5 Cents

A trifecta! And my final post before I go back to Reddit hibernation.

This focusing on cheating and game balance.

TL;DR in at the end.

Let’s recap Netmarble’s slights against the players of MCOC:

1. Deadpool nerf (when he originally came out)
2. The item overflow nerf (used to not have a timer)
3. Doctor Strange nerfs (at least 3 times)
4. Willpower nerf
5. Perfect Block nerf
6. 12.0 nerf
7. The wars in general, when they we’re changing the maps and difficulty non-stop
8. The sentinel debacle
9. The revive “exploit” (which now it’s not, but was deemed so back then, now bad again)
10. The Archangel “exploit”
11. The overheating of 2018
12. Act 6 (in general)
13. The yearlong control issues
14. The buff program nerf

Some of these changes we’re done “for the health of the contest and in the name of healthy competition”, or whatever shill rhetoric they want to use.

So, we have constructive criticisms regarding anything in the game, like control issues and we are shamed, insulted and reprimanded, a complete holier than thou attitude, yet the constant proof of piloting and cheating is NOT persecuted nearly as emphatic and certain situations and against certain individuals. A lot of player shaming going around as well, apparently we’re just a bunch of complainers and the players are just undeserving of anything really, how are dare any of us question anything the company does?

I ask of you, fellow summoners:

Is it astounding the current state of the game?

It’s been known for months now how unbalanced and faulty the game is, but the problem is, everyone just concentrates on their own game.

It is also widely known that cheating … happens in the game, but we’ve never asked ourselves why… Why does this happen? Is it OUR fault, or is it the companies fault?

What is considered piloting? Is it like one individual believes, that if you just move for a friend on a night you are indisposed, that is not piloting? Or if you play one match of wars, maybe a miniboss and you have the better champ to take him down, but maybe not the desired skill.

And I think this is where the problem resides. There is clearly a very loose application of the terms and conditions of this game, and what is piloting, depending on who you are.

All the time, you see posts about people getting banned, which means they do ban people, and they do have the power and the resources to do it.

We need to have a firm stand that any type of account sharing, no matter the situation, should be considered a TOS violation. When you let the small stuff slide, that’s when the avalanche starts forming. The same goes for the technical debt the game has been collecting since 12.0, neglect that has led to the current control issues.

How come time and time again those who we’re proven to be committing fraud, we’re allowed to keep playing the game?

Hard evidence people, it was proven without a shadow of a doubt, that they knowingly and willingly purchased units at lower prices by using underhanded tactics, yet those accounts we’re still allowed to play, it wasn’t until it was leaked to the press and the company felt the pressure that they relented and banned them…

For 7 days.

Yet there are people that no matter how much we deny it would have done the same thing and would have been banned, for more time or even permanently. So the issue is, they apply their rules and regulations in a way that really shows extreme favoritism. But again, is this the elite players fault?

I honestly don’t think it is, I think that the game has created a noxious environment that festers this type of behavior.

Arena is so time-consuming, some game modes have had mostly the same rewards for the past 3 years and a half. EQ quest no matter what month has the same rewards, 3 day alliance quest, alliance quest milestones, etc.

The game advances, yet some rewards stay stagnant, except…

Monetary deals

This farming nerf feels like a way to drain units, in order to incite people to get deals, and if you don’t have the units, then you might want to spend money to get them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFJo3KhcZw4&ab_channel=Movieclips 1:49 to 2:15

Clip from the movie American Gangster, as Frank Lucas tells Nicky Barnes:

What I'm talking about is when you chop my dope down to one, two, three, four, five percent and then you call it Blue Magic that is trademark infringement.

You understand what I'm saying?

With all due respect, Frank, if I buy something, I own it.

No, that ain't true. That ain't true.

If I buy a car, and I wanna paint it, I can paint the motherfucker.

Yeah, but you don't have to. This is what I'm saying to you, Nick, you don’t have to. It’s good enough the way it is. You can make enough money off it the way it is, just by calling it Blue Magic.

Anything more than that is greed, son.

I feel this applies perfectly to MCOC, a stable game with cool champs and content, is all they need to make money; all the schemes they try to pull are just things that are not needed and all they do is further alienate the company from the players.

The real villain here is Netmarble, because they are the ones who have these ridiculously unbalanced game modes and content that create these situations, they are the ones that because of their sometimes weak enforcement of the rules of their terms and conditions, have players that get away with fraud and cheating, which has ruined Battlegrounds.

Faulty game controls, lag, crashes, freezing…

And the list goes on

Netmarble’s neglect, lack of transparency and disregard of the fan base is the cause of our current plight.

If any type of account sharing was banned, if they fixed all the bugs, errors and control issues that plague the game, balance out rewards across the board, maybe people would be able to enjoy the game and not have to resort to all of this madness (frenzieddddd farminggggg) to be able to stay ahead and people would (shock) actually enjoy playing the game!

Netmarble has made the game competitiveness unattainable, because of their lack of foresight and poor management. To the point, story quest legend runs had to be cancelled because of the cheating. (Yet are shocked at the rampant cheating in BG’s and Arenas and everything competitive in the game) And the game has accumulated so much technical debt, because of this neglect and their constant tampering with the core mechanics of the game, that they are unable to fix the game.

Whenever you spend in this game, you are enabling and perpetuating this abuse.

The people have the power, not the company.

Don’t enable them, don’t spend, and don’t feed the beast and their trolls.

TL;DR: Focus on increasing the quality of life in the game, the game itself, it's content, rewards across the board and its core mechanics. Enforce the TOS with zero tolerance and be harsher against cheaters. This revive farming nerf is just something petty to focus on at the moment, once they can balance things out, then sure, take it away, but not until the game is stable and in a good place.

Now is the time to heal the game, not hurt the players.