Witness the Great Revival! Act 6 Chapter 1 - Coming March 13th

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Comments

  • JChanceH9JChanceH9 Member Posts: 852 ★★★
    edited March 2019
    Banning 4* champions from Act 6 says one thing to me, and that is that Kabam doesn’t know how to develop content that is passable in difficulty to be challenging without being an obvious cash grab with the spectrum of champions’ kits they have released. Instead of being creative and coming up with solutions to the concerns @Kabam Miike voiced as the reasons for this requirement, you are cutting off the legs of all players rosters under the unsubtle guise of not wanting people to be subject to content to difficult for their rosters and... data farming. Well, that is the players’ decision. It’s their decision if they want to spend $50k on units to explore the content with 2*s. You’re a business, and this truly makes no sense. If you need some better strategists, I’d be happy to talk pay and relocation fees.

    Kabam has sold millions of dollars worth of 4* rank up material, and you will be cutting off or devaluing that revenue stream in the future by banning 4*s. It also sets a dangerous precedent for the community as, if we let this go unchallenged, we can only expect all of our champions to essentially be on a timer for not only their utility, but their eligibility. Why would I spend another dollar to run on this hamster wheel if there is no consistent value in what I’m purchasing, even if it is subject to the inflation of Kabam releasing higher star tiers.

    I want this game to be a success, for Kabam to make money, and for MCoC to be around for a long time. The current model we’re previewing here is unacceptable.
  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Member Posts: 36,506 ★★★★★
    AndiYTDE said:

    I’m not one to complain about free stuff but.........




    With everything going on in this thread...... I spit my drink out all over my keyboard at work. Thanks for the laugh!

    That was a gift for International Women's Day. Has nothing to do with Act 6.
    Still: They are basically giving us useless stuff for future content while this discussion is going on...
    No, they're giving us a Gift to acknowledge International Women's Day. I don't even know why people are trying to connect every Offer or Announcement to Act 6. The game is not revolving around one decision people don't like.
  • DTMelodicMetalDTMelodicMetal Member Posts: 2,785 ★★★★★
    edited March 2019
    DrZola said:




    Stay classy, Kabam!

    :D

    Makes the official statement look a little silly, too, in my opinion.

    Dr. Zola
    Another example of statements from one side contradicting statements from another side.
  • omar_ochoaomar_ochoa Member Posts: 29
    Cavalier and still getting 3* that is a joke !!!
  • mostlyharmlessnmostlyharmlessn Member Posts: 1,387 ★★★★



    Perhaps if you had installed a 5* basic arena a year ago like you really should have then maybe the community would be more understanding of this decision. But my options for acquiring 5* champs is either just keep grinding slowly as I have been or open my wallet. The 5* featured arena caters only to the elite players who have money to spend for refreshing champs.

    And that's how the Market they are creating works :smile:

  • omar_ochoaomar_ochoa Member Posts: 29
    You limit us to 5 and 6 star champs for the quest yet you give us 3* ??? Man your Awesome Kabam .... LoL
  • BowTieJohnBowTieJohn Member Posts: 2,363 ★★★★
    I'm excited for Act 6 in the sense of new content, but sad because they put a requirement which negates and makes certain champions no longer usable in the story quest beyond Act 5. I believe they need to increase the 5* drop rate and the price of 5* (instead of 10K perhaps drop it to 4K). I believe if Kabam stands by their decision and ignore the community there could potentially be an exodus of players who are tired of Kabam ignoring their legitimate concerns. This decision feels like a step backward.
  • omar_ochoaomar_ochoa Member Posts: 29
    Your getting worse and worse used to get 1020 4* shards after every chapter in monthly quest , now we only get 900??? HEY ! Why don’t you just give us 3 star shards while your at it ???
  • axelelf_1axelelf_1 Member Posts: 775 ★★★
    Wow! Really proved me wrong about the 4* restriction being a cash grab by selling these new fgmcs. Lol. None to subtle there.
  • BowTieJohnBowTieJohn Member Posts: 2,363 ★★★★

    I’m not one to complain about free stuff but.........




    With everything going on in this thread...... I spit my drink out all over my keyboard at work. Thanks for the laugh!

    Maybe they need send out another package which says 4*s are trash here is a 5* and 6* crystal. Of course that most likely won't happen.
  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Member Posts: 36,506 ★★★★★

    I’m not one to complain about free stuff but.........




    With everything going on in this thread...... I spit my drink out all over my keyboard at work. Thanks for the laugh!

    Maybe they need send out another package which says 4*s are trash here is a 5* and 6* crystal. Of course that most likely won't happen.
    If people are waiting for an in-game Email with everything they need to do Act 6, that'll likely be a long wait.
  • BowTieJohnBowTieJohn Member Posts: 2,363 ★★★★

    I’m not one to complain about free stuff but.........




    With everything going on in this thread...... I spit my drink out all over my keyboard at work. Thanks for the laugh!

    Maybe they need send out another package which says 4*s are trash here is a 5* and 6* crystal. Of course that most likely won't happen.
    If people are waiting for an in-game Email with everything they need to do Act 6, that'll likely be a long wait.

    I’m not one to complain about free stuff but.........




    With everything going on in this thread...... I spit my drink out all over my keyboard at work. Thanks for the laugh!

    Maybe they need send out another package which says 4*s are trash here is a 5* and 6* crystal. Of course that most likely won't happen.
    If people are waiting for an in-game Email with everything they need to do Act 6, that'll likely be a long wait.
    I'm not asking for a simple give me everything to beat Act 6 instantly, but instead something to help people be able to even compete especially if they are banning 4*s.
  • MarzGrooveMarzGroove Member Posts: 903 ★★★
    Campo4 said:

    Campo4 said:

    So I can bring a Rank 1 Level 1 unduped 5* Antman to Act 6, but I can't bring a 5/50 Sig 99 4* Archangel.

    In all seriousness, @Kabam Miike would you guys consider gating it by challenger rating instead of star level/rarity?

    i.e. 4* 5/50 and 5* 3/45 and above only?

    My point is, you guys invented challenger rating to essentially say a 5/50 is the same power level as a 3/45. They take similar amount of catalysts to rank, and have similar stats. Yet the way you are gating Act 6 doesn't take this into consideration. You can bring an extremely low level 5*, but not your most powerful 4*.

    I am personally not for any gating, however I think this would be a good compromise. It would be more about making sure players have the right roster for the job, and less about who is getting lucky with 5* pulls.

    I like this. If you are going to gate it at all, gate the content to Challenge Rating >= 90 or 100.
  • mostlyharmlessnmostlyharmlessn Member Posts: 1,387 ★★★★

    Campo4 said:

    Campo4 said:

    So I can bring a Rank 1 Level 1 unduped 5* Antman to Act 6, but I can't bring a 5/50 Sig 99 4* Archangel.

    In all seriousness, @Kabam Miike would you guys consider gating it by challenger rating instead of star level/rarity?

    i.e. 4* 5/50 and 5* 3/45 and above only?

    My point is, you guys invented challenger rating to essentially say a 5/50 is the same power level as a 3/45. They take similar amount of catalysts to rank, and have similar stats. Yet the way you are gating Act 6 doesn't take this into consideration. You can bring an extremely low level 5*, but not your most powerful 4*.

    I am personally not for any gating, however I think this would be a good compromise. It would be more about making sure players have the right roster for the job, and less about who is getting lucky with 5* pulls.

    I like this. If you are going to gate it at all, gate the content to Challenge Rating >= 90 or 100.
    Humm... would be even better if you had to become a Summoner Level 70... might actually give me a reason to use all those XP Boosts....
  • UltimatheoryUltimatheory Member Posts: 520 ★★★
    edited March 2019

    I'm wondering if the people complaining about this have done every other piece of content in the game 100% yet. This has been advertised as the final Act to the story. They probably intend it to be done after all other content is completed.

    I can empathize with those with terrible RNG though. I like @Hulk_77 post above about Challenger Rating being a requirement rather than star level.

    I've done everything in the game 100%. Act 5. LOL. Variant.

    I have 101 5* champs

    I have 13 6* champs

    My total hero rating is 1.18M

    My Prestige is 10.2K

    I'm in an ally that\s top 30 in AQ

    Do you consider me worthy enough to voice my hatred of this stupid rule?
    Lol sure. I bet you're ready for Act 6 though despite the gate.
  • MarzGrooveMarzGroove Member Posts: 903 ★★★

    @GroundedWisdom okay buddy. We get it, you’re on the payroll.

    Not on the payroll at all. I just don't agree with the dramatics. It's not the end of life as we know it, people will get through it with their 5*s. It's just a roadblock. We've seen a number before.
    I agree. I play to have fun, and I'll be jumping in with my 5*s on Day 1.
  • DNA3000DNA3000 Member, Guardian Posts: 19,422 Guardian
    DrZola said:

    DNA3000 said:

    Dshu said:

    That is the problem nobody understands their rational. We are not asking for an incomprehensible answer we want to understand why they choose to make this decision

    It makes perfect sense to me, and to be blunt I don't think most of the people claiming to not understand it actually don't understand it. They just don't agree with it, and can't wrap their minds around the fact that some people do things for reasons they don't agree with, so they must be lying or obfuscating when they express those reasons.

    Game development is always trying to implement compromises among a large number of often opposing priorities and criteria. Almost everything you do as a game developer has at least one really good reason to *not* do it, but you're doing it because there are more reasons to do it than not. To try to accommodate all of those differing priorities you often end up with something that doesn't absolutely honor one priority to the exclusion of all others, which can be used against you when players claim that what you did obviously doesn't "correctly" implement any clear priority.

    This game has always had progression gates. A progression gate segregates players into those on one side of the gate and those on the other side of the gate. Whenever you implement a gate, some players will complain when they find themselves on the wrong side of the gate. But that's working as intended: that's the purpose of the gate. If everyone who wanted to be past the gate was past the gate, the gate's worthless.

    The gates in the game have generally, but not completely, been implemented from the bottom up, because the nature of the game is that it has grown upward in complexity and difficulty (it can't really be otherwise). The earliest gates could use simple metrics that existed in the game, for example level gates. But as the game continued to grow upward, those metrics simply "ran out" and they had to resort to other progression metrics to continue to gate the game. Uncollected, for example, is a novel (in this game) gate: it isn't just a prerequisite to get to the next piece of content, it unlocks a lot of other development opportunities in the form of enhanced crystals and higher reward monthly content. Importantly, this kind of gate didn't exist until it did: it set the precedent that the devs were willing to add new kinds of gates to the game.

    Level is an obvious metric that measures progress. Which content you complete is another one. But another measure of progress that has always existed in the game is roster strength. It factors into prestige which influences AQ rewards (and at one time prestige was *the* metric for progress for level-capped players). It has in the past been the metric used to calibrate things like compensation packages based on progress. It is a highly imperfect metric of progress, but it was *used* in the game.

    The devs wanted a new progress gate leading into Act 6 and the ones that had been used previously were seen as inadequate. They didn't want it to be a trivial prerequisite like do 5.1 and you get to do 5.2. Prerequisites aren't progress gates, because there's no well-defined barrier to overcome beyond just keep playing (players can argue that this should be sufficient, which is tantamount to saying no progress gates should exist at all, but that's a separate complicated argument).

    The obvious option is roster-based progress gates. But prestige is too narrow and player rating is too disconnected from actual progress. If the top five champs is too small and counting everything is too large, then measuring a subset of the top champs would be a reasonable compromise between the two. There are a couple of ways to do this. One way would be to extend prestige to a larger number of champs; say there was a fifteen champ version of prestige, and it took a certain minimum rating to enter Act 6.

    This sort of thing emphasizes rank ups, because it doesn't matter how many champs you have, what matters more is how highly ranked they were. And rank up decisions are heavily influenced by which champs you pull randomly from crystals - some are more "deserving" of rare rank up materials than others. Back before Alliance War was really important and AQ was the primary game in town, players often ranked up champs with the highest rating, not the ones they wanted to play the most, because prestige was emphasized by AQ.

    I wouldn't want to repeat that situation, and I'm guessing the devs don't want to either. So it is worth looking for an alternative to roster-metrics that emphasize ranking up the highest rating champs. But if we aren't going to use a ratings lock, is there a softer way to do it? Sure: we can limit which champs the players can bring in, so that instead of emphasizing reaching the highest possible rating with rank ups, the game instead tends to reward players with the widest rosters, from which those players will have more options available from the entry limits.

    The entry limit can't be too low: it can't simply be "everything 4* and higher" or even "everything CR100 and higher (which includes 5/50 champs)" because that makes the options pool too large: the progress gate isn't rewarding particularly large rosters, because the limit allows almost anything (among players for whom Act 6 is even a possibility). It could be CR110 and higher, or it could be 5* and higher. And of those two options, once again 5* and higher deemphasizes high rank ups relative to CR110.

    To me, this all seems entirely reasonable. I'm not saying it should necessarily be convincing for anyone else, only that a reasonable person could reach this conclusion. And yes, there are side effects that many players would argue are unacceptable, such as the impact on synergy tactics. But the question of whether those are acceptable or unacceptable is a value judgment, not an objective conclusion. Two different reasonable rational actors can differ on that judgment. The devs may simply have a different option. That isn't something you can demand someone "justify" or explain to one's satisfaction.
    You do know forums points aren’t based on word count, right? :p

    Dr. Zola
    I ran out of popcorn.
  • DrZolaDrZola Member Posts: 8,970 ★★★★★
    DNA3000 said:

    DrZola said:

    DNA3000 said:

    Dshu said:

    That is the problem nobody understands their rational. We are not asking for an incomprehensible answer we want to understand why they choose to make this decision

    It makes perfect sense to me, and to be blunt I don't think most of the people claiming to not understand it actually don't understand it. They just don't agree with it, and can't wrap their minds around the fact that some people do things for reasons they don't agree with, so they must be lying or obfuscating when they express those reasons.

    Game development is always trying to implement compromises among a large number of often opposing priorities and criteria. Almost everything you do as a game developer has at least one really good reason to *not* do it, but you're doing it because there are more reasons to do it than not. To try to accommodate all of those differing priorities you often end up with something that doesn't absolutely honor one priority to the exclusion of all others, which can be used against you when players claim that what you did obviously doesn't "correctly" implement any clear priority.

    This game has always had progression gates. A progression gate segregates players into those on one side of the gate and those on the other side of the gate. Whenever you implement a gate, some players will complain when they find themselves on the wrong side of the gate. But that's working as intended: that's the purpose of the gate. If everyone who wanted to be past the gate was past the gate, the gate's worthless.

    The gates in the game have generally, but not completely, been implemented from the bottom up, because the nature of the game is that it has grown upward in complexity and difficulty (it can't really be otherwise). The earliest gates could use simple metrics that existed in the game, for example level gates. But as the game continued to grow upward, those metrics simply "ran out" and they had to resort to other progression metrics to continue to gate the game. Uncollected, for example, is a novel (in this game) gate: it isn't just a prerequisite to get to the next piece of content, it unlocks a lot of other development opportunities in the form of enhanced crystals and higher reward monthly content. Importantly, this kind of gate didn't exist until it did: it set the precedent that the devs were willing to add new kinds of gates to the game.

    Level is an obvious metric that measures progress. Which content you complete is another one. But another measure of progress that has always existed in the game is roster strength. It factors into prestige which influences AQ rewards (and at one time prestige was *the* metric for progress for level-capped players). It has in the past been the metric used to calibrate things like compensation packages based on progress. It is a highly imperfect metric of progress, but it was *used* in the game.

    The devs wanted a new progress gate leading into Act 6 and the ones that had been used previously were seen as inadequate. They didn't want it to be a trivial prerequisite like do 5.1 and you get to do 5.2. Prerequisites aren't progress gates, because there's no well-defined barrier to overcome beyond just keep playing (players can argue that this should be sufficient, which is tantamount to saying no progress gates should exist at all, but that's a separate complicated argument).

    The obvious option is roster-based progress gates. But prestige is too narrow and player rating is too disconnected from actual progress. If the top five champs is too small and counting everything is too large, then measuring a subset of the top champs would be a reasonable compromise between the two. There are a couple of ways to do this. One way would be to extend prestige to a larger number of champs; say there was a fifteen champ version of prestige, and it took a certain minimum rating to enter Act 6.

    This sort of thing emphasizes rank ups, because it doesn't matter how many champs you have, what matters more is how highly ranked they were. And rank up decisions are heavily influenced by which champs you pull randomly from crystals - some are more "deserving" of rare rank up materials than others. Back before Alliance War was really important and AQ was the primary game in town, players often ranked up champs with the highest rating, not the ones they wanted to play the most, because prestige was emphasized by AQ.

    I wouldn't want to repeat that situation, and I'm guessing the devs don't want to either. So it is worth looking for an alternative to roster-metrics that emphasize ranking up the highest rating champs. But if we aren't going to use a ratings lock, is there a softer way to do it? Sure: we can limit which champs the players can bring in, so that instead of emphasizing reaching the highest possible rating with rank ups, the game instead tends to reward players with the widest rosters, from which those players will have more options available from the entry limits.

    The entry limit can't be too low: it can't simply be "everything 4* and higher" or even "everything CR100 and higher (which includes 5/50 champs)" because that makes the options pool too large: the progress gate isn't rewarding particularly large rosters, because the limit allows almost anything (among players for whom Act 6 is even a possibility). It could be CR110 and higher, or it could be 5* and higher. And of those two options, once again 5* and higher deemphasizes high rank ups relative to CR110.

    To me, this all seems entirely reasonable. I'm not saying it should necessarily be convincing for anyone else, only that a reasonable person could reach this conclusion. And yes, there are side effects that many players would argue are unacceptable, such as the impact on synergy tactics. But the question of whether those are acceptable or unacceptable is a value judgment, not an objective conclusion. Two different reasonable rational actors can differ on that judgment. The devs may simply have a different option. That isn't something you can demand someone "justify" or explain to one's satisfaction.
    You do know forums points aren’t based on word count, right? :p

    Dr. Zola
    I ran out of popcorn.
    ;)
    Dr. Zola
  • DNA3000DNA3000 Member, Guardian Posts: 19,422 Guardian

    Campo4 said:

    Campo4 said:

    So I can bring a Rank 1 Level 1 unduped 5* Antman to Act 6, but I can't bring a 5/50 Sig 99 4* Archangel.

    In all seriousness, @Kabam Miike would you guys consider gating it by challenger rating instead of star level/rarity?

    i.e. 4* 5/50 and 5* 3/45 and above only?

    My point is, you guys invented challenger rating to essentially say a 5/50 is the same power level as a 3/45. They take similar amount of catalysts to rank, and have similar stats. Yet the way you are gating Act 6 doesn't take this into consideration. You can bring an extremely low level 5*, but not your most powerful 4*.

    I am personally not for any gating, however I think this would be a good compromise. It would be more about making sure players have the right roster for the job, and less about who is getting lucky with 5* pulls.

    I like this. If you are going to gate it at all, gate the content to Challenge Rating >= 90 or 100.
    They aren't gating to power level of the champs, but rather (to oversimplify a lot) the effort required to acquire them. A 5/50 has similar strength to a 3/45, but the 3/45 is much harder to acquire.
  • DshuDshu Member Posts: 1,504 ★★★★
    DNA3000 said:

    Dshu said:

    That is the problem nobody understands their rational. We are not asking for an incomprehensible answer we want to understand why they choose to make this decision

    It makes perfect sense to me, and to be blunt I don't think most of the people claiming to not understand it actually don't understand it. They just don't agree with it, and can't wrap their minds around the fact that some people do things for reasons they don't agree with, so they must be lying or obfuscating when they express those reasons.

    Game development is always trying to implement compromises among a large number of often opposing priorities and criteria. Almost everything you do as a game developer has at least one really good reason to *not* do it, but you're doing it because there are more reasons to do it than not. To try to accommodate all of those differing priorities you often end up with something that doesn't absolutely honor one priority to the exclusion of all others, which can be used against you when players claim that what you did obviously doesn't "correctly" implement any clear priority.

    This game has always had progression gates. A progression gate segregates players into those on one side of the gate and those on the other side of the gate. Whenever you implement a gate, some players will complain when they find themselves on the wrong side of the gate. But that's working as intended: that's the purpose of the gate. If everyone who wanted to be past the gate was past the gate, the gate's worthless.

    The gates in the game have generally, but not completely, been implemented from the bottom up, because the nature of the game is that it has grown upward in complexity and difficulty (it can't really be otherwise). The earliest gates could use simple metrics that existed in the game, for example level gates. But as the game continued to grow upward, those metrics simply "ran out" and they had to resort to other progression metrics to continue to gate the game. Uncollected, for example, is a novel (in this game) gate: it isn't just a prerequisite to get to the next piece of content, it unlocks a lot of other development opportunities in the form of enhanced crystals and higher reward monthly content. Importantly, this kind of gate didn't exist until it did: it set the precedent that the devs were willing to add new kinds of gates to the game.

    Level is an obvious metric that measures progress. Which content you complete is another one. But another measure of progress that has always existed in the game is roster strength. It factors into prestige which influences AQ rewards (and at one time prestige was *the* metric for progress for level-capped players). It has in the past been the metric used to calibrate things like compensation packages based on progress. It is a highly imperfect metric of progress, but it was *used* in the game.

    The devs wanted a new progress gate leading into Act 6 and the ones that had been used previously were seen as inadequate. They didn't want it to be a trivial prerequisite like do 5.1 and you get to do 5.2. Prerequisites aren't progress gates, because there's no well-defined barrier to overcome beyond just keep playing (players can argue that this should be sufficient, which is tantamount to saying no progress gates should exist at all, but that's a separate complicated argument).

    The obvious option is roster-based progress gates. But prestige is too narrow and player rating is too disconnected from actual progress. If the top five champs is too small and counting everything is too large, then measuring a subset of the top champs would be a reasonable compromise between the two. There are a couple of ways to do this. One way would be to extend prestige to a larger number of champs; say there was a fifteen champ version of prestige, and it took a certain minimum rating to enter Act 6.

    This sort of thing emphasizes rank ups, because it doesn't matter how many champs you have, what matters more is how highly ranked they were. And rank up decisions are heavily influenced by which champs you pull randomly from crystals - some are more "deserving" of rare rank up materials than others. Back before Alliance War was really important and AQ was the primary game in town, players often ranked up champs with the highest rating, not the ones they wanted to play the most, because prestige was emphasized by AQ.

    I wouldn't want to repeat that situation, and I'm guessing the devs don't want to either. So it is worth looking for an alternative to roster-metrics that emphasize ranking up the highest rating champs. But if we aren't going to use a ratings lock, is there a softer way to do it? Sure: we can limit which champs the players can bring in, so that instead of emphasizing reaching the highest possible rating with rank ups, the game instead tends to reward players with the widest rosters, from which those players will have more options available from the entry limits.

    The entry limit can't be too low: it can't simply be "everything 4* and higher" or even "everything CR100 and higher (which includes 5/50 champs)" because that makes the options pool too large: the progress gate isn't rewarding particularly large rosters, because the limit allows almost anything (among players for whom Act 6 is even a possibility). It could be CR110 and higher, or it could be 5* and higher. And of those two options, once again 5* and higher deemphasizes high rank ups relative to CR110.

    To me, this all seems entirely reasonable. I'm not saying it should necessarily be convincing for anyone else, only that a reasonable person could reach this conclusion. And yes, there are side effects that many players would argue are unacceptable, such as the impact on synergy tactics. But the question of whether those are acceptable or unacceptable is a value judgment, not an objective conclusion. Two different reasonable rational actors can differ on that judgment. The devs may simply have a different option. That isn't something you can demand someone "justify" or explain to one's satisfaction.
    While you can rationalize this the majority of the playerbase cant because this gate has separated
    the community into 2 groups. Those willing to spend to get 5 and 6* champs from crystals and those who wont. They are basically saying if you want new content you need to meet the requirement by buying the crystals that have a 5% drop rate of a useable champ while at the same time telling players they are trying to maintain balance and an enjoyable experience. for those of us who have completed all other in game content to be told that half or more of our profiles are now worthless is unacceptable. Again I'm fine with spending on a game I feel is enjoyable but this forced spending with poor rng odds is not right. Rationalize it how you want but I'd like a response from kabam explaining why they feel it's right to create this gate and force loyal players and customers away from their game.
  • ScottryanScottryan Member Posts: 475 ★★★
    Are cavalier crystals actually 200 units? Thats awesome! I might actually spend some units on those!
  • DNA3000DNA3000 Member, Guardian Posts: 19,422 Guardian
    Dshu said:

    DNA3000 said:

    Dshu said:

    That is the problem nobody understands their rational. We are not asking for an incomprehensible answer we want to understand why they choose to make this decision

    It makes perfect sense to me, and to be blunt I don't think most of the people claiming to not understand it actually don't understand it. They just don't agree with it, and can't wrap their minds around the fact that some people do things for reasons they don't agree with, so they must be lying or obfuscating when they express those reasons.

    Game development is always trying to implement compromises among a large number of often opposing priorities and criteria. Almost everything you do as a game developer has at least one really good reason to *not* do it, but you're doing it because there are more reasons to do it than not. To try to accommodate all of those differing priorities you often end up with something that doesn't absolutely honor one priority to the exclusion of all others, which can be used against you when players claim that what you did obviously doesn't "correctly" implement any clear priority.

    This game has always had progression gates. A progression gate segregates players into those on one side of the gate and those on the other side of the gate. Whenever you implement a gate, some players will complain when they find themselves on the wrong side of the gate. But that's working as intended: that's the purpose of the gate. If everyone who wanted to be past the gate was past the gate, the gate's worthless.

    The gates in the game have generally, but not completely, been implemented from the bottom up, because the nature of the game is that it has grown upward in complexity and difficulty (it can't really be otherwise). The earliest gates could use simple metrics that existed in the game, for example level gates. But as the game continued to grow upward, those metrics simply "ran out" and they had to resort to other progression metrics to continue to gate the game. Uncollected, for example, is a novel (in this game) gate: it isn't just a prerequisite to get to the next piece of content, it unlocks a lot of other development opportunities in the form of enhanced crystals and higher reward monthly content. Importantly, this kind of gate didn't exist until it did: it set the precedent that the devs were willing to add new kinds of gates to the game.

    Level is an obvious metric that measures progress. Which content you complete is another one. But another measure of progress that has always existed in the game is roster strength. It factors into prestige which influences AQ rewards (and at one time prestige was *the* metric for progress for level-capped players). It has in the past been the metric used to calibrate things like compensation packages based on progress. It is a highly imperfect metric of progress, but it was *used* in the game.

    The devs wanted a new progress gate leading into Act 6 and the ones that had been used previously were seen as inadequate. They didn't want it to be a trivial prerequisite like do 5.1 and you get to do 5.2. Prerequisites aren't progress gates, because there's no well-defined barrier to overcome beyond just keep playing (players can argue that this should be sufficient, which is tantamount to saying no progress gates should exist at all, but that's a separate complicated argument).

    The obvious option is roster-based progress gates. But prestige is too narrow and player rating is too disconnected from actual progress. If the top five champs is too small and counting everything is too large, then measuring a subset of the top champs would be a reasonable compromise between the two. There are a couple of ways to do this. One way would be to extend prestige to a larger number of champs; say there was a fifteen champ version of prestige, and it took a certain minimum rating to enter Act 6.

    This sort of thing emphasizes rank ups, because it doesn't matter how many champs you have, what matters more is how highly ranked they were. And rank up decisions are heavily influenced by which champs you pull randomly from crystals - some are more "deserving" of rare rank up materials than others. Back before Alliance War was really important and AQ was the primary game in town, players often ranked up champs with the highest rating, not the ones they wanted to play the most, because prestige was emphasized by AQ.

    I wouldn't want to repeat that situation, and I'm guessing the devs don't want to either. So it is worth looking for an alternative to roster-metrics that emphasize ranking up the highest rating champs. But if we aren't going to use a ratings lock, is there a softer way to do it? Sure: we can limit which champs the players can bring in, so that instead of emphasizing reaching the highest possible rating with rank ups, the game instead tends to reward players with the widest rosters, from which those players will have more options available from the entry limits.

    The entry limit can't be too low: it can't simply be "everything 4* and higher" or even "everything CR100 and higher (which includes 5/50 champs)" because that makes the options pool too large: the progress gate isn't rewarding particularly large rosters, because the limit allows almost anything (among players for whom Act 6 is even a possibility). It could be CR110 and higher, or it could be 5* and higher. And of those two options, once again 5* and higher deemphasizes high rank ups relative to CR110.

    To me, this all seems entirely reasonable. I'm not saying it should necessarily be convincing for anyone else, only that a reasonable person could reach this conclusion. And yes, there are side effects that many players would argue are unacceptable, such as the impact on synergy tactics. But the question of whether those are acceptable or unacceptable is a value judgment, not an objective conclusion. Two different reasonable rational actors can differ on that judgment. The devs may simply have a different option. That isn't something you can demand someone "justify" or explain to one's satisfaction.
    While you can rationalize this the majority of the playerbase cant because this gate has separated
    the community into 2 groups. Those willing to spend to get 5 and 6* champs from crystals and those who wont. They are basically saying if you want new content you need to meet the requirement by buying the crystals that have a 5% drop rate of a useable champ while at the same time telling players they are trying to maintain balance and an enjoyable experience. for those of us who have completed all other in game content to be told that half or more of our profiles are now worthless is unacceptable. Again I'm fine with spending on a game I feel is enjoyable but this forced spending with poor rng odds is not right. Rationalize it how you want but I'd like a response from kabam explaining why they feel it's right to create this gate and force loyal players and customers away from their game.
    At the end of the day, my perspective is all I can offer in a public forum, and it is a perspective informed from long before MCOC was an idea on a whiteboard. But if every perspective that disagrees with yours is something you're just going to dismiss as "rationalization" then I have no idea why Kabam or anyone else should spend any time "explaining" anything to you. You don't want explanations, you just want target dummies to shoot at.
  • DNA3000DNA3000 Member, Guardian Posts: 19,422 Guardian
    DrZola said:

    DNA3000 said:

    Campo4 said:

    Campo4 said:

    So I can bring a Rank 1 Level 1 unduped 5* Antman to Act 6, but I can't bring a 5/50 Sig 99 4* Archangel.

    In all seriousness, @Kabam Miike would you guys consider gating it by challenger rating instead of star level/rarity?

    i.e. 4* 5/50 and 5* 3/45 and above only?

    My point is, you guys invented challenger rating to essentially say a 5/50 is the same power level as a 3/45. They take similar amount of catalysts to rank, and have similar stats. Yet the way you are gating Act 6 doesn't take this into consideration. You can bring an extremely low level 5*, but not your most powerful 4*.

    I am personally not for any gating, however I think this would be a good compromise. It would be more about making sure players have the right roster for the job, and less about who is getting lucky with 5* pulls.

    I like this. If you are going to gate it at all, gate the content to Challenge Rating >= 90 or 100.
    They aren't gating to power level of the champs, but rather (to oversimplify a lot) the effort required to acquire them. A 5/50 has similar strength to a 3/45, but the 3/45 is much harder to acquire.
    Not hard at all...38 minutes left to get that increased chance 5* Ghost just now. It’s only money.
    Shhh, don't tell anyone but I just snagged one of those crystals without having to spend money. However, it seems harder to get a 5* from them than you thought: mine only had a 3* in it. Maybe I need to try harder next time.
  • CFreeCFree Member Posts: 491 ★★
    DrZola said:

    DNA3000 said:

    Dshu said:

    That is the problem nobody understands their rational. We are not asking for an incomprehensible answer we want to understand why they choose to make this decision

    It makes perfect sense to me, and to be blunt I don't think most of the people claiming to not understand it actually don't understand it. They just don't agree with it, and can't wrap their minds around the fact that some people do things for reasons they don't agree with, so they must be lying or obfuscating when they express those reasons.

    Game development is always trying to implement compromises among a large number of often opposing priorities and criteria. Almost everything you do as a game developer has at least one really good reason to *not* do it, but you're doing it because there are more reasons to do it than not. To try to accommodate all of those differing priorities you often end up with something that doesn't absolutely honor one priority to the exclusion of all others, which can be used against you when players claim that what you did obviously doesn't "correctly" implement any clear priority.

    This game has always had progression gates. A progression gate segregates players into those on one side of the gate and those on the other side of the gate. Whenever you implement a gate, some players will complain when they find themselves on the wrong side of the gate. But that's working as intended: that's the purpose of the gate. If everyone who wanted to be past the gate was past the gate, the gate's worthless.

    The gates in the game have generally, but not completely, been implemented from the bottom up, because the nature of the game is that it has grown upward in complexity and difficulty (it can't really be otherwise). The earliest gates could use simple metrics that existed in the game, for example level gates. But as the game continued to grow upward, those metrics simply "ran out" and they had to resort to other progression metrics to continue to gate the game. Uncollected, for example, is a novel (in this game) gate: it isn't just a prerequisite to get to the next piece of content, it unlocks a lot of other development opportunities in the form of enhanced crystals and higher reward monthly content. Importantly, this kind of gate didn't exist until it did: it set the precedent that the devs were willing to add new kinds of gates to the game.

    Level is an obvious metric that measures progress. Which content you complete is another one. But another measure of progress that has always existed in the game is roster strength. It factors into prestige which influences AQ rewards (and at one time prestige was *the* metric for progress for level-capped players). It has in the past been the metric used to calibrate things like compensation packages based on progress. It is a highly imperfect metric of progress, but it was *used* in the game.

    The devs wanted a new progress gate leading into Act 6 and the ones that had been used previously were seen as inadequate. They didn't want it to be a trivial prerequisite like do 5.1 and you get to do 5.2. Prerequisites aren't progress gates, because there's no well-defined barrier to overcome beyond just keep playing (players can argue that this should be sufficient, which is tantamount to saying no progress gates should exist at all, but that's a separate complicated argument).

    The obvious option is roster-based progress gates. But prestige is too narrow and player rating is too disconnected from actual progress. If the top five champs is too small and counting everything is too large, then measuring a subset of the top champs would be a reasonable compromise between the two. There are a couple of ways to do this. One way would be to extend prestige to a larger number of champs; say there was a fifteen champ version of prestige, and it took a certain minimum rating to enter Act 6.

    This sort of thing emphasizes rank ups, because it doesn't matter how many champs you have, what matters more is how highly ranked they were. And rank up decisions are heavily influenced by which champs you pull randomly from crystals - some are more "deserving" of rare rank up materials than others. Back before Alliance War was really important and AQ was the primary game in town, players often ranked up champs with the highest rating, not the ones they wanted to play the most, because prestige was emphasized by AQ.

    I wouldn't want to repeat that situation, and I'm guessing the devs don't want to either. So it is worth looking for an alternative to roster-metrics that emphasize ranking up the highest rating champs. But if we aren't going to use a ratings lock, is there a softer way to do it? Sure: we can limit which champs the players can bring in, so that instead of emphasizing reaching the highest possible rating with rank ups, the game instead tends to reward players with the widest rosters, from which those players will have more options available from the entry limits.

    The entry limit can't be too low: it can't simply be "everything 4* and higher" or even "everything CR100 and higher (which includes 5/50 champs)" because that makes the options pool too large: the progress gate isn't rewarding particularly large rosters, because the limit allows almost anything (among players for whom Act 6 is even a possibility). It could be CR110 and higher, or it could be 5* and higher. And of those two options, once again 5* and higher deemphasizes high rank ups relative to CR110.

    To me, this all seems entirely reasonable. I'm not saying it should necessarily be convincing for anyone else, only that a reasonable person could reach this conclusion. And yes, there are side effects that many players would argue are unacceptable, such as the impact on synergy tactics. But the question of whether those are acceptable or unacceptable is a value judgment, not an objective conclusion. Two different reasonable rational actors can differ on that judgment. The devs may simply have a different option. That isn't something you can demand someone "justify" or explain to one's satisfaction.
    You do know forums points aren’t based on word count, right? :p

    Dr. Zola
    Funny, but it was one of the more objective analyses presented by the forum.
  • V1PER1987V1PER1987 Member Posts: 3,474 ★★★★★
    edited March 2019
    I think this is the time for Kabam to finally start rolling out the 5* and 6* older champions that don’t exist that the summoners use. And I mean to the featured and basic pools like the others, not just in FGMC. SW, Thor, DS, BW, Wolverine, Gamora, War Machine, etc. if you’re going to create these random progress gates based on rarity and not something more meaningful like Challenger Rating, then you should make all champions available across all rarities. There is zero reason for you not to add those champs when you have champs like Omega, Ghost, Domino, and CAIW. It makes no sense to keep them exclusive to 4* tiers.
  • CFreeCFree Member Posts: 491 ★★
    Dshu said:

    DNA3000 said:

    Dshu said:

    That is the problem nobody understands their rational. We are not asking for an incomprehensible answer we want to understand why they choose to make this decision

    It makes perfect sense to me, and to be blunt I don't think most of the people claiming to not understand it actually don't understand it. They just don't agree with it, and can't wrap their minds around the fact that some people do things for reasons they don't agree with, so they must be lying or obfuscating when they express those reasons.

    Game development is always trying to implement compromises among a large number of often opposing priorities and criteria. Almost everything you do as a game developer has at least one really good reason to *not* do it, but you're doing it because there are more reasons to do it than not. To try to accommodate all of those differing priorities you often end up with something that doesn't absolutely honor one priority to the exclusion of all others, which can be used against you when players claim that what you did obviously doesn't "correctly" implement any clear priority.

    This game has always had progression gates. A progression gate segregates players into those on one side of the gate and those on the other side of the gate. Whenever you implement a gate, some players will complain when they find themselves on the wrong side of the gate. But that's working as intended: that's the purpose of the gate. If everyone who wanted to be past the gate was past the gate, the gate's worthless.

    The gates in the game have generally, but not completely, been implemented from the bottom up, because the nature of the game is that it has grown upward in complexity and difficulty (it can't really be otherwise). The earliest gates could use simple metrics that existed in the game, for example level gates. But as the game continued to grow upward, those metrics simply "ran out" and they had to resort to other progression metrics to continue to gate the game. Uncollected, for example, is a novel (in this game) gate: it isn't just a prerequisite to get to the next piece of content, it unlocks a lot of other development opportunities in the form of enhanced crystals and higher reward monthly content. Importantly, this kind of gate didn't exist until it did: it set the precedent that the devs were willing to add new kinds of gates to the game.

    Level is an obvious metric that measures progress. Which content you complete is another one. But another measure of progress that has always existed in the game is roster strength. It factors into prestige which influences AQ rewards (and at one time prestige was *the* metric for progress for level-capped players). It has in the past been the metric used to calibrate things like compensation packages based on progress. It is a highly imperfect metric of progress, but it was *used* in the game.

    The devs wanted a new progress gate leading into Act 6 and the ones that had been used previously were seen as inadequate. They didn't want it to be a trivial prerequisite like do 5.1 and you get to do 5.2. Prerequisites aren't progress gates, because there's no well-defined barrier to overcome beyond just keep playing (players can argue that this should be sufficient, which is tantamount to saying no progress gates should exist at all, but that's a separate complicated argument).

    The obvious option is roster-based progress gates. But prestige is too narrow and player rating is too disconnected from actual progress. If the top five champs is too small and counting everything is too large, then measuring a subset of the top champs would be a reasonable compromise between the two. There are a couple of ways to do this. One way would be to extend prestige to a larger number of champs; say there was a fifteen champ version of prestige, and it took a certain minimum rating to enter Act 6.

    This sort of thing emphasizes rank ups, because it doesn't matter how many champs you have, what matters more is how highly ranked they were. And rank up decisions are heavily influenced by which champs you pull randomly from crystals - some are more "deserving" of rare rank up materials than others. Back before Alliance War was really important and AQ was the primary game in town, players often ranked up champs with the highest rating, not the ones they wanted to play the most, because prestige was emphasized by AQ.

    I wouldn't want to repeat that situation, and I'm guessing the devs don't want to either. So it is worth looking for an alternative to roster-metrics that emphasize ranking up the highest rating champs. But if we aren't going to use a ratings lock, is there a softer way to do it? Sure: we can limit which champs the players can bring in, so that instead of emphasizing reaching the highest possible rating with rank ups, the game instead tends to reward players with the widest rosters, from which those players will have more options available from the entry limits.

    The entry limit can't be too low: it can't simply be "everything 4* and higher" or even "everything CR100 and higher (which includes 5/50 champs)" because that makes the options pool too large: the progress gate isn't rewarding particularly large rosters, because the limit allows almost anything (among players for whom Act 6 is even a possibility). It could be CR110 and higher, or it could be 5* and higher. And of those two options, once again 5* and higher deemphasizes high rank ups relative to CR110.

    To me, this all seems entirely reasonable. I'm not saying it should necessarily be convincing for anyone else, only that a reasonable person could reach this conclusion. And yes, there are side effects that many players would argue are unacceptable, such as the impact on synergy tactics. But the question of whether those are acceptable or unacceptable is a value judgment, not an objective conclusion. Two different reasonable rational actors can differ on that judgment. The devs may simply have a different option. That isn't something you can demand someone "justify" or explain to one's satisfaction.
    They are basically saying if you want new content you need to meet the requirement by buying the crystals that have a 5% drop rate of a useable champ while at the same time telling players they are trying to maintain balance and an enjoyable experience.
    I give my thoughts because of statements like this. That is not what they are basically saying. It’s your interpretation of what they said that isn’t based on anything other than the fact you don’t like their stance. If fine with disagreeing with them. I don’t agree with it. But don’t concoct conspiracy theories and attribute them to Kabam.
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