Inf Dungeons Improvement + solving burnout and loyalty shortage
thanks4playing
Member Posts: 805 ★★★
I'm loving Infinity Dungeons (ID) for many reasons. It shows dedication from Kabam as they came up with a completely new UI and game mode. It's fun, interactive. I love the way Kabam has listened to the concerns of the community by explaining the prestige factor and also increasing the points given from dungeons 5 and 6. All of this has been very positive.
However, I think there is a way to improve ID in a way where it could really alleviate some of the burnout that many players are experiencing, as well as addressing the loyalty shortage.
Can we make the rewards of ID include the rewards that we would get from arena (battlechips and units) plus loyalty?
At the moment, I do not mind the 30 minutes that I do for ID daily, but it is very difficult to do that and do arena grind and to finish my LOL paths and to do AQ and to do AW and to do the Mad Titan challenge and to fulfill my officer duties and to do the monthly EQ (fortunately I've been done with Act 5, but can't imagine those who haven't yet). I know a lot of players have stopped arena grind a long time ago. But with ID being fresh and interactive, it'd be wise to funnel players to ID as a source of getting battlechips, gold, units, and loyalty because:
- This would lessen the pressure that many players have to be active in a way where it feels like a chore (let's be real, arena is a chore for players who are past the intermediate bracket). In a word, this would make the overall MCOC experience more fun.
- This would also increase the incentive to still be active in the game through ID in a way that is not too time-consuming (i.e., in a way that it sustainable in the long run). In a word, this would make the overall MCOC engagement more lasting.
- This would offer a dynamic way of earning units, battlechips, and other important resources that would encourage more activity. In a word, this would encourage further MCOC engagement (there's a fine line between making the players want more versus making the players feel overwhelmed, thereby indirectly compelling them to burn out).
- Furthermore, this would be a very sustainable way for players to also keep up with the most competitive alliances who run map 6 (more alliances will be running map 6 with the new AQ seasons that should be coming soon???? Please provide a rough timeline or at least what kind of updated rewards are to be expected). In a word, this would help players who are in the most competitive alliances where burnouts are probably most common.
All in all, this would address a lot of the burnout. Players who are simply sick of grinding arenas. Players who want to play at the top alliances, but do not have time to grind arenas to afford the donations. Players who feel overwhelmed that there is too much in the game. Players who are competitive in AW, so they are experiencing loyalty shortage (seriously, there's only 2 ways to get loyalty, and both ways are very stingy; this is problematic considering that those AW boosts are only available via loyalty). (For AW, I suggest that you shorten the seasons while also balancing out the rewards across the different brackets and scaling them down to compensate for a shorter season.)
To those who will respond, "another whiny post that is asking for more rewards for less activity." You really need to wake up and see the bigger picture of what's happening across the community. There's a reason why there's a lot of this "whining." It's because many players are burning out and retiring, and many alliances are imploding and disbanding. One huge reason is because rewards have not been updated. Look at the solo and alliance events. They are a joke at best, insulting at worst. Look at the AQ rewards. So my request is not to benefit just me, my request is to benefit the overall health of the community, which is in the best interest of Kabam. The healthier the community, the more it can be milked for a longer period of time.
However, I think there is a way to improve ID in a way where it could really alleviate some of the burnout that many players are experiencing, as well as addressing the loyalty shortage.
Can we make the rewards of ID include the rewards that we would get from arena (battlechips and units) plus loyalty?
At the moment, I do not mind the 30 minutes that I do for ID daily, but it is very difficult to do that and do arena grind and to finish my LOL paths and to do AQ and to do AW and to do the Mad Titan challenge and to fulfill my officer duties and to do the monthly EQ (fortunately I've been done with Act 5, but can't imagine those who haven't yet). I know a lot of players have stopped arena grind a long time ago. But with ID being fresh and interactive, it'd be wise to funnel players to ID as a source of getting battlechips, gold, units, and loyalty because:
- This would lessen the pressure that many players have to be active in a way where it feels like a chore (let's be real, arena is a chore for players who are past the intermediate bracket). In a word, this would make the overall MCOC experience more fun.
- This would also increase the incentive to still be active in the game through ID in a way that is not too time-consuming (i.e., in a way that it sustainable in the long run). In a word, this would make the overall MCOC engagement more lasting.
- This would offer a dynamic way of earning units, battlechips, and other important resources that would encourage more activity. In a word, this would encourage further MCOC engagement (there's a fine line between making the players want more versus making the players feel overwhelmed, thereby indirectly compelling them to burn out).
- Furthermore, this would be a very sustainable way for players to also keep up with the most competitive alliances who run map 6 (more alliances will be running map 6 with the new AQ seasons that should be coming soon???? Please provide a rough timeline or at least what kind of updated rewards are to be expected). In a word, this would help players who are in the most competitive alliances where burnouts are probably most common.
All in all, this would address a lot of the burnout. Players who are simply sick of grinding arenas. Players who want to play at the top alliances, but do not have time to grind arenas to afford the donations. Players who feel overwhelmed that there is too much in the game. Players who are competitive in AW, so they are experiencing loyalty shortage (seriously, there's only 2 ways to get loyalty, and both ways are very stingy; this is problematic considering that those AW boosts are only available via loyalty). (For AW, I suggest that you shorten the seasons while also balancing out the rewards across the different brackets and scaling them down to compensate for a shorter season.)
To those who will respond, "another whiny post that is asking for more rewards for less activity." You really need to wake up and see the bigger picture of what's happening across the community. There's a reason why there's a lot of this "whining." It's because many players are burning out and retiring, and many alliances are imploding and disbanding. One huge reason is because rewards have not been updated. Look at the solo and alliance events. They are a joke at best, insulting at worst. Look at the AQ rewards. So my request is not to benefit just me, my request is to benefit the overall health of the community, which is in the best interest of Kabam. The healthier the community, the more it can be milked for a longer period of time.
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Comments
I can say I have not done Dungeons in almost 2 weeks now, and also pretty much stopped arenas other then t4b, and unlock rank rewards in the 5* and I'm ok with that.
With AW/AQ/Montly EQ/Daily Special Events, it's just gotten to be too much for me to do those and still do Dungeons and Arenas.
Especially with the nodes and the new champs coming out for the Monthly EQ, it's getting to the point that skill is becoming less of a factor, and luck of the draw is replacing skill.
We can definitely understand concerns over burn out and appreciate any feedback on how to curb that. This is honestly a rather solid bit of information and I'll make sure to forward this to our Game Devs to review! Although I can't guarantee these changes will happen, I can assure you we will keep an eye on the discussions in this thread. Would love to see what your fellow Summoners think as well!
After reading through the above, I could see myself getting back into it if the rewards were revised like this.
Thumbs up
This would be nice. Currently there is no reason to continue dungeons after milestones. Give us a reason to do lesser rooms with random drops would get me in dungeons with my diversified roster.
While I agree that there should be some effort into keeping up with the top players in the game, I think the biggest problem we encounter now is that we have too much content that we must complete on a daily basis. I know some of those are going to state that we aren't forced to complete content if we don't want to, but I play at the top level and unless I want to step down a notch, I'd love to continue to compete at the top without having to feel the need to stay up later at night in order to finish a round of dungeon, or arena rounds, or making my moves in aq so we finish, or knocking down a node in AW, or getting completion finished for alliance event.
Kabam should focus on how to better the rewards given in AQ to match what AW has to offer. Dungeons, trials, event quests should be available to continue to be completed, but perhaps energy requirements, time requirements, could be tweaked slightly, or not have so many difficulties available.
Arena rewards need a serious overhaul. The amount of time it takes to run several rounds, and build up BCS and Gold for alliance donation requirements are silly. I kindly suggest that Kabam employees put themselves in the shoes of the average player who will do map 3-6, and have donation requirements in order to do so. Imagine the time it takes to build donations, complete content, and also move in AQ/AW while maintaining a social life as well. It's not realistic with the model you have given us now.
Great Post Thanks4Playing, I hope that Kabam takes these suggestions to heart and try to cater to a more realistic model on game play and not cram too much content at once. While we all love having new content, perhaps pick and choose when and how you release it. Do not throw it all at once, making us question whether we want to stay up another 2 hours just to try to keep up.
Any time you have to sneak fights in at work, its probably a bit too much. Im sad i had to retire, but real life comes first lol
1. Add dungeons as a new permanent game play mode.
2. Allow player to create up to five dungeon sessions simultaneously.
3. For each dungeon session, set the maximum time to complete the session to 24 hours
4. Change the dungeon message system so that whenever a player makes a move and defeats a node in a dungeon, the partner player gets a popup message at an idle moment in the game.
5. There would be daily and weekly milestones. Weekly milestone rewards would include battlechips, loyalty, gold, and units. Daily milestones would include class-based rewards synchronized with the daily class arena events and include t1-3 catalysts and t4 fragments.
Basically, the mental model for this game mode would be email chess, where each player can take their time and make a move, then wait for the other player to make a move. If you want to play online with another player quickly, you still can. But since you can also play slowly, the game would allow you to run multiple dungeons with multiple partners at the same time. You would still have a lockout to prevent using the same champs in two different dungeons at the same time, and there would still be a recharge cooldown.
But you could start a dungeon and invite a friend, then go back to playing the game. When they join you can start the map, fight the first node, then go back to playing the game while waiting for your friend.
@DNA3000 I love all of your comments and posts, and this idea is great! However, I think it might be too much in terms of design, development, and testing. Increasing the rewards, on the other hand, is a relatively minor change that would yield big benefits to the community (and thereby benefiting Kabam). Whereas the changes that you suggest, as progressive as they are, would require a lot of effort, and I'm not sure if the benefits would comparatively be significantly better.
But because you put some thought into it, I'm wondering if the 24 hour limit would be per dungeon or per room. if per dungeon, then it could be problematic in terms of time zone differences. In fact, because each room is 12 minutes and the entire dungeon experience is real-time, it ensures that the players respond to each other in a timely way. If you extend the window to 24 hours (with other dungeons occurring synchronously), then it is highly likely that some dungeon sessions will fall through the cracks and miss the allotted time. Furthermore, I foresee a lot of bugs with this model.
The point that you made that I do think would be feasible and valuable is also collapsing class catalysts into the dungeon game mode. Much of the "problem" with the game is how there are too many kinds of resources (e.g., to rank up a champ, you need gold, iso, class cat, basic cat, alpha cat). I understand why this is, and it is shrewd. With more kinds of resources, it compels players to be engaged in more game modes. But we're at a point in the game where this is unsustainable and where it is actually backfiring. Instead of compelling players to be more engaged, it is now burning players out, compelling them to quit. One way to address this is to collapse resources (e.g., regular potions can be used in AQ/AW and in ID). Another way is to add these other resources to existing game modes (adding bc, units, loyalty to ID, and maybe even some of the lesser class cats). I like the latter approach. Either way, resources need to be more plentiful, but that's a topic of another discussion.
The question was burnout, and the complaints regarding burnout currently revolve around the sense that the rewards for doing dungeons are sufficiently high that players feel compelled to do them constantly, every single day, whether they want to or not, because the opportunity cost of not doing them is too high. So in my opinion keeping the same structure for dungeons but giving them high or higher rewards would seem to amplify the sense that you had to do them or else, which amplifies the sense of burn out. A similar complaint exists for alliance war seasons: the rewards being given are high enough, and much higher than in the past, that many players feel compelled to do wars are often as possible and to spend whatever is necessary to win as many of them as possible.
Spreading out the rewards over a longer period of time gives people a way to take time off, do it less frequently, or choose whether to do a little every day or a burst of activity all at once to get the same rewards. Having more choices in how you play also can help defuse the sense of burnout.
As to the amount of effort it would take to implement, it is certainly more than just tweaking the rewards, but not that much more. We're primarily changing the clocks, adding a new message (to a system that can already do things like message you that you have a dungeon invite waiting), and allowing for multiple dungeons. That last one is probably the one that would take the most time, but it is unlikely to require anything novel to be added to the game: certainly less effort than it took to implement dungeons in the first place. Whether it is worth the effort depends on what they intend to do with dungeons in the future. The impression I get is that Kabam is thinking about making dungeons a more permanent addition to the game in the future, and as a permanent game mode it would almost certainly require more work to change how it works to better fit in as a continuously available game mode.
This is where you might be misguided. One of the reasons why ID causes burnout is because it introduces new types of resources, not because the rewards are too high.
Furthermore, the new resources introduced by ID have only temporary value. Players feel pressured to accumulate as much infinity dust and dark artifact before those items are no longer for sale. Adding resources that have permanent value to existing game modes, on the other hand, would alleviate burn out, not encourage it.
And the messaging system that you have in mind is unlikely to be as effective as you suggest. Pretty much everyone ignores those dungeon invitations, especially if you're already busy in the game. Imagine having 5 synchronous dungeons and having 5 different messages. You're bound to miss one. If you don't, then you're going to feel even more burnt out when people are tagging you on line for AQ and AW clears along with these simultaneous dungeon notifications and keeping track of how much quest energy you have. And the time zone issue is a real one.
If you want to give players a longer period of time, then the better and easier solution would be to make dungeons a 2- or 3-day event instead of a 24-hour one. But this is a red herring. The issue doesn't seem to be a longer period of time because 30 minutes to get all milestones isn't too daunting. In fact, if the rewards have permanent value, then you don't even need to do this daily. The problem is having to do 30 minutes of dungeon along with the cumulative effect of having to be engaged in other game modes (most specifically, arena grinding for bcs, units, and gold; not to mention, the loyalty shortage).
Burn out is very real. The bombardment of events that is taking place for 2 months now is just making people quit the game or stop playing.
I have a few suggestions. How about:
1. Making AQ timer 30 minutes
2. Making AW timer 30 minutes
3. Reducing monthly event energy and paths just like this month.
4. Eliminating events that are too time cosuming forever like the blows event.
5. Making dugeons a solo optional event.
6. Eliminating Beginner and normal difficulty for level 60 people. Up the units and gold for heroic master.
7. Add units to uncollected event.
7. Make arenas for 3 stars only, 4 stars only, and 5 stars only. I do not like at all to filter champs for every single fight. The only arena where u can use 2 class champions will be the 6 star arena.
8. Make trials a weekly permanent event.
I try very hard not to complain, because it's a game. I don't always agree with every single thing that happens, because at the same time, I don't think anyone at Kabam wants to make a poor game experience. I have been here since the beginning and this game has improved tremendously from launch. Even the most dedicated hater would acknowledge that.
But. This is just me, and it's why I like the OP so much: I would do just about anything to never feel like I have to grind another Arena for Battlechips.
I don't blame Kabam for how I feel. I make a choice to play the game, and I own my choices.
What I am saying is that the OP really has come up with a reasonable way for people to earn those resources that is, to me, more interesting and challenging.
I really, really like Infinity Dungeons. I really do. I have gone on a couple of runs with random people that have been among the funnest things I have done in this game.
Just speaking for myself, but the only time I feel burnout is when I grind Arena hard.
I would welcome the implementation of the OP's ideas. Very much so.
Your #5 trigger a thought.... What if Dungeon's were potentially dual mode? If you want to run Solo, you would have to bring 6 champs and run both sides, but if you could optionally run with a partner running on 1 side....