I am aware there is a thread where feedback regarding relics is welcomed. However, after having the chance to actually play/test relics, and taking into consideration the overall reaction to relics, I felt it was necessary to create a more detailed feedback thread.

The list is based off my interactions/discussions with players on my team/other top spending teams, players from Armor Gaming Alliance Discord chat(mostly younger free players), and my personal experience with relics.

A List of Concerns and Issues Regarding Relics

[BUGS/GLITCHES]

• There are a myriad of bugs and abusable glitches with relics,
  virtually all speed altering relics will cause turns to be skipped when the speed changes comes into play and when the speed changes leave play. Speed altering effects has always been an issue in ML, however in the past, the game designers basically scraped that idea by nerfing slow/haste effects to the point no one would use them. Social point was aware of this and still choose to incorporate these broken mechanics into the new content.

• Many healing potions, that state “When being hit, if the wearer's Life is below “x”%, heals it by “Y” amount” were not properly tested and is an exploitable mechanic . Yes, the potion does recover life when the life drops below a certain percentage, but the potion also triggers when a monster’s life is reduced to 0 and healing it by such amount. This essentially prevents death, and makes it impossible to kill a monster in a single turn. These potions are available across all relic qualities and severely impacts the game. It is an unfair and highly exploitable glitch that should be urgently addressed.

[QUALITY]

• One inconsistency involves the wording of several relics. Relics that state “When entering battle” for the most part triggered before combat takes place. However, with trap relics, the same cannot be said, as the relic triggers on contact, when the relic holder gets hit.

• Another concern is the existence of inferior relics. There are relics within the same quality tier that are strictly inferior to another relic within the same quality tier.
  Take for example these two diamond quality relics.
  
  There is no reason to use Cane of the Atlantis over Balthasar’s mask aside from the fact they are different relic slots, which they themselves seems to be arbitrarily assigned to monsters. It is a flawed design to create strictly better/worse relics within the same quality tier, it was a lazy design and was a convenient way for Social Point to push out more relics.

[GAMEPLAY]
The game is monster legends, and many feel the emphasis of the game has always revolved around the monsters. While items like runes and relics, should be treated as supplements to the core of the game, monsters.

However that is not the case for relics. Upon release, it was pretty clear relics were going to be more than "supplementary items". The actual power level of relics is so far out of line compared to the other aspects of the game such as the monsters themselves. It seems that it is more important to have a powerful relic than to have a powerful monster.

[PLAYER EXPERIENCE]
The player experience is an important aspect for long lasting games and is no different for Monster Legends. Social point should have been more considerate and drawn more feedback from the community during the development of relics.

For the most part, relics were negatively received by the top teams based on my observations and interactions with other spending players on top teams. The poor implementation of relics makes many believe that Social Point was willing to ruin player experience and the longevity of the game for short term profits.

The decision to release grossly powerful items to the game devalues the player experience. Relics are a new addition to the game that essentially makes monster ranking and runes secondary. The effort, time and money spent on ranking up monsters and obtaining high level runes becomes insignificant compared to relics.

[AVAILABILITY]
Two majors concerns in regards to relics are, the availability of relics and chests that contain relics. We understand relics are supposed to be developed over a long period of time. But we are asking why are relics for the most part exclusive only through in game purchases?

• The introduction of the lab and the monster ranking system was designed to be a long term progression, but it also involved smaller spenders and the “free player” base. It came in the form of ranking breedable legends and the ranking of generals by buying multiple copies of the same general from the War Shop.

• With the rune system, casual/free players can obtain high level runes through the crafting of lower level runes, and level 1 runes can be bought with gold from the Rune shop.

Which begs the question, why the sudden change of direction and ostracize a large majority of the player base by making relics all but impossible to obtain except through in game purchases?

Making relics extremely powerful and limiting their obtainability through only spending, shows that Social Point has changed for the worst.
They are going away from a system that made the game popular and was accessible to the masses.
To a system that requires spending in order to experience new content and an exorbitant amount of spending to reach the max level.

[CHEST CONTENTS]
Relics are obtained from chests, and chests are priced at 95, 375, and 985 gems. These same chests also often yield level 1 runes, gold, food, and consumable items. Considering the price of these chests, players feel cheated by this new gambling system after paying 985 gems only to find a large portion of the rewards are useless/insignificant items. Chest fillers should be drastically reduced or removed completely from the loot table.

[ PRICING]
Each legend monster has 2 relic slots. Comparatively speaking, the cost to get the best relics and max the relics is astronomical compared to past contents such as monster ranking and runes.

• To obtain and rank a legendary to level 130, it takes 18 eggs priced at 249 gems per egg, 4500 gems total. And often it is possible to obtain several copies of a monster by simply playing the game and cell donations from a team.

• A level 10 rune costs 345 gems during a rune sale, and three level 10 runes to fully equip a monster costs 1035 gems. Runes can be obtained and ranked through the crafting system. Players can complete their rune sets through crafting, starting with level 1 runes, paying for level 10 runes at 345 gems, or a mix of both crafting/spending.

• There are 8 different diamond relics. The most expensive chest does not even guarantee a diamond relic, and based off observations, the odds of getting a diamond relic from the 985 gem chest is below 1:1. So in order to obtain a specific diamond relic, it would on average require more than 8 chests. Each chest priced at 985 gems. Over 7,880 gems. This doesn't even include the cost to rank up a diamond relic to max.

The current pricing of relics and the gambling involved to obtain relics is far out of line compared to past content. And limited availability ostracizes casual players, and forces spenders to pay an exorbitant amount of money to own powerful relics or not bother with relics at all because they have been priced out to play competitively.

In conclusion, chests often contain useless items or an inferior relics which makes the experience of buying a chest unrewarding. We wish for the removal of filler items and the removal/change of inferior relics as well as a change to the current pricing, to one that is similar to the price point of past contents.

according to facebook and gopetition...how about the removal of relics..period

@DeanoSmith said in A List of Concerns and Issues Regarding Relics:

according to facebook and gopetition...how about the removal of relics..period

Negotiations are done with compromises from both sides. Asking one side to take complete loss, does't really leave much option for Social Point but to decline.

admirable...you sir, are a scholar and a gentleman..I wish you godspeed with the negotiations

Great post Pyle and thanks for the efforts.

If you haven't done so people please fill out the survey as it was created for us by us to give data in our defence as we try and resolve this issue - you have a voice. Monster Legends Relics Survey: amortech.typeform. com/to/NK2k4v)

EDIT: No live links permitted.

@pvtpyle I think the game will be so much better when they finally run off the big spenders and the game fails. I bought two vip, mostly regret it. Bought a couple level 10 runes. At this point I wouldn't spend another cent on this game or any other ran by this company. They ruined it for this game and every other one they have anything to do with. I started playing about a year an a half ago or so. EVERY Single thing they have done to the game since then has been a BAD thing that makes the game LESS fun for me. Even the things I like such as the vault was poorly done.

The relics offer nothing new, nothing of any value as it pertains to FUN.

Adding gambling to the game to swindle the big spenders even more, I can't think of anything positive to say about it.

Good list very well composed.

I'm 100% in agreement the speed relics need to be fixed. There are several bugs they are causing and speed is one of the most popular "buffs" in the game that players focus on so the importance of this fix is higher than most.

As for the "heal" relics preventing death, are we sure that's not an intended purpose? Do away with all the OHK and actually make these true battles??

As for the trap relics activating when the wearer is touched, yeah that one kind of makes sense can they clear up the descriptions sure more details is always helpful.

I don't get your point about inferior relics in the same class, we have inferior monsters with the same elements so that kind of fits the pattern, some diamond relics are more desireable. Same with runes, how many X strength and Speed runes do people have vs X stamina runes??? Something being better than something else even at the same level is nothing new.

Feom what I've seen a lot of the negative player experience stems from bugs in the relics, like I said the speed based ones are super prevalent due to the importance of speed and those are ones that are bugged so it appears there are widespread issues but its the same issue with the most popular buffs. The rest of the complaints are about the cost and randomness of what comes from the create and that's fine, a player can chose to not buy crates if they don't want to.

The availability is limited but then again they've only been out for about a week so we have yet to see if there will be dungons, or other events with relics so right now its to soon to comment on availabilty.

Pricing is horrid!! If they do sales (like with runes) I think you'll find much better reception to them. But again with relics just being released we don't know if they have intended sales on them yet or not. There are supposed to be sales on vault slots but we haven't seen those yet either.

All in all, its waayyy to early to tell what kind of impact this will have. Too bad their wasn't this kind of outrage when the lab came out, but then there wouldn't be this HUGE power gap in teams if they hadn't done that.

You have to remember that prices on things like relics will be determined by what people are willing to pay for them. Relics are imaginary things--there is no material cost so the price is somewhat arbitrary. They had to pay programmers to add it to the app but that's it.

So the starting price is kind of a test on SP's part. Then they will track how popular relics are at that price.

If people absolutely reject spending this much on relics, you will see lots of "sale" prices. If people can't stop spending at the current price, prices will remain high or even go up.

So really it's the player base, not SP, that will determine how much relics cost. You are just seeing an initial "feeler" price.

After playing many of these on-line "clicky" games, I've learned that the games within the game that are based on gambling are always the worst values. Lots of games have added these "mystery chests" to try to bring out the gambler in all of us. For the best bang-for-your-buck, spend gems on a sure thing like a legendary on sale for 249 or a rune at a good sale price.

this post sums up the relics perfectly!! Just one thing though.. @Fox created a post on the relics feedback thread and she is looking for questions and feedback about relics. Perhaps you wanna copy and paste your response there so that she is aware of it?

Thanks , for a Great article , well articulated ! I’m passing info along .

Pray community stays united for 1 cause and SP hears us all . All Men Are Banded together at this point .

@drewish said in A List of Concerns and Issues Regarding Relics:

As for the "heal" relics preventing death, are we sure that's not an intended purpose? Do away with all the OHK and actually make these true battles??

I could in theory put that healing relic on a level 4 monster and all the damage in the world would not be able to kill it in a singular turn. The damage is registered, the HP is reduced to 0, and then finally the healing takes place, thus preventing death.
I do not think that is an intended effect, because many of these healing potions, have 2 charges. That means I would have to take 3 turns to kill off a monster if the potion was in play.

@drewish said in A List of Concerns and Issues Regarding Relics:

I don't get your point about inferior relics in the same class, we have inferior monsters with the same elements so that kind of fits the pattern, some diamond relics are more desireable. Same with runes, how many X strength and Speed runes do people have vs X stamina runes??? Something being better than something else even at the same level is nothing new.

The term "strictly superior/inferior" means to be better in at least one characteristic while not being any worse in annother characteristic.

A lv 8 speed rune is strictly better than a lv 7 speed rune. A lv 8 stamina and a lv 8 speed are neither are strictly superior/inferior to each other because they offer completely different benefits.

As for relics, it is perfectly fine for a gold to be strictly better than a silver quality relic. It becomes an issue is when there are strictly superior/inferior relics within the same tier quality. In the example i used above, Bathasar's mask is strictly better than Cane of the Atlantis. They do exactly the same thing, except one has a requirement.

Yes games often have strictly superior/inferior items/gear/monsters/etc, but that usually happens over time and due to power creep.
Relics are a brand new game addition, and it already has strictly superior/inferior relics. It basically means SP wanted to release more relics, not quality relics.

@Tara-Nicole-Martin said in A List of Concerns and Issues Regarding Relics:

Please don’t use forums for a personal platform for interpersonal issues your strugggling with in that closing signature remark .

https://forums.socialpointgames.com/topic/5/forum-rules-and-guidelines

@pvtpyle I've only played for less than half a year - so i'm not too familiar with the development of the game.
but i've always wondered why haste and slow moves have such crappy chances to apply even though in game graphics show much higher chances. first i considered it to be a bug that affects only specific monsters... just to find out it's not.
...thanks for clarification! ...so they decided to bring in these moves, finding out they're too powerful and instead of trying to balance the mechanics they just make them so bad that these moves seem to be entirely useless... and leave it with that!?!
that alone would have been reason enough for me to stop spending money on that game if i ever had.
over a year ago i played dragon soul spending ~4 bucks/month for daily gems which i considered to be an ok price for a mobile game that was really fun when i started. with that budget you could usually buy new monsters when they came out (if you didn't waste your gems on useless sh*t) and therefore increase your options of team building.
it was quite similar to ml - there were lots of different monsters with tons of different abilities, some were strong, some fast, some had great life and it was all about finding combinations of monsters that would enhance each other. in some scenarios you would put up a team that has the best average outcome (pvp arena -defense) and sometimes you would build a team that targets a very specific problem set by a specific opponent.
i was in a top 10 guild and i was amongst the top 5 players in that guild for quite some time even though others spend way more money than i did... maybe due to regular exchange of experience with two or three other members of the guild who also approached the gameplay in a kind of scientific way.
what really killed the game for me and lots of other top players around me was the introduction of a very similar rune system - the percentages of change to the monster's stats were just way too high to fit in the previous game mechnics... and you could just buy them right away... for real money.
so if you were used play on high ranks (like i was) due to strategy (...and spending a small amount of money) you could easily get disappointed by monkeys spending tons of money winning over you just because they can afford it and you can't or don't want to spend hundreds of bucks on a mobile game.
i would consider giving a 10% rise on base stats for a full rune set a fair number to diversify strategies and at the same time keep chances of winning in balance.
...but 50%... to buy... or not to buy!?!
my voltaik has two lv6 runes each giving +100% stamina and a lv6 strength rune giving 66%... that is just nuts and bananas at the same time!
it makes 100k damage "in one turn" - which is simply insane.
these one shot options instead of slowly grinding your enemy by a succession of good decisions make the game mind numbingly repetetive.
i'm glad i already had my lesson on exploitive game mechanics implied on purpose by developers earlier.
it is entirely senseless to spend a penny in these kind of games to have an advantage since there will be monkeys who spend hundreds on digital candy that doesn't even look good (compared to wow for example) and there will always be the next collectible ahead that you'll need, to have a chance of winning... and then you have those major bugs occuring as the game is stuffed with new items that aren't ever really adressed, because devs are working on new bugs to be implied.
maybe i will make a contribution by once buying zyla or sth, but i consider regular spending to get ahead to be senseless... it's a bottomless pit.

@drewish said in A List of Concerns and Issues Regarding Relics:

. Too bad their wasn't this kind of outrage when the lab came out, but then there wouldn't be this HUGE power gap in teams if they hadn't done that.

A bit off topic but there was on old forum but no one listened