**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.
Upcoming Cull Obsidian and Ebony Maw Balance Changes
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Comments
Welcome to planet Earth.
I disagree with this notion but respect everyone that feels differently. At the end of the day we would like a good fair product. In the case of Cull I think a percentage of his damage taken away will be just fine as long as Kabam announces they will increase his sustainability. I think the hair on fire would significantly die down and we can have a more constructive conversation.
You're right about one thing though. To us this is a game. It might be a time consuming, expensive game for some. But it is still a game. For the Kabam developers, it is their livelihood. So they are always going to do what they think is in the best interests of the long term health of the game. They don't get a cut of the profits from offers. They just get a paycheck. And if they think something is in the best interests of the game and you disagree, there's nothing you can say to force them to do what you want, because they won't jeopardize their livelihood on a player's guess. If they are going down, they are going down on their guesses, not yours.
As would everyone else here when it comes to their future.
Kabam like every game operator out there makes a game. They do so in a particular way, and they aren't going to open their doors and let all the players roam the offices telling their employees what to do. They aren't going to simply implement every suggestion they are given. They will listen to suggestions, but at the end of the day they are going to do what they think is best for the game. Players have to decide whether to play or not, and whether to spend money or not. They can comment, they can make suggestions, but they will never have control over the game. That isn't because the players aren't respected, that's because respect doesn't imply control.
Within those boundaries there's a lot of room for improvement in communication. But anyone who believes that those boundaries don't exist, or think that the only proof of respect is obedience, isn't going to get anywhere.
You don't have to accept every decision Kabam makes. You just have to accept they are the ones that ultimately make the decisions.
The best interest for a game is what makes it popular and with a large number of users that could become customers.
So when they have market models such as selling champions and rank up resources, but those champions change ... well ... customers will not be happy if there is no compensation (even if it is for the "good" of the game) and explanation about how and why.
Customers are selfish by default because they want as much as they can for the money invested and now, so if nerfing champions will become a thing, Kabam will have angry customers and that will have an impact on the market and, therefore, on Decision making, BUT if nothing like that happend, well if you dont like it then take your money somewhere else.. I guess time will say.
As far as cull goes it could also have been handled better had the post not just listed his attack as the only change being made to him. Who knows outside of kabam if he will be better overall after the rework but the way it was stated in the post sounded pretty depressing. Perhaps as well as testing champs before release they should proofread their posts to see if it will be interpreted poorly due to wording.
I do see people asking to get a better sense of the data that purportedly drives the urge to squelch Cull. That seems pretty reasonable. If there’s such a tremendous disparity in the data, I can’t imagine it would be hard to figure out a way to show that to the community. Who knows? It might actually change some minds.
Personally, I don’t care. Game data can be manipulated like any other data. What does concern me is an “adjustment” program that feels like it foists the burden of testing content on the community without oversight of the game team or meaningful protection for paying customers. Long term, that’s not good for the “health of the game.”
Dr. Zola
I try to present my position in such a way that not only is it responsive to whomever I'm replying to, but it is worth the developers' time to read. Sometimes they take notice. It isn't often: there are thousands of posters on the forums so you can't expect the developers to pay attention to you or me or any one person more than a small amount. But I think it happens often enough that it is the best option available to me. Everyone else has to decide for themselves how to maximize the probability of being heard. But you can never be sure that the person or people you're trying to communicate with actually cares what you have to say.
This is not easy. You're taking a leap of faith. And I don't claim to consistently follow my own advice either. But the only answer I have to your question above is that I don't know, but I behave as if they are listening, because if they are listening that's the right thing to do and if they aren't listening nothing I do matters anyway.
Very simple request ... very honest request .. very understandable request.
So all you have to do is figure out why the vast majority of the players led us here, and then convince most or all of them why they should change their influence to what you want.
The problem with the statement "the players have the final say" is not that players individually have zero influence. The problem is rather that "the players" don't exist as a singular bargaining group, and never have, and never will. It is very easy to get a mob of people to all agree they don't like something. But you will never get them to agree on what it ought to be instead. And that's not because of a failing of those people, its because people genuinely want different things. But even this fact is extremely difficult to acknowledge. Everyone assumes that people are different, yes, but not in the ways they think are important. Players might quibble, but of course everyone agrees that X should happen.
Unanimity is illusory, but it appears that way because singling out what's wrong is step one. Everyone can get on board step one. But it is step two, when the discussion shifts to what the correct alternative is, that unanimity disappears. Try starting a thread on the problems of alliance war, or synergies, or quest difficulty. It'll be very easy to get people to agree all those things are broken. Try getting agreement on how to fix it.
If "the players" were really of a hive mind, they would indeed wield immense power. You could say that about the entire world of game players in general: "the players" could get rid of lootboxes, make all games free to play, eliminate grind, sentence all the spawn campers to death: nothing would be out of reach. But the differences between game players is enormous, and part of the problem is few people acknowledge this to be true.
If something is true, it will remain true if its nature does not change and the conditions that make it true remain valid, but that may change over time, there is no eternal truth.
In sociology you can study a particular population (such as users of a game), such as physics, study a mass, it is composed of thousands of particles that move in different directions, but as a result of their interaction, the mass moves in only one direction, and for this you don't need unanimity, you just need a relevant group that pushes more
So, if that group pushes enough, then maybe Kabam does something about this lack of test.
The RDT on She-hulks is a good example
It may seem like balancing based on player performance in effect means no one can evaluate anything based on how it is designed, because external unpredictable factors can ultimately change it at any time, but the logical consequences of that premise are just as non-trivial and ultimately beneficial. At least, that's my opinion based on studying this issue for a very long time before ever playing this game.
There's probably two Ph.Ds and a game design book in there somewhere.
The Ph.D I would pick is the subject of playerbase self selection. The short version is that when we talk about games like this having "players" and "paying customers" that implies those are relatively static groups. But in fact there's constant turnover in both. The players and paying customers of tomorrow may not even have heard of the game yet today. Every decision you make must balance serving your current players and customers without cutting off your future stream of players and customers. And things beneficial to current players and customers can be detrimental to future players and customers.
The game you make has to attract the kind of players you need to make the game you need to make to attract the kind of players you need to make the game you need to make.
The long term health of the game isn't about making current players and customers happy, it is actually more about making sure this constraint is met. Making the current players and customers happy is a short term gain. But most of those players and customers won't be here in the future, because that's the nature of free to play games. You have to make them happy *and* make future players happy, and the kind of game you make to make current players happy "chooses" who those future players will even be, because the game you make will only attract certain kinds of people.
Actually, I forgot I hate school. So someone else can do that Ph.D.
Cyclops
Dr. Strange
Pure skill
Last I checked the first two are nerfed to the ground and pure skill doesn't work.
If he is getting the nerf in damage, please add some utility on him. The ramp up makes him not worth to use right now, since other ramp up champs have more utility. E.g VTD, aegon
Here. Nerf this guy instead.
Quite a few nodes can neuter him. Poison, bleed, limber, shock etc
its the fix for an unintended mechanic
and outside of She Hulk they dont have much of a usage for it (breaking Maw's focus is the other one)
1. If the champ is awakened with a gem, this wont be recovered given the current way in which it's done
2. Sig stones to make the awakened ability better are also not currently returned
Any change, no matter how slight will impact the players. Therefore, as its been said before, its disincentivising players to get characters. It's like buying a Ferrari that goes 100mph then being told there is a limiter being put n for it to go 70mph. Yes everything else stays the same, but if we knew it would be 70mph top speed we may have chosen to get another car.