Specific Suggestions for 6.2 Rework
Hype4Avengers
Member Posts: 19 ★
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CFB4tHaRhUHaving just completed 6.2 100% f2p, I thought I would put down my thoughts on the changes that need to be made to tone it down, while its still fresh in my mind. I don't think I'll make it to the player focus group because I haven't explored 6.3 and 6.4 yet, so I hope their recommendations will be similar to this. Just for perspective, I don't have ghost and quake and a few of the other common solutions. The premise of these suggestions is to make 6.2 more accessible, beyond just the people with huge rosters and incredible skill. I'll try and include some things that I liked as well. This will be long so in summary, I enjoyed most of 6.2 barring 6.2.5 and No Retreat Champion.
6.2.1
I thought this quest was great. Lifecycle is one of the best nodes of 6.2: it relies on skill, doesn't limit your roster since any champion can do it, tricky with stun immunity but that can be worked around. The boss was pretty easy too and none of the paths were particularly painful. I don't think anything needs to be changed here.
6.2.2
Let's start by talking about the boss. It's common knowledge that this Sinister has very few counters and is horrible design. I was lucky enough to have Hyperion during my initial clear and Warlock+Heimdall+Angela for exploration. I got several one shots with Warlock and didn't use any revives in exploration. I tried the Warlock+Ultron synergy but there were too many fury buffs and I got destroyed by emp mod. So, suggestions:
1) SINISTER: Remove E.M.P Modification. So that the Ultron synergy is a viable option and people aren't dependent on Heimdall.
2) Add more fury synergies to common poison-immune champions. I would suggest adding synergies to champions like Iceman, Red Hulk, Mysterio, Sentinel (with other common champions NOT with the newest champion that nobody has) to make them viable options.
The global for this quest is Backblast which I've seen that a lot of people like for some reason. In my opinion, its terrible design: there is no skill involved, it just massively limits which champions you can use throughout the entire quest. Its annoying but it isn't much of a problem since most of the paths are easy. The path where I did find it to be a problem is the All-or-Nothing path. How many incinerate immune champions do you know that can power control or tank specials? This wouldn't be a problem if you could bring in 4* champions to do it but my regular 5* power control options would just trigger Backblast and die. Ideally, Backblast should be changed to something else but since I find that unlikely (all the ghost players would protest) my suggestion is
3) Change All-or-Nothing to 50% or 100% Improved Power Gain. This will allow us to at least have a chance with our regular incinerate immune champions.
6.2.3
Icarus is very good node design: any champion can do it if you play well, some champions have very satisfying cheese tactics, and I think the best part is that the degeneration damage isn't too outrageous so if you come across a tough fight, its a viable option to take the degeneration damage and use the furies to nuke the opponent down quickly. Omega was a good boss too, nothing problematic really. A few things in the paths that I think need to be toned down though.
Mutant gate path:
4) Remove Dulled. It serves no purpose except to make annoying fights even more annoying and long.
5) KILLMONGER: Remove Fearless. The combination of Icarus, Caltrops, Enhanced Abilities, Sharpened Claws, Fearless and Killmonger's reverb is just nasty. I ended up taking the Icarus damage and nuking him with Domino but this wasn't fun. Removing Fearless will make it much better.
6) KORG: Remove Limber. Korg with Icarus, Caltrops, Enhanced Abilities and Limber is another nasty combination.
Tech gate path:
7) Remove Cornered. Icarus requires you to use heavies. Cornered means you can't use any champion that inflicts a damage over time effect with their heavy. In my opinion this is too limiting since the gate already limits you and the fights require some specific stuff.
8) ICEMAN: Remove All-or-Nothing. How many coldsnap immune champions do you know who can power control or tank specials? Energize 1 and Strike Back already increase his power gain.
6* gate path:
9) MOON KNIGHT: Add Power Struggle. All-or-Nothing, Energize 2 and Aggression Fury is a very tough combination especially because of the gate. It seems like Kabam doesn't realise how limited people's 6* rosters are. Adding Power Struggle will open up some interesting solutions in people's 6* rosters.
10) JUGGERNAUT: Remove Debuff Immunity. Debuff Immunity with Icarus means you have to heavy counter the champion's heavy or their specials. You can't counter his specials unless you have a counter to unstoppable that doesn't rely on debuffs. Add Aggression Fury on top of that. It's too excessive.
6.2.4
I absolutely loved this quest. In my opinion, Destructive Feedback is the best node Kabam has made in Act 6. It takes some practice to get used to but it is incredibly satisfying to play it perfectly, especially when paired with Bane (which I'm glad they didn't overdo). Kingpin was a very enjoyable boss too. Not too many suggested changes for the paths either:
6* gate path:
11) HUMAN TORCH: Remove Enhanced Incinerate. This isn't the most necessary change but I think with Destructive Feedback, Bane, Power Reserve, Debilitate and the difficulty of evading Human Torch's specials, it would be better if the incinerate damage was reduced.
Science gate path:
12) DR STRANGE: Change 200% Improved Power Gain to 100%. Just why? Even with the perfect counter, 200% means its a matter of luck because the AI can be stingy with throwing specials.
Now by this point I was quite enjoying 6.2 exploration and I was starting to think that people exaggerate how bad it is. Then came 6.2.5.
6.2.5
This quest is an absolute trainwreck. It amazes me that someone actually tested this and thought it was okay to release. From a player's point of view, this quest doesn't seem like bad design, it seems like malicious design. In my opinion, there are three massive problems that need to be addressed (and a fair few smaller ones).
13) REMOVE STRENGTH IN NUMBERS. This node is absolute rubbish. Not only should it be removed from this quest, but it should be removed from the game files and never used again. There are so many things wrong with this node. For one, it makes you revive champions that you don't even need to use. That is terrible design. Secondly, it means you can't just go practice against the boss unless you don't lose a single champion on the path, which isn't the easiest thing to do. We should be allowed to practice hard fights and get better at them without having to spend revives just to practice or having a flawless run through the path. Thirdly, it synergizes horribly with Do Not Go Gentle. The global requires you to intercept frequently, at specific points in your combo which is inherently a dangerous style of play. Making one mistake as small as doing an extra hit after an intercept can kill your champion and I think its too punishing to force players to use a revive even if you have other champions that can finish off the path. Fourthly, it synergizes horribly with the gates. Suppose you're doing the path that requires you to bring 4 5* tech champions. You have two at r4+ and fill the other spots with r3 or r2s. Now in any other quest you would at least be able to use those r3s and chip off some health from a fight. With strength in numbers, if you're not confident in the one shot you're better off just using those two r4+ champions to clear the whole path otherwise you're forced to use a revive.
14) GATES: Change all 4 gates to 3. Change all class gates to allow 6*s. Before 6.2.5 the gates were manageable and I might even have liked them. Restricting 4 out of 5 champions is too much though. If you need to bring 1 counter for the boss you're completely restricted to one class for the entire path which doesn't work well. Also it makes no sense for class gates to allow 5*s but not 6*s. Players should not be punished for not ranking up 5* corvus if they have him as a 6* (I don't have either).
15) DO NOT GO GENTLE. The global is definitely reliant on skill but it really wasn't fun like Destructive Feedback or Lifecycle. It was just plain annoying. In my opinion, the best change would be to reward players for intercepts or heavies that they land even when the defender has 1 or 0 charges by allowing the Do Not Go Gentle charges to go into negative. Currently, if you land an intercept when the defender has 0 charges it makes no difference. If that was the 5th hit in your combo they'll actually gain a charge. That is not good design. If this is too difficult to implement then it should be changed to make defenders gain a charge every 10 hits not 5.
Now on to the long list of 'smaller' problems. One recurring problem was this weird obsession with putting Energize 2 (200% Power Gain) everywhere which makes it so difficult to intercept regularly enough for Do Not Go Gentle without Magik (who I thankfully had). For most of the other problems I won't justify why they need to be changed, it should be obvious that the difficulty is too high for even above-average players.
16) MORDO: Remove Spite. I think this boss is too hard. Dealing with Special Delivery and Hurt Locker is difficult enough. Add to that Mordo's power gain, evade and Spite and it's too much.
Path A:
17) ELECTRO: Remove either Poison or 1% Regeneration.
Path B:
18) ANTMAN: Change Energize 2 to 1.
19) ROGUE: Remove either Bane, Spite or Debuff Immunity.
Path C:
20) GWENPOOL: Change Energize 2 to 1.
Path D :
21) DR STRANGE: Change 200% Improved Power Gain to 100%.
Path E:
22) BPCW: Change Energize 2 to 1.
23) Luke Cage: Change Energize 2 to 1.
Path F:
24) WAR MACHINE: Change Energize 2 to 1.
6* gate path:
25) Remove Cornered. What does Kabam think our 6* rosters look like? I have two good 6*s: Domino and Venom. One was unusable here, one was seriously handicapped. Doing this path with Mordo and Nightcrawler was not fun.
26) MAGIK: Remove either Stun Immunity, Energize 1 or Brute Force. Again, what do you think our 6* rosters look like?
Mutant gate path:
27) TASKMASTER: Remove either Close Encounters or Termination Contract. He goes debuff immune after 10 debuffs so no heavies. How do we intercept with close encounters AND the evade?
28) MASACRE: Remove Poison. There are 3 poison-immune mutant champions in the game: Iceman, Omega and Emma. While all of those are good champions, 3 champions in the whole game is too restricting.
29) PUNISHER: Remove Energize 2. Punisher with Aspect of Evolution, Energize 2, Limber, Vigor and Do Not Go Gentle... Who makes this stuff?
Tech gate path:
30) STORM: Reduce her Attack and Block Penetration. Maybe remove Prove Yourself. No Retreat, Stun Immunity and Do Not Go Gentle means there is a lot of blocking involved.
Cosmic gate path:
31) Change 80% Critical Resistance to 40-60%. Makes fights unnecessarily annoying.
32) STARK SPIDEY: Remove Bleed. There are 4 cosmic bleed-immune champions: Corvus, Groot, King Groot and Terrax. The latter three may as well not be options. No player should be forced to rank up one of them. So essentially, if you don't have 5* corvus (6* corvus isn't good enough) you're screwed.
33) GREEN GOBLIN: Either remove Counterstrike or reduce his Attack and Block Penetration. You take too much damage for blocking his specials which you're forced to with Counterstrike.
34) NEBULA: Remove Incinerate. Remove Energize 2. There are two cosmic incinerate-immune champions in the game: Silver Surfer and Annihilus. This fight has Encroaching Stun, Energize 2, Counter Tactics, Incinerate and Do Not Go Gentle... Again, who makes this stuff??
After all this rubbish 6.2.6 actually felt like a breath of fresh air, which says more about 6.2.5 actually.
6.2.6
I really liked the design of the map where you could construct your paths how you wanted and it was up to you which links you wanted to fight together. Energy could have been lower though. Some of the fights in the central path like Iceman and Energize 1 Magik were annoying with the gates but that would be fixed by changing 4 gates to 3.
Do You Bleed Path:
35) Add Bleed Vulnerability. Nodes like Do You Bleed, should always be accompanied with vulnerability to that debuff like the 6.3.1 Medusa. In fact, double damage from Bleed should be a part of the Do You Bleed node.
Now, regarding the Champion boss. I actually like the final 10% of this fight a lot. I liked the idea of a piece of content that can't be bulldozed through with units. I liked the fact that I had to duel and practice a lot to perfect dexing his sp1 reliably, and the practice made it incredibly satisfying when I ended up executing it successfully. This might just be me but I think if you practice enough its not difficult to learn the dex. If you go in for your initial clear without practicing and throw 1000 units at him trying to get the dex, its not Kabam's fault that's your fault. What I would understand is if you got stuck with one of the nodes on him like No Retreat since there is no mode of gameplay where you can just practice against any defender with any combination of nodes (that's a separate problem though). I personally got stuck when I did the skill gate with 3 other paths. For my fifth champion I had brought SS and while I could reliably dex the sp1, I couldn't keep the staggers up with Burden of Might and he would go unstoppable and kill me when I had 2-3 dexes. After throwing a fair few revives at him, I quit, came back in with CapIW as my fifth champion, went through all those paths again but this time I easily managed the last 10%. At the end of the day it was my fault for not thinking through Burden of Might. That being said, I think Kabam made several mistakes with this fight which they've now resolved to changing. Reducing the block penetration and the degeneration damage are great and necessary changes, the block damage is ridiculous. Removing No Retreat is a great change, it was really annoying with all of his unblockable mechanics. I don't necessarily think reducing the charges from 5 to 3 was needed. I think the better solution would have been to allow you to carry over up to half of your charges to the next fight, but oh well.
And a last few suggestions:
36) Buff Random Path Rewards. Seeing an L1 health potion on a path in 6.2.5 made me really angry. That kind of path reward is an insult to the players. It would literally be better if those rewards weren't there at all since it gives players nothing (a parry takes off more damage than that potion) and it just makes you feel that the developers are out of touch with the players. Path rewards should be representative of where Act 6 players are at: start giving revives again like Act 4, health potions should be L4 or L5 nothing less, ISO should be enough to put a few levels into a 6* champion not tier 3 ISO.
37) Buff Exploration Rewards. I can't say for 6.3 and 6.4 of course, but with its current difficulty 6.2 rewards are nowhere near the time, skill and endurance required. 6000 6* shards is so measly for the effort this requires. In my opinion, 6.2 100% rewards should have a 6* nexus crystal. This only seems excessive because they put that in Act 6 100% rewards but it really isn't when you consider its value and how gruelling 6.2 is. Currently, the basic crystal pools are so large and players need such specific champions (due to specific requirements of content and because some people have one class of t5cc) that basic crystals are almost guaranteed to disappoint you. Nexus crystals are still RNG but they are closer to good RNG where you might have as many wins as losses. Currently its all losses with an occasional win. I'm one of the few masochists who will actually say they enjoyed 6.2 100%. I enjoy taking on challenging content but it really beats you down when you clear content after content only to be screwed over by the rewards every time (my Act 6 completion rewards were decent but I got basically nothing from 6.2 100%, Abyss completion, 6.1 100%, 6.3 completion and 6.2 completion). RNG should be better than this.
If you read through all of that then thanks for bearing with me. I would be interested to hear how far people agree or disagree with my suggestions and I hope Kabam implements changes similar to this to convince people to actually take a shot at 6.2.
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Comments
One slight change though: I would just remove Caustic Temper altogether from 6.2 Sinister as that is the hinderance for many people. Having to slog through it with my 4/55 Gladiator Hulk with no Heimdall was probably the worst 45 minutes ever and that kind of design needs to go. I understand that limiting champion usage increases difficulty, and difficulty has to increase with this new Act content, but unreasonable restrictions that only punish and grant no reward for playing well is absurd; If I see one more 90% reduced damage node unless you have X, I will lose it.