Adaptive EQ: The philosophical problem and a proposed solution
While there are many things that can be said about the mechanics of the new Adaptive EQ I feel the core of the problem is philosophical and not mechanical in nature. This new version of the monthly EQ changes the core of way many (not all) players have played since the game launched.
Story content and everest content has always been meant to provide challenges and rewards equal to those challenges. If a player tried to tackle story content for progression and was unable to be successful that is where the monthly EQ came in. Players could choose one or more difficulties to complete and get rewards to rank up their champs and improve their roster so that they could eventually complete the more challenging permanent content. One of the rewards for improving their roster was that the monthly EQ became easier, they could see and feel the progress each month even if they had not yet made enough progress to complete the permanent content they were still working towards.
I do not know if this philosophy about EQ was intended, just that it was the general feeling and perception that most of the player base has had since the beginning. The new Adaptive EQ breaks this philosophical concept in 2 ways.
Firstly, players are no longer able to obtain a feeling of accomplishment and progress from the monthly EQ. Because Adaptive content will always scale, any progress that is made in the player's roster is met with scaled up challenges. At no point will the EQ give the feeling of "that was easier I have gotten better champs". If a player is stuck on story content and their Adaptive EQ is too challenging, getting the required rewards to progress their account just become either a lot harder or a much longer grind. My mini account just recently hit Thronebreaker. The Classic difficulty for my account is very punishing. On many paths I have only had 1 champ still alive by the time the final boss is down. I had a lot of revives in overflow luckily, but it is going to make getting needed materials to progress much harder. I know for bigger accounts this particular issue isn't as extreme, but the idea behind it is still the same. The top whale accounts will never again be able to feel like they made content easier because their rosters improved as it will always scale to them.
The second way this new system broke a core philosophy is it took away player agency of choice. If a player wanted to play a lower version, for whatever reason, they had the ability to do so in the past. I had not tried the previous Thronebreaker version on my mini account, but last month if the TB version had been too challenging I could have just gone and done the next tier down and had those rewards instead. Now all forms of choice are gone. We get one version, like it or not, and if it is too hard or just harder than we want to play through at the time, too bad.
Either one of these changes would feel bad, but the two changes together just feel horrible. I feel like these feelings are what are actually driving a lot of the emotion behind what has happened.
I do not like to point out problems without proposing a solution when I can, and I think I have one that could in effect keep Adaptive around but in a way that actually makes more sense and does not break the original philosophy behind EQ.
Keep both the new Classic and Elder formats with the following changes:
Classic -
Tier 1 of any difficulty gives the same base rewards that the non-adaptive versions gave for that progression difficulty. Players can choose which progression difficulty they want to complete, and whatever version they complete they will also get all the rewards from previous progression difficulty. If they then choose to do a harder progression then they would only get the rewards for that version as they already had the previous versions' rewards.
Keep the tiers, and let players choose which tier they want to try of any given progression difficulty. If they feel tier 1 is too easy and want to try tier 2 (or higher) for better rewards like the tiers have now, great, but this allows it to be the players choice instead of something that is forced upon them.
Elder -
Should not require Classic completion, open automatically.
Completing Elder would also give Classic rewards (if they had not already been earned).
Tier 1 should be the same difficulty and rewards as the first version of the Valiant EQ.
Similar to Classic, if players find it too easy or simply want more/better rewards, allow the player to choose a higher tier and go for those rewards.
Non-philosophical problems with the new Adaptive and some ideas. (Most of these I have seen in various threads, just putting them all in one spot)
Prestige is the top 30 of your roster, but does not give any indication of the breadth of classes or champs that make up that number. So when difficulty is scaled and Elder requires very specific champs with limitations they are likely not to be met. While very unlikely, someone could have a roster that has few to no high level mutants, and then they would have no chance at the mutant path with the way this version is scaling.
Crucible style content should have healing when switching. Even if the difficulty wasn't as hard as it is on these scales, to be expected to go that many fights with 1 health bar basically (without going crazy on revives/potions) and not to even get rewards like crucible is kind of crazy.
Most new champs do not work like older ones do, however these nodes are designed for older champs. Many nodes need to be redesigned for this style of content to work with newer champs, as those are the ones most people rank and their prestige is based upon.
If it is going to be crucible style 1 and done fights without synergies, then champion that need multiple fights to ramp up should have the same benefits they have in Battlegrounds.
While I am very disappointed with what was released this week, I do not want to give up hope on this game yet. I have spent too many years and too much money to just walk away without at least trying to help improve the situation if at all possible.
