in all reality it’s going to make late game progression even easier, which means that the next time we get hard content, there’ll be a lot more players who haven’t improved their skills enough and were carried through act 6 with a r3.
Tb is also going to no longer be a very rare title, because most cavs are going to be getting it after SoP.
There’s not really a solution other than a nerf, which would be a HORRIBLE decision, so there’s not really any options left here.
I just wanted to do a quick explanation of why I think content like this needs either higher difficulty by a lot or less rewards, because it’s bad for the game as a whole.
You're 100% right that the rewards to difficulty are way out of wack compared with what we are used to. But why complain about it? kabam is giving more rewards than we are used to for something that is fun and challenging but doable. How is this bad? Are you really upset that players less accomplished than you will have an easier time of 6.2 and 6.3? who cares?!?! Also I 100% act 6 plenty in advance of act 7 release so i am not one of the people benefiting from that. Just enjoy it and let less skilled players advance a bit quicker-doesnt affect me.
I will never understand why people are so concerned about player progression below their own progress. A lot of cav players have been done with Act 6 for ages but had either bad luck on t5CC or 6* crystal pulls that have gated them from advancing to TB.
Kabam have all the data they need to make informed decisions about player progression. If they feel it's time to graduate players who have the roster depth to beat SOP & have already completed Act 6, then it's probably time. Also, with t6b and t3a muddling about in the game now, I would expect that a new title is on the horizon within the next year or so.
I want to try to explain where the concern stems from, because I totally understand why it’s hard to get.
To me, this is a bit concerning not because lower level players are getting higher level rewards, but because of what it indicates is coming next.
From where I’m standing, it feels as though Kabam may be trying to shuffle more people from Cavalier to Thronebreaker because they want to shift the game’s economy more toward r4 6* materials and, potentially, create a new title beyond Thronebreaker in the not too distant future.
I, and players like me, are worried about this because we put a great deal of time and energy, and in some cases money, into growing our r3 rosters expecting them to be challenged at some point. To make it worth the effort to grow our rosters. Original Recipe Act 6 and Abyss did actually challenge 5* r5 and 6* r2 rosters, but there has been no such challenge to r3 6* champions.
Now with the influx of new Thronebreakers and r3 champions, Kabam will certainly start to push the r4 materials even harder. And many of us are left to ask what the point of making that rank up even is at this point. Prestige and Alliance War defense, is that it? That’s deeply underwhelming. Without content to aspire to, it just doesn’t seem worth it.
So that’s the concern. The game rushing along to the next thing when the current thing hasn’t even really had a chance to stretch its legs. If it weren’t for the introduction of the r4 stuff here, I don’t think we’d be having this problem. It’s not that we want you to struggle, it’s just that we want our work to have meant *something* in the context of the game before it’s made obsolete.
I think this is a valid concern in theory. Acceleration below a tier implies the strong potential for extending the progress ladder above that tier, which might not be desirable. However, in this particular case, I think this concern is problematic because it is mostly moot.
Kabam isn't "pushing" r4 materials into the game. That's not how it works at the top. Kabam has been doing the reverse: holding them back for as long as possible. Longer than many players believe was warranted, even. There was and is two different sides to this among end gamers: those that want to move on to the next higher thing, and those that do not want the massive effort they put into "the top" devalued by the next higher thing. There's no universal agreement on when the right time for R4 is: I know many players who think this was way too soon, and many others who think it was long overdue. Kabam has to navigate that chasm of opinion.
Now that R4 materials are here, they are going to accelerate their way into the game. You can hold them back indefinitely, but once they are here, they are subject to the progression resource treadmill. SoP's impact on that will be relatively small, because the content is time limited. People are focused on the instantaneous value of the rewards, but the reward economy isn't balanced around instantaneous value, it is balanced around reward rates. SoP is a ton of rewards all at once, it is a big pile of rewards for a two month event, but its impact on the rewards per year of the game is much smaller, and only affects the players who are actually here (and Cav or higher) now.
It is a lot of rewards to be sure, and a lot of rewards for relatively little effort, and a lot of rewards in one big burst. But on the timescale and scope of the game economy, it isn't much. This time next year TB+ players will be earning that much R4 materials regularly. That was going to be true with or without SoP.
It is also true that after SoP there will be more TB players, because of course. But does that create pressure to expand the progress ladder above TB? Maybe, but that requires making assumptions that are common, but I think are also baseless. The presumption seems to be that SoP will deplete the Cavalier tier and shove all those players into TB, which will then put pressure on Kabam to differentiate the TB layer because in effect, basically all the Cav and TB players will now be all in one tier and need segregating. But I don't think there's any evidence that's true beyond the notion that completing Act 6 is trivially easy and forming a T5CC is exceedingly difficult, so the vast majority of Cav players are sitting at Act 6 completion just waiting for their first R3 to move on.
More likely, there's a continuum of players from newly minted Cav to "almost TB" players evenly distributed within that range. What SoP is going to do is create what my physics background would call a depletion zone between Cav and TB. Instead of a continuum of players from early Cav through late Cav into early TB and upward, most of the late Cavs will be accelerated immediately into TB, and all the early TB will be accelerated into mid TB. The borderline between them will get depleted of players, and there will be a clearer gap between Cav and TB. And I suspect that this is desirable if not intentional. We want to reduce the number of players who think they are stuck just outside looking in. We want most of the work to get from Cav to TB to take place on the path to get there, not on the hurdle in the last ten feet.
Because we're talking about depleting that small gap of players, I don't think that changes the dynamics of TB much. There's huge pressure on Kabam to not proliferate progress tiers: they can only support so many, which is why they've been slowly deactivating lower tiers. They only want so many rungs on the ladder, and separating TBs into two tiers when the number of players in that tier is relatively small - and will remain relatively small even after SoP - seems unlikely given those changes.
SoP isn't triggering these things, and it can't accelerate them more than a tiny amount in practice. So while these concerns are legitimate concerns, I don't think SoP has the firepower to alter these forces by more than a trivial amount.
I appreciate your perspective and breakdown of the issue, and by and large would agree with it. The only concern I have that I don’t think you addressed here (and is different from OPs considerations) is that there hasn’t really been a point to r3 champions yet outside of Prestige and Alliance War, and that’s disappointing.
I feel as though in my progression, there was a point to every tier of champion. The rankups felt meaningful because they gave me a tool I needed to climb the next rung. I ranked champions to r3 expecting to have some need for them in content that just never materialized and now we’re going to r4. Just feels empty.
This sop rewards system seems like the game Is driving a large quantity of cavs to be TB or close enough to TB. And TB won't be that exclusive in Cyber weekend deals, Good for business and making player base happy...
Can't wait for the next exclusive progression title from book 2 act 8... "The Re-Builder of BrokenThrone"
I appreciate your perspective and breakdown of the issue, and by and large would agree with it. The only concern I have that I don’t think you addressed here (and is different from OPs considerations) is that there hasn’t really been a point to r3 champions yet outside of Prestige and Alliance War, and that’s disappointing.
I feel as though in my progression, there was a point to every tier of champion. The rankups felt meaningful because they gave me a tool I needed to climb the next rung. I ranked champions to r3 expecting to have some need for them in content that just never materialized and now we’re going to r4. Just feels empty.
Part of that is due to the fact we're trying to judge the game's growth while standing in the middle of it, part of that is due to the fact that rank 3s don't mean what most people think they mean, and part of that is due to how content is created today.
First of all, taking a champ from rank 2 to rank 3 is not actually increasing that champion's strength by as much as most rank up increases do. Most rank up increases increase the champion's attack and health by on the order of 35% or so. This actually increases the champion's strength by over 80% (how that's determined is a separate discussion). So in loose terms, every rank up is almost doubling the champion's strength, at least in terms of its attack and health values. But going from 6* rank 2 to rank 3 you get only half that rise, which translates to less than half the total strength increase. This rank up is much less dramatic, and thus cannot come with the same kind of rise in content difficulty. It is just a much smaller jump.
And second, the way difficult content is designed is now different. In the past, the primary scaler of difficulty was simply increasing attack and health values for the defenders, analogous to what we were doing to our champions with rank ups. So if the devs unlocked a new rank up for us, they could respond with increasing the difficulty of the content by an equal or higher amount with simple numbers/node fiddling. But that's not how difficult content is constructed today. The design ethic is now to use interlocking nodes that offer "RPG-like" ways to counter them. In other words, part of how we deal with difficult content is to bring stronger champs, part is how well we play the game, and part is how we read and understand the nodes and respond tactically (with roster options or playstyle choices). That last part didn't really exist in the past, and is becoming more important now. Because of that, a lot of the "difficulty increases" in current content are happening in ways that many of the top players don't find particularly challenging. They are knowledgeable and experienced, they understand the game's tactics and interactions, and when knowledge of those things is challenged it is easy for them to respond. But most players find these things very difficult or unfamiliar, and for them the content is actually much harder.
For those of us that are knowledgeable veterans, those kinds of difficulty increases are easy to dismiss. They don't challenge us. But they are the way difficulty is constructed now, and that makes some of the difficulty in the game "invisible" to us. It doesn't require stronger champs, it just requires learning things we already know.
Eventually I hope that changes, in the sense that as players get used to the kinds of mental challenges we see in say Act 7, the devs will continue to ratchet them upwards until they can eventually challenge even knowledgeable players. I actually thought Summer of Pain might be that, but it didn't turn out that way. We'll have to see if and when the game evolves to the point where that becomes more commonplace.
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Every cav player is shooting for TB at some point, and even those with a t5cc have to have completed 6.4 and have a champ they're willing to rankup. Not every cav has completed act 6 and not every cav is going to hit the 75% on this event. And many cavs will come after this event and have to get the rankup materials a different way.
the engagement SOP has created is a huge success. I have 15 r3s but ive not used a single one in any SOP so far. This is genuinely fun.
But, people are still going to complain that something is too easy and other people will still complain it's too hard. How is that different than today? But more importantly, how will others getting TB from these rewards impact you or your account... Specifically?
My opinion that TB requirements were an absolute joke from the start however stem from being someone who's account has been at least in the top 1% of the game for a significant period of time and likely a fair bit higher than that actually. If progression titles are meant to separate the player base into similar progression points so as to be able to aim content/offers at those players levels, they've done quite a poor job at that with this one. Cavalier was diluted somewhat quickly but TB was diluted on day 1. Now you have people struggling to get their first R3 in the same bracket as people with 30-40+ R3s. It's also why I don't have a problem with things like the SoP rewards as all that tells me is that another title is likely on the horizon. I just hope they do a better job with this one personally.
The initial post made no sense. The discussion in its entirety made me lose brain cells. What are y’all arguing about
That cavs can finally push for thronebreaker with a guarantee?
And? Why so pressed?
6* R4s are coming either way. Kabam has a roadmap were not privy too, but if you don't think they've already mapped out the timelines at least 12 months down the road and probably more like 24-36, that's silly. Whatever day they decided, when that day comes, there's nothing you can do about it and having some CAVs get TB from SoP won't make a bit of difference, especially as T5B and T5CC keep getting more available... And it will because you still need them to R4 champs.
Kabam isn't "pushing" r4 materials into the game. That's not how it works at the top. Kabam has been doing the reverse: holding them back for as long as possible. Longer than many players believe was warranted, even. There was and is two different sides to this among end gamers: those that want to move on to the next higher thing, and those that do not want the massive effort they put into "the top" devalued by the next higher thing. There's no universal agreement on when the right time for R4 is: I know many players who think this was way too soon, and many others who think it was long overdue. Kabam has to navigate that chasm of opinion.
Now that R4 materials are here, they are going to accelerate their way into the game. You can hold them back indefinitely, but once they are here, they are subject to the progression resource treadmill. SoP's impact on that will be relatively small, because the content is time limited. People are focused on the instantaneous value of the rewards, but the reward economy isn't balanced around instantaneous value, it is balanced around reward rates. SoP is a ton of rewards all at once, it is a big pile of rewards for a two month event, but its impact on the rewards per year of the game is much smaller, and only affects the players who are actually here (and Cav or higher) now.
It is a lot of rewards to be sure, and a lot of rewards for relatively little effort, and a lot of rewards in one big burst. But on the timescale and scope of the game economy, it isn't much. This time next year TB+ players will be earning that much R4 materials regularly. That was going to be true with or without SoP.
It is also true that after SoP there will be more TB players, because of course. But does that create pressure to expand the progress ladder above TB? Maybe, but that requires making assumptions that are common, but I think are also baseless. The presumption seems to be that SoP will deplete the Cavalier tier and shove all those players into TB, which will then put pressure on Kabam to differentiate the TB layer because in effect, basically all the Cav and TB players will now be all in one tier and need segregating. But I don't think there's any evidence that's true beyond the notion that completing Act 6 is trivially easy and forming a T5CC is exceedingly difficult, so the vast majority of Cav players are sitting at Act 6 completion just waiting for their first R3 to move on.
More likely, there's a continuum of players from newly minted Cav to "almost TB" players evenly distributed within that range. What SoP is going to do is create what my physics background would call a depletion zone between Cav and TB. Instead of a continuum of players from early Cav through late Cav into early TB and upward, most of the late Cavs will be accelerated immediately into TB, and all the early TB will be accelerated into mid TB. The borderline between them will get depleted of players, and there will be a clearer gap between Cav and TB. And I suspect that this is desirable if not intentional. We want to reduce the number of players who think they are stuck just outside looking in. We want most of the work to get from Cav to TB to take place on the path to get there, not on the hurdle in the last ten feet.
Because we're talking about depleting that small gap of players, I don't think that changes the dynamics of TB much. There's huge pressure on Kabam to not proliferate progress tiers: they can only support so many, which is why they've been slowly deactivating lower tiers. They only want so many rungs on the ladder, and separating TBs into two tiers when the number of players in that tier is relatively small - and will remain relatively small even after SoP - seems unlikely given those changes.
SoP isn't triggering these things, and it can't accelerate them more than a tiny amount in practice. So while these concerns are legitimate concerns, I don't think SoP has the firepower to alter these forces by more than a trivial amount.
The difference between the strongest and the weakest TB player is pretty wide, but the problem is there's probably still barely enough of us to sell out Dodger Stadium. It is simply impractical to have an early TB tier and a mid TB tier and a top tier TB tier, because there's just not enough of each.
Every progress tier is defined by a top and a bottom, forming a range. Except for two tiers: the beginner tier and the top tier. TB is not defined by a range. It is defined by a bottom, and the sky's the limit. That's unavoidable. There was never an attempt to define TB as a specific narrow range of players, because that was never practically possible.
I should point out though that progressional tiers are made in large part to help manage how the progressional needs of a group of players should be addressed. And all (or almost all) TB players fall into one of two groups: those working on "the last thing" and those that have done everything. By "the last thing" I mean whatever they are working on is not a prerequisite for something else: at the moment nothing else in the game comes next. So act 7, for example, is basically the last thing when it comes to story arc content at the moment. Rank 3s are basically the last thing when it comes to vertical roster progress. For all the players in this group, there's a certain range of rewards that are appropriate to fuel their progress in the game.
The other group, the ones that have done literally everything, are practically out of progress. There's nothing more they need, because there's nothing more they can do outside amassing larger and larger rosters with little to use them on (non-progressional game modes like Alliance War being the exceptions). If we could hypothetically make a "progress tier" containing only those players, we'd get the weird situation of players whose progressional requirements were basically zero. The normal rules for how we make appropriate rewards for a progressional tier would break down. And that's almost certainly why we'll never see such a progressional tier defined in the game. It would serve no practical purpose for the developers.
I feel as though in my progression, there was a point to every tier of champion. The rankups felt meaningful because they gave me a tool I needed to climb the next rung. I ranked champions to r3 expecting to have some need for them in content that just never materialized and now we’re going to r4. Just feels empty.
Is driving a large quantity of cavs to be TB or close enough to TB.
And TB won't be that exclusive in Cyber weekend deals, Good for business and making player base happy...
Can't wait for the next exclusive progression title from book 2 act 8...
"The Re-Builder of BrokenThrone"
First of all, taking a champ from rank 2 to rank 3 is not actually increasing that champion's strength by as much as most rank up increases do. Most rank up increases increase the champion's attack and health by on the order of 35% or so. This actually increases the champion's strength by over 80% (how that's determined is a separate discussion). So in loose terms, every rank up is almost doubling the champion's strength, at least in terms of its attack and health values. But going from 6* rank 2 to rank 3 you get only half that rise, which translates to less than half the total strength increase. This rank up is much less dramatic, and thus cannot come with the same kind of rise in content difficulty. It is just a much smaller jump.
And second, the way difficult content is designed is now different. In the past, the primary scaler of difficulty was simply increasing attack and health values for the defenders, analogous to what we were doing to our champions with rank ups. So if the devs unlocked a new rank up for us, they could respond with increasing the difficulty of the content by an equal or higher amount with simple numbers/node fiddling. But that's not how difficult content is constructed today. The design ethic is now to use interlocking nodes that offer "RPG-like" ways to counter them. In other words, part of how we deal with difficult content is to bring stronger champs, part is how well we play the game, and part is how we read and understand the nodes and respond tactically (with roster options or playstyle choices). That last part didn't really exist in the past, and is becoming more important now. Because of that, a lot of the "difficulty increases" in current content are happening in ways that many of the top players don't find particularly challenging. They are knowledgeable and experienced, they understand the game's tactics and interactions, and when knowledge of those things is challenged it is easy for them to respond. But most players find these things very difficult or unfamiliar, and for them the content is actually much harder.
For those of us that are knowledgeable veterans, those kinds of difficulty increases are easy to dismiss. They don't challenge us. But they are the way difficulty is constructed now, and that makes some of the difficulty in the game "invisible" to us. It doesn't require stronger champs, it just requires learning things we already know.
Eventually I hope that changes, in the sense that as players get used to the kinds of mental challenges we see in say Act 7, the devs will continue to ratchet them upwards until they can eventually challenge even knowledgeable players. I actually thought Summer of Pain might be that, but it didn't turn out that way. We'll have to see if and when the game evolves to the point where that becomes more commonplace.