Roadmap 2023

Anyone else feel it might be time for Kabam to show the roadmap for 2023? At least to provide some kind of hope for a better future in this game?

Comments

Markjv81

What’s the point of a road map when kabam doesn’t stick to them? It just lifts peoples expectations then follows years worth of posts asking when stuff is happening.

We still don’t have mastery changes, wish crystals, galactus raids, relics, plus the massive disappointment that is the champion buff program.

Granted Kabam have done a lot of good stuff but I would rather they under promise and over deliver, road maps tend to be the opposite.
As I've been saying for a while and Jax is confirming, roadmaps aren't promises. Roadmaps are more of an expression of current intent projected into the future. The whole point of a roadmap is not to only say what you are absolutely certain you can deliver, because that defeats the purpose of a roadmap.

I see roadmaps all the time in the technology space. In terms of how of much them get delivered when they estimate they would get delivered, Kabam's development roadmap is pretty average. If you're looking for promises to bet the farm on, roadmaps are not for you. If you want an idea of where a company is trying to go in the future, where their immediate focus is, and how that might evolve over time, recognizing that roadmaps are virtually always flexible documents that will change over time (internally, you won't necessarily see that happening in real time), then roadmap offer a lot of insight and guidence.

If you want delivery promises, that's what announced features are. They announce them when they are basically certain they will arrive. And you'll probably find out about them a couple days in advance, usually. But if you want insight into the minds of the developers, that's where roadmaps are useful. They show you what the devs are thinking today, and give you an idea of how ambitious they are and in what directions. The roadmap told me a lot about where the devs were concentrating their focus, and by extension what they priorities were. Whether we get a wish crystal or not is not all that important. Knowing what they were thinking in terms of champion acquisition and their long term ideas about what is appropriate targeting was extremely informative. If you were willing to accept the roadmap for what it was.

Players always complain they want more transparency and insight into what's going on. But the simple fact is most people are not prepared to use that information in a reasonable manner. Knowing what the devs are thinking today is not a promise for what will happen tomorrow. The devs themselves cannot predict how the future will unfold. Which is why I've always said how we treat the information we're given determines how much we deserve to get. The devs live in a world with uncertainties. They can't predict with 100% certainty *who* will be there in a year, much less *what* they will definitely be working on. So what they are thinking today is interesting guidance for the future, but not a prediction of the future.

If players want insight, insight is messy and uncertain. And every player that demands promises is saying the players who want insight is not allowed to have it.

Nothing in my post said anything to to contrary of yours.

DNA3000

What’s the point of a road map when kabam doesn’t stick to them? It just lifts peoples expectations then follows years worth of posts asking when stuff is happening.

We still don’t have mastery changes, wish crystals, galactus raids, relics, plus the massive disappointment that is the champion buff program.

Granted Kabam have done a lot of good stuff but I would rather they under promise and over deliver, road maps tend to be the opposite.
As I've been saying for a while and Jax is confirming, roadmaps aren't promises. Roadmaps are more of an expression of current intent projected into the future. The whole point of a roadmap is not to only say what you are absolutely certain you can deliver, because that defeats the purpose of a roadmap.

I see roadmaps all the time in the technology space. In terms of how of much them get delivered when they estimate they would get delivered, Kabam's development roadmap is pretty average. If you're looking for promises to bet the farm on, roadmaps are not for you. If you want an idea of where a company is trying to go in the future, where their immediate focus is, and how that might evolve over time, recognizing that roadmaps are virtually always flexible documents that will change over time (internally, you won't necessarily see that happening in real time), then roadmap offer a lot of insight and guidence.

If you want delivery promises, that's what announced features are. They announce them when they are basically certain they will arrive. And you'll probably find out about them a couple days in advance, usually. But if you want insight into the minds of the developers, that's where roadmaps are useful. They show you what the devs are thinking today, and give you an idea of how ambitious they are and in what directions. The roadmap told me a lot about where the devs were concentrating their focus, and by extension what they priorities were. Whether we get a wish crystal or not is not all that important. Knowing what they were thinking in terms of champion acquisition and their long term ideas about what is appropriate targeting was extremely informative. If you were willing to accept the roadmap for what it was.

Players always complain they want more transparency and insight into what's going on. But the simple fact is most people are not prepared to use that information in a reasonable manner. Knowing what the devs are thinking today is not a promise for what will happen tomorrow. The devs themselves cannot predict how the future will unfold. Which is why I've always said how we treat the information we're given determines how much we deserve to get. The devs live in a world with uncertainties. They can't predict with 100% certainty *who* will be there in a year, much less *what* they will definitely be working on. So what they are thinking today is interesting guidance for the future, but not a prediction of the future.

If players want insight, insight is messy and uncertain. And every player that demands promises is saying the players who want insight is not allowed to have it.
Nothing in my post said anything to to contrary of yours.

The very first sentence in your post contradicts everything I'm saying: "What’s the point of a road map when kabam doesn’t stick to them?"

Also, the last one doesn't contradict what I said, rather it is an example of the worst case scenario I explicitly mention: "Granted Kabam have done a lot of good stuff but I would rather they under promise and over deliver, road maps tend to be the opposite."

Sundance_2099

road map is a misnomer of a term. A map is an accurate thing meant to help you get where you're going. These are more like... I dunno, some kind of plan for a mission with contingencies for things that may or may not happen.

DNA3000

road map is a misnomer of a term. A map is an accurate thing meant to help you get where you're going. These are more like... I dunno, some kind of plan for a mission with contingencies for things that may or may not happen.

The term "roadmap" is a common term of art among every industry that uses them. It refers to the current estimated projection of future plans based on current information, subject to change.

Intel uses roadmaps. Microsoft uses roadmaps. Google, Citrix, Checkpoint, RSA, Cisco, VMware, Western Digital, pretty much every technology vendor I've worked with or heard of has roadmaps. None of them use the term to mean an explicit set of directions intended to specify exactly what they are going to do and when.

They are called roadmaps in reference to actual maps of roads that drivers use to get where they are going. They don't dictate precisely what a driver must do, because a driver might encounter unforeseen road conditions, unexpected detours, or even decide to change their destination based on what they encounter. They are strategic plans subject to change.

What you're talking about are called "turn by turn directions." Those are supposed to dictate precisely what you are supposed to do. Nobody publishes those when it comes to their business.

Let's try this: Hey Google: is a product roadmap a guarantee

Is that an anomaly?

Is this the *only* view of roadmaps? Of course not: there are other opinions, but even they at least acknowledge what the prevailing opinion is.

I do not want to suggest that plans cannot change. They can and must — especially when you are presented with or learn something entirely new. Often the specific details of the features you are building will change. Or you need to be flexible when engineers are pulled to troubleshoot a tricky bug. But the overall strategy that you worked so hard to define should not be a moving target.

And I should point out that article was written by someone who's explicit position is representing a company who sells the notion of using dynamic roadmaps as the primary means of customer facing software development management. In other words, this is a disciple of the religion "roadmaps are promises."

Zuko_ILC

Forget the roadmap fix the bugs!

Zuko_ILC

I totally get and agree with Jax’s assessment of the situation. The only thing I’d ask for in regards to topics from previous roadmaps about specific projects that haven’t yet been implemented would just be a little one line note saying whether they have been scrapped, are still being worked on, or are temporarily postponed. I don’t need a why, because as stated no reason will be good enough for some people. But just like a:

RELICS: Under Development
WISH CRYSTALS: Scrapped
GALACTUS RAIDS: Postponed
MASTERIES 2.0: Soon™️

Just so we have a kind of idea of what is still on the board and what isn’t.

Why would you want them to follow up?

Longshot_33

Kabam jax your completely correct. Don’t waste our time with ideas which may never happen. No sense in it. Can only end badly.

Wozzle007

I don’t think anyone expects road maps to be totally delivered as stated. The issue isn’t the parts of roadmaps that aren’t delivered, it’s parts of roadmaps that aren’t delivered and never communicated as to what’s happening with them. Wish crystals, is this something that’s still intended? Masteries 2.0 and mastery builds is this something that still be intended and when. Raids, are these still coming? There’s loads more and @RichTheMan did a video on what was said in road maps versus the delivery.

We’ve had strikers in the game and actually they’ve been pretty fun. Battle grounds has been on the whole a success (just got sort out bugs and cheaters). The QOL of life changes from @Kabam Zero have been great. So it’s not as is if we don’t see things are being done. But there’s a lot in the roadmaps that we value that haven’t been done that would be great if implemented. Not only that but what else is coming? What is in the horizon to look forward to that might be at the expanse of something suggested in the past?

We all know we’ve gone through both a pandemic and a broken input system that has likely shifted resources on a lot of things. But we often have beg, claw and scratch for updates on these things. And it’s not until we hit a critical mass of the community with our pitch forks out demanding some kind of an update that we get anything. Ignoring previous roadmaps in the hope we’d forget or stop bringing up what was in them causes undue resentment. I’d much rather (this might just be me) have communication come out that says we were planning on doing X but have found resources to deliver to much, so no longer doing X but doing Y, Z and A instead. These are being planned for delivery in 3/6/12/24months. I think @Kabam Jax style has really been a breath of fresh air to the community. I think stopping road maps isn’t the answer, but they probably should start with a “we said this, we did this, we didn’t do this and here’s why. Now here’s what we intend to do…”

Reference

We'd love to pull together a new roadmap. But, let me explain our hesitation, first.

I was not here when the previous roadmaps were created. Obviously, the world was flipped upside down in the last few years, and some specific features from the previous roadmaps were side-lined. Some of that may still be in the works, some of it may have been moved to a back burner in favour of some of the newer content we have released or planned, some of it may never surface.

That being said... There is a lingering sense from some of the community that anything that didn't see release was an "undelivered promise" and it comes up often enough to cause hesitation. Roadmaps are not promises, but rather concepts and ideas that the team are working towards. If they get to a step of development and decide a feature isn't going to provide a good player experience, or cannot feasibly fit into our game in its current state, they should step away from it and refocus.

If we don't circle back to the old roadmaps, some players will scoff at the new ones and claim everything is unlikely, or yell about what wasn't done ("why not do X like you said, first?"). If we do address the old roadmaps, it's open season for another group to argue that we didn't do enough, or that the reasons for not pursuing an idea were too weak.

If we do proceed with a new roadmap, we will have people that are mad about old roadmaps and we'll have people that will be disappointed if the features don't come to fruition, thus opening the situation to repeat itself on cycle.

You can see evidence of this type of thinking on this post and almost every other one about any previous roadmap. It's very nearly a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" type of situation.

All of that said. A new roadmap is something that we are interested in pulling together. I think if we establish early on that these are concepts and ideas and are not guaranteed to see release, it's something we could all move forward with. It could provide some transparency of what's happening behind the scenes and it could give us all an idea of what we should look forward to.

Dear Jax, a normal roadmap process should be (1) Planning (2) Implementation (3) Review (4) Feedback and (5) Revision or adjustment. Your explanation for fear of empty promise or “over expectation” by some players is mainly because your company roadmap process skipped (3) (4) and lack of transparency for (5).

Taking former Dev Diaries as an example. A lot of things which have been missing the mark, like New AQ AW format, Mastery 2.0, Wish Crystal, Practice Room, etc. It may be because of different reasons from Kabam perspective to delay or withdraw it against the planned roadmap. However, there is little or no communication to the community about the reason behind. Therefore we saw a lot of roadmaps in Dev Diary since 2019 yet we never see how Kabam review their process and their feedback to the community expectation. Whenever you said you will do something within 6 months 12 months and / or 24 months, concerned players would like to know why it didn’t happen after that period.

Besides, I’m always uncomfortable to see why your team delete some posts asking about the progress. I don’t understand your team criteria but I just saw a lot of normal posts “tracking” the progress by different players being deleted. Which gives me a pretty worse impression as your team used to say something when shut down a post, whether reasonable or not, but removing posts is like cancelling the voice.

I mean, your communication did improve the transparency and change the confrontation attitude for some of your team did. Nonetheless, communication should not be limited to acknowledgement and we do hope to understand why those items being listed in roadmap were not implemented and whether your Dev team would drop it out or revising the schedule. The former interview of game designer Kabam Broccoli impress a lot of players because of his straight and frank talk on a lot of topics, yet it only happens when he leaves. I think many players want to hear that voice from the game team, in which you can be the bridge of that channel.

heirDEZ

Y’ALL REALLY THINK KABAM ABOUT TO FOLLOW A ROAD MAP & ESPECIALLY MAKE IT PUBLIC, SO WHEN THEY DON’T DELIVER THEY’RE SCOLDED FOR FALSE PROMISES

SO CUTE ☺️

unknown

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Mofugger

There is a lingering sense from some of the community that anything that didn't see release was an "undelivered promise" and it comes up often enough to cause hesitation. Roadmaps are not promises, but rather concepts and ideas that the team are working towards.

TL;DR

make a better roadmap that clearly communicates the things you want to communicate.
follow up on the roadmap at a regular cadence
don't blame the community for not understanding Kabam's intent

I think this above quote from Jax is a really good bar for setting expectations. Not promises, but concepts. May happen, may not.

However, I don't think the last roadmap I read was positioned that way. I loves me a good roadmap discussion...or a backlog grooming, bug burndown, velocity planning, or heated post-mortem. But Kabam shot themselves in the foot in their presentation of that previous roadmap.

I don't think it was clear to the majority of the community that this was a roadmap of ideas to explore. It felt more like a roadmap of things that would be delivered, and it even came with rough timelines of when the community could expect to see these things. The way the roadmap was delivered to the community doesn't match the intent described above. It was a pretty big miss in fact. And then the radio silence on meaningful followup left the community to guess for themselves what was going on.

Rather than use that as an excuse for hesitation, or blame the community for misinterpreting the intent of the roadmap, make a better roadmap. Make it clear that these things are concepts. Give regular updates and treat the roadmap as the organic thing that it is to the community. Put a TL;DR version up front–a simple table with concept name, stage of development, summary notes. The stages of development could be: Idea, Proof of Concept underway, Pulled Killswitch, Beta, etc. Don't give dates for things until they've progressed beyond concept.

Qwerty12345

Masteries 2.0?

There are still "Coming Soon" placeholders from years back... Adding more and putting them there wouldn't even be 2.0.

Now making them easier and cheaper to switch between, and making some of them more relevant (scouting, half the class ones, etc.)... that would also be welcome.

Since "betas in prod" are now a thing... Try 3 new masteries over on the right... make them free / zero mastery points, and let people try them for a couple weeks, and if they work well, make them permanently unlockable / put a typical mastery cost on them.

GroundedWisdom

We'd love to pull together a new roadmap. But, let me explain our hesitation, first.

I was not here when the previous roadmaps were created. Obviously, the world was flipped upside down in the last few years, and some specific features from the previous roadmaps were side-lined. Some of that may still be in the works, some of it may have been moved to a back burner in favour of some of the newer content we have released or planned, some of it may never surface.

That being said... There is a lingering sense from some of the community that anything that didn't see release was an "undelivered promise" and it comes up often enough to cause hesitation. Roadmaps are not promises, but rather concepts and ideas that the team are working towards. If they get to a step of development and decide a feature isn't going to provide a good player experience, or cannot feasibly fit into our game in its current state, they should step away from it and refocus.

If we don't circle back to the old roadmaps, some players will scoff at the new ones and claim everything is unlikely, or yell about what wasn't done ("why not do X like you said, first?"). If we do address the old roadmaps, it's open season for another group to argue that we didn't do enough, or that the reasons for not pursuing an idea were too weak.

If we do proceed with a new roadmap, we will have people that are mad about old roadmaps and we'll have people that will be disappointed if the features don't come to fruition, thus opening the situation to repeat itself on cycle.

You can see evidence of this type of thinking on this post and almost every other one about any previous roadmap. It's very nearly a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" type of situation.

All of that said. A new roadmap is something that we are interested in pulling together. I think if we establish early on that these are concepts and ideas and are not guaranteed to see release, it's something we could all move forward with. It could provide some transparency of what's happening behind the scenes and it could give us all an idea of what we should look forward to.

Thank you for reiterating some of the points I tried to make when some of the changes outlined didn't come to pass. I think it's a fine line to walk when making an effort to communicate. I appreciate your time and energy.

DNA3000

Dear Jax, a normal roadmap process should be (1) Planning (2) Implementation (3) Review (4) Feedback and (5) Revision or adjustment. Your explanation for fear of empty promise or “over expectation” by some players is mainly because your company roadmap process skipped (3) (4) and lack of transparency for (5).

You are talking about internal roadmaps. Except for a very limited subset of companies, nobody exposes that process to the public. Specifically because of the problems discussed here.

MagicBenton

I think all of this talk of essentially whether or not the players can "handle" being given info/insight that may or may not come to fruition is absurd. Some communication is better than no communication. Some info as to where the game is headed, what is still in the works, and what has been scrapped is better than none of that at all. Which is where we've been for well over a year now.

There are always going to be people complaining whether you do a roadmap or not. I don't appreciate someone else telling me what information I can "handle" knowing/not knowing. Transparency is all most people ask for and every mature player can hope for. Ignore the others, they are always going to have a gripe.

@Kabam Jax has been a tremendous step in the right direction, but there is no reason we can't get a quarterly roadmap outlining the things that are being worked on, plans for the near term and long term, things that they'd have like to implement by now but have been difficult to get done, and what items have been scrapped. This was promised a long time ago when they realized how poor their communication was. It lasted about a year, but now we're back to the old ways -- and have been for some time.

The idea that this info can't be shared because parts of the playerbase will feel "let down" when some of the items don't happen is a copout. Those people, and the entire rest of the community, are even more letdown when they don't have any info thrown their way.

Maverick75

There are 2 ways, better than silence?
1) Just mention what is really sure to be implemented
2) Put several levels of priority in front of the topics

Reference

Dear Jax, a normal roadmap process should be (1) Planning (2) Implementation (3) Review (4) Feedback and (5) Revision or adjustment. Your explanation for fear of empty promise or “over expectation” by some players is mainly because your company roadmap process skipped (3) (4) and lack of transparency for (5).
You are talking about internal roadmaps. Except for a very limited subset of companies, nobody exposes that process to the public. Specifically because of the problems discussed here.

Probably you are too new to this forum and forget the background behind Dev Team announce their 1st Roadmap in Dev Diary and what they said in that post……even you seems joining this forum when it was launched.

If they have never made this roadmap public but someone leak that out, then I can take it as internal. Otherwise it is already a roadmap communicate to the community. Twist the original purpose of such roadmap won’t help defence anything.

DNA3000

Dear Jax, a normal roadmap process should be (1) Planning (2) Implementation (3) Review (4) Feedback and (5) Revision or adjustment. Your explanation for fear of empty promise or “over expectation” by some players is mainly because your company roadmap process skipped (3) (4) and lack of transparency for (5).
You are talking about internal roadmaps. Except for a very limited subset of companies, nobody exposes that process to the public. Specifically because of the problems discussed here.
Probably you are too new to this forum and forget the background behind Dev Team announce their 1st Roadmap in Dev Diary and what they said in that post……even you seems joining this forum when it was launched.

If they have never made this roadmap public but someone leak that out, then I can take it as internal. Otherwise it is already a roadmap communicate to the community. Twist the original purpose of such roadmap won’t help defence anything.

What.

Let's try this again. The whole "Dear Jax this is what a road map is" thing that you mentioned is not something the vast majority of businesses actually do, except for internal roadmaps. Internal roadmaps are the ones that go through the lifecycle you mention. And because they are internal, outsiders rarely see them.

Externally published roadmaps, which are the ones that Kabam actually released publicly, do not follow the same script you mentioned, because that places too heavy a burden on the publication of that roadmap.

I'm not sure what Google search or Wikipedia article you're quoting from when you assert what a roadmap is, but whatever source it was it did not contain enough detail to clarify the nuances between internal roadmaps designed to be a component of internal strategic planning, and public roadmaps that are primarily intended to communicate a point-in-time projection of current plans and priorities without exposing or entangling restricted operational information.

ZAHIDMALIK1588

What’s the point of a road map when kabam doesn’t stick to them? It just lifts peoples expectations then follows years worth of posts asking when stuff is happening.

We still don’t have mastery changes, wish crystals, galactus raids, relics, plus the massive disappointment that is the champion buff program.

Granted Kabam have done a lot of good stuff but I would rather they under promise and over deliver, road maps tend to be the opposite.
I could literally hear Jax's point sailing over your head.

I miss Drax.. Nothing goes over his head

VanillaCoke

All of that said. A new roadmap is something that we are interested in pulling together. I think if we establish early on that these are concepts and ideas and are not guaranteed to see release, it's something we could all move forward with. It could provide some transparency of what's happening behind the scenes and it could give us all an idea of what we should look forward to.
Thanks for this whole post Jax that was a really great insight

I think what I've quoted here is the way to go, some members of the community take it as gospel that whatever in a roadmap will happen, and if it doesn't then there is some sort of failure to hold kabam to account for - even if the vast majority ends up added to the game.

If you really, really spell out in huge capital bold letters that nothing is guaranteed at all and that all it is, is an insight into what might happen in the future then I think you've created enough clarity. And then anyone who does end up mad that there was a "broken promise" will rightly just be reminded of what a roadmap is. If you make sure it's clear that a roadmap is a plan for what may be, and not what will be, then the only people getting mad will be those that have misunderstood due to themselves - not because of a lack of communication.

I love reading roadmaps, it keeps me excited for the future of the game - and not just for specific things, but for the fact that such a range of things are planned. I really hope you guys can find a way to get one out, but I understand the misgivings about why you may not want to.

Jax, if this is the case, then for a lack of a better term “Do not over promise and under deliver”. Your team should not say “we’re working on Raids” when the community is looking for something more interesting than AQ and AW to then later say internally “This isn’t feasible, let’s not tell the community”. I personally was hoping for the Wish Crystal, because of how much choice it gives me since the game does not give you much of a choice in champion acquisition.

If anything, I would suggest to under promise and over deliver so that our expectations can be blown away if you do great things.

Wicket329

All of that said. A new roadmap is something that we are interested in pulling together. I think if we establish early on that these are concepts and ideas and are not guaranteed to see release, it's something we could all move forward with. It could provide some transparency of what's happening behind the scenes and it could give us all an idea of what we should look forward to.
Thanks for this whole post Jax that was a really great insight

I think what I've quoted here is the way to go, some members of the community take it as gospel that whatever in a roadmap will happen, and if it doesn't then there is some sort of failure to hold kabam to account for - even if the vast majority ends up added to the game.

If you really, really spell out in huge capital bold letters that nothing is guaranteed at all and that all it is, is an insight into what might happen in the future then I think you've created enough clarity. And then anyone who does end up mad that there was a "broken promise" will rightly just be reminded of what a roadmap is. If you make sure it's clear that a roadmap is a plan for what may be, and not what will be, then the only people getting mad will be those that have misunderstood due to themselves - not because of a lack of communication.

I love reading roadmaps, it keeps me excited for the future of the game - and not just for specific things, but for the fact that such a range of things are planned. I really hope you guys can find a way to get one out, but I understand the misgivings about why you may not want to.

Jax, if this is the case, then for a lack of a better term “Do not over promise and under deliver”. Your team should not say “we’re working on Raids” when the community is looking for something more interesting than AQ and AW to then later say internally “This isn’t feasible, let’s not tell the community”. I personally was hoping for the Wish Crystal, because of how much choice it gives me since the game does not give you much of a choice in champion acquisition.

If anything, I would suggest to under promise and over deliver so that our expectations can be blown away if you do great things.

If Kabam came out and said “we can promise you two champions a month (except for December), an event quest, and a side quest, and nothing else” and called it a road map, there would be riots.

The problem isn’t missed goals. I actually love hearing about aspirational ideas for the game even if they don’t happen, because it gives insight into what the devs are thinking about. The problem the community has had with the previous road maps is 1) not understanding that these are aspirational documents subject to change rather than concrete, already completed projects; and 2) failure on Kabam’s side to communicate when a road map project has been scrapped or delayed or for whatever reason not happened within their previously discussed timeline.

I get it if the technology for Wish crystals doesn’t work in the game. I understand if Masteries 2.0 has been put on the back burner due to other more pressing issues. The world’s been on fire for a few years now, plus MCOC has had all of these input issues to deal with on top of it. It happens. And I think the community would (mostly) be understanding if Kabam had come out and said “Mastery reworks are tabled for now while we adjust to XYZ new thing that has gone horribly wrong.” It’s just that last part that’s missing.

GinjabredMonsta

All of that said. A new roadmap is something that we are interested in pulling together. I think if we establish early on that these are concepts and ideas and are not guaranteed to see release, it's something we could all move forward with. It could provide some transparency of what's happening behind the scenes and it could give us all an idea of what we should look forward to.
Thanks for this whole post Jax that was a really great insight

I think what I've quoted here is the way to go, some members of the community take it as gospel that whatever in a roadmap will happen, and if it doesn't then there is some sort of failure to hold kabam to account for - even if the vast majority ends up added to the game.

If you really, really spell out in huge capital bold letters that nothing is guaranteed at all and that all it is, is an insight into what might happen in the future then I think you've created enough clarity. And then anyone who does end up mad that there was a "broken promise" will rightly just be reminded of what a roadmap is. If you make sure it's clear that a roadmap is a plan for what may be, and not what will be, then the only people getting mad will be those that have misunderstood due to themselves - not because of a lack of communication.

I love reading roadmaps, it keeps me excited for the future of the game - and not just for specific things, but for the fact that such a range of things are planned. I really hope you guys can find a way to get one out, but I understand the misgivings about why you may not want to.

Jax, if this is the case, then for a lack of a better term “Do not over promise and under deliver”. Your team should not say “we’re working on Raids” when the community is looking for something more interesting than AQ and AW to then later say internally “This isn’t feasible, let’s not tell the community”. I personally was hoping for the Wish Crystal, because of how much choice it gives me since the game does not give you much of a choice in champion acquisition.

If anything, I would suggest to under promise and over deliver so that our expectations can be blown away if you do great things.
If Kabam came out and said “we can promise you two champions a month (except for December), an event quest, and a side quest, and nothing else” and called it a road map, there would be riots.

The problem isn’t missed goals. I actually love hearing about aspirational ideas for the game even if they don’t happen, because it gives insight into what the devs are thinking about. The problem the community has had with the previous road maps is 1) not understanding that these are aspirational documents subject to change rather than concrete, already completed projects; and 2) failure on Kabam’s side to communicate when a road map project has been scrapped or delayed or for whatever reason not happened within their previously discussed timeline.

I get it if the technology for Wish crystals doesn’t work in the game. I understand if Masteries 2.0 has been put on the back burner due to other more pressing issues. The world’s been on fire for a few years now, plus MCOC has had all of these input issues to deal with on top of it. It happens. And I think the community would (mostly) be understanding if Kabam had come out and said “Mastery reworks are tabled for now while we adjust to XYZ new thing that has gone horribly wrong.” It’s just that last part that’s missing.

I think another problem is lack of communication. It's cool to have roadmaps of things to maybe come, but that's all we would usually get. If you're gunna make a roadmap there should also be bi monthly updates on it or some sort of communication to let people know these still are being looked at. At the end of the day, communication comes back as the main issue between kabam and the community

Wicket329

All of that said. A new roadmap is something that we are interested in pulling together. I think if we establish early on that these are concepts and ideas and are not guaranteed to see release, it's something we could all move forward with. It could provide some transparency of what's happening behind the scenes and it could give us all an idea of what we should look forward to.
Thanks for this whole post Jax that was a really great insight

I think what I've quoted here is the way to go, some members of the community take it as gospel that whatever in a roadmap will happen, and if it doesn't then there is some sort of failure to hold kabam to account for - even if the vast majority ends up added to the game.

If you really, really spell out in huge capital bold letters that nothing is guaranteed at all and that all it is, is an insight into what might happen in the future then I think you've created enough clarity. And then anyone who does end up mad that there was a "broken promise" will rightly just be reminded of what a roadmap is. If you make sure it's clear that a roadmap is a plan for what may be, and not what will be, then the only people getting mad will be those that have misunderstood due to themselves - not because of a lack of communication.

I love reading roadmaps, it keeps me excited for the future of the game - and not just for specific things, but for the fact that such a range of things are planned. I really hope you guys can find a way to get one out, but I understand the misgivings about why you may not want to.

Jax, if this is the case, then for a lack of a better term “Do not over promise and under deliver”. Your team should not say “we’re working on Raids” when the community is looking for something more interesting than AQ and AW to then later say internally “This isn’t feasible, let’s not tell the community”. I personally was hoping for the Wish Crystal, because of how much choice it gives me since the game does not give you much of a choice in champion acquisition.

If anything, I would suggest to under promise and over deliver so that our expectations can be blown away if you do great things.
If Kabam came out and said “we can promise you two champions a month (except for December), an event quest, and a side quest, and nothing else” and called it a road map, there would be riots.

The problem isn’t missed goals. I actually love hearing about aspirational ideas for the game even if they don’t happen, because it gives insight into what the devs are thinking about. The problem the community has had with the previous road maps is 1) not understanding that these are aspirational documents subject to change rather than concrete, already completed projects; and 2) failure on Kabam’s side to communicate when a road map project has been scrapped or delayed or for whatever reason not happened within their previously discussed timeline.

I get it if the technology for Wish crystals doesn’t work in the game. I understand if Masteries 2.0 has been put on the back burner due to other more pressing issues. The world’s been on fire for a few years now, plus MCOC has had all of these input issues to deal with on top of it. It happens. And I think the community would (mostly) be understanding if Kabam had come out and said “Mastery reworks are tabled for now while we adjust to XYZ new thing that has gone horribly wrong.” It’s just that last part that’s missing.
I think another problem is lack of communication. It's cool to have roadmaps of things to maybe come, but that's all we would usually get. If you're gunna make a roadmap there should also be bi monthly updates on it or some sort of communication to let people know these still are being looked at. At the end of the day, communication comes back as the main issue between kabam and the community

Yeah, in the past I’ve held up the practices of Bungie (the company behind the first 3 Halo games and now Destiny and Destiny 2) as a good example. They do a weekly blog post on Thursdays that just gives a little peek behind the curtain to discuss some of what they are working on and why they make the changes in game that they do. Destiny 2 is obviously a bigger game than this and with more moving parts, so it requires more frequent updates. But if Kabam did something like this just like alongside their monthly updates to say “here’s what is happening this month, and here’s a look at some stuff coming down the pipe in future updates,” that would be awesome.

But I get why game developers don’t want to overshare. Bungie, again, is an example. When they break bad news to the player base, a certain element of it goes rabid and starts personally attacking members of the communications or dev teams. If you’re a member of a team like that, and you know your communications with the community could bring that result, why would you do it? Silence is much easier and doesn’t bring that kind of focused fury on you.

So yes, I would love it to see more open lines of communication. But I very much understand the reluctance from the game team. We as a community need to demonstrate that we aren’t going to fly off the handle at the slightest bit of bad news, but we can’t demonstrate that unless we actually receive that information.

VanillaCoke

Jax, have you heard of… Bases?

Wiredawg1

We'd love to pull together a new roadmap. But, let me explain our hesitation, first.

I was not here when the previous roadmaps were created. Obviously, the world was flipped upside down in the last few years, and some specific features from the previous roadmaps were side-lined. Some of that may still be in the works, some of it may have been moved to a back burner in favour of some of the newer content we have released or planned, some of it may never surface.

That being said... There is a lingering sense from some of the community that anything that didn't see release was an "undelivered promise" and it comes up often enough to cause hesitation. Roadmaps are not promises, but rather concepts and ideas that the team are working towards. If they get to a step of development and decide a feature isn't going to provide a good player experience, or cannot feasibly fit into our game in its current state, they should step away from it and refocus.

If we don't circle back to the old roadmaps, some players will scoff at the new ones and claim everything is unlikely, or yell about what wasn't done ("why not do X like you said, first?"). If we do address the old roadmaps, it's open season for another group to argue that we didn't do enough, or that the reasons for not pursuing an idea were too weak.

If we do proceed with a new roadmap, we will have people that are mad about old roadmaps and we'll have people that will be disappointed if the features don't come to fruition, thus opening the situation to repeat itself on cycle.

You can see evidence of this type of thinking on this post and almost every other one about any previous roadmap. It's very nearly a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" type of situation.

All of that said. A new roadmap is something that we are interested in pulling together. I think if we establish early on that these are concepts and ideas and are not guaranteed to see release, it's something we could all move forward with. It could provide some transparency of what's happening behind the scenes and it could give us all an idea of what we should look forward to.

That’s all well and good. But there one issue with what you are saying. Yea people do say where is this and that from past road maps. Like the wish crystal…players wouldn’t be asking where something is if YOU at kabam actually communicated this stuff. This has always been an issue with kabam is the lack of communication from kabam with the player base. Always promises that it will improve yet never has

Wozzle007

Sometimes you’ve got give the people what they want and the people want a road map. We want something to be excited over. It’s like when you go on holiday, you make plans of all the exciting things you’re gonna do, all the sites you’re gonna see, all the gelato you’re gonna eat. But then when you get there you hear about an amazing new thing you have to go do, so you change your plans and miss out that cave you were gonna see on day 2. We’ve all seen caves before and you have the opportunity to go on a speed boat!!! Then day 5 rolls around and you decide to go into a casino, it’s awesome and exciting but you lose half you’re money. So now instead of that expensive meal you were going to go out for you’re now sitting in the hotel with a bag of crisps. You buy a lotto ticket the next day and win all you’re money back! Yay the luck is on. Time for that awesome meal, we’re back on track baby! But then you get COVID and the rest of the holidays ruined and you have to quarantine because life isn’t fair.

Plans change but we still like the excitement of making the plans, hearing the plans and hopefully the best stuff from them comes off. If something comes up a long the way that delays the plan then that’s life. If you keep us informed ok, we may not like it but we’d understand we’d still love you. It’s the telling us of plans and then radio silence that makes us want to go nuclear. Hopefully we can all plan for gelato and have gelato. I really need to go back to Italy, they have the best gelato. But yes, roadmaps please.

Rookiie

Sometimes you’ve got give the people what they want and the people want a road map. We want something to be excited over. It’s like when you go on holiday, you make plans of all the exciting things you’re gonna do, all the sites you’re gonna see, all the gelato you’re gonna eat. But then when you get there you hear about an amazing new thing you have to go do, so you change your plans and miss out that cave you were gonna see on day 2. We’ve all seen caves before and you have the opportunity to go on a speed boat!!! Then day 5 rolls around and you decide to go into a casino, it’s awesome and exciting but you lose half you’re money. So now instead of that expensive meal you were going to go out for you’re now sitting in the hotel with a bag of crisps. You buy a lotto ticket the next day and win all you’re money back! Yay the luck is on. Time for that awesome meal, we’re back on track baby! But then you get COVID and the rest of the holidays ruined and you have to quarantine because life isn’t fair.

Plans change but we still like the excitement of making the plans, hearing the plans and hopefully the best stuff from them comes off. If something comes up a long the way that delays the plan then that’s life. If you keep us informed ok, we may not like it but we’d understand we’d still love you. It’s the telling us of plans and then radio silence that makes us want to go nuclear. Hopefully we can all plan for gelato and have gelato. I really need to go back to Italy, they have the best gelato. But yes, roadmaps please.

What a story

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Nemsa_M4n

I'd like to know what happened to alliance boss raids!