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

Yankeespank

So has the odds for GMC changed with this update? And is there a scheduled cycle of projected release of those?

Frnkielo

Kabam needs to understand that those of us who risk the extra 5k shards risk it for a specific champ..and for that specific champ to have a much higher percentage of dropping then other champions...the great part of the featured crystal is that if we miss we still can pull a Hyperion or iceman of voodooo or star lord...the new crystal now takes the champ we want and says wait 3 months before u get a 4 percent chance at it and 23 other champions that we don’t care if you want or not

SpiritOfVengeance

Hi kabam no derailing or anything bad but please can we have your input to whether you would consider any of ours suggestions to switch up the crystal idea pretty please?

mum_m2

This empirical data statement is nonsense - Hiding behind your desks looking at your data of effectiveness and not confronting your player base. I usually take the bigger picture side here, and defend the decisions of the company, but I just cant here. That statement is a bunch of garbage and is a huge slap to your player base.

I've got some empirical data for you. I just surveyed 36 pages of people complaining about this new step forward for the game, and the future of these crystals look pretty grim. Clock is ticking to do some damage control.

Mahvel

Make that 0/15 featureds now. This change is terrible. Nerfing an already unrewarding system.

Tiago1980

We walked for a boycott of crystal 15k

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CrDiz

Kabam Miike wrote: »

Grimmbear wrote: »

I mean this in the worst of ways. Your team is deluded. In what universe are those champs even semi useful? Tier 20? There is NOBODY in any decent ally using 90% of those champs anywhere but defense (and only a couple for that) let alone **** attack or aq. They are NOT top options. Not a single one is god tier. Pathetic. Open your eyes.

If you are not a fan of the Champions in the Crystal, you can always wait until the Featured Champion you like is added to the Basic Pool, like the 3-Star and 4-Star Champions.

Also, nobody said they are the top Champions, and while player perception of these Champions may differ, these Champions are ones that people use to great success.

Oh my god, why do you keep saying this? Nobody believes most of these champions on the list are being used by players "to great success." Unless by this you mean these players used some of these champs to great success, given that they were forced to use a garbage champ like cyclops, Antman, Loki, Phoenix , venompool, civil warrior. If there were one time Cyclops managed to take down a Dorm miniboss in AW, without reviving, the "great success" was that it actually happened given that they were using cyclops.

Mmx1991

GroundedWisdom wrote: »

This is becoming arguing for the sake of argument. I'm going to move on in the discussion now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2mzDyEQR_Y

GroundedWisdom

Mmx1991 wrote: »

GroundedWisdom wrote: »

This is becoming arguing for the sake of argument. I'm going to move on in the discussion now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2mzDyEQR_Y

Thanks. Now it's in my head. Haha. Next it'll be Rick Astley. XD

SpiritOfVengeance

To be fair the mods say what they are told so when they say something like antman will bring you success then yeah they really need to research more on how the game works in real life.

Supaflyazn

Kabam Miike wrote: »

Grimmbear wrote: »

I mean this in the worst of ways. Your team is deluded. In what universe are those champs even semi useful? Tier 20? There is NOBODY in any decent ally using 90% of those champs anywhere but defense (and only a couple for that) let alone **** attack or aq. They are NOT top options. Not a single one is god tier. Pathetic. Open your eyes.

If you are not a fan of the Champions in the Crystal, you can always wait until the Featured Champion you like is added to the Basic Pool, like the 3-Star and 4-Star Champions.

Also, nobody said they are the top Champions, and while player perception of these Champions may differ, these Champions are ones that people use to great success.

Who the hell uses Ant Man or Venompool for anything other than arena fodder?

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SpiritOfVengeance

Exactly hubris hubra it has been 36 pages why would we stop for you?

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Mmx1991

“I didn't say most used, but they are among the most effective. Cyclops actually scores very high on this list. There is a smaller group of players that use him, but they use him VERY effectively.”

"Among the most effective".

Among implies compared to other champs.

Who are these other champs?

Cyclops might be very effective COMPARED TO Hulk Buster and Luke Cage, but he's not an effective tool.

If a car that has a top speed of 20mph is compared to others who can only go a max of 15mph, you can claim that it's "among the most effective", but it's not an effective car.

People can use all the mental gymnastic they want to justify these decisions, but reality says most of these champs aren't "among the most effective" at all.

Username1583

Can we get something similar for 4 star champions? I would really like to have more chances on getting Hyperion or Gwenpool since I hadn't had time to grind for them and my chances to get them from 4s crystals are probably 0.

DNA3000

AnotherPool wrote: »

DNA3000 wrote: »

You know how many players were certain that this game was doomed after 12.0 and we would all know it soon enough? All of them were about as wrong as wrong gets.

.

This is fun, don't you remember those apologies for 12.0 posted by Kabam? don't you remember it just took a couple of weeks for them to rollback some of those stupid and ridiculous changes in 12.0?
If everyone is just like you and accept all the greedy changes made by them with no complaint, this game is already dead.

In fact, they didn't actually "roll back" very many changes. They revised some of them, but every champion that was nerfed was still nerfed, just less in some cases. Every mechanical change they made remained (like the stacking armor break mechanic no one seemed to have noticed), and every attribute players complained about was defaulted to zero but remained in the game (like armor penetration and critical resistance).

And once again, this is entirely irrelevant to what I was saying, because I don't deny any of these changes happening. I said, and apparently have to repeat, again, that even with every single one of those changes there were still many players saying MCOC was doomed either because those changes did not go far enough or were irrelevant.

And while everyone is not like me, I feel comfortable adding you to the list of people who believe that the game is effectively dead if it doesn't specifically address your issues or if everyone doesn't see every game change exactly the same way you do.

DNA3000

BaccaBossMC wrote: »

DNA3000 wrote: »

CoquiFongo wrote: »

SpiritOfVengeance wrote: »

No point speaking with grounded you see how this thread just focuses on him when he posts. Just one of those people who will always have an answer. It won't stop unless people just read what he says and moves on after maybe a small convo. Our main focus keeps drifting away because of this. I have never once had to argue with him because I ignore it is quite easy.

Thank you for knocking some sense into the rest of us Spirit.

Ok so back on topic. It seems that between the "garbage" pool and the new system of 5 star featured the community is unhappy. Now we may be more receptive if we had some of that, oh whats the word; clear..no, opaque...no.

OH YEAH Transparency. Yeah that good communication that Kabam and the forum mods promised and talked about so recently. There has to be more of a reason for this.

Some form of logic the devs want. But once again we are left in the dark waiting for the surprise party of our nightmares.

I don't see how transparency has anything to do with it. They announced the change well in advance and stated their general reasons for doing so. Its not perfect, but that's ample transparency. What you seem to be asking for is absolute accountability, in other words you believe the devs have a responsibility to convince you their decisions are warranted, and if you disagree they are wrong until they figure out a way to prove themselves right.

I am a strong proponent of better dev communication and better transparency about how the game works in general. But the devs are not accountable to the players in that specific way. Kabam is ultimately accountable to its playerbase in a general sense, but their individual developers are not required to defend their design decision against all player opposition. They are only required to explain them to be reasonably transparent.

The fact that the thread keeps repeating false indictments against the devs, like the false accusation that Kabam said the curated eighteen basic champions were the "most effective" champions, is a really good reason why game developers generally opt out of communicating on public forums most of the time.

I may not agree with everything Kabam does, I'm not even saying I approve of every aspect of the new featured crystal system (I have a few objections myself). But based on the recent history of the game and the statements they've made in and related to the announcement, it all seems reasonably logical to me. There is a logical explanation for at least the broad strokes of the changes. But no one really seems interested in that. They just seem to want to beat up the devs over a decision they disapprove of. Transparency doesn't grant that right.

The devs cannot answer questions like "why are you screwing the players" or "why are you making the game pay to win" or "how can you believe these eighteen champions are the most effective champions" because all of those things contain false assumptions. They are all either emotional objections that have no basis in reality or fundamentally erroneous. Even attempting to respond to them in any way can only end up causing more problems. The mindset behind all questions like that cannot lead to any productive dialog.

If we want the devs to respond to us, we have to give them something reasonable to respond to. And for the most part, we aren't doing that.

We are only responding in kind to the BS they are pulling on us. They brought this on themselves, and we aren't being that unreasonable anyhow.

The situation is not symmetric. When the devs communicate badly with you, that hurts you. When you communicate badly with the devs, that also hurts you. In a tit-for-tat war, the players lose.

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RehctansBew

This may or may not have been covered, but with Blade being added to the basic before his feature comes back out will that mean there is an increased odds in his feature?

xRemyLeBeaux

@Kabam Miike

YouTuber Jade Jolie reminded me in her video a very important aspect of this change.
What about those that are not Uncollected? Cannot get a new 5* straight off the bat?

This change isn't for good but for the bad. It's really cheap and about money. Very bad move. No one will pay 15k for the same chance for obtaining Hela OR Antman. If you listen to the community, do not push it.

I would personally boycott this. How 'if you want new 5* you have to wait 3 months and you have the same chance for it and old champions' can be good for us, it's ridicoulus. No one asked for this. You want us to gamble with units instead. EA level. Leave it as it is or make 2 featured crystals.

You already dropped out of top 20 games that most people spend on. And don't say that if it's not appealing to me, it can be for others, because all this thread provided negative feedback. None of this champions are worth duping (not counting Hela, Doc Ock and RagnaThor for prestige mostly). Are you crazy? Want another boycott? Seatin already said that he won't spend money for a while on the game because of this change.

SpiritOfVengeance

@RehctansBew
That is also something I wondered I mean this will be the last featured crystal we get. Might as well end it in a good way to start off the new featured crystal.

DNA3000

DrZola wrote: »

“We are using empirical data based on Champion performance in Alliance Quests and Alliance Wars to decide which Champions will be added to the Crystal. This means that while Player perception of the Champions may not always align, we are trying to avoid poor performing Champions...”

“It's important to note that this list could still potentially change a little before the release, but the selected Champions are based on empirical data showing their effectiveness as 5-Star Champions in both Alliance Quests and Alliance Wars.”

“I didn't say most used, but they are among the most effective. Cyclops actually scores very high on this list. There is a smaller group of players that use him, but they use him VERY effectively.”

@DNA3000 I’m not sure how you read these quotes and conclude they intended to only eliminate the champs we think are bad and didn’t intend them to be anything in particular.

The first quote literally says "we are trying to avoid poor performing Champions" which is an explicit statement of intent.

The second quote says literally nothing about intent. It says they used empirical data showing the champion effectiveness in making their choices. This statement would be true on its face if the devs decided to put the best champions into the crystal, if they decided to put the worst champions into the crystal, if they decided to put the most mediocre champions into the crystal, if they decided to put a random sampling of different effectiveness champions into the crystal, or if they decided to make each crystal have a different effectiveness basket.

The third statement doesn't address what the intent of the crystal contents are. It expresses @Kabam Miike's opinion, or an opinion he is passing on, about the effectiveness of certain champions: the quote in context is:

Kabam Miike wrote: »

bradshaw84 wrote: »

Beast, Jane foster, Cyclops, Ronan, Loki, Phoenix, Venompool, civil warrior, ant man amongst the 18 best and most used in aq and aw? GTFOH! LMAO!

Kabam Miike wrote: »

Just talked to the team, and they are comfortable with sharing the list of Champions we plan to include in the first Featured Champion Crystal. It's important to note that this list could still potentially change a little before the release, but the selected Champions are based on empirical data showing their effectiveness as 5-Star Champions in both Alliance Quests and Alliance Wars.

Beast
Storm
Cable
Cyclops (New Xavier School)
Thor (Ragnarok)
Taskmaster
Agent Venom
Hawkeye
Modok
Sentry
Void
Ant-Man
Mordo
Thor (Jane Foster)
Loki
Juggernaut
Hela
Phoenix
Ronan
Venompool
Nebula
Punisher (2099)
Civil Warrior
Doctor Octopus

Bold Text denotes Featured Champions.

I didn't say most used, but they are among the most effective. Cyclops actually scores very high on this list. There is a smaller group of players that use him, but they use him VERY effectively.

He is speaking very specifically about a list of champions, not the intent of the crystal. He is saying that Beast, Jane foster, Cyclops, Ronan, Loki, Phoenix, Venompool, Civil Warrior, and Ant Man score highly in their datamining in terms of how they judge effectiveness when they are used by players. He also specifically disavows the notion that lots of players use them or even necessarily think they are effective champions to use. He only says that the players who use them are effective with them.

But again, that doesn't say that the intent of the crystal is to place the highest effective champions (as Kabam datamines them to be) into the crystal. Because he does not mention other champions, it is still entirely possible that the crystal contains a mix of champions, of which some are effective in certain ways in certain tiers of AQ and AW. There is no reasonable reason to state that if Kabam Miike says those nine champions are seen as effective and used by a small number of players, that every champion fits that description.

As for analysis, it’s pretty clear Miike wants to hang his hat on empirical data the team looked at to make their determination.

I'm not sure what you mean by "hang his hat." Its a plain statement that Kabam used empirical data to decide how to evaluate the champions. Every MMO company does that. But nowhere do they say *which* champions, given that data, were intentionally put in the crystal.

For example, it would be entirely consistent with how MMO companies generally work for Kabam to see that different champions are used at different tiers, or by different player populations of varying skill and playtime, and try to pick a random sample of such champions from across different segments of the player population to represent a wide swath of them. Doing so would guarantee that many if not most of the champions would only be seen as useful by a small percentage of the players, and seen less favorably by a majority of the players. That happens all the time when a reward is created that is a segmented sum of narrow-casted datamining.

Plus, there's simple math that makes all of this really moot in an analytical sense. There's about 84 champions in the basic crystal that could have been curated into the new featured. Kabam has said no champion will repeat twice in a row, although they could reappear after that. So that means the May crystal has to have eighteen different champions in it. The two crystals combined must contain 36 of the 84 champions. It is highly unlikely that they will just alternate between the two versions, so as a practical matter for there to be any significant variations the third crystal should contain at least half of its content not identical to the first one (and it cannot contain anything from the second one). That means the pool of champions they are picking from to add to the curated list for the new featured champions must be at least 45 champions. That's over half of all the possible basic champions that exist at the moment. Whatever the criteria they are using is, it cannot be to put the best, or even just the top half of the options, because they don't have enough champions to do that. At least a few must be below average (as in literally below the 50% mark) just because of the sheer numbers involved.

It is numerically possible for Kabam to exclude the bottom 25% from the curated list. It is numerically impractical, and borderline impossible, for Kabam to include only the top 50%.

TheGodfather

@Kabam Miike What's it going to take for you to realize this is not what we want.

Scratch that, you already know this is a huge issue for the majority of players.

So what is it going to take for you to stop this madness? Clearly 1K comments in the span of 48 hours isn't enough.

Perhaps a petition is called for?

MallKaas

@Kabam Miike
I would ask it very simply. If you had 15,000 5-star shards would you prefer to get the old crystal or the new crystal?

DNA3000

MallKaas wrote: »

@Kabam Miike
I would ask it very simply. If you had 15,000 5-star shards would you prefer to get the old crystal or the new crystal?

That may not be a valid choice. If the change to the featured crystal is part of the overall evolution of 5* champions, then the new featured crystal is probably closely coupled to the increases in 5* shard availability we've had and continue to get. The choice would be between having 5* availability frozen where it was a year or more ago and the featured crystal as it originally was designed, or the new crystal and the greater shard availability.

Some people might still prefer the original crystal and the highly constrained 5* shard availability, but I suspect a larger percentage of players would prefer the higher availability regardless of the crystal design. In either case, that's not the kind of thing you can easily put to a vote. Most of the players the evolving system benefits the most are very likely to be not vocal forum participants.

becauseicant

Ignoring the new crystal for a moment, can we PLEASE get some attention on the current 5* featured crystal schedule and how everyone who was saving for a chance at their favorite champion that came out after Blade - like Taskmaster or Modok - have now lost that chance? It would make so much sense and would make so many people happy if you would finish off the schedule by releasing the 5* featured crystals for every champion you released before you made this major announcement which means all the way up to Sentry. You're giving the community one last shot at Blade but ignoring people who have planned their game time, resources, and effort into saving for what they thought at the time would be their major opportunity to get those champs.

SpiritOfVengeance

@becauseicant
I forgot about this in anger of the new idea. I originally was planning for taskmaster not blade only because I remember wanting him to join for quite a while along with other champions.

So if featured crystals are going then yeah I totally agree with what you said these guys should have their run instead of being cut off. One of my alliance members was also saving quite a lot of shards to dupe his thor ragnarok not the best I know but still.

It would make a lot of people happy if you could at least do this guys.