The Dangers of Ascension: Every Summoner Should Know This
I am doubling down on this take, I hope I'm wrong but Kabam's track record isn't very good... The more I hear about Ascension the worse I feel about it. It sounds like a needlessly complicated, highly volatile and incredible fickle way to balance the game. I already made a post some time back about my worries for it, but like I said I am doubling down. The latest post did nothing to make me excited about Ascension, in fact it did the opposite.
At the forefront of my worries is ascension acquirement. Now somebody please correct me if I'm wrong because that post was a confusing mess. From what I understand, there will be different pools of champs and different ways to acquire their ascension. Those methods being as follows:
Ascension Base Pool: They have their own crystal that will give you a "cluster drop" which is basically a champion and their ascension to r1.
Super Duper Ascension: An even more special crystal that gives you one of six special champions (all still incredibly mid) to ascend.
New Champion Ascension: ONLY AVAILABLE THROUGH VALIANT CRYSTALS! NO OTHER SOURCES! So basically spend money or get shafted!
So let me paint you a picture. You're an endgame player, you play at the highest level, get the best rewards. You're super competetive. You've just saved hundreds of thousands of titan shard, you open the crystals, get a bunch of max sigs and... YOU CANNOT GET ANY OF THE NEW CHAMPS ASCENDED. I am using all caps for a reason here.
THE ONLY WAY TO ASCEND NEW CHAMPS IS WITH MONEY!!!
That should be reason enough to throw this entire concept into the bin.
Why not just add all of these champs to one pool? Why should I not be able to ascend a new champion who I pull from the titan crystal? You're telling me the next time DLL drops a busted overtuned champ, I'll be at a deficit unless I spend hundreds/thousands of dollars to ascend them?
"Oh but you can ascend the other champs" I hear you say.
Yes, I am sure my ascended Patriot, Corvus and Gorr will be able to hold up so well with the new champs Kabam releases. I know there are die hard Nova fans and Spiral fans. That's fine you can like them, but I promise you they will not be as powerful as the new champs Kabam releases.
Make no mistake, the base pool champs will not compare to new champs. Kabam's entire champion release system relies heavily on power creep! They need to keep making more and more powerful champs for people to be excited about pulling them. I promise you we will be getting more Nico Minorus, more Serpents and Dark Phoenixes. All of these busted champs will be ascendable and the only way to ascend them is WITH MONEY!
I cannot be the only one who is incredibly worried about this. If Ascension goes through as is and without any changes I think it will be impossible for anyone to remain competitive without spending thousands of dollars within the next year.
There is no reason why there needs to be multiple different pools of champs for ascension. Why not give players agency over what champions they can upgrade? Make it one big pool of champions. If I play super competitively, earn titan crystals and pull new champs, I SHOULD BE ABLE TO ASCEND THEM. That should not be a hot take!
There are so many other issues I have with ascension, but I feel like this is the most glaring and obvious one. Please don't kill the game I love. Please don't release ascension or at least don't release it like this...
