Raids: My Thoughts
Firstly, this coming from a personal perspective. I understand if you do not share my opinion, please do not disrespect mine.
Second, I will not be talking about bugs. Bugs happen, plain and simple. They're not fun, but they are natural, and since they are not intended parts of the launch of the game mode I will not comment on them.
The Good:
Fun & Feeling of Accomplishment:
Even just being Day 1, I can tell this is an enjoyable mode for me. Theory crafting since the announcement about optimal champion-buff combinations was great, and actually getting in and seeing how it feels, I'm liking it so far. The fights themselves, while I don't like the block chip, actually do feel like you're accomplishing something thanks to the missions. I'm expecting that sense of accomplishment to still feel that way even with reramping on every boss and personally I'm a fan.
Need for Teamwork:
I know the teamwork aspect isn't always huge for everyone, but in comparison to the feel of alliance quest, I love it. It feels like a lower stress version of shared fights on the old war map. Coordinating may not be as easy for everyone, but this side of the mode is a good thing for me, not a bad thing. Since the War Map changed, and since Incursions changed, most content feels like you're just working as an individual and you're not a member of a team.
Rewards:
Everyone always talks about rewards, honestly I think they're very solid. While I'm not a fan of the RNG, the wins are pretty big wins and the losses are still extremely good rewards. Ranked rewards are substantial and peak milestones for glory are nice.
Simplicity:
Considering how much raw information there is about how to play the game mode properly, I'm finding it very easy to follow once you get started. The basics of it are pick a role, pick a champion, pick a buff, and then perform a specific in-fight action until you time out, hit the cap, or die. It's not overly complex like war can be, it's not mind numbing like Alliance Quest, and if you really want to, you can spice it up by picking a different combination or even a different role.
Revives:
I am indifferent about the revives. While I understand some people want to just rush it down, I think having a bit to do every day is okay for now. As time goes on, maybe my opinion will change, but I'm not in a "let's get this over with" mindset with this content.
The Bad
Damage Over Time Role Options:
When this content was first introduced in Vancouver, it was apparently the case that champions with Damage Over Time Effects were too strong with the damage modifiers. Well, that's fine, but the chosen alternative of DoT being uneffected by the modifiers doesn't feel like the appropriate solution. While Venom, Kushala, Black Panther for example aren't unusable, they're significantly outclassed by champions whose Power Budgets don't include these effects, like Hulkling, Titania, and Storm. In my opinion, it would have been nice if maybe a tuned down version was introduced, not 100% or 0%. How would these DoT champions function with 50% of the attack modification? 30%? I don't know, but I feel like that should have been tested until a sweet spot was found so Raids could go live with all the options feeling good.
If this wasn't possible, why wasn't the pool changed to remove these DoT champions and include options that have a Power Budget away from DoT until a good potency was found? I am not an employee, nor do I work in game design, these are just questions from someone outside who doesn't know what limitations were in place, whether it be time, staff, tech or other.
The Non-Communication about the Bosses:
This one is two-fold. The lesser problem I have is Maestro was never explicitly advertised as the Act 4/Labyrinth Maestro kit and not the playable Maestro kit. Honestly, relatively harmless, but would have been nice if someone had said directly that this wasn't the meta defender Maestro that some people, myself included, have been fighting in Battlegrounds and War.
The more problematic side of this is the awakened abilities being active (and sig 200) if the alliance prestige is high enough. Not only was this not present on the CCP server, the only other time I've been able to see this as the case was during the twitch stream that showcased the game mode. No offense, but a more sizeable amount of people watch CCP members to stay informed than the twitch streams. Not to mention that if you didn't catch the stream you outright couldn't know this because the live VOD is not up on Twitch or YouTube; the 30 minute segment was posted on the YouTube channel as a separate video on the same day that raids went live. The argument does exist that it was visible in the Map Preview, but out of all the alliances, it's on average just the officers who will view the map previews and even then most alliance officers just enlist; you don't have to view the map preview to enlist. As I will get into with my next point, stuff like this needs to be explicitly said because it leads to a lot of problems otherwise.
Ultron at Sig 200:
Awakened Ultron cuts into way too much of the specially selected pools of champions for each Role.
- Vanguard is relatively unaffected outside of Immortal Abomination and Ultron himself, they were going to struggle because of immunities anyways but there are workarounds thanks to Role Buffs.
- Tactician has 5/15 options that actively struggle (Doom, Longshot, Kushala, Spidey Supreme, Doctor Voodo) with 3 more being minorly impacted (Gorr, Silver Surfer, Captain Marvel Movie).
- Assault however, gets impacted on 11/15 of available options; Kraven will struggle because of the Bleed Immunity quite a lot; Black Widow Deadly Origin literally cannot touch this guy; Masacre, Storm, Storm X and Professor X face massive playstyle and Damage Output disruptions to the point that their value is brought to the point that they're better off solely focusing on building Raid Fervor for the Vanguard; Nick Fury, OG Black Panther, Kitty Pryde, Domino, Hulkbuster and Hit-Monkey need to have Crit Crusher or will objectively struggle. Even with Crit Crusher, Nick Fury, OG Black Panther, Kitty Pryde and Domino all won't give off that feeling of accomplishment that I mentioned earlier because of different Damage Output disruptions.
Hit-Monkey with Crit Crusher, Crossbones with Crit Crusher, Hulkbuster with Crit Crusher and Magneto with Prowess Ender are the only Assault champions that will give the player that sense of accomplishment and feel fun.
Bluntly, this doesn't seem like it was properly thought out when paired with the available Role options. Again, I have to ask whether this was tested, whether this was noted as a concern, and why if this was noted was nothing done? I'm not making accusations, I'm not angry, I just don't understand.
Block Penetration:
I won't spend much time on this, but basically it doesn't feel great when a character (for example, Colossus) typically has to block for their ideal rotation, and they take a ton of damage for playing properly. This also applies to Role Buffs where you have to block to trigger the effects (like Shield Smasher), or when there's a literal mission that requires your block (Thanos Sayeth). I appreciate the need to make the bosses punishing, but in my opinion they should punish you for mistakes, not for doing the things that we need to do for one reason or another. This is another one that maybe over time I'll feel differently about because we're not supposed to exit the fight with health remaining, but initially I'm not a fan.
Champion Lockout:
There is a reason why this has been phased out of nearly every alliance game mode. Even then, it was never a full week. The common suggestion of champion swaps would help alleviate this, but again, I don't know what limitations were in place before Raids launched.
Like Battlegrounds did, this game mode has a lot of potential. It's fun, and it brings back some of that coordination that I've personally been missing since the recent updates to AQ and War. However, it does have quite a few issues on launch, and I kind of wish that it got treated like Battlegrounds, where over the course of 6 months we got multiple betas and could test and provide feedback before it became a permanent piece of our game. I have no doubt that over time these issues will be addressed, but as an overall launch, it missed the mark a bit for me.
