From a progression point of view, I am simply not competing in the same landscape that players who joined this game on day 1 were. I believe the progression system in this game should take into account some degree of "rubber banding" to make the obsolete content quicker to get through.
It is much, much, much easier for players to progress now than in the past. You're comparing your progression to other players, when you should be comparing it to the content. When I did RoL I did it with a roster of 4/40s, and that was just prior to 12.0, over a year and a half after starting to play.
If you want to progress quickly in the game, you have to work on both broadening your roster as well as ranking them upward. You say you put up 1.6 million for MODOK, that implies a relatively small roster of champions at low rank. Instead of focusing on ranking up to 5/50, you should be working towards building up a stronger roster of 3/30s and especially 4/40s. You should be going for what you can rather than what's out of reach, until it becomes in reach. For example, T4Bs used to be very hard to get, now they are much easier to get. On top of things like the glory store and other content, you can get at least one every nine days in the T4B arena. That takes only 1.1 million points. And if you keep accumulating those and using them to rank up your roster, you will eventually be able to increase your point score from ~1.5 million towards 2.0 million. At that point more 4* basic champions become within reach, and you can double up your T4B cats in the T4B arena as well. It is about ratcheting upward in small steps, not jumping straight to the top in large leaps.
But even doing things as efficiently as possible, the game isn't designed for rapid progress. Progress keeps getting incrementally better, but it isn't ever going to dramatically jump upward and it will never simply erase the progress advantage that veteran players have. The game does a lot to ensure that no matter how much advantage veteran players have, they will still have to continuously push to maintain it, or newer players will eventually overtake them. But newer players aren't ever going to have those advantages radically neutralized.
This game is hugely demoralizing for me right now.
Here's my situation in brief: I started playing just under 3 months ago and am currently at ~90,000 rating. I have ONE four-star at rank 5 thanks to a rank-up gem I purchased a few weeks back. I have a handful of four-star characters ready to go to rank 5, but am completely roadblocked by t4cc. My roster is too poor for high level AQ, and I'm just getting creamed in AW.
It takes a shocking THREE t4cc to rank 5 a four-star, let alone the other costs. For where I am in the game it feels like it will be a long time before I am able to progress any of these characters any further.
Also, now that I am apparently in the "veterans" Arena bracket, I went from winning and building a four star roster to not being able to put up anywhere near a competitive score with my meager roster. I put up 1.6 mil for MODOK and I put in an ungodly amount of time to get even there.
From a progression point of view, I am simply not competing in the same landscape that players who joined this game on day 1 were. I believe the progression system in this game should take into account some degree of "rubber banding" to make the obsolete content quicker to get through.
Suggestions:
- Arena brackets based on rating rather than account newness. Alternatively, if that is too complex, expand the beginner, intermediate, and veteran brackets to something longer than 30/60 days.
- t4cc should be much easier to get. It doesn't seem like t4cc is a roadblock for anyone EXCEPT new players. Experienced players seem roadblocked by t5b and t2a. Alternatively, reduce the rank up costs on four-stars.
It feels like it will be months before I see any roster progression (ignoring horizontal depth) and I hate to be one of those "oh I'm going to quit" whiners, but really... it's the growth/RPG element that has hooked me on this game and if there's no compelling path forward, the motivation to play will disappear.
I'd say yes to bracket depending on rating.
It could be tricky though, as you could have mostly bad champions. But there is no solution to that.
Arena brackets base on rating? Lol. I’ll sell my 2*s and 3*s.
T4CC IS much easier to get. Heck I was stuck at 4/40 4*s for a year or more and you’re complaining about starting the game for 3 months and being unable to compete? Seriously?
By no means, scoring 1.6m for basic, even for a 90k account, “ungodly” time is needed.
With regards to obsolete content, I’ve given this suggestion before, where next rank ups are locked until the exploration of the act that grants its rank up materials is achieved.
Eg, players can’t r4 a 5* until A4 is explored. Similarly, they can’t r5 a 5* or r2 a 6* until a5 is explored.
This prevents contents from being obsolete and steamrolled by higher ranked attackers with mats sourced from AQ and AW. The mats can be acquired though, just stored in stash with the rank up option of the champ locked.
With regards to obsolete content, I’ve given this suggestion before, where next rank ups are locked until the exploration of the act that grants its rank up materials is achieved.
Many MMOs do something like this, where in this case you would be an "Act 1" player or an "Act 4 player" and that would gate how high you could rank champions, rather than using "level" to mark stages of progress. It is theoretically possible to do.
You would probably no longer have a shortage of lit pitchforks if you did this, however.
Suggestions:
- Arena brackets based on rating rather than account newness. Alternatively, if that is too complex, expand the beginner, intermediate, and veteran brackets to something longer than 30/60 days.
- t4cc should be much easier to get. It doesn't seem like t4cc is a roadblock for anyone EXCEPT new players. Experienced players seem roadblocked by t5b and t2a. Alternatively, reduce the rank up costs on four-stars.
while i get your standpoint there, i can tell you that those changes where demanded 2 years ago from guys starting with me and many times over since then.
how would you do account rating?
pi? guys would just sell the 1-3*, drop down one or two tiers and make your life hell.
or they do it by prestige? then youll get wrecked by the big guys as soon as you catch up even a little and your top 5 starts to get even slightly bigger.
both scenarios assuming that kabam would narrow the prizepool because of more brackets.
for the t4cc part, they are way easier to get nowadays, you get (assuming heroic-uncollected exploration) 2 a month now (1 full and one over the fragments), on top you can earn them via map4+ aq (3x5 t4ccfrag a week) so another one there, you can top that of with glory, mapcrystals, special events, arena, uncollected daylies and now the quest (sure its expensive, but at least there is a way).
when i started 2 years ago a r5 4* in under 3 months was utopic, i got my first one (rogue) when i was 7 or 8 months in due to rng of the pulls. yes t4cc (like all higher tier cats) are a pain to get still, but they do increase it a little every few months.
keep at it, find a ally that grows with you (look for an aq focused one) and r4 a few of your better 4* (most lower-mid tier allys do accept r4 defenders for aw) and remember that the way is way more fun then the finish.
you might not see it yet but the limiting of higher tier cats does benefit both sides, while you dont catch up in a few weeks to the big guys, imagine arena cutoffs when every veteran could r5 all his 4* or r3+ all his 5* (i myself have over 70 4* at r3 waiting for that day while i usually only grind with the 40 r4+)
I must say i don't hate this update. Actually i was looking forward to this. But the energy cost is really high even for lv50 players like me. The addition itself is good but it just doesn't satisfy most players, even those who need or don't REALLY need it.
Just when i think Kabam listen to us players and be generous about something new, i get to be let down in a way or another. A post of update the rewards from 1550 frags to 2050 frags would be appreciated. Doesn't change much, but it will be great.
Yeah I'll stick to saving the t4cc fragment crystals I get from AQ. Last time I opened them I managed to make 1 for mutant, 3 for skill, science, tech, mystic and 4 for cosmic.
It's basically the equivalent of $50 for 1 t4cc. No thanks.
It's not the equivalent of any money. You can do it in 2 Energy Refills, and that can be done by asking for Help.
Of course it equates to money. Everything in this game does. It's basic math.
Yes it's 136 energy and yes that is 2 refills, but that's 16 hours of energy. So what are you going to cut out? Because even if we assume that you never let your energy cap and you get energy help every time you request it, and you're level 60. That only gives you 270 energy a day. Take away the 136 for running the T4CC, that leaves 134 energy for everything else per day.
You 4154 for every thing else. To complete all the levels of the Monthly Event it costs on average 4250 energy. So that's it. Energy's gone.
Now if you want to do Story quest, Monthly sub-quests (Modok labs, Dim rifts, ETC) or any other of the Daily shard quests for Basic or Class Cat shards or anything else that month, that's more energy. Energy refills you will then need to purchase for units. So no you cannot do it with your daily energy. So like I said it's the equivalent of $50 per 1 T4CC. No thanks.
How about mire Tier 1 Catalysts, of all types, period! I have 1, 4* champ, 4, 3* champs, and 20 2* champs, ALL MAXED OUT because I can not find or receive ANY TIER ONE CATALYSTS, ANYWHERE!
Yeah... It seems wrong that I would need to spend 136 energy, basically two full energy pools, to get an amount of shards that is less than what I can get from the uncollected daily crystal.
These quests can be useful. I've been in a situation and currently in one where I can't pull skills shards for the life of me. If there is a situation where you only need a few thousand shards to get that badly needed R5 blade rank up, then this can be useful. But other than that it's not worth the energy cost.
It looks likeThe developer never play the game, the dont know energy in aw aq eq are far not enough compare to time. They expert we play 24 hours, but then sharing is violet
It's basically the equivalent of $50 for 1 t4cc. No thanks.
It's not the equivalent of any money. You can do it in 2 Energy Refills, and that can be done by asking for Help.
Of course it equates to money. Everything in this game does. It's basic math.
Yes it's 136 energy and yes that is 2 refills, but that's 16 hours of energy. So what are you going to cut out? Because even if we assume that you never let your energy cap and you get energy help every time you request it, and you're level 60. That only gives you 270 energy a day. Take away the 136 for running the T4CC, that leaves 134 energy for everything else per day.
You 4154 for every thing else. To complete all the levels of the Monthly Event it costs on average 4250 energy. So that's it. Energy's gone.
Now if you want to do Story quest, Monthly sub-quests (Modok labs, Dim rifts, ETC) or any other of the Daily shard quests for Basic or Class Cat shards or anything else that month, that's more energy. Energy refills you will then need to purchase for units. So no you cannot do it with your daily energy. So like I said it's the equivalent of $50 per 1 T4CC. No thanks.
First of all, I highly doubt anyone will cut anything out to do it. I'm not entertaining the theory.
Secondly, I've been doing it because I'm finished EQ and not doing Story at the moment. When I do another Story run, I'll make that a priority. Just like anything else in the game, we choose what we focus our energy on.
I'm willing to bet you have a steady flow of Cats, judging by your response. Which is why it's probably not geared towards you.
I'm running to get a couple Science and Mystic. Add that to the Frags I get from other sources, and it makes the wait shorter. Unless I roll them. 16 hours of Energy implies that you're on the game that long, waiting with baited breath. Not the case.
I do a Path, hit Help, Grind the Arena, do my business, and come back to it in 5 hours or so. Zero Units spent. You just need to wait. It does not equal $50. It's also not a source for farming full Cats, or a lone source. Unless you want to do that. By all means. After that, you can take a 1* into Act 5.
What really doesn't make sense to me is people know it's not for them. They have all the Cats they need, and then some. Yet they feel it's a personal insult to them that it's offered. Which they're not the target, and have no real need. Some people do have a use for it. If people don't, they don't have to run it. It's certainly not some kind of insult. It's not a money grab. It's a Quest to help people form Cats that much faster. Somehow everything becomes a podium on here. Whether it even affects them or not.
It has to come with a cost of Energy, and that Energy has to be more than T3. They also still have a value, and the amount can't cause an imbalance or take away from the relative value in the other ways of obtaining them. It's not a main source for Cats. That was the intent, from what I see.
Comments
It is much, much, much easier for players to progress now than in the past. You're comparing your progression to other players, when you should be comparing it to the content. When I did RoL I did it with a roster of 4/40s, and that was just prior to 12.0, over a year and a half after starting to play.
If you want to progress quickly in the game, you have to work on both broadening your roster as well as ranking them upward. You say you put up 1.6 million for MODOK, that implies a relatively small roster of champions at low rank. Instead of focusing on ranking up to 5/50, you should be working towards building up a stronger roster of 3/30s and especially 4/40s. You should be going for what you can rather than what's out of reach, until it becomes in reach. For example, T4Bs used to be very hard to get, now they are much easier to get. On top of things like the glory store and other content, you can get at least one every nine days in the T4B arena. That takes only 1.1 million points. And if you keep accumulating those and using them to rank up your roster, you will eventually be able to increase your point score from ~1.5 million towards 2.0 million. At that point more 4* basic champions become within reach, and you can double up your T4B cats in the T4B arena as well. It is about ratcheting upward in small steps, not jumping straight to the top in large leaps.
But even doing things as efficiently as possible, the game isn't designed for rapid progress. Progress keeps getting incrementally better, but it isn't ever going to dramatically jump upward and it will never simply erase the progress advantage that veteran players have. The game does a lot to ensure that no matter how much advantage veteran players have, they will still have to continuously push to maintain it, or newer players will eventually overtake them. But newer players aren't ever going to have those advantages radically neutralized.
Arena brackets base on rating? Lol. I’ll sell my 2*s and 3*s.
T4CC IS much easier to get. Heck I was stuck at 4/40 4*s for a year or more and you’re complaining about starting the game for 3 months and being unable to compete? Seriously?
By no means, scoring 1.6m for basic, even for a 90k account, “ungodly” time is needed.
With regards to obsolete content, I’ve given this suggestion before, where next rank ups are locked until the exploration of the act that grants its rank up materials is achieved.
Eg, players can’t r4 a 5* until A4 is explored. Similarly, they can’t r5 a 5* or r2 a 6* until a5 is explored.
This prevents contents from being obsolete and steamrolled by higher ranked attackers with mats sourced from AQ and AW. The mats can be acquired though, just stored in stash with the rank up option of the champ locked.
Many MMOs do something like this, where in this case you would be an "Act 1" player or an "Act 4 player" and that would gate how high you could rank champions, rather than using "level" to mark stages of progress. It is theoretically possible to do.
You would probably no longer have a shortage of lit pitchforks if you did this, however.
while i get your standpoint there, i can tell you that those changes where demanded 2 years ago from guys starting with me and many times over since then.
how would you do account rating?
pi? guys would just sell the 1-3*, drop down one or two tiers and make your life hell.
or they do it by prestige? then youll get wrecked by the big guys as soon as you catch up even a little and your top 5 starts to get even slightly bigger.
both scenarios assuming that kabam would narrow the prizepool because of more brackets.
for the t4cc part, they are way easier to get nowadays, you get (assuming heroic-uncollected exploration) 2 a month now (1 full and one over the fragments), on top you can earn them via map4+ aq (3x5 t4ccfrag a week) so another one there, you can top that of with glory, mapcrystals, special events, arena, uncollected daylies and now the quest (sure its expensive, but at least there is a way).
when i started 2 years ago a r5 4* in under 3 months was utopic, i got my first one (rogue) when i was 7 or 8 months in due to rng of the pulls. yes t4cc (like all higher tier cats) are a pain to get still, but they do increase it a little every few months.
keep at it, find a ally that grows with you (look for an aq focused one) and r4 a few of your better 4* (most lower-mid tier allys do accept r4 defenders for aw) and remember that the way is way more fun then the finish.
you might not see it yet but the limiting of higher tier cats does benefit both sides, while you dont catch up in a few weeks to the big guys, imagine arena cutoffs when every veteran could r5 all his 4* or r3+ all his 5* (i myself have over 70 4* at r3 waiting for that day while i usually only grind with the 40 r4+)
Just when i think Kabam listen to us players and be generous about something new, i get to be let down in a way or another. A post of update the rewards from 1550 frags to 2050 frags would be appreciated. Doesn't change much, but it will be great.
Yeah I'll stick to saving the t4cc fragment crystals I get from AQ. Last time I opened them I managed to make 1 for mutant, 3 for skill, science, tech, mystic and 4 for cosmic.
Of course it equates to money. Everything in this game does. It's basic math.
Yes it's 136 energy and yes that is 2 refills, but that's 16 hours of energy. So what are you going to cut out? Because even if we assume that you never let your energy cap and you get energy help every time you request it, and you're level 60. That only gives you 270 energy a day. Take away the 136 for running the T4CC, that leaves 134 energy for everything else per day.
You 4154 for every thing else. To complete all the levels of the Monthly Event it costs on average 4250 energy. So that's it. Energy's gone.
Now if you want to do Story quest, Monthly sub-quests (Modok labs, Dim rifts, ETC) or any other of the Daily shard quests for Basic or Class Cat shards or anything else that month, that's more energy. Energy refills you will then need to purchase for units. So no you cannot do it with your daily energy. So like I said it's the equivalent of $50 per 1 T4CC. No thanks.
First of all, I highly doubt anyone will cut anything out to do it. I'm not entertaining the theory.
Secondly, I've been doing it because I'm finished EQ and not doing Story at the moment. When I do another Story run, I'll make that a priority. Just like anything else in the game, we choose what we focus our energy on.
I'm willing to bet you have a steady flow of Cats, judging by your response. Which is why it's probably not geared towards you.
I'm running to get a couple Science and Mystic. Add that to the Frags I get from other sources, and it makes the wait shorter. Unless I roll them. 16 hours of Energy implies that you're on the game that long, waiting with baited breath. Not the case.
I do a Path, hit Help, Grind the Arena, do my business, and come back to it in 5 hours or so. Zero Units spent. You just need to wait. It does not equal $50. It's also not a source for farming full Cats, or a lone source. Unless you want to do that. By all means. After that, you can take a 1* into Act 5.
What really doesn't make sense to me is people know it's not for them. They have all the Cats they need, and then some. Yet they feel it's a personal insult to them that it's offered. Which they're not the target, and have no real need. Some people do have a use for it. If people don't, they don't have to run it. It's certainly not some kind of insult. It's not a money grab. It's a Quest to help people form Cats that much faster. Somehow everything becomes a podium on here. Whether it even affects them or not.
It has to come with a cost of Energy, and that Energy has to be more than T3. They also still have a value, and the amount can't cause an imbalance or take away from the relative value in the other ways of obtaining them. It's not a main source for Cats. That was the intent, from what I see.