Champion Update and Reworks Discussion

For anybody who hasn’t seen it, there’s a new announcement relating to champion updates and reworks here:

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/309699/champion-attributes-and-rebalance-updates-july-2022#latest

Personally, I very much appreciated this post. I love not having to wait until the last second to know if changes are going to be made for new champions (Black Cat and Scorpion in this case). Getting that information out prior to their featured crystal releasing is even better, but obviously not going to be possible for every champion going forward.

As for the buff announcements, I am cautiously optimistic. Very cautiously. I have no problem with one a month, especially since we’re being told in advance and being told that these are fairly extensive changes to the champion’s kits (except maybe Antman’s, his sounds like they’re taking core mechanics and cranking them to 11, with a sprinkle of some new).

In any event, what’re y’all’s thoughts? I just like having a heads up on things like this, so it made me happy.

Comments

Buttehrs

All 3 are sorely needed in all regards that there's no way they COULD even mess these up lol.

Rockypantherx

If I’m being brutally honest, my first instinct when they told me who was being buffed was genuinely ‘why should I care?’. Buffs clearly are aimed at players who need 2-star champion effectiveness and simplicity under the new system. I know they’ve said their design goals haven’t changed but frankly, I don’t believe them. The buffs speak for themselves.

It is nice to know Black Cat and Scorpion aren’t getting any changes, that’s a key piece of communication, and I hope they’ll let us know that as soon as they know it going forward.

RiderofHell

Finally my 6* duped Juggs will showing his Juggs more often in the game! Hopefully 🤣

Pdubs77

I thought it was good clear piece of communication and I definitely appreciated it.

I have provided my feedback in this forum already on some of the updates we've received, and while I'm still disappointed about those outcomes, and it seems like they will receive no further adjustment it's good to know that it's basically what I should expect going forwards which allows me to adjust my expectations. I don't like it, but I'll approach any buff now as someone going from useless to occasionally useful. It also means I should never hope to love classic Iron Man, Captain America, Dr Strange or Cyclops, which is sad, but not in my control

It was Excellent news regarding Black Cat and Scorpion, which gives me hope that there will not be significant changes to the other new champions, and that's great!

Thanks for the communication

HenriqueSCCP

The amount of buff per month, dropped to just 1 buff?

GrandOldKai

It's nice to know champs are still going to get reworks, but it's kind of odd that the number per month just keeps dropping

Wozzle007

I appreciate the communication but having only 1 buff per month with a “break month” is a bit rubbish. All I can say I please make these buffs worth the wait. We don’t need any more Psychoman, Jane Foster, Deadpool waste of time buffs. Not saying the need to be game breaking broken, just make us excited to want to use them.

BitterSteel

I was just about to make a post about this. I was happy about the post overall, agreed with you on the timeline - this was a great step in communication by Kabam. Happy that neither champ are being rebalanced, I think both were great (though I think the real test for this rebalancing is when they come to Gorr).

But every word in reference to the buff program made me sadder I won't lie. A tiny paragraph that makes a weak defence of the current program was not what I wanted to hear after mountains of negative feedback on how badly the current buffs are being received.

@Kabam John said "We are still approaching reworks the same way we always have", but if that's the case then why is the new program being so badly received? Every month of buffs pre-rebalancing announcement was received largely positively, and if you ask anyone now whether they prefer the buffs from before the "change" or after, they will likely say before. So what has changed? Are there just some really good buffs still to come that will balance this program out?

Again, maybe the next buff's to Ant Man, Juggs and Rocket will make me look very silly in a few months time (though I have said that about 5 times now, and the program hasn't stepped up just yet) but I just have no excitement for this program anymore.

I completely appreciate the points about buffs feeling meaningful especially for newer players, and agree with that! But if you "are still approaching reworks the same way we always have" then why were you able to consistently pull out great buffs from September 2020 to December 2021? If the ethos hasn't changed, why has the quality of the buffs and how useful they are to end game players?

Again, before someone says it, no not every buff should be for end game players, but so far, none really have been. I'm fine with the vast majority of buffs not being for me, but if all of them are then why should I be excited? If Kabam came out and said that the buff program wasn't for end game players anymore, I'd be disappointed but at least I could stop hoping against hope one will be good. But they haven't. They still maintain nothing has changed, and the program goals are still the same as the program that gave us Falcon, Kingpin, King groot, Venompool, Miles, Nebula etc, when it's giving us Psychoman, DPXF and Jane Foster...

Either the goals of this new program have changed, the old program vastly exceed the goals every time, or they aren't being met in this new program.

One of the goals for this program is "To increase a relative sense of excitement when these champs are pulled from a crystal." I have all 3 of those champions as 6*s, 2 of them duped, and I don't feel any excitement for their buffs. I do hope that I'm wrong, but I don't think I am.

Renaxqq

Wish I went for Rocket because I already have 6* Juggernaut and Ant-man lol.

CosmicGuardian

As much as I like the communication, if recent buffs have been approached the same as they always have been, then why has there been such a decline in quality? I understand keeping champs simple for newer players, but simple doesn’t mean a champ can’t be useful and effective.

RobbieRampage

All 3 are sorely needed in all regards that there's no way they COULD even mess these up lol.

The Deadpool buff was pretty bad

RobbieRampage

With the level of the buffs so far this year why can’t these be pre nerf Mole Man, Ultron or Kingpin level buffs? I mean in terms of final quality of champs. The year would still overall be well behind last year. Jugs is unlikely to be better than Doom but why not give us a champ that we might want to rank up over Doom because he’s a high tier champ and fun to play?

Malreck04

@BitterSteel The difference is absolutely stark, when the buffs would be announced there'd be multiple threads of excited people and at least one of the buffs would be pretty good, if not amazing(plenty). Having to repeatedly tell people to wait and see the buff before ranking up.

Now, the average response is, "yeah, sure, whatever"

It feels strange talking something from less than a year ago in this way but that's where we are unfortunately.

The new player situation is very clear to me. New players will not read descriptions, they will see the animations, they will rank up the cool looking champs and the champions they know from MCU. Every new player is going to have the same playstyle regardless of champion, which is the way the game teaches them. A champion like storm is built for new players, do combos, throw specials and profit. Buffing with new champs in mind is just going to be combos and specials for big damage, maybe with some class specific abilities thrown in.

rischio

There is a discussion popping up in the rebalancing bit in the post.
Someone noticed that quake has also changed. Concussion is now not 100% any longer. Any thoughts?

Bulmkt

I just hope they make Juggernaut great…

SummonerNR

Someone noticed that quake has also changed. Concussion is now not 100% any longer. Any thoughts?

That is from Quake's 2016 Spotlight, not foreshadowing an upcoming change to her.
It is also listed that way (57.5) in the very old Forum-based post of Spotlights from 2017 long before they transitioned them up to the main “playcontest..” searchable website.

AMS94

All 3 are sorely needed in all regards that there's no way they COULD even mess these up lol.

They messed up DPXF, PschoMan & Jane Foster
We thought they couldn't but they did

Buttehrs

All 3 are sorely needed in all regards that there's no way they COULD even mess these up lol.
They messed up DPXF, PschoMan & Jane Foster
We thought they couldn't but they did

And those 3 arguably had at least something useful about them prior. Whether it was stun or bleed or anything else. The 3 in line for buffs? They have absolutely nothing except antman and a tiny poison.

TheBair123

I understand wanting to buff champs that are widely available to new players as 2*s such as DPX, Ant-Man, and Juggs, but I don't see why they can't make buffs for those champs that not only make new players happy, but also make the rest of the playerbase happy. You look at someone like falcon, who's widely available as a 2* champ to almost any new player. He's an amazing champ not only if you're starting out, but also if you're deep into endgame content. Plus, his playstyle is very easy to understand. If we can get to a point where buffs make champs
1. easy for early players to understand and use effectively
2. have many uses in wide ranges of content
3. improve enough to justify only having one a month
then i would call the buff program a success

altavista

If I’m being brutally honest, my first instinct when they told me who was being buffed was genuinely ‘why should I care?’. Buffs clearly are aimed at players who need 2-star champion effectiveness and simplicity under the new system. I know they’ve said their design goals haven’t changed but frankly, I don’t believe them. The buffs speak for themselves.

It is nice to know Black Cat and Scorpion aren’t getting any changes, that’s a key piece of communication, and I hope they’ll let us know that as soon as they know it going forward.

The flipside of buffs has always been - "Have they become a more annoying defender?"
With words like 'aggressive' and 'glancing', Juggernaut and Antman have the potential to be harder to deal with.

Crine60

If I’m being brutally honest, my first instinct when they told me who was being buffed was genuinely ‘why should I care?’. Buffs clearly are aimed at players who need 2-star champion effectiveness and simplicity under the new system. I know they’ve said their design goals haven’t changed but frankly, I don’t believe them. The buffs speak for themselves.

It is nice to know Black Cat and Scorpion aren’t getting any changes, that’s a key piece of communication, and I hope they’ll let us know that as soon as they know it going forward.
The flipside of buffs has always been - "Have they become a more annoying defender?"
With words like 'aggressive' and 'glancing', Juggernaut and Antman have the potential to be harder to deal with.

They definitely seem to have moved to a point of making champs more difficult to fight against instead of giving us champs that are significantly better to use ourselves. It isn't just the buff program in changing abilities directly but when they changed the animations of a few champs so far they seem to have made easier to avoid specials more difficult to evade. I guess that benefits AW players and BG players when using those champs as defenders but for the most part they just made it more difficult for people fighting them in story/EQ/side quest/etc.

They have also been putting in little bits to new champs' abilities that mostly (although there are a handful that go the other way) give them benefits when they are used by the AI against us but that we don't get to use when we play them ourselves (abilities lasting longer, having reduced thresholds for things to happen against us and stuff like that). This happened occasionally before but seems to have really increased more recently and even after asking multiple times in different spotlights and other forum posts why they keep doing this Kabam has never once responded that I have seen. I understand some champs may always wind up being better as defenders or as attackers in general but I am talking about when they actually function differently as defenders than what we can make them do when we play them ourselves which honestly really ticks me off.

Adevati

I’m tired of this “new players need 2*” excuse. It’s a complete lie.

I have handfuls of new accounts. I like playing new accounts for fun. On every single account, I don’t use a single 2* after about 1 hour of play time.

You get a 3* after completing Act 1. That takes about 30 min. At that point, you can only take 3 champs anyways and the 3 star champ solo’s all quests in Act 2.

Another hour and you explore Act 2. That gives you 3 nexus 3-stars. And viola, you no longer have any room for 2* champs. You also get a free sigil. You can easily buy a 3-star crystal with the solo quest shards.

This excludes the possibility of getting a 3 or 4 star out of the 5 PHC you get up to this point. Let’s just say bad luck there and nothing but 2-stars.

Now we’re at Act 3 with a selection of 5 3-stars for 4 champ slots. Completing Act 3 awards 3 more 3-star crystals.

Now this new player has at least 8 3-star champs (3 of which were nexus). Even a new player should be at less than 4 hours of play time.

They can then explore Act 3, which they should have amassed enough energy refills to do so. This will award 1 4-star crystal and 2000 4-star shards.

Kabam, your data mining is flawed. Maybe there are a bunch of new accounts in which the owner plays for 10 min every month and doesn’t really progress and keeps their 2-star. But any new player that progresses the story will be completely done with 2-stars in 4 hours of play time. So WHY are we making game decisions based on a demographic that barely plays your game in lieu of the demographic that spends the most time and money on your game?

unknown

This content has been removed.

psp742

I have all three champions as 6* and am interested in the buff for each.. although my tech 6* roster isn't bad.. it is weakest compared to the other class.. Ghost, Guardian, Doc Ock, War Machine are probably my better tech ironman iw is ok but isn't what I imagined him to be.

important for me is do they need to be awaken? at what signature level for respectable damage and access to crit or true-strike? Of course sig200 is preferred but not everyone can get access to 6* signature stones (class base and/or generic)..

I am sort of leaning towards Antman or Rocket Racoon (not sure how he will turn out) but I'm optimistic about the buff program.

Thor Jane Foster might need a little more love like Gamora who got the three times a charm.

GroundedWisdom

I’m tired of this “new players need 2*” excuse. It’s a complete lie.

I have handfuls of new accounts. I like playing new accounts for fun. On every single account, I don’t use a single 2* after about 1 hour of play time.

You get a 3* after completing Act 1. That takes about 30 min. At that point, you can only take 3 champs anyways and the 3 star champ solo’s all quests in Act 2.

Another hour and you explore Act 2. That gives you 3 nexus 3-stars. And viola, you no longer have any room for 2* champs. You also get a free sigil. You can easily buy a 3-star crystal with the solo quest shards.

This excludes the possibility of getting a 3 or 4 star out of the 5 PHC you get up to this point. Let’s just say bad luck there and nothing but 2-stars.

Now we’re at Act 3 with a selection of 5 3-stars for 4 champ slots. Completing Act 3 awards 3 more 3-star crystals.

Now this new player has at least 8 3-star champs (3 of which were nexus). Even a new player should be at less than 4 hours of play time.

They can then explore Act 3, which they should have amassed enough energy refills to do so. This will award 1 4-star crystal and 2000 4-star shards.

Kabam, your data mining is flawed. Maybe there are a bunch of new accounts in which the owner plays for 10 min every month and doesn’t really progress and keeps their 2-star. But any new player that progresses the story will be completely done with 2-stars in 4 hours of play time. So WHY are we making game decisions based on a demographic that barely plays your game in lieu of the demographic that spends the most time and money on your game?

You're asserting it's a lie. Care to provide a motive?

GroundedWisdom

To circle back, I'm not trying to instigate anything. I'm simply pointing out that they have no payoff in lying about it.
Like them or not, these revisions are not done like cramming for a test the night before. There is data, forethought, calculation, and deliberation that go into these. They put in time and effort with them, and that's not something they do to placate the desire.
They're not likely to put in that much energy into blowing smoke just to make people happy, is my point.

Wicket329

To circle back, I'm not trying to instigate anything. I'm simply pointing out that they have no payoff in lying about it.
Like them or not, these revisions are not done like cramming for a test the night before. There is data, forethought, calculation, and deliberation that go into these. They put in time and effort with them, and that's not something they do to placate the desire.
They're not likely to put in that much energy into blowing smoke just to make people happy, is my point.

A lot of people (not just specific to this forum, just in general) don’t differentiate between “they were lying” and “they were wrong.” Five people can be presented with the same data and reach ten different conclusions, that doesn’t make any of them liars, and all of them could be wrong. That doesn’t make any of them liars.

Same is true here, I don’t see any reason to believe Kabam is fabricating anything when it comes to these buffs, just that they came to conclusions that the majority of the player base disagrees with. That being said, I think Jane Foster’s rework makes her an absolute weapon through Act 4. Her stun lock potential against opponents who don’t throw an sp3 is silly and she can cheese through all of that content.

Also, I noticed somebody in this thread talking about their alt accounts and how quickly they blow through the early game. But you’ve got to remember what it was like the first time you picked up the game, before you knew the fight mechanics and how champions worked. I could start an alt today and power through content that took me months to do my first time around because now I know how to play the game. My first time through, I didn’t even know what intercepting was in the context of the game, let alone feel proficient at it. My most complicated champions were Moon Knight and Guillotine. I can figure out a complicated champion’s kit in a few minutes now, but back then it would’ve felt like I was cramming for a final exam written in a language I didn’t speak.

These are all things to keep in mind when it comes to these reworks, and I’m sure there are plenty of variables I’m leaving out. But everybody needs to just take a minute sometimes to consider the other angles on this stuff.

GroundedWisdom

To circle back, I'm not trying to instigate anything. I'm simply pointing out that they have no payoff in lying about it.
Like them or not, these revisions are not done like cramming for a test the night before. There is data, forethought, calculation, and deliberation that go into these. They put in time and effort with them, and that's not something they do to placate the desire.
They're not likely to put in that much energy into blowing smoke just to make people happy, is my point.
A lot of people (not just specific to this forum, just in general) don’t differentiate between “they were lying” and “they were wrong.” Five people can be presented with the same data and reach ten different conclusions, that doesn’t make any of them liars, and all of them could be wrong. That doesn’t make any of them liars.

Same is true here, I don’t see any reason to believe Kabam is fabricating anything when it comes to these buffs, just that they came to conclusions that the majority of the player base disagrees with. That being said, I think Jane Foster’s rework makes her an absolute weapon through Act 4. Her stun lock potential against opponents who don’t throw an sp3 is silly and she can cheese through all of that content.

Also, I noticed somebody in this thread talking about their alt accounts and how quickly they blow through the early game. But you’ve got to remember what it was like the first time you picked up the game, before you knew the fight mechanics and how champions worked. I could start an alt today and power through content that took me months to do my first time around because now I know how to play the game. My first time through, I didn’t even know what intercepting was in the context of the game, let alone feel proficient at it. My most complicated champions were Moon Knight and Guillotine. I can figure out a complicated champion’s kit in a few minutes now, but back then it would’ve felt like I was cramming for a final exam written in a language I didn’t speak.

These are all things to keep in mind when it comes to these reworks, and I’m sure there are plenty of variables I’m leaving out. But everybody needs to just take a minute sometimes to consider the other angles on this stuff.

The majority of the Player Base as represented by the Forum, is representative of Players that are for the most part at later stages of the game. They're looking through their own perspective, where they're at, with their own preferences and wants and needs.
Stating "I started an Alt and I was a newer Player." is not an accurate statement. It's a seasoned Player starting another Account.