Is Story Content dead?
After exploring Act 8.3, which took about 2-3 days and maybe a total of 10 revives on the final boss, I'm wondering if Story content is heading for the bin.
Despite being VERY easy, quick and with good rewards for the time put in, Act 8.3 felt very much like a side quest rather than Story content.
Here are some of my reasons:
> Short Paths - Any lane in Act 8.3 ends before it even begins. By the time you enter the quest you're already at the boss, that's how fast it went by.
> Pointless Nodes - The nodes say a lot but do very little. I found that it's usually one node that you should pay attention to and the rest you can ignore - so basically a lot of reading only to ignore it because it's irrelevant. Disable the main node and that's it.
> Striker - Strikers being a big part of act 8.3 felt like no one knew what to do with the strikers so they just said, "Screw it. Er, hit the opponent with a striker and here's a Fury buff". Nodes that would otherwise require some sort of out of the box thinking to counter, you just use a striker. It's not even a case of "intercept using a striker" or "punish heavy attacks using a striker". It's just, use a striker.
> Underwhelming boss fights - I can't remember a single boss that needed me to play around their nodes. In most cases you just pay attention to one node and it's a solo.
Act 6 may not be everyone's favourite and it probably gave some folks PTSD, but here's what it did do that in my opinion makes it better than Act 8.3:
> It challenged your roster. Before Battlegrounds, you were sometimes forced to look at your roster and use champions you otherwise wouldn't use. In some cases you even discovered really cool mechanics some champions had. I recall using Sauron for some fights and seeing some of the cool things he could do in niche matchups.
> Act 6 had problem fights, so you had to solve problems.
> It was entertaining, After the first nerf it was more tolerable (to be honest I found the first iteration of Act 6 too brutal - will address this soon). I can still remember lanes, boss fights, using some oddball champions and even earning the rewards felt great because of the relief at the end of the boss fight.
Although I think Act 6 is better, I think Kabam did a complete 180 on anything after Act 6:
> Act 6 was too long in terms of the number of paths in my opinion. For example, I didn't mind fighting Act 6 Mordo, once, twice... but after the fourth time I was sort of done. I did all 10 or so paths, but to me that was Act 6's flaw - too many paths.
> The number of fights was great (10 or so per path I think), the variety of nodes you have to play around was great, and the boss nodes too. It's just that after 4 - 5 paths it's a bit much.
Act 7-8 go in the opposite direction by delivering very short paths (although in anything between 7.1 - 8.2 is cool) that don't challenge your roster or your thought process as a player. You simply do Act 7-8. but with Act 8.3, you do it like you do AQ. A tad more exciting yeah, but you don't really remember doing it.
If Act 8.3 had longer paths (eg, 10 fights per path) to make the 3 paths feel more exciting, utilized Strikers better and was able to introduce straightforward and effective nodes, personally Act 8.3 wouldn't have been so disappointing. I don't even know how the final boss actually works. I just know you have to do 3 things, hope the AI plays ball and you're fine.
And yeah you have Battlegrounds and the new Labyrinth content coming, however I wonder what would happen if Kabam just ended story content with Act 8.4 and focused on main the other game modes better. Normally when new endgame content released, it's released before their are any solid counters. Unless you are super skilled or have lots of units/revives, it'll take some time to get through that content. For example, LOL arrived before we had Aegon or maxed out 5*s. AOL arrived and it was some time before solos that didn't involve Humantorch were a common thing.
Act 8.3 felt like content that arrived too late - everyone already has all of the counters, all ranked up. So... what's there to do? And to be honest, Labyrinth content is usually a test of how many units you have to shell out at first, not really a test of your roster, as most counters only arrive in the game after the content has been released.
To wrap this up, I think it's best that Story content just ends after Act 8.4 so maybe we can get more exciting side quests (like this month's quest) or interesting quests like Grandmaster's Gauntlet, which in my opinion is the best piece of content that tests your roster and skills (if you don't count just using Hercules).
Although I enjoyed the rewards, Act 8.3 felt like a very boring movie. I remember it's called Act 8.3.... and that's about all that I remember of it.
