**Mastery Loadouts**
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
An Update to Balancing in MCOC!
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Comments
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.
I think that's the only issue here. ”Guaranteed Continuation of buff program”
1) Likely to be taking up resources from the buff program. I don't think it's a stretch in saying champions are one of the if not the most anticipated addition every month for many players. So many champions have been this last one year and a bit and its great to see Diablo and Kingpin and Ultron being widely used to absolutely shred content. At the same time there are still so many champions, many of them fan-favorite characters, who could use some love.
2) Selling crystals and champion acquisition during that 6 month period needs to be changed.
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!'
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.
56. Deadpool X Force
57. Storm
58. Psycho Man
59. Gamora
That makes 59/216 champs that desperately need a buff which will go much farther in balancing the game rather than focusing most attention on 2 new champs per month. Catch up on the backlog of 59 underperforming champs..... THEN ramp up this new champ balance system (but in a way that doesn't rip off anyone)
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.
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.
Are we supposed to collect characters and therefore be excited about new releases, spend money on Featureds/Advance bundles or grind for them in Arena, in order to get the newest releases?
Are we supposed to rank up as many characters as possible, or only the best characters, or only the characters that we like playing the best? Which then makes acquiring rank-up materials the thing we’re supposed to plan on spending or grinding for?
Are we supposed to progress in the game via story content and monthly EQs, which means that we need counters to specific nodes and situations, which therefore means we need as many characters as possible on our roster?
Are we supposed to join alliances and spend on items to make sure lanes can be completed and AW defenses can be diverse? Which means acquiring defenders and using rank-up materials on defenders who aren’t fun to actually play is actually really important? Plus the importance of Prestige?
Are we supposed to spend money/units on potions/revives to clear the hardest content, which means that by definition, all characters can only be so good? But that should also mean that all characters should only be so bad, because if clearing the content is most important, then all characters should be able to reasonably do it?
If it’s the last one, I totally get a rating system to this degeee: If the game can only have a modest difference between the best character and the worst character, because all characters are expected to be able to clear the same content, then you have to rebalance. You can’t let that gap get too big.
But at the same time, you also can’t let the bottom of the listing be so far below the bar, it’s frustrating for players to pull them, because they have no use in any of the scenarios above.
That’s the part that truly baffles me — I am honestly baffled at what it is we’re supposed to want to do enough to spend money on, because the game needs to be profitable.
We can’t be expected to do all the things. It’s impossible
Welcome to a thread for the discussion of the new Balancing Initiative by Kabam. This thread has been made by a veteran F2P player who has played the game for 5+ years and has completed all available content excluding Abyss. I hope this thread will be informative and constructive and I hope Kabam takes into account any feedback given. With all that said I would like to begin the discussion with my thoughts on the subject at hand.
Champion Balancing and the End of the Buff Program
Let me be completely honest, in my opinion, this new change is a downgrade and overall a loss for players and the community as a whole. The game has been in a very sensitive state the past year or so and during that period the buff program was arguably the best part of the year. The consistent updates to lackluster champs provided the community with an incentive to play and collect new champs. Champs typically considered bad pulls were made better by the hope of buff and champions that did get buffed were able to be used and enjoyed by a large variety of the player base. Additionally, the buffed champs were often older champs that many had access to or had the ability to get, unlike new champs which aren't available to most of the player base for 1-2 years after release. The buffs kept the game fresh and were a major factor in exciting players to log in every month.
The new balancing initiative seems to be a heavily watered-down version of the current buff program, instead of the consistent 2 monthly buffs we have been given a vague promise of occasional adjustments to some characters, heavily favoring new characters. The major drawback of the balancing initiative is that firstly it seems to be a slower process of buffing champs. The new plan is to only have occasional tweaks to characters and from the description given by Kabam, it seems like it will no longer be large-scale changes to champs like we currently have but instead minor tweaks to balance champs. Secondly, the new balancing initiative is most likely going to affect mainly new champions. This means that the characters being balanced will be characters that the majority of the player base don't have access to and can't access for a long period of time. These are in my opinion the two major drawbacks of the new initiative.
Positives
Some positives of Kabam's announcements were that they are including a community figure in their balancing figure and opening the champion testing beta to more players. I think the inclusion of a community figure in the process is a good sign but at the end of the day, it is just one player included in the process which still doesn't give me too much confidence. On the other hand, opening the beta to more players is a great change and I hope that it is implemented in the game regardless of what happens in the contest's future.
Champion Rating System
The proposed champions rating system by Kabam is a bad idea. The game is far too complex and I think that the five-star system with the three categories including damage, utility, and ease of use will in no way cover all the nuances and intricacies of the game. Furthermore, no offense to Kabam, but they are the last people I think the community would want champion ratings from. Most of the community doesn't respond well to ratings and tier lists made by people who play the game for a living and I doubt they will listen to Kabam. Looking just at champion spotlight videos on youtube, Kabam always seems to have a worse understanding of champions than the player base. I think the rating system will only confuse new players and ultimately become obsolete as most players decide to ignore it. I just can't see a system like this accurately accounting for all the in-game variables such as synergies, type of damage, sustainability, support, etc. Rather than spend resources on this Kabam should shift its focus elsewhere.
Final thoughts,
I think the announcement made by Kabam was tone-deaf. It seems that they are unaware of what the players are responding well to and what the players don't appreciate. The buff program was universally agreed to be a good addition and I can't imagine what reason there would be to change it instead of addressing other issues in-game. Issues such as lackluster new champions, the outdated nature of major game modes such as alliance war, alliance quest, incursions, and arena. It doesn't make sense why these issues seemingly aren't being given priority or thought while something that the player base actually appreciates is being changed so drastically. A complete miss from Kabam.
Overall Thoughts and TLDR
The changes proposed by Kabam are tone-deaf and rather than addressing actual in-game issues they are instead taking away an aspect of the game most of the community loves. Kabam should take a step back and reassess what they need to address in the game and understand what players enjoy and what players don't.
Please leave your thoughts below but keep it civil and constructive. Hopefully, this post won't be taken down and we and Kabam can have a discussion about the game.
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.
Don’t want Herc to get nerfed because he is rated 2/5 in utility. If the program was in effect a year ago he probably would have been.
Just want to add another post to thread here to register another thumbs down for this idea that no one asked for...