An Update to Balancing in MCOC!

BigPoppaCBONE · January 2022

LilMaddogHT said:

TBuchanan24 said:
@Kabam Miike you guys should check out karatemikes video -https://youtu.be/OGHfGx6BKho. They way he rated the Champs were spot on. He even rated Champs that have value in different content in the game. I would be on board with you guys using him to rate Champs to help with balancing.
I like Karate Mike and he puts out good content, as does many others in the community but we don't need this rating system 'by Kabam'... Community already does it. Plenty of tier lists, etc out there to check out if someone wants some additional input to who they could invest in the game that they have on their roster. Kabam should focus its time and resources elsewhere.

This rating system will cut down on "Is this champ any good?" posts throughout the internet. Those wondering can look in-game, get a quick, "No, they suck" and keep it moving. Yay?

BigBlueOx · January 2022

The more I think of this the more it feels like this is just a doubling down on using the live production environment as a test server. Don’t we deal with enough bugs already?

Graves_3 · January 2022

So does that mean no more buffs as we know it? Why kabam why??

Raganator · January 2022

The saddest part of this, and what is going unsaid, is that Kabam is finally admitting to they cannot balance champs BEFORE release and instead have finally admitted that their best employees are the unpaid players of the game. If they could, then the old buff cadence would work just fine. Instead, the breaks get put on because of incompetence.

DNA3000 · January 2022

Superchampion_ said:
As for the rating system, I'm still skeptical, especially if you think hercules doesn't have utility.

I did make a joke about this, but here's my opinion on this one. Take this for whatever it is worth. I do not believe that the rating system is intended to state that Hercules has low utility, as most players would define utility. I think that rating is meant to say "Hercules was intended by design to have very few abilities that we ordinarily define to be utility abilities, as exclusive from damage and survivability." And he doesn't. The fact that people think Hercules as a champion in total has strong utility doesn't mean he's broken. It just means players value his overall utility more than the raw numbers.

The point to the ratings becomes more important when a champ fails to perform well in-game. If that happens, we can then look to the design ratings to see where he fell short. We might immediately say "she needs more damage" (like we always do) but if we see that the champion's design rating was 3/5 damage and 5/5 utility, we could then focus more on how her utility is falling short. Or maybe the design had 4/5 utility and 4/5 survivability, and we could try to focus our feedback on how the champ's survivability was too low for a champ with average damage.

The point to the design ratings is to tell us what the devs intended for the champ, so that the players and the devs could be on the same page when it came to seeing where the champion might be falling short. They can't all be 5/5 damage champs, they can't all be 5/5 utility champs. Someone has to be average, someone has to be below average (that's inherent in the definition of average). But no champ should be average or below average everywhere. There should be places they are weak, and places they are strong. The ratings tell us what the target was. It isn't intended to *define* how the champ should perform in all cases.

At least, that's how I see how the ratings should function. Whether they do or not is of course not up to me.

ESF · January 2022

Ninjadebi said:
So basically long:short; we can’t even fulfill 2 year old promises to you, so allow us to release this new dumpster fire that will try to make you forget about our previously unfulfilled commitments. Oh and while you’re hopefully looking at this shiny object over here, we’re also openly telling you that we’re going to go ahead and nerf champions whenever we feel like it after we squeeze your wallets through Cavalier or other crystals and say “oh oops that champion isn’t functioning as intended”.

You guys may as well just come out and say you’re bent on burying this game 6 feet under.

This game isn’t going to last forever, and maybe it’s viewed as sunk cost — it’s an older game, now.

I don’t know what will be the end of this game. I do know this: Players genuinely looked forward to buffs each month. Now those are being cut down.

It’s definitely not easy to get 5/6-star rarities of characters released in the same calendar year. Not saying it’s impossible. Just saying that with more than 200 characters or so in the game…man. I don’t know.

I said this recently: I don’t understand Kabam and how they approach things. I really don’t.

Skiddy212 · January 2022

ESF said:

Ninjadebi said:
So basically long:short; we can’t even fulfill 2 year old promises to you, so allow us to release this new dumpster fire that will try to make you forget about our previously unfulfilled commitments. Oh and while you’re hopefully looking at this shiny object over here, we’re also openly telling you that we’re going to go ahead and nerf champions whenever we feel like it after we squeeze your wallets through Cavalier or other crystals and say “oh oops that champion isn’t functioning as intended”.

You guys may as well just come out and say you’re bent on burying this game 6 feet under.
This game isn’t going to last forever, and maybe it’s viewed as sunk cost — it’s an older game, now.

I don’t know what will be the end of this game. I do know this: Players genuinely looked forward to buffs each month. Now those are being cut down.

It’s definitely not easy to get 5/6-star rarities of characters released in the same calendar year. Not saying it’s impossible. Just saying that with more than 200 characters or so in the game…man. I don’t know.

I said this recently: I don’t understand Kabam and how they approach things. I really don’t.

This game is not a sunk cost lol😂😂

Superchampion_ · January 2022

DNA3000 said:

Superchampion_ said:
As for the rating system, I'm still skeptical, especially if you think hercules doesn't have utility.
I did make a joke about this, but here's my opinion on this one. Take this for whatever it is worth. I do not believe that the rating system is intended to state that Hercules has low utility, as most players would define utility. I think that rating is meant to say "Hercules was intended by design to have very few abilities that we ordinarily define to be utility abilities, as exclusive from damage and survivability." And he doesn't. The fact that people think Hercules as a champion in total has strong utility doesn't mean he's broken. It just means players value his overall utility more than the raw numbers.

The point to the ratings becomes more important when a champ fails to perform well in-game. If that happens, we can then look to the design ratings to see where he fell short. We might immediately say "she needs more damage" (like we always do) but if we see that the champion's design rating was 3/5 damage and 5/5 utility, we could then focus more on how her utility is falling short. Or maybe the design had 4/5 utility and 4/5 survivability, and we could try to focus our feedback on how the champ's survivability was too low for a champ with average damage.

The point to the design ratings is to tell us what the devs intended for the champ, so that the players and the devs could be on the same page when it came to seeing where the champion might be falling short. They can't all be 5/5 damage champs, they can't all be 5/5 utility champs. Someone has to be average, someone has to be below average (that's inherent in the definition of average). But no champ should be average or below average everywhere. There should be places they are weak, and places they are strong. The ratings tell us what the target was. It isn't intended to *define* how the champ should perform in all cases.

At least, that's how I see how the ratings should function. Whether they do or not is of course not up to me.

I'm kinda honored that THE DNA3000 responded to me. I see what you're saying and I get that not every champ can have CGR damage or excel at everything. I understand that the ratings are meant to tell us what kabam was going for. I'm really just annoyed about them changing the buff cadence and this rating system just seemed like effort that could be used elsewhere.

KyriosRais · January 2022

I wonder who proposed this idea from kabam HQ. remind me of MROC

BigManOnCampus · January 2022

ByrneWas said:
Blah blah blah, no buffs for February. Blah blah some nerfs coming so be prepared.

This.

ESF · January 2022

Skiddy212 said:

ESF said:

Ninjadebi said:
So basically long:short; we can’t even fulfill 2 year old promises to you, so allow us to release this new dumpster fire that will try to make you forget about our previously unfulfilled commitments. Oh and while you’re hopefully looking at this shiny object over here, we’re also openly telling you that we’re going to go ahead and nerf champions whenever we feel like it after we squeeze your wallets through Cavalier or other crystals and say “oh oops that champion isn’t functioning as intended”.

You guys may as well just come out and say you’re bent on burying this game 6 feet under.
This game isn’t going to last forever, and maybe it’s viewed as sunk cost — it’s an older game, now.

I don’t know what will be the end of this game. I do know this: Players genuinely looked forward to buffs each month. Now those are being cut down.

It’s definitely not easy to get 5/6-star rarities of characters released in the same calendar year. Not saying it’s impossible. Just saying that with more than 200 characters or so in the game…man. I don’t know.

I said this recently: I don’t understand Kabam and how they approach things. I really don’t.
This game is not a sunk cost lol😂😂

Honest question: Would you explain how you feel that this game, seven years in, isn’t sunk cost?

BigPoppaCBONE · January 2022

DNA3000 said:

Superchampion_ said:
As for the rating system, I'm still skeptical, especially if you think hercules doesn't have utility.
I did make a joke about this, but here's my opinion on this one. Take this for whatever it is worth. I do not believe that the rating system is intended to state that Hercules has low utility, as most players would define utility. I think that rating is meant to say "Hercules was intended by design to have very few abilities that we ordinarily define to be utility abilities, as exclusive from damage and survivability." And he doesn't. The fact that people think Hercules as a champion in total has strong utility doesn't mean he's broken. It just means players value his overall utility more than the raw numbers.

The point to the ratings becomes more important when a champ fails to perform well in-game. If that happens, we can then look to the design ratings to see where he fell short. We might immediately say "she needs more damage" (like we always do) but if we see that the champion's design rating was 3/5 damage and 5/5 utility, we could then focus more on how her utility is falling short. Or maybe the design had 4/5 utility and 4/5 survivability, and we could try to focus our feedback on how the champ's survivability was too low for a champ with average damage.

The point to the design ratings is to tell us what the devs intended for the champ, so that the players and the devs could be on the same page when it came to seeing where the champion might be falling short. They can't all be 5/5 damage champs, they can't all be 5/5 utility champs. Someone has to be average, someone has to be below average (that's inherent in the definition of average). But no champ should be average or below average everywhere. There should be places they are weak, and places they are strong. The ratings tell us what the target was. It isn't intended to *define* how the champ should perform in all cases.

At least, that's how I see how the ratings should function. Whether they do or not is of course not up to me.

It's going to take so much effort to make this rating system worth using by a sizeable chunk of players or even getting it to a state where they'd bother to release it. It's going to raise so many questions, like at what point one aspect bleeds into another, so when does big damage become a utility? When does utility become survivability? Is Namor's 100% reflect a utility, survivability, or damage? What about Offense, Defense, Synergy considerations?
I can't see that it's worth the effort compared to being more efficient with existing champ buffs (RE👏USE👏 ABILITY 👏ASSETS👏! I have faith they can do it if they pretend they're OG animations😂) and doing a better job with pre-release testing.

DNA3000 · January 2022

Ken1378 said:
This just seems like a big waste of time. The rating are going to be so subjective. Maybe the Damage rating can be based on player data, but there are still so many different situations that impact it: synergies, awakened abilities, ramp-ups, skill-level required, and probably a dozen other things. Putting one number to all of that doesn’t even make sense. Let alone trying to rate utility or ease of use.

This seems to be a common misconception, or maybe I'm the one that's wrong here, but to clarify my position here my understanding is the devs aren't going to analyze every single champ and try to figure out what rating to give to them, like a player making a tier list. They are going to publish what the design intent was for that champ, or in the case of older champs for which that is no longer available they are going to try to retroactively publish what they believe the design intent was supposed to be. They aren't *measuring* champ damage to determine the rating. They are saying "this champ was intended to have high damage, this one was intended to have average damage, this one was intended to have below average damage." They are just doing that with numbers and not adjectives.

*Separately* they will be using the game metrics to try to get an idea whether the champ *meets* that design rating. But they have always done that, this isn't something they are starting to do now. They are just formalizing the structure for how they do that so they can better communicate this to the players.

The devs are *not* making a tier list, or a four point ratings list. It is probably a misnomer to even call it a rating. It is more of a target. The reason why I say this is because of this:

When we conducted tuning changes in the past, the majority of negative feedback from the community was due to the fact that these tuning changes were conducted in a vacuum. Players had a hard time understanding what was overpowered and underpowered and had no input into what was changing.

Now, with the rating system, players will be able to better judge if a Champion is in the right place, and be able to give feedback along the way while updates are being made.

In other words, this sounds like the devs will be tuning champs to match the ratings, not set the ratings to match the champs. So the rating has to be more of what the devs want, not what they know the champ is. The ratings are subjective in a sense, because I believe they express intent. But that's unavoidable with intent. The point is not for the rating to be an absolute measure of a champ's performance. I believe it is to communicate to the players what the devs are aiming for, so devs and players are on the same page.

Team_X_recruiter · January 2022

How about just fixing the game instead of putting resources into balancing. 🙄

IMB · January 2022

Generally, I like this.

Balancing after release will help a lot with things that can’t be predicted, like champs being ridiculously OP or just plain useless. OP champs sound like a good thing, but there are drawbacks, and let’s be honest. 99% of us won’t get a champ until at least 6 months after its release anyway.

The rating system I’m not a fan of. While the goal is good, there’s just no way you can narrow champs abilities down to five categories. It might be a necessary step because way too many champs get thrown out or looked past due to lack of big yellow numbers, but you might do well to expand it just a bit; specifically the utility branch.

Overall though, an honest effort and open communication with the customers driving this game is appreciated. Kudos on a great idea.

Geralt_123 · January 2022

Well I would say nice effort but all excitement for buff program gone. Namor sits on the bench except occasional uses due to his unnecessary nerf in regen.
Then Ghost still working, Magneto huge buff happened and Hercules exist.
Don't know you guys try to justify yourself by shutting the mouth that we have data and we don't work on opinions.
Would love to listen details on how you are going to manage crystal sales and all that.
Too much disappointed after reading these.

Dylanphile · January 2022

All of this makes it seem like Kabam is nostalgic for 12.0.

"Ahh, good times."
--Kabam Miike, probably

stimpycatisnumberone · January 2022

We've seen how bad their interpretation of data was in the Namor situation, citing irrelevant content as to why he needed balance. They can't be trusted to make logical conclusions with the data. If the designer's intended rating and perceived champion rating once released are both subjective, then they cancel each other out. Without any objectivity the system is ultimately pointless. So why would a company go to all this trouble to create a pointless system? The answer is... so they are allowed to nerf champions. This is just another obvious ploy to take away the ghosts/quakes that have been our only way to survive the absurd cash grab content. The "balance" they are referring to is to "balance" how much power summoners have.

FranJavCC · January 2022

What about account security? my account was recently hacked and there are several accounts the same (It still does not solve the support goes for a month) A 2FA security would be fine

The_man001 · January 2022

This really sucks. We don't need an official tier list sort of thing in place of regular buffs.

Texas_11 · January 2022

Do they mean no major reworks? Or just tune ups?

Suicidebob1977 · January 2022

Over all, this to me feels like a return of 12.0 kind of BS. I think the biggest factor in this being a bad idea, is the obvious gulf between the player’s wants and feelings on any factor in this game, and Kabam’s. These 2 things are nowhere near in agreement. For example, Kabam feels Guillotine’s “burf” was at around a 3/5 while practically the whole community was screaming in their face that it was a 2 or even a 1. All they did was not listen and try to explain why we were wrong. “Nope, she’s fine. We’re not rolling her back. Now on to Gamora’s THIRD buff..” That kind of attitude will cause this program to do irreparable harm to this game.

Obesone · January 2022

Bad idea!

When are we going to rank the new champs if we now 3/6 months later they could be nerfed or changed!

This is like suicide to kabam! A lot of work for them, and we can’t know the final champ till 6 months later! We can’t love or hate till then

Are you going to sell the crystals!???
But if the champ is nerfed and we spend money?

An Update to Balancing in MCOC!

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