7.1 100% Review and a Discussion of Future Content
Rockypantherx
Member Posts: 3,917 ★★★★★
Yes, It’s me, I’m back. Not with another guide, but with another review. And this time it’s for Book 2, Act 1, Chapter 1.
Or 7.1 to be brief.
I think it’s first important to establish this piece of content in the context of its predecessors.
Act 6 was awful, at least pre-nerf. I did it 100% before the nerfs and I hated pretty much all of it. I know I’m not alone in that opinion. Niche, challenging, and quite frankly, frustrating content. Of course, some enjoyed it and more power to them. They clearly possess a level of sadomasochism most of us haven’t reached yet.
Moving into act 7, most of us didn’t want a repeat of Act 6. And then the first beta dropped.
And everyone went apesh*t. Admittedly, myself included. It was somehow more niche, block melting and wall-punch inducing than Act 6. So after the community...made their feelings clear shall we say, Kabam went back to the drawing board.
And so we arrive here. Our current iteration of 7.1. I’m going to run through every quest and point out things of note, before summing up my thoughts and addressing some larger questions as a result of the content
7.1.1 is pretty good. The Flare path and the Can’t stop, won’t stop paths were my favourite ones here, mostly because they sent your damage through the roof. Certainly not a super challenging quest overall, but we have some pretty nice node designs. The White Widow boss was very different from...I think anything we’ve had before, and I love it for that.
Oscillate and Invade is a node combo that I actually really enjoyed. It creates a flow within the fight of aggressiveness and defensiveness, plus, you know, big freaking block damage
I think 7.1.2 is my least favourite quest in the chapter. Which isn’t knocking it too much I don’t think. I think I struggled the most with the Encroaching Stun, Hurt locker path the most out of any path in 7.1, although I put that down to me being rubbish rather than the node combo. None of the paths are that bad if you bring a decent counter, although a few could definitely be pain. I think the headline in this quest is the Meltdown Rhino boss.
Not that bad of a boss, but it will definitely catch the unsuspecting player out. I personally got a solo with Emma Frost, who is great for that fight but there are a lot of other options
As for 7.1.3, I have a lot to talk about with this quest. Because I loved every path. I could probably spend all night gushing over them, but I want to single out 2. First of all, the spectre/Gimme/Life Transfer path. Looks absolutely terrifying at first, but once you’re in the fight what you need to do clicks and my god, this is such a damn well-designed path.
Spectre requires you to change up your playstyle to ensure you don’t degen yourself to death, life transfer works perfectly with gimme to regen the damage you took while spectre is active, healing you and melting your opponent. I adored this path. Is it difficult? No. But it was a hell of a lot of fun
Speaking of a hell of a lot of fun, give a raise to whoever designed the Power shield/Power Axis/Blaze path a raise. 900% special attack damage? Yes please. I don’t care if I’ll die in 30 seconds, give me more.
I do have one gripe with this quest, and it’s not a big one, but holy hell, what is the block damage on that red hulk boss. My god. He has power focus and foresight so it’s easily forgiven, but I took a blocked hit on that fight once or twice and I still wake up sweating.
Ah 7.1.4, the quest where I did 7 paths.
Yes, I did quit out accidentally after doing a path. Feel free to laugh. I deserve it
Overall, this quest has some good node designs, and some I really didn’t care for. The pressure gauge/Rage path felt ridiculously slow. It was just...boring. And I consider myself an expert in this path because I did it twice.
Same thing with the Buff Boost: Armour/ Armoured assault/ Arc Overload path. Not a difficult path, just a bit long and tedious. I think that may just be in comparison to the rest of 7.1 though, this path would be a blessing in Act 6.
I actually think we get some of the most difficult bosses of 7.2 in this quest. Juggernaut is just a pain with having to manage rising sun and his unstoppable. Still definitely not a ‘difficult’ fight, just a bit finicky. Weapon X is challenging due to the sheer fact that you’ve probably never faced him before unless you play T1 AW. Hela is a Doom slap fiesta and I love it.
Also, how in the hell did yous manage to make Aspect of War fun. I did the Captain Marvel Chap 2 challenge back in the day and I never thought I could ever enjoy that node
I adore 7.1.5 and you can’t change my mind. I think it’s actually kind of challenging. But it houses the path I had the most fun on in the entirety of 7.1. The Unlimited Power/Mystic Curse path. I used Kali (Sorcerer Supreme for the uneducated among you) and this path was a joy. Any other champ would be eating a **** ton of block damage, but not her. Eat all the block damage you want and spam ridiculous poisons
But we also get other great paths like the Poison/Energy absorption: Fire/ Shake It Off/ Bleed Vulnerability path, and the Terminal Velocity/Dulled/Foresight/Mighty Charge path.
I confess, I ghosted the first one of those in around 5 minutes, but I had a hell of a time doing it.
The bosses actually somewhat require counters here. You have an Electro and an Energy absorption: Shock Nightcrawler. Punishing Angel is kind of interesting as well. Yeah, another damn good quest
And finally, 7.1.6. There isn’t a bad path here, to be honest, all of them are fun, interesting, and challenging to a certain degree. Plus, there is a path perfect for Quake and that warmed my heart. Gwenperion gave me a decent chunk of trouble since I didn’t realise she didn’t have an SP3, and I tried Warlock, who just isn’t great for that fight. I actually had to back out and go again because I didn’t have a counter. I did work out that Hyperion worked though and went in and demolished it.
The dreaded Ice phoenix returned and might as well have not been there she was that easy.
I didn’t want to spend too much time on the individual quests because I actually don’t think there is much to say other than they’re really fun. But now I want to discuss some larger points that transcend this specific piece of content. If I’m going to start a forum war, it’s probably going to be here.
In terms of rewards, the difference between 7.1 and act 6 is staggering. Honestly, for the difficulty, 7.1 rewards are incredible, and the selector and nexus provide a certain level of guaranteed value, something sorely lacking in act 6 and other content. Of course, rewards aren’t purely based on the content, they are also a reflection of the game at the time. But still, comparing the 6.2 rewards to this doesn’t do 6.2, or any other chapter of act 6, any favours
We also saw the introduction of choice nodes into main story content. And these are great, definitely, but they also feel kind of overpowered. If we were talking something like Act 6, these would be a great mitigating factor. In 7.1, they kind of feel like overkill. I feel that removing these from 7.1 would have increased the difficulty a bit, and a good chunk of people do quite like having to plan for a path, myself included. I think they’re great, but I do think they really push things onto the easier side here, especially with the full heal. It felt like it made you play very carefree and not really think about what you were doing. In my experience at least.
I know people love these though, and I absolutely understand why. I’m just not entirely sure we needed them here.
Speaking of difficulty, I think 7.1 marks a dramatic shift in design philosophy, as we’ve been told. 7.1 really isn’t that difficult at all. Some people love that, some people hate it, some people just want the rewards. Is this the end of difficult content? No. It’s just the end of it in story content, or at least that’s how it looks. Which I think is the right move. Story content should be where players go to just play the game, content like variants, abyss and challenges should be the ‘difficult content’.
Was 7.1 a bit too much on the easier side? Absolutely. I think there is still a balance to be struck between difficulty and enjoyment. But until that balance is struck, I would rather have more 7.1’s in the meantime than 6.2’s. Because 7.1 was an absolute blast, it really was. I wanted to play the content. I enjoyed it. I can’t say that for much in act 6.
Not to mention 7.1 rolls back all the restrictiveness of act 6. The class nodes are like the 6.2 gates done right (even if I did end up enjoying the gates up to the 5th quest). Gone are the days of needing either man thing or King Groot or one fight, and in with the days where most half-decent champions in a class are usable, sometimes even the best option.
But not only that but our good champions are still good. Ghost is absolutely dominant here, so is Quake, Omega, etc. The difference is that the fights are set up to make other champions the best. Sure you can Ghost it, or Quake it, but you don’t feel you have to or even want to. It opens up new possibilities without sweeping the rug out from under your established rosters feet.
Finally, I want to end with a discussion on where content might be going, and where it could have gone.
One of the big issues I saw with act 6 and the act 7 beta is that restrictiveness can only go so far. How long until you need a champ with non-contact attacks, poison immunity, and a cruelty buff? That or new mechanics are being introduced left, right and centre to compensate. Act 6 was a road to disaster in that way.
7.1 is a completely different beast. We’ve been told Act 7 chapters will come out every 6 months or so. Hopefully, this means they’ll nail the content. But I think this style of content also presents some obstacles. My first concern is community-based. If we get too much ‘easy content’ like this, will we all become desensitized to difficult content that is actually reasonable? I don’t want us to become spoiled. I think there are two ways to prevent this:
Inject some more difficulty into 7.2 and beyond. Comparatively. Obviously, subsequent chapters will be more difficult, but I think tuning them up a bit past the current curve would be
More frequent truly challenging content like Mulaney’s challenge and the ilk. That way difficult content remains a core feature of the game while story content can be its own thing
One thing I want to make clear is that I’m talking about difficulty, not restrictiveness. A certain level is always going to be involved of course, but most reasonable people don’t ever want to see a return to 6.2 levels
As for where the content seems to be headed, I think it’s safe to say that it’s going in a much more positive direction than before. We’re getting more frequent variants which is a very good thing. Hopefully every 3 months or so. Story chapters every 6 months. If both of these pieces of content continue their trends, that’s consistently excellent content.
Cav EQ rewards still aren’t great, but the content itself is much more enjoyable than EQ has ever been through the class buffs. So from a purely content-related angle, that’s some fairly enjoyable content to play every month. Side quests keep going from strength to strength generally. Hopefully, we get some innovative new designs next year for the side quests.
And I really hope Mulaney’s challenge signals a come back of celebrity challenges. I would love to see them and boss rushes every couple of months. Because these ‘extra events’ we’ve had this year have all been pretty good, especially the Omega boss rush.
Not to mention we have Summer of Pain/Winter of Withering/Spring of Suffering/Autumn of Agony appearing at...some...point? That will probably be the next truly challenging content we get that I expect to push the top end. 2 or 3 of those kinds of events a year should hopefully satisfy the very top. I don’t mean abyss or anything like that, stuff like the maze. The next Everest content should be at the very least 2022, no earlier.
So, for me, 7.1 has fully confirmed for me Kabam’s move towards fun and interesting content. Back in April/May, the future was bleak. We had the horror show of act 6, Variants had all but disappeared, no special challenges in a while, no Cav EQ, and Act 7 looked at that time like a continuation of the status quo.
Thankfully, it seems like content, one of the 2 core aspects of this game, along with champions, is going in a much-improved direction. It’s not perfect. 7.1 difficulty and Cav EQ rewards show that. But we’re in a much, much more positive place. I just hope I’m not eating my words in a few months.
So, thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed, are enjoying, or will enjoy 7.1, and as a final note:
Please no more shard arenas.
Or 7.1 to be brief.
I think it’s first important to establish this piece of content in the context of its predecessors.
Act 6 was awful, at least pre-nerf. I did it 100% before the nerfs and I hated pretty much all of it. I know I’m not alone in that opinion. Niche, challenging, and quite frankly, frustrating content. Of course, some enjoyed it and more power to them. They clearly possess a level of sadomasochism most of us haven’t reached yet.
Moving into act 7, most of us didn’t want a repeat of Act 6. And then the first beta dropped.
And everyone went apesh*t. Admittedly, myself included. It was somehow more niche, block melting and wall-punch inducing than Act 6. So after the community...made their feelings clear shall we say, Kabam went back to the drawing board.
And so we arrive here. Our current iteration of 7.1. I’m going to run through every quest and point out things of note, before summing up my thoughts and addressing some larger questions as a result of the content
7.1.1 is pretty good. The Flare path and the Can’t stop, won’t stop paths were my favourite ones here, mostly because they sent your damage through the roof. Certainly not a super challenging quest overall, but we have some pretty nice node designs. The White Widow boss was very different from...I think anything we’ve had before, and I love it for that.
Oscillate and Invade is a node combo that I actually really enjoyed. It creates a flow within the fight of aggressiveness and defensiveness, plus, you know, big freaking block damage
I think 7.1.2 is my least favourite quest in the chapter. Which isn’t knocking it too much I don’t think. I think I struggled the most with the Encroaching Stun, Hurt locker path the most out of any path in 7.1, although I put that down to me being rubbish rather than the node combo. None of the paths are that bad if you bring a decent counter, although a few could definitely be pain. I think the headline in this quest is the Meltdown Rhino boss.
Not that bad of a boss, but it will definitely catch the unsuspecting player out. I personally got a solo with Emma Frost, who is great for that fight but there are a lot of other options
As for 7.1.3, I have a lot to talk about with this quest. Because I loved every path. I could probably spend all night gushing over them, but I want to single out 2. First of all, the spectre/Gimme/Life Transfer path. Looks absolutely terrifying at first, but once you’re in the fight what you need to do clicks and my god, this is such a damn well-designed path.
Spectre requires you to change up your playstyle to ensure you don’t degen yourself to death, life transfer works perfectly with gimme to regen the damage you took while spectre is active, healing you and melting your opponent. I adored this path. Is it difficult? No. But it was a hell of a lot of fun
Speaking of a hell of a lot of fun, give a raise to whoever designed the Power shield/Power Axis/Blaze path a raise. 900% special attack damage? Yes please. I don’t care if I’ll die in 30 seconds, give me more.
I do have one gripe with this quest, and it’s not a big one, but holy hell, what is the block damage on that red hulk boss. My god. He has power focus and foresight so it’s easily forgiven, but I took a blocked hit on that fight once or twice and I still wake up sweating.
Ah 7.1.4, the quest where I did 7 paths.
Yes, I did quit out accidentally after doing a path. Feel free to laugh. I deserve it
Overall, this quest has some good node designs, and some I really didn’t care for. The pressure gauge/Rage path felt ridiculously slow. It was just...boring. And I consider myself an expert in this path because I did it twice.
Same thing with the Buff Boost: Armour/ Armoured assault/ Arc Overload path. Not a difficult path, just a bit long and tedious. I think that may just be in comparison to the rest of 7.1 though, this path would be a blessing in Act 6.
I actually think we get some of the most difficult bosses of 7.2 in this quest. Juggernaut is just a pain with having to manage rising sun and his unstoppable. Still definitely not a ‘difficult’ fight, just a bit finicky. Weapon X is challenging due to the sheer fact that you’ve probably never faced him before unless you play T1 AW. Hela is a Doom slap fiesta and I love it.
Also, how in the hell did yous manage to make Aspect of War fun. I did the Captain Marvel Chap 2 challenge back in the day and I never thought I could ever enjoy that node
I adore 7.1.5 and you can’t change my mind. I think it’s actually kind of challenging. But it houses the path I had the most fun on in the entirety of 7.1. The Unlimited Power/Mystic Curse path. I used Kali (Sorcerer Supreme for the uneducated among you) and this path was a joy. Any other champ would be eating a **** ton of block damage, but not her. Eat all the block damage you want and spam ridiculous poisons
But we also get other great paths like the Poison/Energy absorption: Fire/ Shake It Off/ Bleed Vulnerability path, and the Terminal Velocity/Dulled/Foresight/Mighty Charge path.
I confess, I ghosted the first one of those in around 5 minutes, but I had a hell of a time doing it.
The bosses actually somewhat require counters here. You have an Electro and an Energy absorption: Shock Nightcrawler. Punishing Angel is kind of interesting as well. Yeah, another damn good quest
And finally, 7.1.6. There isn’t a bad path here, to be honest, all of them are fun, interesting, and challenging to a certain degree. Plus, there is a path perfect for Quake and that warmed my heart. Gwenperion gave me a decent chunk of trouble since I didn’t realise she didn’t have an SP3, and I tried Warlock, who just isn’t great for that fight. I actually had to back out and go again because I didn’t have a counter. I did work out that Hyperion worked though and went in and demolished it.
The dreaded Ice phoenix returned and might as well have not been there she was that easy.
I didn’t want to spend too much time on the individual quests because I actually don’t think there is much to say other than they’re really fun. But now I want to discuss some larger points that transcend this specific piece of content. If I’m going to start a forum war, it’s probably going to be here.
In terms of rewards, the difference between 7.1 and act 6 is staggering. Honestly, for the difficulty, 7.1 rewards are incredible, and the selector and nexus provide a certain level of guaranteed value, something sorely lacking in act 6 and other content. Of course, rewards aren’t purely based on the content, they are also a reflection of the game at the time. But still, comparing the 6.2 rewards to this doesn’t do 6.2, or any other chapter of act 6, any favours
We also saw the introduction of choice nodes into main story content. And these are great, definitely, but they also feel kind of overpowered. If we were talking something like Act 6, these would be a great mitigating factor. In 7.1, they kind of feel like overkill. I feel that removing these from 7.1 would have increased the difficulty a bit, and a good chunk of people do quite like having to plan for a path, myself included. I think they’re great, but I do think they really push things onto the easier side here, especially with the full heal. It felt like it made you play very carefree and not really think about what you were doing. In my experience at least.
I know people love these though, and I absolutely understand why. I’m just not entirely sure we needed them here.
Speaking of difficulty, I think 7.1 marks a dramatic shift in design philosophy, as we’ve been told. 7.1 really isn’t that difficult at all. Some people love that, some people hate it, some people just want the rewards. Is this the end of difficult content? No. It’s just the end of it in story content, or at least that’s how it looks. Which I think is the right move. Story content should be where players go to just play the game, content like variants, abyss and challenges should be the ‘difficult content’.
Was 7.1 a bit too much on the easier side? Absolutely. I think there is still a balance to be struck between difficulty and enjoyment. But until that balance is struck, I would rather have more 7.1’s in the meantime than 6.2’s. Because 7.1 was an absolute blast, it really was. I wanted to play the content. I enjoyed it. I can’t say that for much in act 6.
Not to mention 7.1 rolls back all the restrictiveness of act 6. The class nodes are like the 6.2 gates done right (even if I did end up enjoying the gates up to the 5th quest). Gone are the days of needing either man thing or King Groot or one fight, and in with the days where most half-decent champions in a class are usable, sometimes even the best option.
But not only that but our good champions are still good. Ghost is absolutely dominant here, so is Quake, Omega, etc. The difference is that the fights are set up to make other champions the best. Sure you can Ghost it, or Quake it, but you don’t feel you have to or even want to. It opens up new possibilities without sweeping the rug out from under your established rosters feet.
Finally, I want to end with a discussion on where content might be going, and where it could have gone.
One of the big issues I saw with act 6 and the act 7 beta is that restrictiveness can only go so far. How long until you need a champ with non-contact attacks, poison immunity, and a cruelty buff? That or new mechanics are being introduced left, right and centre to compensate. Act 6 was a road to disaster in that way.
7.1 is a completely different beast. We’ve been told Act 7 chapters will come out every 6 months or so. Hopefully, this means they’ll nail the content. But I think this style of content also presents some obstacles. My first concern is community-based. If we get too much ‘easy content’ like this, will we all become desensitized to difficult content that is actually reasonable? I don’t want us to become spoiled. I think there are two ways to prevent this:
Inject some more difficulty into 7.2 and beyond. Comparatively. Obviously, subsequent chapters will be more difficult, but I think tuning them up a bit past the current curve would be
More frequent truly challenging content like Mulaney’s challenge and the ilk. That way difficult content remains a core feature of the game while story content can be its own thing
One thing I want to make clear is that I’m talking about difficulty, not restrictiveness. A certain level is always going to be involved of course, but most reasonable people don’t ever want to see a return to 6.2 levels
As for where the content seems to be headed, I think it’s safe to say that it’s going in a much more positive direction than before. We’re getting more frequent variants which is a very good thing. Hopefully every 3 months or so. Story chapters every 6 months. If both of these pieces of content continue their trends, that’s consistently excellent content.
Cav EQ rewards still aren’t great, but the content itself is much more enjoyable than EQ has ever been through the class buffs. So from a purely content-related angle, that’s some fairly enjoyable content to play every month. Side quests keep going from strength to strength generally. Hopefully, we get some innovative new designs next year for the side quests.
And I really hope Mulaney’s challenge signals a come back of celebrity challenges. I would love to see them and boss rushes every couple of months. Because these ‘extra events’ we’ve had this year have all been pretty good, especially the Omega boss rush.
Not to mention we have Summer of Pain/Winter of Withering/Spring of Suffering/Autumn of Agony appearing at...some...point? That will probably be the next truly challenging content we get that I expect to push the top end. 2 or 3 of those kinds of events a year should hopefully satisfy the very top. I don’t mean abyss or anything like that, stuff like the maze. The next Everest content should be at the very least 2022, no earlier.
So, for me, 7.1 has fully confirmed for me Kabam’s move towards fun and interesting content. Back in April/May, the future was bleak. We had the horror show of act 6, Variants had all but disappeared, no special challenges in a while, no Cav EQ, and Act 7 looked at that time like a continuation of the status quo.
Thankfully, it seems like content, one of the 2 core aspects of this game, along with champions, is going in a much-improved direction. It’s not perfect. 7.1 difficulty and Cav EQ rewards show that. But we’re in a much, much more positive place. I just hope I’m not eating my words in a few months.
So, thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed, are enjoying, or will enjoy 7.1, and as a final note:
Please no more shard arenas.
30
Comments
Edit: Pretty cool write-up. Although, you didn't share what you pulled from the rewards.
Hood was the best option from the nexus
25% mystic
25% cosmic (already have one in the stash)
Chose 25% skill to get my Ægon to R3
I opened my 6* shards in a big bulk batch yesterday. The shards could be responsive for one of my 3 6* ghosts I pulled from my 8 crystals
Summer of Pain (and your list of very clever alternative names) has become pretty thoroughly memed at this point, but honestly a kind of 3-month rotating endgame quest (like the maze) could be really cool.
Kabam would only need to design four of them in total and would have a fair bit of time in between them. Bump values on fights and rewards from year to year when it rotates around so that it’s perpetually geared towards the top tier and it could be a lot of fun.
And I’m the only name I came up with was autumn of agony, the others have been floating around for a while full disclaimer
Act 7 has been very enjoyable so far. It was very fun to say the least. I also think this is a step in the right direction.
The elephant in the room, the question and concern everyone seems to have: Is content becoming too "easy" and how exactly do we balance "fun" and "challenging"?
To that I say yes, but also no. Kabam is going through a phase where they've basically had to take a different approach to how they make content. After seeing the original act 7 and the amount of backlash, this is a no-brainer and should come as of no surprise. It's of course still a work in progress, and seemingly has a bright future. It's becoming "easy" in the sense that we are no longer sat on by heavy restrictions and niche counters, which means a wider range of players will actually be able to play instead of being constantly gated. Nodes aren't directly looking to point a middle finger at you if you don't have a very specific counter, and more so looking at creative ways to combine these nodes making them quite enjoyable. This also shouldn't mean the difficulty should drop, that's where I think the struggle comes here.
Trying to balance fun and challenging is possible, but looks somewhat hard to achieve. Can these two truly coexist, or for the sake of the other, must one be lowered? All I can say is Hopefully Kabam can pull it off!
Let's see how the rest of act 7 turns out as they hopefully perfect their new philosophy. And remember, as DNA put it, the game succeeds not because it has everything for someone, but something for everyone.
Au revoir!
The flare path in 7.1.1 was most fun, I only had to use 2 revives on the Yondu boss there. Rest of the paths are doable, but being a below average skilled player I did had to use a bit over 2k of units for my first clear.
I was really struggeling with the merci node at the Punishing Angel boss, I was unable to get mutiple stacks of merci on her resulting in me doing very little damage to her and using 20ish revives before she went down.
This month I completing Abyss, the champ challenge and now 7.1, this cost me about 17k units, so i'm not gonna do 100% of any of this content anytime soon. The game has come to the point where the difficulty is soo high that when new content like this comes out I know I'll need lots of units/revives to get through it.
For skilled players the new content is fun, but for me a lot of times is just chipping away at the enemy's with revives wich isn't that much fun.
that’s too many units
Also, was it 17K units for Abyss Exploration or Completion and the Champ Challenge?
Thinking further, you did complete act 6 to get in, so I wonder why it was such a unit-fest for you. I also don't know what your roster looks like, so that could be another factor.
And I've only done a completion run, but so far, I definitely agree. It was fun in a way story content hasn't been since the first half of Act 5, and I'd say even more so. I actually did the 7.1.4 pressure gauge path for completion, and I honestly loved it. It felt super skillful and I had a ton of fun on it. I appreciate how it still follows Kabam's idea of roste depth, but it rewards people instead of outright "you lose if you don't have this single champ." Overall, I like it but wouldn't mind an increase in difficulty.
Oh and the path rewards? LOVE IT. A whole t5b is crazy