Since I last checked in with Marvel Contest of Champions, Kabam has finally responded to players concerns and have started working on a fix. I got a chance to sit down and talk with a few of the games' top players: Rich Davis who goes by The Living Tribunal of alliance GOTGN, Ben Young who goes by RoninNupe, and Paritosh Mishra of the ISO-A alliance. Rich and I were chatting over the LINE app and then later joined a room with Ben and Paritosh. On LINE, my gaming pseudonym is Kira so, fair warning I get referred to by several names here. I've abbreviated the names to initials thus MR for myself, LT for Rich (Living Tribunal), RN for Ben (RoninNupe), and PM for Paritosh (Pari).

MR: Hey Rich, it's Madeline from Bleeding Cool. How are you?

LT: Hey Madeline, I'm good. How are you?

MR: Not too bad. So what's the latest on MCOC? I'm reading Kabam's statement right now.

LT: Yes they issued a new ambiguous update this afternoon. Me and another well known figure in the community named RoninNupe have had two calls with Kabam discussing all of our personal feedback as well as input from thousands who have messaged in. There are still far too many questions on what exactly is going to occur. I had a feeling the statement today would be broad. Which could be a net positive. However, myself and a few others, namely Sha59, have formed a Top 100 Alliance spending boycott with a list of several recommendations that would make all parties happy. If I had to estimate, I'd say we collectively make up 50%+ of all Kabam' sales.

MR: So the boycott is just based on spending and not on activity in the game at this point?

LT: We are also boycotting map 6 which is the most difficult quest in a thing called alliance quests. We are further discussing other activity boycotts but no one is honestly playing much at all, the game is that bad.

MR: I understand its become very, very difficult to pass certain challenges given the targeted nerfs. What sort of solutions are you hoping for at this point?

LT: This will go down as a case study on how not to operate a mobile game developing business. I am an equity analyst and have covered the space for several years. I've never seen anything like this. There are many fixes, some easy to describe and some rather complex. The gist would be to return confidence in our roster excluding a few "God tier" champs which were broken. They also need to immediately fix block proficiency and parrying. We have posted a public google doc with our fix if you'd like to explore further.

MR:That is very helpful thanks. I'll check it out.

LT: Here is also our statement from The Top 100 Alliance Boycott.

MR: You mentioned that yourself and another player, RoninNupe, are currently in talks with Kabam. How has that been going? I know many in the community have had communication problems with Kabam before.

LT: Yes, the initial conversation was positive. They release an announcement that they would re-evaluating the new patch an hour after the call. Since then, the calls have been lukewarm. Essentially them listening and taking notes with really no discussion. I don't think they understand the potential sales loss severity that is to come if they don't make the necessary changes.

MR: Thus, the continued boycott. I take it you're planning to continue the boycott until you see some results?

LT: Yes, most everyone involved has spent years and thousands of dollars to obtain every critical piece of our rsoter. This was taken away immediately. Very shady. We simply want it back and have even provided numerous suggestions to better monetize the game. It honestly makes no sense as to why they're doing this.

MR: I suppose they wanted to balance the roster out, make it so the three champions aren't the core backbone of every player's teams. But without either providing those same buffs to other characters or re-vamping content, it definitely seems like a poorly planned move.

LT: Our solutions have included fixes to those broken champs. Every champ was silently blanket nerfed with the update. They made nodes that enhanced opponents to address those three champs making them necessary. They have now taken away those three champs, and dramatically nerfed every champ, while keeping those nodes. The game is unplayable. We're fine with the three nerfs, return everything back to normal and we'll be happy. Not fine but we can do without.

MR: So the continued presence of enemy node buffs is the biggest problem? Along with the parry and block issue. I suppose those work in tandem against players.

LT: Parry and block proficiency are the biggest issues. We are expected to defeat very difficult matches and 15-20 of them every day in alliance quests. Even with perfect skill you can't do it because you're receiving a lot of damage when you parry. The presence of un-skilled nodes with no work around is the third. The fourth would be reducing critical hits by 50-70% for every champ in the game. Un-skilled nodes make it so that you lose health despite playing perfectly. I.e. A thorns node which makes you take a certain percentage of damage per hit you land on the opponent. The opponents we face are so large that by the time you're done fighting them you are either dead or have next to no health. We'd traditionally use Black Widow which was immune if duped her and had her abilities at max or a regen champ. Every regen champ except Wolverine is gone. There are about 4 of these nodes in our daily gameplay. Sorry for the lengthy posts lol but there are many, many more issues than just these. Those are the biggest however.

MR: They do sound frustrating and I'm sure the other problems don't help. Given the lukewarm responses you've been getting from Kabam, how positive are you that the negotiations will work out in a way that is not detrimental to players?

LT: I believe we will receive 50% of what we want. Which doesn't make sense as this will cause most people to stop playing. I know people doing the beta and while some things are fixed, the game is still not nearly as fun as it was.I would call it quasi playable but no incentive to keep playing. Can I invite two people in here possibly?

MR: Absolutely.

RD: This is RoninNupe, a 7 times legend runner (big deal in our community) and Pari who is helping Sha59 with the top 100 alliance boycott.

PM: Thanks and thank you Kira for taking the time out to help us out. We are really in a huge bind after 2+ years of hardcore playing the game and being in top 5 alliances in game. This update feels like a literal reset of all progress without an actual new app called MCOC 2.0.

MR: It also sounds like its incredibly difficult to even play these days. Like they just flipped up the difficulty curve and gave you no tools to cope.

LT: We love difficult stuff, the game is unplayable with the best of skill. That's where they went wrong. You die playing perfectly which is no way a game should be played.

MR: Right. Even the notoriously difficult games are survivable either through strategy or skill.

LT: Indeed, this is pay or die. Without the possibility to complete a quest without paying for revives there is no incentive for us as top tier players to try and play end game content nor mid tier players to aspire to do the same. It's a sales loss across the board. You wouldn't see anything like this by developers such as Glu Mobile or King.

MR: Right. It's also not a problem plaguing Kabam's other games which makes it something of an outlier.

LT: I think a lot of this was accident, primarily from management pushing for a "profitable" update far too fast and the result is what we have. There is a blatant lack of professionalism we're finding in the source code.

MR: It definitely seems like too much, too fast. What exactly are you noticing in the source code?

LT: Here is a direct quote from an error message in the source code, "WHAT THE HOLY SHIZZLE OUT OF INDEX!" error message or this nice log entry "Bullshit loaded." Kabam has such a substantial piece of IP on their hands, it's astonishing they would allow any of this to happen.

PM: I try to come up with various strategies, but this time I've fallen short. It simply isn't fair to have a 65-0 match to just die while hitting the 66th hit. And this is the least skill required more of arenas.

LT: They've removed all of the catalysts in the game that play on the addictive psychological cues in our brain. We played hard for crystals to receive characters with utility we need in our roster. Every champ is essentially the same right now. Why would I work hard to receive one specifically?

PM: Shudder to think what will happen when difficult modes come back up.

LT: Yep. So Kabam loses our money, which I doubt they could even cover server costs without until the game is playable.

RN: Evening. Every champ isn't the same. They are just equally as mediocre.

PM: Yes.

RN: Mediocre Charade of Characters. That's the new game title.

MR: So rather than make them equally usable, they're equally unusable?

LT: Exactly.

RN: Everything in the game is taking 2 to 3 times or more as long. It's like trying to take out a criminal with a pillow.

MR: Doable but ultimately not your first choice. I got you.

RN: The game has been neutered yet the enemies champions are somehow working more effectively than ever.

MR: Right. Because those seem to have been left alone for the most part.

LT: Most every quest is doable but alliance war, alliance quests, and end game content aren't doable.

RN: Yes it's why they aren't even opening up alliance war and quests currently because they know they done screwed up.

LT: Those are where we receive the important stuff. Most of us don't even do the catalyst quests hardly.

RN: The game has secretly (but not so secretly) shifted to a point where the champions we earn really serve the best use on alliance war defense where we have to use our flimsy attackers to compete against ridiculousness. It's like trying to win a chess game when you have all pawns and the opponent is chock full of rooks, bishops and multiple queens.

MR: So there is absolutely no game-balance on the high-level side. Have you noticed a difference with the flat-value stats?

RN: Yes they fall flat. Flatgate.

LT: We initially thought it was the flat value not mimicking the % based initially.

RN: We had champs like iron fist who is fragile if he gets hit but he could critical often and now he's having a bad day.

LT: But we learned the reason why every champ is taking 2-3x the amount of hits to win is from a new stat named "critical resistance."

RN: Marvel and Netflix would hate this version.

LT: The code is a mess but this stat is added after you factor in the diminishing returns curve and the new "Challenger rating." It's the source of the blanket nerf to every champ in the game.

RN: Yes, the secret strategy is give all characters critical resistance to make all fights longer but put the enemy content on nodes that get critical hit bonuses. (Side-eye emoji).

MR: Thus forcing you to pay or die.

RN: Indeed.

LR: Will this stat specifically just makes every champ significantly weaker. It's unnecessary considering if they wanted balance . Just fix the two broken champs and maybe buff some of the weaker ones. This was done very shadily to make every champ worse without us knowing. Even the source code is near impossible to determine how these new stats are interfering with our champs abilities. I doubt devs are even aware tbh.

MR: Given some of those error messages it makes you wonder who coded the update. They didn't give much warning with the changes either, did they? Maybe two weeks if being charitable?

RN: It was leaked. Then it was dropped on us like a sinking brick.

LT: Two weeks but the announcement really only made it seem like Scarlet Witch and Thor were getting nerfed. And a few others.

RN: There are so many bugs it feels like I'm on a safari.

LT: But then it came and Captain America's signature ability of perfect block is gone, Ronin's stuns last half as long, Iron Fist's armor breaks are meaningless.

RN: I have a software background and I would have to say this is the most egregious cluster of a release I've ever seen.

LR: We all were just like wtf.

RN: I mean simple stuff like Special 3s visual animation. I'm like did you PLAY this???

LT: And the amount of bugs has been unreal.

RN: Like impossible to miss if you actually played for even an hour.

LT: Champs dying the second the match starts. And like we're testing champs in ROL and dying in 4-5 parries. This material requires you to keep 300-900 hit streaks to win. You parry every five hits…

MR: What's up with the special 3 animations, Ronin?

LT: A few changes. We don't care about special 3 animations tbh. We rarely let those happen.

MR: Waste of time?

LT: it's not that. Usually ou do a special for a specific piece of utility or a lot of damage. Usually utility and damage. So Ronin stuns which is helpful in many situations, Magik power locks so that you can hit your opponent all you want without them getting to their specials. L3s don't do this. You either use their L1 or L2.

MR: Hmm. L3's are just damage rather than utility?

LT: No utility usually comes from an L3 and most of the time less damage.

RN: No I was just pointing out that the special 3 animations are so obviously broken too. It's like how do you miss that. It's every character's special 3.

LT: Oh my bad.

MR: Hmmm. Glitches or crashes?

RN: It just shows the wrong data of how much health lost. It makes it look like the enemy is regenerating lol. It's so weird and obvious. Many of the other bugs are Chanel specific and there are a lot.

LT: But I hope what you're gathering from this is that this was no petty slip up with a dramatic player base. The game is ruined and those who have spent thousands of dollars and multiple years don't know what to do with themselves. Everything about this update was just unnecessary. I don't know what they were thinking.

RN: But this you have to not play to notice. Lol.

LT: You literally can't play all of the important parts of the game.

RN: You can't miss it. Yes and so much is unplayable. Unplayable meaning why bother because you won't last long. Like did anyone test this.Anyone…

LT: If I would have let you play on my account a week ago with an average non-god-tier champ and then let you do the same today you would say I'm never playing a game from Kabam again. They have a very bad reputation but we were confident that since this game was a smash hit that this wouldn't happen. It's going to cost them, my bet is if they don't satisfy what we outlined they'll be shutting down their servers in 6-8 months.

MR: Yeah. This definitely isn't just players complaining about losing an unfair advantage or complaining about change.

LT: Not at all, some of us even wanted Thor and Scarlet Witch nerfed. Noobs would get them and defeat end game content right off the bat it was so easy with SW. I got to where I was with just skill and no Scarlet Witch… I got Thor last week lol. I've been every hard piece of end game content. No way I could do that now.

MR: Too easy, yeah I can see where nerfing them wouldn't have been a bad idea. But critical resistance just sounds like a poorly coded stat.

TL: It' awful. Maybe I can show you real fast.

LT: So that's my champ facing a nearly 9k champ, right? Here's my champ facing a 4K champ, notice the difference in hits.

LT: One is half the size as the other…

MR: But its two less hits. Yeah that's unbalanced as hell.

LT: Yep. Iron Fist is no God tier either.

MR: And it's not like Vision is a tank.

LT: So that's the damage I received from three parries right? Imagine facing a 75K opponent. Every parry takes away 10-15% of your health. You're done after maybe a 50-70 hit streak.

MR: And if it takes 300-900 hits, you're paying for rezzes at a stupid rate.

LT: Yes. We get pay to play, trust me. But you need to always have the option to those who grind hard for units instead of buying them to complete hard stuff. That's done for. If the incentive isn't there people won't even bother. Labyrinth of legends opponents are 125K… You die after two parries.

RN: I have to get some sleep. Goodnight all.

MR: Night Ronin. Thanks for the feedback.

LT: Same. Madeline, thanks a bunch for talking with us. There just wasn't much out on how severe this really is. Thought I'd give you the real scoop. A lot of the big content creators kind of coddle Kabam and are timid to detail the real problems. This is straight up a broken game.

MR: No it was a very small story when it made it to our attention. I'm very glad to have spoken with you all. It paints a very bleak picture.

LT: I'm happy to answer any further questions you have in the future, feel free to holler.

MR: And I hope the exposure can help. Will definitely reach out with questions as things progress. I'm not planning to let this slip by me.

LT: This is a story of a game that went from grossing $300+ million a year to eventually $0. Thanks Madeline, we appreciate it. have a good night.

MR: Have a good night guys. Thanks again. If something comes up you want to see covered, feel free to reach out.

PM: Thanks Madeline. Sorry, I'm traveling and lost connection. But yeah LT drove the point home with how badly we got hit offensively and defensively with this update… And it's not as if we three are slouches here… Yet we struggle massively on the basic modes in game now. If we are struggling… Imagine the others in the community.

MR: I imagine it's goddamn miserable as a mid-to-lower ranked player. Thank you all for your help.

During this chat I received a series of screenshots from another Alliance Leader known in game as Cun Tessa detailing how the Alliance Boycott message was removed from the MCOC forum and that the posts from Kabam have been locked for commenting. His comments read, "some of the top leaders in the game made a post on the MCOC blog about solidarity and once again they have deleted it. They also close all their posts allowing no feedback to happen, all the while, promoting this fallacy of open communication. I would love this to be brought to life so more people, including marvel gaming are all made aware of what we're trying to accomplish and the lies Kabam is spewing on the net."

Kabam's full statement about their planned changes to update 12.0 can be found on the official MCOC blog here. As I was writing this article they added a new post further detailing the changes here promising that the update is in beta. The Top 100 Alliance statement on the boycott was original posted as a response to Kabam's statements. Those posts have since been locked and all comments disabled. I've linked to the public google docs version of the statement in full with permission from the alliance heads in charge of drafting it.

Pari later brought to my attention a few forum posts from Chinese players who played the same system as update 12.0 about a year ago which was then shut down. Those players were then migrated to the international version of the game which now mirrors the defunct game.

My previous coverage of this story can be found here for the initial story and then here after catching up on Kabam's response over the weekend.

I've reached out to Kabam and Marvel Games' head Bill Rosemann for further comment on this story.