I just hit Paragon by pushing through all of Act 7 this week. I still stand by original comment that the Bundle Deals shouldn’t be tied to story progression. I finally did the push because I don’t mind spending money on the game for deals but don’t want to feel like I’m getting the short end of the stick when I’m paying the same amount as somebody else.
Yeah it’s cool to have “titles” in the game but there can be other paths to progression in the game that measure skill, like placing in Battle grounds. One can argue getting into the Gladiator Circle is harder than finishing Story Mode.
No. Just no. Cash and unit deals are tailored to progression because guess what, Cav players don’t need 7* champs. While lower progression deals may be “worse”, they are still tailored fairly to their progression. Cav will get as much value from a deal for their account as a Paragon player will for theirs. There is no valid reason to argue that a player that signs up for their account the day before Cyber Weekend should be able to buy 7* champions and be immediately competitive on day 1. And guess what, in 2023 story progression is not even a matter of skill. Any player can purchase all the units they want to bully content into submission and become clueless on how to actually play the game. What you’re proposing only adds to the cluelessness of todays player base. Story progression is mostly a matter of time and players that have not invested that time into the game should not get a shortcut to benefits of players that actually put in the work. You only feel like you’re getting the short end of deals because we live in a day and age of spoiled brats that can’t handle not being able to get whatever they want and kick and scream when other players get better things. Players that don’t put in the work don’t have a right to access rewards they haven’t earned.
If cash deals were unlinked from progression, you would have to assume that all spenders have ranked 6&7 stars. Even newish ones. So you could really just do one or two difficulty levels of anything, as everyone has the champs, and few are going to pursue rewards that aren’t matched to their champs? But then, they won’t have developed the skills to do higher level content either. So maybe just don’t design anything?
The Titles are progress markers. The game requires participating in a number of game modes for that progress. It makes no sense to design a game with multiple game modes and make independent games within itself. Meaning, there is no one-stop-shop for everything. Those who want to progress as much as possible participate in as many as possible. The Rewards in BGs may be good for acquiring and Ranking Champs, but it doesn't provide the skills to use those Champs to the full extent. You can't in a Match of a couple minutes. While it's true that people can place the majority focus in whatever they want, it's not reasonable...and I consider it detrimental...to remove other progress requirements based on that. People don't actually develop their skills in other ways.
Would love to hear why content milestones are only linked to story content and why BGs cannot have a gating model similar to incursions.
I did not say "cannot." In fact, I said this is theoretically possible. What I said was "does not" and would take a significant amount of work to attempt to create.
First of all, Battlegrounds has special requirements on it that no other mode (not even alliance war) has. It must maintain a minimum participation density, or the turnstile mechanism that performs real time match making would not work properly. The longer it takes to find matches, the less likely most players will want to participate. We don't care how many people are playing the monthly EQ at 2am Eastern. We do care how many players are searching for matches. Because of that, Battlegrounds is designed to strongly encourage participation. That's the only reason the VT itself even exists. BG would function perfectly fine - even better as a competition - if it only was composed of the GC. The GC is the pure competition mode. VT is balanced between rewarding and incentivizing participation alongside competition. In fact, it skews more towards participation than competition in the early rungs of VT.
If BG was a progress gate, the developers would have to balance incentivizing participation and properly gating progress. In the current progressional ladder model, progress is gated behind two roughly independent requirements: completing content of a certain proscribed difficulty and duration, and gaining sufficient resources to expand roster both upward and outward in a particular way. For BG to replace the content requirement, we would have to define a specific metric for reaching *both* difficulty and duration parameters in a roughly congruent way. But what's the appropriate way to judge difficulty? We have UC players making it all the way to GC based almost entirely on match maker preferences and random match chance. It is simply not hard enough to reach GC for BG to gate anything.
We could change that, but only by reducing the incentivization for participation. And that's dangerous, because turnstile game modes are subject to death spirals. If you mess with them and cause a drop in participation, this can have irreversible downward effects on participation: its hard to find match, so I don't bother anymore, so there's fewer people looking for match, so its harder to find match. The devs know this (all devs know this) so they would be extremely unlikely to take such risks without some exigent reason for doing so.
All this assumes some reasonably simple progress model, which is blatantly impossible or too risky to even attempt. It does not preclude more complex models. Gaining such and such rungs or such and such ladder in such and such seasons under such and such circumstances. Anything can be made up with some mathematical model or other. But beyond some horizon, this becomes impractical for another reason: it becomes too complicated for players. The argument is often "if players don't understand it they can just ignore it" but that's not true. Players can only ignore the parts of the game they don't want to interact with up to some point. The *apparent* complexity of the game is not one of those things easy to ignore, because ironically when players don't understand the complexity of the game, they can't *know* if it safe to ignore.
What's MCOC? Its a fighting game, right? That's the obvious first impression. However, it is also wrong. There were many arguments about this on the forums and in the player community in general. Its a fighting game, so why do I have to manage resources? Its a fighting game, so why do I have to read all this ability stuff. I just want to punch things. This game is broken because it doesn't do what it is supposed to do, and what it is supposed to do is let me quickly log in and punch things. Once players get their first impression of anything, it is extremely difficult if not impossible to shake. As someone that has played more games than I can count, I could tell from day one even way back when that MCOC was not a fighting game. It had fighting, but it was a collection game with fighting. And as I played it, I realized it was as much of a resource management game as it was a fighting game. In fact, MCOC had more in common with MMOs than with any fighting game I'd ever seen. I made that argument repeatedly in the past. But I realized back then that this was somewhat of a fools errand, at least back then. The first impression was simply too strong, and the non-fighting game components still too underdeveloped back then. Today, I don't get quite as much push back on that one any more, even though I'm still making the same identical argument. The last eight years offers overwhelming evidence of what the game's design and trajectory is. But there are still people who believe that trajectory is wrong, because it doesn't match their own first impression of what the game is.
You can add whatever progress models you want. But they won't just be take it or leave it options. They will change the way the game is perceived in a particular way. Whether you want to do that is an independent decision from whether any particular progress model works at all, and whether it is worth the required resources to implement. To convince the devs to do something like this, you not only have to convince them it is a good idea, not only that the rewards for doing so will exceed the resource cost and the opportunity cost of developing it (while they are doing this, other things won't get done), you also have to convince them that the way this changes the game's nature is itself worth it.
Think Colossus. To me, the 1* Colossus decision was irrational. However, that's because it wasn't a rational decision. It was a values decision. Someone decided that this was a good idea, because it fit with their design aesthetic. And those are not arguments you can generally win.
I'm fine with BG the way it is. My point was BG can offer a path to roster progression for players, without having to go through the story content. The gating to BG store can be more roster linked like the incursion store is, instead of being linked to progression titles.
MCOC is a collection game and a resource management game. It doesn't make sense to create a major barrier to champion collection and resource acquisition in the middle of the story content (Act 6 is no longer endgame content).
It doesn't make sense that Cav with access to 6* r3s can't do nerfed content that was done by other players with 5* and r1 6*....
I didn't say it can't be done. It can, and obviously it is easier to do than it was for most people on this thread, since there are better champs to finish that content with.
At the same time, it is a reality that lot of people don't do it. Till ~18 months ago, completing Act 6 was the requirement to the highest title in the game. In another 6-9 months (?), it will be the requirement for the third highest title in the game. Further endgame gets from Act 6, more we will see players stopping their progression before that. Does anyone do variants now for progression? Till the last one was released they were a good source of resources, I have not seen them being suggested to any new players recently. Just like Acts 1-4 were streamlined, if the game continues to add to story content, the same fate will fall to Act 5 and 6 some time in the future.
However, in the meanwhile, this impacts experience in other parts of the game. With new modes, the devs have a choice to provide options to players to progress their rosters at a reasonable pace without high engagement in story content. Shifting AW rewards to BG led to a dramatic increase in BG participation this season (because everyone could get those milestone rewards). As matchmaking issues are being sorted out, BG can be an alternate path to roster progress for lower accounts. There can be gating to balance economic considerations, those don't have to be story related titles.
I just hit Paragon by pushing through all of Act 7 this week. I still stand by original comment that the Bundle Deals shouldn’t be tied to story progression. I finally did the push because I don’t mind spending money on the game for deals but don’t want to feel like I’m getting the short end of the stick when I’m paying the same amount as somebody else.
Yeah it’s cool to have “titles” in the game but there can be other paths to progression in the game that measure skill, like placing in Battle grounds. One can argue getting into the Gladiator Circle is harder than finishing Story Mode.
Cash and unit deals are tailored to progression because guess what, Cav players don’t need 7* champs.
I have no issue with progression based rewards. I just think the "worse" rewards for lower progression levels should cost less. I am speaking specifically about cash offers. Nothing else.
It doesn't make sense that Cav with access to 6* r3s can't do nerfed content that was done by other players with 5* and r1 6*....
thats the problem with bumrushing early game. there is no understanding of game design and core mechanics. including but not limited to champion ablities and counters, node design and even core fight mechanics like parries and intercepts. there is no need to read nodes and learn little tips and tricks like we did back in the day as you can just bum rush all content prior to act 6 with overpowered 5 and 6*.
i have an alt account i just pulled out. used it in gifting event prior for helping my main. just thought to play it now. it is level 40, i am just starting act 5 now. it has only 11 4* champs, yet it also has 7 5* champs but here is the kicker, it has 7 6* champs also. hulk, juggs, she hulk, hulkbuster, valk and odin. so everything is just easy smash smash smash, no if i was a new player i would not be learning how to play. i would just think it was brain dead tap tap swipe game. until i hit act 6 and then need to actually pay attention and learn and i would be lost AF
While we are at it, let’s do away with opponent difficulty rating and buffs/nodes based on story progression. Then there would really be no point to the game. Bwahahaha. At least inputs wouldn’t be an issue. Bwahahaha.
Eliminate story and keep the titles! Let people buy titles from the summoner market! Day one of installing the game: $100 to get throne breaker $300 to get paragon $500 for 10: R5 champ selectors $1000 for 30: R5 champ selectors. $3000 for 30: r2 7* champs.
Let OP buy everything! 8 years made irrelevant in 1 day with deals. This is the right time to move forward to offers. Let's goooo!!!
A more interesting discussion could be that if there can be alternate paths to title progression. Should story be the only way to measure skill in the game?
Can someone playing consistently at high AW or AQ tiers be considered good enough? Say to be upgraded from UC to Cav. How about someone who has cleared monthly EQ 3 times in a row?
No. We're not "grading" players with the story arcs. We are specifically creating a progression ladder for the players to traverse. We don't say "marathons grade runner performance, but there are many other ways to assess whether someone is a good runner, so maybe we should give people credit for a few miles of the New York marathon if they demonstrate those skills. That's nonsensical, because the purpose of the New York marathon is not to judge runners. It is to present runners with a specific task to perform. Only performance in that specific task should count, because that's the point.
Story arcs is one of the tasks the game content is explicitly designed to present a challenge suitable for gating progressional titles. It isn't there to judge whether you are worthy of the next title. It is there to complete as a prerequisite for progress.
In theory the game could create alternate paths to progress. I've had many interesting discussions in the past on that subject (Brian Grant aka ContestChampion once had a ton of such interesting ideas) but none of the other content in the game is currently *designed* to present such challenges in a way that would be progression balanced. We don't judge individual performance in AQ and AW. We can't judge performance in BG without sophisticated analysis due to the way the match maker works. Solo content outside of the story arcs aren't balanced for progress - in fact isolating progress gates to story content *releases* the developers to design the other solo content without having to worry about the progression implications of that content.
While none of this is impossible, at the moment is it worth the time and resources to create and the complexity increase in progression (having to explain to players that progression requires this, or this and that, or that and this other thing and three of those)? Probably not.
What is progression in the game? To some it is completing all content in the game, to others it is acquiring and ranking up champs.
To the devs, it is completing progressional content (i.e. the story arc content) and developing roster. And while anyone can choose to play the game any way they want and judge their own progress any way they want, only the devs hand out progression titles.
And before you try to convince the devs to adopt your choose your own adventure design philosophy, it would be instructive to consider why they changed progression gating from just completing content to completing content milestones *and* roster prerequisites. If you don't know why they did that, you won't understand why the odds of them adopting a rainbow progression matrix are almost zero.
Would love to hear why content milestones are only linked to story content and why BGs cannot have a gating model similar to incursions.
Clearly you didn't read or like my previous comment, so I'll try responding to this one (although DNA already did a fairly good job) and quote your relevant statements so as to not make the actual quoted bit way too long.
1. "story is also littered with fights which I'll politely call as niche (e.g. GM). These fights while interesting as a standalone challenge do little to advance the player's skills in other parts of the game." Really? You're using the GM as an example of a niche fight presumably to say that skills necessary to defeat him have no place in the rest of the game.... skills like dexing, blocking, hitting into block, being aggressive, baiting special attacks, dealing with timed phases, etc? You claim that their main function is as a hard progression stop or a resource drain, which they might be *if you haven't progressed to a certain level of skill*. Almost every fight can be bought past with an apropriate champion and buckets of cash, but what makes it progressional content is how the difficulty of not just boss fights but nodes, linked nodes, node combinations with champions, etc increase as you progress through the content. You then go on to explain how much these tougher fights forced you to practice game mechanics in order to beath them, but say that these mechanics don't really exist anywhere else and you didn't gain any skills through those fights. While these boss fights involve a lot of specific combinations of abilities for the boss, your champs still only have a specific set of moves. You still only have your specific set of champions to choose from. The process of you practicing those moves in specifically different ways than the standard 5-hit combo is one of the main points of providing content that cannot just be punched through. You learn how to play differently, improve your reflexes, improve your champion knowledge and roster, which is all a part of "progression". People who spend 3000 units to get through the GM have progressed less than those that do it itemless, but then you get into the whole system of revives and their purpose that could really get us bogged down.
2. "the opportunity cost of spending a lot of time on the roadblock fights is much higher." Unit values will always inflate, so it's not like roadblocks were any less enjoyable "back in my day". The whole point of progressional content is that it provides increasing challenge that you cannot always fight through. If you are good enough at the game and have a roster strength comparable to a TB player, then the progressional milestones to get to TB level *should not be a road block to you*. By nature of a challenge and milestone aceivement, the players that are TB have already made it past that hurdle, and all of the backlash on this thread is because new players shouldn't have access to things that they have not invested the opportunity cost to receive. For instance, while some people (OP) complain that a new player should be able to buy a 6* for 1USD (just for the sake of explanation, I don't really pay attention to cash deals) just like Paragon players since the value of the dollar should be the same. The problem with that is that Paragon players have invested much more effort (money, time, practice, networking for a better alliance, whatever) to get to where they are than your average Act 4 summoner (literally can't even tell you what those lower progression titles are).
3. You claim that DNA could have cleared "all story content" instead of just making the way through the VT to GC this season and that "You didn't because you thought the time was better spent elsewhere." I thought that the whole discussion was started because being Paragon (or any higher progression tier) inherently provided more value? It's not a given that the goal of an alt is to speedrun the game for the best value deals. BGs with a low level account sounds like a lot of fun tbh and I'd rather do that with random and low ranked champs.
4. "I don't think forum users / end game players realise how tedious Act 5 and 6 are in the current setting. That was endgame content when they cleared it, it is mostly a chore now. They were perfectly acceptable progression gates then, they probably aren't now despite the changes to those acts." I might argue that you also are making some assumptions here. I don't remember anyone thinking Act 6 was ever a blast (multiple nerfs ago) outside of the GM fight. It was most definitely a chore then, but a necessary one. I don't think you really backed up your claim that it has changed, just purely stated it. To combine this with your earlier point of the resource drain of story content, it was far greater comparatively when Act 6 came around (or before) and that was some of the most endgame content in game. It has become far easier, which doesn't seem to back up your claim that it is just "tedious" yet also somehow a "roadblock".
This is a bit of a classic forum issue. Most of us here have been through that content, so we can be very flippant about it. "Git gud" and all that. That isn't where most of the player base is, definitely not the new players who we hope stick around and make this game viable.
Maybe I'll put it in a different way, Act 6 is tedious for me, because I don't want to touch it again. If I started an alt now, I would stop at Cav and then just focus on other modes. Act 6 is a roadblock for emerging players, because they've never been through it before. Which was ok when TB was the pinnacle of the game. Now there is Paragon and maybe in six months or so, we'll have another title (and hopefully 8.3 and 8.4). Act 6 being one of the major gates for roster progress isn't an ideal situation then.
I had skills like dexing etc. well before I did the GM fight. The practice for GM fight was just that, practice for GM fight. Then I moved on and never thought about it again. Hasn't impacted my gameplay anywhere else. Honestly, where I really learnt to fight smartly was AW/AQ, because I realised that I was costing my alliance by not being as good as I can be. I called those fights "niche", because that's what they are. They are interesting, they probably deserve their own showcase, but they shouldn't be gatekeeping player progress on the roster side.
Shouldn't all progressively difficult content be more difficult for players until they reach the equivalent skill in gameplay (combined with sufficiently advanced roster/resources)? Your motivation for being better in AQ/AW seems like a similar motivation that I've seen many players have towards story content. One could argue that you are consting your alliance as much by staying at a lower progression level and not being as good as you could be. The game is not only a champion collection and resource management game because all of that champion collection and resource management is based around the actual combat aspect of the game. I would think that progressively increasing the difficulty of story content would increasingly force players to increase their skill level. I don't think you've made any argument about the fact that an equivalent progression award through another game format (AQ/Incursions/BGs) would have to be equally difficult. This would mean players would have to somehow be faced against a set of ever increasing skill-based challenges of equivalent difficulty to prove their progression, which would not stop the complaints that it was too difficult or too much of a roadblock for progression in a realm of the game that those players used to enjoy. There essentially has to be some realm of the contest that functions this way, and I don't think expanding that to other "more fun/rewarding/whatever the claim is" areas would solve the issue.
You also didn't really change my answer on fights like the GM. It's not like the skills that you needed for him were any different than skills you use throughout the rest of the contest. He is famous for being beatable by even the most trash champions, because the fight is based almost entirely on basic transferrable gameplay skills like blocking, parrying, etc. Sure, you have to have some competency at those skills to get there, but there is a huge gap between being able to occasionally dex a hit and being able to master the ability of dexing to the point that you can evade Nick Fury's sp1, Bishop's sp1, or even reliably fight the GM for several minutes without missing a dex on his sp1. That gap in basic competance and mastery is typically what separates an Uncollected player from a TB player. If an Uncollected player has those skills, then all that is stopping them is the time commitment of completing the requisite quests. If he GM was an actual roadblock for you that you didn't just need a couple revives for, then practicing for his fight would by nature have progressed your gameplay skills, team-building skills, and maybe even roster while looking for some of his more ideal counters.
I just hit Paragon by pushing through all of Act 7 this week. I still stand by original comment that the Bundle Deals shouldn’t be tied to story progression. I finally did the push because I don’t mind spending money on the game for deals but don’t want to feel like I’m getting the short end of the stick when I’m paying the same amount as somebody else.
Yeah it’s cool to have “titles” in the game but there can be other paths to progression in the game that measure skill, like placing in Battle grounds. One can argue getting into the Gladiator Circle is harder than finishing Story Mode.
1. You're welcome to stand by your original argument, but unless you address the plethora of opposing points against, then you won't really be swaying very many people. 2. Sure, you may be getting the "short end of the stick" by getting less bang for your buck, but Paragon players get better deals because they not only got the appropriate champion resources/champions, but because they put in the effort to qualify for such great deals (playing through the content).
It is almost like Kabam incentivises you to play their game by providing you with better deals... huh.
One can argue getting into the Gladiator Circle is harder than finishing Story Mode.
One could argue that climbing Mount Everest is harder than completing the New York marathon, but you don't get honorary titles for completing the New York marathon by climbing Mount Everest. You don't get to say you obviously deserve it, so gimme.
Also I got my Cav account into GC this past season, and I can tell you unequivocally that was much easier than "finishing" story mode. If that's all it took to get to Paragon I'd try next season with my Uncollected alt.
One can argue getting into the Gladiator Circle is harder than finishing Story Mode.
One could argue that climbing Mount Everest is harder than completing the New York marathon, but you don't get honorary titles for completing the New York marathon by climbing Mount Everest. You don't get to say you obviously deserve it, so gimme.
Also I got my Cav account into GC this past season, and I can tell you unequivocally that was much easier than "finishing" story mode. If that's all it took to get to Paragon I'd try next season with my Uncollected alt.
You don't need to give a Paragon title for people who got to GC. But you can give people who want to spend time in BG a decent path to roster progression, so that they can remain competitive in BG, by modifying the BG store gates (linking it to roster strength or BG progress vs. story progress). You can keep all the other Paragon perks to people who have completed Act 7 and have 3 R4s.
A more interesting discussion could be that if there can be alternate paths to title progression. Should story be the only way to measure skill in the game?
Can someone playing consistently at high AW or AQ tiers be considered good enough? Say to be upgraded from UC to Cav. How about someone who has cleared monthly EQ 3 times in a row?
No. We're not "grading" players with the story arcs. We are specifically creating a progression ladder for the players to traverse. We don't say "marathons grade runner performance, but there are many other ways to assess whether someone is a good runner, so maybe we should give people credit for a few miles of the New York marathon if they demonstrate those skills. That's nonsensical, because the purpose of the New York marathon is not to judge runners. It is to present runners with a specific task to perform. Only performance in that specific task should count, because that's the point.
Story arcs is one of the tasks the game content is explicitly designed to present a challenge suitable for gating progressional titles. It isn't there to judge whether you are worthy of the next title. It is there to complete as a prerequisite for progress.
In theory the game could create alternate paths to progress. I've had many interesting discussions in the past on that subject (Brian Grant aka ContestChampion once had a ton of such interesting ideas) but none of the other content in the game is currently *designed* to present such challenges in a way that would be progression balanced. We don't judge individual performance in AQ and AW. We can't judge performance in BG without sophisticated analysis due to the way the match maker works. Solo content outside of the story arcs aren't balanced for progress - in fact isolating progress gates to story content *releases* the developers to design the other solo content without having to worry about the progression implications of that content.
While none of this is impossible, at the moment is it worth the time and resources to create and the complexity increase in progression (having to explain to players that progression requires this, or this and that, or that and this other thing and three of those)? Probably not.
What is progression in the game? To some it is completing all content in the game, to others it is acquiring and ranking up champs.
To the devs, it is completing progressional content (i.e. the story arc content) and developing roster. And while anyone can choose to play the game any way they want and judge their own progress any way they want, only the devs hand out progression titles.
And before you try to convince the devs to adopt your choose your own adventure design philosophy, it would be instructive to consider why they changed progression gating from just completing content to completing content milestones *and* roster prerequisites. If you don't know why they did that, you won't understand why the odds of them adopting a rainbow progression matrix are almost zero.
Would love to hear why content milestones are only linked to story content and why BGs cannot have a gating model similar to incursions.
Clearly you didn't read or like my previous comment, so I'll try responding to this one (although DNA already did a fairly good job) and quote your relevant statements so as to not make the actual quoted bit way too long.
1. "story is also littered with fights which I'll politely call as niche (e.g. GM). These fights while interesting as a standalone challenge do little to advance the player's skills in other parts of the game." Really? You're using the GM as an example of a niche fight presumably to say that skills necessary to defeat him have no place in the rest of the game.... skills like dexing, blocking, hitting into block, being aggressive, baiting special attacks, dealing with timed phases, etc? You claim that their main function is as a hard progression stop or a resource drain, which they might be *if you haven't progressed to a certain level of skill*. Almost every fight can be bought past with an apropriate champion and buckets of cash, but what makes it progressional content is how the difficulty of not just boss fights but nodes, linked nodes, node combinations with champions, etc increase as you progress through the content. You then go on to explain how much these tougher fights forced you to practice game mechanics in order to beath them, but say that these mechanics don't really exist anywhere else and you didn't gain any skills through those fights. While these boss fights involve a lot of specific combinations of abilities for the boss, your champs still only have a specific set of moves. You still only have your specific set of champions to choose from. The process of you practicing those moves in specifically different ways than the standard 5-hit combo is one of the main points of providing content that cannot just be punched through. You learn how to play differently, improve your reflexes, improve your champion knowledge and roster, which is all a part of "progression". People who spend 3000 units to get through the GM have progressed less than those that do it itemless, but then you get into the whole system of revives and their purpose that could really get us bogged down.
2. "the opportunity cost of spending a lot of time on the roadblock fights is much higher." Unit values will always inflate, so it's not like roadblocks were any less enjoyable "back in my day". The whole point of progressional content is that it provides increasing challenge that you cannot always fight through. If you are good enough at the game and have a roster strength comparable to a TB player, then the progressional milestones to get to TB level *should not be a road block to you*. By nature of a challenge and milestone aceivement, the players that are TB have already made it past that hurdle, and all of the backlash on this thread is because new players shouldn't have access to things that they have not invested the opportunity cost to receive. For instance, while some people (OP) complain that a new player should be able to buy a 6* for 1USD (just for the sake of explanation, I don't really pay attention to cash deals) just like Paragon players since the value of the dollar should be the same. The problem with that is that Paragon players have invested much more effort (money, time, practice, networking for a better alliance, whatever) to get to where they are than your average Act 4 summoner (literally can't even tell you what those lower progression titles are).
3. You claim that DNA could have cleared "all story content" instead of just making the way through the VT to GC this season and that "You didn't because you thought the time was better spent elsewhere." I thought that the whole discussion was started because being Paragon (or any higher progression tier) inherently provided more value? It's not a given that the goal of an alt is to speedrun the game for the best value deals. BGs with a low level account sounds like a lot of fun tbh and I'd rather do that with random and low ranked champs.
4. "I don't think forum users / end game players realise how tedious Act 5 and 6 are in the current setting. That was endgame content when they cleared it, it is mostly a chore now. They were perfectly acceptable progression gates then, they probably aren't now despite the changes to those acts." I might argue that you also are making some assumptions here. I don't remember anyone thinking Act 6 was ever a blast (multiple nerfs ago) outside of the GM fight. It was most definitely a chore then, but a necessary one. I don't think you really backed up your claim that it has changed, just purely stated it. To combine this with your earlier point of the resource drain of story content, it was far greater comparatively when Act 6 came around (or before) and that was some of the most endgame content in game. It has become far easier, which doesn't seem to back up your claim that it is just "tedious" yet also somehow a "roadblock".
This is a bit of a classic forum issue. Most of us here have been through that content, so we can be very flippant about it. "Git gud" and all that. That isn't where most of the player base is, definitely not the new players who we hope stick around and make this game viable.
Maybe I'll put it in a different way, Act 6 is tedious for me, because I don't want to touch it again. If I started an alt now, I would stop at Cav and then just focus on other modes. Act 6 is a roadblock for emerging players, because they've never been through it before. Which was ok when TB was the pinnacle of the game. Now there is Paragon and maybe in six months or so, we'll have another title (and hopefully 8.3 and 8.4). Act 6 being one of the major gates for roster progress isn't an ideal situation then.
I had skills like dexing etc. well before I did the GM fight. The practice for GM fight was just that, practice for GM fight. Then I moved on and never thought about it again. Hasn't impacted my gameplay anywhere else. Honestly, where I really learnt to fight smartly was AW/AQ, because I realised that I was costing my alliance by not being as good as I can be. I called those fights "niche", because that's what they are. They are interesting, they probably deserve their own showcase, but they shouldn't be gatekeeping player progress on the roster side.
Shouldn't all progressively difficult content be more difficult for players until they reach the equivalent skill in gameplay (combined with sufficiently advanced roster/resources)? Your motivation for being better in AQ/AW seems like a similar motivation that I've seen many players have towards story content. One could argue that you are consting your alliance as much by staying at a lower progression level and not being as good as you could be. The game is not only a champion collection and resource management game because all of that champion collection and resource management is based around the actual combat aspect of the game. I would think that progressively increasing the difficulty of story content would increasingly force players to increase their skill level. I don't think you've made any argument about the fact that an equivalent progression award through another game format (AQ/Incursions/BGs) would have to be equally difficult. This would mean players would have to somehow be faced against a set of ever increasing skill-based challenges of equivalent difficulty to prove their progression, which would not stop the complaints that it was too difficult or too much of a roadblock for progression in a realm of the game that those players used to enjoy. There essentially has to be some realm of the contest that functions this way, and I don't think expanding that to other "more fun/rewarding/whatever the claim is" areas would solve the issue.
You also didn't really change my answer on fights like the GM. It's not like the skills that you needed for him were any different than skills you use throughout the rest of the contest. He is famous for being beatable by even the most trash champions, because the fight is based almost entirely on basic transferrable gameplay skills like blocking, parrying, etc. Sure, you have to have some competency at those skills to get there, but there is a huge gap between being able to occasionally dex a hit and being able to master the ability of dexing to the point that you can evade Nick Fury's sp1, Bishop's sp1, or even reliably fight the GM for several minutes without missing a dex on his sp1. That gap in basic competance and mastery is typically what separates an Uncollected player from a TB player. If an Uncollected player has those skills, then all that is stopping them is the time commitment of completing the requisite quests. If he GM was an actual roadblock for you that you didn't just need a couple revives for, then practicing for his fight would by nature have progressed your gameplay skills, team-building skills, and maybe even roster while looking for some of his more ideal counters.
It was just announced that Act 4 and 5 are being revamped.
It is easy to say all that stops players from progressing is time commitment to the story content. Especially, if you have already done it. For first time players, and even returning players, going through Act 5 and 6 is a long, laboured process - especially when there are more interesting and time sensitive events in the short term.
I doubt many people who face GM for the first time spend minutes without missing a dex. IMO, most people save up revives and units and chip away, even after a couple of practices. I definitely used up my stash of revives and some units to do it.
Again, I'm not advocating giving all TB/Paragon benefits to people who ignore story content. But I think, at the stage where the game is at, it makes sense to allow people who don't want to spend a lot of time on the story content as reasonable way to build up their rosters.
Players get to ignore every other mode in the game at a lower penalty - don't do Arena (get less gold), don't do AQ (fewer rank up materials) etc. - Don't do story and miss out on almost everything feels a bit punitive.
One can argue getting into the Gladiator Circle is harder than finishing Story Mode.
One could argue that climbing Mount Everest is harder than completing the New York marathon, but you don't get honorary titles for completing the New York marathon by climbing Mount Everest. You don't get to say you obviously deserve it, so gimme.
Also I got my Cav account into GC this past season, and I can tell you unequivocally that was much easier than "finishing" story mode. If that's all it took to get to Paragon I'd try next season with my Uncollected alt.
You don't need to give a Paragon title for people who got to GC. But you can give people who want to spend time in BG a decent path to roster progression, so that they can remain competitive in BG, by modifying the BG store gates (linking it to roster strength or BG progress vs. story progress). You can keep all the other Paragon perks to people who have completed Act 7 and have 3 R4s.
I can't do any of those things. All I can do is respond to specific posts with specific replies. Someone posted that you could make the argument that getting into GC is harder than finishing story mode. My response is that this is a) moot and b) false.
Again, I'm not advocating giving all TB/Paragon benefits to people who ignore story content. But I think, at the stage where the game is at, it makes sense to allow people who don't want to spend a lot of time on the story content as reasonable way to build up their rosters.
Actually, you were in fact advocating giving those benefits to players who ignore story content, by advocating for an alternate way to achieve progression while focusing only on the modes players want to focus on, such as Battlegrounds.
But if that's in fact all you were actually advocating for, problem solved. The game does this now. Battlegrounds is a reasonable way to attempt to grow roster, as one of the two components of overall game progress. Now, how much you can grow your roster in that way is ultimately determined by game progress, because roster rewards are linked to game progress. If you are attempting to do an end run around game progression by saying you don't expect players to get the Paragon title without doing story content, you just want a way to unlock Paragon-tier champion rarity rewards in the BG store so people can just keep gaining higher rarities without actually gaining those titles, then that's not going to happen under any circumstances whatsoever. That would actually be game breaking in the literal sense of that phrase.
Again, I'm not advocating giving all TB/Paragon benefits to people who ignore story content. But I think, at the stage where the game is at, it makes sense to allow people who don't want to spend a lot of time on the story content as reasonable way to build up their rosters.
Actually, you were in fact advocating giving those benefits to players who ignore story content, by advocating for an alternate way to achieve progression while focusing only on the modes players want to focus on, such as Battlegrounds.
But if that's in fact all you were actually advocating for, problem solved. The game does this now. Battlegrounds is a reasonable way to attempt to grow roster, as one of the two components of overall game progress. Now, how much you can grow your roster in that way is ultimately determined by game progress, because roster rewards are linked to game progress. If you are attempting to do an end run around game progression by saying you don't expect players to get the Paragon title without doing story content, you just want a way to unlock Paragon-tier champion rarity rewards in the BG store so people can just keep gaining higher rarities without actually gaining those titles, then that's not going to happen under any circumstances whatsoever. That would actually be game breaking in the literal sense of that phrase.
Thanks. That's good to know.
I don't think BG gives players earlier in story progression a reasonable way to grow roster. But that's a pointless assertion without numbers, which I don't have.
At the same time, there appear to be changes planned for Act 5 at least. So there is an acceptance that story is blocking progress at levels it should not. Reading your comments on that thread, you seem to view that change positively.
Like you said on the other threat "None of us are playing Acts 4-6 now", I don't think we are well placed to understand the progression challenges created by the middle acts in story. People commenting here are mostly endgame players and were endgame players even when Act 6 was launched. Now there are 36 more quests and an entire new game mode (which uses energy) on top of Act 6.
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And guess what, in 2023 story progression is not even a matter of skill. Any player can purchase all the units they want to bully content into submission and become clueless on how to actually play the game. What you’re proposing only adds to the cluelessness of todays player base. Story progression is mostly a matter of time and players that have not invested that time into the game should not get a shortcut to benefits of players that actually put in the work.
You only feel like you’re getting the short end of deals because we live in a day and age of spoiled brats that can’t handle not being able to get whatever they want and kick and scream when other players get better things. Players that don’t put in the work don’t have a right to access rewards they haven’t earned.
The Rewards in BGs may be good for acquiring and Ranking Champs, but it doesn't provide the skills to use those Champs to the full extent. You can't in a Match of a couple minutes.
While it's true that people can place the majority focus in whatever they want, it's not reasonable...and I consider it detrimental...to remove other progress requirements based on that. People don't actually develop their skills in other ways.
At the same time, it is a reality that lot of people don't do it. Till ~18 months ago, completing Act 6 was the requirement to the highest title in the game. In another 6-9 months (?), it will be the requirement for the third highest title in the game. Further endgame gets from Act 6, more we will see players stopping their progression before that. Does anyone do variants now for progression? Till the last one was released they were a good source of resources, I have not seen them being suggested to any new players recently. Just like Acts 1-4 were streamlined, if the game continues to add to story content, the same fate will fall to Act 5 and 6 some time in the future.
However, in the meanwhile, this impacts experience in other parts of the game. With new modes, the devs have a choice to provide options to players to progress their rosters at a reasonable pace without high engagement in story content. Shifting AW rewards to BG led to a dramatic increase in BG participation this season (because everyone could get those milestone rewards). As matchmaking issues are being sorted out, BG can be an alternate path to roster progress for lower accounts. There can be gating to balance economic considerations, those don't have to be story related titles.
there is no understanding of game design and core mechanics.
including but not limited to champion ablities and counters, node design and even core fight mechanics like parries and intercepts.
there is no need to read nodes and learn little tips and tricks like we did back in the day as you can just bum rush all content prior to act 6 with overpowered 5 and 6*.
i have an alt account i just pulled out. used it in gifting event prior for helping my main. just thought to play it now.
it is level 40, i am just starting act 5 now.
it has only 11 4* champs, yet it also has 7 5* champs but here is the kicker, it has 7 6* champs also.
hulk, juggs, she hulk, hulkbuster, valk and odin. so everything is just easy smash smash smash, no if i was a new player i would not be learning how to play. i would just think it was brain dead tap tap swipe game.
until i hit act 6 and then need to actually pay attention and learn and i would be lost AF
Let people buy titles from the summoner market! Day one of installing the game:
$100 to get throne breaker
$300 to get paragon
$500 for 10: R5 champ selectors
$1000 for 30: R5 champ selectors.
$3000 for 30: r2 7* champs.
Let OP buy everything!
8 years made irrelevant in 1 day with deals.
This is the right time to move forward to offers.
Let's goooo!!!
You also didn't really change my answer on fights like the GM. It's not like the skills that you needed for him were any different than skills you use throughout the rest of the contest. He is famous for being beatable by even the most trash champions, because the fight is based almost entirely on basic transferrable gameplay skills like blocking, parrying, etc. Sure, you have to have some competency at those skills to get there, but there is a huge gap between being able to occasionally dex a hit and being able to master the ability of dexing to the point that you can evade Nick Fury's sp1, Bishop's sp1, or even reliably fight the GM for several minutes without missing a dex on his sp1. That gap in basic competance and mastery is typically what separates an Uncollected player from a TB player. If an Uncollected player has those skills, then all that is stopping them is the time commitment of completing the requisite quests. If he GM was an actual roadblock for you that you didn't just need a couple revives for, then practicing for his fight would by nature have progressed your gameplay skills, team-building skills, and maybe even roster while looking for some of his more ideal counters.
2. Sure, you may be getting the "short end of the stick" by getting less bang for your buck, but Paragon players get better deals because they not only got the appropriate champion resources/champions, but because they put in the effort to qualify for such great deals (playing through the content).
It is almost like Kabam incentivises you to play their game by providing you with better deals... huh.
Also I got my Cav account into GC this past season, and I can tell you unequivocally that was much easier than "finishing" story mode. If that's all it took to get to Paragon I'd try next season with my Uncollected alt.
It is easy to say all that stops players from progressing is time commitment to the story content. Especially, if you have already done it. For first time players, and even returning players, going through Act 5 and 6 is a long, laboured process - especially when there are more interesting and time sensitive events in the short term.
I doubt many people who face GM for the first time spend minutes without missing a dex. IMO, most people save up revives and units and chip away, even after a couple of practices. I definitely used up my stash of revives and some units to do it.
Again, I'm not advocating giving all TB/Paragon benefits to people who ignore story content. But I think, at the stage where the game is at, it makes sense to allow people who don't want to spend a lot of time on the story content as reasonable way to build up their rosters.
Players get to ignore every other mode in the game at a lower penalty - don't do Arena (get less gold), don't do AQ (fewer rank up materials) etc. - Don't do story and miss out on almost everything feels a bit punitive.
But if that's in fact all you were actually advocating for, problem solved. The game does this now. Battlegrounds is a reasonable way to attempt to grow roster, as one of the two components of overall game progress. Now, how much you can grow your roster in that way is ultimately determined by game progress, because roster rewards are linked to game progress. If you are attempting to do an end run around game progression by saying you don't expect players to get the Paragon title without doing story content, you just want a way to unlock Paragon-tier champion rarity rewards in the BG store so people can just keep gaining higher rarities without actually gaining those titles, then that's not going to happen under any circumstances whatsoever. That would actually be game breaking in the literal sense of that phrase.
I don't think BG gives players earlier in story progression a reasonable way to grow roster. But that's a pointless assertion without numbers, which I don't have.
At the same time, there appear to be changes planned for Act 5 at least. So there is an acceptance that story is blocking progress at levels it should not. Reading your comments on that thread, you seem to view that change positively.
Like you said on the other threat "None of us are playing Acts 4-6 now", I don't think we are well placed to understand the progression challenges created by the middle acts in story. People commenting here are mostly endgame players and were endgame players even when Act 6 was launched. Now there are 36 more quests and an entire new game mode (which uses energy) on top of Act 6.