Winter of Woe Community Chat [MERGED THREADS]

Figured it'd be a good idea to get this started so people can discuss what works and what doesn't. Please feel free to post feedback below!

Comments

Ruwqiersa

We actually need a LOT of robots that dont rely on debuffs to do damage hoooooly

captain_rogers

@Kabam Jax honestly dude you shouldn't be comparing revive nerf with this lmao.

The main motive of this game is to keep the players fun and engaging (I suppose). Some changes as you said are necessary to keep the fun element in game, like rng rewards/slow releasing of contents, and revive farming nerf is one of them. Revive farming honestly killed the fun in everest contents like necropolis and carina v3, and it is justified that the team removed it. But honestly as a player do you think it is fun to have 10 energy per fight? Nah, majority of players ain't going to solo that abs man, but with reduced health, we could actually try out multiple champs for that objective. In the end, if the difficulty remains the same, most of us are anyways going to end up spending a lot of revives and units in this content, even with 1 energy per tile.

Everyone makes mistakes, and this is a mistake from kabam's team. So instead of trying to justify it, why don't you try to actually consider our feedback? The dev team took the playerbase 's feedback seriously and we ended up getting a enjoyable content like necropolis, I mean, necropolis works in the way it was intended and is honestly one of the most fun game modes you guys ever made, hundred times more fun than lol or aol.

Raids had a lot of issues in it's first week but you guys took our feedback and introduced a lot of changes, Why don't you do the same for winter of woe and other seasonal challenges? It's upto you to decide, but Go through forums, twitter, mcoc global chat or subreddits, and you'll find how majority of players actually don't enjoy this fight mainly due to this energy restriction. You still have time to improve this challenge and not let winter of woe die. But if the difficulty is going to be same with 5 energy restriction,then this game won't be fun for like 95% of intended playerbase.

5ra

I appreciate the acknowledgement, but as an endgame player I'm definitely not excited about this change. I hope you guys decide to change your mind as I do enjoy the game and challenges. I just want my time valued as a loyal player. It takes between 50-60 mins for 10 energy. That's quite a long time especially considering the AI and champ issues most notably warlock.

Eb0ny-O-M4w

Would love to hop in here and add some additional insight.

(don't say time; that isn't a relevant resource in the game's economical balance).

.

Neither is money a resource in the game. Yet it has been treated as so for the longest of times

Josh2507

We also spoke honestly about why this energy cost needs to exist. But for extra context, there are many players who would dive into this type of content, practice, lose and restart in order to work towards a solo, literally requiring no cost to their account. I don't mean cost in a financial sense, but as we said on the stream, Summoners aren't meant to get high rewards for literally nothing. (don't say time; that isn't a relevant resource in the game's economical balance).

The problem with discouraging the whole “quit out and restart” thing, is that these type of fights are incredibly finicky. The slightest mistake, one dropped input, 0.2 of a second late on that dex and you’re dead.

If a player is so dedicated to this fight that they practically continuously for 2 weeks to get the solo, they deserve to get through itemless. It’s not an exploit, it’s skill and dedication.

In the end that’s what these fight should be about, the players skill. Not their item stash.

And that last point about how time isn’t a relevant resource. That is plain and simple wrong.

Ashacekar

I will press the buzzer meanwhile discussion is on

Bahubali

So basically kabam wants us to try less and spend resources in a single run.. Then Why not add 13 more empty nodes before the fight.. Thats 1 energy refill per fight for "game's economical balance".
Makes it more clear to us.

Ackbar67

We also spoke honestly about why this energy cost needs to exist. But for extra context, there are many players who would dive into this type of content, practice, lose and restart in order to work towards a solo, literally requiring no cost to their account. I don't mean cost in a financial sense, but as we said on the stream, Summoners aren't meant to get high rewards for literally nothing. (don't say time; that isn't a relevant resource in the game's economical balance).

I can understand that reasoning, but my question is what changed? We had 9 Summer of Pain fights plus the finale, and 4 sets of Eternity of Pain, each with 4 fights and its own finale, and most recently we had EoP Acceptance, only about a year ago. All of them had 0 energy cost and provided the best rewards available in the game for their time. Is this a new design philosophy?

JT_Supreme

The robot tag is absolutely brutal. No viable way to deal with the unstoppable besides Dragon Man SP1, but the animation is so dang long you’re often throwing it into a block.

Also, wanted to point out the sheer ridiculousness of the reaction time.

Like, my fist is literally inside him before standing…in no way shape or form could they possibly block that! Not even mentioning the “root slide” with Sandman, where Abs just straight up moves while rooted.

That major AI issue, plus the robot objective kinda killed the fun for me
I saw this on Nick136's channel and happened to me a few times using Sandman. Rooted champs aren't supposed to block - they should try to heavy or throw their specials once their power comes back. yet another bug.

The root slide is what got me killed most times, super frustrating.

captain_rogers

We also spoke honestly about why this energy cost needs to exist. But for extra context, there are many players who would dive into this type of content, practice, lose and restart in order to work towards a solo, literally requiring no cost to their account. I don't mean cost in a financial sense, but as we said on the stream, Summoners aren't meant to get high rewards for literally nothing. (don't say time; that isn't a relevant resource in the game's economical balance).
The problem with discouraging the whole “quit out and restart” thing, is that these type of fights are incredibly finicky. The slightest mistake, one dropped input, 0.2 of a second late on that dex and you’re dead.

If a player is so dedicated to this fight that they practically continuously for 2 weeks to get the solo, they deserve to get through itemless. It’s not an exploit, it’s skill and dedication.

In the end that’s what these fight should be about, the players skill. Not their item stash.

And that last point about how time isn’t a relevant resource. That is plain and simple wrong.

Man you spoke what's in my mind, What is the only legit way of average player to get a solo? Git good, and how can we git gud, by practicing
We shouldn't be penalized for practicing, If I soloed the abs man after 150 attempts, I completely deserve the solo. By keeping the energy cost at 1 per tile, atleast we can try and try against the champ, I did multiple practice runs against titania before going for my actual necropolis run. There wouldn't be much fun if necro had 5 energy per tile, same goes for here, but I don't have much hope after Jax's response. It's seems like they actually intend us to suffer, not only by the difficulty of fight but also for the requirements to reach the fight itself,lol.

Bahubali

@Kabam Jax

If you created a challenge, let us try and explore more.. Already the fight is restricting with those nodes and objective tags. Adding this energy cost to these factors is just saying "spend resources and units"

I enjoyed and appreciated node design of necropolis fights better. Necro let us try and experiment with so many diff champs for diff paths like Kate, AdamW, Wong, Vox, Stryfe, Abs, Zemo etc. But This?

Just think about it.. 2-3 Counters for a fight from a pool of 200+ champs. Do you think it is fun or challenging for playerbase?

Nemesis_17

Would love to hop in here and add some additional insight.

There are times where choices are made or systems are implemented when we know Summoners are going to be unhappy, but those changes are deemed necessary. Take a look at removing revive farming, most recently, as an example. Just because we know this choice is going to be unpopular, doesn't mean they aren't warranted. Sometimes there is a fundamental difference between what Summoners want and what the game needs, we've discussed this concept here before.

What you're seeing in the livestream isn't us trying to sell you on the energy being a positive, because that would be ridiculous.

We also spoke honestly about why this energy cost needs to exist. But for extra context, there are many players who would dive into this type of content, practice, lose and restart in order to work towards a solo, literally requiring no cost to their account. I don't mean cost in a financial sense, but as we said on the stream, Summoners aren't meant to get high rewards for literally nothing. (don't say time; that isn't a relevant resource in the game's economical balance).

Aside from restating what happened in the livestream, I'm not sure what the commentary is here? We presented information we knew wouldn't be popular from the community, but knew was necessary from a game design perspective? If that's all, glad we're aligned.

We also spoke honestly about why this energy cost needs to exist. But for extra context, there are many players who would dive into this type of content, practice, lose and restart in order to work towards a solo, literally requiring no cost to their account. I don't mean cost in a financial sense, but as we said on the stream, Summoners aren't meant to get high rewards for literally nothing. (don't say time; that isn't a relevant resource in the game's economical balance).

This is the paragraph I hate the most.

“There are many players who would dive into this type of content, practice, lose, and restart in order to work towards a solo, literally requiring no cost to their account.”

Why exactly is that a problem? Content is made to be completed, a summoner put in the practice to hone their skills enough to get a solo, and were rewarded for it with no item cost. Put a 1000 unit paywall in front of the content if we aren’t allowed to complete it without “no cost to our account.”

I don’t agree with this logic that we have to give something up in game to be eligible for rewards. The only price for the rewards from content should be the effort it took to complete it, if I want to spend units for resources I’ll wait for July 4th to do so.

Seems to me like the real reason is greed but hidden behind the excuse of “it’s what the players need.” I call bs. It’s for profit. Any short term financial gain is at the expense of the long term relationship of the community, and at the end of the day, the community is what keeps the game alive.

Edit: idk why it ended up like this but my post keeps getting eaten so it’s stuck like this

Kabam Jax

@Kabam Jax You might hate me right now for this whole post, but do you think someone can edit the original title of this post to 2024 instead of 2023? I see we're kindred spirits as you recently made a similar forum post mistake when adding the Lunar event start dates lol

I don't hate you for this post, haha. I hope that's not how it's come across.

I feel regret about hopping in, if we're being honest. There's a lot of negative emotions swirling around and I just invited them all towards myself, it seems. But that's not your fault!

I swapped the dates.

Josh2507

Man you spoke what's in my mind, What is the only legit way of average player to get a solo? Git good, and how can we git gud, by practicing
We shouldn't be penalized for practicing, If I soloed the abs man after 150 attempts, I completely deserve the solo. By keeping the energy cost at 1 per tile, atleast we can try and try against the champ, I did multiple practice runs against titania before going for my actual necropolis run. There wouldn't be much fun if necro had 5 energy per tile, same goes for here, but I don't have much hope after Jax's response. It's seems like they actually intend us to suffer, not only by the difficulty of fight but also for the requirements to reach the fight itself,lol.

100%

The idea that we shouldn’t practice on this fight is insane. No, kabam I’m not going to buy an Odin every two weeks to revive my way through. If it gets to that point, then I’ll just give up.

As I said before, these fights should be about the players skill & dedication. Not their item stash.

klobberintyme

Jaxthoughts:

Jax is a pro. Lesser folks would the naming names. Thanks Jax!

XFREEDOMX

@Kabam Jax You might hate me right now for this whole post, but do you think someone can edit the original title of this post to 2024 instead of 2023? I see we're kindred spirits as you recently made a similar forum post mistake when adding the Lunar event start dates lol
I don't hate you for this post, haha. I hope that's not how it's come across.

I feel regret about hopping in, if we're being honest. There's a lot of negative emotions swirling around and I just invited them all towards myself, it seems. But that's not your fault!

I swapped the dates.

Please know that all the 'negative emotions' are not directed towards you. We are just frustrated, that's all. And the community loves you for everything you do!.

Chovner

@Kabam Jax
I also wanted to note that the point of my post isn't to dump on you and Kevin for this whole situation, since we know you had the hard task of delivering what you knew would be unfavorable news on a livestream to the community.

Grub88

Is this not just a straight up admission that they want the game to be pay to win? Goodbye competitive player base, hello whales

Polygon

@Kabam Jax " Can we expect the remaining fights to also be limited to 1 or 2 counters per tag?

I’m a Valiant player but I will have to rank 5 and ascend a 5 *because of the restrictive nature of the tags.

I’m still going to do it but I have carpal tunnel syndrome and a 45 minute fight does not sound too delightful.

You guys have stacked the nodes and healthpool gargantually compared to SOP which I’m not complaining about, but at least back then the objectives were not so limited on available options.

Furthermore, if the reasoning for making the nodes was because of higher attack availability as 7*’s, you have to also take into consideration the other side of the coin, that not a lot of people will have the 7* yet and therefore, the highest rarity available would be a 6* rank 3. That’s not to say that the nodes should not be harder, but a simple solution of widening the champion availability can fix this problem.

unknown

This content has been removed.

Wozzle007

For a lot of players, this is not fun content. I enjoyed Necropolis. I don’t enjoy this. I have plenty of revives to be able to revive through and I will in the end, but I need to get practice in first. Every time I start to get into a flow I’m out of energy. Then need to wait (or use energy). I feel like I’m getting the hang of the fight and then get 5 hit combod to oblivion. It’s not fun and I don’t mind as know with practice I’ll get the hang, take off a decent chunk I can be happy with then revive through the rest. But this 10 energy cost is really punishing and just takes the fun away from the game.

Malchaeis

One of the things I liked most about the SOP and EOP was the challenging fun factor in it. Being able to try out different champions and seeing how much damage we could take off in one run was awesome. Sharing pics in your alliance of how you did. Challenging other members to see if they could take off more with so and so champ. Learning to fight against different combinations of nodes, gaining experience on how to fight against that champion, etc. I understand one of the reasons you took away revive farming was specifically for this kind of event. You didn't want to see people spamming revives to beat this content. Fair enough. I'm not arguing that point we'd be here forever lol. Limiting attempts being an energy wall.... I understand you don't want people "earning" rewards for free as you say... but at the same time everybody that has to be paragon to even attempt this challenge. Isn't that a slap in the face to paragon players, especially those that just ranked up to paragon? Winter of Woe is supposed to be challenging. It's in the name. But I think you've underestimated how much you've diminished the fun factor in this challenge compared to previous years. Some will agree with some topics in this post. Some will disagree. Content should be challenging but fun. If it's not fun, what keeps your player base engaged and coming back?

ahmynuts

@Kabam Jax You might hate me right now for this whole post, but do you think someone can edit the original title of this post to 2024 instead of 2023? I see we're kindred spirits as you recently made a similar forum post mistake when adding the Lunar event start dates lol
I don't hate you for this post, haha. I hope that's not how it's come across.

I feel regret about hopping in, if we're being honest. There's a lot of negative emotions swirling around and I just invited them all towards myself, it seems. But that's not your fault!

I swapped the dates.

I don't think any of the negativity is intended to be directed toward you. It might just be because you're the only one so far who has acknowledged what's going on and responded to us

Avnish

Le me: did my first solo after couple of tries energy cost hurts but I am happy.

@Kabam Jax sometime community wants to try other champions for the guantlet quest. So that they can make team for final quest.. but as it is 10 per try no one gonna do it. Becuz there other content needs energy and we have to complete that.

I know will be too much but can't you remove the energy cost once any summoner done all the objectives. Trying on these scary opponents in Everest content makes us better and skilled player somehow..

jdschw

Summoners aren't meant to get high rewards for literally nothing. (don't say time; that isn't a relevant resource in the game's economical balance).

I find this to be a fascinating observation.
@Kabam Jax if this is true, then why do arenas exist?

As far as I can tell, the purpose of arenas is to give players a way to trade time for resources. As long as you're winning most of your fights, arenas don't cost any in-game resource. It just costs time.

Of course, arenas don't have "high rewards". So maybe player time *is* an implied resource - just, one with low value in the game's economy.

(Please understand, i intend no malice here. This post is not sarcastic. I just saw this quote and it really got me thinking about the value of our time in this game.)

Suros_moon

Summoners aren't meant to get high rewards for literally nothing. (don't say time; that isn't a relevant resource in the game's economical balance).
I find this to be a fascinating observation.
@Kabam Jax if this is true, then why do arenas exist?

As far as I can tell, the purpose of arenas is to give players a way to trade time for resources. As long as you're winning most of your fights, arenas don't cost any in-game resource. It just costs time.

Of course, arenas don't have "high rewards". So maybe player time *is* an implied resource - just, one with low value in the game's economy.

(Please understand, i intend no malice here. This post is not sarcastic. I just saw this quote and it really got me thinking about the value of our time in this game.)

Ftp individuals arent going to place well in any arena for a highly desired champ. Unit refreshing ensures that so, in a way, he right! Time alone isnt enough! Of course, as people complete their 6 star rosters this changes but we’ll see the normal curve return come 7 star arenas

GroundedWisdom

Definitely not directed at you, Jax. All good. What I think would be prudent to communicate to them is that this Fight, as it is now, is not just a challenge. It's restrictive to the point that it will cost a significant number of Players the final Milestone. I think the general consensus is definitely that it's not designed for a majority and that it's supposed to be hard. However, it's beyond even investing in from my side. I have no issues making an effort and using Resources if needed. When there's little point because you're chipping away one or two percent Damage maximum, trying to avoid Brute Force, dealing with Regen without adequate counters, and getting K.O.'d with one hit, that's unreasonable, even considering what it is and is supposed to be.
As always we appreciate and respect you. The whole team for that matter. It's the situation that's causing frustration.

Crcrcrc

How am I supposed to solo every fight with iHulk if I can't try a couple thousand times off camera for perfect rng to make him look more overpowered than he is?

Actually what I meant to say was this won't affect me because it will be a solo on the first attempt.

Suros_moon

Nah Jax, it seems like after the revive farming the team is using the excuse “what the game needs” a bit too much and loosely at the moment. The reality is the way the entry cost worked for previous Limited Time Endgame content were fine as it is. Content creators resetting and going for solos? I definitely see that happening. Assuming the majority of the community is doing the same? That’s a ridiculous claim.
I didn't say "majority," by any means. But you also have to keep in mind that we have data that shows Summoner behaviour, we're not simply pulling anecdotal information from our limited reach of conversational community members.

I'm not saying everyone should be happy with this, I'm simply providing context. We're aware of the sentiment, we're paying attention to feedback.

“Summoner Behavior” is a really interesting way to say “the percentage increase in item cost we are hoping to extract from players who could otherwise learn to play the mode”!

BigPoppaCBONE

For a lot of players, this is not fun content.

AND

Content should be challenging but fun. If it's not fun, what keeps your player base engaged and coming back?

I think the team got a little too giddy with piling on nodes and overlapping annoyances that they absolutely know everyone hates. This fight meandered over to punishment from challenging fun. Finishing this fight doesn't give the relieved sense of accomplishment of a hard won fair fight. This gives sharp annoyance that something desirable was hidden behind this nonsense. Hopefully the team really pays attention here and doesn't dismiss this as typical customer whining. Content-wise, this ain't it. I'm going to need more info about this Deathless situation to decide if I want to continue bothering with this optional content and I was super excited about getting 7 and 6 star DKG.