An Update to Balancing in MCOC!

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  • DemonzfyreDemonzfyre Member Posts: 21,768 ★★★★★

    ESF said:

    BigBlueOx said:

    ESF said:

    How does a rating system make the game more fun to actually play?

    I am totally serious — how does a rating system make OG Iron Man more fun to select for a quest and actually use?

    No one wants a rating system. No one asked for it. This community has been begging for buffs to basically unusable characters for years — I know, because I was here at the beginning — and it seems the one thing that basically every single player actually wants for weak characters is the one thing that becomes so complicated, it’s like trying to win the lottery

    Bro really look at this possibility, once a tier rating is set , now gone would be the days of cab quest or content restricted to tags or class advantages u might need specific tier champs to open gates or even be eligible for particular quests

    Think abt it @LibertyPrimeV1 ,@Playerslasher , @ESF ,@Mokkie, @BigBlueOx
    Honestly that sounds terrifying. A quest where only rank 1 damage champs are allow 🤢
    That…would be…suboptimal
    Miike has already said that's not what the tier or rating system is for. It's strictly for the purpose of balancing and only applies to champs released after March. That means all of the other champs before won't be in that rating system because they won't be a part of the balancing program.
    Inaccurate, the rating system will apply to all champions.
    The rating system solely exist for the purpose of balancing new champs that are released. Miike already stated in this thread that no champ released before March will be subject to this balancing program.

    So what would the point be for them to put ratings to older champs if they aren't part of the rebalancing program?
  • te_dua_shumte_dua_shum Member Posts: 1,001 ★★★★


    The rating system solely exist for the purpose of balancing new champs that are released. Miike already stated in this thread that no champ released before March will be subject to this balancing program.

    So what would the point be for them to put ratings to older champs if they aren't part of the rebalancing program?

    From the original post:

    Starting in March, we will be adding a brand new 5-Point Ability Rating System to all Champions in the game.


    They are doing this to give players an idea of what the devs wanted the champion to be before its release. For what I've understood, Kabam isn't creating a rating system to rate how the champion is performing now because that would require a dynamic rating system that gets updated every X weeks to reflect the current perfomance of the champion; what they are doing is telling people what they wanted the champion to be, and then it will be up to us to decide, subjectively, if the champion met the criteria ^_^
  • EricZachary1977EricZachary1977 Member Posts: 38
    I prefer to scrap this new rating system and community balance program out of the gate and continue to rework older and clearly weaker champs. It's nearly impossible to create an objective rating for champs, and why some of the re-works Kabam has released over the last few years have been duds that weren't well received (the hood and guillotine come immediately to mind) many more resulted in extremely powerful and fun to play champs like Magento, Colossus, Diablo, and Mole Man. There are so many other issues with the game that could use manpower and other resources, please don't budget in non-issues.
  • geoff78geoff78 Member Posts: 221 ★★
    My $0.02

    As someone that used to whale out in this game, I've learned my lesson. I purchased several Odins chasing both Namor and Cull Obsidian when they came out. I didn't end up getting either of them before I watched them both get "balanced" (nerfed). I'll still drop a few hundred for the special times of year (July 4th, cyber weekend, gifting....), but I no longer chase champs, or RNG rewards (except GGCs of course).
    As an end game player, and moderate spender, I feel like I should tell you guys that you're losing touch with the players that got you 7+ years into this mobile game. The transparency we were promised never came. The bugs that effect players take way too long to get fixed (if ever at all), but the bugs that benefit players get patched in record time. No matter how you word posts like this one, we hear "OP champs will progressively get nerfed, and meme champs will get buffs". Lots of people spent a ton of money getting through Corina's challenges, act 7, several cash offers, and trading GGCs just to get their OP champs to r4. Now you're telling us that there's a strong chance they could fall victim to getting "balanced". It really is no wonder why end game players are dropping like flies.

    My suggestion....
    Start with fixing the damn bugs we've been complaining about for over a year now.
    Test your updates before releasing them so you can stop introducing more bugs into the contest.
    Buff the champs that aren't up to par, but leave the strong ones alone. People dump rare resources, and often times actual money into the strong champs. By changing them that much later is ripping people off.
    Stop wasting time on useless features like strikers. You literally had to create nodes just to make strikers even make any sense. The team of developers it took to do that on arguably the dumbest side quest in ages, could've spent that time and resources fixing bugs or buffing crappy champs.

    You've lost touch with your long term player base. I genuinely hope you get it back. I do enjoy this game.
  • DemonzfyreDemonzfyre Member Posts: 21,768 ★★★★★


    The rating system solely exist for the purpose of balancing new champs that are released. Miike already stated in this thread that no champ released before March will be subject to this balancing program.

    So what would the point be for them to put ratings to older champs if they aren't part of the rebalancing program?

    From the original post:

    Starting in March, we will be adding a brand new 5-Point Ability Rating System to all Champions in the game.


    They are doing this to give players an idea of what the devs wanted the champion to be before its release. For what I've understood, Kabam isn't creating a rating system to rate how the champion is performing now because that would require a dynamic rating system that gets updated every X weeks to reflect the current perfomance of the champion; what they are doing is telling people what they wanted the champion to be, and then it will be up to us to decide, subjectively, if the champion met the criteria ^_^
    Which is fine. So all of them will have the ratings but for people to be thinking they'll add this to Cav MEQ requirement rotation is a bit ridiculous. These ratings will strictly for the rebalance and yes, I see all champs will have them now but it's only being created for this new program.
  • CyborgNinja135CyborgNinja135 Member Posts: 1,118 ★★★★
    People are forgetting that a lot of games have balancing programs and sometimes nerfs are needed. R6 Siege (even though it is a mess right now) nerfs and buffs characters constantly. Same could be said about almost every fighting game. If newly released characters continue to get stronger and stronger every single month, eventually the ones considered to be a the top of the tier lists will also get phased out. That's why we have power creep in MCOC and why it is such a big problem. Kitty is stupidly broken and Herc's ability to tank sp3s with his immortality was broken too. Power creep is always bad.

    Now reducing the cadence of buffs, that's something I'm not happy with. January has been a very dry month content wise and now we have to wait until March before we get ONE, just one buff? Old champions getting buffed was always exciting, even if I didn't have them. It's nice seeing champs once considered memes being used in high-level content. Hopefully the DPX buff more than makes up for it.
  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Member Posts: 36,489 ★★★★★
    It takes more than a couple fights against WS to provide the data they need.
  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Member Posts: 36,489 ★★★★★
    thepiggy said:

    It takes more than a couple fights against WS to provide the data they need.

    Everyone gets the champ on the beta server on launch all the way up to and including any nerf. That's 6 months of testing, full transparency, and it won't affect the live game. That should give them enough data.
    You can't do that. The game IS the data.
  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Member Posts: 36,489 ★★★★★
    thepiggy said:

    thepiggy said:

    It takes more than a couple fights against WS to provide the data they need.

    Everyone gets the champ on the beta server on launch all the way up to and including any nerf. That's 6 months of testing, full transparency, and it won't affect the live game. That should give them enough data.
    You can't do that. The game IS the data.
    Are you sure? How sure are you?
    Besides the fact that the staff has confirmed as much multiple times, as well as the people whose knowledge is more extensive than my own, not at all. Lol.
    By all means if you can devise a Beta environment that replicates thousands of Players playing 24/7 in all different scenarios and levels of progress, I'd be interested in hearing it.
  • BigPoppaCBONEBigPoppaCBONE Member Posts: 2,383 ★★★★★
    edited January 2022
    If Kabam looks at a champ that they wanted to be middling at a thing and they are better than they thought, why not just leave it? Sometimes you get a happy accident. If it won't actually
    break the game as in: this is the only champ people want, this champ can crush everything but Act 6/Abyss level content at low rarities/sig, and moonwalk through that at high rarities/sig. Outside of those scenarios, what difference does it make? It's not like they wouldn't be able to introduce champs and nodes to counter faster and with less aggravation generated as opposed to directly nerfing a champ.
  • DemonzfyreDemonzfyre Member Posts: 21,768 ★★★★★

    mgj0630 said:

    I'm shocked no one was asked this yet, so I'll go first.

    What will the policy be regarding preview bundles that you sell, when there will clearly be a risk of you down-tuning the champ?

    For example, March's champion drops, the champion preview looks amazing, and he/she seems amazing as a boss in EQ. You release his crystal for sale on Thursday, and I buy 10 of them. What assurances will you give to the community that you will compensate them if you need that champ later?

    Rank down tickets alone don't begin to cut it, as people are likely spending real money on them.

    Will you commit to refunding the units spent? Or will you commit to not selling a new champ until after all balancing has taken place?

    This is one of the reasons behind the Ability Ratings and feedback process, so we can avoid the situation of people not understanding what is intended when choosing to chase a Champion, so we don't have anything planned at this time.
    I don’t think you fully got the question @Kabam Miike . The op is asking if there are plans or assurances that if the dev team makes material changes the champs and effectively neuters them after they have been sold for real money to offer refunds of units or something similar. The fact that there will be a “ratings system” in place before a new champ is released means literally nothing if the dev team makes changes to the champ as this will ultimately impact the “ratings system.” Why implement any ratings if the intent is to make changes to the champ over time? Ultimately I’m concerned that I’m now investing resources and potentially money in champions that have a bigger possibility of alteration now. Without a 100% guarantee of refunds for purchases we make that get altered it becomes terribly unethical and a bit of a cash grab. I would never go to a store a purchase a tshirt if it had a disclaimer on it that read “could potentially transform into a bikini if the manufacturer deems necessary.” Seems a bit off.
    You've never had a 100% guarantee of rank downs or refunds of materials for champ changes. They've just been nice about it in the past.
  • Texas_11Texas_11 Member Posts: 2,638 ★★★★★
    I don't mind the buff program , I think a game like this needs nerfs and balances. If this did not happen , the game would die super quick. The largest issue is they sell the champs. They need to re cycle the schedule and sell crystals after the cycle is gone
  • CaboDestro1CaboDestro1 Member Posts: 56
    Hopefully every champion will become usable with this balancing. Thats what it sounds like might happen to me. Hopefully it won't be same old great vs bad champions to use.
  • DemonzfyreDemonzfyre Member Posts: 21,768 ★★★★★
    Texas_11 said:

    I don't mind the buff program , I think a game like this needs nerfs and balances. If this did not happen , the game would die super quick. The largest issue is they sell the champs. They need to re cycle the schedule and sell crystals after the cycle is gone

    So how would they collect the data they need if no one has access to the champions?
  • BigPoppaCBONEBigPoppaCBONE Member Posts: 2,383 ★★★★★

    Texas_11 said:

    I don't mind the buff program , I think a game like this needs nerfs and balances. If this did not happen , the game would die super quick. The largest issue is they sell the champs. They need to re cycle the schedule and sell crystals after the cycle is gone

    So how would they collect the data they need if no one has access to the champions?
    Maybe if they break down what data they're looking for and explain why they plan on taking so long with it, it wouldn't sound so stupid and ill-conceived. It couldn't hurt to tell us why they couldn't make data gathering part of the run-up to a champ's release via side-quest where they temporarily give us the champs. Rather than ask for endless amounts of hassle and annoyance, why can't they shift selling the champ and sell the champs from February content in March or April?
  • DemonzfyreDemonzfyre Member Posts: 21,768 ★★★★★

    Texas_11 said:

    I don't mind the buff program , I think a game like this needs nerfs and balances. If this did not happen , the game would die super quick. The largest issue is they sell the champs. They need to re cycle the schedule and sell crystals after the cycle is gone

    So how would they collect the data they need if no one has access to the champions?
    Maybe if they break down what data they're looking for and explain why they plan on taking so long with it, it wouldn't sound so stupid and ill-conceived. It couldn't hurt to tell us why they couldn't make data gathering part of the run-up to a champ's release via side-quest where they temporarily give us the champs. Rather than ask for endless amounts of hassle and annoyance, why can't they shift selling the champ and sell the champs from February content in March or April?
    I don't know where you're getting hassle and annoyance from. It's not like you're going to be filling out forms every time you play a new champ.

    I agree they could probably be more detailed on the type of data they're trying to collect but I'm sure it's pretty standard. They probably want to see-
    How often they're used.
    Game modes they're used in.
    More attacker or defender in AW.
    Performance for AW/AQ.
    Sustainability in questing.
    Some sort of time to kill type metric.
  • NihalFayazNihalFayaz Member Posts: 73 ★★
    Man I respect their ideas. They should try new things in the game. But I need them to guarantee that buffs will keep rolling each month.
    I think that's the only issue here. ”Guaranteed Continuation of buff program”
  • BigPoppaCBONEBigPoppaCBONE Member Posts: 2,383 ★★★★★

    Texas_11 said:

    I don't mind the buff program , I think a game like this needs nerfs and balances. If this did not happen , the game would die super quick. The largest issue is they sell the champs. They need to re cycle the schedule and sell crystals after the cycle is gone

    So how would they collect the data they need if no one has access to the champions?
    Maybe if they break down what data they're looking for and explain why they plan on taking so long with it, it wouldn't sound so stupid and ill-conceived. It couldn't hurt to tell us why they couldn't make data gathering part of the run-up to a champ's release via side-quest where they temporarily give us the champs. Rather than ask for endless amounts of hassle and annoyance, why can't they shift selling the champ and sell the champs from February content in March or April?
    I don't know where you're getting hassle and annoyance from. It's not like you're going to be filling out forms every time you play a new champ.

    I agree they could probably be more detailed on the type of data they're trying to collect but I'm sure it's pretty standard. They probably want to see-
    How often they're used.
    Game modes they're used in.
    More attacker or defender in AW.
    Performance for AW/AQ.
    Sustainability in questing.
    Some sort of time to kill type metric.
    The hassle and annoyance of this is on their end. It's not a hassle for me, although I do find some of the decisions they make annoying the same way it's annoying to see someone you like screw a good thing up over and over again, make a poorly considered public statement that just makes things worse, and then bungle the service recovery when they scrap the plan for prosperity to really focus on debuting things their customers have shown they hate. They're trying to cram this into a tight window of their own making as they're selling the champs the same month they're making their in-game debut and we're not making them do that. They could make the data-gathering SQ fun and throw us some swag to do it. This isn't a 1vs1 competitive game like Street Fighter or a massive multiplayer PvP game. They only need to consider 1 side as they know exactly what the other side can and will do. This game is the same in every single mode, with simple controls.
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