@Worknprogress it is just not going to feel right overtaking your account now. I mean, it’s still going to feel wonderful, don’t get me wrong, but just not going to be the same kind of wonderful.
I get it though. I wouldn’t say all the recent content has been horrible, but a lot of it has been less interesting and more punishing. I don’t think it is a simple matter of just “making it more fun” but I can’t disagree with the notion that the balance of it is off.
I’m not where you are now, but that could just be because I’m not where you are now. I don’t push high tier war, or high map AQ. Most of the challenge (and the fun) in the game is on my own terms. And I hope you’ll find the step back gives you the opportunity to find your own answers.
You're definitely not wrong that everything hasn't been terrible. The Kang fight in 7.3 was another brilliant example of a fight done well in particular. They seem to be far more dialed in on being able to make single fights than paths it seems. Most of the boss fights in 7.3 were fine as well.
This post was meant to be far from slating everything done recently as being awful but moreso my opinion on general content design as of late. I'm actually champing at the bit for the solo competitive mode to go live and it's basically the sole reason I didn't come out and say I was done completely.
As of yet I still have no intention of completely hanging it up but I'm more concerned now than I have been at any other point in time while playing the game. Kabam has smart people employed so I certainly haven't lost all hope but I did feel the need to voice how I felt about recent game direction even though I don't expect anyone at Kabam or certainly not any other players to particularly care.
So for now we'll see how things go but depending on when the solo competitive mode goes live and how well it's received, we'll see how much of a gap you get to close until then 😂
On point, I run a semi retirement alliance; nearly all TBs, 2 bgs g2 and 2 map 5, 1 map 4.
Everytime we bounce into tier 5 or 4 war, everyone gets despondent.
Map 5 was fun until this week... now I have Alli chat filled with grumbles again and a bunch of 11k to 12.5k prestige people wondering if it all is worth it anymore.
C'mon boss. It's not that bad 😃.
If it was, we might have remembered to drop to map 4 today 😉
@Worknprogress it is just not going to feel right overtaking your account now. I mean, it’s still going to feel wonderful, don’t get me wrong, but just not going to be the same kind of wonderful.
I get it though. I wouldn’t say all the recent content has been horrible, but a lot of it has been less interesting and more punishing. I don’t think it is a simple matter of just “making it more fun” but I can’t disagree with the notion that the balance of it is off.
I’m not where you are now, but that could just be because I’m not where you are now. I don’t push high tier war, or high map AQ. Most of the challenge (and the fun) in the game is on my own terms. And I hope you’ll find the step back gives you the opportunity to find your own answers.
You're definitely not wrong that everything hasn't been terrible. The Kang fight in 7.3 was another brilliant example of a fight done well in particular. They seem to be far more dialed in on being able to make single fights than paths it seems. Most of the boss fights in 7.3 were fine as well.
This post was meant to be far from slating everything done recently as being awful but moreso my opinion on general content design as of late. I'm actually champing at the bit for the solo competitive mode to go live and it's basically the sole reason I didn't come out and say I was done completely.
As of yet I still have no intention of completely hanging it up but I'm more concerned now than I have been at any other point in time while playing the game. Kabam has smart people employed so I certainly haven't lost all hope but I did feel the need to voice how I felt about recent game direction even though I don't expect anyone at Kabam or certainly not any other players to particularly care.
So for now we'll see how things go but depending on when the solo competitive mode goes live and how well it's received, we'll see how much of a gap you get to close until then 😂
On point, I run a semi retirement alliance; nearly all TBs, 2 bgs g2 and 2 map 5, 1 map 4.
Everytime we bounce into tier 5 or 4 war, everyone gets despondent.
Map 5 was fun until this week... now I have Alli chat filled with grumbles again and a bunch of 11k to 12.5k prestige people wondering if it all is worth it anymore.
C'mon boss. It's not that bad 😃.
If it was, we might have remembered to drop to map 4 today 😉
I've changed it for tomorrow...
Ok... That made me chuckle and now the wife is looking at me like I'm even more nuts.
True, I'm on here moaning not updating the AQ settings 🙄🤣
Tens of thousands of dollars on a broken game. This should be a warning for people.
Lol, nowhere in anything I said did I say I regretted anything I put in to this game. I said I was disappointed with the direction it seems to be taking. Those two points are wildly different.
Tens of thousands of dollars on a broken game. This should be a warning for people.
Lol, nowhere in anything I said did I say I regretted anything I put in to this game. I said I was disappointed with the direction it seems to be taking. Those two points are wildly different.
Where in your top 2 mcoc memories do you rank playing with me?
Tens of thousands of dollars on a broken game. This should be a warning for people.
Lol, nowhere in anything I said did I say I regretted anything I put in to this game. I said I was disappointed with the direction it seems to be taking. Those two points are wildly different.
Where in your top 2 mcoc memories do you rank playing with me?
Top 2 memories? Hmm, squeezing you in there would be tough but you're easily one of my top 5 favorite people Ive played with regardless of how much **** you give me 😂
Tens of thousands of dollars on a broken game. This should be a warning for people.
Lol, nowhere in anything I said did I say I regretted anything I put in to this game. I said I was disappointed with the direction it seems to be taking. Those two points are wildly different.
Where in your top 2 mcoc memories do you rank playing with me?
Top 2 memories? Hmm, squeezing you in there would be tough but you're easily one of my top 5 favorite people Ive played with regardless of how much **** you give me 😂
Tens of thousands of dollars on a broken game. This should be a warning for people.
Lol, nowhere in anything I said did I say I regretted anything I put in to this game. I said I was disappointed with the direction it seems to be taking. Those two points are wildly different.
Where in your top 2 mcoc memories do you rank playing with me?
Top 2 memories? Hmm, squeezing you in there would be tough but you're easily one of my top 5 favorite people Ive played with regardless of how much **** you give me 😂
Yes! Did you watch robb’s last war vid? It’s GOLD
Of course I did. As bad as I felt for him as it happened, it was quite funny to actually see how it all unfolded
Tens of thousands of dollars on a broken game. This should be a warning for people.
Lol, nowhere in anything I said did I say I regretted anything I put in to this game. I said I was disappointed with the direction it seems to be taking. Those two points are wildly different.
Where in your top 2 mcoc memories do you rank playing with me?
Top 2 memories? Hmm, squeezing you in there would be tough but you're easily one of my top 5 favorite people Ive played with regardless of how much **** you give me 😂
Yes! Did you watch robb’s last war vid? It’s GOLD
Of course I did. As bad as I felt for him as it happened, it was quite funny to actually see how it all unfolded
Best mcoc content since cade did commentary on me fighting 6.2.6 champion (katy fighting 6.2.6 champion is pretty solid also)
Tens of thousands of dollars on a broken game. This should be a warning for people.
Lol, nowhere in anything I said did I say I regretted anything I put in to this game. I said I was disappointed with the direction it seems to be taking. Those two points are wildly different.
Where in your top 2 mcoc memories do you rank playing with me?
Top 2 memories? Hmm, squeezing you in there would be tough but you're easily one of my top 5 favorite people Ive played with regardless of how much **** you give me 😂
Yes! Did you watch robb’s last war vid? It’s GOLD
Of course I did. As bad as I felt for him as it happened, it was quite funny to actually see how it all unfolded
Best mcoc content since cade did commentary on me fighting 6.2.6 champion (katy fighting 6.2.6 champion is pretty solid also)
Katy's champion fight still reigns supreme for me 😂
I'm nowhere near close to where you're at in the game, but I also agree too. The side quest feels the same each month, this one sorta being an exception but still meh, the paradox buffs are annoying and I went into 7.4 beta and also took two paths. One being paradox and decided I'll pass. It feels like they just keep recycling the same thing and everything is power gain, unstoppable, power gain and unstoppable. It's like when they discovered mighty charged and slapped that on everything for awhile. Everything just feels repetitive and I went from spending hours on this to checking in just to move in war and claim dailies.
Map 5 was fun until this week and then hello 340k health, 20k attack torch, with 15% Regen buffet on day 3 and all named champion defenders 5/65 6* so taking 25% damage reduction sure to Challenger rating. So now I have Alli chat filled with grumbles again and a bunch of 11k to 12.5k prestige people wondering if it all is worth it anymore.
Not sure what you mean here: challenge rating doesn’t directly reduce your damage.
Torch is getting … interesting on Map 5 though. I’ve taken all of them so far, and while it is within my skill and roster limits (barely), I suspect weaker players are cursing the heck out of that guy, and probably wondering what’s even killing them (my guess, going nova super quick and removing all your block in the process is something most haven’t seen in-game before).
Challenge rating reduces your chance to crit and a 5/65 six star defenders, means a 5/65 five star attacker crits less. Add to that a 5/65 six star has more armour and yes, damage reduces. So does challenge rating directly reduce damage? .
How does challenger rating reduce crit chance?
When you open up the stats of a character, where it shows crit rate, armour, block penetration etc, those percentages are against a rank 5 4 star, or challenge rating 100.
A 5/65 six star has challenge rating of 150 (a 3/45 has 130). The lower the challenge rating of your attacker, the lower your crit rate and associated damage. It's a huge increase in challenge rating.
No I meant what's the difference if your opponent is a 6* or a 5*? Crit chance remains the same right? Not many champs have cirt resistances to affect crit chance
Other stats are 200k HP and 15k Attack. - You do know that 3 blocks I’m KOed, and you’re also aware dex and parry are inconsistent, oh and the AI has a strange mind of its own nowdays - Also out of all the mercenaries (20 + Venompool), about 3 has some measure of power manipulation (those I’m aware of): Gwenpool, Luke Cage and Nebula. Yet, you saw it wise to have about a third of the nodes in V8 to have some sort power boost (check it if you want) This means you spend majority of the time at the mercy of the AI to throw specials, intercept becomes very tricky because they have specials ready for majority of the fight. This is hideous Kabam, you’ve gone crazy with all these many issues we’re experiencing.
This doesn’t mean we can’t do these fights, I did the lane with 1 revive and a few l3 potions. We can with a revive use or two, it’s not the end of the world but you should understand that it’s not fun with such designs rather frustrating. If that was your objective then mission accomplish.
Paradox is really annoying. Easily the worst part of current act 7 imo. Couldn't even be bothered to do the beta especially since 4/5 times I try to log in, I get a connection error.
This doesn’t mean we can’t do these fights, I did the lane with 1 revive and a few l3 potions. We can with a revive use or two, it’s not the end of the world but you should understand that it’s not fun with such designs rather frustrating. If that was your objective then mission accomplish.
I think (especially) end game players stumbled into a classing 'same, but different' situation. Because, let's not mince words, horrible fights are not a minty fresh addition to the game. See: Act 6, when it was first released. However, back then, people felt they 'had' to do that content, because it was just about the only way to grow your account. The difference in having, say, one fully ranked top champ versus three equally viable ones, was huge, given that rosters were much smaller. Suffering through 'crappy' content, therefore, majorly and positively impacted your account. And, by extension, helped your alliance as well.
The appetite of current end-game players (including myself) to do terrible content is now much, much lower. The most it can get you, rewards-wise, is a single rank 4. Which is nice, but definitely not a game changer. So there is much less incentive. Fights we previously would have felt compelled to do, we can now skip. Because it has little consequences. Hence: doing hard/boring/restrictive content becomes a huge chore. And nobody is into chores much. So the 'marketing stratgy' that used to pay off handsomely, isn't working as well anymore. It requires a paradigm shift to cope with that: the game has matured so much that it should continually provide players with something it so far has only occassionaly focused on: be a fun experience.
This goes for all content, IMHO. General questing. High tier wars. AQ. Whatever. Squashing the bugs would help a bit, as would reverting the AI changes. But more needs to be done to keep intermeidate and veteran players interested.
Other stats are 200k HP and 15k Attack. - You do know that 3 blocks I’m KOed, and you’re also aware dex and parry are inconsistent, oh and the AI has a strange mind of its own nowdays - Also out of all the mercenaries (20 + Venompool), about 3 has some measure of power manipulation (those I’m aware of): Gwenpool, Luke Cage and Nebula. Yet, you saw it wise to have about a third of the nodes in V8 to have some sort power boost (check it if you want) This means you spend majority of the time at the mercy of the AI to throw specials, intercept becomes very tricky because they have specials ready for majority of the fight. This is hideous Kabam, you’ve gone crazy with all these many issues we’re experiencing.
This doesn’t mean we can’t do these fights, I did the lane with 1 revive and a few l3 potions. We can with a revive use or two, it’s not the end of the world but you should understand that it’s not fun with such designs rather frustrating. If that was your objective then mission accomplish.
Not to say it's good design but mordo was the easiest fight. Him constantly blocking means you could heavy and drain power due to the deadpooloid cross fight
@Worknprogress i hardly tap on “Agree” button on your comments but this time you really explained the current state of game in a very simple way.
I’m playing since 7 years and never been so disappointed. The effort to reward ratio is also very low nowadays. Except SoP and Gauntlet I don’t find any other thing the developers done right this year. The buff program is a total waste imo as they won’t make older champs good enough to be used in daily quests in place of new powerful champs. For a simple 3 minute fight you need to focus on “n” number of things and that too on the mercy of AI.
I’m F2P since beginning of my journey and explored everything by grinding arenas but now I think I’ll take the game casually and invest my time in other games/activity as the game isn’t good as it used to be.
P.s Why on earth Variant rewards aren’t updated with time???
@Worknprogress i hardly tap on “Agree” button on your comments but this time you really explained the current state of game in a very simple way.
I’m playing since 7 years and never been so disappointed. The effort to reward ratio is also very low nowadays. Except SoP and Gauntlet I don’t find any other thing the developers done right this year. The buff program is a total waste imo as they won’t make older champs good enough to be used in daily quests in place of new powerful champs. For a simple 3 minute fight you need to focus on “n” number of things and that too on the mercy of AI.
I’m F2P since beginning of my journey and explored everything by grinding arenas but now I think I’ll take the game casually and invest my time in other games/activity as the game isn’t good as it used to be.
P.s Why on earth Variant rewards aren’t updated with time???
Massively disagree with a couple of your points here.
For one, the buff program was never, and should have never, been intended to take every new champ to the point of being more or even as viable than new champs for people with developed rosters. The point has always been so that newer players with smaller rosters aren't completely dead in the water if these are the only champs they have. For the most part I think they've actually done quite a good job.
There have been some misses for sure but not a ton. There's been one massive mistake in Red Mags which is so brokenly OP it completely warped the expectations of a huge portion of the playerbase. Still, there are champs like KG, KP, Diablo, Ultron, Reed, etc... that legitimately were good enough even the largest endgamers out there ranked and use them regularly. That's a win in my book.
Second, I definitely mentioned V8 but I didn't say a thing about the rewards. My gripe is with the design philosophy when taking its supposed target audience into account. Variants are supposed to help players bridging that Act 5 to Act 6 transition develop their 5* rosters. That's been the stated intention ever since V2 or 3 IIRC. The rewards reflect being aimed at that audience but the design of V8 absolutely does not. Could I finish exploring it today? Absolutely. I just didn't find it even mildly enjoyable so I don't care to.
I'm far more concerned over whether or not playing the game is interesting or fun than what the devs are trying to bribe players with to get them to play. I understand that's definitely not the case for probably even most players but I wanted to get that out there before this turns into moaning about rewards.
Other stats are 200k HP and 15k Attack. - You do know that 3 blocks I’m KOed, and you’re also aware dex and parry are inconsistent, oh and the AI has a strange mind of its own nowdays - Also out of all the mercenaries (20 + Venompool), about 3 has some measure of power manipulation (those I’m aware of): Gwenpool, Luke Cage and Nebula. Yet, you saw it wise to have about a third of the nodes in V8 to have some sort power boost (check it if you want) This means you spend majority of the time at the mercy of the AI to throw specials, intercept becomes very tricky because they have specials ready for majority of the fight. This is hideous Kabam, you’ve gone crazy with all these many issues we’re experiencing.
This doesn’t mean we can’t do these fights, I did the lane with 1 revive and a few l3 potions. We can with a revive use or two, it’s not the end of the world but you should understand that it’s not fun with such designs rather frustrating. If that was your objective then mission accomplish.
Not to say it's good design but mordo was the easiest fight. Him constantly blocking means you could heavy and drain power due to the deadpooloid cross fight
Easiest, I dunno about that but not fun I’m very aware. Yeah, you’re right that can be done, but bare in mind Mordo doesn’t always hold block when his power gain is up. I’m guessing you’ve never been hit thinking he won’t throw combo or specials while his power gain is up? It happens man not often but it does. Also with this combat power rate, he’s can be close to sp3 anywhere on the fighting grounds which heavy attack cannot be easily executed. I’d even Alternatively, Gwenpool if duped can tank as many of his sp3s. But ensuring you don’t block, not even once with all these controls issues, 3-4 hits they’re already at sp3 isn’t fun at all.
One suggestion that I have that can bring fun back to the game is to introduce Incursion-like attacker boosts to all aspects of the game. Everything is so heavily skewed in favor of the defender and AI. Having attack counters that you can choose from will help bring some fun back to the game.
That’s a real shame. I can’t blame you at all either, I got as far as logging into the beta and read the node combinations so you beat me.
To Kabam the business entity, this is when you start to really pay attention, one of your biggest and longest-standing customers has said no thanks just before an event that, and correct me if I’m wrong, @Worknprogress but you would have bought pretty much all of the unit deals.
This isn’t a rage quit either, this is the result of sustained issues over the better part of six months.
On a personal level, this is the first Variant since V3 (when Variants were hard for my roster), that I haven’t explored inside two weeks because the content is dull.
Game testing needs to improve, I get that the input issues with the server problems were out of your hands but it’s been two months since the last update, how are you getting on?
There’s just so much laxity in MCoC right now that I don’t think anyone can justify giving them more than a week’s wages for some rank up materials in a champion who’s parry doesn’t consistently work.
I'm far more concerned over whether or not playing the game is interesting or fun than what the devs are trying to bribe players with to get them to play. I understand that's definitely not the case for probably even most players but I wanted to get that out there before this turns into moaning about rewards.
The game picks the players and the players pick the game. Eve Online is a horror show to most players who don't play Eve Online, but the Eve Online players deserve to have a game like Eve Online. A game has to be careful to attract the kind of player that wants what it wants to deliver. If a game attracts a critical mass of players that want something different, you have problems. You either have to abandon the game's direction and get yanked by those players, possibly to the detriment of all the other players, or you have to continue the game's direction to the point of generating discontent among a core group of players.
I know what Eve Online wants to be. I generally had an idea of what World of Warcraft wanted to be, I had an idea of what Star Trek Online wanted to be, what Star Wars the Old Republic wanted to be (as weird as that was on paper), what Rift wanted to be, what City of Heroes wanted to be, what The Secret World wanted to be. I can't say I know what MCOC wants to be. The challenge curve and the progression curve don't point to who the game targets.
You can say that a game should appeal to a wide range of players, and that's true. A game can be friendly to a wide range of players. But it has to target somebody. I don't know who that is. Most of the people who like the casual on-ramp of content aren't the kinds of people who would like the more challenging stuff. Most of the people attracted to the high challenge stuff don't like the time it takes to get there, and not enough effort is concentrated into that stuff to make enough of it for those kinds of players.
Most of the game is concentrated on moderate challenge stuff, but those aren't necessarily the people who consistently whale out on an F2P game and can financially support it. Without getting deep into game design theory, I think the problem here is that this game has no classical end game. It has end game tier content. But it doesn't have an actual end game. End games are not just hard content. They function outside the realm of normal resource and progressional balance, and are not subject to the requirements of typical player gameplay. And the game says this to the players explicitly so there's no confusion.
The interesting thing about most end games of progressional games I've seen is that the rewards aren't all that good in absolute terms. They can't be, because end game players are too powerful to be handed super powerful rewards constantly: they can't be gated from them by content difficulty. Instead of being large, they tend to be specifically relevant to end game players only. You can't get them anywhere else, you can't use them anywhere else. That exclusivity makes them incomparable to rewards in the rest of the game, and makes them pursuit goals for end game players. This can only work when there is an actual end game.
@Worknprogress, we have also had are disagreements, but I too am ready to boot the game. I'm not sure I see a light at the end of the tunnel after the last year or so.
I think map 8 is pretty much good to go with the 5 minute timers and people getting adjusted. I still don't agree with the Corvus timeout being removed but I can't really use Corvus for my current lanes.
Besides the bugs which is the obvious biggest issue with the game right now. I have to say I have a huge problem with T3 alpha and T6 catalyst only being collected in a significant amount through spending. It is not fair to the f2p guys that are being let go due to prestige that have no shot of being top 20. I understand top 20 is an elite class of player but more opportunities for those catalysts would be really helpful at the moment. R4 champions shouldn't be only limited to spenders.
Besides the bugs which is the obvious biggest issue with the game right now. I have to say I have a huge problem with T3 alpha and T6 catalyst only being collected in a significant amount through spending. It is not fair to the f2p guys that are being let go due to prestige that have no shot of being top 20. I understand top 20 is an elite class of player but more opportunities for those catalysts would be really helpful at the moment. R4 champions shouldn't be only limited to spenders.
F2P games can support themselves in three ways. Well: four actually. They can sell cosmetic items to a playerbase that monetizes vanity. We are not that kind of game, so that's out (I'm not saying MCOC can't sell cosmetics: I'm saying it cannot support itself primarily by doing so).
The three other ways are: sell exclusive resources impossible to get any other way. Sell resources that are ridiculously time consuming to get any other way. Sell resources that everyone gets much later than they do. For the most part, MCOC is the third type. We sell champion crystals that allow spenders a chance to get a champion before anyone else. We sell packages that have very high tier resources in quantities impossible to get anywhere else *Eventually* that changes. T4CC used to be impossible to grind for except in the top AQ alliances and with spending. Now they are trivial to get (for players of high enough progress). T5B and T5CC used to be that way also, and now it is T6B and T3A. This will eventually change. But at the moment, spenders have a very large advantage over F2P players when it comes to gathering the top tier rank up resources for the highest rank up in the game. That's necessary given the current monetization model.
Comments
If it was, we might have remembered to drop to map 4 today 😉
I've changed it for tomorrow...
True, I'm on here moaning not updating the AQ settings 🙄🤣
Other stats are 200k HP and 15k Attack.
- You do know that 3 blocks I’m KOed, and you’re also aware dex and parry are inconsistent, oh and the AI has a strange mind of its own nowdays
- Also out of all the mercenaries (20 + Venompool), about 3 has some measure of power manipulation (those I’m aware of): Gwenpool, Luke Cage and Nebula. Yet, you saw it wise to have about a third of the nodes in V8 to have some sort power boost (check it if you want) This means you spend majority of the time at the mercy of the AI to throw specials, intercept becomes very tricky because they have specials ready for majority of the fight.
This is hideous Kabam, you’ve gone crazy with all these many issues we’re experiencing.
This doesn’t mean we can’t do these fights, I did the lane with 1 revive and a few l3 potions. We can with a revive use or two, it’s not the end of the world but you should understand that it’s not fun with such designs rather frustrating. If that was your objective then mission accomplish.
The appetite of current end-game players (including myself) to do terrible content is now much, much lower. The most it can get you, rewards-wise, is a single rank 4. Which is nice, but definitely not a game changer. So there is much less incentive. Fights we previously would have felt compelled to do, we can now skip. Because it has little consequences. Hence: doing hard/boring/restrictive content becomes a huge chore. And nobody is into chores much. So the 'marketing stratgy' that used to pay off handsomely, isn't working as well anymore. It requires a paradigm shift to cope with that: the game has matured so much that it should continually provide players with something it so far has only occassionaly focused on: be a fun experience.
This goes for all content, IMHO. General questing. High tier wars. AQ. Whatever. Squashing the bugs would help a bit, as would reverting the AI changes. But more needs to be done to keep intermeidate and veteran players interested.
I’m playing since 7 years and never been so disappointed.
The effort to reward ratio is also very low nowadays.
Except SoP and Gauntlet I don’t find any other thing the developers done right this year.
The buff program is a total waste imo as they won’t make older champs good enough to be used in daily quests in place of new powerful champs.
For a simple 3 minute fight you need to focus on “n” number of things and that too on the mercy of AI.
I’m F2P since beginning of my journey and explored everything by grinding arenas but now I think I’ll take the game casually and invest my time in other games/activity as the game isn’t good as it used to be.
P.s Why on earth Variant rewards aren’t updated with time???
For one, the buff program was never, and should have never, been intended to take every new champ to the point of being more or even as viable than new champs for people with developed rosters. The point has always been so that newer players with smaller rosters aren't completely dead in the water if these are the only champs they have. For the most part I think they've actually done quite a good job.
There have been some misses for sure but not a ton. There's been one massive mistake in Red Mags which is so brokenly OP it completely warped the expectations of a huge portion of the playerbase. Still, there are champs like KG, KP, Diablo, Ultron, Reed, etc... that legitimately were good enough even the largest endgamers out there ranked and use them regularly. That's a win in my book.
Second, I definitely mentioned V8 but I didn't say a thing about the rewards. My gripe is with the design philosophy when taking its supposed target audience into account. Variants are supposed to help players bridging that Act 5 to Act 6 transition develop their 5* rosters. That's been the stated intention ever since V2 or 3 IIRC. The rewards reflect being aimed at that audience but the design of V8 absolutely does not. Could I finish exploring it today? Absolutely. I just didn't find it even mildly enjoyable so I don't care to.
I'm far more concerned over whether or not playing the game is interesting or fun than what the devs are trying to bribe players with to get them to play. I understand that's definitely not the case for probably even most players but I wanted to get that out there before this turns into moaning about rewards.
To Kabam the business entity, this is when you start to really pay attention, one of your biggest and longest-standing customers has said no thanks just before an event that, and correct me if I’m wrong, @Worknprogress but you would have bought pretty much all of the unit deals.
This isn’t a rage quit either, this is the result of sustained issues over the better part of six months.
On a personal level, this is the first Variant since V3 (when Variants were hard for my roster), that I haven’t explored inside two weeks because the content is dull.
Game testing needs to improve, I get that the input issues with the server problems were out of your hands but it’s been two months since the last update, how are you getting on?
There’s just so much laxity in MCoC right now that I don’t think anyone can justify giving them more than a week’s wages for some rank up materials in a champion who’s parry doesn’t consistently work.
I know what Eve Online wants to be. I generally had an idea of what World of Warcraft wanted to be, I had an idea of what Star Trek Online wanted to be, what Star Wars the Old Republic wanted to be (as weird as that was on paper), what Rift wanted to be, what City of Heroes wanted to be, what The Secret World wanted to be. I can't say I know what MCOC wants to be. The challenge curve and the progression curve don't point to who the game targets.
You can say that a game should appeal to a wide range of players, and that's true. A game can be friendly to a wide range of players. But it has to target somebody. I don't know who that is. Most of the people who like the casual on-ramp of content aren't the kinds of people who would like the more challenging stuff. Most of the people attracted to the high challenge stuff don't like the time it takes to get there, and not enough effort is concentrated into that stuff to make enough of it for those kinds of players.
Most of the game is concentrated on moderate challenge stuff, but those aren't necessarily the people who consistently whale out on an F2P game and can financially support it. Without getting deep into game design theory, I think the problem here is that this game has no classical end game. It has end game tier content. But it doesn't have an actual end game. End games are not just hard content. They function outside the realm of normal resource and progressional balance, and are not subject to the requirements of typical player gameplay. And the game says this to the players explicitly so there's no confusion.
The interesting thing about most end games of progressional games I've seen is that the rewards aren't all that good in absolute terms. They can't be, because end game players are too powerful to be handed super powerful rewards constantly: they can't be gated from them by content difficulty. Instead of being large, they tend to be specifically relevant to end game players only. You can't get them anywhere else, you can't use them anywhere else. That exclusivity makes them incomparable to rewards in the rest of the game, and makes them pursuit goals for end game players. This can only work when there is an actual end game.
Besides the bugs which is the obvious biggest issue with the game right now. I have to say I have a huge problem with T3 alpha and T6 catalyst only being collected in a significant amount through spending. It is not fair to the f2p guys that are being let go due to prestige that have no shot of being top 20. I understand top 20 is an elite class of player but more opportunities for those catalysts would be really helpful at the moment. R4 champions shouldn't be only limited to spenders.
The three other ways are: sell exclusive resources impossible to get any other way. Sell resources that are ridiculously time consuming to get any other way. Sell resources that everyone gets much later than they do. For the most part, MCOC is the third type. We sell champion crystals that allow spenders a chance to get a champion before anyone else. We sell packages that have very high tier resources in quantities impossible to get anywhere else *Eventually* that changes. T4CC used to be impossible to grind for except in the top AQ alliances and with spending. Now they are trivial to get (for players of high enough progress). T5B and T5CC used to be that way also, and now it is T6B and T3A. This will eventually change. But at the moment, spenders have a very large advantage over F2P players when it comes to gathering the top tier rank up resources for the highest rank up in the game. That's necessary given the current monetization model.