Ascension Update: It Still SUCKS MAJOR ROCKS

This post will be a bit more of a rant than what I usually try to post. I'm just very frustrated and I hate seeing the game I love be ruined in such a blatantly greedy and money hungry way.

First of all, let's talk about Kabam "addressing" the problems with ascension. All we got was Karate Mike going on stream and saying "Hey, we hear your concerns. But deal with it." I hated that reply so much. It felt so dismissive, so tone deaf, so egregiously thoughtless. Claiming that ascension needs time to settle into the contest is not going to solve the problems with ascension. I one hundred percent believe that the whole point of that response was to make the community quiet down and hope that over time we just get too tired of talking about ascension. It's such an incredibly **** way to treat your playerbase and I'm sorry but that's just the objective truth.

Everyone is telling Kabam ascension sucks. All of their most dedicated players, whales, content creators, all of them have on multiple occasions pointed out the massive flaws of ascension. Yet Kabam refuses to listen. They continue to remain stubborn for no reason. Well, not for no reason, I know why they don't want to address ascension in any meaningful way. Money. They want to milk this feature for every single cent its worth. Even if its comes at the cost of the game being made worse.

The conclusion of act 9 and the carina's challenges really highlighted how awful ascension is. Let's not even address the fact that new champions aren't ascendable unless you spend thousands of dollars for a moment. Let's focus only on the base pool of ascension champs. The pool is trash. There are a handful of characters that some people might actually be excited for, but even if your favorite character is in that pool, good luck trying to actually get them. The chances of you actually getting the character you want is so unbelievably low. Of all the ascension rewards I opened from Carina's and Act 9, I didn't pull a single champ I liked. So now a majority of the ascensions on my account are just unranked seven stars. Cursed to eternally warm the bench.

This isn't even mentioning ascension level 2. Which is just unobtainable if you don't spend money. And not just some money, you need to be spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars for that ****. I don't even want to think about what ascension level 3 through 11 is going to feel like. The only level 2 ascension I have is Maestro, because he was the only one we could earn. Is Lizard level 2? no because apparently I didn't pull him enough during his period. Is Pav, a champs I PAID FOR, level 2? No. Is there a way for me to get these champs to level 2 ascension? NO! There is literally nothing I can do to progress my characters.

Aside from ascension itself, my rank five champions weren't nearly as exciting. You know why because they're not ascended or ascendable champs. I considered ranking fiving a character who I had ascended, but guess what, I couldn't pull any of the champions who I would want to r5. It's just loss after loss after loss with ascension.

Like you don't have to be a genius to understand this. Nor do you need months and years of time to realize that ascension is a vile, greedy and detrimental feature in MCOC.

You're taking away all agency from players, you're making the game just a big string of transactions, you're micromanaging accounts, you're making the game NOT FUN! So just stop being stubborn Kabam and please listen to your community.

I know I'm being very harsh in this post, I usually try to keep my criticism constructive but I just can't. We've all been screaming that ascension sucks and we get nothing. Please everyone continue to speak out. Call out Kabam's BS. Don't just let ascension go on because you got too tired of complaining. Make posts, comments, videos and share your thoughts.

Comments

ahmynuts

While this is about a 1:1 summary of lagacys most recent video it still slaps because its still all true

Kabam (Osaurus) Rex

I’m sorry if you felt the response came across as dismissive - that wasn’t the intention, and it most certainly wasn’t said without thought.

I also want to be clear for anyone who did not watch the stream that the response did not include "deal with it" in verbiage or intention. Regardless, the goal was to highlight that even when feedback is strongly negative, especially from the most vocal and engaged parts of the community, any change to a feature of this scale typically cannot be made quickly, or in reaction to immediate responses alone. Not due to stubbornness, and with no lack of acknowledgement of feedback. 7 Star Ascension is a larger and more important feature than most other content released in the game.

7-Star Ascension represents a new approach to introducing a higher rarity level in MCOC.
These kinds of systems are often a bit tough when they first launch, but they tend to become more balanced and accessible over time.

For example, I think we all have more 7 Stars than we know what to do with now, but at launch, that certainly was not the case - and getting the Champion you wanted from the 7 Star pool was also based on RNG, and not every Champion was released as a 7 Star at launch. That has always been the foundation of Champion acquisition for a new Rarity in MCOC. As time goes on, Ascension will likely follow a similar path.

At launch, Ascension Level 2 is the highest power level in the game currently. It's designed to be a new power level to work towards over time, not reach on day 1. If it were easy to get to the top power level within the first two months, the economy would accelerate at such a swift pace that we would need the next Level introduced already.

ahmynuts

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2949914#Comment_2949914

It's more about HOW we are able to access that higher level of power. It's all rng on top of rng.

Never in the history of mcoc have we needed to get lucky multiple times with a crystal pull to reach the next level of power. It was always guaranteed with catalysts or primordial dust.

Now it's multiple levels of rng and costs stacked on top of each other.

I have a thread breaking this down for new champions which is the biggest offender but even for the base ascendable champs as a player of this game at the highest level I cant believe you yourself dont think this system is very flawed and borderline unacceptable. I know you cant actually say that though

Kyusushui

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2949914#Comment_2949914

Thank you for your response.

Your response may not have included "Deal with it" verbatim however, that felt like its overall tone and the message. You said you heard our concerns but none of the issues were addressed and we were told to just wait... What would you call that if not just being told to deal with it? We have no information on developments or what is planned for Ascension. We're left completely in the dark.

Simply stating that you hear our concerns is not enough to say you're acknowledging the issues. Because you've given us no information on potential solutions.

Ascension may be a big feature but if thats the case why was it rushed? Why was it released before we even had rank fives or rank sixes in the game? Why not take your time with it and release a product you can be proud of and the player base can be happy with? Instead of pushing it onto the player base with all of these issues which were easy to foresee. I know why. You know why too. Money.

Additionally, regarding ascension needing time. How is time going to solve the major issues with ascension? A year from now new champions will still cost hundreds and thousands of dollars to ascend. A year from now the base pool of ascension champs will not be any better. A year from now pulling characters to ascend will be no less chance-based.

You're comparing ascension to seven stars but wasn't the whole point of ascension to make it different from a new star level? Ascension is closer to ranking champs which have always allowed players more agency. We could choose who to rank, but we can't do that anymore. Ascension takes away agency from players so how does time solve this issue?

I could go on about ascension and its issues as well as the responses we've gotten but I don't think I need to. Everyone has already told you all of this in a hundred different ways.

So thank you for your reply but it does little to restore faith in ascension because you're not addressing the problem as a whole. Only parts.

Kyusushui

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2949905#Comment_2949905

Glad lags and I are in agreement. Will watch his vid! His content is great

Kyusushui

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2949915#Comment_2949915

Yeah, great addition. I agree with this! Chances are though

spiderknight616

It would be a bit less bad if it wasn't locked behind paywall for a whole year for new Champs. A way to get ascension tokens at least alongside the Titan launch would be good. Maybe an Ascended Titan Crystal for like 30k shards that drops Ascension tokens for dupes? That way we can choose between more shots at the Titan pool vs less chances at Ascension materials

Kyusushui

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2949925#Comment_2949925

Or they could just make dupes give ascension tokens.

We're in agreement. You are absolutely right that the paywall is trash.

It's just sad that we are at a point where we have to beg for scraps like this.

Doug555

Aside from RNG drop and monetization approach taken towards the new level of power, the problem with system built around ascension tokens is that it now dictates what champions in our rosters will be the next more powerful character. There is a chance that my favourite champion out of all ascendable batch as of today will not hit the RNG jackpot in years, because there is NO guarantee I will get the ascension token for that exact character I want. I might get 4 ascension tokens of a champion I do not enjoy playing Before I pull the first ascension for the champion I want. While with new Catalyst rarities, we could at least plan our next power level champion rank up decisions, as there are only 6 classes and eventually you will get enough of any class catalyst you need even with heavy RNG. So to not lack too far behind in roster and prestige power for better rewards I am forced to pick and rank up the champions based on the RNG of Empowered crystals, because planning my desirable champion ascension might take several years now…

Phantøm_Echø

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2949914#Comment_2949914

My big concern I hope you guys address is once we phase out of rank 6 for 7*s, is all our champion agency gone? Because catalysts will no longer be the chase item you can drip feed us in content to then rank up the champs we want. Are we now in perpetuity just going into an era of MCOC where everything is dependent on RNG? Where we do endgame content for a lump sum of empowered crystals??

Phantøm_Echø

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2949927#Comment_2949927

Yup and once catalysts are phased out from endgame content because catalyst rank ups are obselete its just purely RNG unless they fix it similar to that

BAMF43

can someone tell me what I’m supposed to do with all this tier 2 dust from recent content that’s expiring … cuz idk about y'all but I haven’t duped anyone from the base ascension pool enough to take them to level 2

edit.. I see you can buy a token to keep the dust from expiring… for 26 days. Umm ok.

Kyusushui

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2949930#Comment_2949930

A lot of people share the same concern. Our choice on who we can rank up is taken away. It's all pure chance.

Kyusushui

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2949936#Comment_2949936

I also am worried. the issue is bad enough now with just level 1 and 2 ascensions. I don't know what 3-11 will look like and I'm not hopeful.

GhostSpawned

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2949914#Comment_2949914

The one thing I don't understand is why was ascension not saved for banquet 2027. Banquet 2026, which is this year, is supposed to introduce 7 star rank 6. Naturally, banquet 2027 would have made sense to introduce a new power level without introducing 8 stars. I think ascension came out too early in my opinion and should have been saved for later banquet. Maybe for ascension level 3 and 4 you guys can wait for banquet 2027. I think that would be good in my opinion.

Kyusushui

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2949954#Comment_2949954

Only like a handful of people got rank 6s in banquet. Even now most players are just getting their first rank fives. Ascension was released way too early I completely agree with you.