**Mastery Loadouts**
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Making Contest of Champions Great Again!
OxC
Posts: 57 ★
It's no secret that everyone has grown tired of Kabam's lack of communication, buggy updates and poor attempts to assume what players want by bundling us with overwhelming content.
I've been playing this game for a couple of years and have invested a lot of time and money into the game. In that time I have dipped out of the game twice because of bugs, unfair AI tactics and general boredom due to a reactive (and not proactive) developer mentality.
I'm sure Kabam would prefer to keep players engaged and from a business perspective, people will be more content spending money when it enhances and improves their experience whilst playing. Most of the times I have bought units, it is through frustration caused by issues such as running multiple paths of events quests with ease and then suddenly the AI changes on the last path and fights become impossible (despite it being a path with easier buffs/linked nodes).
This leads to a negative association with the game in my mind when it comes to the game and brand (and this is a common theme on community dicussions on other sites, here and on podcasts/youtube etc).
With all the recent changes, our 8.25mil alliance is falling apart. People are bored of grindy content, overwhelmed by the huge increase in content and dissapointed with the same old sh***y rewards.
As a result of this, I will no longer be spending any money within the game until issue are resolved. If I notice that the game becomes more difficult when fighting the AI or I pull worse champs because of my lack of spending, i'll simply quit the game.
The main issues are:
1)Gold Shortage
This seems fairly obvious to me. Catalysts are the main 'gate' items which require work and effort to obtain... so why is it so hard to get gold. It's boring as sh*t to grind out arenas for minimal gold.
2) Content Overload
After months and months of tedious content, Kabam have dumped an absolute mess of things on top of the community. Now I imagine Kabam believes this gives players the choice to do some content over other content. However, at the mid/top level of the game, we have been conditioned over years to feel like we need to complete it all. This is extremely overwhelming.
We have players trying to complete the uncollected Infinity Chaos monthly event quest and you have just dumped a years worth of changes on top of them in one month. The other issue with this is that it is mostly time-dependant content which you either complete by a certain time/date or you miss out.
Let's look at all the time-dependant content at the moment:
- Monthly Event Quest
- Daily Quest - Trial Of....
- Chadwicks Challenge
- Chaos Rifts
- Infinity Dungeons
- AQ
- AW
- Arenas
- Daily catalysts and proving grounds.
This is waaaaay too much. It's the classic 'spinning plates' scenario. You have thrown too many plates at the players and many have just dropped everything because they realise they would need to play the game like a full-time job to complete everything.
3) Bugs and AI
This is my biggest annoyance. The updates are frequently pushed with bugs and when you have bought units in the game, it is so annoying that Kabam's lack of quality control is costing people real money. Now, again, it probably looks great to your bean counters and suit wearers, but it is ruining the experience of the game and inevitably you are going to have high player churn and people will move onto other games.
The other issue with this is the AI 'unfairness' issue. How is it that sometimes I try to complete an event quest (or story chapter) and can run the more difficult paths with minimal issues. Then, on the final run on an easier path, everything gets glitchy and laggy. I will get to a boss and all of a sudden, SP stops working at the crucial time and I get KO'd or the AI's behaviour changes and they suddenly do things that are unexpected for those champs and their abilities (i.e. ignore stun or stun duration decreases despite no buffs that effect it or for example, increase in reach/dash/combo limits or interrupting SPs and attacks whilst taking damage).
Now this isn't just a big rant, I have positive solutions for these issues to make MCOC great again!
1) Increase gold across the board
Everywhere you can get gold, increase the amount by 2-3x for players of a certain rating. Simple and effective.
2) Reduce and refocus content
Kabam have made some positive changes, but have then essentially thrown everything at the wall to see what sticks and it is too much.
I would suggest the following:
- Ditch AQ and infinity dungeons and replace with an AQ/Infinity dungeons hybrid. This would essentially be similar to existing AQ but smaller maps for up to 4 players. This allows breathing space for some players who cannot make AQ all the time and end up letting down their teammates (which leads to a disappointing experience for all). This could be updated when infinity dungeons finish in June.
- Tweak AW seasons. Seasons are an absolutely great addition, but could be tweaked so they only run for a month.
- Reduce the number of paths and/or number of difficulties in the monthly event quests
- Reduce the number of arenas. Rather than have a 'featured arena' and 'basic arena', roll them into one and have the top prizes as the featured champ and the basic as the top milestone. This will increase the desire for people to play arenas if they know they are guaranteed to get the basic champ if they hit the top milestone.
These relatively small changes will allow players more breathing space and make for an overall better experience of the game.
Thoughts and comments to these suggestions are welcome
I've been playing this game for a couple of years and have invested a lot of time and money into the game. In that time I have dipped out of the game twice because of bugs, unfair AI tactics and general boredom due to a reactive (and not proactive) developer mentality.
I'm sure Kabam would prefer to keep players engaged and from a business perspective, people will be more content spending money when it enhances and improves their experience whilst playing. Most of the times I have bought units, it is through frustration caused by issues such as running multiple paths of events quests with ease and then suddenly the AI changes on the last path and fights become impossible (despite it being a path with easier buffs/linked nodes).
This leads to a negative association with the game in my mind when it comes to the game and brand (and this is a common theme on community dicussions on other sites, here and on podcasts/youtube etc).
With all the recent changes, our 8.25mil alliance is falling apart. People are bored of grindy content, overwhelmed by the huge increase in content and dissapointed with the same old sh***y rewards.
As a result of this, I will no longer be spending any money within the game until issue are resolved. If I notice that the game becomes more difficult when fighting the AI or I pull worse champs because of my lack of spending, i'll simply quit the game.
The main issues are:
1)Gold Shortage
This seems fairly obvious to me. Catalysts are the main 'gate' items which require work and effort to obtain... so why is it so hard to get gold. It's boring as sh*t to grind out arenas for minimal gold.
2) Content Overload
After months and months of tedious content, Kabam have dumped an absolute mess of things on top of the community. Now I imagine Kabam believes this gives players the choice to do some content over other content. However, at the mid/top level of the game, we have been conditioned over years to feel like we need to complete it all. This is extremely overwhelming.
We have players trying to complete the uncollected Infinity Chaos monthly event quest and you have just dumped a years worth of changes on top of them in one month. The other issue with this is that it is mostly time-dependant content which you either complete by a certain time/date or you miss out.
Let's look at all the time-dependant content at the moment:
- Monthly Event Quest
- Daily Quest - Trial Of....
- Chadwicks Challenge
- Chaos Rifts
- Infinity Dungeons
- AQ
- AW
- Arenas
- Daily catalysts and proving grounds.
This is waaaaay too much. It's the classic 'spinning plates' scenario. You have thrown too many plates at the players and many have just dropped everything because they realise they would need to play the game like a full-time job to complete everything.
3) Bugs and AI
This is my biggest annoyance. The updates are frequently pushed with bugs and when you have bought units in the game, it is so annoying that Kabam's lack of quality control is costing people real money. Now, again, it probably looks great to your bean counters and suit wearers, but it is ruining the experience of the game and inevitably you are going to have high player churn and people will move onto other games.
The other issue with this is the AI 'unfairness' issue. How is it that sometimes I try to complete an event quest (or story chapter) and can run the more difficult paths with minimal issues. Then, on the final run on an easier path, everything gets glitchy and laggy. I will get to a boss and all of a sudden, SP stops working at the crucial time and I get KO'd or the AI's behaviour changes and they suddenly do things that are unexpected for those champs and their abilities (i.e. ignore stun or stun duration decreases despite no buffs that effect it or for example, increase in reach/dash/combo limits or interrupting SPs and attacks whilst taking damage).
Now this isn't just a big rant, I have positive solutions for these issues to make MCOC great again!
1) Increase gold across the board
Everywhere you can get gold, increase the amount by 2-3x for players of a certain rating. Simple and effective.
2) Reduce and refocus content
Kabam have made some positive changes, but have then essentially thrown everything at the wall to see what sticks and it is too much.
I would suggest the following:
- Ditch AQ and infinity dungeons and replace with an AQ/Infinity dungeons hybrid. This would essentially be similar to existing AQ but smaller maps for up to 4 players. This allows breathing space for some players who cannot make AQ all the time and end up letting down their teammates (which leads to a disappointing experience for all). This could be updated when infinity dungeons finish in June.
- Tweak AW seasons. Seasons are an absolutely great addition, but could be tweaked so they only run for a month.
- Reduce the number of paths and/or number of difficulties in the monthly event quests
- Reduce the number of arenas. Rather than have a 'featured arena' and 'basic arena', roll them into one and have the top prizes as the featured champ and the basic as the top milestone. This will increase the desire for people to play arenas if they know they are guaranteed to get the basic champ if they hit the top milestone.
These relatively small changes will allow players more breathing space and make for an overall better experience of the game.
Thoughts and comments to these suggestions are welcome
7
Comments
3) Bugs and AI
- Test the game more thoroughly before pushing updates.
- Increase difficulty through attack and health, not through erratic behaviour, speed/reach of opponents or responsiveness of your players.
Your rant seems mostly to do with content. All content is optional. You can do as little or as much as you want. For me, i dont have enough content. I do heroic through uncollected, Chadwick challege is done, acts 1-5 100%. Dugeons are awesome. No energy requirement at all. Plus they are fun. Aq and aw are just fine. AQ though is quite boring. You are complaining about there being too much. No one said you have to do it all.
When I came back, in those two months, everyone had advanced a ridiculous amount ahead of me. My brothers team rating was about 20-30k less than mine when I left, and he is still 40k ahead of me now as I am trying to catch up.
On the chadwick challenge, act 4, I decided to do a quick run of the first path and then head straight to Thanos. Reached thanos with all my champs at pretty much full health (4* r5 Thor, SW, Hyperion, Cap WW2 and Wolvie).
Got Thanos' health down to around 30% with the first champ and all of a sudden I can't bait the SP1 out of him. He is rushing me into a corner and just keeps breaking blocks with heavy hits. He then repeats this across all of my champs. I used the last of my units (as I won't buy anymore) to team revive. I decide to test with the weakest hitting champ in this situation (Wolvie as Thanos is immune to all debuffs). Bearing in mind, a few minutes prior he wouldn't trigger SP1 or 2 and cornered wolvie with heavy hits. I revive, straight away, he is bait-able again and I complete it.
The AI is engineered towards getting you really close to the end and making you spend units. Absolutely terrible user experience.
What did you expect to happen? A race doesn't stop when you take a pit stop does it? You chose to take a break. Others didn't. They continued to progress. That doesnt mean the system is broke. You can progress as much or as little as you want. Overall PI isn't really a big deal. Most of it comes from maxing out 1-3*'s. I'm over 400k and have 309 champs. My alliance leader has 309 champs and is over 500k. Hes ranked up his lower champs and I haven't. Focus on what you want to focus on or do the content you want to do.
I've never experienced that and I've been playing since right after launch. I also tend no to believe theories like that unless backed up by video proof.
Besides that depending on what months you quit you would've missed a ton of stuff. And for your brother to progress 70k in 2 months isn't that hard depending on what months. For example December had gifting event. Tons of free stuff, also that's when they started uncollected EQ. February had the first showing if trial of... which is a free 2nd 5* in a month. Depending on alliance that's tons more rank up material and if you missed season rewards or were in a weaker alliance that's also a big discrepancy of rewards and growth.
Putting aside me taking time out, If you want to be and/or remain competitive, the game requires a minimum of 4hrs+ per day. This is too much.
I'd also like to ask, if building PI is not important, what is the ultimate goal/purpose of the game?
You probably have not experienced this due to how much you pay to play the game. I managed to hit 17 5* champs before duping one. Before I finally duped one, I bought star-lords loot bag to see if it would increase my odds of duping, low and behold, I duped Cable.
If you deny that you (and your alliance members) are not paying vast amounts of money to play this game, you are either playing it for 10-12+ hours per day or using some other 'methods' for advancing as much as you have. You're leader has a 5* duped classic vision at lvl 100 so at the very least has paid 15,000 units a 5* tech awakening gem plus 98 sig stones (or has paid 30,000 units and less sig stones).
To add further to this, let's look at your stats vs mine:
Total Quests Completed:
Me: 4,214 You: 3,195
Daily Quests Completed:
Me: 1,096 You: 560
Quest Fights Won:
Me: 37,656 You: 31,082
PVP Fights Won:
Me: 18,049 You: 4,994
Highest PVP Win Streak:
Me: 171 You: 93
How is it I have clearly spent more time in Arenas, Quests and Daily Quests than you and yet you team rating is over 62k higher than mine and you managed to get a 5* duped Blade, 5* duped Angela and 5* duped Star Lord?
You have to be paying lots and as all of us occasional buyer of units or 'free to play' players know, only the whales get the best champs ;-)
Im going to call BS on that stupid conspiracy theory now. My first 2 5* champ pulls were SL before I ever spent money on the game. Im sick of people beliving if you spend then you get good champs. If you buy more then you have more chances of getting champs, plain and simple. I pulled blade from FGMC's. I duped blade from FGMC's...... $700 in total. Thats 70 crystals. Of course I have a higher chance and getting him vs someone opening 10.
He bought the vision deal. So what? So did a bunch of other people. He made his choice to do so.
Champ pulls are RNG. Theres what 100+ 5* champs now? Of course you are more likely to get a new champ instead of a dupe. Stop spreading conspiracy.
I dont do arenas. Hate them. Also, you probably run more daily quests than I do. I dont run them at all. I stick to story ans EQ's only. Anymore ideas you want me to debunk?
Wow, very sensitive over that?!
I'm not judging people who pay to play. I am simply saying that if you drop $700 on crystals for a single champ, you are classed as a 'whale' in Kabam's eyes and the AI/game treats you differently.
Look at Seatins' free account versus his paid for account - there is a very clear disparity between the two.
Again, not judging your leader for buying vision for over $1000 (if he bought it twice). I am simply saying that you cannot understand what the game is like for people who are playing without spending hundreds of dollars per month.
You say champ pulls are random. I didn't pull a 4* from a PHC for over 6 months. I contacted Kabam and explained the situation and asked how odds are calculated etc and explained how this was statistically very very unlikely.
Within the next two weeks of messaging them, I pulled four 4*'s from PHC's but I am guessing you will say it's a coincidence (one that is even more statistically unlikely than the original issue of not pulling any in 6 months)!
Killswitch has hit the nail on the head with his comment above. The mid-tier players are being forced into a position of either spending hundreds of dollars each month or playing for 10hrs plus a day.
OMFG the game doesnt treat you different because you spend more. Take the tinfoil hat off for a minute and listen to reason.
If I open 70 crystals and you open 20, whos chances are higher? Mine or yours? Think about that for a minute. My crystal sample is pobably way higher than yours. So of course I might get more. Its due to opening more crystals vs the game trearing me different. Prime example of this is Brian Grant. Hes F2P. Has a way better roster than me. So how are you going to defend than one?
Also, you can only buy the vision package once. He had a AG. But hey, you'll probably find a way to twist that into one of your dumb conspiracy theories.
Ok so he dropped $500 on a single champ and used an awakening gem and 98 5* sig stones - i'm not judging. That still puts him/her firmly in the bracket of whale and the game behaves differently depending on how much you spend.
No comments on the rest of the points I made :-/
Here's a 'dumb conspiracy' you'll like:
Considering that every competent developer or programmer for the past 10 years uses some form of version control for their source code, how is it that update after update Kabam manage to push the same bugs over and over again in the game. They then fix them and they then re-appear in the next major update?
The only way you can have the same bug re-appearing is one of the following:
- version control has not been used correctly (or at all) and the source code is an absolute mess (very unlikely on a game of this scale and if so, Kabam should be firing their dev team).
- they have made other changes in the game, which has resulted in the exact same bug (extremely unlikely).
- they are allowing bugs in the game because it throws people off their game and makes them purchase revives and ultimately, units.
Every wonder why you don't see this happen in games that do not require you to purchase revives/health items. For example, Fortnite allows players to purchase skins which does not impact the gameplay itself. Considering it is a huge-scale game with millions of players (and is still in beta) - i'm yet to see a bug get re-introduced into the game.
Methodology wrong,WRONG
As soon as something goes against the grain, everyone automatically starts talking about shiny hats or simply writes WRONG in capitals with no counter argument.
Let's look at the facts of the last point I made - bugs constantly re-introduced into the game:
Does this happen? Yes.
Is it frequent and documented? Yes. Numerous accounts from many high and low level players have experienced it.
For the sake of this argument, If anyone from Kabam can please enlighten me as to why bugs are re-introduced into the game and whether or not version control is used for source code, i'd love to know - i'd be happy to have a dev answer it technically too.
I'd also be happy for Charaderdude2 to explain why my methodology is wrong?
Am I frustrated?Yes
Am I so angry I decide to label it as a problem?No.
Then again,Everything depends on perspective
The problem I am highlighting is that in order to remain competitive, you need to compete in as much as possible. At present, this is a crazy amount of hours and if you're employed or are studying, it's not practical.
Now, I get what your saying, which is well you can take your 'foot off the gas' and slow down which is fine. But on personal level (and I am sure many others feel this), the point of the game is to collect as many champs as possible and build the best roster. If you slow down, the rate at which champs are added make this impossible and so I pose my next question, which is what then becomes the point of playing this game? (Please don't say fun because the bulk of the content is easy and boring grinding for mid/high level players).
A tool to kill time?
We get it. You want more for less. You want what the top has for doing less. You should have just said that instead of a mile long post.
I don't want more for doing less. I just dislike the awful techniques employed by game designers in order to make people spend money. You don't need dark UI patterns, behavioural conditioning or sleazy sales techniques to encourage people to play. Make the game fair and fun and people will buy sh*t - for example look at Fortnite. None of the purchases give you an advantage in the game - they simply vary the look of your character.
Paying for items in a game is ok (though not ideal) however, some developers such as Kabam have taken it one step further using a gaming model where you pay to progress and play and use behavioural conditioning to manipulate users into paying. Odds are tweaked when you buy items to provide a positive association with the purchase i.e. you buy a huge unit pack and your 'luck' will increase - your mind then subconsciously associates the reward with the action encouraging you to do it again. They also employ another tactic whereby you get close to achieving an objective and if you get 'too close' or progress to quickly, they switch the AI and you are KO'd (this happens a lot more if you don't have a fat stack of units waiting). If you don't believe me, spend all of your units, do not spend on the game for a couple of weeks and attempt the last level of the uncollected monthly quest.
Before you start spouting off about 'conspiracies', such behavioural conditioning is rife not only in games but social media and has been publicly spoken about on many occasion by various insiders. I am also a developer/programmer and understand (and have seen first hand) the practices used by marketeers, gameplay designers and leadership.
For example, if you use twitter or instagram, you will notice when you sign in, there is a few seconds delay before it shows your notifications number. This is intentional and is used because it give the 'slot machine' effect. Anticipation builds when you log in as you wonder how many 'likes' you have received. Anticipation builds and builds and finally you get that 'hit' making you feel good (for a limited time). When the feeling wears off, it leaves you wanting more (like an addict).
Another clever example is MCOC's daily cards and calendars. The reason they have these is so that you log in everyday and if you do something everyday for around 66 days, it becomes automatic - a second nature. This means you are hooked.
If you cannot see this (or do not want to see this) then you my friend are a sheep. Go back to sleep and keep on as you are. I guarantee in a year, two years or more when the game has lost it's appeal and starts to decline, you will remember this conversation and feel differently.