They are annoying but I don’t have too much of an issue fighting against them. I just wish AQ had more diversity, though, in terms of champs on the map. 4 to 6 Sentinels per path and that will get stale very quickly, just as we’ve seen with the symboids. AQ desperately needs more diversity.
AQ got harder, rewards didn’t get better. I would love an argument as to why sentinels are easier than symbiods. Especially given the class influences.
We all know that a large portion of the population is going to struggle with this for a minute and use resources. That is how a resource grab works.
So to those of you that think you are awesome and say “git gud” I say this, just because YOU may be better does NOT invalidate what people experiencing.
Kabam should have provided better rewards instead of just making things harder. It doesn’t make people cry babies or snowflakes to ask for this and discuss their difficulties.
How about you explain HOW they are harder? This thread is full of reasons why they AREN'T harder, so how about you give reasons why they are.
Just read this. I'm all about them, just kinda ehh about them not moving up the rewards. Sentinels are not easy for the majority of players.
@ItsTheBroski Your extremely long post about sentinels only catered to what people whining about them want to hear- Lets debunk a few things taken from your post-
In my opinion the biggest concern the playerbase has is the fact that Kabam in our opinion had increased the difficulty of Alliance Quest significantly without changing and/or updating the rewards at all. We can all say that Sentinels are the end for bleed/poison champions like Wolverine X-23 and Gwenpool and that Sentinels will make it more challenging for players with specific masteries, that’s a given. Besides the fact that a good percentage of Map 4 and 5 Alliances use Bleed and Poison champions, in many others eyes, Sentinel makes it difficult for the gran majority of champions. Knowing Sentinel is nerfed in AQ, he is still quite difficult with the abilities he currently has in comparison to the Symbioids we encountered prior to this change:
-Learning capability whenever (if not most of the time) they are hit
-Addicional bar of power (knowing their special three is not activated)
-Passive purify ability in which any damage debuff placed on them gets immediately purified no matter what class they are (not sure if nerfed but with my encounters, Sentineliods purify parrys every now and then giving me the opinion that this is still intact).
-Bleed/Poison immune
-More health and armor in comparison to a Symbioid (not 100% positive)
First off X-23, Wolvie and GP (I still use my 5/50 Wolvie and working just fine) are still useful. Nothing has changed there. There are plenty of other champs in AQ that you can use them against. Sentinels aren't the only thing you are fighting in AQ. This is narrow minded thinking.
-Their SP3 is not activated and they are easily baited for SP1/2.
-Only the Skill sentinel has purify based off the image of the 6 types.
-There are several champs in AQ already that are bleed and poison immune plus an entire debuff immune path.
-They really don't have that much more health. Armor probably but not a big deal.
The main thing is, once you learn how to fight them, NONE of these posts will ever matter again. Or there will be an Emerg Maint or a new OP champ will come out that can beat everyone and the community will move on to that. We've come across all kinds of different challenges before and we've all come out just fine.
Dude I am not whining about how difficult they are, to me they are quite easy. What I am stating is that Kabam needs to increase the rewards in AQ because as I proved they DID make AQ more difficult. That's it.
You proved it? Where did you prove it at? You provided a post where people who cant handle change, a place to complain. I corrected your ill-informed post here. For every person saying they are hard at least 1 or 2 have said they arent. Its day 3 and on map 5, they are still easier than uncollected was. You havent proven anything other being able to write extremly long posts with paragraphs. Most of the community cant do that.
Are you seriously saying they are not harder than Symbioids? Are you joking? EVERYONE KNOW THEY ARE HARDER. They are not that challenging to me no, but they ARE more challenging than Symbioids, that's a fact bro. Check my post again and read the comments. You deciding to be ignorant is your problem not mine. You didn't prove me wrong at all. Not one bit. The fact is that they are harder than Symbioids, thus means that they have made AQ more difficult/annoying. Jesus Christ kid, if you're going to be a dogmatist about it at least have something to back you up. You have nothing.
Sentinels are money grabbers for Kabam. First off they are exponentially more challenging than Symbiods which I'm fine with them being more difficult but I do not agree with Kabam making them THIS difficult. You shouldn't have to use 5-10 items on day 3 to complete when you're in an alliance like mine. We have all the champs and most struggled through it today. It didn't matter if you had Medusa, Thor Rags, or anyone else people suggested. I mean why do they cater to top alliances? This can't be easy for map 5 players that don't have a plethora of 5*s to use against them. The top 5% can handle it based on having all the champs. The rest of the people are screwed.
Bottom line is it is all about money. So how many people will quit the game? That's the only way they'll change it back or nerf the Sentinels.
I have only one of the "suggested" champs against Sentinels, Medusa. Last month Kabam Mike said sentinels would not be added to AQ so I didn't use my resources on her. It's gonna take me a while to get her there, and who knows how long until I get another of the recommended champs. Hell, I just got Wolvie and dumped everything into him, and now he's pretty crappy in AQ.
If the idea is that Kabam is going to assume people have the right champs by luck of the pull that's beyond foolish. I agree with you, this is an absolute money move.
Make it harder. Change it up. Make sentinels a mini, add more minis. Create more change and diversity to the current enemies in AQ. It was too predictable before, now it's too predictable and too overpowered.
All these resources aren't worth working harder for the same rewards.
They're insanely easy. I've been using Blade with GR synergy (4*) and have had 0 issues killing these.
Wait til you get out of map 2
Dumb response? I do 5x5 and our prestige starts over 6.4k. Learn how to play the game and watch youtube videos on how to beat sentinels. They aren't hard to beat. Sorry you can't seem to adapt to new things. Can't teach an old dog new tricks?
I'm going to start by saying my feedback is for Kabam. Not anyone else. If your feedback is different from mine, then present your feedback to Kabam directly, as I am, and kindly refrain from trying to engage me in a discussion or argument based on your different opinions/perspectives. Respectfully, I have no use for them as I'm not here to argue with anyone and just want to give my feedback to those who maintain the game that we all are trying to enjoy.
Secondly, I appreciate Kabam's attempt to re-energize AQ. It has been a little stale and your efforts do not go unnoticed. I also want to say thank you for the addition of other new game content like the boss rush challenges, rifts, Uncollected, etc. These are fun.
Tertiarily, I want to say thank you to Kabam for the increased rates of obtaining 4 and 5* heroes.
Based on my observations within my alliance, what I'm hearing from others in chats, and my own opinion, I'd like to offer the following feedback:
1) AQ as a whole is harder now and that isn't really debatable. It's the first week and as a whole the community will adjust, but this fact is a clearly observable. I've seen it in the amount of KO's during the first 3 days of AQ for an alliance who consistently didn't have any until days 4 & 5. I'm sure you can review some logs to compare KO rates, item use rates, etc and the data will bare this out as well.
2) We play the game to have fun, not be frustrated. And it is clear that the majority of your player base is frustrated with the AQ changes. While there are some here defending the changes, make no mistake that they are the minority. In my alliance, we only have one individual who doesn't have a negative opinion of the AQ changes. So while you have a lot of people here providing negative feedback, there are very likely another 10+ people for every one of them who are just expressing it within their alliances. Simply because they don’t post it here doesn’t mean it’s any less real or impactful to them.
3) The AQ changes are lowering many peoples' willingness to play. I'm seeing this in my own alliance and I'm reading it from those in others. AQs are taking longer to complete, officers are having to tag people far more often to encourage movement, etc. This is stemming from more than a few things, but the root of this is the negative impact and frustration the AQ changes are causing. From the general need to utilize different champs to the need to change play style. Long term players who were strong in AQ even on days 4 & 5 are now struggling during the first 3 days. These struggles continue even after making changes in their AQ teams.
4) Limited energy and the energy refresh rate have nothing to do with skill in AQ. These are artificial challenge factors that only create hardship on players. I am of the opinion they add no in-game value and provide no revenue to Kabam. They interferes with players' real life schedules (Work, Family, etc) and create additional frustration for alliance leaders/officers. Finding 30 people who are all in the same time zone/have the same play time isn’t easy. Not everyone can always join at the same time. Not everyone sleeps at the same time. Lost energy leads to frustration. Finding 30 players with similar skillsets is very difficult already. Attempting to coordinate the work of 30 people, over the course of a 24 hour event, for 5 out of 7 days a week while trying to manage energy limits makes AQ a grind unnecessarily. Further, it promotes account sharing/piloting.
5) Outside of the recent AQ changes, the #1 thing I hear players express concern about is a lack of gold and other resources. There are Players being forced to hold T4CC fragment crystals, full T4CC crystals, etc because they are maxed out on CC and either lack the gold to rank people up or are short on items like T4BC and T1A. On this note, I commend you for the recent boost to some of these resources though. The monthly calendar and the Glory store are excellent examples of Kabam providing new avenues for the community to acquire T4BC, T1A, T2A, and even T4CC. Having said that, gold is still lagging behind. With as much time as AW, AQ, Story, and Event Quest take up (not to mention all the other great new content), many do not have time to grind in Arena for gold.
6) Kabam has added additional content that consumes energy, but has not increased a players maximum energy or lowered the energy refresh rates to keep pace.
Having expressed the above issues, I also want to offer some possible solutions. I’m not here to grip. I’m here to make things better. I feel these are a few things Kabam can do to help with this:
1) Lower the challenge rating of sentinels by lowering the rate at which they gain charges and/or lowering some of their abilities, reduce the number of sentinels in AQ, and potentially look at altering their game play.
2) Keep your ears open to your fan base and mold the game, within reason, around the feedback they provide. You have to make money but you need the players to do so.
3) See #1 and also evaluate the difficulty of the new mini bosses now that some core AQ heroes are less effective and potentially going to be left off the roster going forward.
4) While I’d love to see a removal of energy from AW, AQ and Event quest completely, I know that’s not the case. I believe Kabam can make AQ less of a grind by increasing the max energy from 5 to 7 and lowering the refresh timer. This would show that this content is about skill and not about trying to micro manage the schedules and work output of 30 people who are potentially spread all across the world. AW doesn’t appear to need any energy adjustments.
5) There are potentially many ways to help put more gold in the pockets of players so they can continue to rank up champions. This could be done by increasing gold earned from events, fights, and story/EQ exploration by a factor of X-XX%. Another would be to have a weekly gold rush event as has been mentioned before.
6) Increase max energy, lower the 6 minute energy refresh timer, increase the amount of energy that can be recovered through the Help function, and/or eliminate the consumption of energy expended to move on path segments that have already been explored (like you currently do for AQ and AW)
In finishing, while these are not universal issues and solutions that apply to every player, I believe they apply to the majority. My feedback freely given (even though it takes a lot thought, time, and effort to do so) in the hopes that we can continue to have a great MCOC game and community. Thank you.
The symbioids were fine, everyone was used to them and AQ was generally fine
But then out of nowhere come the Sentineloids which for the most part is really annoying everyone because nearly all the champions cannot be used against them, you need to have the correct champions for them.
Where's the skill in defeating these sentinels?
I just want to ask what did you hope to achieve by changing the genial opponents.
I don't usually post on these kinds of forums, but had to have my say the introduction of these Sentineliods is as monumental as the infamous 12.0 update. The Mcoc community will not stand for this.
For the average player these are horrible. I consider myself above average and not a fan of them in AQ. I absolutely love the idea of the Sentinels in the game though. The design is a bit clunky though but I like their abilities but wish they weren't in AQ. I sort of joked yesterday with my alliance that I'd prefer to fight the mini boss nightcrawler than the Sentinels..there's some truth to it though. In time we will adapt and they won't be as bad but still think this is a bad move. Without a doubt this was intended to generate more revenue. I'm not against a business making money but nobody likes a paycut which is sort of what this is, We're working harder for the same rewards. This was the straw that broke our alliance leader and couple others. So we have to replace them which will be a big hit to our alliance. I'll probably have to find another alliance so I don't take a hit in rewards which will hurt the alliance even more. To top it off the Sentinels seem bugy, things aren't working like they should. Just a bad move but that's just my 2 cents.
Add my voice to the chorus of disapproval. I don't want better rewards, I want the sentinels gone. An occasional character to face in AQ, fine. They are frustrating to fight against when they should be more "filler."
This by far the hardest map 5 i seen.. The ai is amped up, they dash and do 5 hit combos. Parry dont work. Specials are getting blocked.
I hate when they do this ****!!!!!!!
Fine use 1 or 2 sentials... but kabam also made the easy path in section 3 a death path if ur low on health.
I was using IF hoping the armor break would be beneficial. Day 4 and I took 85% damage from blocking a sp2 after it built up analysis charges. That's some wild stuff.
I think the sentinels would make killer mini bosses, or the main boss. I just don't get why they have so many overpowered ones throughout the maps. I'd love to see some change and diversity overall to all the enemies, but this specific change is nuts
Just took 50% blocked damage from a single Sentinel. They sure aren’t harder the Symbiods...
Why you just standing there blocking though!?
You take block damage from everything...
Parry, evade, intercept. Don’t just stay there holding block lol
Not a useful comment, you don't know what progressed in the fight, you don't know if he was standing there or evaded and had to press block real quick.. making assumptions is not a good look but I guess you just wanted something to say
They're insanely easy. I've been using Blade with GR synergy (4*) and have had 0 issues killing these.
So...
I am a medium level player... In my ally we do map5... I have my champs and I always be on the top10 of my ally points rank
Before sentinels
I have NO BLADE, NO ICEMAN, NO GHOST, NO STARKY, NO MEDUSA... NO WOODOO, NO LUKE CAGE...
I’ve always done my paths with my starlord 5/50, my wolvy 5/50 and my ultron 4/40 (not awakened)
By now I have no champs to fight sentinels at the end of the week... I’ll loose my champs before the second mini...
BUT I’m really happy you’ve Blade and Ghost so you can find them easy to fight... it doesn’t solve my problem but it’s fair enough for me...
I’m not sure if you are joking or if you really do not understand: one thing is to say that FOR YOU nothing has changed... another thing is saying that NOTHING HAS CHANGED FOR EVERYONE
I give you a notice: there is A LOT OF PEOPLE LIKE ME in the game, that will be obliged to rank down or to change ally only because we have not the way to fight sentinels... when just one week ago we finished the map on top
Can I be a little bit angry or because you have blade and ghost have I to be happy at all?
For the average player these are horrible. I consider myself above average and not a fan of them in AQ. I absolutely love the idea of the Sentinels in the game though. The design is a bit clunky though but I like their abilities but wish they weren't in AQ. I sort of joked yesterday with my alliance that I'd prefer to fight the mini boss nightcrawler than the Sentinels..there's some truth to it though. In time we will adapt and they won't be as bad but still think this is a bad move. Without a doubt this was intended to generate more revenue. I'm not against a business making money but nobody likes a paycut which is sort of what this is, We're working harder for the same rewards. This was the straw that broke our alliance leader and couple others. So we have to replace them which will be a big hit to our alliance. I'll probably have to find another alliance so I don't take a hit in rewards which will hurt the alliance even more. To top it off the Sentinels seem bugy, things aren't working like they should. Just a bad move but that's just my 2 cents.
I would take a nightcrawler on every sentinel node, to be honest. I feel I'm pretty decent at the game, in an 11 mil alliance with a personal 300k plus rating. I take voodoo 4*, rogue 4*, hulk 4* into aq, all duped, hulk and voodoo max Sig. Before this week, I'd get through 5 map 5s with 1 or 2 items used throughout. I've used 7 just today, and we're just now in the third section. I'm not saying I'm God's gift to mcoc, but I'm better than this change would allow me to believe.
Also, classic daredevil at max Sig should evade the sentinel special 1. And he doesn't. Found that out today, now I have a useless champ in aq.
I'm am average player, maybe a bit under. Before I ran 5x5 with Gully alone. Occasionally I'll use Hulk too. I could get through with no issues and no champ losses.
Day 4 I lost 2 hitting 4 sents in the first section alone. I don't think this is about skill at all, but moreso champs and units.
Our Alliance is decent, about 9.5 million. We're in danger of losing expert tier. I can't imagine what newer, or lower ranked players are feeling.
Wouldn't be so upset about all this is u would fix ur game first. Blocks dropping/unresponsive champs and now u can't even Evade certain specials that we have been able to for YEARS! Including ur new best buddies of kabam the Sentinels. 90% of the time when I dodge one of their specials even tho I'm causing dex to proc. Somehow someway I'm still being hit with the special. Sometimes Dex will proc and I'll still take damage!!! Even tho my character isn't standing there stunned like they do when taking hits from a special. How does that happen? Anyone opposed to kabam fixing their bs b4 adding new content and more bs? Just broken code over broken code...
For the average player these are horrible. I consider myself above average and not a fan of them in AQ. I absolutely love the idea of the Sentinels in the game though. The design is a bit clunky though but I like their abilities but wish they weren't in AQ. I sort of joked yesterday with my alliance that I'd prefer to fight the mini boss nightcrawler than the Sentinels..there's some truth to it though. In time we will adapt and they won't be as bad but still think this is a bad move. Without a doubt this was intended to generate more revenue. I'm not against a business making money but nobody likes a paycut which is sort of what this is, We're working harder for the same rewards. This was the straw that broke our alliance leader and couple others. So we have to replace them which will be a big hit to our alliance. I'll probably have to find another alliance so I don't take a hit in rewards which will hurt the alliance even more. To top it off the Sentinels seem bugy, things aren't working like they should. Just a bad move but that's just my 2 cents.
I would take a nightcrawler on every sentinel node, to be honest. I feel I'm pretty decent at the game, in an 11 mil alliance with a personal 300k plus rating. I take voodoo 4*, rogue 4*, hulk 4* into aq, all duped, hulk and voodoo max Sig. Before this week, I'd get through 5 map 5s with 1 or 2 items used throughout. I've used 7 just today, and we're just now in the third section. I'm not saying I'm God's gift to mcoc, but I'm better than this change would allow me to believe.
Also, classic daredevil at max Sig should evade the sentinel special 1. And he doesn't. Found that out today, now I have a useless champ in aq.
I have no clue why DD won't evade the first part of that. It's clearly a projectile. There's tons of bugs right now though. I don't understand Kabam sometimes, they do a really great job on something's but really suck at other's.
Its day 3 and on map 5, they are still easier than uncollected was.
They might be for some, but that's unlikely to be true across the board. Uncollected difficulty in monthly events contain the same NPCs for everyone: the intrinsic difficulty of uncollected is the same for everyone. But the strength of the Sentinels scales with the prestige of the alliance and the map being played. It cannot be the same for everyone. For me personally, the Sentinels are the most dangerous thing on the map that isn't a boss.
Everyone judges relative difficulty differently, but there's no question the absolute difficulty level jumped upward dramatically. I'd be willing to bet the contents of my account the vast overwhelming majority of players are experiencing a very large jump in difficulty that would be trivially easy to datamine, and that a substantial portion of that qualitative difficulty increase will not be erased with time.
To me, the real problem is that this change is happening in AQ. In the single player game, difficulty is a personal individual challenge that I can interact with in a lot of different ways. I can practice a mission and reset it as often as I want. I can test ideas and strategy at will. I can take chances, and the only person I affect is myself. And I can even choose to opt out of a particularly difficult piece of content if I so choose. But in AQ, those options simply do not exist or are radically warped. I can't reset the mission and try again. I can't simply test ideas with unlimited freedom. And I can't simply opt out without heavily penalizing my alliance.
To me, the only fun aspect of difficult content is being able to face it on my own terms, and to win or lose on my own terms. Forcing me to "git gud" in real time in an alliance event where people are counting on me and my performance takes all of the fun out of it for me.
If you're someone that is simply unable to even see the difficulty of the change, that simply makes you incapable of seeing the problem. Even if the difficulty of the change will wane over time, that is besides the point. The point is that for the people who are seeing the difficulty change, they are being forced to deal with that difficulty change practically with a gun to their heads - unless they literally do not care about their alliance at all. The very process of learning to deal with difficult content which should be part of the fun is being inserted into a context that eliminates that fun for anyone that is struggling, whether they eventually overcome that or not.
Unless the difficulty is totally out of bounds, I don't complain about the difficulty of single player content. Some content should be so difficult you might simply fail, and have to give up even trying, until you get better. That's a personal decision for each player based on their progress level in the game. But that doesn't apply to alliance events, where you can't simply opt out without hurting your alliance. Here, I think the designers did something that is textbook wrong for a multiplayer game: they created a circumstance where players can associate participating in group activities as highly negative. No competent game development team should ever do that deliberately, ever.
I’ll give this change 2 AQ runs. If I haven’t adapted by then, COD will get my time and this will be a game I pick up once in a while. Sentinels are a cash grab. Unblockable specials, immune to bleed & poison, damage through blocks. 2 things have kept me playing since 12.0. The friends I’ve made in my alliance and I could still collect new champs and rank them. If I can’t stay in map 5 and get the weekly t4b, then this game has no point. @Kabam Miike you might want to let your dev team know that a lot of people are talking about quitting. I hear fornite is awesome and I downloaded it on PS4 for free!
AQ seems to be the straw that broke my ally's back. Easily ran map 5x5, AW tier 4-5 (Gold 1), entirely uncollected, and as a group we voted to convert to a retirement ally. No more AQ, maybe a war once in a while, just shut things down. Players here have been going for years, love the general concept of the game, love the friends we've made, but there's just too much of a commitment needed to keep going. Hopefully AQ will be revised and be worth the grind again someday.
The game is still fun, but the "day to day" grind from AQ to progress has killed it. Time to take a break. We may get back into the grind eventually, but probably not.
I was told this is like another "classic" Kabam's "I care so much about the players that I will give them nothing they wish for but instead I'll do quite the opposite to piss each and everyone of them off" move like v12.0.
Wait, how could it be true? Kabam MOD promised the difficult will not increase with the introduction. We know a Mod's promise is as good as GOLD! They can even buy things without using money or credit card but by just openining their golden mouths bcos that's how much their words are worth! Wow, AQ is now the best thanks to Kabam's attitude and customer-orientation.
I would like to start by thanking Kabam for creating a space for people to express their feeling openly about the recent changes in game play, but let’s all be honest, that all it is! No one from kabam is actually reading any of this, nor do they care. That being said, here is my rant.
It’s always been obvious that they are only in this for the money and this recent change is just more of the same. I am in a realatively good alliance, starting prestige over 6.5, and no one in our alliance ever had to use items to finish aq any day of the week. Since the introduction of the sentinel-whatever, people have been blowing through items and it’s only day 4. In my mind, War was the future, aq was simply there to help us mitigate spending. The introduction of glory allows most of us to stock up on health pots and revives for war, now we are all using them just to get through aq. I understand there are some out there saying these aren’t hard at all, good for you, let the rest of rant in peace and stop being greater than thou pricks, we deal with enough of those in our own alliances as it is! In short, kabam, I know you are never going to read this or do anything about it because you don’t really care. That’s all!
Comments
Are you seriously saying they are not harder than Symbioids? Are you joking? EVERYONE KNOW THEY ARE HARDER. They are not that challenging to me no, but they ARE more challenging than Symbioids, that's a fact bro. Check my post again and read the comments. You deciding to be ignorant is your problem not mine. You didn't prove me wrong at all. Not one bit. The fact is that they are harder than Symbioids, thus means that they have made AQ more difficult/annoying. Jesus Christ kid, if you're going to be a dogmatist about it at least have something to back you up. You have nothing.
I have only one of the "suggested" champs against Sentinels, Medusa. Last month Kabam Mike said sentinels would not be added to AQ so I didn't use my resources on her. It's gonna take me a while to get her there, and who knows how long until I get another of the recommended champs. Hell, I just got Wolvie and dumped everything into him, and now he's pretty crappy in AQ.
If the idea is that Kabam is going to assume people have the right champs by luck of the pull that's beyond foolish. I agree with you, this is an absolute money move.
Make it harder. Change it up. Make sentinels a mini, add more minis. Create more change and diversity to the current enemies in AQ. It was too predictable before, now it's too predictable and too overpowered.
All these resources aren't worth working harder for the same rewards.
Wait til you get out of map 2
SO you have the best team in the game....
Dumb response? I do 5x5 and our prestige starts over 6.4k. Learn how to play the game and watch youtube videos on how to beat sentinels. They aren't hard to beat. Sorry you can't seem to adapt to new things. Can't teach an old dog new tricks?
That's debatable. I'm not using sparky in the team so it's only 45% potency. Either way, they aren't hard. Just practice and you'll get it in no time.
Secondly, I appreciate Kabam's attempt to re-energize AQ. It has been a little stale and your efforts do not go unnoticed. I also want to say thank you for the addition of other new game content like the boss rush challenges, rifts, Uncollected, etc. These are fun.
Tertiarily, I want to say thank you to Kabam for the increased rates of obtaining 4 and 5* heroes.
Based on my observations within my alliance, what I'm hearing from others in chats, and my own opinion, I'd like to offer the following feedback:
1) AQ as a whole is harder now and that isn't really debatable. It's the first week and as a whole the community will adjust, but this fact is a clearly observable. I've seen it in the amount of KO's during the first 3 days of AQ for an alliance who consistently didn't have any until days 4 & 5. I'm sure you can review some logs to compare KO rates, item use rates, etc and the data will bare this out as well.
2) We play the game to have fun, not be frustrated. And it is clear that the majority of your player base is frustrated with the AQ changes. While there are some here defending the changes, make no mistake that they are the minority. In my alliance, we only have one individual who doesn't have a negative opinion of the AQ changes. So while you have a lot of people here providing negative feedback, there are very likely another 10+ people for every one of them who are just expressing it within their alliances. Simply because they don’t post it here doesn’t mean it’s any less real or impactful to them.
3) The AQ changes are lowering many peoples' willingness to play. I'm seeing this in my own alliance and I'm reading it from those in others. AQs are taking longer to complete, officers are having to tag people far more often to encourage movement, etc. This is stemming from more than a few things, but the root of this is the negative impact and frustration the AQ changes are causing. From the general need to utilize different champs to the need to change play style. Long term players who were strong in AQ even on days 4 & 5 are now struggling during the first 3 days. These struggles continue even after making changes in their AQ teams.
4) Limited energy and the energy refresh rate have nothing to do with skill in AQ. These are artificial challenge factors that only create hardship on players. I am of the opinion they add no in-game value and provide no revenue to Kabam. They interferes with players' real life schedules (Work, Family, etc) and create additional frustration for alliance leaders/officers. Finding 30 people who are all in the same time zone/have the same play time isn’t easy. Not everyone can always join at the same time. Not everyone sleeps at the same time. Lost energy leads to frustration. Finding 30 players with similar skillsets is very difficult already. Attempting to coordinate the work of 30 people, over the course of a 24 hour event, for 5 out of 7 days a week while trying to manage energy limits makes AQ a grind unnecessarily. Further, it promotes account sharing/piloting.
5) Outside of the recent AQ changes, the #1 thing I hear players express concern about is a lack of gold and other resources. There are Players being forced to hold T4CC fragment crystals, full T4CC crystals, etc because they are maxed out on CC and either lack the gold to rank people up or are short on items like T4BC and T1A. On this note, I commend you for the recent boost to some of these resources though. The monthly calendar and the Glory store are excellent examples of Kabam providing new avenues for the community to acquire T4BC, T1A, T2A, and even T4CC. Having said that, gold is still lagging behind. With as much time as AW, AQ, Story, and Event Quest take up (not to mention all the other great new content), many do not have time to grind in Arena for gold.
6) Kabam has added additional content that consumes energy, but has not increased a players maximum energy or lowered the energy refresh rates to keep pace.
Having expressed the above issues, I also want to offer some possible solutions. I’m not here to grip. I’m here to make things better. I feel these are a few things Kabam can do to help with this:
1) Lower the challenge rating of sentinels by lowering the rate at which they gain charges and/or lowering some of their abilities, reduce the number of sentinels in AQ, and potentially look at altering their game play.
2) Keep your ears open to your fan base and mold the game, within reason, around the feedback they provide. You have to make money but you need the players to do so.
3) See #1 and also evaluate the difficulty of the new mini bosses now that some core AQ heroes are less effective and potentially going to be left off the roster going forward.
4) While I’d love to see a removal of energy from AW, AQ and Event quest completely, I know that’s not the case. I believe Kabam can make AQ less of a grind by increasing the max energy from 5 to 7 and lowering the refresh timer. This would show that this content is about skill and not about trying to micro manage the schedules and work output of 30 people who are potentially spread all across the world. AW doesn’t appear to need any energy adjustments.
5) There are potentially many ways to help put more gold in the pockets of players so they can continue to rank up champions. This could be done by increasing gold earned from events, fights, and story/EQ exploration by a factor of X-XX%. Another would be to have a weekly gold rush event as has been mentioned before.
6) Increase max energy, lower the 6 minute energy refresh timer, increase the amount of energy that can be recovered through the Help function, and/or eliminate the consumption of energy expended to move on path segments that have already been explored (like you currently do for AQ and AW)
In finishing, while these are not universal issues and solutions that apply to every player, I believe they apply to the majority. My feedback freely given (even though it takes a lot thought, time, and effort to do so) in the hopes that we can continue to have a great MCOC game and community. Thank you.
The symbioids were fine, everyone was used to them and AQ was generally fine
But then out of nowhere come the Sentineloids which for the most part is really annoying everyone because nearly all the champions cannot be used against them, you need to have the correct champions for them.
Where's the skill in defeating these sentinels?
I just want to ask what did you hope to achieve by changing the genial opponents.
#SymboidsForever
Boo, boo indeed.
I hate when they do this ****!!!!!!!
Fine use 1 or 2 sentials... but kabam also made the easy path in section 3 a death path if ur low on health.
I think the sentinels would make killer mini bosses, or the main boss. I just don't get why they have so many overpowered ones throughout the maps. I'd love to see some change and diversity overall to all the enemies, but this specific change is nuts
Not a useful comment, you don't know what progressed in the fight, you don't know if he was standing there or evaded and had to press block real quick.. making assumptions is not a good look but I guess you just wanted something to say
So...
I am a medium level player... In my ally we do map5... I have my champs and I always be on the top10 of my ally points rank
Before sentinels
I have NO BLADE, NO ICEMAN, NO GHOST, NO STARKY, NO MEDUSA... NO WOODOO, NO LUKE CAGE...
I’ve always done my paths with my starlord 5/50, my wolvy 5/50 and my ultron 4/40 (not awakened)
By now I have no champs to fight sentinels at the end of the week... I’ll loose my champs before the second mini...
BUT I’m really happy you’ve Blade and Ghost so you can find them easy to fight... it doesn’t solve my problem but it’s fair enough for me...
I’m not sure if you are joking or if you really do not understand: one thing is to say that FOR YOU nothing has changed... another thing is saying that NOTHING HAS CHANGED FOR EVERYONE
I give you a notice: there is A LOT OF PEOPLE LIKE ME in the game, that will be obliged to rank down or to change ally only because we have not the way to fight sentinels... when just one week ago we finished the map on top
Can I be a little bit angry or because you have blade and ghost have I to be happy at all?
I would take a nightcrawler on every sentinel node, to be honest. I feel I'm pretty decent at the game, in an 11 mil alliance with a personal 300k plus rating. I take voodoo 4*, rogue 4*, hulk 4* into aq, all duped, hulk and voodoo max Sig. Before this week, I'd get through 5 map 5s with 1 or 2 items used throughout. I've used 7 just today, and we're just now in the third section. I'm not saying I'm God's gift to mcoc, but I'm better than this change would allow me to believe.
Also, classic daredevil at max Sig should evade the sentinel special 1. And he doesn't. Found that out today, now I have a useless champ in aq.
Day 4 I lost 2 hitting 4 sents in the first section alone. I don't think this is about skill at all, but moreso champs and units.
Our Alliance is decent, about 9.5 million. We're in danger of losing expert tier. I can't imagine what newer, or lower ranked players are feeling.
I have no clue why DD won't evade the first part of that. It's clearly a projectile. There's tons of bugs right now though. I don't understand Kabam sometimes, they do a really great job on something's but really suck at other's.
They might be for some, but that's unlikely to be true across the board. Uncollected difficulty in monthly events contain the same NPCs for everyone: the intrinsic difficulty of uncollected is the same for everyone. But the strength of the Sentinels scales with the prestige of the alliance and the map being played. It cannot be the same for everyone. For me personally, the Sentinels are the most dangerous thing on the map that isn't a boss.
Everyone judges relative difficulty differently, but there's no question the absolute difficulty level jumped upward dramatically. I'd be willing to bet the contents of my account the vast overwhelming majority of players are experiencing a very large jump in difficulty that would be trivially easy to datamine, and that a substantial portion of that qualitative difficulty increase will not be erased with time.
To me, the real problem is that this change is happening in AQ. In the single player game, difficulty is a personal individual challenge that I can interact with in a lot of different ways. I can practice a mission and reset it as often as I want. I can test ideas and strategy at will. I can take chances, and the only person I affect is myself. And I can even choose to opt out of a particularly difficult piece of content if I so choose. But in AQ, those options simply do not exist or are radically warped. I can't reset the mission and try again. I can't simply test ideas with unlimited freedom. And I can't simply opt out without heavily penalizing my alliance.
To me, the only fun aspect of difficult content is being able to face it on my own terms, and to win or lose on my own terms. Forcing me to "git gud" in real time in an alliance event where people are counting on me and my performance takes all of the fun out of it for me.
If you're someone that is simply unable to even see the difficulty of the change, that simply makes you incapable of seeing the problem. Even if the difficulty of the change will wane over time, that is besides the point. The point is that for the people who are seeing the difficulty change, they are being forced to deal with that difficulty change practically with a gun to their heads - unless they literally do not care about their alliance at all. The very process of learning to deal with difficult content which should be part of the fun is being inserted into a context that eliminates that fun for anyone that is struggling, whether they eventually overcome that or not.
Unless the difficulty is totally out of bounds, I don't complain about the difficulty of single player content. Some content should be so difficult you might simply fail, and have to give up even trying, until you get better. That's a personal decision for each player based on their progress level in the game. But that doesn't apply to alliance events, where you can't simply opt out without hurting your alliance. Here, I think the designers did something that is textbook wrong for a multiplayer game: they created a circumstance where players can associate participating in group activities as highly negative. No competent game development team should ever do that deliberately, ever.
The game is still fun, but the "day to day" grind from AQ to progress has killed it. Time to take a break. We may get back into the grind eventually, but probably not.
Wait, how could it be true? Kabam MOD promised the difficult will not increase with the introduction. We know a Mod's promise is as good as GOLD! They can even buy things without using money or credit card but by just openining their golden mouths bcos that's how much their words are worth! Wow, AQ is now the best thanks to Kabam's attitude and customer-orientation.
This is precious!
It’s always been obvious that they are only in this for the money and this recent change is just more of the same. I am in a realatively good alliance, starting prestige over 6.5, and no one in our alliance ever had to use items to finish aq any day of the week. Since the introduction of the sentinel-whatever, people have been blowing through items and it’s only day 4. In my mind, War was the future, aq was simply there to help us mitigate spending. The introduction of glory allows most of us to stock up on health pots and revives for war, now we are all using them just to get through aq. I understand there are some out there saying these aren’t hard at all, good for you, let the rest of rant in peace and stop being greater than thou pricks, we deal with enough of those in our own alliances as it is! In short, kabam, I know you are never going to read this or do anything about it because you don’t really care. That’s all!