Should we be able to sell high end rank up materials? (Poll)

Wicket329 · December 2021

As for the original topic (which is why I clicked on this thread to begin with 😂), I’m usually opposed to being able to sell the 2nd highest grade material for the highest.

That being said, I have 8 t5b and like 60 t2a. If something doesn’t happen, I’m gonna have a lot of expiring t2a and that sucks.

Shadowstrike · December 2021

Jeremy3186 said:

BitterSteel said:

Jeremy3186 said:

Shadowstrike said:

Jeremy3186 said:

DNA3000 said:

Jeremy3186 said:

doctorb said:

Jeremy3186 said:

DNA3000 said:

Jeremy3186 said:

DNA3000 said:

Colonaut123 said:
cluttering the servers
Crystals do not clutter servers. Crystal *types* clutter servers. If you can get every single player to sell *all* of their T4CC crystals and promise to *never* earn one ever again, you could delete the T4CC crystal definition and free resource space. But if even one single person holds a T4CC at any moment in time, the exact same amount of resources are spent as would be spent if everyone had a million of them.

Think about it this way. Every player has some T4CC and the servers must track that. If you sell all of them, the server still must track that you have exactly zero of them. Whether the server has to remember that you have 100 or I have zero, the amount of server resources spent tracking that is exactly the same. But if T4CC crystals disappeared completely, the game would no longer have to track that at all, it could basically remove several million "zeroes" out of its databases, freeing space.

That obviously cannot happen with T4CC crystals, so it doesn't matter how many players keep. It matters for things like one-off time limited crystals, which is why Kabam periodically forces them open and deletes them from player accounts. Every crystal type that exists is data it must track, multiplied by all the accounts that exist. And even though there might be a million active players, there's over a hundred million accounts. Every single one of those accounts has hundreds of crystals being tracked for it, of which that player probably has zero of them. But the game still has to track that the account has some number of them, and that number happens to be zero.
I'm not even going to pretend I'm a coder... but I would assume having data on every account costs server space. Also, as I understand it, the reason Kabam servers are always full is because the game is run a very old engine... ie if they updated the engine and servers almost all issues (including bugs) would go away.
Almost 100% wrong, but don't feel bad: people are constantly guessing wildly based on google searches and undergraduate textbooks and getting just as wrong.

Server space isn't exactly the issue: the issue is the speed at which data can be manipulated, and that doesn't always scale linearly or predictably. And space issues are not due to "old engines." They may be due to deep architectural issues that were created at the beginning of time and cannot be easily changed, but that's not the same thing.

In fact, systems are being upgraded all the time. The "parry timing" bugs that were introduced late last year and still plague the game today are not due to running an old engine, in fact they were introduced as part of a mandatory upgrade of the core Unity components Upgrading them created a discrepancy in how the higher level meta mechanics of the game worked and how the underlying engine processed them, creating timing issues that required them to completely rebuild those systems.

This is not the first time something like this happened either. A Unity engine upgrade around the time of 12.0 created similar problems for the game that took months to resolve.

I suspect you're probably using the words "engine" and "server" without really fully understanding what either of them refer to. "Engine" is a bit ambiguous. The game is built on Unity, which is a game system framework. It is often referred to as the core game engine. However, the "game engine" as a whole is a constellation of software with Unity at its core and the game's fundamental mechanics and systems constructed around it as interlocking software modules. But even that doesn't fully represent the entire game "servers" as the back end of the game runs within Google's cloud: there are Google cloud components that work with the Unity components to fully implement the back end of the game. That's why sometimes when Google's services have an outage, the game is also down or malfunctioning.

All of this is the server side part of the game. The client side is completely separate. The part that runs on people's phones itself has a core "engine" that is also based on Unity but also has MCOC-specific additions and modifications. The game client is being modified and updated constantly, and it is primarily here where the "Parry Bug" resides.

Some of the performance issues people see are due to server side issues or constraints, and some are due to client side issues, and some are due to a combination of both. Unless you understand how the game works and test diligently, it isn't easy to know which one you're looking at.
can I ask your credentials? You made a few condescending points here that you were very wrong about (IE I know what a server vs engine is)... I've also had coders explain to me this game's biggest issues are server space and the old engine being used.

In fact, in one of Brian Grant's recent videos he talks about a kabam dev telling him this exact same thing.

So again.. where is your expertise to make assumptions about me personally?
Well said!!
they seem to have ghosted after asking that
Since you put it that way:

1. I am a veteran systems engineer. I build these things like this for a living.

2. I have experience with game systems specifically. I've studied how they work architecturally for over twenty years. I started with the MUDs back in the day. In modern commercial terms, mostly MMOs, but MCOC has more in common architecturally (at least in this context) with MMOs than side scrolling fighting games.

3. I have experience with working on game systems on a professional contract basis, so I'm familiar with things like how game systems are partitioned and worked upon in general. My work was on systems design for reward threshold calculations for custom assembled content.

4. Most of my knowledge of MCOC (architecture) in particular comes from three sources: one: examining how it works. That sometimes happens when system engineers get bored during long downtimes. Knowing that the game uses Google cloud components, for example, is something I figured out during the first Big Downtime Event years ago. Kabam later confirmed that when other Google-related downtimes occurred. Second, Kabam has revealed technical information, although you sometimes have to be knowledgeable to understand what they are saying. For example, back around 12.0 Kabam referenced "vendors" working with them to solve the Parry issues. In this context, there are only two significant "vendors" - service providers like Google (who could not be responsible for Parry timing issues) and the software vendor for their underlying engine, in this case Unity. They later confirmed that as well. And third, it comes from conversations with the developers directly. For example, in the case of the Parry timing issue I was part of the beta looking at that problem, and in the case of the memory leak issue I was conducting my own investigation (along with a few other players) and communicating those results directly to the developers.

It is specifically my direct knowledge of how MCOC works, captured by directly conversing with the developers of the game, combined with the public statements they've made about how the game works, that informs my opinion of the nature of many of the technical problems with the game. My knowledge of what a knowledgeable person would know (I'm not the only person around here that knows these things, for example) combined with what I know is actually true about the game informs the basis for when I judge that someone is actually knowledgeable or just randomly guessing. So I stand by my assertion that you're just randomly guessing. Either you misunderstood your "coder friends" or they set you up with equally random guessing.

For example you don't have to take my word for it when I describe the source of the Parry timing bug, Kabam spelled this out themselves here: https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/281785/input-system-update-sept-2021-engine-upgrades-robots-and-more. They also explain how it was an update to Unity that created the Parry timing issue on iOS, and not the fact that the software was old. The input system built upon it was old, but it was old because it was designed to work with the way Unity originally worked, and there was no awareness of a need to change it until Unity's timing behavior changed. Any reasonably knowledgeable systems engineer would understand their explanation and find it credible. You could also search Unity forms to see if other developers were running into similar related issues with iOS timing on Unity at the same time (I did).

I don't recall Brian making the assertion you mention, but I don't watch all of his videos either. If you link to this statement, I'll go watch it and then ask him about it directly.
So to sum it up.. you don't have experience with a mobile fighting game or its engine.. you have experience with MMO's that run completely differently, but also believe that gives you expertise here? That even though people with direct coding knowledge of a game like this gave me information.. even though people that work on the game itself have told people (hear say) that the issues of the game are exactly what I (an admitted lay person on the issue) spelled out.... you still feel you know better than that and had to passive aggressively insult me multiple times to boot?
Pretty sure if he's getting kudos from Kabam Miike and other members of the Dev team for correctly explaining issues in greater detail on past threads, it means he does know what he's talking about.

This is why DNAs statements are usually held in some regard.
I have a pet peeve about people talking down to others... agree to disagree.
I have a pet peeve about people ignoring information from experts who clearly know what they’re talking about tbh

You can be annoyed about someone talking down to you without refusing to take on expert insight for personal reasons.
After being condescending I asked his credentials and he disappeared for days until someone else mentioned it... I know it's hard to see that in hindsight... but the guy went away after I asked his real deal then only came back when called out for it. No.. I don't just take people's word on a forum lol... I try to verify things.

So because he didn't immediately drop everything to give you his complete attention and focus on you, that disqualifies any and all of his credentials? That is absurd... It's actually a bunch of other words but I know for a fact I can't say those on these forums, so Absurd seems to be the best one word description of this whole thread.

In terms of his credentials, you don't have to believe them, the only thing I would suggest though is the fact that if members of the Dev team and Kabam Mike have agreed with him and saying that he's correct on these forums, then I'm pretty sure he at least knows what the hell he's talking about in regards to this one subject.

Starhawk · December 2021

I would like the introduction of awakening gem shards and the ability to sell 2* to 5* awakening gems if we want.

You would get shards of the same class and as you go to a higher star level the shard amount increases to form an awakening gem...this would still make it much more work to get a 6* awakening gem than a 4* awakening gem

Rasilover · December 2021

What about something like trading t5b for t2a?

Wicket329 · December 2021

EDIT: Pulled wrong quote, ignore this one

Wicket329 · December 2021

Jeremy3186 said:

doctorb said:

Jeremy3186 said:

DNA3000 said:

Jeremy3186 said:

DNA3000 said:

Colonaut123 said:
cluttering the servers
Crystals do not clutter servers. Crystal *types* clutter servers. If you can get every single player to sell *all* of their T4CC crystals and promise to *never* earn one ever again, you could delete the T4CC crystal definition and free resource space. But if even one single person holds a T4CC at any moment in time, the exact same amount of resources are spent as would be spent if everyone had a million of them.

Think about it this way. Every player has some T4CC and the servers must track that. If you sell all of them, the server still must track that you have exactly zero of them. Whether the server has to remember that you have 100 or I have zero, the amount of server resources spent tracking that is exactly the same. But if T4CC crystals disappeared completely, the game would no longer have to track that at all, it could basically remove several million "zeroes" out of its databases, freeing space.

That obviously cannot happen with T4CC crystals, so it doesn't matter how many players keep. It matters for things like one-off time limited crystals, which is why Kabam periodically forces them open and deletes them from player accounts. Every crystal type that exists is data it must track, multiplied by all the accounts that exist. And even though there might be a million active players, there's over a hundred million accounts. Every single one of those accounts has hundreds of crystals being tracked for it, of which that player probably has zero of them. But the game still has to track that the account has some number of them, and that number happens to be zero.
I'm not even going to pretend I'm a coder... but I would assume having data on every account costs server space. Also, as I understand it, the reason Kabam servers are always full is because the game is run a very old engine... ie if they updated the engine and servers almost all issues (including bugs) would go away.
Almost 100% wrong, but don't feel bad: people are constantly guessing wildly based on google searches and undergraduate textbooks and getting just as wrong.

Server space isn't exactly the issue: the issue is the speed at which data can be manipulated, and that doesn't always scale linearly or predictably. And space issues are not due to "old engines." They may be due to deep architectural issues that were created at the beginning of time and cannot be easily changed, but that's not the same thing.

In fact, systems are being upgraded all the time. The "parry timing" bugs that were introduced late last year and still plague the game today are not due to running an old engine, in fact they were introduced as part of a mandatory upgrade of the core Unity components Upgrading them created a discrepancy in how the higher level meta mechanics of the game worked and how the underlying engine processed them, creating timing issues that required them to completely rebuild those systems.

This is not the first time something like this happened either. A Unity engine upgrade around the time of 12.0 created similar problems for the game that took months to resolve.

I suspect you're probably using the words "engine" and "server" without really fully understanding what either of them refer to. "Engine" is a bit ambiguous. The game is built on Unity, which is a game system framework. It is often referred to as the core game engine. However, the "game engine" as a whole is a constellation of software with Unity at its core and the game's fundamental mechanics and systems constructed around it as interlocking software modules. But even that doesn't fully represent the entire game "servers" as the back end of the game runs within Google's cloud: there are Google cloud components that work with the Unity components to fully implement the back end of the game. That's why sometimes when Google's services have an outage, the game is also down or malfunctioning.

All of this is the server side part of the game. The client side is completely separate. The part that runs on people's phones itself has a core "engine" that is also based on Unity but also has MCOC-specific additions and modifications. The game client is being modified and updated constantly, and it is primarily here where the "Parry Bug" resides.

Some of the performance issues people see are due to server side issues or constraints, and some are due to client side issues, and some are due to a combination of both. Unless you understand how the game works and test diligently, it isn't easy to know which one you're looking at.
can I ask your credentials? You made a few condescending points here that you were very wrong about (IE I know what a server vs engine is)... I've also had coders explain to me this game's biggest issues are server space and the old engine being used.

In fact, in one of Brian Grant's recent videos he talks about a kabam dev telling him this exact same thing.

So again.. where is your expertise to make assumptions about me personally?
Well said!!
they seem to have ghosted after asking that

I apologize, this is the quote I meant to pull. This really seems like you not dropping it to me.

Dash855 · December 2021

It’s your rank up materials. You should decide what you want to do with them. I’ve got so many t4ccs I don’t need in overflow

Doug4theWin · December 2021

Enough with the coder dong comparison. Ridiculous attempt to flex.

Jake303AoS · December 2021

I've posted this in here before. We should get something for expiring resources. If they won't let us manually sell them, then they should just auto "sell" instead of expire to nothing.

Colonaut123 · December 2021

Jeremy3186 said:

Colonaut123 said:
I think it is too early for T5BC, T5CC and T2A, but not T4BC en T4CC.

I understand the latter is because it would be an extra source of T5CC and Kabam want to push easier access to Thronebreaker as much to the future as they can. But meanwhile, players are hoarding T4CC crystals and shard crystals like a hermit because they get to overflow with no use whatsoever, cluttering the servers. They have to let go sometime, but probably not before rank 4 are more prevalent.
We can already sell T4B... just not T4CC

My mistake, I just don't sell T4bc. But I would sell T4cc, as I have 100+ crystals of those. But what I want is probably not in the interest of the game or Kabam. Kabam doesn't want too many R3 and R4 6*, so they artificially limit T5cc resources. Out of that scarcity, they profit. That's why I believe T4cc won't be able to be sold unless R4 6* are more prevalent. I think this will be in 2023.

Wozzle007 · February 2022

I’ve had quite a few T2A expire. Think the item cap should be increased to 30 or should be able sell. Preferably do both.

Primmer79 · February 2022

Jeremy3186 said:
2 months after posting this... the people seem to want some form of high tier item selling at a rate of 80% ... hope someone at kabam see's this post

Just dropping by to add me to the other side.

I dont think a forum thread is an accurate representation of what the whole community wants. My guess would be its closer to 50/50

LeNoirFaineant · February 2022

I would definitely sell t2 alphas if I could. I have yet to let one expire but always have a lot in stash.

Primmer79 · February 2022

Jeremy3186 said:

Primmer79 said:

Jeremy3186 said:
2 months after posting this... the people seem to want some form of high tier item selling at a rate of 80% ... hope someone at kabam see's this post
Just dropping by to add me to the other side.

I dont think a forum thread is an accurate representation of what the whole community wants. My guess would be its closer to 50/50
its an open poll to whoever wants to vote... what you just said is "I know this city wanted the other candidate to win the election, even if the mayor got more votes" lol

its not an open poll, because
A) its not a poll and

we dont decide what the game can do

Normally i see forum posts like this and instead of commenting I usually scroll past instead of saying my opinion for the umpteenth time. My experience in this game from the beginning is I guess in a true poll it would be closer to 50/50.

my comparison is more like a door to door survey (you) and what would actually happen in an election (me)

Pikolu · February 2022

Most of the people here weren't around when you could sell T4CC, I still remember when a guy in my alliance accidentally sold a t4cc, that was back in the day when only the whales had r5 4*s. Also, 6*s require a lot of t4cc which I personally think is dumb, but that is a different conversation.

DNA3000 · February 2022

Primmer79 said:

Jeremy3186 said:

Primmer79 said:

Jeremy3186 said:
2 months after posting this... the people seem to want some form of high tier item selling at a rate of 80% ... hope someone at kabam see's this post
Just dropping by to add me to the other side.

I dont think a forum thread is an accurate representation of what the whole community wants. My guess would be its closer to 50/50
its an open poll to whoever wants to vote... what you just said is "I know this city wanted the other candidate to win the election, even if the mayor got more votes" lol
its not an open poll, because
A) its not a poll and
we dont decide what the game can do

Normally i see forum posts like this and instead of commenting I usually scroll past instead of saying my opinion for the umpteenth time. My experience in this game from the beginning is I guess in a true poll it would be closer to 50/50.

my comparison is more like a door to door survey (you) and what would actually happen in an election (me)

Forum polls are not statistically representative polls, but they are polls. If I had to guess, my guess is that if the entire playerbase were polled, a high percentage of players would vote to allow selling T4CC. Most of them would probably not understand the question's relevance, but they'd still vote to pick for allowing things over not allowing things. So in that sense, I think this poll is probably not wildly far off from the actual popular opinion.

The thing is, people were not against the option existing when it originally existed, and not when it was revokved. Knowing a lot of people want it doesn't change the situation. The devs knew the decision would be unpopular, but did it anyway because sometimes you have to do unpopular things to maintain the game. It isn't that the developers only do unpopular things when they don't realize they will be unpopular.

Something like 95% of the players of the game are completely free to play. I would bet that most of them would vote to make the stuff for sale offered for free if they were asked. Some of them might have the presence of mind to realize that would be suicidal, but most of them? I don't think so. But that would be, in fact, suicidal for the game. Popular, but only briefly.

Reference · February 2022

Primmer79 said:

Jeremy3186 said:
2 months after posting this... the people seem to want some form of high tier item selling at a rate of 80% ... hope someone at kabam see's this post
Just dropping by to add me to the other side.

I dont think a forum thread is an accurate representation of what the whole community wants. My guess would be its closer to 50/50

If you think this forum is representative of the whole community, you need to be cautious. Actually there are not many active forum people than you think. Some even open multiple forum accounts like what they did in game. Frankly a lot of helpful and advanced players in the earlier version of this forum no longer active in recent years. You can treat it as a small scale community club of the game, with a lot of CD-Rom - only read not write.

Real_Madrid_76_2 · February 2022

I dont have any t4cc left in inventory and no crystal too so my tr basic and te alpha are expiring for no reason

Reference · February 2022

To ans your poll question, even Kabam let you to sell, but they offer you a very poor term of exchange (say sell one T2A for 50 T3A fragments), would you still sell? Maybe, but only to those one day before expiry and you have nothing to rank up.

The mentality here is whenever they offer you something, they tend to start in poor term and/or take out something from you. So the essence is not just give you option, but at what terms of exchange.

RockCity333 · February 2022

If fine with not being able to sell them if they removed the storage caps, but since that won't happen I'll just keep hoarding and not ranking up because I don't have the other rank up materials in large enough quantities

Should we be able to sell high end rank up materials? (Poll)

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