How Kabam killed Battlegrounds

When BG was released, it was my favorite game mode.

Especially from a strategic point of view. Being creative benefited you. Knowing how to execute unique fights benefited you.

If you were someone who intercepted well, you had an advantage over those who played a lot of parries.

And, in my opinion, the most crucial and definitive point: Every defender could be done by any attacker, even by other defenders.

Korg, Fury, FAM, Thing, Photon, Kindred, Hulkling, Sasquatch, Rintrah, Onslaught, Enchantress.

All champions that you can at least try. Even without a suitable champion, you can enter the fight and play without having to pause and in some cases, even win the round.

On the other hand, we have Zola, Bullseye, Serpent, Dark Phoenix.

All champions that you will be punished by. There is no way around this without the four or five champions that can do them (and I'm being very generous). Anyone who plays BG knows that the list is much longer.
And no, none of these champions are impossible to deal, some are not even difficult. But think about it: a mode in which you can have ONLY 30 champions in your deck and have between 27 and 24 champions available and, among them, you can only choose 9, which appear RANDOMLY.
You cannot have champions available in the mode that can only be made by four or five options. Ok, you have 3 bans, just ban the three that you have the least response and you're good.
Every month the node changes radically, every month two new defenders are released, yes, defenders, because practically everyone nowadays is a defender, have you tried facing Gentle? Spiral?
How many different attackers can you rank up to be able to use for a month?
So the right mystic didn't show up to make Serpent? Didn't one of the five counters show up to make Bullseye? Your Dark Phoenix didn't show up and your opponent's did? You're screwed.
What did your opponent do to deserve the win? Was he lucky? How can that be competitive? Where did the strategy go? Sure, there are games where you can be strategic and give up on a round where you clearly have no counter. This makes playing BG extremely frustrating. And to top it all off, you lose and your opponent taunts you with an emote. Why isn't there an option to disable this permanently? Am I forced to mute my opponent in absolutely every game? Why isn't there a button for this like every game has?

So, are you saying that BG is all about luck? No.
I'm saying that there's more luck than there should be.
More luck means that you have to play a lot more games because you're going to lose games against opponents who play worse than you.
I didn't even mention pilots or modders, damn.
And now, with Radiance, we're practically forced to play that.

Comments

Kabam (Osaurus) Rex

Did the NBA kill basketball with the 3-pointers?

It definitely did not.
Now, if you want to have a conversation about SGA's foul-baiting... I'm here for it.

#JokicWasSnubbed

ANYWAY... carry on with the discussion.

Chuck_Finley

Did the NBA kill basketball with the 3-pointers?
It definitely did not.
Now, if you want to have a conversation about SGA's foul-baiting... I'm here for it.

#JokicWasSnubbed

ANYWAY... carry on with the discussion.

Making dribbling optional killed the NBA .. but I digress…

BeastDad

This has a lot of "back in my day" energy.

Did the NBA kill basketball with the 3-pointers? Did the NFL kill football with the forward pass? No, its just different from how it was.

Lol, yes NBA viewership is steadily declining due to most teams chucking up 40 3's per game. That and the unbearable amount of flops that happen per game.

That is actually a very fitting comparison for MCOC now that I think about it...

Skyfaw

When BG was released, it was my favorite game mode.

Especially from a strategic point of view. Being creative benefited you. Knowing how to execute unique fights benefited you.

If you were someone who intercepted well, you had an advantage over those who played a lot of parries.

And, in my opinion, the most crucial and definitive point: Every defender could be done by any attacker, even by other defenders.

Korg, Fury, FAM, Thing, Photon, Kindred, Hulkling, Sasquatch, Rintrah, Onslaught, Enchantress.

All champions that you can at least try. Even without a suitable champion, you can enter the fight and play without having to pause and in some cases, even win the round.

On the other hand, we have Zola, Bullseye, Serpent, Dark Phoenix.

All champions that you will be punished by. There is no way around this without the four or five champions that can do them (and I'm being very generous). Anyone who plays BG knows that the list is much longer.
And no, none of these champions are impossible to deal, some are not even difficult. But think about it: a mode in which you can have ONLY 30 champions in your deck and have between 27 and 24 champions available and, among them, you can only choose 9, which appear RANDOMLY.
You cannot have champions available in the mode that can only be made by four or five options. Ok, you have 3 bans, just ban the three that you have the least response and you're good.
Every month the node changes radically, every month two new defenders are released, yes, defenders, because practically everyone nowadays is a defender, have you tried facing Gentle? Spiral?
How many different attackers can you rank up to be able to use for a month?
So the right mystic didn't show up to make Serpent? Didn't one of the five counters show up to make Bullseye? Your Dark Phoenix didn't show up and your opponent's did? You're screwed.
What did your opponent do to deserve the win? Was he lucky? How can that be competitive? Where did the strategy go? Sure, there are games where you can be strategic and give up on a round where you clearly have no counter. This makes playing BG extremely frustrating. And to top it all off, you lose and your opponent taunts you with an emote. Why isn't there an option to disable this permanently? Am I forced to mute my opponent in absolutely every game? Why isn't there a button for this like every game has?

So, are you saying that BG is all about luck? No.
I'm saying that there's more luck than there should be.
More luck means that you have to play a lot more games because you're going to lose games against opponents who play worse than you.
I didn't even mention pilots or modders, damn.
And now, with Radiance, we're practically forced to play that.

The only thing I agree with is the RNG factor. RNG and anything competitive in nature shouldn’t be together. Will just lead to a fat headache and potentially a phone stuck to your wall cursing Kabam name.

Everything else I don’t necessarily mind. As far as defenders go Kabam trying to make a living and selling these defenders are just another dollar in there pocket and allow us to continue to enjoy and play this game.

BringPopcorn

I see arguments of RNG draft, deck of 30, bans. The opponent also has RNG in draft, a deck of 30 and 3 bans...
Which no one denies including the OP. It is in fact the very essence of the issue being discussed. OP defenders, limited counters, RNG draft can screw you out of a win before your first swipe or tap. The RNG can do the same to your opponent. You might as well be playing Yahtzee in those instances. It’s not about who is the better player or even who has a better roster.

Only way to reduce or remove rng factor is by setting season default decks, it doesn't work in a Gacha game 🤷

FiiNCH

I kinda see the point OP is making. I still love BG’s but I think the scales of draft RNG vs player skill have tipped towards draft RNG lately (in a generalised sense) with the new types of defenders Kabam have released.

Others have made a good point that it’s the same experience for everyone and the RNG will balance itself out in the long run.

Chuck_Finley

I see arguments of RNG draft, deck of 30, bans. The opponent also has RNG in draft, a deck of 30 and 3 bans...
Which no one denies including the OP. It is in fact the very essence of the issue being discussed. OP defenders, limited counters, RNG draft can screw you out of a win before your first swipe or tap. The RNG can do the same to your opponent. You might as well be playing Yahtzee in those instances. It’s not about who is the better player or even who has a better roster.
Only way to reduce or remove rng factor is by setting season default decks, it doesn't work in a Gacha game 🤷

I would say one option to mitigate RNG losses on the draft is to lay off the defenders that guarantee damage and require a hard counter which are limited. But there is no putting the genie back in that bottle… which takes (at minimum) some fun from the mode.

They can tinker with the metas all they want but by and large, everyone wants to be running the same defenders and counters every season. I don’t recall a meta where everyone was like “oh, need to bench my serpent, even iron fist is taking him this meta”

BringPopcorn

I see arguments of RNG draft, deck of 30, bans. The opponent also has RNG in draft, a deck of 30 and 3 bans...
Which no one denies including the OP. It is in fact the very essence of the issue being discussed. OP defenders, limited counters, RNG draft can screw you out of a win before your first swipe or tap. The RNG can do the same to your opponent. You might as well be playing Yahtzee in those instances. It’s not about who is the better player or even who has a better roster.
Only way to reduce or remove rng factor is by setting season default decks, it doesn't work in a Gacha game 🤷
I would say one option to mitigate RNG losses on the draft is to lay off the defenders that guarantee damage and require a hard counter which are limited. But there is no putting the genie back in that bottle… which takes (at minimum) some fun from the mode.

They can tinker with the metas all they want but by and large, everyone wants to be running the same defenders and counters every season. I don’t recall a meta where everyone was like “oh, need to bench my serpent, even iron fist is taking him this meta”

You are right in some way; but there are other instances where people don't fight a defender like serpent, or have 1 single counter in their deck and they refuse to ban it just because they have one. People compare MCoC to other fighting games, truth is BGs is a PvP mode within a Gacha game.

Polygon

"Have you tried facing Gentle?"

Hes a pushover on defense, i heard he was tanky with crit resistance and giving trouble with the unstoppable so i took him to rank 3

And then this happened

Asher1_1

When BG was released, it was my favorite game mode.

Especially from a strategic point of view. Being creative benefited you. Knowing how to execute unique fights benefited you.

If you were someone who intercepted well, you had an advantage over those who played a lot of parries.

And, in my opinion, the most crucial and definitive point: Every defender could be done by any attacker, even by other defenders.

Korg, Fury, FAM, Thing, Photon, Kindred, Hulkling, Sasquatch, Rintrah, Onslaught, Enchantress.

All champions that you can at least try. Even without a suitable champion, you can enter the fight and play without having to pause and in some cases, even win the round.

On the other hand, we have Zola, Bullseye, Serpent, Dark Phoenix.

All champions that you will be punished by. There is no way around this without the four or five champions that can do them (and I'm being very generous). Anyone who plays BG knows that the list is much longer.
And no, none of these champions are impossible to deal, some are not even difficult. But think about it: a mode in which you can have ONLY 30 champions in your deck and have between 27 and 24 champions available and, among them, you can only choose 9, which appear RANDOMLY.
You cannot have champions available in the mode that can only be made by four or five options. Ok, you have 3 bans, just ban the three that you have the least response and you're good.
Every month the node changes radically, every month two new defenders are released, yes, defenders, because practically everyone nowadays is a defender, have you tried facing Gentle? Spiral?
How many different attackers can you rank up to be able to use for a month?
So the right mystic didn't show up to make Serpent? Didn't one of the five counters show up to make Bullseye? Your Dark Phoenix didn't show up and your opponent's did? You're screwed.
What did your opponent do to deserve the win? Was he lucky? How can that be competitive? Where did the strategy go? Sure, there are games where you can be strategic and give up on a round where you clearly have no counter. This makes playing BG extremely frustrating. And to top it all off, you lose and your opponent taunts you with an emote. Why isn't there an option to disable this permanently? Am I forced to mute my opponent in absolutely every game? Why isn't there a button for this like every game has?

So, are you saying that BG is all about luck? No.
I'm saying that there's more luck than there should be.
More luck means that you have to play a lot more games because you're going to lose games against opponents who play worse than you.
I didn't even mention pilots or modders, damn.
And now, with Radiance, we're practically forced to play that.

honestly i agree - previously i used to play for fun (i was not even in alliance when Bg came)
i used to watch other streamers like BG who doesn't have all that stacked money deck & still enjoy it

now putting radiance it's just a rat race with score went like crazy high this season
Qunantum min score went high(used to be 230 - this season 320)
Mysterium min score went high
Celestial min score went even higher

then putting champs like Dark pheonix + Lumatrix in the mix (u must have them for Bgs for top players)
& state of ai (no comments on that everyone knows )

phillgreen

Remember the power burn meta where everyone complained.

Or the other meta where everyone complained.

Can't remember which one it was, last one or the one before that or the one before that.

Strategic rankups and luck, that's all it's ever been.

brownchr014

Remember the power burn meta where everyone complained.

Or the other meta where everyone complained.

Can't remember which one it was, last one or the one before that or the one before that.

Strategic rankups and luck, that's all it's ever been.

Nothing strategic when everyone makes the same rankups.

captain_rogers

Kid named Battlegrounds: No I'm still alive.
Kid named No : Why you're telling me?
Kid named me : Telling what?
Kid named what? : What?

Gurt : yo.

altavista

This has a lot of "back in my day" energy.

Did the NBA kill basketball with the 3-pointers? Did the NFL kill football with the forward pass? No, its just different from how it was.
Lol, yes NBA viewership is steadily declining due to most teams chucking up 40 3's per game. That and the unbearable amount of flops that happen per game.

That is actually a very fitting comparison for MCOC now that I think about it...

The counterpoint being - those metrics don't matter even though they are sexy to talk about.

NBA: 76 billion deal for 11 years. An individual NBA team was just sold for 6 billion dollars. So from a big picture level, no the current era playstyle is not killing/ruining the game.

Same thing with BGs. As long as Kabam is making money from the game mode and there is enough base level engagement with the game mode, it truly doesn't matter from a big picture standpoint whether individual players are angry about BG defenders du jour.

Greed_Exodus

I think changing it to have a 4 or 5 ban amount and boost the deck size to 40 or 50 with every single match having one free reroll as a core mechanic and not a consumable you have to acquire separately would help a ton, there’s no real way to “fix” the rng aspect, this isn’t mortal kombat where you have a set roster and you can pick who you want.

BringPopcorn

I think changing it to have a 4 or 5 ban amount and boost the deck size to 40 or 50 with every single match having one free reroll as a core mechanic and not a consumable you have to acquire separately would help a ton, there’s no real way to “fix” the rng aspect, this isn’t mortal kombat where you have a set roster and you can pick who you want.

Do you really wanna give all those options to a monster roster? Lol

TyEdge

Battle grounds change, European soccer edition: draft 5 from a deck of 25 (3 bans), play two rounds. Whoever is ahead on points gets the win.

Shortens the draft. Shortens the match. Still gets you a result.

“Turns out that Bullseye and Kushala had more away goals…”

Rebark

I personally think that part of the problem would be solved if it worked like the old Kabam championship did.

3 Re-rolls per game. Remove that from the store and make it free. One more champion appears per pick as an option.

If you want to be more radical, blacklist some defenders in specific seasons. After the first week, the 3 most banned champions would be blacklisted. It would solve the problem of problematic interactions with very problematic defenders in specific seasons.

It would work well if we went back to the format of one node per season.

In the case of two nodes, it would work the same way.

It would still please the portion of people who don't think it's a very good idea: You would have half the season, the first week of each node, with whatever you wanted in your deck.

DNA3000

I see arguments of RNG draft, deck of 30, bans. The opponent also has RNG in draft, a deck of 30 and 3 bans...
Which no one denies including the OP. It is in fact the very essence of the issue being discussed. OP defenders, limited counters, RNG draft can screw you out of a win before your first swipe or tap. The RNG can do the same to your opponent. You might as well be playing Yahtzee in those instances. It’s not about who is the better player or even who has a better roster.

If that’s the case, why isn’t the top of the leaderboards random from season to season. It doesn’t seem to be to me. I tend to see the same names for the most part.

Random chance plays an obvious role in a single match. But it seems to have very little to do with where most players ultimately place in GC. You can get an unlucky streak of course, and drop a few spots. You can drop out of Mysterium 3 into Quantum 1 if you were on the border, or you can maybe jump from Arcane 2 into Quantum 3 with a lucky streak. But if BG was as random as some people claim it to be, I’d find myself in wildly different tiers of GC from season to season, when in fact I tend to end up in similar spots from season to season. The competition shifts about, big sales can dramatically shift decks around, but what I’ve seen season after season is BG is not just luck and it is not just random. The randomness evens out over time, and my own skill level places me more or less where I expect to be, and it seems to do the same to everyone else I know.

The OP is complaining about this champ or that champ “killing” BG, but no champ can do that, because the drafting system means no champ is in a position to do that. You cannot rely on pulling your best defender for easy wins every match. You can’t rely on deploying your best counter to their best defender either. You need a broad set of defenders and a broad set of attackers, and you need to know how to use them. The draft mechanics do add randomness to the match, but they don’t eliminate skill, rather, the randomness itself adds emphasis to the contribution of skill. It takes a lot of skill to deal with the randomness, because it places a heavier burden on the skills of the player to deal with the fact they don't have 100% control over the match ups. If you somehow eliminate all the randomness from the draft process, you don’t make it all about skill. You actually emphasize deck construction over skill, because the better deck will have a much larger advantage in a non-random draft. You will always be facing your opponents strongest defenders. You will always see his best counters to your defenders.

DinoHop05

Did the NBA kill basketball with the 3-pointers?
It definitely did not.
Now, if you want to have a conversation about SGA's foul-baiting... I'm here for it.

#JokicWasSnubbed

ANYWAY... carry on with the discussion.

Nice to see Kabam taking a serious discussion so seriously.

I guess this is in line with Kabam's typical anti-player mentality. No need to address actual concerns about player well-being when we can just laugh about other things so everyone focuses on that instead.

DNA3000

Did the NBA kill basketball with the 3-pointers?
It definitely did not.
Now, if you want to have a conversation about SGA's foul-baiting... I'm here for it.

#JokicWasSnubbed

ANYWAY... carry on with the discussion.
Nice to see Kabam taking a serious discussion so seriously.

I guess this is in line with Kabam's typical anti-player mentality. No need to address actual concerns about player well-being when we can just laugh about other things so everyone focuses on that instead.

Lighten up, Francis.

DNA3000

This has a lot of "back in my day" energy.

Did the NBA kill basketball with the 3-pointers? Did the NFL kill football with the forward pass? No, its just different from how it was.
Lol, yes NBA viewership is steadily declining due to most teams chucking up 40 3's per game. That and the unbearable amount of flops that happen per game.

That is actually a very fitting comparison for MCOC now that I think about it...

Two problems with this comparison:

1. The three point shot was added to the NBA in 1980, which means blaming the rule change on declining TV viewership in 2025 is tenuous at best. Some people blame the sudden increase in three point shooting as an issue, but you can’t directly blame that on the rule change itself.

2. While NBA TV viewership is declining, MCOC’s active playerbase is increasing. And while BG participation is below its highs, it isn’t lower than it has been in the past. People keep saying BG is dying, or steadily declining, but in fact its participation has been fluctuating up and down. I see no evidence it is lower this season, and in fact even accounting for the seeding bug the number of players in GC this season extrapolates to at least as many if not more players this season than last season. The introduction of radiance probably accounts for this.

I see no correlation between the introduction of the recent batch of problematic defenders and some systemic drop in BG participation. The complaints I see about BG today are the same as yesterday, same as last week, last month, last year. That doesn’t mean they are all without merit, but their consistency has to be noted in the context of a complete lack of evidence of a persistent drop in participation. The last time there were major complaints about participation, by the time those complaints were being voiced participation was already cycling back upward. Something I actually measured back then.

Chief_Wiggum

Did the NBA kill basketball with the 3-pointers?
It definitely did not.
Now, if you want to have a conversation about SGA's foul-baiting... I'm here for it.

#JokicWasSnubbed

ANYWAY... carry on with the discussion.

SGA has mastered the no touch flop... Jokic obviously can't be mvp without this skillset.

With the discussion at hand.. BG obviously isn't dead. It may be frustrating to some but it is also a matter of learning other skills like deck construction, ban strat and drafting decision-making.

Also learning non ideal matchups.. How you can use your best defenders and taking unorthodox decisions to throw off your opponents.

Not having new difficult defenders makes this game and game mode poorer. It keeps things fresh and interesting. Doesn't them just have the same atk team drafted time after time because they work for 90% of matches. That will kill BG. And making nodes less impacting? Again.. Boredom kills a game faster when every season is about the same... Using the same champs fighting the same defenders.

Luffy002

5 counters for bullseye? He’s got like 20+ at this point, literally every new champ counters him in some way. Half my deck can take bullseye

Champs like Spiral having small defensive quirks has been a thing since the start, some attackers have a few defensive mechanics to watch out for but that doesn’t make her a defender lmao

Serpent and DP are restrictive so I ban them, and I have one ban left for a strong attacker or another highly ranked defender. I agree champs like this that force just a few shouldn’t have been made but we’re long past Serpent’s balancing period now

The problem with this is that they are NEW which means you probably wont get them for at least a year unless you spend

DinoHop05

Did the NBA kill basketball with the 3-pointers?
It definitely did not.
Now, if you want to have a conversation about SGA's foul-baiting... I'm here for it.

#JokicWasSnubbed

ANYWAY... carry on with the discussion.
Nice to see Kabam taking a serious discussion so seriously.

I guess this is in line with Kabam's typical anti-player mentality. No need to address actual concerns about player well-being when we can just laugh about other things so everyone focuses on that instead.
Lighten up, Francis.

This would carry some weight if it didn't come from someone forever on the forums.

ItsClobberinTime

Monthly "BGs is dead" rant, nothing to see here lol.

Asher1_1

Monthly "BGs is dead" rant, nothing to see here lol.

Well probably because he is not a big youtuber - imagine some youtubers make a video like "" time to boycott mcoc "" 🤣🤣

This is a great topic for a youtube video

ItsClobberinTime

Monthly "BGs is dead" rant, nothing to see here lol.
Well probably because he is not a big youtuber - imagine some youtubers make a video like "" time to boycott mcoc "" 🤣🤣

This is a great topic for a youtube video

No cc is going to try to boycott mcoc because they're making the game mode a little more luck based and not just pure skill lol also as someone explained earlier it's all about strategy, just because your opponent drafts a defender you have no counters for doesn't mean you already lost. Just yesterday I had a match where I didn't draft a single Dark Phoenix counter and I lost that round on purpose then ended up winning the other two. Knowing when to throw a round and when not to throw a round is an actual strategy, rarely do I have matches where I have zero counters for two or more defenders they drafted. Another thing I like to do is when they have too many meta defenders in their decks then I just draft counters ahead of time.

Defenders who can't be killed without counters aren't killing the game mode, the real problem is not knowing how to draft and strategize properly as much as Vibranium and Uru players want to disagree.

Asher1_1

Monthly "BGs is dead" rant, nothing to see here lol.
Well probably because he is not a big youtuber - imagine some youtubers make a video like "" time to boycott mcoc "" 🤣🤣

This is a great topic for a youtube video
No cc is going to try to boycott mcoc because they're making the game mode a little more luck based and not just pure skill lol also as someone explained earlier it's all about strategy, just because your opponent drafts a defender you have no counters for doesn't mean you already lost. Just yesterday I had a match where I didn't draft a single Dark Phoenix counter and I lost that round on purpose then ended up winning the other two. Knowing when to throw a round and when not to throw a round is an actual strategy, rarely do I have matches where I have zero counters for two or more defenders they drafted. Another thing I like to do is when they have too many meta defenders in their decks then I just draft counters ahead of time.

Defenders who can't be killed without counters aren't killing the game mode, the real problem is not knowing how to draft and strategize properly as much as Vibranium and Uru players want to disagree.

u won the race in those fights

i think it still kind of, in a meta where u can't parry & relies totally on the def ai to give opening & not passive enough to throw special - u never know what kind of ai u will get , i have eaten sp3 from serpent in this meta while using kushala trying to bait sp1

Rebark

Another suggestion:
Block this game in Russia.
Permanent ban on any account that is logged in or was at any time on an IP in Russia.