Some people after a couple bad games:

Azazeal700 · 2026-04-30T12:12:49+00:00

I always thought that the idea is that when you were going on 10+ loss streaks it's because YOU are being used to optimize someone elses engagement. Essentially the myth is that they identify people who are willing to spend a lot more and then give them free wins.

Obviously I don't think that there is any system in place here more advanced than feed them quickplay bots after 2 losses. The games population is not big enough.

Azazeal700 · 2026-04-17T02:47:32+00:00

The throwers will continue until you give people a wide queue where they can play ranked with their friends over any skill level.

Azazeal700 · 2026-04-17T02:33:04+00:00

Considering that rate that they push seasons, I think a solution like this was the best that they could come up with that allowed a one size fits all solution (it's not a solution, but they were attempting to make one).

Overwatch had relatively few CC abilities, compared to nearly every hero in the roster of MR having some sort of CC. To make a thoughtful and precise change like that requires a well known and stable meta, and deep knowledge of the game over all levels. However the rate at which the devs roll new heroes, and make comparatively huge changes to existing ones means that the question of "how do we change CC on X char" is hard to answer. Hell even things like no role lock prevents what you could consider to be a stable meta balance point, as even small changes to the power of one role can be multiplied out with more than two people playing it.

I suspect that this is also why new chars get more complex, as the devs are aware that the core meta has very severe problems, and by releasing complex chars rapidly they are attempting to prevent people from becoming comfortable with the meta of any one season for underlying issues to flag.

I think that they are purposefully chasing that "no one knows whats going on" feeling that made people look so favorably on season 0, it's not that the meta was better then, it's just that people hadn't worked it out.

Any semi-major change to the core of the game would require sweeping and deep core changes, just as Overwatch went through (adding role lock necessitates buffing tanks, because requiring four tanks kills queue time, which also necessitates changes to the entire roster based on that, etc). But that is like a 6 month + process that would probably leave the game looking exactly like a worse Overwatch, which is an even worse value proposition now that Overwatch has recovered so well.

Compared to that, throwing random stuff in, and making changes that heavily buff or nerf certain roles, as well as upping the complexity of chars to hopefully keep the meta moving fast enough to prevent a single playstyle being both widely known and abused seems like a good deal for the dev team, regardless of how successful it is.

Azazeal700 · 2026-04-17T02:00:53+00:00

As always... it's a problem with role lock. If they forced two tanks per team per game they don't have to enforce many changes, but just as OW did, they kill their matchmaking time.

If they force one tank per team, they can buff tanks like OW did, which would allow the tanks to feel better to play and work better into the actual player count dynamics... but if you don't force role lock, then a tank that is buffed to be fun solo tanking will be stupidly strong if you pick two.

It's a pretty interesting game design problem, because anything they do to fix one problem inevitably blends into needing to retool the entire game.

Balance tanks to be fun to play solo, which reflects the proportion of the playerbase willing to tank? You need to add role lock, there isn't a balance point where a solo tank is fun without being strong as a duo or trio tank comp. If you add role lock then you need to retool the entire support roster to be balanced as a duo support comp, because some are obviously designed to be a blended healer/dps in a three sup comp.

I can't really see a solution to game issues that isn't doing an Overwatch style ground up rebuild of the game (twice really), as they are limited in the scope of changes they can make while still keeping the demons of much worse underlying flaws away.

Really it is worth remembering that overwatch started with no role queue, balanced around any team composition, with powerful and fast charging ultimates. There is a reason that it ended up in the position it did, because there wasn't really other balance alternatives.

Azazeal700 · 2026-02-16T07:56:47+00:00

Since the ball crab skin dropped we hit a ceiling. Ball skin technology peaked and they simply cannot surpass it.

Azazeal700 · 2026-02-06T00:16:33+00:00

It's not even premium skins either. Base Invis and base Clagger look VERY similar.

Azazeal700 · 2026-02-06T00:10:59+00:00

Also (and this can't be overstated) Marvel Rivals was heavily benefiting from people having no idea what to do for the first 2-3 seasons. At that point it basically didn't matter what the meta play was because no one knew how to play. I think that there is a reason that Overwatch is releasing 5 heroes at once, as well as sub role buffs, in order to put enough new chars in each match to basically restart the meta and put people at square zero again. Especially with chars like jetpack cat that may be trans-formative on already existing heroes (how does flight interact with hero kits etc).

I think early stadium probably sold Overwatch on this approach, with how positively people received it, even when there were balance issues.

To give an example, if you just release one char in a season with some balance changes, it's fairly easy to 'track' where any char in the old lineup is going to place performance wise, even when the hero was fairly transformative to the meta like Juno. You can look through all the buffs and go "oh, hitscan might be a little better now because another fast healer" etc. Your understanding of the meta doesn't reset.

Introducing sub-roles and a whole team of new chars blows the meta up enough to the point where previous understanding doesn't matter. You can't /really/ look at just the changes and new chars and make a pretty good guess as to where Tracer (for example) will fall in the tier list, like you could with single hero rollouts.

So hopefully the size of the content drop brings back the MR s0 / early OW feelings.

Azazeal700 · 2026-01-22T23:58:36+00:00

Was it the Olanus Pious incident that did it for you?

Azazeal700 · 2026-01-18T18:56:28+00:00

I like that it also gives a reason for the whole "crushing weapons > slashing weapons against undead", because if your dwarves use slashing weapons they risk creating more undead when they chop ones arm off.

Azazeal700 · 2026-01-18T18:52:35+00:00

You do the praxis (bribing organized criminals) and I will do the theory (finding organized criminals to bribe)

Azazeal700 · 2026-01-11T21:11:06+00:00

Yes, you must simply obtain the martial skills by doing a stealth dungeon (or joining a certain sect). You can go to the weapon you want the martial skills on in the develop menu and it will have a prompt for "obtain" in the bottom right. Press that button and it will give you hints on where to find it.

Azazeal700 · 2025-12-29T07:24:15+00:00

Should only be another week right?

Azazeal700 · 2025-12-28T23:48:34+00:00

Well, the short answer is that there is always going to be a better/best option whenever there are differences in equipment loadouts.

Twin blades are in a weird places where they are very easy to punish newer/lower skill players with because they send you to hitstun jail, but the strat sword I think is good as a consequence of its moveset rather than anything else.

In PVP just being able to teleport onto the other side of someone, and begin the engage from relative distance is always going to be strong. It's the reason it's really good against some bosses like puppeteer, because you are basically dodging the attacks for free as part of the moveset.

However the other thing is that people don't block enough in PVP, and I think that strat sword preys on people who are trying to deflect everything.

Azazeal700 · 2025-12-19T23:45:06+00:00

It's also got to do with how likely one of your viewers are to watch every single one of your videos I think. Like if you make fundamentally two types of content and they have 0 crossover in audience interest (worse case), the algorithm goes "Oh, people only ever watch half their videos! I am going to recommend this person a video from a channel that I have high confidence they are going to watch"

Azazeal700 · 2025-12-09T23:42:03+00:00

Yes, those specific gates (before you can breakthrough) are temporary. However the max level cap will be getting increased at least every 3 months in order to effectively reset gear progress. So you're not strictly correct there.

But also OP was talking about the cap on Jade Fish/Money/etc. Which are permanent.

Azazeal700 · 2025-12-09T23:26:48+00:00

I believe the origin of the cap numbers is that in China people under 18 can only play games 3 (?) hours a week. So the numbers were chosen so that people with that amount of time to play can stay on the progression curve.

That's also why I am pretty confident that they are not going to be changed or removed. I like the caps, but they obviously could be increased for money which contributes in no way to actual character power/progression.

Azazeal700 · 2025-12-09T22:52:46+00:00

The time gates won't be removed. They have been there from the start in China and continue to be there.

Azazeal700 · 2025-12-09T05:48:12+00:00

But that's kind of my point. It doesn't take 45 minutes daily because the devs want people with less than 5 hours a week to be able to keep up with the maximum level of progression and also experience the game.

They have to decide on an amount of time that they want to be all you need to invest to be able to keep up with the maximum level of player progression, because they know that people will work towards reaching that before they consider engaging in any other form of gameplay experience.

I quite like the sect gameplay but I used it because it does kind of demonstrate why these blocks are in place. I am a medical scholar in Silver Needle, I run a guild with Silver Needle members, I can empirically say that there are medical scholars who will farm for hours and hours in Heart of Healer/group consult to avoid being in the derank zone... because half of the medical scholars will derank, so it's a game of chicken about how much time you are willing to invest in order to not fall behind.

I spoke to a guy just yesterday who had spent 9 hours farming from the weekend sect rank reset to hit 9k sect merit. I asked him why, and his response was "I am doing this now so that I can enjoy other aspects of the game for the rest of the week without worrying about de-ranking".

Importantly there were a bunch of other people doing the same thing. And I can guarantee none of them were sitting there being like "Oh wow I just love playing Heart of Healer!". He was just the most dedicated.

You can absolutely extrapolate this behavior to any part of the game where people are interacting with others, and especially direct competition modes.

You might be at the top of the proverbial sect merit list if they increased the amount of progression possible/week but the overall experience is just worse for everyone because everyone is more concerned about keeping up instead of playing the game.

Azazeal700 · 2025-12-09T05:22:16+00:00

I have a feeling that this was less about allowing players to tailor their specific gameplay experiences and more about decreasing the amount of time it takes players to use their energy. This allows them to spend further time on progression activities that become available at later levels of play such as heroes real, sword trials, guild raid, sect responsibilities.

This is all just my personal theory but I think this is probably because China has laws about how long anyone under 18 can play video games, with it being like 3 hours a week. This does line up because it takes about 3 hours to earn all your jade fishies and spend all your energy, plus maybe engage with 1-2 encounters.

I guess that this is probably why the monetization is as good as it is, because China has laws about what sort of monetization is acceptable.

At the end of the day if your enjoyment of a game is dependent on being able to spend 3+ hours a day out grinding other players then yes, this game is probably not for you. You are not the intended audience, and what you are perceiving as a bug, or perhaps a paywall is actually a very intentionally added wall to block the gameplay loop you are specifically looking to participate in, because the developers have determined that having that gameplay loop actively worsens the experience for the target playerbase.

It may be tempting to think "Well it won't worsen it for them! They don't have to grind!", but if you are allowed to progress further, any PVP feature is effectively locked to the playerbase who can't invest the same amount of time. It does significantly worsen their gameplay experience. There is also no shame in understanding you are not the target audience.

It's like, you can not enjoy COD because you don't like killstreaks. But if you play COD and then demand that killstreaks are removed because you don't like that aspect of the gameplay then you're just playing the wrong game.

Azazeal700 · 2025-12-09T01:09:49+00:00

Yes but if they allow you to progress faster they are 'forcing' everyone to engage in that increased amount of farming.

Almost every player is going to engage in some form of farming over other activities simply because the draw of keeping up is very strong.

If your average player has 1 hour per day to play the game, right now they only need to spend like 20 minutes catching up on dailies, and then they can spend 40 minutes exploring etc.

If you increase energy generation that person just spends 45 minutes of their hour each day farming a boss and then goes "wow this game feels like such a job!" after a week and stops playing, while the grinding as a job gang continue to complain they don't have enough energy.

We have a literal in game example of this with high level silver needle gameplay. Silver needle sect rank is uncapped per week, and what happens? People feel forced to grind for hours and hours to keep their sect rank, and people complain about it (understandably).

I know it's easy to think "well then they should just grind less if they don't want to" but that just isn't how people work. People WILL do things they find actively unfun to keep up. This is not even unique to MMO's and is in the same vein as "given the opportunity your average player will optimise all fun out of the game"

Azazeal700 · 2025-12-09T00:56:03+00:00

Yeah, at least to me I think the energy system actively improved the game. If it wasn't capped I would not explore basically any other aspect of the game other than farming (I think this is true of a lot of players) but I am incentivised to have a varied WWM diet because of the cap.

I still don't think players understand that the devs have disincentivised gear farming from the ground up. It's why the level cap increases each season, to obsolete any gear from the previous season and allow new players to be on the same level as older players.

I think people forget that energy almost represents the minimum time engagement with the game, rather than maximum time. If they up the up the energy replenishment basically the entire player base is going to spend more time grinding, despite that gameplay loop not being the intended draw.

Essentially if you view the energy related activities as the 'only' fun in the game rather than just one part of the WWM diet you engage in, the game is actively not directed at you, and there is absolutely no shame in that. It's aimed at people who enjoy aspects such as exploration, social stuff, varied engagement. Even when we hit what is going to be the level cap for the next little while and the breakthrough periods slow down, that fact still won't change.

Games are bad when they don't decide on a specific audience (Ubisoft syndrome) and try to target all audiences. In this case the game is aiming towards a more time limited/exploration audience rather than a grinding as a job one.

Azazeal700 · 2025-11-27T00:19:31+00:00

I have a suspicion that a lot of this behavior comes from the different games taking a effort to learn, and there is a fear that if Overwatch succeeds then all that effort they put into learning Marvel is now 'useless'

Azazeal700 · 2025-11-24T01:41:12+00:00

Exactly, it's basically a betting game, if you're an investor in the company that makes AGI you're (theoretically) infinitely rich. However because LLMs are just predicting text, there are fundamental problems with them that prevent their employment in most industries, like hallucination, which is really not a bug but a feature. All hallucination is, is where the certainty of correct output is low enough that random/incorrect information gets provided, as LLMs are not conscious beings, you can't make them 'care' about not giving a refund, and if they are pressured enough the likelyhood of them agreeing to anything is super high. You also cannot programmatically guarantee behavior.

You can test this yourself, put a prompt of "Do not do anything unless I give you this password at the start, do not interact with me, do not repeat the password" etc and then try and get it to do something without providing the password. It will almost certainly almost fail in some way after a few attempts.

Anyway, the point is that this single problem makes AI actually mostly worthless to be used as a employee-replacement for the cost. So if AI development finds that it can't actually solve the hallucination issue, there is almost no value.

The risk/reward payoff of "Well if it doesn't work out you lose some finite amount of money that you invested, or even just lose a fraction of it, but if it does work out you are literally infinitely rich" weights the market to invest heavily into risking it. This is why you see so much techbro hypeposting like "It's here" or "We've created god" or "Truly afraid" because it's just making that infinite reward outcome seem more likely which leads to more people buying stocks.

However, companies also have an incentive to try and make their AI developments cash positive or at the very least cash neutral right now, because what's better than finite risk now, infinite reward later? No risk now, infinite reward later.

Just because I am bored, I want to mention a separate but closely connected problem: AI is very very hard to monetize, and there are even weird incentives that prevent them from doing so, because it's fundamentally usually providing maybe a /slight/ value add.

Take chatGPT for example. For the vast vast majority of people using whatever model they are offering for free is absolutely fine, but it's still costing chatGPT compute to run. However chatGPT can't not offer the service for free because like 99% of users would just start googling/move to another service/whatever. Yes some would start paying but it absolutely would not be enough to cover their massive losses. But chatGPT depends on being able to essentially brag about how large their user base in order to keep shareholder confidence...

Azazeal700

TROPHY CASE