Ares, a Good Sign or a Destroyer of MCOC
Hauntedbullet24
Member Posts: 23 ★
As an endgame Valiant player who has been in MCOC since the very beginning, I have some strong opinions on the Ares boss fight.
I consider myself an above-average player when it comes to skill, yet even I struggle to grasp the sheer level of precision, knowledge, and execution required to complete this fight without burning through all my revives and units.
That said, the fight itself is actually quite enjoyable—once you get the hang of it. But the time investment needed to get through it successfully without heavy losses is insane. Add to that the intentionally frustrating mechanics, and it becomes an exercise in endurance rather than skill.
Not having a single cue or indicator for which special Ares is about to throw? Painful, but manageable. No prompts like SP specials? Infuriating, but still possible to work around. But then they speed up the specials in the final phases? That’s just unbearable. And if that wasn’t enough, you’re expected to execute specific prompts only if you complete the special’s cycle correctly. By the time you reach the final phases, even the most dedicated players have to admit—it’s just a revive sink.
I’ve successfully cleared two paths so far, and I plan to explore more of the quest over the next month. With time and practice, the resource drain should lessen.
However, in my opinion, this kind of content will be the downfall of MCOC. Like Abyss of Legends, in a year, these resources will be trivial compared to what’s available in terms of difficulty. I understand the need for challenging content, but artificial difficulty doesn’t make for good design.
So, where does everyone else stand? Does content like this excite you and make you want to invest more in the game, or is this the kind of challenge that pushes you away?
I consider myself an above-average player when it comes to skill, yet even I struggle to grasp the sheer level of precision, knowledge, and execution required to complete this fight without burning through all my revives and units.
That said, the fight itself is actually quite enjoyable—once you get the hang of it. But the time investment needed to get through it successfully without heavy losses is insane. Add to that the intentionally frustrating mechanics, and it becomes an exercise in endurance rather than skill.
Not having a single cue or indicator for which special Ares is about to throw? Painful, but manageable. No prompts like SP specials? Infuriating, but still possible to work around. But then they speed up the specials in the final phases? That’s just unbearable. And if that wasn’t enough, you’re expected to execute specific prompts only if you complete the special’s cycle correctly. By the time you reach the final phases, even the most dedicated players have to admit—it’s just a revive sink.
I’ve successfully cleared two paths so far, and I plan to explore more of the quest over the next month. With time and practice, the resource drain should lessen.
However, in my opinion, this kind of content will be the downfall of MCOC. Like Abyss of Legends, in a year, these resources will be trivial compared to what’s available in terms of difficulty. I understand the need for challenging content, but artificial difficulty doesn’t make for good design.
So, where does everyone else stand? Does content like this excite you and make you want to invest more in the game, or is this the kind of challenge that pushes you away?
Ares, a Good Sign or a Destroyer of MCOC 232 votes
The Ares boss is the manifestation of terrible design and greed by Kabam
44%
103 votes
While Ares is difficult, his design is engaging and enjoyable for the challenge and rewards
45%
106 votes
I will not take part in EPOCH because of Ares
9%
23 votes
3
Comments
But look at abyss collector, No missions, no place for skill. Just some random die now mechanics, especially at last 10% where he goes unstoppable randomly.
Now look at ares, He has a intended design of completing his missions, by performing specific actions during his specials. Quite easy right. Similar to kang Or glyhkan.
Except kang only had 3 time slots, and you have a second to prepare and visual cues to help, not like the time starts out slow and become faster each phase, while he throws random specials with no callouts
My point is, 99% of the playerbase is going to bruteforce ares Very few players are going to play around his intended deisgn. Not many if us have the reflexes to do so. If this is what kabam aimed for, I'm completely fine. Revive spamming isn't new for me.
But the worst thing. They looked at the current ai, they seen how unpredictable intercepting is, and decided to have a node where you have to interceot the boss 50 times at 1% health while he's unblockable. I can't believe how they came up with this at the current state of Ai. This is what I'll call "pure greed". I'm okay with his design and difficulty, but having this node at currently state of AI is horrible.
It definitely is a big sink at first when you're getting used to the fight and the timings of his specials but you can definitely get better.
The only thing I'm not a fan of is him gaining haste. It only draws out the fight in the last phase, nothing more. No reason to have put that there other than hoping players mess up the longer they're in the fight itself.
I hate revive fest nonsense
Don’t have the time, skill, or resources to explore… and a couple of R3’s for completion aren’t worth it to me.
That said the specials only give a split second to react, especially in the later phases, but it's rewarding when you get it right. I quite enjoyed it. Even while watching my revive stash dwindle.
It's this,
L-2 revives are cheapest revives available to purchase with units, then why tf Kebem is forcefully stripping my 39% HP just like it's nothing?
stopping willpower healing wasn't enough? That now there's "39% HP go brrr lol lol" nodes??
Everything else is cool, whatever, bleh, Kebem being Kebem,
But this 39% nutkick is disgusting.
They did design him to be able to be taken down with revives, there's no hard skill check such as old 6.2 champion which is great. So I'll just have to tackle each path with time as I build up my resouce stash.
I agree with the going forward part. They've said they plan for Ares to show up more than one occasion for end game content. I guess it really depends how often he does pop up. If its annually then I think most people won't be too annoyed to slowly clear through the content.
But if he's going to show up every month or 2 in content, I think it'll be a massive turn off for players who need to revive through him
Then they complain when it's released.
No win.
Do I think he’s perfect? No. I think there needs to be a clearer distinction between the sp1 and sp2 or some other means of giving the player a second to determine if they need to dex or parry that first bit. Also, his “lose an immortality charge at fight start” isn’t working at all and needs to be fixed. And I’ve had it twice now where no matter what I did, he refused to throw his special and just swiped at the air until he got his sp3 and womped me. But I don’t think anything about the fight rises to the level of needing a dramatic overhaul or anything like that.
I look back at all the custom encounter bosses Kabam has made over the years. Collector, OG 6.2.6 Champion, Grandmaster, Nameless Thanos(s), the list goes on. The worst by far was Nameless Collector, especially in a time before something like a Grit passive so you could counter his random unstoppable.
I like Ares. His design is such that new champion power creep won’t trivialize him, but that skilled play and persistence will get him down. I think he could use some tweaks before we see him again, but overall I like what the design team did here.
I'd love a "sparring gym" that cost 100 units per day to enter and practice fights with no cost on revives. I know that's a ridiculous ask but I can dream right?
Some very cool design aspects, some questionable ones, but I think the good outweighs the bad here