The difficulty increase is ridiculous

cur53d

Can't find the original announcement but I believe it only mentioned the new TB difficulty and an indication that the Cav difficulty would be toned down to accommodate newer Cavalier players. I don't think anything was disclosed regarding the other difficulties at all. Unfortunately Kabam has a long history of making changes like this without informing the community or only giving us half of the information. That is the issue here. Bottom line is the other difficulties should not have been changed. There was nothing wrong with them as far as the players they were intended for. The only one that needed to change was Cavalier as Kabam stated because it was too hard for newer Cav players who are still developing their rosters.

Searmenis

GroundedWisdom said:

Jwagg said:

GroundedWisdom said:

Wozzle007 said:

For context, if you had a roster that could easily auto fight previously but now can’t, imagine what it’s like for those who previously could complete each month, but only by a little. Or maybe with a revive or two. This isn’t about Paragon and Thronebreakers who can’t auto fight the Master Equivalent quest. It’s about conquerer and low level uncollected who now can’t get through.

Which they will grow into.

They won't grow at all now because they can't complete things now that they used 100%, new people will just quit increasing the timeline for the death of the game.

New people will grow and adapt, the same way we grow and adapt, and have done since the beginning of playing. If we all quit the second we couldn't do something 100% the day that it came out, there would be no game. This game has had an infinite number of "deaths", pretty much everytime something comes along that people are uncomfortable with. Life goes on, and so will the game.

When we grew and adapted in the "beginning of playing", the difficulty was compatible with skill and rosters at that time and level of progression. At the moment, it is not for newer accounts, if they were skilled enough, they would have been at least Thronebreakers already. But, they are good enough for Uncollected.

... Or so they thought...

Ceti_Eel

cur53d said:

Can't find the original announcement but I believe it only mentioned the new TB difficulty and an indication that the Cav difficulty would be toned down to accommodate newer Cavalier players. I don't think anything was disclosed regarding the other difficulties at all. Unfortunately Kabam has a long history of making changes like this without informing the community or only giving us half of the information. That is the issue here. Bottom line is the other difficulties should not have been changed. There was nothing wrong with them as far as the players they were intended for. The only one that needed to change was Cavalier as Kabam stated because it was too hard for newer Cav players who are still developing their rosters.

Agreed - as a new cavalier (just added my first two r3s) I found the “old” cavalier level too difficult without spending a lot of revives and potions.

Bigg_Dogg

WOW! Glad I'm not the only one that thought this. This is probably good for the longevity of the game. A little heads up I guess is to much to ask for from our benevolent benefactors.

Chuck_Finley

Bigg_Dogg said:

WOW! Glad I'm not the only one that thought this. This is probably good for the longevity of the game. A little heads up I guess is to much to ask for from our benevolent benefactors.

Not to be argumentative, but how is it for the good of the game for conquerers and uncollected to face much harder paths in monthly EQ content for the same or even lower rewards?

Bigg_Dogg

Chuck_Finley said:

Bigg_Dogg said:

WOW! Glad I'm not the only one that thought this. This is probably good for the longevity of the game. A little heads up I guess is to much to ask for from our benevolent benefactors.

Not to be argumentative, but how is it for the good of the game for conquerers and uncollected to face much harder paths in monthly EQ content for the same or even lower rewards?

The spenders and the people who love punishing themselves keep this game alive, I salute both these type of people because I play this game daily (f2p). You are 100% that conqueror and uncollected players are screwed. EQ is much harder. I hope this is not done on purpose. But don't get your hopes up.

JessieS

Chatterofforums said:

Too hard because can't autofight it has got to be among one of worst arguments of all time in global.

You are aware that the majority of the players are not no lifers obsessed with the game but casual players who want to have fun right ? That’s the whole point of auto play . To be able to finish game content that’s not really important without us wasting our time . By essential removing this with the increased difficulty Kabam makes it so either we have to waste hours on our lives for rewards that are not really worthy or to skip the content the all together

So yes while for some this may not be a big deal but for quite a few people it is and it impacts their enjoyment of the game

Shamir51

Searmenis said:

GroundedWisdom said:

Jwagg said:

GroundedWisdom said:

Wozzle007 said:

For context, if you had a roster that could easily auto fight previously but now can’t, imagine what it’s like for those who previously could complete each month, but only by a little. Or maybe with a revive or two. This isn’t about Paragon and Thronebreakers who can’t auto fight the Master Equivalent quest. It’s about conquerer and low level uncollected who now can’t get through.

Which they will grow into.

They won't grow at all now because they can't complete things now that they used 100%, new people will just quit increasing the timeline for the death of the game.

New people will grow and adapt, the same way we grow and adapt, and have done since the beginning of playing. If we all quit the second we couldn't do something 100% the day that it came out, there would be no game. This game has had an infinite number of "deaths", pretty much everytime something comes along that people are uncomfortable with. Life goes on, and so will the game.

When we grew and adapted in the "beginning of playing", the difficulty was compatible with skill and rosters at that time and level of progression. At the moment, it is not for newer accounts, if they were skilled enough, they would have been at least Thronebreakers already. But, they are good enough for Uncollected.

... Or so they thought...

You mention "compatible with skill and rosters at that time". I'm curious, do you see that rosters now develop at the same rate as yours did way back when?

Just 1 post below yours is a newly minted cavalier. With 2 6* rank 3's. Not sure about you, but I didn't have any 6* rank 3's at cavalier. My first was when I beat Grandmaster. It is infinitely easier to get ahold of 5* and 6* shards now- and that's a fact.

Doctorwho13

Shamir51 said:

Searmenis said:

GroundedWisdom said:

Jwagg said:

GroundedWisdom said:

Wozzle007 said:

For context, if you had a roster that could easily auto fight previously but now can’t, imagine what it’s like for those who previously could complete each month, but only by a little. Or maybe with a revive or two. This isn’t about Paragon and Thronebreakers who can’t auto fight the Master Equivalent quest. It’s about conquerer and low level uncollected who now can’t get through.

Which they will grow into.

They won't grow at all now because they can't complete things now that they used 100%, new people will just quit increasing the timeline for the death of the game.

New people will grow and adapt, the same way we grow and adapt, and have done since the beginning of playing. If we all quit the second we couldn't do something 100% the day that it came out, there would be no game. This game has had an infinite number of "deaths", pretty much everytime something comes along that people are uncomfortable with. Life goes on, and so will the game.

When we grew and adapted in the "beginning of playing", the difficulty was compatible with skill and rosters at that time and level of progression. At the moment, it is not for newer accounts, if they were skilled enough, they would have been at least Thronebreakers already. But, they are good enough for Uncollected.

... Or so they thought...

It is infinitely easier to get ahold of 5* and 6* shards now- and that's a fact.

That’s like 25% of the equation and doesn’t really come into play unless all the boxes are checked regarding higher level content. Yay. A UC got a 6 star groot. With no 5 or 6 stars with a compatible synergy. Or no duplication. Etc etc. not to mention skill development.

There’s very few single champs that break the entire game on their own. Champ acquisition by itself as a standalone still requires a significant amount of other variables.

Agent_7

Shamir51 said:

You mention "compatible with skill and rosters at that time". I'm curious, do you see that rosters now develop at the same rate as yours did way back when?

That is absolutely true, however, player progression and roster progression are two different things. I don’t think anyone would ever say this game isn’t heavily built on a broad skill set and an understanding and awareness of the defenders as well as the available options in one’s own toolkit to defeat those defenders.

So yeah, we can all have stacked rosters and each of us will get different results from it. I may not be as skilled as you now and I might also be more skilled than you six months from now. But that will affect my game progression.

I don’t believe it’s a stretch to say player skill should be the driving factor across the game broadly and to say that quests and rewards should scale accordingly.

There are some pretty advanced nodes in the UC EQ and the PI and health pools are increased. At minimum, if this was intended behavior, probably should have been part of the announcement with at least some measure of explanation. I can’t imagine an actual UC player that isn’t ready for late Act 5 and early Act 6 content is ready for the quest that is at their own defined skill level.

TheCaptain412

UC wasn’t fun, but with a couple of boosts that were expiring today anyway, it was manageable. Never had to boost up to get through it before, and honestly didn’t try to see if I could do it this time first run through.

What the changes to the lower EQ means to me, especially the elimination of the units from the bottom two levels, is that I don’t have to waste time on them any more. Sure sucks to not be able to burn energy on auto-play for free units, but selling those is how Kabam makes money.

I’m Cav, been there for almost a year, and happy with it. Don’t have any desire to frustrate myself going for TB or Paragon. I love my alliance mates, enjoy picking up new champs and learning them, and will progress on my timetable and my comfort level, not Kabam’s and not trying to keep up with the Joneses.

Carmel1

Is easy for you? good for you! now get your medal\title and now lets talk about facts:
1. we used to have 5 difficulties, now we have 6 with the addition on TB
2. comparing the PI, the attack\health values level 1-4, this month is much higher than previous month. for example uncollected chapter 1 has defenders with PI of 18-20K vs 6-7K last month (excluding boss)
3. regarding chapter 5, I haven't mentioned it above because to be honest I haven't noticed the PI. Fights are just longer because the supporting buffs were removed.
4. rewards are the same for these levels
5. there was no announcement about changing the difficulty of the existing levels.

now, is it "too hard"... depends who you ask... for players that were waiting for the TB level probably not. But for newer player that used to run only Heroic (level2), Master (level3) and maybe Uncollected (level4) it is much harder.

Personally, I don't like the changes in the older difficulty because as others mentioned, I used to burn energy with autoplay on the lower level when I got ready for work or just being busy, or also just play (no auto-play) but on lower level that doesn't require much attention if I'm not in the mood.

Chobbly

I think either way it would be appreciated to get a response about what has happened - whether it is accidental or intentional. I feel sorry for new Summoners with limited rosters who have suddenly seen their EQ difficulty go through the roof - and it's those players we need to get into the game.

@Kabam Miike , @Kabam Jax, sorry for the direct call out but could you possibly investigate the difficulty spike in EQ etc this month across the board and let us know what the deal is? It would be appreciated.

ESF

If I was Kabam, after looking at this thread, I would change the lower levels back and then remove Autoplay. I would put back the units, all of that. But Autoplay would be totally eliminated.

Then we would find out if it’s people truly concerned about skill development and growing their rosters for fair effort and rewards, or people mad that they can’t Autoplay and don’t care about the health of the overall game

Chuck_Finley

ESF said:

If I was Kabam, after looking at this thread, I would change the lower levels back and then remove Autoplay. I would put back the units, all of that. But Autoplay would be totally eliminated.

Then we would find out if it’s people truly concerned about skill development and growing their rosters for fair effort and rewards, or people mad that they can’t Autoplay and don’t care about the health of the overall game

If that was Kabam’s intention to eliminate autoplay… they need to say so. I can tell you knowing players with lesser accounts than most here, these difficultly changes with no new rewards are not inconsequential to them.

Very curious what Kabam intended here because they just made a it a ton harder on lower accounts with no explanation

ESF

Chuck_Finley said:

ESF said:

If I was Kabam, after looking at this thread, I would change the lower levels back and then remove Autoplay. I would put back the units, all of that. But Autoplay would be totally eliminated.

Then we would find out if it’s people truly concerned about skill development and growing their rosters for fair effort and rewards, or people mad that they can’t Autoplay and don’t care about the health of the overall game

If that was Kabam’s intention to eliminate autoplay… they need to say so. I can tell you knowing players with lesser accounts than most here, these difficultly changes with no new rewards are not inconsequential to them.

Very curious what Kabam intended here because they just made a it a ton harder on lower accounts with no explanation

I certainly don’t know what Kabam intended, why Units were eliminated. I absolutely won’t speak for them.

But if it was me, I would say, “OK. Heard the complaints. Units are one of the pillars of the game. It’s fine if you want to farm lower levels of EQ for them. Absolutely fine. But it’s not fine for those Units to come for no effort beyond Autoplay. If you want the Units, by all means, go ahead. But you actually have to play the game, actually put forth SOME effort at those levels, for the Units.”

If a person says, “Oh, I am going to quit if I can’t Autoplay Conqueror every month,” then I guess we would be moving on without you

ESF

And for the record, I have — ALWAYS — said I have absolute respect for people who grind Arena for that exact reason. I have said those Arena grinders deserve all the gold and Units they can carry, more resources and rank-ups and rewards, because they get in there and put in the effort, even if it’s just clearing milestones.

That’s absolutely how the game should work, especially if you are F2P — you have the ability to get something simply by working.

As I said, I went into these modes last night. They are harder, but they can be done, even with a 3/30 4-star on at least the first chapter of Uncollected.

So to me, you can still clear the content.

But at the same time, I do admit that it’s harder and that the rewards were reduced. So I would restore UC and below, and just remove Autoplay, and that should be the end of it because certainly no one should complain that actually having to play the game is a requirement to get rewards.

IKON

ESF said:

And for the record, I have — ALWAYS — said I have absolute respect for people who grind Arena for that exact reason. I have said those Arena grinders deserve all the gold and Units they can carry, more resources and rank-ups and rewards, because they get in there and put in the effort, even if it’s just clearing milestones.

That’s absolutely how the game should work, especially if you are F2P — you have the ability to get something simply by working.

As I said, I went into these modes last night. They are harder, but they can be done, even with a 3/30 4-star on at least the first chapter of Uncollected.

So to me, you can still clear the content.

But at the same time, I do admit that it’s harder and that the rewards were reduced. So I would restore UC and below, and just remove Autoplay, and that should be the end of it because certainly no one should complain that actually having to play the game is a requirement to get rewards.

If rewards weren't meant to be earned through no effort, why does autoplay exist in the first place?

ESF

IKON said:

ESF said:

And for the record, I have — ALWAYS — said I have absolute respect for people who grind Arena for that exact reason. I have said those Arena grinders deserve all the gold and Units they can carry, more resources and rank-ups and rewards, because they get in there and put in the effort, even if it’s just clearing milestones.

That’s absolutely how the game should work, especially if you are F2P — you have the ability to get something simply by working.

As I said, I went into these modes last night. They are harder, but they can be done, even with a 3/30 4-star on at least the first chapter of Uncollected.

So to me, you can still clear the content.

But at the same time, I do admit that it’s harder and that the rewards were reduced. So I would restore UC and below, and just remove Autoplay, and that should be the end of it because certainly no one should complain that actually having to play the game is a requirement to get rewards.

If rewards weren't meant to be earned through no effort, why does autoplay exist in the first place?

So, then if that’s what this is about — “I can’t Autoplay for Units anymore, and that’s what I want to do,” then just say that instead of hiding behind “Oh, it’s too hard for all of us developing players! Why does Kabam hate everyone who isn’t spending money or a Thronebreaker!!!!!”

Just say what it is, and not act like the content is so hard that it cannot be cleared with a developing roster

Dragoon81

To put it out there I have two accounts, both Paragon. Main account 15k prestige, 2.4 mil rating I think. Mini with 12k prestige, 1.4 mil rating.

Both 100% old Cav every month, this month I won’t bother to 100%TB with my main and probably couldn’t 100% with mini without using a large number of items.

Remind you both are Paragon accounts and one can’t manage content labeld “Throne Breaker”.

The monthly EQ is not targeted at the progression level that it states.

Chobbly

Let's hope that we are able to get a response on this soon. It would be good to get an explanation or a reasoning behind the change.

Wzzrdd

April 1st came early this year

Zuko_ILC

GroundedWisdom said:

B00tblack said:

GroundedWisdom said:

Wozzle007 said:

For context, if you had a roster that could easily auto fight previously but now can’t, imagine what it’s like for those who previously could complete each month, but only by a little. Or maybe with a revive or two. This isn’t about Paragon and Thronebreakers who can’t auto fight the Master Equivalent quest. It’s about conquerer and low level uncollected who now can’t get through.

Which they will grow into.

They grew into it in previous months when it was easier.

Yes, and the gaps between Difficulties were greater.

Can you just stop being rude to people on the forums already? You are so condescending all the time. I'm not sure why mods look the other way.

Searmenis

Shamir51 said:

Searmenis said:

GroundedWisdom said:

Jwagg said:

GroundedWisdom said:

Wozzle007 said:

For context, if you had a roster that could easily auto fight previously but now can’t, imagine what it’s like for those who previously could complete each month, but only by a little. Or maybe with a revive or two. This isn’t about Paragon and Thronebreakers who can’t auto fight the Master Equivalent quest. It’s about conquerer and low level uncollected who now can’t get through.

Which they will grow into.

They won't grow at all now because they can't complete things now that they used 100%, new people will just quit increasing the timeline for the death of the game.

New people will grow and adapt, the same way we grow and adapt, and have done since the beginning of playing. If we all quit the second we couldn't do something 100% the day that it came out, there would be no game. This game has had an infinite number of "deaths", pretty much everytime something comes along that people are uncomfortable with. Life goes on, and so will the game.

When we grew and adapted in the "beginning of playing", the difficulty was compatible with skill and rosters at that time and level of progression. At the moment, it is not for newer accounts, if they were skilled enough, they would have been at least Thronebreakers already. But, they are good enough for Uncollected.

... Or so they thought...

You mention "compatible with skill and rosters at that time". I'm curious, do you see that rosters now develop at the same rate as yours did way back when?

Just 1 post below yours is a newly minted cavalier. With 2 6* rank 3's. Not sure about you, but I didn't have any 6* rank 3's at cavalier. My first was when I beat Grandmaster. It is infinitely easier to get ahold of 5* and 6* shards now- and that's a fact.

Yes, if you don't count the Christmas crystlas it is. A normal player who don't buy a bunch of GBcs or GCCs (don't forget the rng factor in them as well) don't get a 6 star before level 40. Let s not also forget that 80% of the player base is ftp, so having 2 6* rank 3 is not that usual, and, even if they do, they don't have the skills yet.

Ceti_Eel

Searmenis said:

Shamir51 said:

Searmenis said:

GroundedWisdom said:

Jwagg said:

GroundedWisdom said:

Wozzle007 said:

For context, if you had a roster that could easily auto fight previously but now can’t, imagine what it’s like for those who previously could complete each month, but only by a little. Or maybe with a revive or two. This isn’t about Paragon and Thronebreakers who can’t auto fight the Master Equivalent quest. It’s about conquerer and low level uncollected who now can’t get through.

Which they will grow into.

They won't grow at all now because they can't complete things now that they used 100%, new people will just quit increasing the timeline for the death of the game.

New people will grow and adapt, the same way we grow and adapt, and have done since the beginning of playing. If we all quit the second we couldn't do something 100% the day that it came out, there would be no game. This game has had an infinite number of "deaths", pretty much everytime something comes along that people are uncomfortable with. Life goes on, and so will the game.

When we grew and adapted in the "beginning of playing", the difficulty was compatible with skill and rosters at that time and level of progression. At the moment, it is not for newer accounts, if they were skilled enough, they would have been at least Thronebreakers already. But, they are good enough for Uncollected.

... Or so they thought...

You mention "compatible with skill and rosters at that time". I'm curious, do you see that rosters now develop at the same rate as yours did way back when?

Just 1 post below yours is a newly minted cavalier. With 2 6* rank 3's. Not sure about you, but I didn't have any 6* rank 3's at cavalier. My first was when I beat Grandmaster. It is infinitely easier to get ahold of 5* and 6* shards now- and that's a fact.

Yes, if you don't count the Christmas crystlas it is. A normal player who don't buy a bunch of GBcs or GCCs (don't forget the rng factor in them as well) don't get a 6 star before level 40. Let s not also forget that 80% of the player base is ftp, so having 2 6* rank 3 is not that usual, and, even if they do, they don't have the skills yet.

I was only able to rank them to R3 due to the banquet rewards.

Kabam Jax

Hello Summoners!

tldr: The team is actively discussing this topic, we're hoping to know more soon.

When we announced Thronebreaker difficulty was coming to the contest, we also announced there would be a rework to all the other difficulties as well.

We've received a lot of feedback that the new difficulties feel overtuned, and is something I've experienced as well; it's something we have brought to the game team.

Deadpool87

Kabam Jax said:

Hello Summoners!

tldr: The team is actively discussing this topic, we're hoping to know more soon.

When we announced Thronebreaker difficulty was coming to the contest, we also announced there would be a rework to all the other difficulties as well.

We've received a lot of feedback that the new difficulties feel overtuned, and is something I've experienced as well; it's something we have brought to the game team.

The increase in difficulty is fine as long as the reward increase is equal in comparison. Also, with the addition of a new difficulty it feels like we need to choose between getting rank up materials/crystal shards (Uncollected, Cav, TB) or units (Contender, Proven, Conqueror). The added energy requirements plus the energy needed to complete the side event seems like there is no way to complete everything like we used to. Can we get lower energy requirements for Chapters 2 and 3 in Contender to 1 energy per tile for chapter 1 and 2 energy to chapter 3 and then change chapter 1 for Uncollected difficulty to 1 energy. This would be more in line with how the energy requirements were before cavalier difficulty was introduced.

Haamertail

Overtuned is an understatement. The first uncollected boss went from 61k HP to 142k.

zerodude

I'm a paragon player that stopped expending since I lost my job, in order to keep up the needs of units I had to start doing more arena grinding and exploring EQ.

I used to explore every difficult, auto fighting the lower ones while doing other things, because I didn't need to be focused, I thought it was really good, to be able to do so, since I had gotten strong enough to do it, but I really changed.

I tried auto playing today the conqueror difficult, I left my phone alone for a few minutes and 3 of my Champs were dead, while the other two were at lower health and it surprised and scared me, the team was made of 6 stars r2 and up, with a rank 4 kitty.

I still can't believe it, I don't know if the AI isn't prepared for this difficult, because it couldn't keep up.

PascalGambit

An utterly myopic and tonedeaf decision.

One of the perks of completing higher end content and acquiring otherwise unobtainable rank up materials is being able to passively complete lower end quests via autofight. In the grand scheme of things, the rewards aren't game changing but can be very useful nonetheless.

Prior to the current iteration, I would play Master and the lower EQs on autofight, specifically to garner iso and units. I attempted the Conqueror EQ yesterday but although I now possess higher ranked champs due to the Xmas boon, I still had to manually complete the entire Quest. I can't recall when I last played the Master level EQ and the experience felt neither challenging nor exciting. Moreover, if the rewards had received a commensurate boost in line with the content ramp up, I think my reaction and the response here would've been more favourable. However, it appears as if they've reduced the amount of units previously available (can someone categorically confirm this) which is both inexcusable and inexplicable.

Due to time constraints (demanding role/young family) I can normally just about fully explore Uncollected and do a once through run of Cavalier. I haven't checked as of yet but going by the responses here, these two EQs have been amped as well. I know many others are in a similar situation to mine and I think we'd all unanimously agree that having to input more resources and time for the same or a reduced payoff is totally demotivating and a disincentive to increase engagement.

I don't obsessively catalogue everything in the game but I'm absolutely certain completing each path in the Master EQ previously yielded 4 T5 class iso bricks and 8 T5 generic ones. During my Conqueror run yesterday, I was only receiving 4 T3 class iso bricks instead; was the reduction in iso and units intentional? What is the rationale behind increasing the difficulty but reducing the payoff? A penny for your thoughts Kabam..