I’m curious about how many people who voted yes would also be cool with new content that wasn’t a time-based competition.
I don’t think this is an either-or situation.
If I understand the issue correctly, the divide falls into two schools of thought:
a.) Burnout Prevention (BP) School: Boss events provide a period of downtime for competitive players.
Pros: Allows those that play the game competitively a moment to catch their breath
It also is a good time for players to do the Simulator event
Cons: Less opportunities to earn rewards
Potential decrease in user engagement
b. Moar please (MP) school: Boss events are not enough. There needs to be supplementary content.
Pros: More opportunities to earn rewards for everyone
Keeps users engaged
Cons: Risk of burnout and/or disillusionment with the game
The MP school has a legitimate criticism of the BP school in that if a player wants to take a break, they are free to take an event off at their own discretion. What is often called “No one is forcing you to play” critique.
On the other hand, a significant factor of what drives competitive play and spending in this game is the Fear OF Missing Out (FOMO) effect.
Obviously it is in the dev team’s best interest to try to appease both groups. For me, at least, the solution seems obvious:
Create new events that aren’t time-based competitions. For example, an Iso-8 Bonanza event that only allows the player to use villains characters (and maybe Deadpool?) in an attempt to steal Iso-8 from some kind of Fort Knox-like storage facility. Give players a chance to pull a heist. Rewards consisting mostly of Iso-8 and maybe and odd Heroic Token or Two. And oh yeah, throw in one beginner support token, too.
Make it so a new player can earn enough Iso-8 to at least be able to champ a 3* star or two. Give new players an event they can look forward to.
Obviously not every event should have the same rewards. They can run a Mercs for Hero Points event that gives out extra HP, a Cosmic Collision event for CP, etc.
Or they could repurpose shelved content like the original Gauntlet or Boss Rush.
With the original Gauntlet, make the first sub set at a difficulty for 3 star roster level with rewards relevant for that peer group (more ISO, less CP for example, Elite tokens and some Heroic), the second sub for 4 star level rosters (more CP, less ISO, replace Elite tokes with Heroics and some Mighty Tokens) and the last sub for 5 star rosters (even more CP, even less ISO, Mighty tokens and two Classic LTs and one normal LT).
You could even do it Heroic style and restrict the usable characters for each sub meaning the first sub a player can use only 1*-3* characters, the second sub 3*-4* characters, and last sub 5* characters only. That should help cut down on winfinite combos if that be a concern.
I guess for me personally, there is just so much they could do instead of running the same type of PvE events that I find it a bit baffling this isn’t what people are asking for.
Broken Circle is still relatively new and it’s good to see them trying new things but I definitely believe there are solutions that don’t alienate either schools of thought on the issue.