The New Ascension Seems Like One of the Worst Additions to the Game

I'm back and harping on ascension again. I made a post about it a few weeks ago and then before the stream this week and now I am back after the stream. Before I get into it let me just preface this post by saying this.

I LOVE MCOC. I have been playing this game for nearly a decade. I play it daily, I have all the content completed, I am active in all of the competitive modes. I have seen everything this game and community has to offer. The good and the bad. I promise I am qualified and my opinion is not baseless. The only reason I am being so adamant is because I want to see this game do good but lately its just been loss after loss after loss. I don't want one of my favorite games to die. Ok, now to the post.

Pretty much from the start I have been very cautious of the new ascension to say the least. After watching yesterday's stream I can confidently say all of my concerns were valid and if anything, ascension seems even worse than what I initially feared.

The new ascension system has many problems. I'm going to focus on the big points and try to keep this somewhat brief. So here we go:

Issue 1: THE NEW ASCENSION IS NEEDLESSLY COMPLICATED. With the new ascension we are getting 11 new ranks, there has been two different resources introduced required for ascension, the champions that can be ascended are split into three different pools and the acquirement methods differ for all three champion pools. These pools will not be updated but maybe they will add different pools in the future. Oh and other champs might be ascended in other ways like through challenges maybe? Why!? Why make it such a needlessly complicated process.

Ascension should be so much more straightforward. Introduce one resource (like ascension dust) and have that be used for ascension. Let players choose what champions they rank, why add the element of chance into it? The most confusing part is that Kabam is talking about streamlining the game and getting rid of bloat. They are deleting variant content, combining different currencies and changing the mysterium store for example in order to make the game more streamlined. So then why make ascension so needlessly complicated? It literally goes against their own goals.

Issue 2: THE NEW ASCENSION TAKES AWAY AGENCY FROM THE PLAYER. MCOC has always been a gambler's game. Especially when it comes to champion acquisition. Very rarely do we get a guaranteed way to earn a champ we want. However, when it comes to ranking champs, thats where we have always been given more agency. We don't control what champs we pull but we can often choose what champs we rank. The new ascension system throws that away completely and instead says "NO. You're ranking up the champion we TELL you to."

This is because there is no universal rankup method for the new ascension. Instead there are champion specific tokens which can only be earned through chance. You love Mojo? Want to ascend him? Hope you get lucky and don't pull patriot from the ascension pool instead.

It's such a frustrating system. It further takes away control and personalization from accounts in favor of monetization and gambling. Because if you do want to have a good chance of ascending the champs you like, you better be ready to spend some units.

Issue 3 and the most important issue: NEW CHAMPION ASCENSIONS ARE NOT FOR THE POOR. It's that simple. Unless you are whaling out on crystals, don't even think about ascending any of the new champs. Maybe sometime next year, Kabam might give some way for you to ascend them. That's what they've told us. They literally have said either spend money or wait a year to maybe get some way to acquire the ascension materials... That's such an absolute slap to the face.

Why would anyone be excited for new champions if they don't have the power to play them at the highest level? Getting new champs is already hard enough. People horde titans to try and get the new champs to play and now theres this added brick wall that just can't be passed unless you're willing to pay money. It's pure greed and nothing else. Let me reitirate:

THE NEW MOST POWERFUL CHAMPS ARE ONLY FOR THE RICH. Because I promise you the new champs we get will be so much better than the purposefully mid champs of the base ascension pool. The entire point of this new ascension was to shine a light on lesser used champs, but thats a load of bull. Because every new champ is also ascendable, but only for people who are willing to spend the money for it.

There is no justification for this. I am begging everyone to please speak out against ascension. Don't support it. If you are reading this, make a post or add a comment, do anything to tell Kabam that this is a bad idea. I am begging CCP members to tell Kabam to make changes. I am begging Kabam to not go through with it.

I love this game. Please don't kill it.

Comments

BringPopcorn

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2932773#Comment_2932773

Actually you are wrong, because if they make it affordable to an amount that is comfortable for you to get 1 ascension. Lets call the number 300 bucks, you will be happy with your 300 bucks ascension while a whale spends 3000 and has 10 of them.

Your argument is purely based on FOMO, its not about them getting it or not, its about you not getting it.

Kyusushui

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2932775#Comment_2932775

I mean, you're just wrong. If Kabam didn't need F2P players they would simply make everything in the game cost money. You need people to play your game for it to succeed. It's just that simple.

BringPopcorn

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2932778#Comment_2932778

1 whale quits you will see a bigger impact than 1000 F2P players quitting...

I am wrong but nowadays even SQ had a monetized aspect? You sre delusional if you think F2P has any impact in the game .

Kyusushui

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2932777#Comment_2932777

I don't understand your reasoning here, its not about FOMO its about not being able to utilize a core mechanic of the game (upgrading champions) without spending money. I would not be happy if they made 1 ascension 300 dollars. Thats still an absurd price point. Any price placed on a fundamental game mechanic is inherently flawed

EdisonLaw

@Kabam (Osaurus) Rex please hear our feedback here, we all want the game to survive for at least a few more years. It’d be a miracle if MCOC lasted till 2034

Kyusushui

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2932782#Comment_2932782

Let's try to get to the end of 2026 first XD

BattleWarriar

I’m excited. I get the concerns but this is an 8* replacement at the end of the day. Thinking of ascension that way has helped the transition for me. It’s just a slower gap between unascended and ascended, than 7* to 8* would have been. It lets your roster stay relevant throughout the ascension rollout. I think it will be good, but it will be a process for everyone to adjust. I think it will be fun though

TotemCorruption

I think literally every major streamer including CCP members is disgusted by this system of paywalling new champ ascension, especially because Kabam earlier said all new champs would be immediately ascendable.

Like, don't say something like that and intentionally leave out the elephant in the room: all new champions will be immediately ascendable IF YOU BUY THEM THROUGH THE FEATURED CRYSTALS.

Sorry, but that is just scummy messaging.

DNA3000

The problem is a lot of people are comparing 7* Ascension to 6* Ascension. But 7* Ascension is not really intended to do what 6* Ascension does. It isn't even replicating what rank ups do alone - at least not in one critical aspect. Really, 7* Ascension is replacing the act of adding a whole new rarity. In other words, 7* Ascension is replacing 8* champs.

7* Ascension is not really very complicated. At least, it isn't any more complicated than the act of acquiring and then ranking up 7* champs. First you have to pull the champ. Until you pull the 7* version of the champ specifically, you can't do anything else. Once you have it, you have two different things you can do with it. You can awaken it and then increase its sig level. And you can rank it up and level it up. Each requires different resources. To awaken a champ you have two choices. You can randomly pull the champ a second time - dup it, in other words. Or you can use an awakening gem. And then you can add signature levels with sig stones, or you can gain 20 sig levels every time you dup it again. To rank the champ up you need a set of different catalysts. You generally need some alpha cats, some basic cats, and some class-specific cats. You also need to level them up to max level before you can rank them up to the next rank using ISO and gold. Or you can use a rank. up gem.

If I were to dump all of that at once on a new player, it would seem as complicated or more complicated than ascension. But Ascension has many of the same features, because it has to. To Ascend a champ you first have to collect an ascension token specific to that champ. That is analogous to pulling or duping a 7* champ. You also need ascension resources, much like you need catalysts to rank a champ up. Those resources change for each rank, and generally increase in amounts the higher you go, just like rank ups. Some of those resources are class-specific, and some are more generic, just like catalysts.

There are 11 levels of ascension, just like there are, say, 6 ranks of 7* rank up. Since the power level increase for one level of ascension appears to be slightly less than what you get with one rank up, 11 ascension levels roughly corresponds to about 5 rank ups. That's comparable to the 5 ranks that 6* champs have, and isn't all that unusual in that context.

The reason why Ascension appears to have the same requirements as champion acquisition, awakening, and rank/level up combined, just mixed up in different ways, is precisely because 7* Ascension is a substitute for introducing 8* rarity. The reason it is being used this way is because there's a lot of discontent when new rarities are introduced because of the feeling of having to start over. 7* Ascension allows players to preserve some of the investment they've made in their 7* rosters - in particular signature levels. If they had just rolled out 8* rarity, players who pull new 8* champs would get them at rank 1 level 1 unawakened and have to start investing in those champs all over again. Now, they will be pulling 7* Ascension tokens and essentially bringing those champs up to 8* rarity power levels.

Why not just allow 7* Ascension to work like 6* Ascension? Because there's a reason new rarities get introduced in the first place, and the properties of new rarities - resetting the chase for champs in particular - are essential. They can choose to substitute something else for a new rarity. But they cannot eliminate the properties new rarities have that are the entire reason they get added in the first place.

Or to put it another way, you can replace 8* rarity with 7* Ascension, but many of the "problems" of 8* rarity aren't avoidable. For example, when a new rarity comes out, some players get those champs first. Spenders in particular always get more opportunities quicker. That's not a problem to solve. That's simply the benefit spenders are given by design. You can't take that away without threatening the long term economic viability of the game.

The complexity of Ascension is more a matter of players getting info dumped. It is no more complicated than traditional champion acquisition, rank ups and signature ability management. But it is also no less complicated because it has to be, because 7* Ascension has to contain most of the same hurdles as a new rarity would, because those same hurdles that are problematic for some are also essential to how the game supports itself, both economically and in terms of in-game progression balance.

If you don't like 7* Ascension, that's fine. You're free to advocate against it. But the alternative is 8* rarity, with all that implies. It isn't a streamlined ascension system. It isn't a system where everyone can ascend whatever they want. If you don't have to chase specific tokens, if there isn't a strong monetization path, if it doesn't have the same overall structure, then 7* ascension no longer satisfies the requirements of rarity reset, and that forces the devs to introduce 8* rarity. You should be comparing 7* Ascension to a complete rarity reset, not to the status quo. Consider the alternative before you try to bring down Ascension. To be honest, I would be fine either way.

For years I've been saying, when people complain about new rarities, that any system that replaces new rarities will have to include pretty much every aspect of new rarities people don't like, because new rarities don't have those issues by accident, they have them by design. Setting the complexity aside, pretty much everything people are complaining about when it comes to Ascension are things people complain about every time Kabam introduces a new rarity. It only seems worse because it is different, but it isn't really.

Searmenis

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2932775#Comment_2932775

If low and casual spenders quit the game, the game will die. Better now?

ahmynuts

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2932799#Comment_2932799

Except the main complaint isnt about any of that. It's gaslighting the community, trying to milk the players for everything theyre worth, and prevent anyone except high spenders from accessing this highest level of power for new champions for a year

Osborne

I agree, its complicated and awful

TheUglyone123

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2932799#Comment_2932799

This is all well and good. And I know some people are complaining about the complexity. This isn’t the main issue though. It’s that Kabam was intentionally being misleading with initially saying new champs will be ascendable…as long as you are willing to drop 2k plus on their valiant crystals after this livestream

SpyderFam

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2932799#Comment_2932799

You wrote 1,009 words and didn't even address the main complaint people have with ascension.

You should be a politician if you are not one already.

DNA3000

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2932802#Comment_2932802

I addressed the three bullet points in the post I replied to: complexity, agency, and the fact that spenders would get the opportunity to ascend champions earlier than non-spenders in many cases. All three are issues a new rarity would introduce to a similar degree, intentionally.

Whether Kabam "gaslighted" the community is something I'm deliberately not addressing, because historically that's generally an unproductive line of discussion. I do not recall expressing an opinion - one way or the other - on that sort of thing where I either found myself hammered in ways I found trivially worthless to reflect upon or being supported in ways I found even more disturbing.

As I said, I would have been fine with 8* rarity. It is the players that consistently demanded Kabam "be more creative." Well here we are. All I'm addressing is why all the problems with ascension were basically unavoidable, and there was zero chance we would get anything substantively different in that regard. Players can ask the devs to stop doing something. They can't demand the devs do what they believe to be untenable. So instead of getting 8* rarity, which Kabam believes is unpalatable to the players, we have 7* Ascension which is only viable as an alternative because it contains many of the same issues as a new rarity. It is in some ways better, and in other ways worse. Before you complain about Ascension, consider Ascension is the result of complaining about 8* rarity. And if anyone is imagining there's some better alternative out there that eliminates the complexity, the reduction in agency, in the monetization gateways, well good luck with that. This is mostly aimed at the 1% of people who might care why this happened. I'm not really interested in advocating either way, because a) I'd be fine either way and b) nothing I say would change the course of Ascension and c) nothing I say would change the tenor of the complaints surrounding Ascension. I'm fine taking a few random nothing shots and then letting everyone go back to aiming at the sky instead.

Bulmkt

the concept of 7-star ascension I’m fine with. No worries. But why did they design such an overly complicated means to achieve this. All they had to do was introduce tier 3 primordial Dust to the game. Just acquire X amount of T3 Primordial Dust and you can ascend any damn champ you want. Gating which limited (****) champs you can ascend is insulting to the player base. As for the current eligible ascension list of champs, IMO the only 2 that interest me are Lizard and Zemo. The rest i personally couldn’t give a rats about. In the meantime I’ll just continue to rank up the champs I like and while I’m contributing my 2c worth - pls stop screwing around with the size of BG decks. Leave it at 30 champs with 3 bans. That was perfectly fine. No one asked for an increased deck and ban size.

Bulmkt

the concept of 7-star ascension I’m fine with. No worries. But why did they design such an overly complicated means to achieve this. All they had to do was introduce Tier 3 primordial Dust to the game. Just acquire X amount of T3 Primordial Dust and you can ascend any damn champ you want. Gating which limited (****) champs you can ascend is insulting to the player base. As for the current eligible ascension list of champs, IMO the only 2 that interest me are Lizard and Zemo. The rest i personally couldn’t give a rats about. In the meantime I’ll just continue to rank up the champs I like and while I’m contributing my 2c worth - pls stop screwing around with the size of BG decks. Leave it at 30 champs with 3 bans. That was perfectly fine. No one asked for an increased deck and ban size.

Kyptonick123

Yeah agreed with all the points. But main deal breaker for me is the new champ ascension system, that for me really kills all new champs going forward.

Will never be exciting to get a new champ because ur always going to me missing the ascension.

Kyusushui

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2932799#Comment_2932799

I think your points seem valid but are leaving out a lot of information. I don't think the issue of complexity comes from the fact that we have all this new info dumped on us but rather that there are simply more variables with ascension than 7 stars. For example, let's take your example of comparing ascension to ranking seven stars.

First off, the major difference is that ascension is added to the already existing ranking system. And unlikely the ranking system which is universal (the catalysts you get work on every champ) seven star ascension instead focuses on individual resources for every champ. Which alone may not seem so bad but then you also have to consider that the method for getting those resources is different depending on what pool each champ is in. We have three pools of champions to start out and they might add more. So getting the resources you want for a certain champ isnt just inherently more complicated than regular rank up mats, its also much more chance based. Does that make sense? Like you can understand how the ascension system works but it doesnt mean its not overly convoluted with too many steps.

Now I understand that the new rank is meant to change what champs get used, thats fine, no problem there at all. However the issue is how they are distributing those champions. The biggest issue being that new champs are only ascendable for the highest spenders. Aside from even that though, players don't get to choose which champs they ascend. Unlike regular rankup resources the ascension resources are champion based. So let's say you have characters in the base pool you want to ascend, you most likely won't be able to because the chance of pulling that specific champion is so small.

Wanting to limit what champions get ranked is fair and I have nothing against it, though i will say balancing the game that way instead of just balancing champs is a poor solution regardless. But if you do limit champs that can get ascended we as players should at least have agency over choosing which champs of that limited pool we ascend.

The biggest point I want to focus on from your post is the comparison of seven star ascension to eight stars. Let me just say this, no one should be using the threat of eight stars to justify the flaws of seven star ascension. Why does the alternative HAVE to be eight stars? We still have two ranks of seven stars which most players haven't even touched. Kabam could have taken more time with ascension instead of pushing it out so early. I also want to emphasize that ascnesion is inherently different to a new rarity because ranking champions and pulling champions have always been two very different sides of one coin in this game.

Saying that "oh don't complain about ascension because we could have gotten 8 stars" is just not a strong reason for defending ascension.

You're also missing the biggest issue with ascension. If we treat it as a new rarity lets imagine it like this. Imagine that when Kabam released 7 stars they said "Ok, everyone can have base pool champions but the Titan crystal is exclusive only to people who spend thousands of dollars every month and it will remain this way for a year. Maybe after a year we will allow you a chance to pull titans. Maybe."

Nightheart

lucianxvs

USAFA who is a member of the CCP, and who ranked number 3 wordlwide in the banquet also doesn't like the ascension system for new champs, so if whales hate this, who likes this? who??

peixemacaco

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2932799#Comment_2932799

Please Kabam, don't change anything, crying summoners dont even understand what DNA3000 said and its very clear.

7 stars ascension is very different than 6 or 5 stars...lol

Why to Hurry?

2026 is the entry year for 7* Ascended Champions choosed by Kabam

Point!

2027 you will have ways to ascend the ones you have that was benefited.

Thanks Kabam 🥳

JESUSCHRIST

At this point in time, I just want some of what they are smoking in Kabam HQ, seems like they are all smoking something awesome everyday

startropics

i didn't read most of this thread and only skimmed a few videos about it. also skipped most of the stream so my info is very limited.

that said this looks very demotivating. not being able to ascend for a year and having to face decks that are 15-20% (?) stronger just because they spent thousands on a champion and you didn't isn't fun. whales always had a 3 or so month lead in most areas but i don't think we've ever seen a difference this big in the game yet and that's a big pivot that's never been seen before.

we had no know that ascension was going to be this restrictive because it's basically 8 stars. it feels that we have less agency with ascension because like 8s, kabam would have released small batches of champs that not everyone likes.

8s would have been better tbh.

startropics

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2932755#Comment_2932755

With 6* ascension, whales were only ahead by months maybe. If I'm understanding it right, 1 year is a very different situation.

AlayanZ

I'm just tired of having the best champions rarity locked for years. Can't remember the last time I used CGR or Doom. Kate and Hercules have only occasional applications.

I'm not excited about the likes of Jean Grey, DThanos, Okoye... being ascendable in 2029, when ascension level 11 is the meta and 8 stars are starting to get release.

You make some awesome champions, let us use them

Mint9aer0

Overly complicated when it doesn't need to be. Felt like I had to take notes when they explained it

SirGamesBond

One word for 7A champs: Lol

lucianxvs

kabam are watching this thread from the shadows for sure

the only reason they don’t reply it’s because it’s gonna be some corporate “we will pass the feedback but we don’t promise any changes “ which will spark only more outrage

It’s a tactical play to hopefully make the players forget and eat it up

Lost____one

In a free to play game you are a customer ( paying player) or part of the games amenities for customers. Ie. whale chow, dolphin chow, etc.