The poll has been open for a week and we’ve had 66 voters so it’s time to do the analysis on it!
Nothing I write here is meant to make anyone feel bad about their opinion. Every opinion is valid feedback and this poll was just trying to figure out how many people thought each thing.
The intent of this poll was actually to:
- Figure out if the number of people badly affected by the restriction list, and whether they are a minority.
- Separate people’s feedback into groups, where I can then figure out what the biggest factors are that make people unhappy about the restriction list and whether they correlate to distinct sections of the community.
- See how representative the forum community is of the community as a whole (hero rank-wise).
The answer to that third point is easy… we quite clearly have very few low rank players compared to the number actually playing the game. Correlating the feedback I got and people’s posts on the forum it appears the lower rank players have a significantly higher percentage who are positive about the restriction list. Hence, this positivity is probably not properly reflected in our feedback on the forum.
Before I get to the numbers I have to say that when I spoke directly to lots of people it was surprising how many people had incorrectly answered the poll about the number of restricted legendaries they have. I think many were also counting their mythics and 0-5* monsters that were restricted but in some cases it wasn’t even this. In most cases they were miscounting by selecting they had more than they actually owned. Sorry if my poll was unclear and while the focus was on legendaries I did take into account people’s restricted mythics and SEs where relevant.
So here were the reasons that people were unhappy about the restricted list but were still able to make the same power level teams with their account:
- Restricted creativity for the teams they want to build (sometimes just distaste for this specific list that’s restricting them)
- Affects top spenders with many mythics less
- Wanting to use whatever they like, typically S+ spam
- Used most of the legendary potions on these restricted monsters
(1) was a complaint that came scattered across all level of players and seems to be closely tied to a general dislike for the restriction list system.
(2) was primarily from high level players and seemed to be a minority group of passionate people (most people just cared about how it affected them).
(3) is not to be confused with (1), this group were very much against the restriction list and seem to be a relatively minority group.
(4) was something that only came up from newer players / those with smaller collections. It appeared to be the primary concern for these people.
Here’s my altered results of the poll, taking into account all the extra data I was able to gather from talking to people…
| No. of restricted legendaries | Reaction | Vote count | Percentage of their restriction group | Percentage of total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6+ | Happy | 22 | 61.1% | 33.3% |
| 6+ | Unhappy | 10 | 27.8% | 15.2% |
| 6+ | Powered down | 4 | 11.1% | 6.1% |
| 4-5 | Happy | 5 | 33.3% | 7.6% |
| 4-5 | Unhappy | 6 | 40% | 9.1% |
| 4-5 | Powered down | 4 | 26.7% | 6.1% |
| 0-3 | Happy / unaffected | 12 | 80% | 18.2% |
| 0-3 | Unhappy | 3 | 20% | 4.5% |
So a few things which are reasonably clear:
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The 4-5 legendaries group is definitely the one having a harder time with the restriction list, both being powered down the most and being unhappy the most.
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The number of people in the 4-5 group is higher than in the original poll - as I explained at the beginning a bunch of people were saying they had 6+ when they actually had 4-5. This accounted for a high proportion of those unhappy in the 6+ category.
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The number of people in the 6+ group that are genuinely powered down is fairly low (11.1%). I was being very generous when categorising this and it simply seems to be the case that the majority (10/14) of people with large collections who are not happy with the restrictions to their team building have problems with some of the four things listed above the table (which is valid feedback).
Some bits which are not clear from the table, but were interesting points I found while data collecting:
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A couple of the people with 6+ legendaries who were powered down were not overly bothered by it. The people who were passionately unhappy about being powered down were the ones with 4-5 restricted legendaries. I’m not quite sure what to take from this… that perhaps people with more high power, overused monsters are more understanding that they need to be restricted?
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There were definitely some people who had specifically targeted top PvP monsters and managed to get them without picking up a lot of other good monsters along the way. However, they were a small minority.
Final conclusions
The data from this poll is not 100% accurate and should not be taken as such. I did my absolute best to work with what I had and account for unknowns to get the best information I could.
The vast majority of people care most about how the restriction list affects themselves. For a large percentage of the playerbase (not properly represented by the poll due to all our veterans here) this means they simply get the benefit of a more diverse PvP that changes every two months. For the competitive crowd and the veterans there are mixed feelings, with minority groups hating the list outright or how it disproportionately powers down some people versus top spenders. The larger unhappy groups here seem to be those who are being affected quite heavily and those who find the restrictions getting in the way of them building some teams.
The players which are most unhappy and most affected by restriction list appear to be those who are at the point where they have to give up a couple of the monsters (they own 4-5). Once players own more they typically have enough other options in their collection and feel less passionate about complaining too.
Suggestions for improvement @Dev_VKC:
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Purposefully try to un-restrict monsters that have been on the list, at least periodically. For example, if a monster has been (1) for four months in a row then it gets removed from the list completely for the next two months. Also, each time the (1) category monsters should be considered dropping to (2) for the next list rather than staying at (1). This is to address both people who are specifically targeted by the list because those are their best monsters and to let people simply have an opportunity to use them in a team without their creativity being penalised.
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Pick restricted mythics based on which of the awakened forms are most used, not second forms. This is so it’s properly targeting the top spenders, while the legendary restrictions target the other players.
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When a new restriction list is announced, grant everyone 3 legendary potions. I know that’s a big number, but it’s what we need for a TU reduction. This is will perfectly address the primary problem for newer players and hopefully avoid any “feels bad” for people putting potions into monsters that become restricted.
If anyone has other suggestions then be sure to write them!