I know you must be overloaded Kabam, but please understand, no one feels safe using their champions.

I’ll be the first one to say that I do not think that balance program did many meaningful things for this game? From a consistent player point of view, the balance program felt like it existed to destroy good champions and make bad champions only slightly less bad. It genuinely felt like a net negative for the player experience.

With this being said, one good thing that balance program did was give a general sense of security after a characters buff/nerf cycle had passed. As things are now it just feels like complete chaos. I did not like the balance program but now it genuinely feels like there is no way to enjoy any character in this game because it feels like every good character is going to be “bugged” and needing to be fixed at its earliest convenience (Look at Spiderwomen, there was nothing she did that wasn’t advertised explicitly, new content came out and you guys were like, nahhh, she’s too good now, got to tone her down).

I don’t know what to say to help with this situation, but it would be really nice to have some type of declaration of what is in the game as it is now is not going to be messed with.

Comments

BringPopcorn

Overloaded by situations they created themselves? 0 sympathy for that...

GroundedWisdom

Just use them. Good Lord.

Kabam (Osaurus) Rex

Things are essentially just going back to the way they were before the program existed, before Champions were reviewed on a 6-month cadence with possible changes looming.

FiiNCH

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2894017#Comment_2894017

Mike, I’m concerned this ultimately means you (Kabam) can continue releasing BS defenders like dark phoenix/Serpent without being held accountable within the community through your reviews/justifications in the balance programme communications.

this all feels like you’re choosing the easy path for yourselves over what’s best for your player base & community.

BringPopcorn

I can't stop laughing at this situation...

Spider Woman: champion NO ONE complained about gets re balanced...

Dark Phoenix: Champion a lot of people complained about defensively. Scrap the rebalance program, don't deal with it 🤣

Chuck_Finley

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2894022#Comment_2894022

there was never accountability … serpent exists “as is” and didn’t cost $1,000 or 40k units. Every rebalance was measured against him by the community…. And most were laughable. DP just introduced a scenario where they lose either way and a whole bunch of value is intrinsically tied to the champ for future sales. The rebalancing program was cooked anyway… DP just put the final nail in the coffin

Dr. Crab

@Kabam (Osaurus) Rex Are we going to get any comments on Nico or Karolina? I’m sure you guys are aware how liked they are by the community.

FiiNCH

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2894028#Comment_2894028

No but Kabam had to provide monthly communication with their rationale about why things were changed/remain the same.

Removing this openness is a poor move for us as a player base. Basically Kabam do what they want, and don’t need to tell us why or provide justification now.

BringPopcorn

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2894032#Comment_2894032

How do you stop sweeping dirt under the rug? Remove the rug....

Kabam (Osaurus) Rex

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2894030#Comment_2894030

There isn't much more to add about them - they won't undergo a rebalance window like other Champions did. As I mentioned earlier, we're reverting to the pre-balance status quo where Champions are released as they are, and there aren't monthly (or batched) updates consisting of newly released Champions.

We're looking to explore alternate options to the program and are going to spend time figuring out what works best for the game and the Community, but in the meantime, we're just going back to how it always was.

I don't feel comfortable guaranteeing they will never get touched, because in case of emergency, we do reserve the right to intervene for game health just as we always did, but the looming "balance post" for Karolina and Nico is not something that is coming down the pike.

Please let me know if that clears things up for you.

Ercarret

Saying that the buff program only existed to destroy good champions and making bad champions only slightly less bad feels…off. The only two nerfs that I can think of from the last two years have been Spider-Woman's and Bullseye's. While Spider-Woman's was a whole clown fiesta, I don't think anyone bemoans that Bullseye nerf. So I don't see any real evidence of them "destroying good champions" on a consistent basis.

As for making bad champs only slightly less bad, there hasn't been a lot of that either. Mostly because there hasn't been all that many buffs to begin with. I think the only ones we've seen have been Northstar, Patriot and Spider-Punk, and then Joaquin Phoenix and Deathless Vision are on their way. I agree that none of those first three really shot up into the tippy top of meta relevance, but I also think they seem perfectly solid and I've seen some great gameplay with all of them from some people who enjoy them.

That being said, I agree that one of the pros of the rebalancing program was the transparency it gave us in the community when it came to changes to champions. I don't particularly want to go back to the pre-program way of changing bugs with champions years after the fact, such as the Mole Man fiasco from a few years back.

GroundedWisdom

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2894022#Comment_2894022

Serpent was not touched. That was very much an intentional design, simply because they left him as-is. People might as well stop complaining about him. So was Dark Phoenix, who for all intents and purposes is quite rare.

Having a program isn't going to prevent them from releasing strong Champs. That was never really the goal.

ahmynuts

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2894042#Comment_2894042

Can we have a comment on where the in case of emergency break glass policy was when serpent was released?

Dr. Crab

@Kabam (Osaurus) Rex Thank you for the reply Mike I do really appreciate it and it does clear it up.

I guess the problem I’m having and probably most spenders are having is the feeling that no champ is worth investing in or no champ is worth spending real life money on because it just seems like the words critical or pain point is so nebulous that it could be anything.

It really does seem like you guys understand how devastating the spider woman nerf is. Although a lot of players will say it’s not that big of a deal but for those of us who are spending quite a bit of money on this game and have for almost 10 years if not for the full 10 years, that was an incredible betrayal of trust, particularly when one, no one asked for it and two what was being changed was advertised and sold that way, ie. meaning that it was understood what was her kit.

I think, at least this spender, really feels how do we trust you guys moving forward? Like what’s to say, and forgive me, I know I’m being a exaggerative, but what’s to say the game developers don’t come out with a node that says something along the lines of “if the attacker glances damage, the defender takes a tremendous burst of energy damage” and now, you guys are like well, Karolina is behaving unintentionally with this node because she’s glancing too much and therefore we have to tune down her glancing. That’s not a bug, but I think we all feel like this is the precedence.

Again, thank you for communicating with us, this obviously wasn’t your call and this is probably not your ideal night, but these are real concerns.

FiiNCH

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2894049#Comment_2894049

as usual, completely miss understands a comment and takes the conversation off in a different direction.

My point is about Kabam communication and openess with us, and was a question directly to Mike.

Cdub5071

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2894042#Comment_2894042

It doesnt, it feels like a giant scam. Before the buff program champions were nerfed, or "bugged" for years until you decided to fix them when it suited you. These are horrible business practices. I know you guys have continuously talked about things that hurt the game economy. What about the way you treat your customers? A lost customer is way harder to get back than a new one. Before the buff program, you didnt have boss nodes built into champions kits. So what I am understanding this is the new business model. Make ridicules defenders that make current champions obsolete, sell answers, repeat. You guys really should be ashamed. You created this problem but loyal customers are paying the price. This game sucks, the people that make it suck. There is no accountability. I am done with this garbage.

Cdub5071

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2894022#Comment_2894022

100% that is what they are doing. New champs are driving the revenue. The revenue is so backwards in this game they are clinging to anything, but it will cost them. They have burnt the community to many times to count.

Kabam (Osaurus) Rex

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2894052#Comment_2894052

Karolina being really good for a node that requires glancing would not mean that her glancing is all of a sudden a bug - in the end, that may just be a poor example.
But I've seen some people point to the Mole Man bug fix - I wasn't working here at the time (that was a LONG time ago at this point), and in hindsight, that probably could have just stayed how it was, but that was very clearly a bug that went against his listed abilities; whether it should have stayed due to how long it existed is a different conversation that isn't entirely relevant here, but it would have fell outside the parameters of the realance program anyway.

What I'm getting at here is that you should feel as comfortable investing your resources into new Champions as you did before the program existed. The goal here is for you to feel like your time and investments are being respected.

GroundedWisdom

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2894053#Comment_2894053

They WERE open with us. Serpent's review came and went. They decided he hit the mark they set. By all means, keep beating a dead horse.

Dr. Crab

@Kabam (Osaurus) Rex Thanks again dude, I do appreciate it, I do, and this will be my final post on this thread (I don’t want to nag you all night, I’m sure your very busy), I know that example is completely ridiculous and wouldn’t happen but it’s more or less the idea, like how do you guys define a bug or the idea of over performing? It’s like, the kits are the kits. Spiderwomen kit says 30% ability accuracy reduction and cannot evade. Content got introduced that made that perform better so it’s to be removed. Were is that line drawn I guess is what I’m saying? Is there a way to determine it or is it just a matter of what day of the week it is or where we are in proximity to a sale (I’m not trying to sound snarky either, genuinely appreciate the response).

Again Mike, thank you again for your responses, I think your a great community manager and personally I would like to stop talking about this because it feels like that’s all anyone has had to say for the last 2 months but again, silly examples asside, this is what players are concerned with.

ahmynuts

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2894065#Comment_2894065

Moleman is being reverted everyone you heard it here first

Pumaan

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2894042#Comment_2894042

What about Kabam intervening for game's health when it comes to DP?