Coming Soon! A Sneak Peek at Battlegrounds, the new Solo Competitive Game Mode!

Greetings Summoners!

It’s time to give you all an introduction to the highly anticipated 1v1 Solo Competitive mode coming to The Contest this spring, Battlegrounds!

Carina is on a mission to find the most worthy Summoners in all of The Battlerealm! She has enlisted the help of Ægon and The Champion to run a competition where you and your Champions will compete for the honour of being crowned the best Summoner in The Contest!

Get more early information over on the MCoC Blog!

Comments

Tony_5tank

Can we fix the game first before adding more variable to be screwed up? Just a thought

unknown

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DNA3000

So, is this only to determine "the best summoner", or can I go against my ally mates etc.... It would be very disappointing if only 2% of the players have a chance to do this mode.
My understanding is there is going to be a way to challenge friends (eventually), but for obvious exploitability reasons those matches will almost certainly not qualify for leaderboard related rewards. It would be too easy for someone to challenge an alt account and always win.
Well sure, but expecting every person to “compete” is ridiculous. The range of players is way too much. I could care less about competing, I just want to do the game mode with buddies etc..

It is a competitive mode, but just like with Alliance war you can treat the mode as seriously or as casually as you want, and you'll presumably be matched against people of similar strength. The advantage over alliance war is your choice for competitive focus is entirely your own, and your match strength is entirely your own. If you choose to play blindfolded with random champions, you will still be able to "compete" you'll just be competing with the dude that plays with his feet and Alex the mobile game playing terrier.

Squirrelguy

So, is this only to determine "the best summoner", or can I go against my ally mates etc.... It would be very disappointing if only 2% of the players have a chance to do this mode.
My understanding is there is going to be a way to challenge friends (eventually), but for obvious exploitability reasons those matches will almost certainly not qualify for leaderboard related rewards. It would be too easy for someone to challenge an alt account and always win.
Well sure, but expecting every person to “compete” is ridiculous. The range of players is way too much. I could care less about competing, I just want to do the game mode with buddies etc..
It is a competitive mode, but just like with Alliance war you can treat the mode as seriously or as casually as you want, and you'll presumably be matched against people of similar strength. The advantage over alliance war is your choice for competitive focus is entirely your own, and your match strength is entirely your own. If you choose to play blindfolded with random champions, you will still be able to "compete" you'll just be competing with the dude that plays with his feet and Alex the mobile game playing terrier.

This is my new favorite post of yours, which is saying something. Please tell me that there actually exists a dog that plays mobile video games named Alex....

Squirrelguy

Also, how long would a typical 1v1 match last?

I have a fairly endgame account but don't have the time to invest in an endgame alliance, so I am typically either stuck to solo content or the occasional Incursion. Personally, I have a blast in Incursions (depending on my partner) but I usually have to block off 60-90 minutes for a single run and that is also just a huge investment. It would be awesome if the whole process of battlegrounds could be anywhere from 7-15 minutes from start to finish.

Yodabolt21

So, is this only to determine "the best summoner", or can I go against my ally mates etc.... It would be very disappointing if only 2% of the players have a chance to do this mode.
My understanding is there is going to be a way to challenge friends (eventually), but for obvious exploitability reasons those matches will almost certainly not qualify for leaderboard related rewards. It would be too easy for someone to challenge an alt account and always win.
Well sure, but expecting every person to “compete” is ridiculous. The range of players is way too much. I could care less about competing, I just want to do the game mode with buddies etc..
It is a competitive mode, but just like with Alliance war you can treat the mode as seriously or as casually as you want, and you'll presumably be matched against people of similar strength. The advantage over alliance war is your choice for competitive focus is entirely your own, and your match strength is entirely your own. If you choose to play blindfolded with random champions, you will still be able to "compete" you'll just be competing with the dude that plays with his feet and Alex the mobile game playing terrier.

Maybe I'm not explaining it correctly. I want to do this game mode, but the description "the best summoner" makes me feel like this game mode is targeted to the top 2% of players, which I am not. This basically is replacing the summoner showdown,, or at least that is how it reads, and we all know that isn't for everyone.

I just really want this to be similar to incursions where I can play with a random if I want or with an ally member and have fun. I could care less if I get rewards or not, I just think this mode has the potential to add a whole new level of fun to the game.... if it is done for EVERYONE.

unknown

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Peairs420

Will you need to reach a certain progression level(Uncollected, Cavalier etc) to play this mode?

the post said uncollected and beyond

Grootman1294

First look is pretty solid. Hate that it costs energy tho. Imo this should be something like arena where you can grind while you wait for energy to do quests.

Maratox

First look is pretty solid. Hate that it costs energy tho. Imo this should be something like arena where you can grind while you wait for energy to do quests.

Yeah it’s a bad decision to have it cost energy. Especially something as high as 30. So you’re telling me that after I clear all my eq content for the day I have to wait 3 hours to do one match? And that there’s also a limit to how many times I can use a champ? Both of those together mean this mode will fail.

CloudOfContempt

Costing quest energy AND having a individual champion cooldown is redundant and unnecessary. For a brand new game mode I would think it should have it's own energy or entry cost system like Alliance War or Alliance Quest, at least for the competitive and ranked side. Cooldowns on the other hand shouldn't exist at all with the size of 30 champions in your deck. Even with the top 10% of players, there's likely a pretty large power gap between their #1 rated and #31 rated champion. If you want to play multiple rounds or grind this at all, you'll quickly be reaching deep into your roster and those champs just will not match the power levels associated with your rating/competition. Creating such an imbalance in your own deck will also be a detriment, as your opponent will have an easier time just banning the highest ranked.

SkyLord7000

Costing quest energy AND having a individual champion cooldown is redundant and unnecessary. For a brand new game mode I would think it should have it's own energy or entry cost system like Alliance War or Alliance Quest, at least for the competitive and ranked side. Cooldowns on the other hand shouldn't exist at all with the size of 30 champions in your deck. Even with the top 10% of players, there's likely a pretty large power gap between their #1 rated and #31 rated champion. If you want to play multiple rounds or grind this at all, you'll quickly be reaching deep into your roster and those champs just will not match the power levels associated with your rating/competition. Creating such an imbalance in your own deck will also be a detriment, as your opponent will have an easier time just banning the highest ranked.

Our only limit should be our skill.

Eb0ny-O-M4w

The energy cost is weird and unnecessary.
The system should be cap at X ammount of times per week/month, and so you can remove any entry cost. This will also stop people from grinding an unlimited ammount of times here, but I'm not too sure about if it would be worth it anyway due to lack of information about the rewards system.
Just make it similar to incursions in terms of rewards system and cooldowns.

Another thing, consider removing the 15 units re-roll option. Another unnecessary feature, and with only a few seconds with a "are youy sure" window confirmation as well, it's pretty much a one-time thing there. We also don't need people uniting their way with this.

For the rest, it looks fine. But we still need to see how the final version, as well as the rewards system will turn out

DNA3000

So, is this only to determine "the best summoner", or can I go against my ally mates etc.... It would be very disappointing if only 2% of the players have a chance to do this mode.
My understanding is there is going to be a way to challenge friends (eventually), but for obvious exploitability reasons those matches will almost certainly not qualify for leaderboard related rewards. It would be too easy for someone to challenge an alt account and always win.
Well sure, but expecting every person to “compete” is ridiculous. The range of players is way too much. I could care less about competing, I just want to do the game mode with buddies etc..
It is a competitive mode, but just like with Alliance war you can treat the mode as seriously or as casually as you want, and you'll presumably be matched against people of similar strength. The advantage over alliance war is your choice for competitive focus is entirely your own, and your match strength is entirely your own. If you choose to play blindfolded with random champions, you will still be able to "compete" you'll just be competing with the dude that plays with his feet and Alex the mobile game playing terrier.
Maybe I'm not explaining it correctly. I want to do this game mode, but the description "the best summoner" makes me feel like this game mode is targeted to the top 2% of players, which I am not. This basically is replacing the summoner showdown,, or at least that is how it reads, and we all know that isn't for everyone.

I just really want this to be similar to incursions where I can play with a random if I want or with an ally member and have fun. I could care less if I get rewards or not, I just think this mode has the potential to add a whole new level of fun to the game.... if it is done for EVERYONE.

It is just marketing fluff. The announcement page also says they are looking for the most worthy summoners, but I don't think wielding Mjolnir is going to be a prerequisite. There's a leaderboard, and I'm sure there will be ranked rewards of some kind (but the details of rewards haven't been decided yet) but just like with alliance war I'm reasonably certain that average players will be able to match against average players and get average rewards, just like alliance war does with average alliances.

I *think* there will be a way to challenge friends (probably not for the same rewards as in ranked play) but I'm not sure if that is fully decided yet. It would be crazy not to include such an option, and I am reasonably certain such a thing will either be an option at launch or an option added soon after.

As far as I can tell, there is nothing about the mode that would make it unreasonable for an average player with average skills and average knowledge of the game to participate. It might be a little bewildering at first, but if you're matched against equally average players it will be a fair (and fun) fight.

phillgreen

I have no idea how this works or why I want to do it.

Colinwhitworth69

Watching the CCP folks testing this. Looks really fun.

Vannulloyd

Will it be monetizable? P2W?

P2W unfortunately cause you have to select a roaster of 30 champs and if you want to win they have to be high

Worknprogress

Will it be monetizable? P2W?
P2W unfortunately cause you have to select a roaster of 30 champs and if you want to win they have to be high

Yeah it just makes no sense that having a larger and better roster would be an advantage in a game mode like this...

Worknprogress

The energy cost per match is a ridiculous addition. Cooldown on champs is fine but the whole allure of a mode like this should be replayability as that's easily the most lacking thing in this game. You want to have your players as engaged as possible not limit entries based on quest energy which also takes away from what you can do in other areas of the game. Absolutely no idea what whoever thought that was a good idea is thinking

Eb0ny-O-M4w

Will it be monetizable? P2W?
P2W unfortunately cause you have to select a roaster of 30 champs and if you want to win they have to be high

That's inevitable, but I don't think that's an issue regarding the P2W concept.

If anything could become P2W in this mode, is the entry cost, recharges and re-rolls. If the rewards are unique to it (like dungeons have artifacts), and if these rewards are game changing (let's say they are gonna be relics, for instances), then these rewards can become P2W in the future, if sold by money. These should stay in game content

Fit_Fun9329

Agree with the energy point.

When I have 70 energy I always would complete content like event quests or side quests which require energy. The only situations where I’d prioritize this mode over EQ/SQ would be:

1. I already explored every difficulty except “normal”
2. The rewards are outstanding in comparison to EQ/SQ

Get rid of the energy costs - just let have the players have fun with a new mode

benshb

How will the ranked matches work? Will it be "farmable"? Like someone who completed all content in game will play this gamemode 24/7, making them obviously the 1st. Or there will be like 3 matches per day to make it fair?

Shaneomac_56

Looks very cool. It will be interesting to see what reward structure will be like

The_Sentry06

Atleast the very least, I hope playing with friends or "unranked" doesn't cost any energy.

BowTieJohn

I agree with the energy point and enjoyed the video Briant Grant posted. I do hope things that have been issues already in the game are going to be focused upon more otherwise my concern is this will add to problems and take some of the fun of the game away by adding frustration.

Wakandas_Finest

Like most I think it’s unwise to have both an energy requirement and a champ cooldown. Other than that this looks very promising. Hopefully the rewards and ranking will be more in line with AW and not AQ. I’d like to see Battleground seasons. I’d also like to see the leaderboards bracketed like AW I.e. masters, platinum, gold, etc. finally how will match making work. While I’m confident in my skill I’d still hate to face a roster like seatin’s with so many highly ranked champs.

One more thing will our battleground rank/bracket be displayed on our profile? It would be an invaluable recruiting tool for alliance leaders/officers.

kevhugo

Wait so we still can't fight an actual person. After watching Seatin's video its expensive and we are still fighting an AI. Just wanna have a mode where I can actually 1v1 my friend. And for it to not be dependant on our rosters, maybe same level champions. A bit off topic but still, even Disney Infinity 3.0 did battlegrounds better than MCOC.

DrBruceWayne

How in the world does your ban affecting you as well make sense? What was whoever that made that change thinking?

I don't know if you have played Rainbow Six Siege, but in that game, each team picks one defender and attacker to ban and the ban affects all, meaning your team needs to be diverse with the amount of operators they can use and excel with.

frodo2377

The energy cost and cooldown for champs is unnecessary and restrictive. You are taking a very cool mode of gameplay and limiting it before it's even out of the gate. Take incursions for example. This is something my ally mate and I do every week for the monthly rewards and artifacts. While the game mode can be fun it isn't something that is played continually (meaning several times in a row) due to champ cooldowns and the rewards not being worth the effort. However....we can play whenever we want. With BGs set up this way I have to choose between doing story progression, variants, monthly event quests or even side quests. Having an energy cost ensures this will get limited play....mainly near the end of the month after players have blown though the monthly content.

Champion cooldown is just another limiting factor. For summoners who have a large and expansive roster this is less of an issue as they can shuffle different chars into their decks. Developing rosters are just left with a potentially gimped deck if they only have can have a pool of 24 champs to choose from after playing a round.

Remove the limiting factors. Let this be the game mode that the community plays for hours on end....not the mind numbing soul sucking game mode that is arenas.

OGAvenger

If Kabam really wants to limit the rewards and such from this mode I personally would prefer they create a separate currency for it (like dungeon artifacts) and put a cap to how much of it we can hold at one time rather than requiring energy use or champ cooldowns.

That and make store limits and reset timers like we do with glory. This would keep rewards more limited but also allow people to enjoy the game mode and much as they’d like to