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As with all game design decisions, there has to be a balance between competing and often contradictory requirements, and no one agrees what the balance point should be. Yes, there has to be stuff beginners can’t just do or the game is trivial, but if there’s too much stuff they just can’t do you turn them off and they go play Candy Crush.

I don’t have all the answers there: I’m not sure I have any answers there. But I think where the answers lie is that the game can have easy stuff and the game can have hard stuff and the difference between an approachable game and an inaccessible one is the degree to which there are clear paths from one to the other. Nothing is going to please everyone, but the people you want in a game like this are the people willing to progress, willing to start small and work their way up. Those are the players who will stick with the game, grow with it, be engaged by it, converts to spenders and support it. But of course, if it was that easy we’d already be doing it.

We kinda see something like that with solo raids, but that’s a very simplified and also bespoke example. Where’s the on-ramp to AW? Where’s the on-ramp to BG? Are such things even possible?

Incidentally, long ago in another life I proposed what I will call here the DNA PvP conjecture. The DNA PvP conjecture is this: No established game ever successfully adds PvP. There are lots of reasons why, but it’s an observation I made back in my old MMO days. PvE games follow a certain design philosophy, and central to that philosophy is: the player should usually win. If you make a game where the player loses most of the time, you end up with a game almost no one wants to play. Moderating difficulty is one of the most important elements of game design. But in a PvP game, that’s almost irrelevant. All PvP games have the same win/loss ratio regardless of design: 50/50. PvP games are not about difficulty, they are about equity: fair and balanced game play. To put it another way, PvP games are about being fair, and PvE games are about being properly unfair. These are almost incompatible mindsets. You can reconcile this difference at the beginning of time. But once a game is established? Good luck: you’re fighting upstream not just on game design gravity, but also against your entire playerbase.

In my opinion Battlegrounds was a great addition to the game. I’m not a top tier competitor, and I still enjoy playing it - for some definition of “enjoy”. It also causes me to want to throw my phone at the moon at times, but that’s competitive play. But its mindset clashes with the mindset that rules almost every other part of the game. The mindset everywhere else is the PvE mindset: the game should present me with a challenge that is reasonable for my strength. Whereas the mindset in PvP is: die scum.

it is hard enough dealing with FOMO in the PvE game, when our playerbase is dominated by much more casual players with casual mindsets. That problem is exacerbated to the point of intractability when it comes to competitive modes, particularly Battlegrounds. I don’t have a solution to that one either, and not for lack of trying.

No announcement. A few of us raised concern to Kabam over the implementation of this month's mysterium in incursions. Mike said he'd look into, and a few hours later it went up.

did you finish lower than last season? @Tony886

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/402362/alliance-war-season-update#latest

My 5* Aegon is rank 1

My 6* Aegon is rank 1

A simple observation, he is not what you think he is at this point in game.

One can live without him.

You don't have to forfeit to farm points. Losses in GC count almost as much as wins in VT. Just play regularly and I'm sure the losses will come naturally. It's not a big deal either way, if you play enough you'll hit all the milestones. It won't be hard.

Reddit, but you can also see Cat Murdock's logo on the image

Exactly, or how they've been playing around with the root mechanic with Cassandra, evade with Spider Woman, and reversed controls with Jean. Hell even that node from last month's EQ with Silver Samurai that prevented you from moving away while he was throwing specials could make it into an actual defender kit, then there's also inoxerable, Karolina's and Leader's mechanic where you have to stay in a specific zone within the map. There are so many fun mechanics that could and should make it into defender kits that would still allow for a decent amount counterplay instead of this "I'm tanky I deal a ton of chip damage and I shut down your masteries so you better pray you draft one of my hard counters or you're just dead" bs they've been going for for the past year or two.

Yeah, that's the thing though. People don't adapt. If you take away Onslaught, Gentle, Jean, and Captain Britain. Then there are no counters to Yelena. They release more counters to defenders after they come out. It's in the video you didn't watch yet feel the need to comment on.

We ban cheaters in Battlegrounds every day, unfortunately there isn't a way to ban them before they cheat