Marvel's Avengers developer seeks to better explain why it's increasing XP grind
"We caused confusion, we get it."
Crystal Dynamics has issued a further statement on its upcoming Marvel's Avengers XP changes that will soon increase the game's later levelling grind. The developer also admitted its initial explanation was "not comprehensive enough" and had "caused confusion".
The XP changes were originally detailed last week in a blog post on the Marvel's Avengers website, along with a warning that any player who wanted to avoid the lengthier grind had until 18th March (the day these changes hit) to level up characters first.
"While it's tempting to read the increased grind as a cynical attempt at keeping players embroiled in the Avengers' live service game for longer," our reporter Matt Wales summarised last week, "Crystal Dynamics insists the goal is to fix pacing issues with the existing levelling system, arguing the speed the game currently awards skill points 'may be confusing and overwhelming' to newer players."
Now, in acknowledgement its own statement was confusing to fans, a new statement from Crystal Dynamics has been posted to the game's official reddit.
"We wanted to offer more clarification and details on the recently announced XP change: we did not change XP to increase grind for grind's sake," an account attributed to Crystal Dynamics wrote. "Our initial blog was not comprehensive enough to convey what we were doing and why... so we caused confusion... we get it.
"The problem we were seeing, and hearing, was that you would immediately get more skill points than you had time to review, apply, and get used to, before embarking on your next mission and gaining your next few levels. Hopefully, you can see the issue here.
"We want people to level up, in fact, we really want to see more people level up more Heroes, as playing the full Avenger roster should be the most fun thing you can do, but we don't want the leveling up experience to be too overwhelming or diminish exploring each skill purchase."
After the XP changes are applied, players are designed to level up every "2-4 missions" when at higher levels, as opposed to "once or twice per mission" currently. At the same time, lower levels will be acquired a little faster.
Overall, the changes will likely add "around 3-5 hours to reach the maxmium level" per character, Crystal Dynamics concluded.
Initial fan reaction to the changes does not appear to have been altered by this latest explanation, with the most common complaint being that the game's main issue is not a levelling problem but of a lack of content to level through.
Overall, the game's reddit is a mix of threads from fans still hopeful Marvel's Avengers can be turned around by the addition of future characters, and comparisons to other struggling live service games such as BioWare's Anthem. There are worries about the game's lack of roadmap, complaints about performance issues and bugs, and questions such as - when exactly will that controversial PlayStation-exclusive Spider-Man actually arrive?
Crystal Dynamics' XP and cosmetics rework will come to Marvel's Avengers on 18th March alongside new playable hero Hawkeye and the long-awaited PS5 and Xbox Series X/S update.