DEV DIARY - FINDING A MIDDLE GROUND (Coloured text version)
Greetings Summoners,
Marvel Contest of Champions has had its doors open for over 3,945 days. Needless to say, the thirty in September of 2025 have not been a highlight of the Contest. Today, we want to address the recent Spider-Woman balance update, recent game changes, and the valid concerns raised by the Community. Our goal is to provide transparency, acknowledge where we fell short, and outline how we’re working to find a middle ground that respects not only the health of the game but also your trust in us.
Part of restoring that trust is having the accountability to come forth and say we missed the mark.
After taking time to comb through all the feedback (yes, we really do read and listen to all of it), I think it’s fair to say that the mark was missed.
We stated that Spider-Woman’s update was intended to address her defensive threat, but the changes outlined also have a large impact on her offensive capabilities. This disconnect between our stated goals and the proposed adjustments was a significant oversight. We understand this caused rightful confusion and frustration, especially for players who invested in her. This change substantially reduces her offensive utility, which doesn’t align with the focus we communicated. This impacts the player experience in negative ways that we did not intend.
A key goal is keeping Marvel Contest of Champions fair, fun, and competitive. Our balance program is a cornerstone of this commitment, allowing us to adjust champions who are significantly over-performing to ensure a healthy meta, or under-performing so they see usage across the Contest. Spider-Woman’s performance, particularly her Defensive output, was identified as exceeding her intended thresholds. If you’ve fought her on Node 42 in Alliance War, you know just how terrifying she can be in the right scenario. While we strongly stand by the need for balance changes to maintain long and short-term game health, we recognize that the execution of this one wasn’t up to our standards.
So… What’s The Plan?
To be entirely candid, there was a breakdown in our internal process for the Spider-Woman update. The changes were implemented through the proper channels, but this process revealed opportunities for improving the approval framework internally. The current process led to a lack of clarity and inadequate communication to you; which was a mistake, and we take full responsibility for it.
After taking all of this in, we are going to be adjusting Spider-Woman’s update to better align with our goals, while keeping the identity of Spider-Woman intact on Offense. We will still be removing Ensnare from her kit, as we feel the general Ability Accuracy Reduction is what makes her unhealthy on Defense. However, alongside this removal, while her Fumble is active, her Opponent will not be able to evade. One thing to note on this, since her Fumble is a Severe Debuff, this makes her an even stronger and more reliable Evade counter.
A key point here, is that we won’t reverse every unpopular decision just because it’s controversial, if we believe it’s ultimately the right call for the game’s overall benefit. In this scenario, based on your feedback and after careful review, we believe we could have chosen a better course of action, and it would be stubborn on our part to double down on this instead of taking the time to reevaluate and course-correct to a better outcome.
Further Adaptive Event Quest Updates
Last month, we launched our Adaptive Event Quest. After it was live for about a week, it was clear we needed to make an immediate update. We said that we would be significantly reducing the Health and Attack values in both Classic & Elder difficulties, as we didn’t realize the scope in which our casual players utilized the Event Quest as their main source of gameplay. We cut the values by about 30%, which is a significant margin for an emergency update; and while we believe we landed in a solid spot for Elder Difficulty, with there only being one difficulty for Classic, we feel it was not enough for some of our casual players.
With the upcoming Event Quest on October 8th, you will see the following changes:
We will be reducing the Health of Defenders in Classic mode even further
We will be launching an Elder Difficulty for Cavalier & Thronebreaker players
Our goal here is to make Classic an approachable Event Quest experience where you can experience the monthly story of Marvel Contest of Champions without feeling like you need to stay hyper-engaged to enjoy your session. We want to add an Elder difficulty for lower progression players who want to push and challenge themselves further than their current roster might suggest they can go, and the addition of Elder for these players means more challenge as well as the potential for more rewards.
We have also heard the wave of feedback loud and clear that, for our Valiant players, requiring a Classic run simply feels like busy work on the way to Elder. It’s hard to disagree with this sentiment. We have full intentions to allow Valiant players to bypass Classic in the near future; however, this requires additional engineering work that we don’t currently have the capacity to support due to other features already in progress for this year. So unfortunately, we won’t be able to make this happen immediately, but we’re targeting early next year for when we will be able to add this feature. Do keep in mind, while this is a few months away, Classic should move much quicker now due to the further reduction in Health across the maps.
A Decision on Elders’ Marks and Battlegrounds
To round out this September Dev Diary, we have to talk about Energy and Elders’ Marks. As you know, we had intentions to overhaul the Energy economy to maintain pacing and make different modes of gameplay feel more meaningful than they have been. When we communicated our plan to pivot, we said that we had taken your concerns about the Elders’ Marks removal to heart and were re-evaluating.
We took a lot of time to consider all possible options, and ultimately, we’re happy to be able to tell you that Elders’ Marks will be staying and will act as the exclusive entry into Competitive Ranked Battlegrounds.
Now, Elders’ Marks will no longer be directly purchasable for Units; however, you can convert 15 energy into 90 Elders’ Marks at any time in an unlimited fashion.
To save you the math, let me quickly outline what that change will look like for you:
Previously: 135 Units = 315 Elders’ Marks
Upcoming: 120 Units (in Energy Refills) = Roughly 1,620 Elders’ Marks
So, why are we doing this?
We wanted a proper way to distinguish between Ranked and Unranked Battlegrounds entry queues.
Surprise! Unranked Battlegrounds matches will be launching alongside Season 34, will cost 5 Energy per round, and will match you with your Opponent based on the size of your roster. We feel this update is long overdue, and will give Summoners with smaller rosters an avenue to play the mode without being forced to match against accounts much larger than their own, effectively boxing them out from engaging with the game mode in a way that feels fair or fun for them.
Changes to Prevent Future Missteps
To ensure this doesn’t happen again, we’re implementing stricter oversight for important game updates.
This includes:
Enhanced internal review processes to ensure all adjustments align with our design philosophy and receive proper approvals.
Improved pre-release testing to confirm changes match their intended purpose.
These steps are already in motion, and we’re committed to seeing this through moving forward.
Looking Ahead
We are very aware that September was not our best month. Some of the issues were outside of our control, like services we depend on going offline. However, most of the problems were our fault, and we know we need to be better. We’re currently building that “general compensation” package for you that was promised due to the connection issues that started last month. We’re hoping to have this to you by Friday, and think you will be pleased with the contents.
We have a lot of updates and surprises to share with you on this upcoming livestream on October 3rd, one of which I’m personally extremely excited for - and even more surprises during our upcoming Summoners Fest. Whether you’ll be there in person or watching at home, we want this to be a time of celebration in the Contest where every Summoner is proud to spend their time in the Battlerealm, and walks away feeling excited and hopeful for the future. We don’t want our players to feel frustrated or like their time, money, and feelings aren’t valued.
Bluntly, we aren’t proud of the product we’ve put out on the field the past few months. We apologize for this, and we’re going to be taking steps to ensure we get back on track and make the best game possible for you, like we always say we want to do. The reality is, we can’t promise you that every decision we make is going to hit the mark, and that there aren’t going to be any more mistakes. That would be a ridiculous promise. But what we can promise is that every decision we make is what we feel is best for the game and its long-term future, and for our players. We feel confident that the outcome of everything discussed in this Dev Diary is landing in the best spot for the future of the game.
We’re committed to making Marvel Contest of Champions a premium experience where every Summoner feels heard, valued, and respected. The Spider-Woman update was a learning moment for us, and we’re already using it to strengthen our processes.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, thank you for sticking with us.
Until next time, we’ll see you… in the Battlerealm.
