Remember when the first time youd try act 3 or act 4 with less than minimal 3 and 4*? Its just the same thing here. You'll have to either try it with what you have or wait till your built up again with better options.
Act 6 (and other content) is built with specific challenges in mind. The requirement of 5 and 6-Stars is a broader application of the idea, but it allows us to build a more tightly-constructed experience around a more specific box of playstyles. Making one-size fits all content for an immense player toolbox can lead to things being more watered down and general, rather than the specific moments we can make when we know the lower and upper limits of each player as a matter of fact. Can you please elaborate more on this point, similar to how you went into more detail for the class restriction in Variant. More specifically, what type of experience are you guys trying to construct with this restriction that you couldn't without it? What are your goals when it comes to how this is supposed to impact the players experience?
Act 6 (and other content) is built with specific challenges in mind. The requirement of 5 and 6-Stars is a broader application of the idea, but it allows us to build a more tightly-constructed experience around a more specific box of playstyles. Making one-size fits all content for an immense player toolbox can lead to things being more watered down and general, rather than the specific moments we can make when we know the lower and upper limits of each player as a matter of fact.
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. On a side note, I’m not sure who is flagging our dialogue. But they likely don’t spend a lot of time on forums if either of these comments offended them. Dr. Zola
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Hey everyone,Thank you all for the discussion on this topic. There’s been a lot of constructive feedback and thoughts, and it’s been valuable to us for considerations and internal discussion. We wanted to be clearer with our intentions, and better clarify why we want to do this and how it aligns with our past direction in the game.This is not the first time we’ve hard-gated something behind a form of progression. We use gates liberally, oftentimes to prevent players from having frustrating experiences in content beyond their capabilities, but also because we’re game developers and we have some intended play experiences in mind that we--through both iteration and personal gameplay experience--believe smooth out the ride and make the whole thing as enjoyable as possible.At level 50-60, it's easy to forget that for much of an early player’s experience they are bumping into padlock icons all over the quests menu: - A multitude of our arenas cannot be played without specific Champion rarities, and to be competitive requires a lot of them.- Normal and Heroic difficulty event quests are locked behind levels 12 and 25, respectively. - Master was, for a long time, gated monthly behind the 100% exploration of its Heroic counterpart. - Uncollected difficulty requires not only reaching level 40, but completion of Act 5, Chapter 2. - Even entering Beginner asks you to be level 6!And this is just looking at the monthly event quests. Dungeons need you to have a sizeable count of certain rarities before you can access the very same ones. Side Quests follow similar locking mechanics to the Monthly Events, and we’ve used gating methods both inter-quest (Dimensional Rifts and their shards) and more explicit (Danger Rooms rarity requirements, the current Recon Missions) to craft a specifically targeted experience or to more tightly tune the content we’re making.On the topic of tuning, that is our goal when using more stringent requirements in quests. Back Issues #1 used this explicitly with the Class requirements; we did this so we could build areas in each quest where lesser-used Champions could stand out--Hawkeye’s power drain capabilities in Chapter 1, Quest 1, for example--and be important for strategy where they normally would not. We’re aiming to do similar things in Back Issues #2, with a different approach. (More on that soon!)One reason we do this is because of how progression changes over time. Once you’ve achieved Level 60, we lose a numerical value of your time and experience in the game. The gap between a fresh 60 and a veteran 60 can be massive, just like in many other MMO games. One of the best ways we have to continue using those gates as both protective and progression measure is targeting the baseline strength and breadth of your roster.Act 6 (and other content) is built with specific challenges in mind. The requirement of 5 and 6-Stars is a broader application of the idea, but it allows us to build a more tightly-constructed experience around a more specific box of playstyles. Making one-size fits all content for an immense player toolbox can lead to things being more watered down and general, rather than the specific moments we can make when we know the lower and upper limits of each player as a matter of fact.Lastly, this is permanent content. When we place strict requirements on a Side Quest, it’s a gold rush; there’s only ~30 days to build or enhance a team for the quest in question, and it can be a real crunch to get it done. (I myself am going to have a hell of a time with the Avengers leg of the Recon Missions.) Act 6 is going to be around forever. If you can’t get into it right away, that’s alright. It’ll wait for you!Again I appreciate the discussion around this, and when we say we’re taking your feedback we mean it. When there are lots of opinions and discourse around a topic like this, we take it seriously. I’ve already had two meetings today to chat about it with a variety of teams. I hope my points better explain our stance on gating content, and why we feel comfortable doing it here in the way we are.
I honestly don’t care about the synergy aspect of it (which is what many players are complaining about). I just want to be able to use my 5/50 4* and mind you they are still useful. I wouldn’t have been able to easily breeze through the final ultron boss of 5.4.6, many uncollected bosses, and other content without my 5/50 void. Hulk and BW really helped with poison lanes and spiked armor, and AA was so useful for modok from 5.4.4. If we have specific counters to some champs as 4*, why shouldn’t we be able to use them? Thoughts? Kabam is presenting us with a new challenge. You might need to work on your roster a while before doing Act 6. I know I will. If they had made Act 6 just a somewhat harder version of Act 5, the veteran players would be done with it in a week or two and then demanding something else. This will keep everyone busy a while. No problem with that, IMO.
I honestly don’t care about the synergy aspect of it (which is what many players are complaining about). I just want to be able to use my 5/50 4* and mind you they are still useful. I wouldn’t have been able to easily breeze through the final ultron boss of 5.4.6, many uncollected bosses, and other content without my 5/50 void. Hulk and BW really helped with poison lanes and spiked armor, and AA was so useful for modok from 5.4.4. If we have specific counters to some champs as 4*, why shouldn’t we be able to use them? Thoughts?
Hey everyone,Thank you all for the discussion on this topic. There’s been a lot of constructive feedback and thoughts, and it’s been valuable to us for considerations and internal discussion. We wanted to be clearer with our intentions, and better clarify why we want to do this and how it aligns with our past direction in the game.This is not the first time we’ve hard-gated something behind a form of progression. We use gates liberally, oftentimes to prevent players from having frustrating experiences in content beyond their capabilities, but also because we’re game developers and we have some intended play experiences in mind that we--through both iteration and personal gameplay experience--believe smooth out the ride and make the whole thing as enjoyable as possible.At level 50-60, it's easy to forget that for much of an early player’s experience they are bumping into padlock icons all over the quests menu: - A multitude of our arenas cannot be played without specific Champion rarities, and to be competitive requires a lot of them.- Normal and Heroic difficulty event quests are locked behind levels 12 and 25, respectively. - Master was, for a long time, gated monthly behind the 100% exploration of its Heroic counterpart. - Uncollected difficulty requires not only reaching level 40, but completion of Act 5, Chapter 2. - Even entering Beginner asks you to be level 6!And this is just looking at the monthly event quests. Dungeons need you to have a sizeable count of certain rarities before you can access the very same ones. Side Quests follow similar locking mechanics to the Monthly Events, and we’ve used gating methods both inter-quest (Dimensional Rifts and their shards) and more explicit (Danger Rooms rarity requirements, the current Recon Missions) to craft a specifically targeted experience or to more tightly tune the content we’re making.On the topic of tuning, that is our goal when using more stringent requirements in quests. Back Issues #1 used this explicitly with the Class requirements; we did this so we could build areas in each quest where lesser-used Champions could stand out--Hawkeye’s power drain capabilities in Chapter 1, Quest 1, for example--and be important for strategy where they normally would not. We’re aiming to do similar things in Back Issues #2, with a different approach. (More on that soon!)One reason we do this is because of how progression changes over time. Once you’ve achieved Level 60, we lose a numerical value of your time and experience in the game. The gap between a fresh 60 and a veteran 60 can be massive, just like in many other MMO games. One of the best ways we have to continue using those gates as both protective and progression measure is targeting the baseline strength and breadth of your roster.Act 6 (and other content) is built with specific challenges in mind. The requirement of 5 and 6-Stars is a broader application of the idea, but it allows us to build a more tightly-constructed experience around a more specific box of playstyles. Making one-size fits all content for an immense player toolbox can lead to things being more watered down and general, rather than the specific moments we can make when we know the lower and upper limits of each player as a matter of fact.Lastly, this is permanent content. When we place strict requirements on a Side Quest, it’s a gold rush; there’s only ~30 days to build or enhance a team for the quest in question, and it can be a real crunch to get it done. (I myself am going to have a hell of a time with the Avengers leg of the Recon Missions.) Act 6 is going to be around forever. If you can’t get into it right away, that’s alright. It’ll wait for you!Again I appreciate the discussion around this, and when we say we’re taking your feedback we mean it. When there are lots of opinions and discourse around a topic like this, we take it seriously. I’ve already had two meetings today to chat about it with a variety of teams. I hope my points better explain our stance on gating content, and why we feel comfortable doing it here in the way we are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyXBm94fS-Y @Kabam do listen to seatin's points that he brought up, and please consider unbanning 4*s from act 6.
@DNA3000 nice post. I’m not that fussed about it but I wish they would find another solution. I feel like barring a sizable portion of everyone’s rosters for all future story quests is too high a price to pay. Just curious. Having read the explanation do you think this particular gate is a good idea? It isn't how I would have done it, but that's not an entirely fair criticism. For one thing, while I don't know what specific imperatives the devs are operating under, I would probably have saved any gate like this for whatever follows Act 6 (which I refer to as Act 7, although it might not be called that). The reasoning is that Act 6 is the last chapter of an entire story arc, and it might be more palatable conceptually for whatever happens next to have a more abrupt progress gate controlling access to it. This would also have given more time to get people used to gates like this: eliminating 2* and 3* champs from early Act 6, say, and eliminating CR80 and lower from later Act 6. I'm also more in favor of single hurdle gates than lockouts. One idea I think has a lot of merit is an idea I heard Brian Grant mention in a recent stream. He proposed the idea that the 5*/6* prerequisite being something that players could either unlock or somehow mitigate. For example (and this is my thoughts, not his, although there is overlap) you might require the first run through to be restricted to 5* and 6* champions, but perhaps different paths could have keys like Act 5.3 that unlock the ability to use, say, 4* Skill champs, or 4* Spiderverse champs in your team. Alternatively, Act 6 could award Act 6 special currency that you could use in a special store to unlock certain additional types of champs. Since everyone is different, players could work towards unlocking their own specific needs, like (lower level) Quantum champs or Bleed immune champs or whatever. There would be some additional strategy to how you ran different paths to then make additional runs progressively easier, or at least have more options.I'm not *opposed* to the straight up 5*/6* gate, in that I think it is just a hurdle to overcome that isn't terrible to overcome. On a *technical* level I think it is fine. But on a *psychological* level, I think players are much more willing to accept hardship if they think they can work through it to get to some better result at the other end. The Act 6 gate probably looks to most players less like a speed bump, or even a hurdle, and more of a constant cost. You can't "overcome" it, and giving players the means to overcome a hurdle tends to make hurdles far less controversial.I'm a firm believer that the best game design is invisible. When it works right, players hardly notice it is there. You can't always do that, but it should always be the standard to strive for.To answer your question directly, I think the gate is a good idea in the sense that I believe it does things that will ultimately be beneficial to the game as a whole. On the other hand, I think the gate picks a fight with the playerbase that I don't think is a good idea, because I think it could be avoided.
@DNA3000 nice post. I’m not that fussed about it but I wish they would find another solution. I feel like barring a sizable portion of everyone’s rosters for all future story quests is too high a price to pay. Just curious. Having read the explanation do you think this particular gate is a good idea?
@Kabam do listen to seatin's points that he brought up, and please consider unbanning 4*s from act 6.
I don’t even know why this is still a debate. You would think... if they actually listened to us, they would be like...Well... f***. Looks like 90% of our player base is pretty peeved about this one decision that makes little to no sense at all. Instead of giving a BS excuse with a BS statement... maybe just reverse the decision?But nope Lol
So my max, sig max level 4* SL isn’t as viable as my r1 5* non awakened SL? So my max sig, max level 4* Magik isn’t as good as my r1 5* non awakened Magik? You get the point. Many people have champs in both rarities, but because we don’t have them awakened, like in SL’s case, the 5* collects dust. Why punish us? Is it simply because of synergies?
Any Offer is just going to be attached to this with some anterior motive accusation.
In all honesty i cant think of any other game that prevents progress based on rarity that can't be farmed.
