Im gonna skip the part about why talents ruin brawl modes because thats already talked about a million times, and talk about the monetization part about talents.
Of all monetization methods, talents is the only one that actually affected gameplay, and in this case, ruined the experience of brawl modes by making them p2w. I did not mind every other monetization method that SEMC made, including the mystery chests, bundles, and the golden tickets (though that could have been done a lot more better without causing an outrage), simply because they DID NOT AFFECT GAMEPLAY. Its a business after all, and SEMC needs a way to earn revenue. But when monetization affects gameplay, then it has crossed the line. Revenue is second, player experience is first.
And did talents even make a good amount of revenue? The average vainglory player wont spend money on talents. Only the whales would spend money on them. I know mobile games are funded mostly by whales, but the same goes for other monetization methods. Methods that wouldnt affect gameplay. I would rather see monetization through LE skins, more charms, player badges, in game tournaments, events, gifting, or even monetization outside the game through esports or more official merch. Im sure people would love to buy some plushies or action figures.
My point is, there are many more monetization methods that wont ruin the player experience. In fact they can make it better. Talents have been by far the worst implementation yet, and i still wish for them to be removed.
I got 45k glory for the first time they did a partial refund for talent upgrades. Delet talents and refund everyone would cause the great depression of the glory currency.
Talents will be not removed its way too late now, god knows how much money has been spent on them the amount is probably in the millions of dollars its much more complicated than a simple glory refund. The first obvious reason is of course is that they will be missing out on a lot of revenue, second it will mess up their resources management and how they will use their capital to develop the game. And finally it will get them into a lot of troubles fiscally, you can’t just make millions of dollars worth of revenue disappear it will get them into a lot of problems with the court for tax evasion. That’s also assuming that the refunds are done properly and no one gets scammed because of inaccurate data which isn’t easy either. As i said many times before, brawl modes have been ruined and there is nothing that can be done at this point the harm has been done, semc should have taken actions in early stages of the release of talents.
Ye sadly thats true. P2w features makes money from whales at the cost of the player experience from everyone else. Other methods have to be taken instead to solve this talent madness.
First, splitting up blitz into talent (casual) and talentless (“ranked”) modes. Blitz mode got hit the hardest from talents. Blitz with talents and blitz without talents is like 2 completely different games at this point. At least in BR people arent allowed to choose their own hero so the effects of using a broken comp is lowered.
Secondly…
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Idk maybe balance talents better so not 70% of them are pure stat increases
I’ve suggested splitting blitz into 2 game modes, a casual one without talents and elo and another without talent and an elo system but i doubt it will ever be a thing because of queue time problems. It actually wouldn’t be an issue for the casual game mode as most people would play this one but the people who queue for the ranked one would really struggle since this game mode will mostly be played by those who can afford to spend money on talents which are a minority. I don’t think blitz can be salvaged sadly.
What if the talentless blitz mode was different from the talent one? Like a 10 min standard version of blitz which ends with a 30 point limit or simply by destroying the vain crystal?
Blitz itself doesn’t need a rework the issue is with talents, i used to enjoy the talent-less version of blitz quite a lot where you jump in and your skill and only your skill determines the outcome of the game. I used to play blitz to practice mechanics of heroes that i am not really good at but now its longer possible because the talent either makes your hero op so you might do well even though you’re not actually good at the hero or the enemies are using broken talents and they destroy you making you feel trash at the hero even though you might have potential with it. Broken talents also lead to the creation of a blitz meta where some heroes are just unplayable because they don’t have any broken talents, seeing the same heroes over and over again in blitz makes me sick to my stomach its so sad.
talents could still be changed.
i would suggest the following:
each talent has one upside and multiple possible downsides (or vice versa). with max level, you get to choose between every combination.
an example:
kruls rare upside is a massive increase in his barrier
he can choose between the downsides of:
-longer cooldown
-less wp damage
-less max hp
-less base def
-longer wait time for his perk
-…
the more levels you have, the more options you get.
i would condense the rare levels to 10 but keep the costs, so there is no need for a refund.
that way they can actually balance the talents, take the p2w out for the most part and keep the progress of each player.
thats not too different from bringing back the le skins imo.
You know, a lot of this really figures into how they run their operation at a base level. For all the “we are listening” they plaster the walls with each time they screw up, SEMC are completely disconnected from what their customers want and appreciate.
One thing that most people can agree on, is that improved socialization and community features would be a good thing. We all have people we like to play the game with, but staying in touch via wonky in-game chat is a mess. Helping people to keep contact with their friends through the game would increase customer retention.
It starts at a very basic level with:
functioning chat
Messages of the Day for guilds / teams (sticky in chat)
more accessible offline messages (possibly a mail format)
But it shouldn’t end there. The lure of MOBAs is in the competition, and a large part of that is visibility and bragging rights. None of which we currently get through the client, and none of which is monetized. It’s as if the entire company is too daft to pick up the concept of customizable player profiles with granular access to player statistics via API.
While you can’t pump out unlimited amounts of skins each patch, offering background art for profiles is a much simpler process. That sort of thing can be done within a few hours’ work, and people will spend similar amounts (if not more) to make their profiles stand out.
Then you can charge for advanced functions, such as animated content. Your favourite hero greeting visitors to your profile? 100.000.000 ICE PLX! - And it would work. You could assign arbitrary prices to that shit for whales to get all flustered over, and everyone would be happy.
You could even double-down on it, and charge extra for guild and team profile aesthetics. Those would actually serve a purpose, too, if they offered access to the respective statistics. It could be fun to browse the profiles of guilds you love to hate, and gnash your teeth at their win-rates, or laugh at how they never queue up without Saw.
Why is that not happening? And by that I mean: Why hasn’t it happened already? SEMC could increase their revenue, while improving the consumer experience at the same time. It’s such a dumb no-brainer… but instead they go down the route of talents and shady marketing bullshit.
The same applies to various in game customisation - why can I not purchase a Humanist voice pack to replace the current announcer? It seems an easy and obvious way to make money.
there is a lot more. like messages in the versus screen, server wide messages to all (with some restrictions of course), map skins (some people would pay to play on the winter map forever), kraken/dragon skins, …
I dont like blitz ranked , but i do play now for quest to get blue prints
And in one of my games someone rage quit and afked because we were getting destroyed , the game gave me afk forgiveness !
Man i laughed so hard , what do you mean afk forgivness
Like i play talentless or lvl1 talent against broken talent heroes , are you serious with afk forgivness , it doesnt matter !?
talents is for ranked blitz since people in this mode will tryhard, and this ofc give incentive to buy talents since it’s competitive. no harm to semc’s income
casual blitz is without talents. this mode is not competitive, and just for fun. without the damn talents. a nice mode for casual player…
Assuming that talents get decently balanced one day and talents arent just pure stat increases, then it would be better if the ranked mode is the standard one, and the casual mode is the brawl one. That is IF talents were reworked into new mechanics like ardan, cath, churn legendary and not just 300% barrier 70% cooldown xdddd glhf