An Update to Balancing in MCOC!

11416181920

Comments

  • 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: 22,105 ★★★★★
    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: 2,407 ★★★★★

    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: 22,105 ★★★★★

    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: 2,407 ★★★★★

    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.
  • psp742psp742 Member Posts: 2,617 ★★★★
    edited January 2022
    Really suggest Kabam watch KarateMike's rating system.. it rates each champion (sadly only 2021 champions) base on his/her/its damage, utility and sustainability for game modes, AQ, AW, story mode or side quest..
    I don't know how long it took him to get his rating system but you guys could ask him for advice..

    YouTube title
    'Every 2021 champion - individually RANKED!'
  • Texas_11Texas_11 Member Posts: 2,638 ★★★★★

    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?
    There are more ways to collect data then selling crystals: featured crystals, arena, giving everyone TB and up a 4* version or 5* version in arena.
  • DNA3000DNA3000 Member, Guardian Posts: 19,709 Guardian
    Crine60 said:

    @DNA3000 I am curious from what you have said about the need for a large and wide range of the player base to play these new characters to generate sufficient data to determine the need for adjustments how this is really supposed to happen when they will make the decision after 3 months of the champ being released? I didn't think that many people who weren't huge spenders or arena grinders would actually have new champs at the higher rarities to be useful in more difficult content within 3 months of them entering the game to generate this kind of usage.

    I don’t have access to the data but I believe it is reasonable to assume that three groups of players possess a champion more or less immediately after release. First, the whales and the grinders who are disproportionately likely to be higher tier players more likely to rank up and use the champions in higher tier content. My guesstimate is that this is on the order of hundreds of players, something between two hundred and a thousand players. Second, lucky players who grab a few crystals and hit the jackpot and land a high rarity drop. I believe this is in the low thousands of players, maybe a thousand, maybe a couple thousand, and their usage will be distributed more widely across moderate to high content. And then there are the players who get the champion at lower tier from the arena or crystals, 3* or 4*. I suspect this is tens of thousands of players, and these will be skewed towards being used at lower tiers of content (if at all).

    Factoring in some ratio of players who get the champ and then actually use it, this is probably enough players to get a meaningful estimate of overall performance.

    We wont have many low progress players using champs in high tier content, but such players don’t play such content in general. We will have low skill players using the champs, because skill and luck aren’t correlated. Outside the arena grinders and the blow out whales (who buy enough to increase their odds of getting a champ sky high) new champions should be distributed roughly randomly across all players buying crystals.

    More players and longer time collection would continue to refine that estimate, but the longer you measure, the more players who have the champ and the more players get locked into an expectation for the performance of the champ. The data mining window is a compromise between adjusting the champ as fast as possible (ideally when *no one* has the champ, ala before release) and adjusting the champion as accurately as possible (which ideally would be when everyone has the champ and has been playing it long enough to have learned all its tricks to the best of their ability, i.e. going back and adjusting champs after they’ve been around for years).

    Worth noting: when they look three months after release, they are going to then go into a two month beta period testing adjustments. During that time, if their three month look was “off” they will still have the opportunity to factor in additional data during the beta. If the five month look is substantially different from the three month look, they have an opportunity to factor that into adjustments being made during the beta. So there is some wiggle room here to try to collect data for as long as possible while factoring in the amount of time it takes to formulate adjustments and test them.
  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Member Posts: 36,593 ★★★★★

    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.

    There are different degrees of game-breaking. At least in the sense of the way the term is used. There is game-breaking, in a sense that it will literally break the game, then there is game-breaking in a sense that it will cause such an imbalance that it will create long-term problems and create more work down the line. People sometimes think of it as not literally breaking the game, but there's more to it than that.
  • This content has been removed.
  • This content has been removed.
  • edited January 2022
    This content has been removed.
  • fitenitefitenite Member Posts: 35
    Rating system issues:
    So you rate the damage 5/5, but where is the dmg coming from? Is it instantly there from the start of the fight? Is it a ramp up champ? Does it depend on buffs or debuffs and are the buffs/debuffs active or passive? Is it energy dmg or physical dmg? Incinerate, shock, bleed, crit?
    Basically, how do we get that 5/5 dmg and where does it come from? Just stating a champion has dmg means nothing in MCOC if we can’t access the dmg. Having such a general rating system that only states “Damage 5/5” without expanding on the details of that damage will not only make that rating system useless, but also a burden. A burden to the already ever slowing servers that have begun to freeze on a 1 year old phone (Note 20 Ultra 5g). Just a pile of data taking up unnecessary space and creating more lag in the game.

    I hope that gives an idea of how complicated a true rating system would have to be for an end user to find it useful, because if I have to continue into Utility, Defense, and other layers of consideration, this post can go on for a while.

    However, I can see how such a simple, generalized rating system can be helpful to a developer trying to get an idea of how to shape the champion. For a developer, that’s an outline of the shape a champion can take, the perimeters they can work in as they draw in the finer details of the structure. For an end user, it’s just a blank map that shows land without showing the roads and how to traverse it. That is the gap dividing employee from player, and from a positive perspective, that is the gap I believe you’re trying to close with this attempt at communication.

    To make this attempt at “Balancing” future champs successful, I believe we would need to change the structure of how future champs are released into the game.

    My thoughts and ideas:
    1. You need 6 months to achieve a proper balance on a champion?
    Then introduce the “work in progress” champion for preview 6 months before its release. We should not have to deal with bugs and adjustments once the champion is fully released and permanently available in the live game.

    2. Next question is how to introduce the preview champion without disrupting the game and giving unfair advantages?
    A) The most obvious way would be to release a public test server. Don’t know why that’s not a thing yet, but my first guess is there’s a financial reason (Kabam being cheap).

    B.) Another thought is to make the preview champ available on the live server, in a test store for anyone who wanted to test it out and give feedback, with limited use of course. To avoid the unfair advantage it would have to be blocked out of AW, AQ, and arena. All solo content and incursions are great places for testing, the only possible exception being the EQ and SQ since they do change monthly anyway. Different tiers should be available for different levels of progress starting with 5* for UC players and 6*+5* for higher progress tiers. Rank 1 max level or Rank 2 level 1 should be enough for testing purposes, that way it doesn’t have to get over complicated with additional ranking resources or over power any account that doesn’t already have higher ranking champs. The preview champion should be available for testing for about 3 to 7 days, then be put back into the balance system with the players feedback for consideration. After further development from the initial feedback, the preview champion should be released into the testing store again for another round of feedback. Rinse and repeat till the champion’s quarks are all figured out and ready for full release.

    Those are my thoughts for now. The key to the new system being successful is figuring out the issues and making the final adjustments to new champions BEFORE they are released into the game for sale and arenas.
  • Death_Wa1chDeath_Wa1ch Member Posts: 19
    Kabam needs to take a step back releasing new characters until they fix the old ones first I’m fine with that. honestly fine with them releasing less because most
    people won't even get them for a while anyway. If they took
    a break on new champions and event quests to just go
    hard and ALL in on buffing champions until the vast
    majority of the old champs are good then I think they'll be
    in a good place to focus on new stuff. Constantly keeping
    up with 2 new characters EVERY month for 7+ years
    straight is nuts. I can't be the only one who's burning out of
    monthly event quests too. The past year, the most hype
    thing every month was the buffs, and new characters are
    really starting to falter. It really sucks when a new champ
    comes out and the consensus is that we should hope for a
    buff in the future. Too many of the recent characters fall
    into that category (by recent I really mean from the past
    year/year and a half). And I don't even mean just the ones
    that REALLY suck like psycho man, even the ones that are
    kind of ok but just feel like they don't hold up with champs
    from past years, like Sauron for example. He seems really
    cool, and he doesn't suck, but he just doesn't have a place
    in the game. He's not bad enough to warrant a buff any
    time soon but he's not good enough to be chosen for
    doing any content over other champs in the game.
  • Colinwhitworth69Colinwhitworth69 Member Posts: 7,470 ★★★★★
    There is a lot of people setting their hair on fire over this rebalancing plan.

    I am going to give it a chance. Then decide whether it works.

    Six months after they start this program, each month we'll get:
    -- two new champs that are starting in the balancing program
    -- two champs that just finished going thru rebalancing and are being released in their finished form
    -- one or two updated champs

    IMO the rebalancing will lead to weaker new champs on initial release, and then improved champs on final release. It makes little sense for Kabam to initially release a champ that is OP and then to pull back on that champ six months later.

    Think of how this would have benefitted the 2021 champs that no one uses: Super Skrull, Jubilee, Purgatory, Chavez, Mangog, Psychoman, Anti-Venom, Kraven.
  • PseudouberPseudouber Member Posts: 795 ★★★

    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?
    The post states:
    In the coming months, we are going to be introducing a new Champion Rating system to help better visualize the strengths and weaknesses of any given Champion, giving you all a better understanding of the Champion at a glance.

    Coinciding with this new rating system, we are creating a new rebalancing process for that will apply to all new Champions coming to The Contest.

    This new balancing cadence means that reworks for older Champions will slow somewhat but will still occur!


    As I can understand:
    • all champions will be part of the Champion Rating system;
    • only new champions will be rebalanced, starting from March and taking roughly 4 months;
    • the rebalancing of new champions will slow down the buffs of older champions.
    For me, that sounds like a bad idea.
    Is this not already part of creating a new champ for release though. If not why was it not? seems silly, they would just release them all willy nilly..
  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Member Posts: 36,593 ★★★★★
    Why do people think every new Champ will be nerfed? Why do people think that monitoring new Champs is a new thing? These are the questions I ponder. Lol.
  • ChovnerChovner Member Posts: 1,234 ★★★★★

    Why do people think every new Champ will be nerfed? Why do people think that monitoring new Champs is a new thing? These are the questions I ponder. Lol.

    Do you support them paying more attention to the 2 new champs a month, and only focusing on old champs buffs IF they have time?
This discussion has been closed.