State of the game - august 2025

It's been a while since I've last posted on the forums, but the most recent dev diary update ( https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/401347/dev-diary-questing-prestige-and-alliance-updates/p1 ) made me feel so uncomfortable with the direction this game is taking that I feel the need to voice my concerns.

To put this in perspective, I've been playing this game for 7 years and I'm an endgame player who enjoys mostly competing in alliance war. Most of what I do in this game has to do with growing my account to be able to compete in aw. I understand some players don't care about aw. But I also think nobody is playing this game because they love alliance quest or arena grinding. I think this game is kept alive by the competitive game modes, which are alliance war and battlegrounds.

With that said, I believe the changes that were announced for next update are going to ruin the balance of the game and I will explain why I think that.

This game has always rewarded spending over free to play. That's fair. But it was always possible for free to play players to compete with spenders too. They were at a disadvantage, but they still had the means to make up for that with skills. And from time to time kabam was adding endgame events to the game where free to play players could decrease the gap between them and big spenders. With this, there was a balance in the competitive game modes.

In the recent times, champion acquisition shifted very much towards spending:

The most recent heart of fire event was giving dark phoenix to whoever had like 36k+ units or whoever would spend a lot in the summoner market. Similarly, july 4th was giving out human torch with this method. In the past, there were trophy champs behind a paywall, but they weren't useful champs. Kang, thanos (og), vision (og). Some could still find some use in those (Jwill loves his kang for sure, lol), but they weren't game breaking champs. Just trophy champs. Then weaponx became the next trophy and he was the first really impactful trophy champ in the game. Very good defender (especially when less counters existed), good attacker too. Then it was time for jessica jones (similar story). But these trophies were originally introduced in banquet event and locked behind such a huuuuuuuge paywall that they weren't initially found often in people's rosters. You needed to spend + be really lucky to get them. Then kabam started to add these champs to july 4th and black friday where if you bought all offers (or the entire store) you were GUARANTEED to get them. And this is what started this trend. Dark phoenix and human torch are game breaking champs and they're both GUARANTEED to get if you spend enough money.

Following the same pattern, Kabam has recently come up with "grandmaster's grace". This is even more troublesome because it concerns ALL champs in the game. If it was just a couple trophy champs, it could still be possible to deal with that. But no, now it's ALL champs. So for example I opened like 30+ titan crystals for the current titan and I did NOT get jean, bastion, yelena. No luck for me. And I played all possible content to get as many titan crystals as possible. No luck. Well some people can just spend 36k units and they're guaranteed to get the new meta champ way before it even joins titan pool. For example some people got nico minoru or karolina or some other new champ that way. But they're not even in titan pool yet, until beginning of september. I won't even mention the champs in current titan. Kabam (osaurus) rex aka karatemike during the july livestream said that he will have the first rank 4 7s zemo in the game, as soon as it would be possible to acquire it. Of course as soon as the new valiant crystals for zemo came out with "grandmaster's grace" it was guaranteed with enough units (or money) thrown at it. And of course he acquired that champ. Now Kabam can say they did this for us players, because this way we can get some guaranteed value when we spend (units and/or money). But the truth is that this is a push to always spend for the new champs. Before, when it wasn't guaranteed, some big spenders were still pushing for new champs by popping hundreds of crystals (grandmasters, thronebreakers and, in most recent times, valiants). But not many would do this with the chance of wasting units and/or money in exchange for nothing. Now that it's GUARANTEED, many more players are going for the new champs. And of course, strangely enough, every month at least one of the new champs is either a meta defining attacker, a meta defining defender, a top prestige champ... there's always a push to spend to acquire the champion. And of course whoever decides not to spend (or can't spend) will have to wait until that champion joins titan pool and then hope to pull that champ from crystals. Maybe 1 months or 2 months later. Maybe 3-4 months, up to luck. Which translates in minimum 1-2 seasons of bg or aw (maybe 3-4). This is making non spenders (or even small spenders) always lag behind. The distance wasn't as big in the past. But it's growing more and more, month after month.

And not just that, because on top of these there are 4-5 july 4th-like events in a year (where you get some exclusive champs or a ton of resources or both) + of course the new eidol thingies (where you get 8-9/12 pieces if you're not spending so you need to buy what's missing). There's sygil too. Double track too. Everything in this game is about spending. Now of course they introduced the new relics. Kabam couldn't just add 10 more battlecast relics to the existing ones, no. They needed to implement a whole new generation of relics, with separate shards and different effects, different acquisition methods... spending units (and money)!

This trend has been absolutely clear, right? But what's more? The new dev diary announces a couple more blows to whoever doesn't spend a ton of money in this game:

1) event quest will be tied to current prestige. And reward the player based on that. Not on skill, but prestige. The more prestige you have, the better rewards you get.
2) event quest will only be ONE difficulty. Say goodbye to farming units and resources in lower difficulties. Kabam wants your money, so they try hard to remove all sources for free units
3) if this wasn't enough, they will change the prestige system: instead of looking at your top 5 prestige champs and relics, they will look at your top 30 to define your prestige. Having 5 as the limit meant that a player could focus 5 rank ups on prestige and then focus on strengthening the roster based on competitive needs. But now you should have 30 prestige rank ups + the rank ups required to compete. Of course some of the 30 top prestige champs are genuinely good champs to use, but this is just going to widen the gap even more. I have 9 r4 champs. And somebody else has 20+. And that person has by default more prestige than me. That player will also have access to better rewards in aq, eq, raids etc etc. By getting more and better rewards, that player will keep increasing the gap in our rosters. I just can't compete. If I really really wanted to, with current system, 5 of my rank 4 champs could be top 5 prestige champs (or close to that, since of course top 5 prestige champs includes champs locked behind paywall or champs who have yet to be acquirable in titan crystal) and I could still be at the top of the prestige game (or close to that). But with the new system that's absolutely out of the picture. Not just that, but by tailoring eq rewards on prestige you make prestige even more relevant than it is right now.

When I read this stuff in the forum post I felt like Kabam as a company is stating clearly that they don't care for me as a player and a consumer of their product. I felt like they are only pushing more and more towards spending. But I also think that Kabam doesn't realize that an excessive push towards spending will make a part of the player base leave the game. I feel like kabam should try and think about what's keeping the game alive. Money, sure. But also players. If people stop playing, then money stops flowing in the game. Losing players equals losing money. Sure you can keep big spenders happy for a while, but when most players leave the game the big spenders will lose interest in the game too. I don't understand what's the idea behind all this. I care for this game as I dedicated a lot of time and effort in growing my account and playing competitively. Like I said before, I love alliance war. I'm an officer and a war planner. I've been an officer in tier 1 for the last 3 years I think. Whoever has any experience with war planning knows the time and passion it requires. But it's what drives me to play, because I enjoy that. And all this time I've been keeping my account at a competitive level by playing a lot and with some moderate spending. But If this trend keeps going, I won't be able to compete anymore because I won't have the required champs and resources. And if I can't compete then I won't have fun anymore.

I wish kabam would understand that this is going to ruin the balance of the game. They've mentioned "game balance" and "game economy" so many times in the past when it came down to making any sorts of rewards even just SLIGHTLY better and we're talking rewards gained by playing. But when it comes to rewarding SPENDING MONEY, then there's no game balance or game economy in the picture. Except, there should still be. Bgs has already come to the point where some people have a full roster of rank 4 7s champs. Some free to play end game players who are actually actively playing the game, all game modes have 5-6 rank 4 7s champs. The gap is too wide is what I'm saying. And the gap just keeps growing. A couple years ago maybe it was about having weaponx or jessica, or having 1-2 rank 5s 6s champs more than your opponent. Now the gap is like 30 to 5. And among those 30 champs, at least 10 are not even owned by the free to play player. Many have yet to come out or they're just not possible to acquire without spending. And I'm not even kidding. Some meta defining champs are impossible to acquire. Human torch was the last example but lumatrix and dark phoenix are meta defenders and they can't be found anywhere in the game unless you spent to get them. Then there's the champs who will join titan pool next month. Big spenders have already collected them and ranked them up. Nico minoru and karolina are meta attackers. Actually, nico can be a threat on defense too.

Given all this, what's the conclusion?

My personal opinion is that this is a path that leads to the death of the game.

What's not an opinion, but it's a fact, is that this path will bring my mcoc journey to a conclusion. I can't afford to spend a lot on the game and I can't compete if I don't spend a lot. I can't have fun if I can't compete. If I can't have fun playing, then what's the point? I will have to give up and find a new game to have fun with.

Comments

ahmynuts

I do like the new dynamic quest difficulty based on top 30 prestige. We knew that was coming and it seemed good. But altering prestige in that way for the game in general is one of the most braindead things ive seen them do

Amms90

The fact the quest depends on prestige was said before (and I didn't necessarily like that, as I never cared much about prestige before), but the fact it's based on top 30 prestige champs and relics in the account is new to me. Not just that, but cancelling lower difficulties too that's something I didn't know about. I usually run lower difficulties to get resources. And I won't be able to anymore. They're cutting more and more our supplies of free resources and pushing us more and more towards spending. To the point it will be impossible to play the game competitively unless you're a big spender. This is why I feel very bad about these changes they've announced.

TotemCorruption

FiiNCH

Kabam haven’t been pro player for a long, long time. From a 10 year+ player, what’s happening is just sad to see.

Amms90

it's very sad… that's exactly my mood tonight. And it pisses me off that they make these sound like pro player moves. But I'm not even angry because sadness prevails over everything else

Demonzfyre

its been a planned change since they started doing Valiant MEQ. There will be buckets for the rewards most anyone with some R4's and some sone ranked relics will probably still get top rewards. AQ has done this for years already as it is. It's just going from top 5 to top 30. I doubt people will see much difference in the high ranks of AQ because they've been chasing prestige for forever.

Having one quest that scales will also reduce how much is in the game overall. I'm sure the rewards will be comparable to what is already there.

i really don't see this causing that much spending that doesn't already happen with AQ and prestige.

Glassback

I didn’t realise the event quest was being locked to just one, that’s disappointing as someone who grinds all of the units all of the time, was a

LeNoirFaineant

They didn't put units in the higher difficulties because the "balance" of the game required only so many units available. I run lower difficulties on autoplay for units. Unless we get a lot more units from the new format, where will the units come from? Only arena?

BeastDad

Didn't realize this either, super sucky.

BringPopcorn

Just know your place and enjoy the game from that place.

Its obvious people were able to get by or hang at the top spending little, and they don't want that.

I am not surprised at this seeing how aggressively monetized the game has become. Just accept where you are and enjoy it as much as you can until it stops being fun.

Zuro

You've put all my thoughts about the current state of the game into words perfectly. The monetization for this game has been absurd lately. The fact that they keep releasing all these meta-defining characters so rapidly (plus behind paywalls), will eventually lead to the death of this game.

Especially when all these new defenders and whatnot are starting to counter the classes they were supposed to be weak against. And don't get me started on how all these new defenders have some sort of damage cap to further limit skill expression.

I used to average C5/C6 quite easily as a FTP player, but now in recent seasons I'm struggling to even break through mysterium 1.

Eidols and other paywalled nonsense (Nick fury, dark Phoenix, FAM, Tigra), have steadily been ruining this game

GroundedWisdom

This is a lot of overreacting for changes that won't make a difference for people. First of all, the idea that F2P Players can keep up with spenders in ANY Prestige race is not real. They never could and they never will. That much is logical. The bit that is missing is you don't have to, and you never will. People can play the game and be competitive without spending. They just can't have everything the spenders have. That's literally what people are spending for.

Secondly, having dynamic content prevents things from being stagnant and overly-generic, and that's something that has plagued monthly content for about 8 or 9 years now, give or take an introduction of a new level. That's something that benefits everyone.

Sounds like the OP needs to realize the game is a business, and this idea that people who play for free should be head-to-head with those who spend is folly. It was never like that. You can play among them with enough effort. You will never have what they have. That's a part of life.

the_eradicator

What do you mean by know your place ?
Isnt this supposed to be a competitive game ? A game that rewards skill as well ?
But if whales go ahead and buy an entire roster full of rank 4s that shoots their prestige very high where will the balance be then ?
FTP, low and moderate spenders were able to have some foothold in the prestige game and if they were skilled enough and can hang in the high prestige allys, they could still get the top rewards. It still needs considerable amount of unit injection. What was the problem with this ?
I am only sensing extreme monetization and thats a recipe for the death of a game.

I understand what you are trying to say, you are asking us to just accept whatever is coming but its not looking good right now as far as their plans for this direction goes. Thats why we are raising some questions here. Although Kabam is a private company if the players just get fed up and leave there is no point for this game to exist then ..is it ? So we are here to voice your opinion, so yeah we are not gonna just "know our place and shut up".

the_eradicator

With the current prestige system F2P were able to keep up with spenders by grinding units and investing sig stones in top prestige champs. Obviously there is luck involved and not every F2P will be able to get to the same level as paying customers of this game. But there was still a chance to get close and that was healthy enough..people who wanted to go there could go there and it was not easy but "achievable".

This top 30 prestige is not "achievable" by any scale for FTP.

This game has had good balance between F2P and spenders, although in recent months and after so many spending events, I don't think this balance is that good but fine..it was still okay. But this..this just destroys it completely.

"You will never have what they have. That's a part of life. " And I think this quote is pretty un-necessary, we already know this and spenders will and should get advantage in a game which is monetized to this extent..if you read it properly, this is not what OP is trying to argue with.

And about the dynamic content, I welcome the changes, and I will reserve my comments for it after it drops and we see what it really is and how its structured. The idea seems good but implementation is all that matters..lets see about that later.

BringPopcorn

It's a gacha game, skill is limited within game modes.

Owning a counter is not necessarily a skill either

No one told you to shut up, just know your place, if you are a F2P or low spender you will be rewarded adequately from now on

startropics

he's not saying whales and spenders should be equal. if you knew his position and where was coming from you'd understand why this change is bad for players like him.

DrZola

I think it’s possible you may have missed the point he was making. Entirely.

Dr. Zola

BringPopcorn

Why does everyone act as if the company has some sort of obligation to entertain you? You are F2P or a low zpender. Kabam does not see you as an audience, they see you as a potential customer. Guess what happens when they see F2P players for 10 years? They stop looking at you as a potential customer and stop focusing on you.

GroundedWisdom

I read the OP's points. I've seen several more to the same effect, and I don't agree that they're taking any new direction that they haven't been all along. You can play for free, and you can spend. The people who spend are going to advance faster and more. That's how it's always been. People have been watching BG for so many years that they think that being F2P and competing with spenders on an eye-to-eye level is a part of the design. People with infinite financial resources are always going to go further. This ridiculous F2P vs. P2P mania is man-made, and it's just not a thing.

WhisperDARK

Why are you even responding to that thing in the first place, just mute him or something. Single most anti-player user in here, he will justify anything Kabam does. Not worth your time honestly.

And then the forum addict popcorn guy who got roasted so hard by cheesemaster that he literally couldn't find a witty response to come back with haha. 10k posts in 2 years is actual insanity, how sad that some people have no irl friends. Weirdo is such a whale glazing elitist its crazy, if there was a button to erase all f2p off of the earth this guy would press it cause he's that miserable and lonely :(

Just ignore these losers, they'll become homeless and go back to live their lonely lives when the game eventually dies anyway. This is the only place these guys can feel better about themselves, let them be and engage with the real people in here. They are just as frustrated as you are but not for similar reasons.

Solvseus

It’s also how I get daily rewards. I actually like the event quest stories, do a manual run, then auto the rest. Using energy refills I hoard until I need them, now that the last 4 use 4-5/move. Then doing lower levels. I almost quit the game when they bumped everything up and I realized Zemo was wiping out my 6*s on auto, even on a lower level.

They’re throwing a ton of stuff at us rn, but all it’s doing is making me want to play less.

Tairique_turay0

Ridiculously silly advice 🤦🏽‍♂️ no shock considering who it’s coming from though. 💀 Popcope strikes again. L advice.

GroundedWisdom

You seriously need to take this toxic garbage somewhere else.

Tairique_turay0

🎯🎯🎯🤣 Couldn’t have said it better myself… even though I have said it. These Labam glazers think they’ll get a medal for or even hired for their dedication to defending the Kabam team. These specific formers are on this website 24/7 doing this, because MCOC IS their life. 💀 Crazy ain’t it.

YodaKaj

Kabam, or rather NetMarble?

Tony886

Well said my man

Bloodshed87

100% agreed. Mcoc has become an exhausting experience which is going down rapidly.

Sometimes there is no clue what Kabam might be thinking when changing things like the Prestige System.

Of course we all know that their only concern is money nowadays. Yes, we further all know that they have to earn money and that our world works this way but as a longtime player you might be wondering if their is still 1% interest to let their customers experience a fine and polished product.

Too bad they went full greed mode while telling us players that they "improve" the game. What a joke…

YodaKaj

Conspiracy theory #69: Bad AI is good for profits. So there's no rush to work on that.

Searmenis

You kidding, right? This is a GAME. The main aspect of a GAME is to entertain. And if this is done right, then, the player will maybe consider to pay a little extra We re not collecting coins here and store them in our basement.

Searmenis

It is, it always was, intentionally or not.

M_A_D_D_Y

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/401372/state-of-the-game-august-2025

Yep, who needs balance when you can just swipe your way to victory? Loving how Kabam's turning MCOC into "Marvel Contest of Credit Cards."

F2P ‘keeping up’ is a joke, and soon top 30 prestige will just be another way to push F2P further down the ladder. Nice one, Kabam

And who cares game’s in its last dance anyway, Kabam’s just squeezing the lemon dry. Best thing we can do is enjoy it before the juice runs out.

Fit_Fun9329

✊🏻just represents my opinion. Last time I spent was .. 2-3 years ago ? It’s not getting better, money talks too much at the point.

Amms90

feels sad

Amms90

I'm just gonna say this change is bad for all players… Not just players like me. It's bad even more so for top prestige alliances who are always stressing over prestige. The prestige game changing so much is going to jeopardize all their efforts. Btw some of these guys are just here to comment and piss people off. Don't mind them too much. With how much they're active on forums, it makes you wonder if they have any time left to actually play the game. Do they even play? Or do they just live on the forums? Don't know for sure

Amms90

Look I'm just gonna write a single message to you, because I know you from the forums. And I understand it's pointless to argue with you. With that said, I'm gonna leave this here for other readers:

IF you say you understand what I'm trying to say, then you should understand it's not a matter of free to play being at a disadvantage when compared to big spenders. That's how it's supposed to be, Sherlock! I respect that! The point is HOW BIG the gap is now when compared to a couple years ago. And how much bigger that gap is going to become with the upcoming changes. If prestige becomes so dominant it affects all game modes, and prestige is so monetized, then you can't play competitively anymore. Spenders already spend to get more. Not only there's no way in game to make up for the lack of spending because free resources are finite. But now kabam is even cutting those free resources for non spenders and increasing the free resources for spenders? If there's no way to try and keep up with big spenders, I can't compete anymore. There's no incentive to "try hard" and play a lot more so that you can make up (at least partially) for the lack of spending. The only thing left is give up on competition. Which, in my case, means quitting the game. I don't care for growing my roster if it's pointless.

P.S. I already stated before that I'm not 100% free to play. I do get the sygil and the double track and I'm collecting the eidols. Still, when compared with BIG spenders, my spending is "neglectable". I guess this part of the player base is neglectable to Kabam too. As somebody else wrote in the comments, Kabam seems to consider us "bad customers" because we don't spend enough. Fair enough. If this is their stance, then I guess I will take my "neglectable spending" and my hours of commitment and channel them into some other game.

Flavyjay

Bro can you stop riding kabam's d*** for once.... Every where you appear it's to defend

unknown

This content has been removed.

OldManHop

I wish we could see literally any of the data that guides their decision-making - just so I can understand wtf is going through their heads when they make announcements that they must know are going to upset a huge chunk of active players - both spending and non-spending.

I mean, they've gotten this far, so I imagine they have some idea of what their end goal is with these changes (and that the goal doesn't include alienating their most engaged players) but it feels like every day the game gets more difficult, convoluted, and/or expensive to actively participate in... and my attention span is waning.

GilbertoJunior

At this point i don't have any other reason to play besides wait for reworks or characters that i don't even believe that will be release or worth at this point

Soo many cool original characters and variations that could be in other Marvel games being wasted behind paywalls and being destined to stay in drawers just to get dialogues that heavy majority of community simply skips or don't care,and why would they at the end of the day?

Kabam barely has marketing,Coming to PC was a horrible idea and took way too much from ther resources

i could go for another Marvel game but wouldn't be worth to have to play for more years to get characters i like that i don't even know if they are viable options,like,what other Marvel game have playable Mangog?

GroundedWisdom

The bottom line is this is a business. I keep reiterating that because it sounds like some people are not aware of how a business stays open long-term. You can't always market the same way, and eventually you have to try different marketing tactics. The fact that people who boast about never spending a dime are personally offended they're trying to make money and keep the game going is mind-boggling to me, but the sooner you accept they will continue to try and make money, the sooner you will save yourselves some stress. They're going to continue making money.

The histrionics are misplaced. The game is not moving to a pay-only model. Nothing they're offering is a must for game play, and it's not a must to advance. A handful of exclusive Champs that weren't even that game-changing, and an emphasis on Prestige for tailored content is not the end of the world. Prestige has always been a metric to gauge an account's progress. The Players were the ones who went haywire with maximizing it and creating the demand.

I sincerely hate to break it to you, but the spenders have always dominated this game, Just like many other games, and they always will. They're never going to turn the model upside down. That would end the game for everyone. No money means no MCOC. If I was offering a service, I would value all feedback. If someone told me to stop selling what I offered, I would ignore it.

Giving feedback on what they're selling, the value, the cost, all of that is understandable, but they're also free to try new ideas. If something is repeated, then evidently it's been successful. As for the Grandmaster's Grace, that's been asked for, for years. It's not going to come easily. Otherwise that negates the point of having an RNG model, and the game economy is built on RNG.

The game will change. That doesn't mean it's going to hell in a hand basket. Some things will always be, and they're always going to try to make as much money as they can in whatever way, so they can always offer it for free for everyone.

OldManHop

That's a really long-winded way to say that you didn't actually understand the points being made in the thread.

BringPopcorn

They just pressed a hard reset button and people are in denial to accept it. Progression titles don't matter anymore, they haven't in a while, with this new system a brand new Valiant just got demoted into a seasoned Paragon.

BringPopcorn

Its really not. People have this weird false sense that they are owed something for the long time they have played or efforts put in the game. They have this false sense that because they get to interact with the devs or listen to a few jokes in a stream they became friends.

This is a business, they are not your friends and everything they do or say is because they see you as a customer or a potential one . The faster people understand that concept the less upset they will get.

FYI waitresses are nice to people for better tips, not because they are genuine.

Bamajd

you mean to tell me that hooters waitress didn’t think I was cute?

OldManHop

I'm convinced that you wait around on the forums 24 hours a day for any opportunity to ignore the text of a post before posting irrelevant facts, novel-length non-sequiturs and strawman arguments.

OldManHop

Wasn't talking to you @GroundedWisdom, but the shoe definitely fits.

GroundedWisdom

Well I apologize then. This Forum is a pain to navigate.

TheVoxGlazer

I do agree that it is taking an absolute drastic turn against F2P and whales. But I think it's like kabam are giving like way more rewards to P2W players (because they paid for things and relatively have way better things than F2P players) and they're giving F2P less rewards because they haven't paid for anything at all and has a way Inferior roster than P2W players.

BringPopcorn

The main difference is Paying players were getting what they bought, early access to champs or mats. Now they will be rewarded for spending

FunnyDude

I’m wondering whether CCP is still relevant or just being ignored entirely.
Including the last war map change, Kabam has been making fundamental changes without any heads-up. Shouldn’t changes of this scale go through the community, or at least the CCP?

I’m not saying I’m against this PI change, but I was surprised they just announced it out of the blue. In my opinion, moving from 5 to 10 makes sense—after so many years, being limited to 5 is no longer reasonable. However, there are a lot of options between 5 and 30, right?

CheeseMaster482

Kabam doesn't care about F2P players. They never did. They only care about money. BGs only exists to make money. The way the game is monetized is anti F2P friendly, locking new meta champs behind paywalls. Even the battle pass costs 3x the price of a regular battle pass in other games, including mobile games as well. It will only get worse but of course you will still have people saying "Spenders keep the lights on" and "the game is not a charity". These people are literally defending a million dollar company for free, EVEN WORSE, they are grown adults defending a gacha game, absolutely sad.

You can't even grind the game to catch up. There are 0 modes where you can consistently get rank up materials daily, you're forced to rely on the daily super event. In addition, we can only get 4 catalysts a week from mysterium when it takes 14 to JUST rank 2 ONE seven star.

FunnyDude

I pay a lot in this game, but I also understand F2P is significant part of the ecosystem of the game, the game just dies if w/o F2P players.

Joker1976

the monetization of the game has most definitely changed,..and you’re living on a different planet if you say it hasn’t.

There was never champs behind a paywall before, or early access bundles where you could get the latest champ as a counter for enough dollars.

There is also the fact that special events are becoming more frequent and at a much higher cost in units to clear all the milestones ,putting an unrealistic expectation of ftp doubling their efforts.

Direction of the game seems off imo,.. where this path leads..who knows 🤷‍♂️

BringPopcorn

People self claiming themselves grown, if you don't like it you quit. That is the most mature way to deal with it. Its the only way to deal with being constantly ignored.

I guess some people are slow to understand my point, I really don't expect much anyway. Its pretty easy let me put it plain and simple. I don't like the direction the game took, I do understand it since its a business decision; but I do not support it. It just makes it easier to turn my back in silence when the day I get tired of it comes.

Crying, kicking and screaming does absolutely nothing, people should know that by now. Whenever they say they listened it comes with a price.

Examples?

Yes they listened, they changed DSE so you can pick a boost, they leave out 1 boost...

Yes they listened, top progression want their own rewards suitable to them, they pulled this 30 prestige BS...

Yes thet listened, we asked for more relics, rename them sell new crystals...

Everytine they listened nothing good came out of it, so know your place, accept your limitations as a low spender or F2P and when it becomes unbearable just quit, because every time they listened it got worse.

CheeseMaster482

Embarrassing, but I guess you can't expect a lot from someone who is on the forums 24/7

BringPopcorn

Dude you hate the game so much why can't you quit? So much talk about other games and so on, you spend as much time as I do on this forum except all you do is complain lol I would be more embarrassed about that to be honest...but you are a bit slow, ...

Let me guess you are going to say well I don't have 10k messages in 2 years blablabla.. you are on your way in it.. difference? In my 10k messages there is less moping and crying than in your 1k or so... What next? Blablabla private profile.. yours is private too...

Talk about idiots, make fun of people with things they do themselves 🤣

CheeseMaster482

You keep embarrassing yourself.

MFDOOMbot

As a spender I've well… stopped spending. There's nothing driving me to. Part of it is it just being a 10 year old game. I first started playing because I'm a Marvel fan, and now we're getting Kabam original characters and z-tier characters which don't really interest me. Also tired of keeping up with the Joneses. The game modes have just become very unfriendly towards casuals. So I'm basically just disinterested with the new champs and wanting to avoid the stress that most of the game modes cause, which seems to be including EQ going forward. I'm putting my money elsewhere now. Always should have honestly, but sometimes you need a good wake-up call.

WhisperDARK

Do you read what you type or what. Your argument is literally "every change we request leads to worse outcomes" which is literally not true but even for the instances you mentioned, what do you expect from a community on a forum? Should people just not complain about anything and accept everything as is? Riot is one of the most successful companies in the gaming industry and even they often revert changes and listen to feedback a lot more often, idk why that should be so out of reach with Kabam?

And why is the initial response to criticism always the "just quit then" card, do you realise how absurd that is? Thankfully not everyone agrees with you, this game wouldn't have lasted for years if they did and we wouldn't have had some of the most fun and memorable gaming experiences we've ever had. I really don't get what your point is, not even sure if there is one.

Nobody is frustrated because Kabam made a poor marketing decision or something, people care about their own pleasure and that is the very thing getting harmed in here. No idea why you guys are coming up with "its a business" as if nobody thought about that before. People don't like and support it because this decision itself doesn't inclusively support the people. Why is it such a struggle to understand for some of you, are you purposefully derailing the conversation of what?

Some of you might be viewing everything Kabam does from a company standpoint but we are the players, you and I. There's no reason for me to priorotize the best possible outcome for Kabam rather than some balance inbetween, not sure why you think otherwise as a player yourself. I wouldn't care about Kabam in the slightest if I had nothing to do with their games but the last time I said these lines I got criticised by someone for selfishness and read an analogy about my significant other so I don't expect it to be understood by such people. In the end there's literally no reason for neither a company nor the receiver to be in romantic terms, crazy concept I know…

Also what is your obsession with people "knowing their place" I may never understand tbh. Did you hear that one on the most recent Netflix series you watched and got impressed by it or something? No idea why you're acting so tough on a mobile gaming forum as if anybody cares but sure...

Finally, I won't respond back if you do cause I'm honestly so sick of these conversations already; they lead to nowhere when neither side is willing to drop their guard and they'd rather try to win than contribute anything to the discussion, don't take this personal as it goes like that for just about anyone. I've already said it many times, I lost hope long ago and the final nail on the coffin is way past us. I don't expect anything to suddenly change when a community and their beloved content creators can't stick to a boycott for more than 2 days, Kabam controls you all a lot more than you could ever imagine and such immense frustrations will keep repeating until you realise someday. Hope that day can come soon enough.

Joker1976

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2863953#Comment_2863953

Glad you got that wake up call as i have received mine also.

I am honestly very happy they have made the gap wide enough to make moderate spending irrelevant,..and in my eyes pretty much irrational.

It will get you almost nowhere .

Much better forms of entertainment to invest dollars in imo.

startropics

So here's my thinking after a few days of thinking about it.

Positives:

-Top 30 prestige favors consistent engagement more than ever. If you're doing all the modes, collecting all rewards, and popping as many 7*s as you can, you're getting sig stones and rankups being added to your account in bulk. Before, if your top 5 prestige champ got pushed out to #6 , those sigs would have been a waste but this is no longer the case, so now, all your work matters and it's impact lasts longer.

In practice this means the game values consistent grinding.

Negatives:

-Prestige now includes top 30 relic prestige too, which is terrible, because for the last 2-3 years the only way you could meaningfully gain relics and sig levels was to buy the reliquary odins on july 4 and cyber. If the relic economy stays the same, this is really discouraging for players who don't spend.

-Since top 30 prestige now favors consistent engagement, anyone who takes a break from the game falls behind much faster than before. You can't just come back a year later and simply whale out on cyber and get 5 rankup gems plus titan nexuses and a selector or two to catch up. If you fall behind, you're basically toast. I'm not sure why Kabam went this direction, because coming back from a long layoff will be much harder.

Overall, I don't know how this will change things in practice, and Kabam doesn't fully know either, but to me it's not good. Relics were a huge negative for me (light money on fire or fall behind!), so this is still a dealbreaker. I hope you guys continue enjoying the game, because in some ways it's still a good game, but not for me anymore.

BringPopcorn

1 possible negative to add, would be a scummy move; but future new champs could have unnecessary high prestige for no reason at all just to create more FOMO and pad their numbers. Isn't High Evolutionary really up there?

startropics

Yup. I mean Dark Phoenix was tied for second in prestige then 2 months later she's 5th.

And new champs don't even need to be top 5 anymore, for a very long new releases always trended to hit the top 30 anyway.

New or new-sh champs still in the top 30:

-Leader

-Enchantress

-Lumatrix (new)

-Jean (new)

-Karolina Dean (new)

-Spiderpunk

-Prowler

-Serpent

-Okoye (new)

-Zemo (new)

-Shathra

Sachhyam257

Funny how that post was released after the new site update which doesn't let you react to dev announcements anymore.

BringPopcorn

Exactly, if the new ones start creeping up in the top 30 too often we know exactly what the intention is..

SurfnSun

the current state of the game reminds me of a decade ago when they put Thorns and Slashed Tires as nodes in AQ so it was almost impossible to finish a quest without using revives.

It was a repugnant money grab that they eventually did away with…I assume bc so many quit. Half our alliance did and I quit the game for a couple of years as a result. Leaning that way again….

its starting to get ugly again and not fun.