Deathless champions, cool concept and design but terrible implementation within game modes in mcoc
Eakomo
Member Posts: 133 ★
To preface, this doesn't cover She-Hulk but focuses more on the trends we've seen with the first three Deathless champions. This is also not to argue whether the champions are good or bad, but rather to highlight how, despite the requirements for obtaining them, the Deathless champions don’t feel any more special than the new monthly released champs. Additionally, any potential for using them in specific game modes has been wasted.
The Deathless saga, spanning a year and culminating in the release of Deathless Thanos next year, has introduced four Deathless champions so far:
- Deathless Guillotine
- Deathless King Groot
- Deathless Vision
- Deathless She-Hulk
In the champion spotlight for Deathless Guillotine, the developers stated:
They also mentioned:
Herein lies one of the main problems with the Deathless champions: they’re essentially copy-pasted versions of the originals with minimal adjustments to their abilities or functionality. there is a huge missed potential with using original kits and fine-tuning them to any game modes that need a champion to a good attacker.
If we examine the top four game modes—Battlegrounds, War, Story/Event Quests, and Long Form Content—we’ll notice that, aside from She-Hulk (who hasn’t yet been added to the game), the other Deathless champions don’t particularly excel in any of these modes. The new design is to have meta's that are constantly shifting to introduce new challenges and champions, but then results with very little consistency in champions to use. Without any consistency for which to have the Deathless champions fit into, the Deathless champions then become very generic to counter general problems that might need solutions and will never stand out in these evolving modes.
and to also highlight champions such as serpent and punk having battlegrounds specific abilities to help with their ramp in battlegrounds.
What makes this even more frustrating is the fact that we’re about to get six new buffed champions for the 10th Anniversary, and they appear to be much more interesting and versatile than the Deathless champions. So why weren’t these kinds of meaningful buffs applied to the Deathless champions, who are even rarer?
While the current Deathless saga can’t be salvaged, future sagas could benefit from introducing truly unique champions. Look at Marvel Strike Force’s Apocalypse saga champions (yes a different game but still the same idea ), where each was tailored to excel in specific game modes, yet still usable in general gameplay:
- Archangel
- Morgan Le Fay
- Red Hulk
- Rogue
Each of these champions brought something special to one of the game’s key modes while remaining very good in the general game and having very good synergy abilities.
In summary, the Deathless champions feel lackluster for the amount of effort required to obtain them. Their abilities are disappointingly basic, and they don’t justify the effort it takes to earn them. Moving forward, champions designed for sagas should have more unique attributes and be tailored to specific game modes while still being broadly viable. A general suggestion would be to give them game-mode-specific abilities while ensuring they remain effective for day-to-day gameplay.
The Deathless saga, spanning a year and culminating in the release of Deathless Thanos next year, has introduced four Deathless champions so far:
- Deathless Guillotine
- Deathless King Groot
- Deathless Vision
- Deathless She-Hulk
In the champion spotlight for Deathless Guillotine, the developers stated:
Many Summoners may remember that these black-and-white versions of MCoC Champions appeared as Defenders a few years ago. These newly-released “Deathless” Champions are our opportunity to let you own a piece of that MCoC history for yourself, along with some interesting twists we think you’ll enjoy.
They also mentioned:
For each Deathless, we’ll be taking the existing kit for each of these Champions, and “remixing” them. These are not reworks in any way, more so they’re us taking another spin on an older design. Most of the Champion’s abilities will be untouched, except in spots where the abilities were showing their age or didn’t align to how we do Champion Design on MCoC these days. But even though the kits will largely be the same, we’re still giving them a numbers tune-up where we feel appropriate, and we’ve got some powerful new synergies packed into the kit that don’t exist on the existing version of the Champ.
Herein lies one of the main problems with the Deathless champions: they’re essentially copy-pasted versions of the originals with minimal adjustments to their abilities or functionality. there is a huge missed potential with using original kits and fine-tuning them to any game modes that need a champion to a good attacker.
If we examine the top four game modes—Battlegrounds, War, Story/Event Quests, and Long Form Content—we’ll notice that, aside from She-Hulk (who hasn’t yet been added to the game), the other Deathless champions don’t particularly excel in any of these modes. The new design is to have meta's that are constantly shifting to introduce new challenges and champions, but then results with very little consistency in champions to use. Without any consistency for which to have the Deathless champions fit into, the Deathless champions then become very generic to counter general problems that might need solutions and will never stand out in these evolving modes.
and to also highlight champions such as serpent and punk having battlegrounds specific abilities to help with their ramp in battlegrounds.
What makes this even more frustrating is the fact that we’re about to get six new buffed champions for the 10th Anniversary, and they appear to be much more interesting and versatile than the Deathless champions. So why weren’t these kinds of meaningful buffs applied to the Deathless champions, who are even rarer?
While the current Deathless saga can’t be salvaged, future sagas could benefit from introducing truly unique champions. Look at Marvel Strike Force’s Apocalypse saga champions (yes a different game but still the same idea ), where each was tailored to excel in specific game modes, yet still usable in general gameplay:
- Archangel
- Morgan Le Fay
- Red Hulk
- Rogue
Each of these champions brought something special to one of the game’s key modes while remaining very good in the general game and having very good synergy abilities.
In summary, the Deathless champions feel lackluster for the amount of effort required to obtain them. Their abilities are disappointingly basic, and they don’t justify the effort it takes to earn them. Moving forward, champions designed for sagas should have more unique attributes and be tailored to specific game modes while still being broadly viable. A general suggestion would be to give them game-mode-specific abilities while ensuring they remain effective for day-to-day gameplay.
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Comments
Why? Considering there does not go a single week where Kabam does not cram "unstoppable" node in their quests.
All the other ones are jaut meant to be something cool on the way there
currently
DKG > Guilly > Vision
She Hulk can be better than all of them ( based on the spotlight ) we just have to wait and see
just because they don't hit 100k crits doesn't mean they are bad
Guilly shines while punching down and same rank matchups just destroying everything with degens
DKG is pretty good with that damage which we got by reducing his healing a bit and with his high HP I don't think we need that crazy regen what he has now is enough for any questing scenario
Vision is a noodle but can hit decent with recoils & synergy team ( still mid )
I reach GC every season so it wasn't even a grind for me, just something I got while grinding BGs which I was going to grind anyway
The act 8 bosses challenge was pretty fun ( I used a few revives for Bahamut but who cares )
we got a full 7* with those challenges so it's good
They were never supposed to be amazing which is why they’re limited in the method to acquire them. They’re for people who like the chase. If you find it pointless then don’t chase after them. I understand you wanted it a certain way but at the end of the day the intended market for these champs are for the endgame collectors not the battleground grinder etc.
DThanos IS supposed to be on another level. We just have to wait and see how he comes out because they did set the expectation for him to be higher.
but the deathless are champions to be collected by effort, yet by buying deals you can get better and more wanted 7*s than the deathless champions?.
also being meta shattering or ground breaking doesn't mean they can't be very good champs
I have at least one rarity of every champ in game, I don't really care if deathless champs are no good as long as my "unowned" tab stays empty.
Also some of them are good champs, apart from vision the champs have been pretty cool and can be used for questing. It’s good they’re not game shattering because imagine coming into the game two years from now and people are putting up meta important champs that they can’t acquire unless they’re willing to fork over around 25k worth of units each. Unlike other trophy champs that can be possibly obtained through events. These ones are limited time only so the only ones willing to go for them are collectors and if you go for them now, your doing it because they naturally happen to befall on end game content you would be doing already.
Again, i understand how you want them, but at the end of the day they’re just fun chase champs and nothing more. It’s not terribly implemented and in my opinion i find the concept fun as well as the design. Sure i won’t use them often but it’s cool to have on my account like a trophy.
yes the main goal of any collector is to obtain as many of the objects they are interested in collecting as possible. while a collector generally is not the same as a whale, there is many exceptions to this rule.
Most collectable items will end up having monetary value attached to them especially as the rarity increases or special items get increased.
mcoc has a lot of champions to collect, and most of the rare ones are locked behind offers or just getting the right luck.
this isn't about them being good or not, if they aren't good for any viable goals in the game no one new later will have any motivation to get them other than being prerequisites for getting thanos.
on the 25k units cost, that's very steep and it should be changed to idk something with the variants or other permanent content to get them.
Also its pretty disingenuous to say that they cost 25k units. They're tailored around what it takes to compete their initial unlocks, the unit cost is exclusively catch up method that had always been advertised as of far less value than the way they're supposed to be unlocked.
You say they aren't fun, but then also say that then being good is irrelevant so what is your actual complaint here
I hope that won't be 25k units, but if the only way to get them after thanos is to buy the catch up bundles then they cost 25k units. but untill they say how they want to unlock the champions in the future we dont know yet.
on the synergy focus, synergy teams haven't been what they used to be, and the current 3 barely have synergies among themselves. so are we going to see thanos good abilities being locked behind synergies?.
and the lack of direction is mainly in what they are meant to do and where to do it in the game
We have a lot of slow champs, not many champs that counter unblockable.
Yes, thanos will have synergies for them. They've been designed as a questing team that is best when they're all together, and honestly getting free champions instead of random pngs that you build up over the year to unlock is just a more interesting way of doing it, especially when the champions have their own uses.
Deathless Guilly, has an insanely high DPS potential, but was such a bland start to the chase unfortunately as she ended up being just a copy and paste character with Degen’s instead of bleeds. And most confusingly added to the game with 0 sp1 abilities… I mean somebody had to know that was gonna get met with disappointment. At least give her a precision passive or a guaranteed crit or two. Honestly something small woulda probably improved her reception.
DKG - this one I think the community is getting a bit twisted on. This was a smart and fun twist on KG, and I think the damage is definitely there.
D.Vision… this is where the wheels came of the bus or we sprung a flat. This dude was hyped as having lots of damage, a fun new mechanic, but it was gonna cost him some power control… but what he ended up being was nerfed power control with pillowy fists that barely hit harder than his 6star counter parts… that’s nuts. Heck AoU Vision can do fights probably has a similar DPS output because of his enhanced power control. Unless there’s a balance update here then he’s a huge miss.
D. She Hulk now gets the unfortunate task of having to following up D.Vision, but she looks like she might be a fun take on things, but will need testing. I do worry that other Unblockable and Miss counters in the class will make her unpopular, but I don’t know if that’s more a commentary on how OP Science is right now rather than a comment on her design.
But at the end of the day… it’s Thanos that will really make or break this whole experiment. If he ends up being not only a banger, but a fun attacker then this will end up being considered a big success. Regardless of how the others perform