Dev Diary: Spring into Summer 2021

Greetings Summoners,

After what feels like an Age of Ultron since we last sat down for a homely fireside chat about The Contest. In that time, the team has been busy delivering on the majority of the awesome things we announced last year. From new Act content, a succession of Back Issues, Alliance tools, node improvements, undo button, a bonanza of Champion Updates, selling from stash, a raft of Incursions updates, and so much more in between.

We didn’t deliver on everything though (Summer of Pain, *cough* *cough*). Development priorities change, YOUR priorities change, and we evolve with The Contest as it grows. However, some things haven’t changed, and we’re still hard at work on some of the awesome things we announced last time, many of which are that much closer to being in your hands.

Last time out, we waxed lyrical about our vision and goals, this time, we’re getting straight to the meat. So without further ado, let’s dive into the first Dev Diary of 2021!

Read all about it here!

Comments

Eb0ny-O-M4w

New game modes ...

Don't know how to feel about that one. The game is already too time consuming as it is, and having more content that will likely "force" us to play every X days or so might be a bit too much

Rasilover

Are 5 star basic champions finally coming?
5-Star AND 6-Star Basic Arena.

LETS GOOOOOOOOOO!

ItsDamien

Instead of getting excited about things that aren't in the game, and what problems they might (inevitably) bring, I'll reserve judgement until I see things in game.

unknown

This content has been removed.

SilverHavoc

The road map looks insane im very excited for it!

TyEdge

With the number of players becoming Thronebreaker, it’s a real shame that there hasn’t been a mention of 6-star dual class crystals.

The 5-star version came out 9 months ago. You’ve sold these crystals. You’ve acknowledged that there’s a real problem targeting and awakening champions. If your desired existing champ isn’t one of the 16 in the feature, literally your only option is to take a 1/160 spin.

These crystals are especially important to summoners because you’ve now tied progression titles to rosters. A player shouldn’t have to choose between not-being-TB and ranking up a bad champ. The inability to focus on 1/2/3 classes is an unjust system.

Let me be clear before I post this last line - I’m not suggesting that they change TB requirements - but all of this could’ve been avoided by making the requirement to form a t5cc instead of use a full t5.

MrInsanity

Is Summer of Pain and Carina's Challenge and the Grandmaster Gauntlet all permanent for summoners to progress to later? Because if not then a lot of people that are Cav and UC right now will miss out.

MattMan

Are 5 star basic champions finally coming?
5-Star AND 6-Star Basic Arena.

This needs to be adjusted to at least 500 people able to win the 6* champ. Having the 6* awarded to top 100 only is so cheap and way behind the state of the game.

Jaded

Having the 6* and 5* in the same arena cutoff is bad. Whales will push the cutoffs too high, top 100 for the 6* isn’t enough. Mark my word, first one the cutoff for the 5* feature will break 100m.

Not looking forward to “gear” being added to the game.

The rest looks like good fluff.

Pulyaman

New game modes ...

Don't know how to feel about that one. The game is already too time consuming as it is, and having more content that will likely "force" us to play every X days or so might be a bit too much

I was thinking the exact same thing. I know people will say it's optional and no one is forcing you to do it and all that stuff, but adding permanent content makes me happy, adding content that resets every week or every month actually makes me a little nervous. Hopefully, with the reduced number of arenas, the milestones are quick and easy to get so that we have time to play the other modes.

MattMan

Relics and strikers = gear = BAD

satvik17

its a meh for me

Nigelthornberry

Holy mother of God this is fantastic

IKON

Having the 6* and 5* in the same arena cutoff is bad. Whales will push the cutoffs too high, top 100 for the 6* isn’t enough. Mark my word, first one the cutoff for the 5* feature will break 100m.

Not looking forward to “gear” being added to the game.

The rest looks like good fluff.

It's a huge expansion of 5* featured champs, and a 6* basic likely won't be as desirable. I think top 150 of each would have made more sense, but it's still a massive upgrade.

Squirrelguy

Hoping that exclusive relics and new pieces of content will not be locked behind pay walls. I know that in the past this has not been the case, but the availability of different items such as 6* sig stones has been pretty low for F2P players. I get that some amount of cool rewards has to be offered to keep people spending, but watching the community whale out on the Deadpool spring cleaning event/etc. is a bit disheartening as someone who doesn't spend money. Fun to see what everyone else gets, but it occasionally feels like being left in the dust or just continuously challenged to stay in the top end of things.

Not to say anything bad about the roadmap, there are tons of things that it has made me very excited for. Thanks Kabam!

Daddrieda

so nothing about the memory leak issue that also need to be fixed to ensure the game is going strong for many years to come? nothing about giving us the option to change the graphic resolution so we can still enjoy the game for so many years to come despite having economy issue to get an brand new device(s)? the new roadmap diary looks all nice and neat, but i think the priority should be fixing the memory leak before doing anything else or else those new updates will just make the current ongoing issues more and more problematic.

FieryWater

Will the Summer of Pain and the Gauntlet be permanent content? Or will it be there only for a stipulated amount of time?

ItsDamien

Having the 6* and 5* in the same arena cutoff is bad. Whales will push the cutoffs too high, top 100 for the 6* isn’t enough. Mark my word, first one the cutoff for the 5* feature will break 100m.

Not looking forward to “gear” being added to the game.

The rest looks like good fluff.

The arena stuff I don't have much of an opinion on since when I do feel like running arena I only go for the milestones in the 4* basic 4* featured and 5* featured. The interesting thing to me is how the milestones will be adjusted with the new arenas, as now running fewer arenas might result in less battlechip gains. But that's a whole other problem.

I 100% agree with the gear sentiment. You absolutely know that this is going to be monetized to hell and back, and there are going to be meta relics, with rarities. Adding more systems into the game is just going to cause more issues in the future.

Typhoon

Very excite

IKON

Relics and strikers = gear = BAD

This is the most concerning aspect to me. I don't want gear as part of this game, especially if the gear can be used in alliance based game play.

Pulyaman

Having the 6* and 5* in the same arena cutoff is bad. Whales will push the cutoffs too high, top 100 for the 6* isn’t enough. Mark my word, first one the cutoff for the 5* feature will break 100m.

Not looking forward to “gear” being added to the game.

The rest looks like good fluff.

Something I am excited for is the 3 and 4 star champs in the milestones. That is a good move. But, I am a milestone grinder and have not grinded for a 5 star featured champ at all since I can't invest the time. But, I agree with you in that it may become more difficult to target the 5 star featured champ since 6 star also is the same arena. Since the 5 stars are not in the percentage based bracket, the cutoff will be very high.

SHIELD4AGENT

Are 5 star basic champions finally coming?
5-Star AND 6-Star Basic Arena.

Any further info about the arenas?
Did the shards from milestones got upgraded like instead of premium hero crystal shards, we get grandmaster crystal shards for Uncollected end higher.

Raganator

Relics and strikers = gear = BAD

I really don't like this...not to mention that, given the QC we typically see, this has HUGE potential for bugs and game breaking mechanics.

VABBI2003

With the number of players becoming Thronebreaker, it’s a real shame that there hasn’t been a mention of 6-star dual class crystals.

The 5-star version came out 9 months ago. You’ve sold these crystals. You’ve acknowledged that there’s a real problem targeting and awakening champions. If your desired existing champ isn’t one of the 16 in the feature, literally your only option is to take a 1/160 spin.

These crystals are especially important to summoners because you’ve now tied progression titles to rosters. A player shouldn’t have to choose between not-being-TB and ranking up a bad champ. The inability to focus on 1/2/3 classes is an unjust system.

Let me be clear before I post this last line - I’m not suggesting that they change TB requirements - but all of this could’ve been avoided by making the requirement to form a t5cc instead of use a full t5.

I have a 50% tech t5cc but only 30% mystic and my only good 6* is claire. i seriously need those dual 6* crystals to get TB faster

H3t3r

Hopefully the Grandmaster gauntlet isn't just a unit dump. Similar to abyss when it released.

MrInsanity

Will the Summer of Pain and the Gauntlet be permanent content? Or will it be there only for a stipulated amount of time?

Also the Carina's Challenge and any other content, crossing fingers it is

VABBI2003

Well some things are really promising and some are not so much. Best thing is newer content and interactive stuff. The relics tho are double edged swords imo

EgretM4

All the changes sound awesome with the exception of relics and strikers. Those aren’t something we need in the contest. Other than those you did a good job

Destroy4589

I like most of the stuff in the dev diary except for one thing which are relics. Sounds a lot like gear and that's a hard no from me. Another way to monetize something and make it a game-changer for stuff like AQ and AW.

MikeFrisbie

Please do not add relics. I don't want the complexity of an MMORPG in this mobile game. I like completing champions and moving on to others. I don't want another progression mechanic.