5-Star Featured Crystal Change Discussion Thread

Summoners!

We've just released some more information on the future of the 5-Star Featured Crystal here: https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/43300/upcoming-changes-to-5-star-featured-crystal

We know you've got questions, and this is the place to ask and discuss!

FAQ

Will you announce the pool of 18 each time it changes?
We do plan on sharing the list every time the crystal is updated.

Can you buy the 5 star featured crystal with units or only shards?
This crystal is replacing the currently available 15,000 Shard Featured Hero Crystals.

So does it means that if a new champ comes to the Battle Realm we won't be able to get them as a 5* right away?
You will still be able to get them in the Grandmaster Featured Crystal, but they will not be available in a featured 5-Star Hero Shard Crystal until they are added to this new Crystal. So, this might mean having to wait a little while to get some Champions, but it also gives you a shot at 6 New Champions at a time, as well as a smaller Basic pool.

Comments

Thatweirdguy

New players who don't have dexterity unlocked probably still get smoked by cyclops in AW. That is most likely their basis for the "highly effective" data.

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Muncel

How did Kabam come up with that list of champions that seem mediocre overall? Who is using Void or Sentry in AW or AQ -- they've been available for less than two weeks and have an established track record with empirical data? I feel like I'm playing a different game than everyone else. I see a lot of Magik, Crossbones, Voodoo, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Hulk, Winter Soldier, Iceman, Archangel, Starlord used in AQ and AW. This list seems like the result of some undisclosed back-room proprietary or licensing agreements. Or is it perhaps pure marketing, with just enough to keep people interested until the next time?

LiquidButt

Captain_Amazing wrote: »

bradshaw84 wrote: »

https://youtu.be/5KbFdyBjkZA

That's hilarious. But omg the irony of Seatin complaining about chances of pulling featured champions.

Because its bad business for him...he makes money on people watching 5s Featured pulls and other similar type videos.

BossyBuilder

SpiritOfVengeance wrote: »

Seatins new video sees pretty legit. What do you think of seatins new video about this annoucement @Kabam Miike ? It seems pretty accurate.

Agree. that's pretty damn accurate.
Why do you not listen and not learn. And your "metrics" are ludicrous. People are using your highly "effective" champs out of necessity because that's all they've been able to pull and that's all they've been able to afford to go after. All your doing is compounding the problem.

That's like saying "well clearly the potato famine proved that the Irish sure do like potatoes."

LiquidButt

Muncel wrote: »

How did Kabam come up with that list of champions that seem mediocre overall? Who is using Void or Sentry in AW or AQ -- they've been available for less than two weeks and have an established track record with empirical data? I feel like I'm playing a different game than everyone else. I see a lot of Voodoo, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Hulk, Winter Soldier, Iceman, Archangel, Starlord used in AQ and AW. This list seems like the result of some undisclosed back-room proprietary or licensing agreements. Or is it perhaps pure marketing, with just enough to keep people interested until the next time?

Not defending Kabam here but did you read the post? Sentry and Void are in it because they are part of the 6 FEATURED champs since they are new...

FPC3

Based on the speed at which 5* shards come in, I will never spend 15k 5* shards on the new crystal. Perhaps if they changed the prices on both the Basic 5* and this new one, I'd consider it. Like if the new one was 10K, and they reduced the cost of the Basic to 7500 shards or something, but 15k for that? No thanks.

Muncel

LiquidButt wrote: »

Muncel wrote: »

How did Kabam come up with that list of champions that seem mediocre overall? Who is using Void or Sentry in AW or AQ -- they've been available for less than two weeks and have an established track record with empirical data? I feel like I'm playing a different game than everyone else. I see a lot of Voodoo, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Hulk, Winter Soldier, Iceman, Archangel, Starlord used in AQ and AW. This list seems like the result of some undisclosed back-room proprietary or licensing agreements. Or is it perhaps pure marketing, with just enough to keep people interested until the next time?

Not defending Kabam here but did you read the post? Sentry and Void are in it because they are part of the 6 FEATURED champs since they are new...

So remove those and my point still stands.

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Muncel

How did Kabam come up with that list of champions that seem mediocre overall? I feel like I'm playing a different game than everyone else. I see a lot of Voodoo, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Hulk, Winter Soldier, Iceman, Archangel, Starlord used in AQ and AW. This list seems like the result of some undisclosed back-room proprietary or licensing agreements. Or is it perhaps pure marketing, with just enough to keep people interested until the next time?

(edited)

SpiritOfVengeance

You guys reading and editing our comments does this mean you won't go ahead with this terrible idea?

Vdh2008

I've seen some good points magically disappear in the last few hours from this thread. That's too bad.

I was hoping that after 600 plus responses (97% against this travesty) in less than 24 hours, there would be some sort of response. Instead, they are "cleaning up" the thread by removing some valid points in places.

I will assume that this post also may be "cleaned up", so for the few of you who get to read it, good luck.

Armaganon00

This is a horrible plan.. now we will only get ****.

ddarkstarr

You know what I wish you'd do, Kabam? Keep the featured as is and introduce this new crystal at 12500 shards. That would actually be a real neat option. If you didn't like the featured and didn't want to chance the basic pool the extra 2500 shards would be worth the gamble.

ddarkstarr

SpiritOfVengeance

You see kabam so many amazing suggestions from your fans and you don't want to take back this announcement come on. It is so cool how many supporters you have yet you still do things to annoy us.
Most companies would want to know how kabam gets this many followers on their mobile game.

Sharopdhsu

Quick question. Like you have emphasized and stated. Everyone is saving up for blade. Half the people i know will have 5+ attempts at him. Considering how many people will end up with him, has kabam in any way altered the drop rate for the final blade crystal? Or is it the same as before

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Iamsteve

I remember after the 12.0 fiasco kabam posted a whole “we’ve listened and we’ve learned” apology. Let’s hope they see the 30+ pages of negative feedback and are smart enough to listen and learn again.

Apache

Iamsteve wrote: »

I remember after the 12.0 fiasco kabam posted a whole “we’ve listened and we’ve learned” apology. Let’s hope they see the 30+ pages of negative feedback and are smart enough to listen and learn again.

yea ok lol

SpiritOfVengeance

You guys are like the evil person in relationships from those old school dramas always saying sorry then doing more dumb stuff.

Captain_Hero

When are we getting 5* arena?

BrotherVo

Which crazy person uses this champs in aq or aw? The tier 10 war allies?

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kawasakinin

you guys need to rerrun all champs that where released before this was announced.

Firelord_Ozai

"Feedback" lol.

DNA3000

Ace_03 wrote: »

colbyscipio987 wrote: »

I seen SEATIN the youtuber discuss this and i agree with SEATIN. I dont agree with this new featured 5 star crystal.

Even Brian Grant is against this UNLESS:

As it stands, I'm not a fan of this change. But I'm hoping there is more to this update than we can see, and I would be all for this new system if it allowed Kabam to make the following game improvements:
- More shards from AW
- More shards from Alliance events
- 5stars added to Arena

With all due respect to Brian (and he does lightly touch on this in his video) it is entirely possible, and likely, that this crystal change is part of a longer term plan to change how 5* champions and shards work that has already started that includes making 5* shards much more available.

We're getting 5* shards at least three times faster for higher tier players than we were getting them originally, and I suspect that 5* shards will continue to get easier to get over time. 5* champions used to be a pursuit goal of the game: a very rare very powerful reward to chase after. Every game like this has one. But with the planned release of 6* champions, it is obvious that 6* champions are going to replace 5* champions as the hard to get pursuit goal of the game. 5* champions are going to become just a very valuable commodity.

With that shift, the game is changing over time to treat 5* champions as less of a very rare thing you are lucky to get one or two of, and more of a "collect them all" thing like 4* champions currently are. In that kind of game, the current 5* featured crystal is a bit out of place. We got used to using them as essentially a near-guaranteed shot at a specific desirable champion if we can just save enough shards. But they were originally designed in a game where you might only get two or three shots at that one-in-five chance for that champion, and only after a long time saving. 5* shards are now plentiful enough that for many people, that crystal is an 80% or even 90% chance of getting a specific champion.

Back when we had something closer to two or three shots at the featured, the featured crystal was offering in effect a 30% to 50% chance at a specific featured, and only for the very few players that could save that much. With three times as many tries as before (6 to 9), the new crystal now offers approximately a 23% to 32% chance to get one specific champion. To reach the same 30% to 50% chance you'd have to open about 8 to 16 crystals respectively. I would not be surprised at all to discover that by the end of the year I earning five times as many 5* shards as I was before the game started ramping them up.

We're comparing the almost guaranteed shots we have at the featured with this new crystal, but that might not be a fair comparison. If this crystal is part of the overall game trajectory that includes the rise of 5* shard availability, then we should really compare the original 5* crystal with original 5* shard availability compared to the new crystal with both the current and the projected 5* shard availability. They actually aren't all that different in terms of getting a specific featured champ. But what's different is the sheer number of 5* champions players can now get. To put it another way, the old crystal was designed for a game where for every featured champion you got you also got four other 5* champs. The new crystal is designed for a game where for every *specific* featured champion you get, you also (on average) get five other featured champions and eighteen other basic champions.

In other words, the new crystal is designed for a game where players are going to be earning 5* champions at about six times the original rate.

One more thing. The current featured crystal is better if you want one specific champion and you are a part of the very small group of players that can reasonably save enough shards to make it reasonable to go for. I'm a member of that group, but it is a very small group of players relative to the total. The new system, which is giving players a lot more tries for a lower probability crystal has the side effect of giving all players more 5* champions. Players like me are getting numerically more of them. Lower players than me are getting 5* champions that would have been completely out of reach to obtain under the old game.

When we say the new crystal is bad for players, it isn't bad for all players. It is bad for only a small subset of players. For all the players that couldn't reasonably save for a reasonable number of shots at featured, the new game benefits them quite a bit. First, because the new featured has a lower chance for genuine squibs, regardless of hyperbole that says otherwise. And second, because even if they don't go for featured, the fact that the game is moving to a model with a higher abundance of 5* shards means they will get more 5* champions either way, whether they buy the new featured or just buy basics.

I think Brian was on the right track basically, but I think he incorrectly prefaces a lot of statements with "ifs" as if those things didn't already happen and aren't continuing to happen. I think he sees the huge increase in 5* shard availability has something that we can just take for granted as a given, but the change in crystals is something we can separate from it and demand ala carte. That's not how game design works. Systems and system evolution is designed as parts of a whole, and you can't just pick the parts you like and jettison the parts you don't like. They are designed to be balanced against each other, and it seems likely to me that the new featured crystal is balanced for an environment where 5* shards are much more available, and the goal of the game is to make sure everyone has more 5* champions to use. In a game where you are giving people several times more tries at the bullseye, the bullseye has to get smaller.

When 6* champions arrive, duping 5* champions will become a more valuable event. For a player buying basics, the odds of a dup are relatively low, and will rise over time (as they fill their roster). For a player buying featureds, the odds of a dup become much higher: maybe four times higher on average, rising over time. Which crystal generates more 6* shards becomes a function of the contents of the featured and the roster you currently possess, but the featured crystal is likely to generate more 6* shards more often. In a game where we are earning maybe twice as many 5* shards as we are now (which is where I think the game will eventually head, over a time scale of a year or two) and six times the amount we were earning when the original crystals were designed, I think it will become more important over time to build a large diverse 5* roster and generate dups than it will be to land one single specific 5* champion. It will just take time to get there.

DNA3000

BossyBuilder wrote: »

People are using your highly "effective" champs out of necessity because that's all they've been able to pull and that's all they've been able to afford to go after.

I remember once in another game I used to play a developer once said that a certain game change was "impractical." A year later the game made that change, and for years afterward that developer was accused of lying to the playerbase when they claimed the game change was "impossible."

Even though the original post was produced, along with several contemporaneous discussions which proved the developer said "impractical" and not "impossible" literally hundreds of players over the years continued to claim the developers lied when they said it was "impossible."

I have never been able to figure out precisely how this mental error occurs, but its high frequency of occurrence has always fascinated me while also annoying me.

Kbugii

Guys it's not Kabam doing this. Let's not forget the in game message said it was the Grandmaster doing it. The negative feedback on how ridiculous this change is should be directed to him.

Nemesio

Kabam Miike wrote: »

Mcocjg wrote: »

Going to try again to get this answered --

Will champs that are not available (Thor, Widow, Dr. Strange, Scarlett Witch, etc) now make it into the featured 5* crystal as part additional champions or maybe (hoping here) into the basic pool atleast.

Maybe someday? We still don't have any plans to release those Champions yet, but this might change in the future.

Maybe they will come in the 5 star arenas?