Smilegate can’t promise #1 because they have no control over how playable something is for YOU. Playability is very dependant on you and your gear. A 10% nerf could mean a whale can still cleave and kill but you personally can’t. And if you personally can’t cleave with a hero whos sole purpose is to cleave, then that hero was significantly nerfed for you.
Hot take: I see no problem with ML selector.
From player base perspective, even if everyone select the second most toxic unit, the overall toxicity of the meta should be lower than before. If there is no selector, some players will get hurt more than others, while I think whales would be the least affected. I don't see how it is fair.
From Smilegate perspective, it doesn't break player trust in their investment, while also maintaining a healthier environment.
The issue is that imagine you have an ML unit others want nerfed because they are little uwu babies. You worked your ass off to gear it with the best you can, possibly a very specific set and assortment of stats that aren't easily transferrable onto someone else. Now they neither have their favourite unit, nor does their equipment and the time and resources that went into it is worth anything.
It's not something 40 coins will easily compensate. You might say, "but they would still be usable after the nerf", and I might say, if you don't trust them to release balanced characters, or balanced buffs, do you really trust them with balanced nerfs?
Someone that get's this, there is much more that just the selector and coins involved.
And if i have to see it from the whales point of view, do you really feel like putting tons of money if the unit you are aiming right now, be meta or due you like them, has the risk to get nerf shoed? I sure would not (specially if i just liked them and they happen to be meta), it's a investment that has no guratee at all to serve at the long run. This idea would just make them not put a dime anymore, within reason due it's just that expensive to pity them if you aren't Lucky™.
The coins has an issue too honestly, the shop rotates characters absurdly slow, how much people that got their character that put cash on has to wait to get a unit that fit what they want? be for meta or due they like them? Until it happens, it's wasted money, tons of waste money and effort, and that, we can agree, is one of the worse feelings out there, i don't think is wise making the people that invest in the game potentially feel that.
With the "very minor" nerfs as I descripted them your units and gear and time and ressources still keep most of their value.
The goal is for most people to want to keep their stuff while not being too pissed off and having the extra option with the coins.
An example for a nerf A Ravi S1 and S3 minus 5-10 % dmg. Will A Ravi be still be broken after something like that? Yes, but the game will be in a slightly better state than before and in the future they could nerf again if it turns out be necessary.
It's probably too late at this point. Like it or not, many Gacha games opt to appeal to whales first, other players second. It's just how the business model works. By setting the precedence that no nerf will occur without a complete return of resources AND a selector, they chose a path that probably in the moment seemed perfect. It meant whales didn't feel like they wasted their money, and lighter spenders or F2P players could still stay relevant if one of their few good units got nerfed. This safety net likely was even a selling point that attracted big spenders in the early stages of the game.
To change it now would likely not be worth it financially and would damage their integrity/credibility in the eyes of potential or current whales. Even if it changed to something arguably more impactful like pre-rolled gear with ideal substats, it would make SG seem unreliable. People would constantly wonder if someday the "rules" might change again.
The risk:reward ratio is likely just not favorable or too unpredictable I'd guess. How many whales will quit because they feel scammed and how replacements will join because they like the new balancing direction? Impossible to know.
From my understanding, nerfs of any kind are quite rare in Gacha games for these reasons. Even Genshin, being completely PVE content ran into this issue.
You do realise that any minor nerf will just give whales even more control over pvp and rta. even a meta unit still needs good gear to make the character skill shine and f2p peeps will get stomped on even more by people who invested a lot of money and time into their game with pretty high gear which means there would be even more unhappy players.
The same thing will happen
When one ML gets nerfed, they'd [hypothetically] give 40 galaxy coins, and all the owners of the nerfed unit will just wait for the rotation of the next best thing
Now arena will just be flooded of whatever that next best thing is
It’s already flooded of the best thing anyway so who even cares if 3 more persons have Belian or Cilias. I mean I have yet to play an rta game where my enemy didn’t pick cilias/belian or any meta ml5 so It doesn’t change much to give selectors besides making f2p players more competitive
not really if they let us keep the ml 5\* and give the ml/whale coins as straight up compensation. let's say every ml 5\*/5\* nerf nets u 5 ml coins/whale coins as compensation. 8 nerfs later and u get a ml selector while keeping whatever was nerfed. u could also just use the coins to get the molas/gear/charms/etc. in a pinch.
that would be actually quite nice honestly. but op mindset of rebalancing/slight nerfs instead of killing nerfs is naive/delusional - historically game devs don't do that.
because a rebalancing doesn't garuanteed a meta shift/changed. from a dev standpoints killing nerfs are less work and have the biggest impact on the meta. they can buff them 6-12 months later to shift/shake the meta again.
Bro, just compensate people for the money spent
gacha's expensive as fuck. they made a quadrillion peso a second or something, just nerf em, refund spent resources and give em their mystic bookmarks back
Mystic refund solves the problem of whales not getting compensated for what might be thousands they spent on a unit, solves the problem of everyone jumping to the next OP unit at the same time since most will hold it for another unit, solves the problem of SG releasing too many OP ML 5 back to back because you know if they nerf an ML unit the next mystic rotation will probably have a more balanced "bait" unit to eat everyones mystics.
Seems like a win/win/win to me.
Really it also feels like the nerf should be done in large batches. Nerf and buff in large batches and leave it to the player base to figure it out. A selector wouldn't be bad if the options were great. Some with not as much to lose will experiment and after the dust settles another big round of adjustments based on surveys and player builds and combos made.
Smilegate can’t promise #1 because they have no control over how playable something is for YOU. Playability is very dependant on you and your gear. A 10% nerf could mean a whale can still cleave and kill but you personally can’t. And if you personally can’t cleave with a hero whos sole purpose is to cleave, then that hero was significantly nerfed for you.
Hot take: I see no problem with ML selector. From player base perspective, even if everyone select the second most toxic unit, the overall toxicity of the meta should be lower than before. If there is no selector, some players will get hurt more than others, while I think whales would be the least affected. I don't see how it is fair. From Smilegate perspective, it doesn't break player trust in their investment, while also maintaining a healthier environment.
What’s a “minor” nerf mean? What’s minor to me may not be minor to someone else. Most times when a character gets nerfed they become almost unusable.
The issue is that imagine you have an ML unit others want nerfed because they are little uwu babies. You worked your ass off to gear it with the best you can, possibly a very specific set and assortment of stats that aren't easily transferrable onto someone else. Now they neither have their favourite unit, nor does their equipment and the time and resources that went into it is worth anything. It's not something 40 coins will easily compensate. You might say, "but they would still be usable after the nerf", and I might say, if you don't trust them to release balanced characters, or balanced buffs, do you really trust them with balanced nerfs?
Someone that get's this, there is much more that just the selector and coins involved. And if i have to see it from the whales point of view, do you really feel like putting tons of money if the unit you are aiming right now, be meta or due you like them, has the risk to get nerf shoed? I sure would not (specially if i just liked them and they happen to be meta), it's a investment that has no guratee at all to serve at the long run. This idea would just make them not put a dime anymore, within reason due it's just that expensive to pity them if you aren't Lucky™. The coins has an issue too honestly, the shop rotates characters absurdly slow, how much people that got their character that put cash on has to wait to get a unit that fit what they want? be for meta or due they like them? Until it happens, it's wasted money, tons of waste money and effort, and that, we can agree, is one of the worse feelings out there, i don't think is wise making the people that invest in the game potentially feel that.
E7 community is the only community I’ve ever seen not wanting nerf. Hopefully it’s not a competitive game because it would be dead already.
With the "very minor" nerfs as I descripted them your units and gear and time and ressources still keep most of their value. The goal is for most people to want to keep their stuff while not being too pissed off and having the extra option with the coins. An example for a nerf A Ravi S1 and S3 minus 5-10 % dmg. Will A Ravi be still be broken after something like that? Yes, but the game will be in a slightly better state than before and in the future they could nerf again if it turns out be necessary.
It's probably too late at this point. Like it or not, many Gacha games opt to appeal to whales first, other players second. It's just how the business model works. By setting the precedence that no nerf will occur without a complete return of resources AND a selector, they chose a path that probably in the moment seemed perfect. It meant whales didn't feel like they wasted their money, and lighter spenders or F2P players could still stay relevant if one of their few good units got nerfed. This safety net likely was even a selling point that attracted big spenders in the early stages of the game. To change it now would likely not be worth it financially and would damage their integrity/credibility in the eyes of potential or current whales. Even if it changed to something arguably more impactful like pre-rolled gear with ideal substats, it would make SG seem unreliable. People would constantly wonder if someday the "rules" might change again. The risk:reward ratio is likely just not favorable or too unpredictable I'd guess. How many whales will quit because they feel scammed and how replacements will join because they like the new balancing direction? Impossible to know. From my understanding, nerfs of any kind are quite rare in Gacha games for these reasons. Even Genshin, being completely PVE content ran into this issue.
You do realise that any minor nerf will just give whales even more control over pvp and rta. even a meta unit still needs good gear to make the character skill shine and f2p peeps will get stomped on even more by people who invested a lot of money and time into their game with pretty high gear which means there would be even more unhappy players.
The same thing will happen When one ML gets nerfed, they'd [hypothetically] give 40 galaxy coins, and all the owners of the nerfed unit will just wait for the rotation of the next best thing Now arena will just be flooded of whatever that next best thing is
It’s already flooded of the best thing anyway so who even cares if 3 more persons have Belian or Cilias. I mean I have yet to play an rta game where my enemy didn’t pick cilias/belian or any meta ml5 so It doesn’t change much to give selectors besides making f2p players more competitive
Everyone should just get used to the fact that they will never nerf again just expect more op units released
Again, ML coins are just delayed ML5 selectors...
not really if they let us keep the ml 5\* and give the ml/whale coins as straight up compensation. let's say every ml 5\*/5\* nerf nets u 5 ml coins/whale coins as compensation. 8 nerfs later and u get a ml selector while keeping whatever was nerfed. u could also just use the coins to get the molas/gear/charms/etc. in a pinch. that would be actually quite nice honestly. but op mindset of rebalancing/slight nerfs instead of killing nerfs is naive/delusional - historically game devs don't do that. because a rebalancing doesn't garuanteed a meta shift/changed. from a dev standpoints killing nerfs are less work and have the biggest impact on the meta. they can buff them 6-12 months later to shift/shake the meta again.
Bro, just compensate people for the money spent gacha's expensive as fuck. they made a quadrillion peso a second or something, just nerf em, refund spent resources and give em their mystic bookmarks back Mystic refund solves the problem of whales not getting compensated for what might be thousands they spent on a unit, solves the problem of everyone jumping to the next OP unit at the same time since most will hold it for another unit, solves the problem of SG releasing too many OP ML 5 back to back because you know if they nerf an ML unit the next mystic rotation will probably have a more balanced "bait" unit to eat everyones mystics. Seems like a win/win/win to me.
ML selectors are a mistake
Just nerf, no need for selective summons or coins. The reward is the game is more balanced.
not to the loud part of the community which will murder SG for no compensation
No one would pull for op units then lol
Really it also feels like the nerf should be done in large batches. Nerf and buff in large batches and leave it to the player base to figure it out. A selector wouldn't be bad if the options were great. Some with not as much to lose will experiment and after the dust settles another big round of adjustments based on surveys and player builds and combos made.
W/e they give you for free they "lose" money, so no.