I will never buy crystals again if this is the new thing...why buy crystals when they introduce new champs and nerf them right before they go in the basic pool? Seriously! Champs are suppose to test them before they are introduced into the game...but they’ve gotten so lazy, they push them out before they even know what they’ve created! Then WE TEST THEM, and they buff or nerf them as they please! Maybe instead of trying to make sure there’s a new champs to push down our throats every single month, you should work on creating a few quality champs that don’t need to be buffed or nerfed...it false advertisement, bad business, and totally unacceptable. Kabam needs to get it together...stop acting like a bunch of children running around with no supervision, and start acting like educated adults running a company and doing actual business!
I'll never grind for a new champion ever again, or spend on new champ featured crystals... EVER!! People who gets new champs right away are just renting them during a live Beta test, and from now on are just hoping that champ will stay the same way. Even getting a rank down ticket at that time will never give back the money and time you invested to get those champs...
The whole retuning idea is wrong. Test your champs properly before releasing.
I spent a ton of real life money on obtaining Cull. And that was based solely on his damage. I’ve ranked up all the way up to R5 and use him often. How fair is it to change anything at any time just because a champ is too good? That changes everything with this game. New champ comes out and does insane damage, but now there’s most likely a chance that character will be nerfed. What’s the point in trying to obtain a champ when that champ will most likely be changed in months time? Totally unfair.
Lets give an example Champ a does 20k damage Champ b does 22k damage Champ c does 19k damage Champ d does 40k damage.
There is obviously an issue with champ d. It does not mean there is an issue with being the top damage dealer, but that d's damage is way out of control. It means they have to design fights specifically with him in mind, similar to blades danger sense. This weakens the value of all other champs because they can no longer compete, and now everyone has to have cull to clear content.
How do people not see this? The argument he takes a lot of potions and ramp-up time so he still should have absolutely game-breaking DPS is ludicrous -- I could say the same thing about Sentry.
You can't have a game that says beat this content with Sentry and another character does the same content in 10-15 hits
Kabam - sure I'm upset that we're adjusting Cull's performance down... but there's a bigger issue here.
You claimed that "starting in October 2019", you will begin reviewing data for champions released 3 months prior. This gave all summoners a chance, when you made this announcement, to reevaluate whether they would grind for / spend for / pop featured crystals for new champions, knowing they may not always live to the hype they have pre-release. It certainly changed how I thought about champions like Claire Voyant, Warlock, etc.
You also confirmed in the Human Torch / Annihilus channel that "going forward, we will be letting you know before about these updates before a new Champion is added to the Basic Pool so you can make informed decisions."
This means champions like Black Widow, Warlock, etc. would be eligible for adjustments, but it's not supposed to affect champions entering the basic before October (e.g., Cull, Ronin, Ebony Maw, Namor, Invisible Woman), who were also conveniently the champions released BEFORE your announcement, when people already went hard to pull them.
I think this decision holds your past communications to the community in blatant disregard. It enables you to make tuning decisions on champions you confirmed would not be adjusted. How are we supposed to trust you, when your attempts at transparency are over-riden in 4 weeks' time?
This guy is right. I pulled Cull out of basic and brought him to rank 4. We should not have our champions nerfed against Kabam's word.
I firmly believe all of this could have been avoided...with testing. Substantive, meaningful testing by people who actually play the game at a high level. I suspect the Cull issue is how he operates in the hands of a very good player...much like She-Hulk.
I don't think so. Game developers rarely balance purely because of what a few people can do. They care more about averages. It doesn't really worry a developer much if one guy can destroy all the content with a champ. What worries a developer more is if everyone does everything 40% faster with that one champ.
Of course even when you look at averages, you tend to contextualize. In other words, you look at the average level 30 player, the average level 60 player, the average UC player, the average Cav player, etc. You look at Act 4 performance, Act 5 performance, Act 6 performance. AQ and AW performance.
One thing I don't really have a good idea about in this case is whether this is a normalized performance issue or a cumulative performance issue. In other words, is Cull dealing much more damage much faster in combat per fight, or is he responsible for more of the damage being dealt by players overall. The first one is a measure of how good Cull is. The second one is a measure of how good players think Cull is. The better players think he is, the more often they use him, the higher his raw output will be.
Players are going to have preferences: Blade, Iceman, Domino, Ghost for example. The game has to allow a certain amount of high verses low preference. But it is possible Cull far exceeded the maximum allowed guardrail for that number.
I think we presume that most players are far more skilled than they actually are. When the forum consensus is that Ghost is great, that gets filtered down to the average player, who then uses Ghost because she's supposed to be great. But Ghost requires special skills and understanding to make work, and I suspect only one player in five can actually do that. So while some players excel, many others actually do worse than average when they try to use her, which makes her average overall performance much lower than we'd otherwise expect. It is possible that Cull's problem is this isn't true for him: when the average player hears Cull is good and starts using him a lot, they can actually unlock a lot more of his ramp up strength and thus Cull is great for the top players, but also pretty good for the average players. And since there are a hundred average players for every top player, it is what they do that matters more.
Cull seemed to me to be a bit of a glass cannon, which I thought might insulate him from nerfs. But it is possible that is an error, and in reality the average player gets more mileage out of him with minimal additional risk, and that's a bigger nerf threat than what the top players can do.
My experience at 6* R1 is that he’s got great burst damage, and then he’s done. Can make arena very quick, but longer fights he burns out, and a champ that can’t block at least a little wont last long in most high end content unless you play flawlessly against the right opponents.
One thing I don’t buy: I find it hard to believe the game team worries about a L30 player with a Cull at any highish rank (if there is such a player). There are more than enough readily available button smasher champs that deal great damage that can cut through Kang and Thanos in Acts 2/3 who are just as much an issue as Cull—assuming damage is the true issue. And the “wildly” over the top damage Miike references isn’t likely to be happening at that level.
Champs that damage like Cull (and I won’t name them because the last thing I want to do is put them in the crosshairs, although I’m confident you know which champs I mean) aren’t champs in the actual game played by actual players?
Dr. Zola
That should be parsed as saying "every other champion that you think can generate the same or more damage as Cull isn't actually generating the same or more damage as Cull when you look at the activity of all players playing those champions in the game."
What specifically they are measuring when they refer to "outdamaging" is a separate question. There are a number of possibilities. Simply adding up all the damage a champion does in the game wouldn't be reasonable for a number of reasons. It is more likely an adjusted damage output relative to certain constraints.
Is it possible the datamining is looking at the wrong thing? That's possible. The problem is virtually every game developer I'm aware of considers data mining to be highly proprietary: they don't share the data or precise methodology with anyone, sometimes not even with their own designers. That makes it difficult to contradict the data, or convince the devs they should ignore it. In all my time working with game developers I've only managed that trick once, and it required an arsenal of information I don't think even exists at the moment for MCOC.
I don’t doubt that. It’s impossible to know precisely what data points matter to the team, but there are probably some that matter far more than others.
I firmly believe all of this could have been avoided...with testing. Substantive, meaningful testing by people who actually play the game at a high level. I suspect the Cull issue is how he operates in the hands of a very good player...much like She-Hulk.
Someone said it above, but it’s absurd to pay to be in a beta test. But I’m convinced that’s essentially what anyone who purchases crystals does every time they play this game in its current incarnation.
Dr. Zola
I take it you are knew to MMOs There is no amount of substantive testing that can be done that will get you all the data needed to make these determinations in every case.
Nope. Not new. But thanks for asking.
Dr. Zola
If you are not new then you should not have made such a faulty claim.
“All the data...every case...”
If you’re the logician you claim to be, you shouldn’t have to resort tostraw-manned the point I was making.
I firmly believe all of this could have been avoided...with testing. Substantive, meaningful testing by people who actually play the game at a high level. I suspect the Cull issue is how he operates in the hands of a very good player...much like She-Hulk.
I don't think so. Game developers rarely balance purely because of what a few people can do. They care more about averages. It doesn't really worry a developer much if one guy can destroy all the content with a champ. What worries a developer more is if everyone does everything 40% faster with that one champ.
Of course even when you look at averages, you tend to contextualize. In other words, you look at the average level 30 player, the average level 60 player, the average UC player, the average Cav player, etc. You look at Act 4 performance, Act 5 performance, Act 6 performance. AQ and AW performance.
One thing I don't really have a good idea about in this case is whether this is a normalized performance issue or a cumulative performance issue. In other words, is Cull dealing much more damage much faster in combat per fight, or is he responsible for more of the damage being dealt by players overall. The first one is a measure of how good Cull is. The second one is a measure of how good players think Cull is. The better players think he is, the more often they use him, the higher his raw output will be.
Players are going to have preferences: Blade, Iceman, Domino, Ghost for example. The game has to allow a certain amount of high verses low preference. But it is possible Cull far exceeded the maximum allowed guardrail for that number.
I think we presume that most players are far more skilled than they actually are. When the forum consensus is that Ghost is great, that gets filtered down to the average player, who then uses Ghost because she's supposed to be great. But Ghost requires special skills and understanding to make work, and I suspect only one player in five can actually do that. So while some players excel, many others actually do worse than average when they try to use her, which makes her average overall performance much lower than we'd otherwise expect. It is possible that Cull's problem is this isn't true for him: when the average player hears Cull is good and starts using him a lot, they can actually unlock a lot more of his ramp up strength and thus Cull is great for the top players, but also pretty good for the average players. And since there are a hundred average players for every top player, it is what they do that matters more.
Cull seemed to me to be a bit of a glass cannon, which I thought might insulate him from nerfs. But it is possible that is an error, and in reality the average player gets more mileage out of him with minimal additional risk, and that's a bigger nerf threat than what the top players can do.
My experience at 6* R1 is that he’s got great burst damage, and then he’s done. Can make arena very quick, but longer fights he burns out, and a champ that can’t block at least a little wont last long in most high end content unless you play flawlessly against the right opponents.
One thing I don’t buy: I find it hard to believe the game team worries about a L30 player with a Cull at any highish rank (if there is such a player). There are more than enough readily available button smasher champs that deal great damage that can cut through Kang and Thanos in Acts 2/3 who are just as much an issue as Cull—assuming damage is the true issue. And the “wildly” over the top damage Miike references isn’t likely to be happening at that level.
Kabam - sure I'm upset that we're adjusting Cull's performance down... but there's a bigger issue here.
You claimed that "starting in October 2019", you will begin reviewing data for champions released 3 months prior. This gave all summoners a chance, when you made this announcement, to reevaluate whether they would grind for / spend for / pop featured crystals for new champions, knowing they may not always live to the hype they have pre-release. It certainly changed how I thought about champions like Claire Voyant, Warlock, etc.
You also confirmed in the Human Torch / Annihilus channel that "going forward, we will be letting you know before about these updates before a new Champion is added to the Basic Pool so you can make informed decisions."
This means champions like Black Widow, Warlock, etc. would be eligible for adjustments, but it's not supposed to affect champions entering the basic before October (e.g., Cull, Ronin, Ebony Maw, Namor, Invisible Woman), who were also conveniently the champions released BEFORE your announcement, when people already went hard to pull them.
I think this decision holds your past communications to the community in blatant disregard. It enables you to make tuning decisions on champions you confirmed would not be adjusted. How are we supposed to trust you, when your attempts at transparency are over-riden in 4 weeks' time?
This guy is right. I pulled Cull out of basic and brought him to rank 4. We should not have our champions nerfed against Kabam's word.
People were asking repeatedly for them to look at Maw. He missed the cutoff. However, you can't look at one large imbalance and completely ignore the same from that month.
This is ridiculous, I finally get him and rank him. Just to be kabamed! Flat out don’t lower your ceiling but rather work on those champs that are trash. Make champion acquisition easier so no clear advantage exists. Just get it together overall, you have been making too many mistakes kabam. You disappoint the community.
I'll never grind for a new champion ever again, or spend on new champ featured crystals... EVER!! People who gets new champs right away are just renting them during a live Beta test, and from now on are just hoping that champ will stay the same way. Even getting a rank down ticket at that time will never give back the money and time you invested to get those champs...
Sad
Again, Kabam gets no monetary benefits from doing this (and maybe even less money if people spend less on Cav crystals).
But they're doing it because they want to keep the game well balanced and ensure the game's longevity.
It's for the good of the game and keep the game fair for all of us players as a whole.
A SMALL adjustment to Cull Obsidian's damage output MIGHT be warranted (though having him as an awakened R2 6* I really don't see how he is allegedly DRASTICALLY out-damaging other champs, but even to concede that point). HOWEVER, this can ONLY be acceptable if a comparable INCREASE to his block proficiency or other mechanic to improve his sustainability is also implemented as part of the "balancing" of this champ. Because that is the ONLY way you can realistically call this an effort to balance the champs, as you CLAIM to be aiming for with this whole move.
Not a Cull player. Just saying that it's a little shady that Kabam told us explicitly that this would only impact champions not in the basic, but then would go back and adjust three champs in the basic.
I'm fine waiting on ranking up a champion to R5 until he/she enters the basic. It's tedious, but if I'm really terrified they'll get nerfed I'll wait. I'm not fine waiting forever because I'll never know when a champion is "safe" to rank up.
Can you point to where they said it would not affect those in basic? I am pretty sure you are taking their statement out of context.
Are you a lawyer or a salesman? Instead of defending Kabam’s stance (or anyone’s), whether it be accepted or not, why don’t you offer your own opinions about it? Add some insight and engaging approaches to it. Contribute to the discourse instead of merely being a sharpshooter aiming to poke holes in endless forum posts. Engage. Inject something interesting into the conversation instead of being the contradiction police.
I am a logician. I am adding insight and contributing towards discourse, you just dont like that I am correcting people, particularly on your side. I am not particularly defending kabam, but countering an argument.
You do realize discussions are all about being contradictory right?
They’re not all inherently contradictory. Many involve that to some degree of course. That’s how truth is found. That description would more easily apply to a debate. There is a distinction here.
To clarify, I have no problem with correcting people engaged in discussion with you. I love bashing opposing views together with intelligent people.
One thing I don’t do is just snipe trivial errors in people’s logic without offering anything if my own in a constructive manner. You think you are intelligent, and you likely are to some degree. I’d rather enjoy an actual discussion with you, but you seem to frequently just get off on proving people wrong regardless of the topic at hand.
You seem to have what I call a “small victory fetish”.
Just an observation from the threads I’ve seen you in, which is not a lot.
So I must ask, do you honestly believe that taking someones statement so far out of context that it loses all meaning "trivial errors in people's logic"? Claiming someone said something they did not say is such a large error in logic it has its on fallacy named after it.
That would qualify as more than trivial, yes. Not my point though. You don’t seem to wanna inject yourself into the conversation. “Hey everybody, here’s what I think about all this...”
You appear to “listen” to other people’s discussions, and the moment you hear something that is perhaps factually incorrect, or fabricated, etc. you simply point out how it is fallacious or false. The point of your interjection was merely to snipe the error. You then wait for the next one. Over and over you point out how everyone else misunderstood something or drastically altered that actual intention or context.
I honestly have no idea how you feel about it. Hey, man. I may be wrong, and have only seen a small sample size. I’m not in here a ton. It just kinda struck me that way.
I'll never grind for a new champion ever again, or spend on new champ featured crystals... EVER!! People who gets new champs right away are just renting them during a live Beta test, and from now on are just hoping that champ will stay the same way. Even getting a rank down ticket at that time will never give back the money and time you invested to get those champs...
Sad
Again, Kabam gets no monetary benefits from doing this (and maybe even less money if people spend less on Cav crystals).
But they're doing it because they want to keep the game well balanced and ensure the game's longevity.
It's for the good of the game and keep the game fair for all of us players as a whole.
Exactly. Not doing these sorts of changes is what causes massive nerfs like 12.0. The game gets to a point where they cannot come out with new content except with a a few champs in mind, 99% of the champs then struggle and so they have to do a massive correction.
I know there will be a lot of questions about Rank Down Tickets and Compensation for changes, and there already are some. As a reminder, we did say that we will approach these on a case by case basis, and will not be able to make any comments on this yet, because we don't know what Cull's balance pass will look like at all yet.
Also, remember that these changes are restricted to Tuning updates, and are will not change any abilities or utility. Our intention is that if you love your Champion now, you should still love them after.
This one really terrifies me what if they decide that everything is fine with him after update and will refuse to send us RDT even if he will become bad(which is likely going to happen).They are not even sure in their own actions or don't even try to predict people's reaction(which is a pretty obvious one).They can just say "Cull is good go play with him and don't complain" and they are known to lie to us.
How does "Cull will remain one of the top damage champ in the game" = "he will become bad"
First post ever. Well, I had really slowed down spending due to Kabams behavior and clear intent of nerfing champs. Now I’m stopping completely and joining and smart free to play! Thanks Kabam, I do expect to get compensated for my only R2 6* Cull.
Kabam - sure I'm upset that we're adjusting Cull's performance down... but there's a bigger issue here.
You claimed that "starting in October 2019", you will begin reviewing data for champions released 3 months prior. This gave all summoners a chance, when you made this announcement, to reevaluate whether they would grind for / spend for / pop featured crystals for new champions, knowing they may not always live to the hype they have pre-release. It certainly changed how I thought about champions like Claire Voyant, Warlock, etc.
You also confirmed in the Human Torch / Annihilus channel that "going forward, we will be letting you know before about these updates before a new Champion is added to the Basic Pool so you can make informed decisions."
This means champions like Black Widow, Warlock, etc. would be eligible for adjustments, but it's not supposed to affect champions entering the basic before October (e.g., Cull, Ronin, Ebony Maw, Namor, Invisible Woman), who were also conveniently the champions released BEFORE your announcement, when people already went hard to pull them.
I think this decision holds your past communications to the community in blatant disregard. It enables you to make tuning decisions on champions you confirmed would not be adjusted. How are we supposed to trust you, when your attempts at transparency are over-riden in 4 weeks' time?
This guy is right. I pulled Cull out of basic and brought him to rank 4. We should not have our champions nerfed against Kabam's word.
People were asking repeatedly for them to look at Maw. He missed the cutoff. However, you can't look at one large imbalance and completely ignore the same from that month.
Does not make it right for Kabam to break their word that has been communicated to the player base. Your argument is not very valid.
The whole retuning idea is wrong. Test your champs properly before releasing.
I spent a ton of real life money on obtaining Cull. And that was based solely on his damage. I’ve ranked up all the way up to R5 and use him often. How fair is it to change anything at any time just because a champ is too good? That changes everything with this game. New champ comes out and does insane damage, but now there’s most likely a chance that character will be nerfed. What’s the point in trying to obtain a champ when that champ will most likely be changed in months time? Totally unfair.
Lets give an example Champ a does 20k damage Champ b does 22k damage Champ c does 19k damage Champ d does 40k damage.
There is obviously an issue with champ d. It does not mean there is an issue with being the top damage dealer, but that d's damage is way out of control. It means they have to design fights specifically with him in mind, similar to blades danger sense. This weakens the value of all other champs because they can no longer compete, and now everyone has to have cull to clear content.
How do people not see this? The argument he takes a lot of potions and ramp-up time so he still should have absolutely game-breaking DPS is ludicrous -- I could say the same thing about Sentry.
You can't have a game that says beat this content with Sentry and another character does the same content in 10-15 hits
The whole retuning idea is wrong. Test your champs properly before releasing.
I spent a ton of real life money on obtaining Cull. And that was based solely on his damage. I’ve ranked up all the way up to R5 and use him often. How fair is it to change anything at any time just because a champ is too good? That changes everything with this game. New champ comes out and does insane damage, but now there’s most likely a chance that character will be nerfed. What’s the point in trying to obtain a champ when that champ will most likely be changed in months time? Totally unfair.
Lets give an example Champ a does 20k damage Champ b does 22k damage Champ c does 19k damage Champ d does 40k damage.
There is obviously an issue with champ d. It does not mean there is an issue with being the top damage dealer, but that d's damage is way out of control. It means they have to design fights specifically with him in mind, similar to blades danger sense. This weakens the value of all other champs because they can no longer compete, and now everyone has to have cull to clear content.
How do people not see this? The argument he takes a lot of potions and ramp-up time so he still should have absolutely game-breaking DPS is ludicrous -- I could say the same thing about Sentry.
You can't have a game that says beat this content with Sentry and another character does the same content in 10-15 hits
Actually you can. Corvus.. namor.. cap iw.. arch angel etc all do fights in many fewer hits that lots of champions. The fact that cull does it in fewer hits EVENTUALLY doesn’t mean its wrong. You wanna change it? Fine. Appropriate compensation needs to be given. They can’t have two rounds of cavalier crystals.. two rounds of arena.. over 2 months of feature 5*’s and THEN decide right as his feature ends that his damage is too high sorry “wish I was a kabam employee” crowd and “wish I had cull and don’t” crowd this is insanely shady and needs to either not happen or compensation needs to be given. No other way to see it. No argument that can be made otherwise.
I am curious at what point did they start collecting data, because didn’t they have an adjustment on him already? Seems kinda silly to do another one
The game constantly records data. The problem with datamining champion performance is that initially the performance of every champion is skewed by the fact that very few players have them, and the players that do tend to skew higher in skill than average. They aren't completely representative of the playerbase. Conversely, they are also less experienced with the champs, and there's less meta-information about the champs floating around.
Over time as more players get and rank champions up and start using them, the breadth of the players who have the champ becomes more representative of the whole playerbase, and the overall performance of the champ tends to rise as both the skilled players get more practice with them, and things like guides and videos and friend-of-a-friend experience filters down to the rest of the players.
Given how crystals work, it could be three to six months or more before you get a rough representative sample of players using a champ, and six months to a year before the champ's full potential actually shows up in the data when the majority of players using them have a better understanding of the champ.
To put this another way, everyone seems to be assuming that the "data" being collected is about the champion, so all it takes is one person playing the champ to show what the champ can do. But the data being collected is not about the champ. The data being collected is actually about *us* and how we do when we have the champ. Champs are balanced not based on how good they are, but on how good we are when we play them. It is the combination of champion and player that is being judged, across all the players playing the game.
Working from your explanation, would it be wrong to suggest if the data began to show the majority of the players using him were clearing content not designed to be cleared so easily, that this adjustment (plus their recent featured crystal for him) could be seen as a bit shady?
The whole retuning idea is wrong. Test your champs properly before releasing.
I spent a ton of real life money on obtaining Cull. And that was based solely on his damage. I’ve ranked up all the way up to R5 and use him often. How fair is it to change anything at any time just because a champ is too good? That changes everything with this game. New champ comes out and does insane damage, but now there’s most likely a chance that character will be nerfed. What’s the point in trying to obtain a champ when that champ will most likely be changed in months time? Totally unfair.
Lets give an example Champ a does 20k damage Champ b does 22k damage Champ c does 19k damage Champ d does 40k damage.
There is obviously an issue with champ d. It does not mean there is an issue with being the top damage dealer, but that d's damage is way out of control. It means they have to design fights specifically with him in mind, similar to blades danger sense. This weakens the value of all other champs because they can no longer compete, and now everyone has to have cull to clear content.
How do people not see this? The argument he takes a lot of potions and ramp-up time so he still should have absolutely game-breaking DPS is ludicrous -- I could say the same thing about Sentry.
You can't have a game that says beat this content with Sentry and another character does the same content in 10-15 hits
And like I said champ d will do 5k damage in his first fight so if they buff him in other ways to make him more sustainable I don’t mind otherwise don’t touch the champ
I know there will be a lot of questions about Rank Down Tickets and Compensation for changes, and there already are some. As a reminder, we did say that we will approach these on a case by case basis, and will not be able to make any comments on this yet, because we don't know what Cull's balance pass will look like at all yet.
Also, remember that these changes are restricted to Tuning updates, and are will not change any abilities or utility. Our intention is that if you love your Champion now, you should still love them after.
Where does kabam get this data from? Speak to your customers, not make assumptions.
Who would still love a champion that is nerfed? Especially when said champ requires huge rank ups in content to be of any use, he is completely useless below 3 favours and even then he doesn't output huge damage. You need to hit 5 favours for true accuracy which is on a timer and 8 favours or more to start seeing massive damage from him.
Depending on conditions it is possible to gain 2 to 3 favours per tile but how often is that? So that's still 5 fights to hit max favours or 4 best case scenario.
Some of us spent countless of hours in arena just to get a certain champ and that cost units for the refresh in arena or boatload's of cash on Crystal's to get that champ. How would you compensate that untold amount? A rank down would not be sufficient in my opinion.
Would anyone in this game score 70mil in arena for Kamala Khan?
Has anyone in kabam even tried using Cull Obsidian for questing, war or AQ map 6 even?
Or do you guys see some youtubers doing huge damage and think to yourselves that we need to change that as we arent earning from people who use him.
Any changes or tuning would gonna apply for cull . It's consider against any terms & conditions .. I don't want your rank down tickets . I want my money back . Just it .
I am curious at what point did they start collecting data, because didn’t they have an adjustment on him already? Seems kinda silly to do another one
The game constantly records data. The problem with datamining champion performance is that initially the performance of every champion is skewed by the fact that very few players have them, and the players that do tend to skew higher in skill than average. They aren't completely representative of the playerbase. Conversely, they are also less experienced with the champs, and there's less meta-information about the champs floating around.
Over time as more players get and rank champions up and start using them, the breadth of the players who have the champ becomes more representative of the whole playerbase, and the overall performance of the champ tends to rise as both the skilled players get more practice with them, and things like guides and videos and friend-of-a-friend experience filters down to the rest of the players.
Given how crystals work, it could be three to six months or more before you get a rough representative sample of players using a champ, and six months to a year before the champ's full potential actually shows up in the data when the majority of players using them have a better understanding of the champ.
To put this another way, everyone seems to be assuming that the "data" being collected is about the champion, so all it takes is one person playing the champ to show what the champ can do. But the data being collected is not about the champ. The data being collected is actually about *us* and how we do when we have the champ. Champs are balanced not based on how good they are, but on how good we are when we play them. It is the combination of champion and player that is being judged, across all the players playing the game.
Working from your explanation, would it be wrong to suggest if the data began to show the majority of the players using him were clearing content not designed to be cleared so easily, that this adjustment (plus their recent featured crystal for him) could be seen as a bit shady?
I think you're mistaking rebalances with Shulk. That was a very specific bug which was brought to light by a very specific piece of content being "cheesed". Not the same, really. Looking at the data in this case means looking at the numbers, not what content is being cleared. It's not about who used him in End-Game. Had it been something that jeopardized the level of content, it would have been looked at sooner. In this case, you have two Champs, one showing they underperform in the data, the other showing they overly perform. The two extremes highlight each other, and the goal isn't to neutralize all Champs. Only rebalance any noticeable extremities. Thus far, they're proposing exactly what they said they would. They're doing it retroactively in this case because of the overwhelming response about Maw. However, they can't do one and overlook the other. The data isn't just in 6.2, or LoL. It's not just about preventing people from breezing hard content. It's about balance for the health and longevity of the game, and being proactive in stopping issues down the road.
The whole retuning idea is wrong. Test your champs properly before releasing.
I spent a ton of real life money on obtaining Cull. And that was based solely on his damage. I’ve ranked up all the way up to R5 and use him often. How fair is it to change anything at any time just because a champ is too good? That changes everything with this game. New champ comes out and does insane damage, but now there’s most likely a chance that character will be nerfed. What’s the point in trying to obtain a champ when that champ will most likely be changed in months time? Totally unfair.
Lets give an example Champ a does 20k damage Champ b does 22k damage Champ c does 19k damage Champ d does 40k damage.
There is obviously an issue with champ d. It does not mean there is an issue with being the top damage dealer, but that d's damage is way out of control. It means they have to design fights specifically with him in mind, similar to blades danger sense. This weakens the value of all other champs because they can no longer compete, and now everyone has to have cull to clear content.
How do people not see this? The argument he takes a lot of potions and ramp-up time so he still should have absolutely game-breaking DPS is ludicrous -- I could say the same thing about Sentry.
You can't have a game that says beat this content with Sentry and another character does the same content in 10-15 hits
And like I said champ d will do 5k damage in his first fight so if they buff him in other ways to make him more sustainable I don’t mind otherwise don’t touch the champ
Your statement makes no sense.. Lets take a look at the damage output of a normal 8 fight path
acculmative:
Champ a does 20k damage Champ b does 22k damage Champ c does 19k damage Champ d does 5k damage.
Champ a does 40k damage Champ b does 44k damage Champ c does 38k damage Champ d does 45k damage.
Using these numebrs you can see that even with the first fight he is doing 5k damage after the second fight he has already recovered and done more:
Champ a does 60k damage Champ b does 66k damage Champ c does 57k damage Champ d does 85k damage.
Now he is doing a third more than anyone else after the third. This will grow until he is doing close to double the damage still, the first fight does not matter, over the course of the fight he will greatly surpass the others.
thats me done with this game , never gonna spend a penny anymore !! i have a 6* Cull obsidian and his only “real” utility is the damage , no-one is using him for war and if they do , its only in lower tier or off season ... in variant 2 meeehhh , that block proeffiency its **** and its very costly ( health potions ) . i feel sorry for the people who spend money to get him when he came out and for those who invested resources ( money and in-game ) to rank him up . kabam , sorry but you lost a player/customer... i hope this game won’t last another year from this day , you don’t deserve our time and money .
I would wait to see what changes they make to Cull before getting worked up about it. If it’s a straight up nerf then people have the right to feel aggrieved and expect RDTs or whatever. You never know, they might surprise us and actually balance him by reducing his damage output but make him more sustainable and give him some utility.
Comments
People who gets new champs right away are just renting them during a live Beta test, and from now on are just hoping that champ will stay the same way.
Even getting a rank down ticket at that time will never give back the money and time you invested to get those champs...
Sad
You can't have a game that says beat this content with Sentry and another character does the same content in 10-15 hits
One thing I don’t buy: I find it hard to believe the game team worries about a L30 player with a Cull at any highish rank (if there is such a player). There are more than enough readily available button smasher champs that deal great damage that can cut through Kang and Thanos in Acts 2/3 who are just as much an issue as Cull—assuming damage is the true issue. And the “wildly” over the top damage Miike references isn’t likely to be happening at that level.
Dr. Zola
But they're doing it because they want to keep the game well balanced and ensure the game's longevity.
It's for the good of the game and keep the game fair for all of us players as a whole.
You appear to “listen” to other people’s discussions, and the moment you hear something that is perhaps factually incorrect, or fabricated, etc. you simply point out how it is fallacious or false. The point of your interjection was merely to snipe the error. You then wait for the next one. Over and over you point out how everyone else misunderstood something or drastically altered that actual intention or context.
I honestly have no idea how you feel about it. Hey, man. I may be wrong, and have only seen a small sample size. I’m not in here a ton. It just kinda struck me that way.
Seriously guys.
Thanks Kabam, I do expect to get compensated for my only R2 6* Cull.
🐻
Who would still love a champion that is nerfed? Especially when said champ requires huge rank ups in content to be of any use, he is completely useless below 3 favours and even then he doesn't output huge damage. You need to hit 5 favours for true accuracy which is on a timer and 8 favours or more to start seeing massive damage from him.
Depending on conditions it is possible to gain 2 to 3 favours per tile but how often is that? So that's still 5 fights to hit max favours or 4 best case scenario.
Some of us spent countless of hours in arena just to get a certain champ and that cost units for the refresh in arena or boatload's of cash on Crystal's to get that champ. How would you compensate that untold amount? A rank down would not be sufficient in my opinion.
Would anyone in this game score 70mil in arena for Kamala Khan?
Has anyone in kabam even tried using Cull Obsidian for questing, war or AQ map 6 even?
Or do you guys see some youtubers doing huge damage and think to yourselves that we need to change that as we arent earning from people who use him.
I don't want your rank down tickets . I want my money back . Just it .
acculmative:
Champ a does 20k damage
Champ b does 22k damage
Champ c does 19k damage
Champ d does 5k damage.
Champ a does 40k damage
Champ b does 44k damage
Champ c does 38k damage
Champ d does 45k damage.
Using these numebrs you can see that even with the first fight he is doing 5k damage after the second fight he has already recovered and done more:
Champ a does 60k damage
Champ b does 66k damage
Champ c does 57k damage
Champ d does 85k damage.
Now he is doing a third more than anyone else after the third. This will grow until he is doing close to double the damage still, the first fight does not matter, over the course of the fight he will greatly surpass the others.
i have a 6* Cull obsidian and his only “real” utility is the damage , no-one is using him for war and if they do , its only in lower tier or off season ... in variant 2 meeehhh , that block proeffiency its **** and its very costly ( health potions ) .
i feel sorry for the people who spend money to get him when he came out and for those who invested resources ( money and in-game ) to rank him up .
kabam , sorry but you lost a player/customer... i hope this game won’t last another year from this day , you don’t deserve our time and money .
If it’s a straight up nerf then people have the right to feel aggrieved and expect RDTs or whatever.
You never know, they might surprise us and actually balance him by reducing his damage output but make him more sustainable and give him some utility.