Welp, it’s happening and official - Catalyst black is launching next month:
What’s your expectation for the game? Defo looks more polished visually, but tbh I am not a fan of the monetisation (pay to win) and not sure how good it will be for more than few casual games here and there?
I’m sure I’ll give it a try — since VG, no multiplayer game on mobile has held my interest for long, so why not give it a shot? But like you, the monetization scheme and the very obvious P2W mechanics are already giving me pause.
Will be nice to try this with hopefully more actual players for once in it’s release week since most throughout beta i only ever got like 3 other people in one match, but I doubt that’ll last long. I already doubt it’ll get much new attention, i don’t think it’ll hold many players especially with the monetisation if that’s still as bad as I remember.
I am pretty sure they did a massive mistake to abandon Vainglory (starting with giving it away to another company btw) and it will basically bankrupt them. The game still could had been saved if they put the effort (and money + the right mindset how to progress the game + changing the monetisation to mirror how PC league/WR is). Ofc separate balance for 3vs3 / 5vs5, ideally would be two games but they f up that one when it was the perfect time to separate the two modes in totally different games so 3vs3 can keep being the same perfect mobile MOBA experience while 5vs5 can be tweaked for… well… 5vs5 with reimagined heroes skill to fit the mode and fantasy and more polished experience instead of putting heroes/skills/items designed with only 3vs3 in mind.
Yah, I agree that VG had a brighter future than does Catalyst Black, at least as far as popularity goes. (Revenue/income generation is another story: famously, SEMC never figured out how to generate a consistent revenue stream from VG. Catalyst Black seems to have revenue generation as one of it’s core features. Perhaps it will be profitable and keep the lights on at the company once the VC funding dries up.)
The whole 3v3 vs 5v5 issue has been beaten to death, but I agree with you completely. 3v3 was nearly perfect before they started “tuning” it in anticipation of 5v5’s release. Unfortunately, the people who ran SEMC bought into the idea that 5v5 was the way forward, and we all know how that turned out.
The best part is that VG 3vs3 if not destroyed was going to be quite popular still + having active competitive scene (even less funded vs the absurd they did before) and if the monetisation was changed - most likely turn out profit too. WR is cool and all, but really PC league on mobile and many mobile players don’t really want that. Atleast in EU most have PC’s that can run PC league perfectly fine and will prefer to play that even tho WR games are shorter, the experience is fuller on PC.
VG 3vs3 just strike the best balance between serious/mobile and is the perfect fit for mobile devices. So I suspect it was going to be as popular if not vs WR. People prefer ML to some extend for the same reason, it’s better more casual fit for mobile even if not to my taste personally.
The whole vg situation it’s just been talked to death about, it’s always just such a shame it’s left to waste now.
To be on topic of catalyst black, I remembered there was something I don’t think I ever mentioned when I talked about catalyst black in beta. There’s a currency you earn to unlock chests, this is the free way to earn chests since the only other way is paid, this free chest currency is called shards and it can be earned from the daily and weekly quests as well as from playing matches.
For earning from matches it’s capped, it seems like winning 10-12 matches maybe will get all that daily shards, it’s essentially just points to unlock free chests but they can’t call it points cuz points is used already for account ranking up.
Also pretty sure shards used to be what the premium currency is called but it seems that got changed.
If you guys do try out catalyst black when it releases I’d say try it with a controller if you aren’t really one for virtual joysticks, top down shooters feel weird with virtual joystick(honestly just about anything feels weird with virtual joystick) and at least for me top down shooters I definitely prefer playing with a controller
I just received an email about it. I’m not sure what to expect, to be honest. I’ll give it a try, but I’m not sure if it’s the type of games I usually play.
I can’t see myself investing as much time into the game as I once did with VG. I guess I will give it a try, but it being P2W hurts and as @cha0z said, idk if it’s a game for more than a couple of matches here and there.
The game is fun to play with friends, dont really see myself playing it alone ever since theres alot of problems.
• UI is really cheap and ugly to look at.
• The way the game and its equipment is set up kinda feels pay to win unless you grind for hours and even if you grinded, theres not alot of room for personal skill expression imo.
• The game is extremely favored towards parties or coordinated groups and not for the average solo player imo.
Some positive things I can say tho is that
• Map is absolutely gorgeous and a huge contrast to Vg with its dark and detailed style with how CB uses a more colorful and cartoon palette.
• Game modes really are a blast with friends since you tend to win alot more easier compared to solo.
I would say give it a chance cuz its nice for the few things good about it but I personally wont be playing this game ever lol
Yeah, I played it a bit to see how the launch version fared against the early access ones and honestly, I feel the same way.
The p2w aspects are still incredibly noticeable. While it is fitting for the more common mobile game approach that they’re obviously focusing more on, if not for the profitability, the clear differences in power makes the game pretty disheartening for the average mobile game player who wouldn’t spend anything on IAPs or a little here and there at most. I’d imagine that’d be detrimental to keeping player retention since there’s likely to be a decent amount of players that will get stomped by whales, write the game off as p2w, uninstall, and not look back.
I sorta feel like the game lacks the sheer personality that VG had with stuff like the hero kits, lore, character-building voicelines, etc. as well, though I will admit that it’d be a bit hard to implement in CB given how it’s structured.
I do think it does a pretty decent job in showing off the EVIL engine’s potential though. The gameplay itself is pretty solid for the most part, the visuals are good, and stuff like VC being built-in at launch and pretty good controller support are nice additions.
As much as I liked SEMC in their peak VG days and appreciate the quality/polish of the game, I don’t feel like it play CB much, if at all, in the long run either. It being a more standard mobile game with a focus on quick fun may be nice for others, but I’d honestly rather play other mobile games over it, personally.
Tried it, not really my thing, but it’s not that bad. It’s super P2W and even if someone grind hard to unlock/upgrade things for free he will be stomped by the paying players.
So they have two not great options - allowing fast unlock for the F2P players and limit the advantage of the paying ones, but that way noone will spend money… or leave it as it is and the paying players will stomp the not playing ones = players will leave even faster the game. Either way they lose imho
Todays mobile market is quite saturated with great games (both MP and SP), it’s not like in the past and semi good games won’t do.
While I have yet to actually unlock the mode myself due to a lack of playing a bunch, I feel like the p2w upgrades should be limited/disabled in the ranked mode, especially since the game specifically says that your elo/rank gains are based on your scores, which is obviously gonna be easy to rack up if you’re a whale. But that’s likely not gonna happen bc like you said, that’ll definitely decrease the profitability they’re aiming for.
I really feel like they overdid it with the monetization and didn’t quite learn from VG in that department. Being a p2w game is obviously best for sheer profits, but it hurts everyone that isn’t a whale and most will have a negative opinion of it, especially if the general census of VG’s talent upgrades was any indication. While it might not be as profitable as the upgrades system they have in place, they should’ve focused far more on cosmetics imo but made them paid-only, unlike VG. Between the weapons, characters, primals, etc, I feel like they had A LOT of room to make cosmetics but I’m honestly a little surprised that there aren’t any at all yet.
I will say that despite how I feel about CB, I do think it’s sorta nice that there’s a possibility we might finally get some sort of update on VGCE now that SEMC is done focusing on the launch, even if the window of opportunity for it is long gone.
hardly doubt they will return to VG tbh and 100% sure they will spend no time at all updating the VG CE (i.e. where there is no monetisation and pure loss of dev power/money to update the game). They f up like champions with that game and tbh with catalyst black also as there is some potential under the gameplay, but it’s again clearly not build onto it + wrong monetisation.
Yah, I’m pretty sure they’re done with VG … just more broken promises from SEMC 
Yea nah, this game does not even hold a dim light to VG.
Also, i like how SEMC has completely embraced the microtransaction bs lmao.