Using candy to explain the frustration with MODOKS lab

The arguments are the same in defense of modoks lab and I hope to offer a different perspective to people who are open minded enough

Grimmbear wrote: »

It's free content that isn't made for everyone. Not everyone has the roster nor skill to complete it. That's ok. Do hard. Or normal. Or beginner. Complaining about difficulty is not a legit concern to me. If it's too hard, you obv don't have the proper champs or skill for it. That's how it is with this entire game. It's a contest, not a handout. Kabam had no reason to give this event out again yet they did anyway.

The issue isn’t that it’s too hard, or that “my champs aren’t good enough”, but because the rewards didn’t scale with the difficulty. These rewards had a certain difficulty cost to them ~400 5* shards for 20 min and a bit of energy. Now it’s the same rewards, but for 40 min and increased difficulty. People have to work twice as hard and twice as long for the SAME rewards.

To help explain this, I’m going to use an economics analogy. This time with candy.

Kabam has been selling candy for a few months and the cost has always been consistent at $1. This month the price suddenly went up to $2 but hey the shipping is free! When people pointed out the price increase out of nowhere, others reply “candy isn’t for everyone, kabam won’t just hand out candy, not everyone can afford it,” well not anymore after they raised the price... So you look into the candy to see if maybe they improved the taste or something, but IT’S THE SAME CANDY! Now ppl who got candy last month can’t get any this month, so they’re rightfully upset since there is no reason for the price change other than free shipping, but free shipping doesn’t make candy any more “affordable”. The candy is now exclusively for rich people, and people are saying “well the shipping is free so why are you upset?” and “you know, kabam doesn’t have to sell candy, just be happy they’re offering it in the first place or buy something else.” These statements are true but they miss the point. The point is kabam raised the price without good reason, and if people don’t acknowledge that and go so far as to defend it, they’re basically saying it’s ok for kabam to do this. But what if kabam had raised it to $3 or $5? but hey the shipping is free right? maybe you’re just not rich enough but don’t worry, you’ll be rich someday. The point is this... whether the price increase was to $2 or $5, if there’s no good reason for it, it’s considered unfair and sets a bad precedent. Yes only a percentage of people will miss out, but that doesn’t make it any more ok, especially considering the precedent it sets, that kabam can basically raise the price for no reason, or use a scapegoat reason like free energy to increase the cost of something with the intent of making it less available to people who aren’t as rich. Yes people can say “that’s how it should be because it’s their product” but it doesn’t justify the “unfair” vibe it gives off.

I can’t possibly be the only person who sees this right?

Comments

DaMunk

Problem with this analogy is people don't think the cost went up and that people are demanding a discount just because it's not their favorite candy.

Spera

Since the event started I've only been getting 200 shards (5*) from master

Primmer79

That company can raise the cost all they want to make a profit, and the customer has two options: pay the raised price or not buy it. Can even organize boycotts to affect the company's income and force them to lower their price. But they won't lower it because some people feel like they should.

BitterSteel

This analogy is bad because the event doesn’t cost anything. The problem with analogies is that you could make a ridiculous one to suit any argument, therefore making them almost useless in proving points.

DaMunk

Pretty sure it was 200 in the last Modoks lab but could be mistaken. Last month's event did give more though.
It's pretty rare that I defend Kabam, most time I'm the first to complain but I honestly don't see anything wrong here. I like the event.

BitterSteel

DaMunk wrote: »

Pretty sure it was 200 in the last Modoks lab but could be mistaken. Last month's event did give more though.
It's pretty rare that I defend Kabam on here, most time I'm the first to complain but I honestly don't see anything wrong here. I like the event.

Yeah, per run it’s the same but there was an extra one in the day. It was 8 hours last time. Agreed, I am usually critical of kabam but I really don’t see what they’ve done badly here. They’ve just set a standard of content, if people can’t do it, or don’t think it’s worth it then it’s up to them to decide whether to attempt. It’s no use complaining about difficulty.

Knightarthus

The real rewards isn’t the crystal shards but the 360 Alpha2 shards guaranteed every time. The rewards are better than the 3 times a day and no we don’t want 3 times a day it’s too much.

ThePinkGhost

BitterSteel wrote: »

This analogy is bad because the event doesn’t cost anything

Cost comes in many forms. The cost in this event is the effort and the time invested for the same amount of rewards, along with the roster necessary to clear it. YES the cost went up and the analogy represents that really well. This doesn’t offset the lack of energy cost for people who were excluded in the increase in difficulty of the event.

IF the event had great rewards, then it’s reasonable for it to be more exclusive, but the rewards are the same as the months past.

BitterSteel wrote: »

The problem with analogies is that you could make a ridiculous one to suit any argument, therefore making them almost useless in proving points.

Analogies can be good and bad, but this analogy holds up because it expresses the same issue (an unreasonable increase in cost) using different symbols that would assist in illustrating the issue in a more relatable way.

Why do you think this analogy bad? You can’t write off an analogy and analogies in general just because it challenges your perspective. It requires a you to think beyond the surface level representations to distill the similarity between the two. Candy and shards are two different things. Obviously and if you stop there, then it would make sense why analogies would never work, but most people are capable of thinking a lot deeper than that.

ThePinkGhost

DaMunk wrote: »

It's pretty rare that I defend Kabam, most time I'm the first to complain but I honestly don't see anything wrong here. I like the event.

Kabam raised the difficulty and made the rewards more exclusive without changing the value of the rewards. There are people who used to be able to get rewards but can’t anymore. Do you disagree with that? If not, do you think it’s ok to do what kabam did? What about the precedent it sets?

it’s ok for kabam to make events more difficult, as long as the rewards can justify the resources and effort you spent.

I can see why end game players who have no trouble clearing the expert lane would love this event because it just gives, but the past months events did the same exact thing EXCEPT they gave to both end game and late game players. Now the late game players are excluded and end game players only receive benefits. I don’t see why they had to exclude late game players other than the fact that they could, that’s why it’s wrong.

DaMunk wrote: »

Problem with this analogy is people don't think the cost went up and that people are demanding a discount just because it's not their favorite candy.

raising expert difficulty from 25k to 30k isn’t increasing cost? That’s not to mention the randomness of the event which prevents players from preparing and strategizing, thus requiring a wider and more diverse roster.

Also the candy is the shards in this analogy. It sounds to me like you think it’s the event. Correct me if I’m wrong. And if candy is $1 and it was suddenly raised to $2, you can see it as a “discount” but that implies that $2 is the norm. The norm for this type/amount of candy is usually $1. The people just want it to go back to it’s normal price so to speak. Or at least justify the change in price.

BitterSteel

ThePinkGhost wrote: »

BitterSteel wrote: »

This analogy is bad because the event doesn’t cost anything

Cost comes in many forms. The cost in this event is the effort and the time invested for the same amount of rewards, along with the roster necessary to clear it. YES the cost went up and the analogy represents that really well. This doesn’t offset the lack of energy cost for people who were excluded in the increase in difficulty of the event.

IF the event had great rewards, then it’s reasonable for it to be more exclusive, but the rewards are the same as the months past.

BitterSteel wrote: »

The problem with analogies is that you could make a ridiculous one to suit any argument, therefore making them almost useless in proving points.

Analogies can be good and bad, but this analogy holds up because it expresses the same issue (an unreasonable increase in cost) using different symbols that would assist in illustrating the issue in a more relatable way.

Why do you think this analogy bad? You can’t write off an analogy and analogies in general just because it challenges your perspective. It requires a you to think beyond the surface level representations to distill the similarity between the two. Candy and shards are two different things. Obviously and if you stop there, then it would make sense why analogies would never work, but most people are capable of thinking a lot deeper than that.

It’s a bad analogy because you’re likening cost of sweets to difficulty of fight or effort of fight. It’s a bad analogy because while the event doesn’t cost anything, your sweets do. The trouble with using a real world example to try and explain the game is that buying sweets isn’t you trying to progress in the world or trying to win a game. Beating the event is. there’s no drive for you to get better rewards (buy more sweets) so you can do better than others. That’s where your analogy falls down.

You (condescendingly) explaining what an analogy is supposed to do doesn’t lend any credence to your argument.

DiablosUltimate

They changed value of rewards, but down.
5star crystal shards are devaluated now that decent featured 5star crystal is removed from game and now 200 shards is basicaly 2% of crystal with a very high chance of getting garbage from, the chance of duping a decent 5star from these is basicaly not existent so yeah, with full 5star basic crystal having pretty bad value, I'm not surprised people are not willing to even move their fingers just to get 2% of it every 12hours

ThePinkGhost

BitterSteel wrote: »

It’s a bad analogy because you’re likening cost of sweets to difficulty of fight or effort of fight. It’s a bad analogy because while the event doesn’t cost anything, your sweets do.

So you’re saying the difficulty of a fight or effort you have to put in is not a cost? It uses up resources doesn’t it? whethey it’s material, psychological resources, time, etc.

Like i said... The event DOES cost something and this cost went up. That part is not up for debate. The sweets also costs something. The analogy doesn’t care much about what the costs are as much as it emphasizes the increasing of whatever cost for no reason other than increasing it to make whatever is locked behind the cost more exclusive/valuable. Although you might think this is okay because it doesn’t affect you, it doesn’t make it an okay thing to do in kabam’s part since it breaks the trust and expecations the have along with excluding them.

BitterSteel wrote: »

The trouble with using a real world example to try and explain the game is that buying sweets isn’t you trying to progress in the world or trying to win a game. Beating the event is. there’s no drive for you to get better rewards (buy more sweets) so you can do better than others. That’s where your analogy falls down.

This part is a bit confusing... Buying sweets isn’t advancing in a game that’s true, but again you’re stopping at the surface level. It CAN be similar in some respect depending on what you define the sweet and the game by. If you define it like I did by their relationship to a cost, then they are similar in that they both cost something.

You’re also talking about progression, and the candy isn’t an analogy for progression, it’s an analogy for the reward. Also, the idea that people do the event so they can be better than others is not the what’s being debated and I’m not disputing that at all. What’s being debated is whether there is a cost increase and if it was justified.

This whole section is all over the place and there isn’t enough here to claim the analogy doesn’t work. Don’t get me wrong, if you can clean this up and PROVE this analogy doesn’t work, I’ll be more than happy to admit that, but for the time being the analogy is as sound as ever.

BitterSteel wrote: »

You (condescendingly) explaining what an analogy is supposed to do doesn’t lend any credence to your argument.

But it does. It lends credence to my argument by invalidating the argument you’re trying to make which intends to REMOVE said credence.

You’re saying my argument is wrong because I used an analogy (or a wrong analogy) right? I’ve explained to you why my analogy ISN’T wrong. Following that, I explained how analogies as a whole work because 1) I saw that your reasoning for the use of analogies being a reason for an argument not being valid is based on a lack of understanding of analogies and how they work 2) I was explaining how analogies used in the way I used one cannot invalidate an argument because the analogy wasn’t created to support the argument, but simply a tool to illustrate a point. The argument that kabam raised costs for no reason other than to make rewards more exclusive and that it should be be done that way (justifying the frustration of people affected) could stand on its own without the analogy.

Cujo999

ThePinkGhost wrote: »

The arguments are the same in defense of modoks lab and I hope to offer a different perspective to people who are open minded enough

Grimmbear wrote: »

It's free content that isn't made for everyone. Not everyone has the roster nor skill to complete it. That's ok. Do hard. Or normal. Or beginner. Complaining about difficulty is not a legit concern to me. If it's too hard, you obv don't have the proper champs or skill for it. That's how it is with this entire game. It's a contest, not a handout. Kabam had no reason to give this event out again yet they did anyway.

The issue isn’t that it’s too hard, or that “my champs aren’t good enough”, but because the rewards didn’t scale with the difficulty. These rewards had a certain difficulty cost to them ~400 5* shards for 20 min and a bit of energy. Now it’s the same rewards, but for 40 min and increased difficulty. People have to work twice as hard and twice as long for the SAME rewards.

To help explain this, I’m going to use an economics analogy. This time with candy.

Kabam has been selling candy for a few months and the cost has always been consistent at $1. This month the price suddenly went up to $2 but hey the shipping is free! When people pointed out the price increase out of nowhere, others reply “candy isn’t for everyone, kabam won’t just hand out candy, not everyone can afford it,” well not anymore after they raised the price... So you look into the candy to see if maybe they improved the taste or something, but IT’S THE SAME CANDY! Now ppl who got candy last month can’t get any this month, so they’re rightfully upset since there is no reason for the price change other than free shipping, but free shipping doesn’t make candy any more “affordable”. The candy is now exclusively for rich people, and people are saying “well the shipping is free so why are you upset?” and “you know, kabam doesn’t have to sell candy, just be happy they’re offering it in the first place or buy something else.” These statements are true but they miss the point. The point is kabam raised the price without good reason, and if people don’t acknowledge that and go so far as to defend it, they’re basically saying it’s ok for kabam to do this. But what if kabam had raised it to $3 or $5? but hey the shipping is free right? maybe you’re just not rich enough but don’t worry, you’ll be rich someday. The point is this... whether the price increase was to $2 or $5, if there’s no good reason for it, it’s considered unfair and sets a bad precedent. Yes only a percentage of people will miss out, but that doesn’t make it any more ok, especially considering the precedent it sets, that kabam can basically raise the price for no reason, or use a scapegoat reason like free energy to increase the cost of something with the intent of making it less available to people who aren’t as rich. Yes people can say “that’s how it should be because it’s their product” but it doesn’t justify the “unfair” vibe it gives off.

I can’t possibly be the only person who sees this right?

Real world economics isn't a good analogy at all. Reason being, new items are often introduced at a low price to entice consumers to try them, then marked up later once they have established a customer base.

I don't really get why you feel it's unfair. If I buy pop when it's on sale, I don't feel it's unfair or like I got cheated when I have to buy some the next week when it's not on sale. I might kick myself for not buying extra when it was on sale, but I don't feel cheated.

ThePinkGhost

Cujo999 wrote: »

Real world economics isn't a good analogy at all. Reason being, new items are often introduced at a low price to entice consumers to try them, then marked up later once they have established a customer base.

Thank god you actually gave a good reason

I don’t think that makes the analogy bad. If anything it proves the analogy is good since it puts into account factors like increasing customer base which could be very well be the reason the “costs” went up for the event, thus justifying the action.

this would be the closest reason to justify the increase in cost (difficulty, resources, etc). With that said, kabam still had the choice not to increase costs and not exclude weaker players from rewards they had access to a month ago. It’s frustrating that they went through that decision the same way you’d be frustrated if that new item you mentioned went up in price. The difference is that in your perspective, you’re expecting the price increase, especially because you viewed past months as a sale. Here, the change is unexpected and imo there’s no reason for it other than making it harder to get the rewards which is the unfair aspect. What you viewed as a sale, people like myself viewed as the base price. There was no indicator that the months past were “sales” considering they were consistent and they weren’t labeled as exceptions, so people like myself rightfully viewed them as the norm, and that kabam unexpectedly raised the price just because they could, even though the reward quantity stayed the same. That’s why it feels “unfair” even though kabam is operating within the rules (even that they kinda make as they go).

NinjAlan

Our accounts have all gotten stronger since the original release so the content should grow as well, think inflation. That being said, it's not difficult at all

ThePinkGhost

NinjAlan wrote: »

Our accounts have all gotten stronger since the original release so the content should grow as well, think inflation. That being said, it's not difficult at all

Yes inflation via adding an uncollected tier. Not making the expert rewards more exclusive. I’m glad it’s easy for you but that doesn’t mean the problem doesn’t exist for others, and like I mentioned, the precedent it sets is not a good one for current AND future players wanting to join the game

DaMunk

ThePinkGhost wrote: »

DaMunk wrote: »

It's pretty rare that I defend Kabam, most time I'm the first to complain but I honestly don't see anything wrong here. I like the event.

Kabam raised the difficulty and made the rewards more exclusive without changing the value of the rewards. There are people who used to be able to get rewards but can’t anymore. Do you disagree with that? If not, do you think it’s ok to do what kabam did? What about the precedent it sets?

it’s ok for kabam to make events more difficult, as long as the rewards can justify the resources and effort you spent.

I can see why end game players who have no trouble clearing the expert lane would love this event because it just gives, but the past months events did the same exact thing EXCEPT they gave to both end game and late game players. Now the late game players are excluded and end game players only receive benefits. I don’t see why they had to exclude late game players other than the fact that they could, that’s why it’s wrong.

DaMunk wrote: »

Problem with this analogy is people don't think the cost went up and that people are demanding a discount just because it's not their favorite candy.

raising expert difficulty from 25k to 30k isn’t increasing cost? That’s not to mention the randomness of the event which prevents players from preparing and strategizing, thus requiring a wider and more diverse roster.

Also the candy is the shards in this analogy. It sounds to me like you think it’s the event. Correct me if I’m wrong. And if candy is $1 and it was suddenly raised to $2, you can see it as a “discount” but that implies that $2 is the norm. The norm for this type/amount of candy is usually $1. The people just want it to go back to it’s normal price so to speak. Or at least justify the change in price.

If the difficulty went up it's not by much. I just ran it with 4*s and didn't really have a problem. Yeah they were r5 but that's sort of what you should expect in expert. I rolled the dice several times but also to be expected. The rewards are nice. You would be hard pressed to get that many 5* and 4* shards anywhere else in the game with such little effort. To come close you would have to grind arena or complete an event completely like act 4 or higher. You have to put up 1.7 million in the basic arena over the course of 3 days for 200 5* shards and some 4* shards, or you could spend 15 minutes a day for more shards and some sig stones. Or you can put up around 6 million in the 5* featured arena for less shards to what this gives. To me the event is nice.

HawkFanDanTheMan

Primmer79 wrote: »

That company can raise the cost all they want to make a profit, and the customer has two options: pay the raised price or not buy it. Can even organize boycotts to affect the company's income and force them to lower their price. But they won't lower it because some people feel like they should.

The company can do that, but that’s exactly why people are frustrated about this. Just because they have the ability to do so doesn’t mean they should, and it doesn’t make what they did right, especially if there was no reason to raise the price other than allowing less people to have the object.

I’m not expecting kabam to lower the difficulty, and the analogy wasn’t a call for action to lower the difficulty, it simply explained why people were out by it are unsurprisingly frustrated.

Primmer79

HawkFanDanTheMan wrote: »

Primmer79 wrote: »

That company can raise the cost all they want to make a profit, and the customer has two options: pay the raised price or not buy it. Can even organize boycotts to affect the company's income and force them to lower their price. But they won't lower it because some people feel like they should.

The company can do that, but that’s exactly why people are frustrated about this. Just because they have the ability to do so doesn’t mean they should, and it doesn’t make what they did right, especially if there was no reason to raise the price other than allowing less people to have the object.

I’m not expecting kabam to lower the difficulty, and the analogy wasn’t a call for action to lower the difficulty, it simply explained why people were out by it are unsurprisingly frustrated.

I can understand people being frustrated, I was adding in the fact that as long as people are willing to "pay" and continue completing this, the people being frustrated have no traction other than whining. On top of it being a bad analogy

Deadbyrd9

You are saying the rewards are not worth the cost or that they don’t scale with difficulty. There is no set scale of how much a 5* shard is worth or a t2 alpha shard. You can say the rewards aren’t worth the effort but others will say they are. It’s all a matter of opinion. It’s nice rewards if you put the time in to get them for me. I don’t do every modoks lab event because sometimes I can’t get in before work so I miss one occasionally but that’s fine since I can’t put in the time. Kabam can give out whatever rewards they like; it’s their game. This event is already out so stop complaining about the rewards/difficulty/cost. Either do the event or don’t

Snaggle

Kabam should take out the Re-roll feature in Modok's Lab. It'd be interesting to see what people think of it.

Grimmbear

I see what you mean, but like someone above me said, its all about establishing a base (if you're using an irl analogy). Sometimes customers can't afford things. I don't think you guys shouldn't be able to complain or give constructive feedback, but its annoying seeing thread after thread of just "Modoks lab is bs" with no reasoning behind it (not your post). I feel if Kabam does see a reason to decrease difficulty through their data, they will. That being said, i do feel like difficulty increases are necessary for the state of the game. But I do agree that perhaps it was increased too much.