**Mastery Loadouts**
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Comments
However I do agree that it would be a good idea to show that they listen to the players opinions and actually take it into account before implementing this debated limit on 4 stars.
For me personally it isn't a problem yet, since I have act 5 to complete and before that become uncollected. However I do think I would miss some of my best 4 stars, that might fulfill a purpose even in harder content. It might delay me a little in being ready to take on act 6 at all.
I can't control the champs I get. I can't control the RNG.
All I can control is what champs I choose to use and how I play them according to who is my favourite.
You already punish us for playing specific playstyles by nodes (caltrops, new act 6 nodes, aspect of war). I don't have much of a problem with those cause we can overcome these by strategy and skills.
But now, after all this, you want to restrict the only thing that the summoners have control over, bringing their desired champs in quests. This is not at all fun and interactive. Banning 4*s is such a lazy move, it doesn't make the content fun, it just shows that people who make these decisions don't really play this game.
I was real hyped for the release of act 6 but after you banned 4*s, all that excitement is dead. Hope you reconsider this decision.
Problem solved.
just not as game changing as uncollected was.
makes sense to me.
This lock is not about saying that you can't complete it with 4*, its about making sure future players follow a progression path. Unfortunately kabam tied their hands by making uncollected (and others) a part of story content, so cavalier has to as well.
On average from the new crystal, you'll pull a 5* (or 6*) for every 1700 units (2 weeks of arena griding)
Lets compare that to Fully exploring lol, assume you spend 1700 units per path (math will vary wildly but i feel this is a fair numebr) for 65000 5* shards (and a couple ags and t2a, but somewhat offset by 6* chance in cavaliers).
Based on 1700 units x 7 paths your soending 11900 units. Round this to 12000 for the equivalent of 60 Cavalier crystals.
60 cavalier crystals will equal roughly 7 5*, 2with a decent 6* chance (and a hell of a lot less work)
In summary:
Cavalier crystals are a better value then finishing LOL, so a non skill based gate is important.
The target player base is essentially anyone who has completed all other aspects of the game.
Now if we look at the rewards from that content and how your roster will benefit from it we have the following
act 4 - enough t2a to r4/55 5000 5* shards
Act 5 Completion - enough materials to r5/65 1 5* , 3-4 gem , 4 5* crystals and 5000 6* shards
LoL Initial Run - enough 2ta to r4/55 plus 2 5* crystals
Variant - a 4-5 gem, 3 2-3 gems, 3 3-4(2015) gem plus 2 5* crystals 2450 6* shards, 1/2 t5 basic
Completing all of this doesn't even warrant a 6* crystal.
you will have 8 5* crystals from all of this
So lets say that you get good rng with the rank up gems and 5* crystals and have champions you feel worthy of r4 and r5
You will have
2 r5/65 Champions ( using the t2a from act 4 to r4 a champion then the completion rewards from act 5 to r5 that champion. Using the 3-4 gem from act 5 then using the 4-5 gem from variant)
4 r4/55 champions ( using the 3 2015 gems from variant and the t2a from LoL)
The above situation is however highly rng dependent and i am chaining the rank up gems to get to the above scenario.
If i simply focused on completing these things and then going on to act 6. I would have 8 5* champions to use.
There are some people who only enjoy the storymode aspect of the game and don't do the pvp aspect of a game. These guys would not be able to do act 6 so they would quit.
Now obviously the above situation would only apply to a small percentage.
Now looking at those who do EQ, AW and AQ maybe even grind Arena for shards and Milestones.
what extra rewards could they expect to get
UC EQ gives 2500 6* shards, 7500 5* shards, 1/3 t2a, 1/4 t5 basic
so lets say if a person completed this and other stuff in a Month they would get the following
2 5* Crystals ( AW, Heroic and Master EQ, Calendar logins and arena prizes)
2500 6*
1 t2a ( assuming they buy from glory store, get good drops from AQ etc)
1/4 t5 Basic.
Now for a player to add another r5/65 champion to their roster it will take them
10 months because of t2a. However lets say over that period we get some free t2a from calendar login rewards. Well the earliest they could do it would be 8 months because of the t5 basics.
To r4/55 it will take 4 months. so adding another 4-6 r4 to our 4 already will take 16-24 months
So for a player to have 3 r5/65 and 8 r4/55 they would need to spend 24 months to acquire the resources.
Even if we assume that from the time they play they have the ability to farm all the resource. It will take a player 2 years to have the roster to do act 6 based on what roster you think people should have to do it. This is even before we throw in the rng of the crystals and pulling champions that would actually be worthy of taking to r4 and above, as well as the rng with the rank up gems and having a champ in that class to take upto r4 or r5.
Based on how long it takes to get the materials I would say you can complete all other aspect of the game and not have the roster you think you should going into act 6. That to me doesn't seem right.
The only way to reduce that is to buy the offers.
Going onto your second point about using alternatives. You give a good example with the abomination of this UC EQ.
To get past him you need certain champs Iceman for example. If you don't have him or the others what are your alternatives solutions. Well i can only thing of 2 more 1 is use quake, but again this a dependent on you having a certain champion. The other option really is to try and nuke him down quicker then you die, reviving up and repeating. Again some champions will do better in this tactic then others sparky vs a colossus.
So this isn't skill based it is having the right champ to get past very specific content. Now if he was in Act 6 he would be like a UC EQ boss with health and attack a lot higher. Getting past him without the champion would be impossible without reviving up a lot as his damage will shred through your health at that difficulty. Imagine a whole path of Bio-Hazard Nano nodes, which we can expect based on act5 and variant as we often have paths that are bio-hazard. I personally pulled a Iceman the other day so can handle this obstacle, however that was 2 years after he was released. Say this content was released 2 years ago. It would take me 2 years of opening crystals to have a champion to counter this path. ( I don't have any of the other champions at 5* to counter it) in order for me to do it. So because my luck is bad i am not allowed/able to do this path in a way that doesn't require me to throw a plethora of revives and health potions at it.
The only way i could increase the number of crystals i open after all the other methods is to buy them.
So I see this gate as a way to punish bad pulls, punish people who can't spend the majority of their time playing the game. Punish players for not spending more to get more crystals and get resources quicker and so not having the depth of roster they need.
A r2 4* is on par with a maxed out 3*. Getting a 4* to r3 is easy so naturally we all phased out 3* . Currently the game is not suited to this when it comes to 4 and 5*. A r3 5* is the same as a maxed out 4*. To get a 5* to r4 is hard to do. So naturally the game is not in a state where we have all naturally phased out 4* because they are still relevant for majority of players.
As I've said before, create the market.
A lot of players have extremely highly ranked and duped 4* champs, but not nearly as many 5*'s and even fewer 6*'s,
There's players which are beating content out there with their 3*'s and 4*'s which Kabam probably didn't expect people to be able to do.
With so many of the latest champs that do so much damage as 4*'s, why would someone grind/play/spend for a strong roster of 5 & 6* champs when they can clear content using 4*'s?
ROL/RTTL/LOL was meant to be around for a long time before anyone beat them, yet there's a good number of players out there that did them pretty quickly after release. (Especially RTTL and LOL).
How do you make Game Content last longer the easy way, make it so the majority of players can't even make an attempt at it for a while by inserting an artificial speed bump.
Me personally I find quite a bit of enjoyment watching people (I am certainly not skilled enough) take on content using 3*'s and 4*'s which I myself find difficult to do using 5*'s.
The big question though, will this alienate enough players that it hurts the bottom line and the future of the game...
So far, given how most of the unfavorable changes which Kabam has done have played out, I doubt this will actually have any real negative impact on over future of the game.
In addition, since A5 was released that enabled players to get their first 5/65, it has been about 2 years and we are looking at 3-4 R5s and lots more R4s due to the higher availability of rank up materials.
For players who aren’t interested in joining an alliance and are interested in story mode only, it is natural that their progress is slower than those who do. Alliance events are mainly a trade off between effort and rewards.
As you mentioned with regards to the Biohazard Nano Plague Abom, you were saying the only viable counter you could think of was Quake besides the obvious counter of Iceman. What about Dorm? A duped Corvus (since he can’t die from poison)? Rulk (10 heat charges hitting into block and taking Abom down ASAP)? Nebula (with her ability to shrug off shocks)? Ghost?
I’m sure there are others whom I’ve not thought of. However, amongst the options, there are some who have been out for years. They might not be “god tier” so people might not think of ranking them up but they are viable options. (I even ranked up OML to deal with Morningstar 😊)
As you mentioned, getting a 4* to r3 is relatively easy so we naturally phased out 3*s. Similarly, getting a 5* to r3 is relatively easy so we naturally... phase out 4*s?
I disagree with the decision of roster gating A6, but I can also see certain reasons why Kabam might want to do that. As such, rather than vehemently opposing it, a calmer, more logical approach would be to wait for 6.1 to drop in 2 days, look at the maps then figure out how to work a way around it.
From how I see it, it might potentially spark a lot of discussion within the community on how to handle certain node and champ combinations using the limited roster that each individual player has. (Using the UC Abom example again, the obvious answer to counter him would be Iceman. But what’s the fun in that? It’s boring because the counters are so outrightly obvious. 😂)
The other is the one I mentioned last night: any path/quest that requires class+rarity to enter. While that may not happen until 6.2, it’s a non-starter for anyone who doesn’t have a 6* in each class (and could very well be a wasted champ slot if the gate was 6*+Mutant and all you have is 6* DPX).
We will know a lot more in a couple of days; maybe all of this is a huge over-reaction. I have no problem with players who have only been around a year or so facing gating issues if they lack roster depth (although the inclusion of crummy champs unsuited for the past couple of metas in the 6* and 5* crystals essentially constitutes a “gate” in and of itself).
But it’s a different issue with players who have been around for years and finished Act 5 and a significant amount of what is advertised as difficult peripheral content. I’m humble enough to be queasy about claiming I’m “endgame” (whatever that means), and I don’t play a super-high AW/AQ level anymore, but the game needs to be enjoyable and reasonably accessible as well as challenging for players in my shoes—especially when it’s the basic story arc of the entire game, not a peripheral challenge that promises outsized rewards. Making story quest hard is fine, but locking it behind a gate because it’s the endgame of endgames seems silly. What would that make LoL2-–the endgamest endgame of endgames? Engamageddon? I would prefer innovation and new ideas to lockouts any day.
Bottom line for me: if the answer is wait out another 6 months of pulls to see if pRNG rewards me with some of the decent roster additions I need/lack, then that’s no answer at all. I’ve been there and done that and there’s no pot of gold at the end of the hamster wheel.
Dr. Zola
Dr. Zola