5-Star Featured Crystal Change Discussion Thread

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Mmx1991

DNA, you're a very credible and smart guy, but your explanations although probably very accurate, don't do anything to explain how Kabam can get away with calling the champs in the crystals "amongst the most effective". Cause they're not and it's not even close.

LeNoirFaineant

General_Vis wrote: »

I don’t know why everyone is getting so hung up on the empirical data statement. It’s just spin that has been (badly) worded to justify another unpopular decision.

It’s no different to when perfect block teams were removed, the top champs were nerfed, 2* alliance wars were disabled and defender kills were removed. On each and every one of those occasions Kabam came out with a half-arsed justification that the playerbase saw right through.

Most people I know as well as the youtubers all seem to be in agreement that the changes were made because it was becoming too easy to get the featured champ therefore you effectively build your own roster and that they also want to push people more towards the 300 unit featured grandmaster crystals.

I’d have a lot more respect if they simply came out and said that rather than trying to sell us a line about cyclops and ant man being high performing champs.

I will say that while I loved my block team it was ridiculous and the game is better without the leadership synergy so I've gotta give Kabam credit on that one. Agree with you on the nerf and the highly effective cyclops lol

Mmx1991 wrote: »

DNA, you're a very credible and smart guy, but your explanations although probably very accurate, don't do anything to explain how Kabam can get away with calling the champs in the crystals "amongst the most effective". Cause they're not and it's not even close.

I can't explain how Kabam could justifiably say that, although I can say that @Kabam Miike only said that about a subset list of champions, not all of them.

I also can say that even if a Kabam dev came on the forums and directly stated that all of the curated champions would be among the most effective, I would then ask them how that was mathematically possible when that contradicts their statements about the numbers and restrictions of the curated list. Specifically, that the list must have an absolute minimum of 36 champions (because they cannot repeat) and as a practical matter at least 45 champions (because otherwise the two crystal's basic champions would be forced to alternate) and as there are only about 82 basic champions to pick from in the first place, at least 4 of the curated champions would have to be literally below average (only 41 can be above average).

The top 25% of all basic crystal champions is about 20 of them. It is literally impossible to make the new featured crystal work with 20, because after you use the first eighteen there's no way to make the crystal in May without repeats. The literal mathematical limit - which is still ridiculous because it forces the crystals to alternate, which contradicts what @Kabam Miike implied about the crystals - requires the top 44% of all basic champions. The top 44% can't all be great, or even good as many players judge good.

*Some* of the champions in the curated list could be among the more effective champs. Some literally cannot be because that's otherwise impossible.

I've also tried, and apparently ineffectively, to explain that "effective" doesn't likely mean "best." When a game developer says effective in the context of data mining, It means, when played by a player, that it generates more rewards than average at a lower cost than average (in the case of MCOC, that would mean dying less and using potions less generally), or something comparable.

In terms of which champions are *strongest* I would bet money that Cyclops is not in the top 25%. However, I would not bet money that Cyclops when played by the players that play him regularly isn't in the top 25% of champions that generate the most rewards or generates the most kills relative to the other 80+ champions in the 5* basic crystal. You're not betting on how strong Cyclops is anymore, you're betting on how other players play the game. I wouldn't risk my money betting on how other players, from top to bottom, play the game.

And to be frank, I can also say that @Kabam Miike isn't always right. Sometimes he misstates things (I've corrected his wording multiple times), sometimes he says things provable inaccurate (I've pointed out a couple here as well), and sometimes he is simply mistaken. As a community coordinator its his job to communicate clearly and accurately, but he is just one person and isn't necessarily the final word from Kabam about game design decisions.

Its the only word we have, so we have every right to demand clarity, but history sets the expectation we won't always get it. If I was him, I would not have described any champion in the crystal as "among the most effective." I would have said "among the more effective" or even "above average in effectiveness." My words don't demand justification. "Most" sets you up to justify that judgment, something you know you can't do without proprietary data you can't release.

Titan_A97

Mmx1991 wrote: »

I'll ask this again. "Among the most effective" compared to what???

Billy is the tallest in his family.

Bob is the best basketball player in his class.

Jenny is the smartest amongst her friends.

This doesn't tell us anything. Billy could be 5 feet tall. Bob could be in a school for the disabled. Jenny's friends can all be stupid.

Cyclops is "among the most effective" is a meaningless statement. He is the most effective compared to whom?

I don't like these deceptive reasons.

Exactly! Couldn't agree more. With no reference point, these statements are meaningless, even obsolete.

It's kind of like the big shift from percentage values to flat numerical values during the v12.0 fiasco. Previously champion X had 12.4% armor and that made perfect sense. Now they have 932... 932 what? Bananas? Cucumbers? The point is a raw number or statement like this with no point of reference has no meaning, no context and therefore leaves more questions than answers.

Axo4545 wrote: »

Reasonable high degree, so not 100%? I think that's what I said. That we don't know for sure.

When I say I have a reasonably high degree of certainty, what I mean is that the degree of certainty I have is high enough to reasonably operate as if the belief was true for all intents and purposes unless and until new evidence contradicts it. That doesn't mean I'm just guessing. That's comparable to the "beyond reasonable doubt" standard jury members are instructed to operate under. You're never 100% certain about anything. So we don't know anything "for sure." But I can be sure enough to render a guilty verdict and walk away confident I made the correct decision about the fate of another human being's life.

Relative to that, I am somewhat more certain that Kabam datamines metrics the way everyone else I'm aware of does than the beyond reasonable doubt standard. Still not 100%, and yes, we still don't know for sure. And never will. The same way we are unlikely to be 100% sure of anything. 100% certainty is a useless standard to apply to anything in the real world.

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That's a question no one can answer, and frankly, it's useless to keep repeating. Either you trust what they are saying, or you don't. Personally, I go on the information provided, and it saves me a great deal of energy asking questions I will never get an answer to.
The reality is it doesn't matter what they comment on as the most effective. Naturally, they're going to have a positive spin on Champs. It's their job. They're not just going to come out and say X Champ sucks, or Y Champ is ****. Besides that, what was stated wasn't even inaccurate to conceive. The small number that use Cyclops use him very effectively.
I think we're getting defocused on "most effective", and missing the point entirely. They're trying to omit the ones that perform the poorest. Which means anything else could be included.

Twunt

GroundedWisdom wrote: »

That's a question no one can answer, and frankly, it's useless to keep repeating. Either you trust what they are saying, or you don't. Personally, I go on the information provided, and it saves me a great deal of energy asking questions I will never get an answer to.
The reality is it doesn't matter what they comment on as the most effective. Naturally, they're going to have a positive spin on Champs. It's their job. They're not just going to come out and say X Champ sucks, or Y Champ is ****. Besides that, what was stated wasn't even inaccurate to conceive. The small number that use Cyclops use him very effectively.
I think we're getting defocused on "most effective", and missing the point entirely. They're trying to omit the ones that perform the poorest. Which means anything else could be included.

Nope.

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Axo4545 wrote: »

GroundedWisdom wrote: »

That's a question no one can answer, and frankly, it's useless to keep repeating. Either you trust what they are saying, or you don't. Personally, I go on the information provided, and it saves me a great deal of energy asking questions I will never get an answer to.
The reality is it doesn't matter what they comment on as the most effective. Naturally, they're going to have a positive spin on Champs. It's their job. They're not just going to come out and say X Champ sucks, or Y Champ is ****. Besides that, what was stated wasn't even inaccurate to conceive. The small number that use Cyclops use him very effectively.
I think we're getting defocused on "most effective", and missing the point entirely. They're trying to omit the ones that perform the poorest. Which means anything else could be included.

By omitting the ones that perform the poorest isnt that saying they suck? If we would ever get some information more people might go with it but so far we've had very little information.

It's a good possibility that Cage and Rulk were omitted because they're testing buffs. What I suspect is they are looking at working on at least some of the Champs that are found on that list. I don't suspect they will give a list of the Champs they're leaving out.
For that matter, there's nowhere for us to go. They've explained what they're trying to do. We can speculate about the process, but they're relying on their own findings ultimately.

Axo4545 wrote: »

DNA3000 wrote: »

Axo4545 wrote: »

Reasonable high degree, so not 100%? I think that's what I said. That we don't know for sure.

When I say I have a reasonably high degree of certainty, what I mean is that the degree of certainty I have is high enough to reasonably operate as if the belief was true for all intents and purposes unless and until new evidence contradicts it. That doesn't mean I'm just guessing. That's comparable to the "beyond reasonable doubt" standard jury members are instructed to operate under. You're never 100% certain about anything. So we don't know anything "for sure." But I can be sure enough to render a guilty verdict and walk away confident I made the correct decision about the fate of another human being's life.

Relative to that, I am somewhat more certain that Kabam datamines metrics the way everyone else I'm aware of does than the beyond reasonable doubt standard. Still not 100%, and yes, we still don't know for sure. And never will. The same way we are unlikely to be 100% sure of anything. 100% certainty is a useless standard to apply to anything in the real world.

I'm 100% sure about a lot of things in my life but that's beside the point. I'm not trying to say you don't know what your talking about because clearly you do. All I'm saying is that there is a chance that they do things differently than everyone else your aware of, key word be aware, or that they didn't use any kind of data at all and picked the champs randomly. Because all we have to go on is what they have told us. I'm not saying that they feed us a line and I'm not saying they didn't. I'm just saying we don't know and your right we never will. So if you or anyone wants to continue discussing how they collected and used the data I've got no issue with it but I also have no issue with anyone having discussions about did they even use any data to pick the champs. They are both possibilities, whether it's a large possibility or a small one, that should be able to be discussed by anyone.

What I am certain about is how MMOs datamine in general. I am not 100% certain that Kabam used empirical data to choose the champions in the new featured crystal. I am assuming @Kabam Miike told the truth when he said they did. If they did, then I am reasonably certain about the kind of data they would use. But I am not trying to make the case that I am absolutely sure the crystal contains champions of any certain kind. I'm saying that if we take @Kabam Miike at his word then there are logical conclusions that can be drawn.

When you say there's a chance Kabam does things differently, I think what that chance might be is contextually important. It is possible that the MCOC servers were written in COBOL. An uninformed player might think that is a legitimate possibility. But it isn't. Anyone who thinks otherwise is signaling a serious deficiency in their understanding. How Kabam datamines the game is constrained by a lot of practical realities of running a game like this that most people are unware of. Not all possibilities are real possibilities. But whether or not the curated basic champions in the crystal are any particular thing or not, the only information we have on that are comments made by Kabam. Those comments are not as constrained. They could be misstatements, they could be lies, they could be errors, they could be misconstrued, or they could be the truth. In no way am I saying I am personally sure which of those is the case. I am giving Kabam the benefit of the doubt their statements are the truth, because I have very little evidence to the contrary at the moment. That's all I can say in that area.

Axo4545 wrote: »

GroundedWisdom wrote: »

That's a question no one can answer, and frankly, it's useless to keep repeating. Either you trust what they are saying, or you don't. Personally, I go on the information provided, and it saves me a great deal of energy asking questions I will never get an answer to.
The reality is it doesn't matter what they comment on as the most effective. Naturally, they're going to have a positive spin on Champs. It's their job. They're not just going to come out and say X Champ sucks, or Y Champ is ****. Besides that, what was stated wasn't even inaccurate to conceive. The small number that use Cyclops use him very effectively.
I think we're getting defocused on "most effective", and missing the point entirely. They're trying to omit the ones that perform the poorest. Which means anything else could be included.

By omitting the ones that perform the poorest isnt that saying they suck?

Kabam would probably never put it that way, but basically yes. Further up the thread I suggested the theory that the Red Hulk and Luke Cage beta is not coincidentally happening now. My conjecture is that the same work that went into deciding who was at the bottom of the performance metrics and a candidate for being included in the current balancing pass they seem to be doing were also the champions that were excluded from the new featured crystal's "curated eighteen" list. If that's what they did, that would be a reasonable reason for Kabam to say they were attempting to reduce the "disappointment" players might experience with the champions in the crystal.

Some of this work may go all the way back to NYCC, when certain devs expressed the idea to some of the players that attended that they were "aware" of the issues with Carnage and also had their own internal metrics for which champions were better and worse performing in the game. As a very rough rule of thumb, the average MMO development project takes about four months. NYCC was in October of 2017. It is very circumstantial evidence, but the timeline fits.

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Gladiator09

Only noobs will buy these crystals.
Atleast I won’t be confused in future whether to open basic 5* or grandmaster con crystals

Mandagar

I currently have a 5-Star Ironman, Antman, Winter Soldier, Guillotine, HulkBuster (gag), Iron Patriot (double gag), Howard the Duck, and Captain Marvel. The only 5-Star I am using for AW is Guillotine who is 3/45 but I can't wait to 4/55 her. Winter Soldier and Captain Marvel both need to be duped before they can become useful in either AW or AQ which is why they are still are at 2/35. The other 5 champions are meh so I seriously doubt that will waste resources to rank them up. @Kabam Miike if you think a 5* Antman is worthy of of AQ or AW then you are sadly mistaken.

GangsterSauce

Axo4545 wrote: »

I give up. DNA3000 and grounded wisdom you two can talk to each other about whatever you want because no matter what anyone else has to say both if you have to try and prove that you are the most intelligent person in the thread. DNA3000, you may or may not be who knows. You definitely have a better shot at it than GW. Anyway, continue on with doing what you both seem to love to do which is trying to prove everyone else wrong. Enjoy the thread and chatting with each other. I don't like the new crystals but I'll take them over being on this thread and having to listen to both of you. Good luck getting the outcome you want on the crystals.

Then just ignore them like most people here do? lol they spend more time chatting on the forums than actually playing the game. Disregard them.

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Neither one of us implied that we were the most intelligent people in the Thread. I can't speak for DNA. I expressed my views and the counter to them was to question whether we work for Kabam, and to point out that we don't know for sure. Which I've expressed myself. I have a pretty good understanding on the general subject, and DNA has more experience in the field than I do. I respect his input. All I'm doing is sharing my thoughts on the subject.

Cuteshelf

Maybe you guys should catch up IRL and save us the effort of skipping your posts...

LeNoirFaineant

GroundedWisdom wrote: »

Neither one of us implied that we were the most intelligent people in the Thread. I can't speak for DNA. I expressed my views and the counter to them was to question whether we work for Kabam, and to point out that we don't know for sure. Which I've expressed myself. I have a pretty good understanding on the general subject, and DNA has more experience in the field than I do. I respect his input. All I'm doing is sharing my thoughts on the subject.

When you say "we" did anyone suggest that DNA works for Kabam?

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LeNoirFaineant

@Axo4545 I must've missed that. Thought GW who gets asked that all the time was just trying to lump them together lol.

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Axo4545 wrote: »

LeNoirFaineant wrote: »

@Axo4545 I must've missed that. Thought GW who gets asked that all the time was just trying to lump them together lol.

Nah, they just seem to forget that people might have different opinions than they do and when you press GW on anything to do with his he deflects and says he's moving on.

You're not presenting any actual counters to my thoughts. You're just questioning what I'm saying to try and prove me wrong. There's a difference. You've decided for yourself, admittedly, that I argue for the sake of being contrary, and have taken it upon yourself to dispute me the same way you perceive I function. I'm not a contrarian. I don't argue for the sake of arguing. I present points not currently being considered. That's what usually happens in a debate. I fully encourage people to challenge my thoughts in a respectful way. I don't have much time to do it aimlessly, or just for the sake of mental sparring.

GangsterSauce

Anyways. Back to the topic shall we?

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RedRooster

LeNoirFaineant wrote: »

@Axo4545 I must've missed that. Thought GW who gets asked that all the time was just trying to lump them together lol.

GW gets asked that all the time because I'm yet to see him not defend Kabam. (Feel free to point me to a thread were that's the case and I'm fine with being wrong). Kabam is not always wrong and so I don't see an issue with defending them in those instances.

DNA has not said anything that would indicate that he has insider knowledge, it's industry knowledge. He can take a best guess and there is a very good chance he will be right, but he has no more proof of the specifics of the metrics that they are using/gathering to make choices than anyone else. This is not a dig at him, I"m just saying that I don't see any reason to believe he works for them.

Support and the forum mods have been shown to be incorrect on previous occasions and on many occasions a lack of how changes impact players and what motivates players.

I don't believe in all instances that it is willful misdirection and In some instances I would certainly point at a knowledge gap between what they believe to be what was intended by the system and what has been implemented by the dev team, which is why you often have them tell us they are taking it to the dev team.

It is quite possible that their understanding of what decision making process was used to choose the champs in the featured crystals is very different from what the actual process was. Or we can be suspicious and assume that's the spin they've been told to tell us.