My thoughts on Thronebreaker Difficulty
Demonzfyre
Member Posts: 22,058 ★★★★★
These are my thoughts on TBMEQ so far. Lets talk about it. TL;DR- Difficulty Grade- A, Nodes Grade- C+, Rewards- B+ and some QOL requests.
Difficulty-
In my opinion, Kabam is heading in the right direction in terms of Monthly Event Quest difficulty should be. When I see threads asking for advice, polls about difficulty, etc.. it's a good sign that people can't just steamroll right though it without thought. At least, normal players without deep pockets looking to just revive their way through and never read a node.
I believe when people have to ask for suggestions or help, difficulty is tuned pretty well. Now, this isn't to say that there aren't any fights that could be looked at in the future. There have been many examples of defenders that probably should be put in certain paths or chapters just because counters are few or the nodes make the fight unnecessarily problematic.
The amount of defenders per path and final bosses are good. I have been surprised that most boss fights since the release of this difficulty have been easier than the path fights leading to the boss. This is not me saying to raise the difficulty way higher or anything like that. It's definitely nice to end a path with an easier fight.
Nodes-
I personally have never been a fan of the class based chapters. I find them annoying to plan for and with these "TAGtical Edge" requirements, it's even worse. If it were up to me, ditch the TAGtical Edge nodes and just stick with the class based nodes. The downside to these nodes is that the cross fights only last for 2 fights. I feel like it's counterproductive to have the cross-fight charges as I always feel like I should only bring one champ to build up on the path to keep the charges up but certain fights require different counters.
Yes, there is usually a beneficial class-based effect along with the TAGtical one, which is fine but why not just make the class-based champs have the cross-fight charges as well. I think it would be better for ramping up on a path quicker. Another option is to cap the fury's or prowless effects capped at 5 and adjust the potency of them down to what 10 would equal. Win a fight and carry over 1 or 2 cross-fight charges.
For an example of this months nodes, 2.1 is an example of where some tuning could be done. The unstoppable timer should be a bit longer. With the way we are all experiencing the A.I differently, this very quick timer adds an unnecessary level of difficulty. There is a Vision Arkus on one of the paths that has no business being in this quest because of not being able to parry. Also Attuma? Again, just not the defender for this particular quest.
Team Planning QOL changes-
One of the worst things about Cav and TB difficulties is that you have to either preview the fight or if you're going through the quests and you click on "Play next", you have to click again to edit team and click on nodes etc. in order to figure out what nodes are in the quest and what class or tags are required. What I would like to see is the ability to see the node info, without having to click on preview. I have mocked up some examples-
This is kind of what I have in mind. On the right of the screen, have buttons to push to see which nodes are in the quest.
Clicking on the linked node icon-
Clicking on the local node icon would show which path each of the extra node is on and paths would have a letter/number associated with it as like a gate or something-
And finally the global node. Not that we don't already know but just because-
Rewards
I have expressed my opinion on rewards already. I think they are fine. In the TL;DR I said B+ because I do believe there's room for improvement as always. If we aren't getting a Paragon difficulty, maybe they add a T6B objective for like a 5% crystal or something like that. Not that I think it's needed or anything right now but if we're a year or longer away from another level, might add it for Paragons. I like the gold amounts, but could be a little more. 200k is nice. Everything else is fine. Do not, I repeat, do not get rid of the T4CC selectors. Not all of us saved thousands of T4CC crystals years ago and are still living off them.
Ready, Set, and Disagree away!
Difficulty-
In my opinion, Kabam is heading in the right direction in terms of Monthly Event Quest difficulty should be. When I see threads asking for advice, polls about difficulty, etc.. it's a good sign that people can't just steamroll right though it without thought. At least, normal players without deep pockets looking to just revive their way through and never read a node.
I believe when people have to ask for suggestions or help, difficulty is tuned pretty well. Now, this isn't to say that there aren't any fights that could be looked at in the future. There have been many examples of defenders that probably should be put in certain paths or chapters just because counters are few or the nodes make the fight unnecessarily problematic.
The amount of defenders per path and final bosses are good. I have been surprised that most boss fights since the release of this difficulty have been easier than the path fights leading to the boss. This is not me saying to raise the difficulty way higher or anything like that. It's definitely nice to end a path with an easier fight.
Nodes-
I personally have never been a fan of the class based chapters. I find them annoying to plan for and with these "TAGtical Edge" requirements, it's even worse. If it were up to me, ditch the TAGtical Edge nodes and just stick with the class based nodes. The downside to these nodes is that the cross fights only last for 2 fights. I feel like it's counterproductive to have the cross-fight charges as I always feel like I should only bring one champ to build up on the path to keep the charges up but certain fights require different counters.
Yes, there is usually a beneficial class-based effect along with the TAGtical one, which is fine but why not just make the class-based champs have the cross-fight charges as well. I think it would be better for ramping up on a path quicker. Another option is to cap the fury's or prowless effects capped at 5 and adjust the potency of them down to what 10 would equal. Win a fight and carry over 1 or 2 cross-fight charges.
For an example of this months nodes, 2.1 is an example of where some tuning could be done. The unstoppable timer should be a bit longer. With the way we are all experiencing the A.I differently, this very quick timer adds an unnecessary level of difficulty. There is a Vision Arkus on one of the paths that has no business being in this quest because of not being able to parry. Also Attuma? Again, just not the defender for this particular quest.
Team Planning QOL changes-
One of the worst things about Cav and TB difficulties is that you have to either preview the fight or if you're going through the quests and you click on "Play next", you have to click again to edit team and click on nodes etc. in order to figure out what nodes are in the quest and what class or tags are required. What I would like to see is the ability to see the node info, without having to click on preview. I have mocked up some examples-
This is kind of what I have in mind. On the right of the screen, have buttons to push to see which nodes are in the quest.
Clicking on the linked node icon-
Clicking on the local node icon would show which path each of the extra node is on and paths would have a letter/number associated with it as like a gate or something-
And finally the global node. Not that we don't already know but just because-
Rewards
I have expressed my opinion on rewards already. I think they are fine. In the TL;DR I said B+ because I do believe there's room for improvement as always. If we aren't getting a Paragon difficulty, maybe they add a T6B objective for like a 5% crystal or something like that. Not that I think it's needed or anything right now but if we're a year or longer away from another level, might add it for Paragons. I like the gold amounts, but could be a little more. 200k is nice. Everything else is fine. Do not, I repeat, do not get rid of the T4CC selectors. Not all of us saved thousands of T4CC crystals years ago and are still living off them.
Ready, Set, and Disagree away!
7
Comments
My only complaint is cavalier. Completely skippable, rewards are trash and healthpools make it a time investment not worth taking.
QoL suggestions are good, not at the top of my list but still a good change.