Essentia, Rampant Evolutions, Adaptive EQ etc -- Engagement Issues
Not wishing to moan, and I am probably writing this at the wrong time, given that BGs Season, Carina's Challenge #3, and the side quest are due today, but I'm a little concerned about how recent changes diminish engagement with the game.
Starting with the oldest change first in Adaptive EQ, I think overall it is a vast improvement over the previous format, and changes to the gate system, along with the proposed removal of the need to complete Classic Difficulty, all seem good. But it has changed some of the time commitments, in that it can be blitzed through in a couple of hours with little to do afterwards. Not wishing for the time sink of all the progression levels to come back, but the daily quests and side quests have also been designed with brevity in mind, leading to what feels like an absence of content at times.
Rampant Evolutions and, to some extent, Raids, and the Coliseum, also seem to follow this pattern. I'm not some weirdo who loves doing the same AQ map each week ad nauseam. I really like the new modes, but Raids and RE can be knocked off in a day, whilst Coliseum lasts three days. Again, this can leave the Contest feeling a little dry of content at times during the week.
The obvious response will be that it leaves more time for Battle Grounds, which would be great, but the mode seems to be in a weird place where, depending on the meta, it can range from enjoyable to frustrating. Or more time for Arena, which, with the introduction of ascension, has become less relevant in relation to champ acquisition beyond collection and serves as just a unit grind. (I would like Arena updated, but the threat is always that the economy team would remove units from the mode - a change to catalyst and Sunday arenas would be welcome)
Essentia rollout has not been ideal, with trade-in limitations seeming mean, and not coordinating the award of the currency to go with it has been a problem. It has created a situation where it feels like the game economy team is trying to throttle store use (alleviated by the other stores returning for a month), rather than making life easier by reducing the number of in-game currencies. It should have been one or the other: release the stores with no trade-in cap, or release the currency when players could get a full understanding of the amount of Essentia available from playing the game modes. (If it works out less than 60k BG tokens, 28k glory, etc., per month, it will leave players feeling short-changed.)
Hopefully that will change, but, combined with the game feeling a little dry, the Essentia rollout has felt a little restrictive. Which I don't think is what the team is going for.
