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About Battlegrounds Metas
Rebark
Member Posts: 485 ★★★
I don't know who's been responsible for choosing them or who's started participating or being part of them, but Battlegrounds' metas have been terrible lately.
Stop power gain metas, the new champions you've created are extremely volatile to that mechanic.
Stop exaggerated damage metas when parrying, you've been creating champions that are impossible to give special dexterity to.
Stop hazard shift metas, 80% of the champions don't have the immunities you choose and the 20% that do have can't solo 100% of the defenders.
Stop unavoidable damage metas. Unless the prerequisite becomes using third-party software, this type of mechanic doesn't make sense in the game.
Do you want to make skill metas?
Use interception mechanics. (WITHOUT POWER GAIN)
Special retaliation mechanics. (NO UNBLOCKABLE SPECIALS)
Even inverted controls.
Combo reversal mechanics
Even mechanics that benefit spacing during specials (Tigra Gameplay)
Just keep it simple. It shouldn't be done with the 30 or 40 addicts who have been playing all day for over a year in mind. Over 20,000 people play Battlegrounds.
Adding radiance was a good move and brought people back to Battlegrounds, but the problems that drove them away are worse than ever. But now there is an obligation on the part of those who want to compete to play this. Instead of stopping Battlegrounds, people will stop playing the game, because they will be forced to have an extremely unpleasant experience.
In fact, the main problem is that maybe you haven't realized yet that you created such strong defenders that the fewer nodes you put in the better. If years ago, in the first seasons of Battlegrounds, when Korg was the best defender in the game, the best metas were those with few nodes, nowadays this should be the rule. The more things you put in, the more you will break the game. Sometimes you put in nodes that would give 2 entire seasons in the same week.
Stop power gain metas, the new champions you've created are extremely volatile to that mechanic.
Stop exaggerated damage metas when parrying, you've been creating champions that are impossible to give special dexterity to.
Stop hazard shift metas, 80% of the champions don't have the immunities you choose and the 20% that do have can't solo 100% of the defenders.
Stop unavoidable damage metas. Unless the prerequisite becomes using third-party software, this type of mechanic doesn't make sense in the game.
Do you want to make skill metas?
Use interception mechanics. (WITHOUT POWER GAIN)
Special retaliation mechanics. (NO UNBLOCKABLE SPECIALS)
Even inverted controls.
Combo reversal mechanics
Even mechanics that benefit spacing during specials (Tigra Gameplay)
Just keep it simple. It shouldn't be done with the 30 or 40 addicts who have been playing all day for over a year in mind. Over 20,000 people play Battlegrounds.
Adding radiance was a good move and brought people back to Battlegrounds, but the problems that drove them away are worse than ever. But now there is an obligation on the part of those who want to compete to play this. Instead of stopping Battlegrounds, people will stop playing the game, because they will be forced to have an extremely unpleasant experience.
In fact, the main problem is that maybe you haven't realized yet that you created such strong defenders that the fewer nodes you put in the better. If years ago, in the first seasons of Battlegrounds, when Korg was the best defender in the game, the best metas were those with few nodes, nowadays this should be the rule. The more things you put in, the more you will break the game. Sometimes you put in nodes that would give 2 entire seasons in the same week.
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"Just keep it simple. It shouldn't be done with the 30 or 40 addicts who have been playing all day for over a year in mind. Over 20,000 people play Battlegrounds."
100% agree with this, the meta is so cancerous and hard in terms of difficulty that week 3 is about to be over and Arcane is still at 150 when last season Arcane on week three was already close to 250, this is how much participation has dropped this season and it's all because of the RNG fiesta this meta has been so far.
Not only is the whole thing essentially a card drafting game because as you mentioned they have made multiple defenders that are unkillable without counters, you also have AI being completely random and it's never been this bad as far as I can remember. There are times where you'll go in against a Dust with Sunspot get intercepted four times in a row (even while doing light intercepts which are very safe) and die, and then there are times where you'll go in with Domino against the same defender and casually kill her in 25 secs full health even with the bleed immunity because you got AI that's in a vegetative state compared to the other one that appears to have been designed by Elon Musk himself. How is that fair? It's one thing to roll the dice on the draft but now it's the AI too? That's just absolutely ridiculous lmfao I hope they don't do this ever again, meta sounded meh on paper but after playing for four days straight trying to get to 200 points nah, this meta is by far the worst meta in the history of BGs and I was here back when we had that one electric defense meta everyone hated.
With the amount of strong defenders today, it's enough to have as little interference from nodes as possible in the fight.
You just need to do something extremely simple. You can make an intercept meta where intercepting gives a 20% damage bonus. It doesn't need to be 300%. When you set something that high it becomes frustrating, because you're forced to use the mechanic when there are fights where this isn't possible. Then you manage to have a perfect fight and lose the match because your defender is weaker.
Or you have the ideal fight and the AI doesn't cooperate.
Let's take this meta as an example:
Attackers no longer deal increased damage on defense.
Instead of defenders dealing 300%, they deal 30% damage.
What does this imply? Good players who don't parry much will come out with more health and benefit from taking risks. The guy who wants to play it safe by parrying can parry, knowing that he'll lose more health.
There are other possibilities: When you parry a special, you gain 100% perfect block until the end of the special, after the perfect block expires, you get a 30% fury bonus.
Here's the thing: You can play normally by giving dexterity, but the guy who knows the timing to parry and wants to benefit from it will benefit from taking the risk. You can introduce complexity to the fight by simply giving the option to choose, instead of dictating how we should play.
But no, instead we are in a meta where Serpent drops SP2 and you take less damage if you receive the special than if you block.
Because no way Kabam will be just friendly and happy to give simple inverted,
Oh no no, they'll most likely give
"ticking inverted"
"inverted switching every special use of both heroes and AI"
"Controls reverse after every 10 hits"
It's like someone in the game team gets off at the prospect of players having a frustrating time.
Can’t even parry properly for like the last 4 without taking massive damage or having it shrugged/reflected
I don’t think gimmick metas like invade work anymore. They were fine like 2 years ago but with defenders like Serpent and Yelena they’re cheap and annoying
I’d rather have general nuke metas or just metas that add in a thing or two (make some attackers better + add in intercepting or something) over whatever they’ve been giving us
I think the notes are out for the next few metas though right? I haven’t looked at them yet though
The attackers who used to dominate Battlegrounds in the beginning (CGR, Hulkling, Valkyrie, Hercules, Kate Bishop) haven't received a 7-star version yet.
However, all defenders have received one.
Kabam has been releasing defenders that are increasingly restrictive, that a select group of attackers can handle.
And ironically, the attackers have been for extremely specific scenarios. If you look at the champions that haven't had 7-star versions yet, they are extremely generalist champions, who can handle a lot of things.
This means that in a normal scenario, you already need specific champions to fight. For Yelena, for example, you need Onslaught, Sinister, Jean Grey, Omega Sentinel, Omega Red...
When we go to a scenario where there is a power gain, for example, which of these five champions can control power?
The same goes for Armin Zola. You decide if you want to force SP1 and have him gain several energizes that will match the power gain meta and make you need to force more than 20 SP1s in the same fight or if you will take him to SP2 to easily heavy attack and consequently, accept unavoidable damage.
Power gain is not fun… invade is just playing online poker. Draft and compliant AI determines the winner. If the defender starts the fight in the walk of death (dash in and get light intercepted) and never backs off, you are toast. If they go passive, it’s a cakewalk. Is that a test of any kind skill? Sure doesn’t seem like it…. Maybe the skill of self control not to toss your device across the room,.
with the type of defenders released in the last 18 months, these types of metas don't work like they used to. i remember people liked the crit me meta from 2 years ago (where massacre was top dog) or whatever and when they did it again like 6-8 months ago everyone hated it. then we got a spite/placebo meta soon after or something and everyone hated that.
old designs with new defenders don't seem like a good mix.
@Rebark is right. for a season maybe add a small wrinkle or something where you gain a noticeable but not huge benefit when doing something like intercept or parry specials (i would argue against having reverse controls). nothing huge, and then let the match play out as if it's a nuke meta. these OP defenders are like nodes themselves, if you combine them with nodes they make the mode pretty miserable.
My point is more that simple metas will come with their own issues as well at the other end of the spectrum. The defenders everyone uses won't change. We're all gonna be putting down the same guys. In a simple meta it just becomes who gets the counters and takes them down the fastest, that's not really fun either.
If every match is just draft defender, draft specific counter on repeat, no amount of making the metas simpler is gonna change that, it's just then you're at the mercy of account size more on those same match ups.
The real issue is that kabam have yet again gone ham on defenders making the mode a massive game of "well, I hope I get x counter or I'm cooked here". And there are less less versatile attackers that can take multiple defenders because every new attacker is designed with one defender in mind these days. That's why everyone is drooling over nico, because she actually deals with all the cosmic defenders at once.
after 10 seconds in the gladiator circuit or 15 in victory track, the defender gains a 15% protection passive that can only be removed by a random prompt (either parrying any part of their special or by intercepting them). protections do not stack, but come back 10/15s after removal.
it's kind of simple, has a skill-ask that's not too demanding and the node generally doesn't interact with any BS defenders kits creating more headaches. if you don't finish the special parry prompt you just fight against a 15% protection passive the whole fight. it's not too egregious.
or why not copy the RAIDS node? every 10/15 seconds, we get a random prompt that involves M, L, or knockdowns.
2 mediums remove the M prompt
4 light attacks while not stunned removes the L prompt
a knock down removes the knockdown prompt
removing any prompt gives the attacker a small benefit, like a 5-15% fury passive that last for 8 seconds or something. it's nothing huge but there's a slight risk in doing them against certain defenders, and anyone who does the prompts well deserve the extra attack.
maybe the RAIDS node is a bad choice and you want RAIDS to keep its branding, i don't know.
i'm not a BG or nodes expert but keep it simple. you do simple things you get a small benefit and it doesn't complicate everything or stress anyone out.
i also get that metas are made to highlight SAGA champions or even new releases so i get that there's pressure there as well.
Week three over btw, and this guy is still stuck in Gamma 3 for some weird reason lol.
What you also have to take into account is that the introduction of radiance has brought a lot more accounts to the table in bgs that otherwise might not have bothered past just reaching the gc or even playing at all. It's going to flood the gc with these types of accounts all trying to get to 200 points.
The games changed in this regard and I think people need to get used to it