What I think is one of the core design challenges for EQ.. and the game in general currently

Roster depth vs height and how it applies to solo content:

The older an account (veteran players), the deeper it will be, naturally.. it's not a difference in account building strategy - an older account has simply been through multiple rarity phases in the game and by default will have a larger amount of the previous rarity ranked up going into the next rarity

Now, newer players can build deeper rosters, for sure.. but at this stage it will be with the current rarity (7 star) as the cut off point for 6 star viability has been reached when R4-7 was released (at least their viability in competitive content such as AW and BG).. but if 8 stars are ever released, the cycle will repeat at some point and the players who downloaded during the 7 star phase of the game will have much deeper rosters than someone who downloads during the 8 star phase of the game.. and on and on, etc.

- Kabam wants newer players to keep playing, of course
- Newer players want to progress quickly, of course

But while a good roster "height" (decent amount of highest power level - R4-7) can be achieved in a relatively short time.. roster "depth" (a larger number of champs at the 2nd or 3rd highest power level for the sake of more options to use in different game modes) takes more time

Roster depth is always preferable in competitive modes such as AW and BGs of course.. for obvious reasons - you need options

I do play AW competitively, but I'm casual in BGs.. but when I do play BGs casually to get the basic rewards what I often run into in the ban phase is I see a few R4 at the top, but scroll down to see R2 for the rest.. I'm at a complete advantage here even though I don't have a ton of R4 relative to the others because the rest of my deck is R3..not because I ranked for BGs (I actually usually rank for AW) but it's just a natural byproduct of being an older account

Roster depth is not a new ask for solo content.. it's always been there in some form or another (usually in the form of a variety of RPG asks in the past).. but what is new, is that recently Kabam is using what I call "single use" or champ swap style formats as a way to tune up content now.. which I actually understand once I thought it through

How do you tune up a the difficulty on a piece of content in 2025? Where there are so many powerful champs running around - you essentially have 2 choices:

- crank up the attack and HP to punishing levels *and* crank up difficulty of the node sets (spoiler alert.. many players would hate this 😂)

- limit the use of the most powerful characters in the game to single use

Once I really thought it through.. I realized why single use format has been implemented lately (there are characters in the game who can crush solo content easily in a lot of cases if they are allowed to do multiple fights
Example: in Classic Skill EQ.. my Rank 4 Moleman did the entire quest, plus the boss by himself.. because he was allowed to in the traditional multi use format.. I brought 4 other champs, but had no need to even use them.. obviously there are many examples of this in the other classes (characters who can just stomp through the quest)

How would you tune this up? So, I completely understand why single use format is being implemented recently.. players want powerful champs.. who wouldn't? Kabam knows this and releases more powerful champs now than they used to.. but there has to be a way to balance the content around this new design philosophy

Now, what is the byproduct of this? In a nutshell.. it makes roster depth essentially mandatory instead of just preferred
As a result, newer accounts that previously used the top of their roster to complete solo content (as the characters were allowed to do unlimited amounts of fights) are now immediately met with a struggle in single use format.. and I completely understand the frustration at the change as it's probably very jarring

The question becomes: Should an account that is 6 months old have the same amount of ease of completion of content that a 6 year old account does? Well, that's probably a heated topic 😂.. but, the jarring effect that changing content from multi-use to single use has on newer (more height than depth) accounts and the dissatisfaction that happens as a result will have to be solved in one way or another

I hope we come up with a great solution that works for as many people as possible

My initial thoughts:

- tune the attack rating down
- instead of 15 fights with one class based theme.. divide each section into a different theme, so more of the beneficial nodes can be utilized and we can plan out each section according to the different champs we have in a given class

Comments

hungryhungrybbq

Edit: the issue is that single use format and punishing attack stats have been implemented in this version of EQ.. keep the single use.. ditch the high attack stats imo

And the idea of 3 different beneficial node themes per section helps with both roster depth struggles and dealing with the large health pools (sure you could tune down defender health as well, but I'm suggesting we tune up the attacker damage instead as the solution.. cause damage is fun.. let's face it 😎

bexdawg12

Very well thought out post, I am a newer player that 2 months ago finally got 5-7* at R4 and a Prestige north of 30k. Needless to say my prestige took a nose dive by about +10k over night, and the T7B EQ reward was scaled so I could not get my next 4 rankup this month.

With all that said, my biggest disappointment was all the feedback we gave on Valiant EQ over that last 4 months seemed like it went in the trash. Most players wanted EQ to be casual but did not mind testing roster depth. I struggled in May getting 15 champs in each class and had to use mats to rankup 6*'s, something I would never do with the current EQ because it would limit my prestige in the long run. Players also made it clear they didn't want to slug thru too many fights for EQ, but then Kabam uses Classic to gate keep Elder that adds 42 fights to the 96 fights in Elder. No Kabam employee should be confused if the players say Kabam doesn't listen to us.

My thoughs are…

Trash Prestige for EQ - It just complicates things. If you want a number to reward roster depth just normalize rarity, rank, awaken, and sig lvl for each of your top 30 champs. Basically, if you have 30 7* R4 Awaken/Sig200 that is max prestige in the game. keep it simple stupid.

If Classic EQ is that important for Kabam to keep than 90% of the typical EQ rewards should be awarded on it's full exploration.

Elder EQ should be tread as above and beyond. No player should count on getting Elder EQ rewards every month beause it is hard, may be get a little rewards of trying. Elder would be a great way to fine tune new everest combat nodes or a survival mode where the attack rating and health pools scale infiniately and awards how far you get.

hungryhungrybbq

For sure, prestige makes it even less desirable to invest in 6 star now.. and that is why older accounts are obviously having a better chance at having 15 characters to use that are not completely punching up at an unreasonable level relative to the defender attack and health stats

Solution: Retune attack stats to a point where using an R1-R2 7 star is at least more viable, with skill, of course.. should it be easy with an R1? No, it should not imo, but the current attack stats are too high.. there is a middle ground somewhere

And as for health stats.. I think the best solution is to tune up damage via more access to the beneficial nodes (attack increase for the attackers of a certain type)

In this scenario, R1 and R2 7 star become more viable.. and the incentive to broaden your account is still in there as you are will want to have champs who benefit from the damage increases, etc.

PT_99

What do you mean by "if" 8* gets released?

It's inevitable 🤣

hungryhungrybbq

But.. I want to add that it can't be too easy for R1 or R2 7 stars either.. because at a certain point, if content is too easy, it removes the incentive to actually grow your account.. which is the fundamental principle of the game itself..

Grow account and learn skilled gameplay techniques in order to successfully complete content.. etc.

Remove the need to improve and what are we even playing the game at all for lol.. the whole point of the entire game is to meet a challenge and have the satisfaction of eventually overcoming it.. and moving onto the next challenge stronger and wiser as a result

hungryhungrybbq

Also, consider removing Spiritualism node from a piece of content that requires 90 different champions be used.. it's too much effort to make 90 (15 for each class) have relics attached as we don't usually use 90 champs for any other game mode?

That node made more sense in the traditional format, but doesn't translate well to the new single use format imo

GroundedWisdom

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2873727#Comment_2873727

Well, yes. Eventually.

hungryhungrybbq

Most likely yes, unless they do transition to a different system like multiple tiers of Ascension or something

There are a few challenges with that though.. one being that there's no longer a sig stone chase anymore, etc. etc.