The energy refill change is a lot worse than it looks

I'm just another amateur ignoramus speculating on things I know nothing about (game development, economics, data science) but these changes almost look designed to repel THE ONLY GROUP OF PLAYERS they're trying to convert into spenders while nickel and diming their regular spenders.

Imagine you run a business that runs on a try-before-you-buy model. Your business is simple, you want as many people in your store as possible for as long as possible, entrance is free, you hand out free samples, and you want them addicted to your product as fast as possible so they can start buying.

The nerf to energy only does the following:

-browsing customers get half as many samples and when they do the portion sizes are way smaller so they're less engaged with the product

-they get harassed by the shopkeeper to "buy something or get out!"

-and they have a new "security" policy that starts quickly kicking out non-spenders for "loitering"

Basically the entire business goes from a friendly, relaxed, come-as-you-please, stay-as-long-as-you-like atmosphere into a brow-beating high-pressure sales environment that treats its customers like walking wallets.

This change kills engagement, takes agency away from players, and secretly gives Kabam what they've always wanted: gets players to spend on DOING their content, not just with energy but it de facto kills revive farming, forever!

If they release another fun and interactive piece of content like necropolis for the next progression title in a few months, and it needs 400-600 revives, good luck farming that.

This change does nothing but ruin engagement for f2p and casual spenders and gets the hardcore base to do something they haven't done in a very very long time, spend on revives and refills not just regularly but for their hardest content.

Throughout the year players will lose a lot of units and Kabam will get more $$$ but will they compensate by putting out cheaper offers during their big sales? Will the unit store on Cyber Monday get lowered from 59k units worth of stuff like it was last year to 30k? Not a chance in hell.

Comments

GroundedWisdom

I'm not sold on how many will be available in the future myself, but this take feels a bit dramatic.

Ikaliban

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2876886#Comment_2876886

Lineage 2 Essence, have you heard of it? It's from the same company. I warned on the forum about the need for a change in the PK system. Either that or the game would go bankrupt. Look at the graphics from the European Essence. It's not melodrama. It's reality.

startropics

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2876886#Comment_2876886

Energy is the oxygen of this game.

No energy means no access to refills (duh) which means no getting ahead of monthly content, which means no room for refill farming, which means no access to revive farming, which means having to dump tons of units not just into regular content like EQ, BGs, daily quests, poker game, SQ, but also their hardest content.

If you need 500 revives to finish the upcoming endgame content this november, which will undoubtedly be tied to the next progression title and surely connected to cyber deals (time sensitive content), those 10,000+ units won't be from farmed revives, they'll be coming out of our unit stashes (edit: yes, we have 4hr crystals but you get the picture, they're shifting the burden from energy and revives into units).

Manofjustice32

groundedwisdumb your are wrong bro energy nerf is a death sentence for Mcoc

Guizao

Seems like kabam doesn't want us to play their game, I WILL NOT spent units for energy, will enter, auto the dailies and log off, just pathetic decisions after pathetic decisions.

Avnish

Idk what's happening with kabam. But TBH it was better when Kabam Jax and Mike was community manager. I don't wanna say this I felt wierd changes happening in mcoc after Dave and Kartemike joined kabam as community manager also response got delayed as well on major issues...

I really don't know who is taking these decisions. But I said what I felt. It seems like kabam only thinking about 1% player based that's it..

Here are some key points felt gone wrong since couple of months

Adaptive EQ is worst
They started limit the champion base for quests WOF and 9.3. it was not there from 7.1 to 9.2 so why now..I can get it for end game content.
Now this energy refills changes which is major IMO. Even they are talking about to removing it from 4hr crystal that means you have to buy it you need and want to complete content faster.
Now SQ difficulty also increased in comparison to previous but reward is mid.
No buffs for incursion and loyalty store since so long.

Here is some good points which happened

Daily Quest change is so good
Introducing radiance currency because of that BG got its worth.
Raid month was good. IMO it should be parmanent…less time consuming

TBH I used to be crazy about this game 4-5 months ago. But now I am losing interest of this game or may be I will leave this game forever and take my life back.

Thanks

GroundedWisdom

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2876897#Comment_2876897

There will be Energy in the game. That's why I said it feels dramatic.

The end goal of all of this is a more appropriate amount of Energy for what we need. Not stores that will expire if we don't rush content. As I said I'm still questioning what that amount will be and where it will come from as 2 a week doesn't seem to be enough, but they also mentioned monitoring it and adding it in other areas. So this idea that there will be no Energy in the game without spending is inaccurate and premature.

Hulk808

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2876923#Comment_2876923

Totally agree dude. Was just telling my alliance yesterday that this game seemed to be going downhill after KarateMike joined the team. He only caters to the top 1% of the game, like you said.

Flynnlives2k15

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2876940#Comment_2876940

He’s a community manager, he has very little say on the running of the game.

I know that the community managers are the public face of the game so people automatically blame them for everything but they really don’t dictate anything in the game. All they can do is collate feedback and give it to the game team.

Aaronxz

What’s next, nerfing boosts because we actually saved some? XD!

Manofjustice32

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2876959#Comment_2876959

the game wasn’t designed for players to save up boosts and always have them available lol. Stash’s are illegal now lol

Raganator

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2876918#Comment_2876918

Same. Thinking they will force us to spend units on energy refills is so misguided. It will simply make me play less (or not at all). And for them, i think it's far worse that most people aren't angry - they are simply apathetic. Apathy is far more dangerous than anger if you are trying to keep this game alive.

Aegon87

and they say we hear you :D

spiderknight616

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2876935#Comment_2876935

I half agree with you. It might have been manageable if they had kept energy only for questing but the removal of Elders Marks for BGs makes it so much worse. Before we had the option running quests and BGs in the same session but now we will have to choose, and that's just going to make things feel less exciting overall

SirGamesBond

I'm not commenting on energy issues at this monemt, as I have to see how it will effects me or people around me (old friends and alliances mates) in upcoming months.

Lord_Apex666

TBH I feel the changes to the energy issue is utter garbage. Look at what energy it costs to do dailies for interest. 2-3 energy per tile in a daily is just not on at all let alone the cost for the new EQ starts from 3 per tile and goes to 5 per tile I mean WTF. And now KABAM want to take away our option to open free crystals (Which are not 4hours anymore) we have to do super daily to get those now, I feel it straight forward theft from KABAM.
Can tell you this now they will nerf how many units you can farm in the game to null soon at the rate they are going. Wake up KABAM and stop screwing us your loyal players over like this now its past a joke!!

Graves_3

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2876935#Comment_2876935

I am genuinely curious what’s wrong with expiring energy refills? When we don’t even have the agency to sell expiring high value items, what’s this fascination with reducing energy refills because it expires from stash?
Who is it hurting really if a refill or 2 expire from my stash? Is it hurting me? The gaming community? Or the developers? No matter how rationally I think about it and be logical, I am clearly not understanding the ill effects of expiring energy refills.

Mik81

It is clear now this was in intended change. We want that energy is bought with in game currency. Why do you lie about that when you took it of form the weekly rewards? Kabam said they are taking it now because we won't need it, but the true was that we are going to need it more and they just want to monetize that aspect of the game also. Now, with the energy at BGs you are asking us to trust you, I'm sorry, but there is no trust. I can bet real money that the ultimate intend is to monetize the BGs even more with having to pay to play it, and this change is only looking to have players pay with in game currency to play.

I understand you need to pay your bills, but moving from pay to win to pay to play it's a bit too much, when you already had a strong monetization that is been working for you. I'd love to check all your metrics in a few months from here to really understand how this is impacting the game.

SirGamesBond

Since this thread feels like it will remain on the top.

I passionately disliked elder quest 3.1 and 3.2 for energy demands. 2 sets of energy reset per quest? It's not acceptable in 2025.

BringPopcorn

Comspiracy theory number 726494924

They lost the micro transactions, no one buys units outside of special sales, they can't encourage you to do it, so they will make you spend units.

No more revive farming, well there was too much energy left, now they gotta target energy. Specially since eveything nowadays has become a gaunlet (yes Kabam is over using it by now), reset a quest and try again? With all that free energy? Nonsense!! Take away energy now!

Well now some people can think.. oh well a peter parket wallet, thats almost 5 energy refills i can finish my quest for 5 bucks...

At this point I seriously question how well they are doing, cause it seems like they are trying too hard to make some money. Its starting to look desperate.

altavista

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2876935#Comment_2876935

As with all your posts, you always view things only from your/Kabam's perspective.

"Appropriate amount of energy for what" you need.

Kabam is floating nonsense (that you are eating up) that the removal of energy refills from 4-hour crystals is an act of benevolence to (hyperbolic statement) 'spare players the untold suffering of having energy refills expire in their overflow'. That ignores (1) Players who regularly open crystals in the course of routine play and so do not have O.D. (overflow dysfunction), (2) Players who open crystals in advance of tackling Everest content and so can utilize the overflow energy to farm potions prior to being locked into everest content, and so also do not have O.D.

Everyone plays the game differently, and Kabam has now transitioned from "players can play how they want" to "players can play how Kabam wants them to play." You may be fine dancing to their tune, but a ton of players who are used to playing how they want will be rightfully offput.

At the end of the day, Kabam is free to do what they want with their game, as specified by ToS. But stop trying to gaslight other players into thinking unfriendly changes are good for everyone.

GroundedWisdom

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2877114#Comment_2877114

You can play however you want, within the limitations they set. That's been the same as it's always been. Someone made the decision that 70 is the Energy limit, until they added more, and that was a decision. Someone decided that it refills at a certain set amount of time. Someome made the decision that an EQ takes a certain amount of it. Everywhere you look in the game, you're surrounded by decisions that someone at Kabam has made, and our freedom to play how we want only exists within the limitations of that.

Someone is responsible for the balancing and monitoring of resources, and having an expiring overflow of something will always be a problem. Now, occasionally that's the result of someone electing not to use it, like lower Cats. However, when it's the result of the design, i.e. content demands, then they're going to look at tightening things up.

Whether we like it or not, Energy is still meant to be a limiting resource. Stockpiling masses of it isn't a good design. Not the answer people like, but certainly one that is valid to a designer.

Graves_3

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2877124#Comment_2877124

let me ask you again-you said something expiring is a big problem. Can you tell me what problem expiring energy refills is causing? And to whom?

GroundedWisdom

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2877126#Comment_2877126

It puts a demand on more content, it devalues the item itself, it creates more work for the Devs, it makes content easier than intended, shall I go on?

Graves_3

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2877129#Comment_2877129

yes please. Go on.. you seem to be on a roll.

People demanding more content has nothing to do with available energy. I would love to see some data about this. If there is demand for more content, it is because people are engaged. Not because there are expiring energy refills.

RhythmDevice

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2877078#Comment_2877078

What adds to this is the fact you need to do a completion run before getting into Elder. I can't remember what the energy requirements were before in the Valiant Gauntlet but back then, all you needed to do was the Valiant Gauntlet.

They also sold the Valiant Gauntlet to us as "hey, you will need to do less fights, that's great!" so now keeping a completion run adds another 42 fights (6 fights per path + boss fight) which makes all the Elder fights look like a lot more work for us to do.

They basically reversed themselves and are ignoring their own argument while adding the extra energy costs of doing the completion run for us.

BringPopcorn

Less energy = less people online = less bandwith used = connection problems solved.

They are fixing the server disconnection issues by being disconnected with the people.

Tigra神鬼

I just don't know why the game's story mode needs energy. I don't understand it. With BGs and AW, I can understand that there is energy, but for Acts, daily quests, EQ, or other events outside of what is comp, I really don't understand why it still requires energy. It doesn't make sense at this point.

GroundedWisdom

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2877135#Comment_2877135

You asked for ways it harms and I listed some. I'm not debating them ad nauseum.

Vanitelia

There's a reason why we see Crucible-type quests pop up in content recently. It encourages players to get through it after reaching a point of no return. Maybe the reduction of refills will allow them to be more creative when it comes to quest layouts. I have a large roster and don't have an issue spending a revive or two during a quest to complete it. It's what the revives are there for, but this issue isn't about that or me.

Limiting energy limits gameplay. I've said this in another thread, but I have no issue with limiting energy at the sake of keeping the integrity of a quest intact. I'm not going to use energy to engage with the content that I've already completed. We need a place where we can use our champs that don't cost energy. Practice mode isn't it. Heck, make it 1 energy per tile, make it cost gold, remove the cost entirely. Let players play the game. No rewards needed.

Part of the reason they are making these changes is to discourage players from completing content on Day 1. Sure, they'll give us enough resources throughout the month to complete everything without spending units, but it also restricts players from engaging in the game on their own time unless they want to purchase the refills. Not everyone has an exorbitant amount of time to play the game each day.

On face value, sure, this decision is to reset the energy ecosystem and to mitigate players resetting their progress in a quest, but there's also the additional impacts that these decisions have on the game. Not everyone boosts to complete quests, but those that do, they'll have a decision to make. Plenty of more reasons the community has pointed out.