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Energy Boost/Shorter Refill Time - Permanent Addition?
Fryday
Posts: 738 ★★★★
With so many solo content demanding so much energy per move. Having this energy boost did make a positive improvement experience overall.
So I was just wondering what is the chance of Kabam implementing this recent Energy Boost (Shorter Refill Time) as a permanent thing going forward.
Does anyone from Kabam, forum guardian or CCP happen to have any extra insight on this?
So I was just wondering what is the chance of Kabam implementing this recent Energy Boost (Shorter Refill Time) as a permanent thing going forward.
Does anyone from Kabam, forum guardian or CCP happen to have any extra insight on this?
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We've chatted about this before, but as a reminder: The Contest is growing to a point where Summoners will have to prioritize which content they'd like to complete, as doing it all will be a challenge! We understand this will cause discomfort for some.
Really appreciate you replying and being forward about.
While I do understand and remember you talk about the idea of not doing all the content, which is true, we can't do all of the content ans do have to be selective.
However with the recent direction within the game, some of the most "essential" contents, and by that I mean, contents have contain important chase items all demand such high energy cost, and these items have spread out overall of these contents, so if you do one you have to do the other to collect all the necessary pieces. The true reality is it doesn't really give the option for players to be selective.
A good example of this are the Deathless Champs pieces and Nightcrawler Runestones.
All of these pieces are spread overall, Paragon Gauntlet (which require MEQ Thronebreaker full Exploration), WoW (which cost 10 per try), BG (which cost 15 per match), and even the recent AW Solo, which is 5 per move (and require a lot of tries).
The Energy Boost does help players trying to cope with the floor of these demanding content.
Could you be so kind to pass on this feedback in hoping the team could review, as the landscape of MCOC is much different compare to just 3 months ago, and this change being permanent does seem to make sense now.
We have 3 energy per step story quests and 3-5 energy event quests and battlegrounds is 15 energy a throw.
Kabam should either make faster recharge permanent, nerf the 5 energy a step quests to less, or lift the max summoner level cap.
Winter of Woe and the Alliance war showcase's energy costs are just flat out unnecessary, and that is a hill I will die on.
Isn't this stance of "we're getting to a point where soon you guys won't be able to complete everything" just equate to these departments doing a bunch of additional work only to have people not complete it?
Would I love to be able to 100% everything all the time? Yes, absolutely. Do I think that allocating resources to creating content that you don't expect people to complete or often even attempt may be a waste, kind of. But you're absolutely right in the fact that it is simply providing more options, which is never a bad thing. You're also going one step farther and doing something many of us, myself included, have been harping for: you're allowing us the opportunity to mange things ourselves. You're not micromanaging and forcing content, you're saying it's up to us to manage our time and energy and play the game how we want.
Now we just have to accept the hard pill that we won't be able to complete everything without a massive time or monetary investment.
I don't like it, but I get it and appreciate the response/communication.
Thank you.
Would there be any consideration to doing a quarterly (or semi-annual) boost to energy regeneration? Aside from the loyalty celebration I mean.
But that's not the intended goal. The players playing this game are never the same set of people from one day to the next. Every day some people leave, and others join. The single biggest question any game as a service has to answer in the long term is: who''s joining? Because in the end, the answer to that question determines the long term viability of the game.
A game with a small amount of content attracts a certain kind of player, or set of players. A large chunk of them are completists: the kind of player that wants to do everything. And among those kinds of people, there will be people capable of doing a lot, and will quickly get bored because there's too little to keep their attention. It would be the completists that want to do everything, and actually can do everything, but not much more than everything, that would find the game most attractive. The way the game was in the past attracted certain types of people, and repelled others.
Changing the game to one where there's so much stuff to do that few can do it all changes the focus of the game. Instead of targeting players who just want to do a smaller amount of stuff and try to do it all, it will become less attractive to those kinds of people, and more attractive to players the game hasn't traditionally been as attractive to. In a sense, the game is shifting from a restaurant that focused on tasting menus to a buffet. And as a result, it is targeting people who want the variety of a buffet, but not necessarily looking to actually eat it all. People who want to pick and choose, and don't feel bad about not being able to do it all, because almost no one else is. They don't feel like they have to keep up with completists, because they rarely run into them. They just do what they want, and there is a lot of variety to choose from to spend their limited time.
If that shift in attractiveness either adds more players to the game over time, or maintains a stable population level for a longer period of time because the kind of player the game used to be most attractive to has been depleted to an extent (a lot of those types of people who wanted to play the game have already tried it), then that development time will be worth it.
So whenever summoners got time in their hands and want to engage in more content than they usually do they can trade mysterium for energy boosts in the store. It can be set to weekly limit 2 and one boost can last for 12 hours or a day.
That way it won't be a permanent change and you are also giving a choice to those summoners who are willing to engage in more content. In the long run, as the game will grow it will help summoners to choose more of their favorite pieces of content to do and also choose what time they want to do it.
Rewards are distributed appropriately allowing the player base to focus and determining what we'd like to do.
You want shards and sig stones: focus on event quest. Rank up materials: Battle Grounds. Relics: Alliance War. A little bit of Everything: Alliance Quest. Chase items: Side quest A. A little bit of everything (part II): Side Quest B.
Everest content: A meaningful amount of everything.
Etc, not exact pairings but an example.
Instead of distributing all the rewards across everything and every store so that we have to do everything. Why not focus it even more, allowing and encouraging us to go after specifically what we want?
I think the concept is sound and Jax made a valid point. But then when quests and rewards are introduced that tie everything together and expect players to do everything in order to reap the (sometimes exclusive) rewards, saying "We're getting to the point you can't do everything" is a bit unintentionally disingenuous, because that's exactly what the game is asking us to do.
Sagas thematically connect the different game modes and content together, but it is still up to the player whether to do them all or not. Just like comic books have cross over events that might encompass a hundred different books in several dozen titles, that doesn't mean a person must buy and read them all. There's usually core elements to the story, and then ancillary stuff that a reader might be encouraged to read, certainly the publisher wants people to buy and read, but most people don't actually buy and read them all.
It is rare that a player must do everything, or a high percentage of everything, to collect normal rewards. That can happen with special things, like the Deathless champs, but those are the exceptions not the rule. Setting those aside, can you provide a specific example where the game requires or expects players to do everything?
I'm not talking about examples where if a player wants all the rewards they have to do all the content. That's always going to be true. The game is never going to present a situation where if a player does 50% of everything they get 100% of the available rewards, and there's no reward for doing 51%. Doing more will always return more. But what are specific examples of where if the player doesn't do everything, or a majority of everything, they will be completely shut out of otherwise normal rewards?
Want a 7* Nightcrawler? Do the side quest, but don't just complete it, make sure you adhere to the solo challenges attached to it. Oh, that also means you're going to have to grind it out and make sure you don't actually complete the quest a few times but instead repeat it. Also make sure you log in each day to collect your entry. Do one quest in order to get into another quest. Use the boosts from quest A to help with quest B. Use the resources from the quest to go buy items from a store. Check the updating solo objectives. Don't forget battlegrounds and get to the Gladiator circuit. Rinse and repeat.
This is just the most recent example.
Deathless Items. Again, tied to multiple different modes of the game, and challenges tied to those modes. Chase items, trophy champions, whatever you want to call them have pretty regularly been saying "You want these items? Well, acquisition is spread out across three or four different game modes. Oh... yeah while you're doing that it's time limited so also have fun deciding if you want to do the Event Quest this month. Oh by the way, the most effective way to get rank up materials is tied to the stores, so you should also be in an Alliance that pushes War and Quests and Raids."
Sure, the argument to counter this is for you to (correctly) say that no-one actually needs a chase item. No-one needs this trophy champion or that trophy champion. Okay, so it's not a "normal reward". But it is tied to something that will make obtaining normal rewards challenging for people who don't do it. There's going to be an advantage for the BGs player who has a 7* awoken Nightcrawler over the ones who don't. There's going to be an advantage in war. This is fine. This will always be true. But now it's slightly more difficult for a player to get their normal rewards, because they're tied to BGs and Alliance Wars and they didn't push themselves to complete the content that they were told "Well no-one's forcing you to do it. These rewards aren't necessary."
It's not disingenuous to say that the game is designed for players to do everything. Not when rewards are spread across multiple different sections of the game and the game itself pushes a "progress or get left behind" reward system. Many of the chase items, rank up items, etc. are tied to people needing the next progression tier for them to even get a shot at it.
It's no secret that the game wants players to do everything, because the rewards are spread throughout everything.
I would argue that people are asking for increased energy renewal rate because at one very recent point there were eleven different side quest. Then an event quest. There were twenty solo objectives. Battlegrounds. War. AQ. Raids. It's an oversaturation which is getting into exactly what was said here - that's fine. Not trying to rehash that or go in a circle, we've come to the point where players will need to pick and choose what we do. A tough pill for someone like me to swallow, but fine. The point was made and while I don't like it or completely agree, I understand it.
This isn't a comic book. Though, even in the comic book world, I don't have to buy absolutely everything to get the story because there are trade collections which do that for me. Regardless, false equivalent. Just like the buffet analogy. I went along with your the buffet analogy though because it presented me with exactly what it is I feel the core issue with this over saturation of content is: It's drawing our focus in too many directions and often asking people to do things they don't want to do or don't enjoy.
In reality if I go to a buffet and want to fill my plate with something, I get more of that item than someone who wants to fill their plate with a little of everything. That's not the case in this game, so to say the abundance of options allows us to better focus and pursue what we want isn't exactly being truthful to the situation.
But actually making it a buffet? Now that would do exactly what was just claimed. Instead of a variety of different rewards spread across those eleven side quests, why not narrow it down? Instead of a variety of different rewards spread across those twenty solo objectives, why not narrow it down?
Example: 7* Nightcrawler - chase item. Here's one area of the game for you to focus on. Not a flow chart of things you need to do in order to get the item that would let you buy him. I'm willing to wager I'm not the only person who has looked at/for that infographic many times because I've already started wondering "Am I behind? Did I miss something? How many runestones should I have? Did I do the side quest before it reset? Did I get to GC last BG or is it this BG I need to focus on?"
I remember when the only infographic was immunity related Venn diagrams... (this is in no way a knock against Cat's infographics. I love them. I'm just saying there's one or two or three needed every month now.)
I won't speak for anyone else, but I know I've never said I expect 100% of the rewards for completing 51% of the content. I said the opposite in fact. I stated that I often push myself, much to the detriment of other things, to complete everything so that I can gain the most rewards. But if the game really wants to move in a direction of "Let's give the players an abundance of options and let them decide what they go after." Then why not actually do that? Don't go half-way. Go full throttle - but keep it all tied to a single aspect of the game, that way people can truly decide what we want to focus on and when.
Rank-up materials? Event Quest exclusive.
Crystals and shards? Side Quest exclusive.
Relics and sig stones? Alliance War exclusive.
Awakening Gems and sig stones? Alliance Quest exclusive.
RNG Loot Crates? Raids exclusive.
Exclusives (Trophy Champions and such)? Incursions exclusive.
Revives/Energy/Consumables? Daily Quests/Objectives exclusive.
Gold and Iso, littered throughout everything.
A good amount of everything? Story Quests/Everest Content/Stores.
Does it risk people complaining because an item they really want is in an area of the game they don't enjoy? Yeah, probably, but that crossover is what the Solo objectives and stuff should be for. That's the jack of all trades rewards. A little bit of everything but it's not an amount that will actually be meaningful without repetition.
This would allow people to actually focus and spend their energy and time doing the things they want to do as well as what they need to do. Which is exactly what the purpose was claimed to be. Giving us the option and choice. An abundance of choice actually. With this focus, a summoner could get to the point where they don't really need to focus on shards or crystals. Hey, that's a few months they can comfortably skip the side quests and have no FOMO. Someone has reached a plateau where they don't need rank-up materials (must be nice) they can skip the event quest that month - go grind some consumables. Don't need sig stones or awakening gems? Good news, you can take a break from Alliance War and Quests, maybe even drop down to a less competitive one.
If the response is "That would kill some areas of the game" then can you really also claim that saying the game wants us to do everything is a disingenuous argument? Both arguments can't be true. If the only reason those game modes survive is that players are doing them for the rewards and shifting those rewards to another area would cause players to focus there instead, well, that kind of suggests something about the game mode then doesn't it?
There has to be some balance between the desire to focus some content on certain kinds of rewards, and making sure rewards are not so narrowly segregated that players are compelled to do things they do not want to do. It is one thing to say that a player doesn't want to do AQ, so they sacrifice those rewards and slow slow their progress in the game, which is a reasonable choice, and another thing entirely to say that if a player does not do the one thing that is necessary to get a particular reward they are simply completely stuck.
In terms of the major reward types, all of them are required in at least *some* quantity to make progress in the game. You can choose to focus on champion acquisition, but if you don't get rank up catalysts or ISO those champions will be extremely limited in useability in the rest of the game. Conversely if you do not have at least some reasonable champion acquisition rate, not only will you run out of champions to use rank up materials on, you will also stunt your ability to participate in higher tier content by having too limited of a roster.
There's a certain minimum baseline of rewards most players should get while exercising reasonable discretion in choosing which parts of the game to participate in. So rewards are concentrated in certain game modes, but not to the point of exclusivity.
Now, without seeing actual numbers, I can't comment on the specific reward distribution you propose. Maybe it could work in theory. But without specifics, you're just proposing a different set of judgment calls to accomplish essentially the same thing. But just applying the constraints that exist in the current game economy, and there are many of them, it seems unlikely you could satisfy all of them with a distribution as focused as you are proposing. There's not enough "everything" to prevent things from becoming wildly unbalanced (in the sense of rewards intended to be used together getting completely out of sync for most players to a far greater degree than it is now).