Dev Diary: Champions of the Contest

Check out the latest Champions of the Contest, our latest Dev Diary which explores our philosophy of Champion Design, how that translates into our vision for the future, our new rebalance cadence, which Magento is getting buffed, and information on a couple new crystals coming to the Contest!

Read all about it on our Blog!

Then don't forget to read our final Dev Diary of the series, which will be coming soon! We're going to talk about the future of the Contest, and updates to Incursions, Arenas, and so much more!

Comments

Mr_Platypus

Man I hope civil warrior is on the list for a tune up.
Doesn’t necessarily need a colossus style rework, but the damage numbers are woeful

DNA3000

If they can deliver then I'm excited and feel glad I've invested so much into this game. I think understanding that while gambling will always be a part of the game but that you should never be devastated by a crystal pull is the most important take away here. I don't even want every crystal to "God tier" because I want to be excited when it happens. But I can't stand the feeling of working/paying for a crystal to get a falcon type champ. I'm hoping to get my first six star in the next month or 2 and I'm already nervous that a year plus of working towards it will culminate in pulling Abomination or Iron Fist. It doesn't have to be Corvus but it'd be nice if it's not Ebony Maw. Ive never threatened to rage quit over a crystal but I can see losing the desire to play for a bit if all that work is someone I'll never use.

My hope is that Kabam is tackling this problem from *three* angles. First, more agency in selecting crystals more likely to have champs you want will increase the probability of pulling a better pull and lower the chances of pulling a negative pull. Second, they want to improve the content we play so that it values a wider range of champs, to decrease the chance of getting a negative pull and also to make pulls less binary. Instead of good and bad, there would be degrees of usefulness. And third, by increasing the cadence of buffs, the devs hope to make champs that currently have limited or no value eventually have more value.

The net result, over the long haul, would be that on any given month, a player would be more likely to see good pulls out of all their crystals, see a greater range of champions being good in the first place, and at times when it seems your luck completely sucks and you're pulling nothing but negative pulls you also see Kabam announcing that at least one of them is about to be buffed, giving you something to look forward to even when the recent pulls aren't great. You're less likely to have long stretches of nothing but negative champion results. Either you pull a good one or you pull so many bad ones that your roster keeps getting buffed.

The "worst" pulls would then be the ones closest to dead average. Which would be better than the situation now by a significant margin when it comes to the psychological impact of having a bad luck streak be really bad. Or being at a place in the game where you need extraordinary luck to progress due to being roadblocked by needing only a tiny subset of options.

Lvernon15

I would have preferred nexus than class crystals. I need Aegon but I’m overload with skill and mutant champions and I miss cosmics.

However, it’s an improvement and being same price is cool.

Statistically speaking your chance of getting aegon specifically in a 2 class pool is pretty much the same as your chance in a 3 choice nexus, both are pretty much triple your chance in the current basic. Just having class rather than nexus means there’s less of a chance of getting a solid pull of you don’t get exactly who you want

GroundedWisdom

I really like what I see.

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DNA3000

I would have preferred nexus than class crystals. I need Aegon but I’m overload with skill and mutant champions and I miss cosmics.

However, it’s an improvement and being same price is cool.

Statistically speaking your chance of getting aegon specifically in a 2 class pool is pretty much the same as your chance in a 3 choice nexus, both are pretty much triple your chance in the current basic. Just having class rather than nexus means there’s less of a chance of getting a solid pull of you don’t get exactly who you want

This is true, although they do have some advantages over Nexus crystals that counterbalance the edge in choosing the champ from the Nexus options. If you have an abundance of some catalyst types and deficits of others, the class crystals allow you to significantly improve your chances of getting rank up options more suitable to your current catalyst situation, and decreases the chances of getting stuck overflowing on one class vs the others. So for those who try to balance out their rank up resources, class crystals add a way to level out those resources. Also if you're facing class gates in content, the class crystals obviously increase your odds of getting a good rank up option in that class.

I actually think the dual-class crystals are a slightly better long term option than the Nexus crystal is. And it is interesting that the Nexus is considered a super high value rare crystal, while the dual class crystal seems to be designed for the masses when the math says the pros and cons should at least roughly cancel out. Not that I'm complaining about that.

Frosty

1 question about solo events. With the addition of sig stones to the rewards does this remove the revive and units that many players rely on to get through content?

ESF

Welp.

I have...absolutely nothing to add.

That honestly covered it all for me — as I have said a few times over the last few weeks, I truly think Kabam gets it.

Some of us had always said that not every kit needs a total overhaul, that some kits are fun to play as they were originally designed and just needed numerical adjustments.

A focused team to do this work...my gosh. THAT IS AMAZING TO SEE.

I say again: I am extremely excited about the future of this game.
This. Also: My duped 6 star Falcon and Punisher 2099 instantly became better pulls than they were prior to this update. I can't wait to get after it with a potent Punisher 2099.

Bro, I hear you. I have a 3/45 Punisher 2099 that I tested extensively about six weeks ago.

That base kit is pretty cool. It just needs enhanced DPS, a few other slight modifications to its existing utility that make sense in 2020, and I would ABSOLUTELY take that kit higher. No doubt.

Renegädeツ

This seems promising. Honestly, no hate on this subject. I really do like the Wish Crystal idea, and I cannot wait for this to be implemented into the game. I'm glad that you understand that some players are after just 1 champion, out of 180. With crystal re-tuning, and champion updates/overhauls, this demand will progressively become more lenient. This is excellent to see, Kabam have done a great job on this. Just consider re-tuning Alliance War now, that's the standout problem. Again, this roadmap does look intriguing, loving the Professor X and Wandavision leaks.
Cheers.

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Renegädeツ

1 question about solo events. With the addition of sig stones to the rewards does this remove the revive and units that many players rely on to get through content?

They are currently undecided. They did not mention removing these items, unlike the XP boosts. I'm pretty certain they will stay, my friend. We just have to wait and see.

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BigPoppaCBONE

Man I hope civil warrior is on the list for a tune up.
Doesn’t necessarily need a colossus style rework, but the damage numbers are woeful

I wouldn't be mad if they leaned into his armor more maybe with choosing between a perfect block timer or armor passives as a pre-fight. Or something based around being a Cap with an arc reactor. I would get bored with variations of big colored numbers if that's all they did.

Lvernon15

I would have preferred nexus than class crystals. I need Aegon but I’m overload with skill and mutant champions and I miss cosmics.

However, it’s an improvement and being same price is cool.

Statistically speaking your chance of getting aegon specifically in a 2 class pool is pretty much the same as your chance in a 3 choice nexus, both are pretty much triple your chance in the current basic. Just having class rather than nexus means there’s less of a chance of getting a solid pull of you don’t get exactly who you want
This is true, although they do have some advantages over Nexus crystals that counterbalance the edge in choosing the champ from the Nexus options. If you have an abundance of some catalyst types and deficits of others, the class crystals allow you to significantly improve your chances of getting rank up options more suitable to your current catalyst situation, and decreases the chances of getting stuck overflowing on one class vs the others. So for those who try to balance out their rank up resources, class crystals add a way to level out those resources. Also if you're facing class gates in content, the class crystals obviously increase your odds of getting a good rank up option in that class.

I actually think the dual-class crystals are a slightly better long term option than the Nexus crystal is. And it is interesting that the Nexus is considered a super high value rare crystal, while the dual class crystal seems to be designed for the masses when the math says the pros and cons should at least roughly cancel out. Not that I'm complaining about that.

Yeah, nexus is definitely a lot better than a class crystal, 3 chances at something good rather than 1, but I don’t see why they’re treating them with such disparity either, sure one is better, but it’s not sooooo much better that it needs to be super exclusive and confined

Mattstafari

I hope that champions like ant man, black bolt and Sentry will also get looked at. While I appreciate that these champs have synergies that make them fun to play, they also rely on being duped and having a high sig to be usable. That is a bit much in my opinion and most people will be disappointed to pull them on a first time pull.

Billie

I appreciate that everything requires work but each roadmap so far has so many points that have a indeterminate timeline or is a high level description that makes it hard to get really excited about since the final product remain unknown. It’s surprising, given how much the community is frustrated with parts of the game, that there are no more drastic and immediate changes. I was excited when they announced the roadmaps 2 months ago. Less so know as was surely expecting more concrete information/changes at this point.

Billie

If you haven’t figured what to do about 6 star sig stones yet - even though they have been in the game for a while - maybe you should stop selling 6 star bundles bundles - or just admit that this game has become pay to play/win.

Ken1378

There is a lot to like in this update. It’s way better than the Alliances roadmap anyway.

I love the concept behind the Magneto buffs. And some of the additional details (champs categories and dedicated team) give me confidence that they actually might be able to buff two champs each month. I also love the Solo Event update. That’s obviously been long overdue.

One thing that I didn’t like was that they don’t seem focused on giving more choice with 6-star pulls. 6-stars are easily one of the most frustrating parts of this game. It takes you months to save for a Crystal and then there is just so much garbage in the basic pool (4 out of my 6 pulls have been absolute garbage and that seems to be a common story for a lot of players). Back when 5-star shards were rare for me, I could at least see a point in the future where I was going to be opening multiple 5-star crystals each month. That took some of the sting away from the bad pulls and also gave me hope that I actually had a chance to dupe some of the champs that needed it. With 6-stars that doesn’t exist. I am never going to 100% the Abyss, or be in a top 20 Alliance, or spend $100’s of dollars every month on this game. And the same probably goes for 99.9% of players. So I can’t see a point in the future where the bad pulls won’t sting or where I’ll actually be able to dupe Aegon or Cap IW if I was ever lucky enough to pull one of them In the first place. There needs to be more choice with 6-stars. They are currently just so frustrating.

Nuclekerr

Is basepool a new version of Deadpool?? Lol

Magrailothos

Check out the latest Champions of the Contest, our latest Dev Diary which explores our philosophy of Champion Design, how that translates into our vision for the future, our new rebalance cadence, which Magento is getting buffed, and information on a couple new crystals coming to the Contest!

Read all about it on our Blog!

Then don't forget to read our final Dev Diary of the series, which will be coming soon! We're going to talk about the future of the Contest, and updates to Incursions, Arenas, and so much more!

Magneto?

Falcon?

Gambit?

Scarlet Witch?

Promise us you're at least going to glance at some of our thoughts in the Champion Improvement Thread, Miike. Even if it's just over beer and pizza!

GroundedWisdom

Is no one going to talk about the Easter Egg? I say Apocalypse.

Renegädeツ

Can I just ask about Abomination? Personally, I think he should be buffed over Gambit.. is he actually that bad that Kabam have forgotten about him.. literally?

Buttehrs

I notice entropys hand in the image for the diary. Very interesting indeed.

Stellar

Very exciting news !

Perhaps i will find some usefulness to all the last 6-stars champions meme i got

Keep on communicating with us every week/month on the evolution of the game !

NOOOOOOOOPEEEEE

Kabam can you confirm or deny if Iron Fist Phoenix or Miles are on the list for buffing champs

Kaspy

Overall this sounds very exciting. I am glad that Kabam has finally made the hard decision to devot a lot of time and resources to actually balancing the game by buffing old champs.

Question about sig stones, the prelude road map said sig stones are “getting a major revamp”. All i see is that they are going to be added to the solo events. That does not sound like much of a revamp.

Ambjony

Class crystals should rotate among them. Make all different combinations, pairing different classes each time. Instead of 3 combination make 15 (if I didn’t count wrong)

TheHorror

You guys did a DAMN GREAT JOB with this event on July and with both champs.

And thx for letting everyone get to play one of the new champions, even if it's a 3*!

Hats down, clap clap!

manan_44

I am really looking forward to the dual class 5 star crystals. I am saving my shards for those.