Marius, I know you take the brunt of a lot of frustrations being one of the "faces" of the company. I don't doubt you are trying to do your best, and in my professional experience, your hands are mostly tied from upper-level management making poor decisions and not listening to you or the customer.
One thing that I have to say that has been mentioned NUMEROUS times in the past, balancing champions NEEDS to happen! You keep saying it takes time, but it has been what, a year now, yet the only thing you guys have done so far is nerf several champions to try to get people to spend money replacing them? You can't say it takes time, yet you guys will slam someone like Pain Keeper with three nerfs at once to all three of her abilities. It's clear that it is about the money and hoping people will pay for shards or leveling up a replacement. What it does instead is kills retention and customer confidence. I no longer want to invest in the game, as I wasted money on tomes for Pain Keeper, and it was completely wasted with no compensation back to us.
But anyway, like others have said, there are some champions that are so OP that they are staples in arena or clan boss. EVERYONE uses Apothecary, unless they have a legendary that can replace him. And now, thanks to the speed aura, Khatun is the new Apothecary. In arena, EVERYONE who has them uses Reinbeast and Gorgorath. And no one in their right mind would NOT use Roshcard in arena. However, where some champions are OP and some are trash, you are pigeon-holing people into choosing what they *need* to based on the games mechanics. That isn't fun when we don't have any choices and see the same exact champions over and over and over, because they are the most viable.
The balancing is LONG overdue, and NEEDS to be a priority. You guys keep spewing out more champions, yet don't balance them. I mean who over there thought it would be a good idea to toss out new uncommons, aka trash champions, rather than put that time into balancing? The priorities over there are ALL wrong.
The top priorities currently should be:
1) Champion balancing - This SHOULD be paramount. While I know the company thinks no money is to be made by fixing champions players already have (as opposed to them making new ones to sell), the thing is that IF a champion in vault becomes viable, the player still has to max them out to 6 star, gear them up, get coins to cap the gear, get masteries for the champion, ascend them, etc. So, it would be GREAT for customer retention, and those customers will have reasons to spend money.
2) New content - Whether Faction Wars, that tower thing, whatever was supposed to happen with that campfire greyed out on the main screen, or something else new to play with. Making harder dungeon levels and a new level of artifacts to farm is not something new for us to experience. It just means we have to farm more again and level up new gear. But, it's the SAME levels, the SAME bosses, the SAME content. We need more and we need fresh.
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I don't think there is a single vet of this game that would disagree with those 2 items being the most important to retain us at this point. Making more champions viable means more variety, which brings fun and exciting new mechanics to the table that we have to deal with. Right now, there are maybe a dozen or so really OP champions for arena, but otherwise, nothing else that is a huge threat. Making more champions viable by buffing and/or changing mechanics, while not making NEW content, would at least be NEW experiences for us that we could enjoy.
But anyway, I think it would behoove you to put up a poll here on the forums to get feedback and you'll see I am right here. I *want* to love this game, but there is also a lot of frustration with it in its current state. I know balancing when you have so many, many champions and various skills is difficult. However, you guys should do it gradually, not slam someone like you did with Pain Keeper. You work on things in increments, see how it plays out in the game, and continue to adjust as necessary. You don't need to do a huge overhaul each time. That overhaul of Pain Keeper nearly made me quit, it truly did. And between that and the lack of new content in 1.8 (combined with the inaccessible Rotting Mage) caused the two friends I talked into coming back to the game to leave again. Please do what you can to get upper level management to listen to the consumer, and I assure you, if you guys focus on those two priorities, it WILL help retention, as well as new customers, as if your current customers are happy, they tend to refer more people.
And I do feel for you having to take the brunt of all the player frustrations. But, if you really want to improve your value to the company, go to the top with this. Don't let your management dismiss you. Throw the information in their face with such resolve that they HAVE to listen. Being a regional manager, I can tell you we WANT our staff to call us out when we are doing something stupid, and currently, you know as well as I do after 1.8 that they are making a LOT of poor decisions. Please, help us out Marius. And if you want help, like submitting a business modification proposal or something, I would be more than happy to help out. I know sales and marketing inside and out, and I could definitely get it through their heads that they need to change priorities. They are focused on what looks good on paper, rather than listening to the customer for the sake of retention. I have seen this issue countless times in countless businesses over the years, and it is a mindset that burns a company to the ground. Only so long until Rome burns, and based on customer feedback, they already have the torches and pitchforks.
And if you do listen, feel free to PM me for any help I can give. Otherwise, good luck if you do push for the much-needed changes.
