My issue with Summer of Pain
So don’t worry, this is not a SoP is too easy it should be harder I’m a bored end game player post. I’m writing this post to share my feedback. It’s a long one, so while I appreciate anyone taking the time to read it, I’ve also done a TLDR at the end.
I think it’s safe to say that endgame players feel like Summer of Pain may not have hit the mark when it comes to what it was hyped as. Take a look at the text below from the announcement of SoP.
“As if the summer didn’t have enough, we’re designing a brand new challenge for the best of the best of MCoC Players. Something for those that have blasted through all of Act 6, beat the Abyss while on vacation, and treat Variants like a stroll along the beach. In response to these feats and to deliver challenges which will test your sanity, we’re working on something that may make you question life itself. The strongest, most fearsome, and finger breakingly difficult fights from across The Contest will return but with unique roster requirements, smaller teams, and new ways to play them."
Really think about the fights that we’ve been shown and ask yourself if that fits the description of what is above. I’d argue definitely not. The fights have been fun, they’ve tested which champ tags you’ve got ranked up. But ultimately, they aren’t finger breakingly difficult. And honestly, I would be ok with that if that’s what this was advertised as. But it’s been advertised as the hardest thing in the game, maybe ever.
So what’s the solution, and why is this post not just a “MaKE SumMER oF PaiN PaiNFuL KabOoM” post? I think the structure of summer of pain doesn’t really allow for the content to be as hard as it was advertised as. And that’s because it’s temporary.
I think there should be some really hard content like summer of pain that’s permanent. The potential issue with making hard content temporary is that people feel hard done by missing out. But by having it there whenever you want to tackle it, you can have a progression goal to aim for.
New interesting fights or quests that are genuinely painful but that you can get through and target when you’re ready, but that aren’t gonna go away if you can’t do it in time.
That way, kabam can really go wild with the difficulty. Because right now unless there’s a dramatic rise in how hard these fights are, I’ll view this event as decent, but ultimately mainly because of the rewards. In regards to the pain? More like summer of mild discomfort. I did enjoy the fights, but I’ve not really felt challenged, so that box hasn’t been ticked for me.
This isn’t so much of a complaint, as a grudging acceptance that this event, while being touted as the hardest event we would have ever had, is not what was advertised and I’ll take it for what it is, a weekly fun challenge to see which of my champs I can use to solo for fun this week.
To be clear with my feedback, I was hoping for something that I would open each week and spend a couple days trying different counters, struggling through until I finally cracked it. Not something that I open, take one look at a screenshot of the nodes and decide which 3 champions I can solo with to complete the objectives, go in one at a time, and only need to restart the fight if I make a mistake.
This event for me out of 10, in terms of fun is a 7. I enjoy doing the fights, and using different champs for the solo.
In terms of difficulty is a 4. I’ve not felt challenged apart from trying to get perfect runs, or trying to solo rogue with professor X (not the best champ for it). The fights themselves generally don’t have many layers of complexity, you’re usually presented with one challenge and have to solve that.
And honesty, all of this isn’t bad. I’ve actually enjoyed the event, especially as a challenge on my second account with a much shallower roster. But my mind is split in two, the disappointment from not getting the challenge that was promised to end game players is there too.
I think expecting kabam to make this temporary content as difficult as I imagined may have been a bit short sighted, and not in a bad way. I get wanting to involve a majority of the community, and making something so hard that 1% or less people are gonna complete is closer to a waste of time than kabam probably want it to be.
I think making end game permanent content solves these issues. Any cav who is currently finding SoP every bit the challenge that I and other end game players wanted, would be able to work towards it, while end game players (that 1%) will struggle through it and have their challenge. I mean just look at abyss, nowadays your average Cav, who at the start of abyss had 0 chance of making it through without a small fortune, is tackling it. And the rewards are still relevant. But the end game players enjoyed it when it was released. I imagine something similar with the next hard content to be released. Make it like that please!
Maybe I’ll eat my words if SoP gets a lot harder, and honestly I hope this ages like milk and I’ll be able to say thank god it picked up difficulty.
In any case, thanks for reading my opinion on SoP! I’ve tried to view it from both sides and be as objective as I can, so I hope that’s come through
TL:DR Summer of Pain isn’t as hard as expected, and that’s ok. I think that really hard content should be permanent, not temporary. As temporary content has limitations with how many players will actually end up playing it. But permanent content is, well, permanent and can be done at any point
