The Road to Cavalier Difficulty

arsjum · June 2020

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/201833/the-road-to-cavalier-difficulty

Didn't see a thread on it. Use this thread for discussion? @Kabam Miike?

Arifutera · June 2020

So, will we get a full quest, with 3 chapters? Also, complete set of rewards (which are subject to change later)
I know this is like a trial version, I want to know whether it resembles the actual cavalier quest....

Kabam Miike · June 2020

Arifutera said:
So, will we get a full quest, with 3 chapters? Also, complete set of rewards (which are subject to change later)
I know this is like a trial version, I want to know whether it resembles the actual cavalier quest....

Not yet. A side event is like the Island of Doctor MODOK, or the Red Rooms, etc. They are not the actual event quest, but the side event that goes with them.

Fenico · June 2020

I love the fact that there will be some time period to give feedback on this.

Small steps in the right direction.

Apocalypse189 · June 2020

It’s probably gonna be like RttL at first imo but with higher opponents

Erza_Scarlet · June 2020

Is this the big announcement we were told to expect at the end of the week? Or is there more??

Epistriatus · June 2020

Arifutera said:
So, will we get a full quest, with 3 chapters? Also, complete set of rewards (which are subject to change later)
I know this is like a trial version, I want to know whether it resembles the actual cavalier quest....

If you read the announcement it says that they’ll start with adding a new difficulty to the side quest event first. To gather data, finetune things, etc, etc instead of launching an entirely new difficulty in the monthly event quest. It’s a sort of slow build-up I guess, looking forward to a new challenge.

Kabam Miike · June 2020

Erza_Scarlet said:
Is this the big announcement we were told to expect at the end of the week? Or is there more??

I'm not sure which Big Announcement we said we'd have before the end of the week?

Arifutera · June 2020

Kabam Miike said:

Arifutera said:
So, will we get a full quest, with 3 chapters? Also, complete set of rewards (which are subject to change later)
I know this is like a trial version, I want to know whether it resembles the actual cavalier quest....
Not yet. A side event is like the Island of Doctor MODOK, or the Red Rooms, etc. They are not the actual event quest, but the side event that goes with them.

Thanks for the clarification!! Looking forward to it...

OGAvenger · June 2020

Kabam Miike said:

Erza_Scarlet said:
Is this the big announcement we were told to expect at the end of the week? Or is there more??
I'm not sure which Big Announcement we said we'd have before the end of the week?

I think he’s referring to the long-term road map that was expected to be announced at the beginning of June

SpideyFunko · June 2020

Kabam Miike said:

Erza_Scarlet said:
Is this the big announcement we were told to expect at the end of the week? Or is there more??
I'm not sure which Big Announcement we said we'd have before the end of the week?

pretty sure the roadmap miike

StevieManWonder · June 2020

This looks great, glad to see you're giving us time for feedback, I really appreciate it.

SparkAlot · June 2020

Gmonkey said:
This looks interesting and a challenge hoping is is not impossible. Will get to test my roster. Hoping that it is not quake and ghost play like chapter 6. Even though I have both at 5/65 would like to use some other champs.

What is stopping you from using other champs?

Hope you aren't asking for class specific gates to be thrown in, that would suck so bad.

Kabam Miike · June 2020

OGAvenger said:

Kabam Miike said:

Erza_Scarlet said:
Is this the big announcement we were told to expect at the end of the week? Or is there more??
I'm not sure which Big Announcement we said we'd have before the end of the week?
I think he’s referring to the long-term road map that was expected to be announced at the beginning of June

Of course! This is not it, but would have been part of it. We wanted to get this out earlier because we know you're all anticipating the next difficulty level. We're still working on finalizing that. There's a lot of work to be done there because we're not just writing out what we're doing, we're looking at what we want to change from player feedback as well.

Mauled · June 2020

Kabam Miike said:

Arifutera said:
So, will we get a full quest, with 3 chapters? Also, complete set of rewards (which are subject to change later)
I know this is like a trial version, I want to know whether it resembles the actual cavalier quest....
Not yet. A side event is like the Island of Doctor MODOK, or the Red Rooms, etc. They are not the actual event quest, but the side event that goes with them.

Awesome news.

To clarify, are the Island of Modok side quests what you’re drawing your data from, or are we to expect an additional side quest further down the line that will be acting as the test dummy?

SparkAlot · June 2020

Kabam Miike said:

Arifutera said:
So, will we get a full quest, with 3 chapters? Also, complete set of rewards (which are subject to change later)
I know this is like a trial version, I want to know whether it resembles the actual cavalier quest....
Not yet. A side event is like the Island of Doctor MODOK, or the Red Rooms, etc. They are not the actual event quest, but the side event that goes with them.

Does this also mean that the current levels of difficulty will stay as they are, or will everything get a tweak now with the introduction of the new Cavalier difficulty?

TheHeroDeserved · June 2020

Sounds really great! Im looking forward to it!

SuperiorSvee · June 2020

Who is the tuning geared to? Those that are just Cavalier (beat 6.1 once)? Beat champion once? Beat grandmaster once? 100% everything?

Who are the rewards targeting? Those that just hit Cavalier? Or also appealing to those that are 100% everything?

Kabam Miike · June 2020

SparkAlot said:

Kabam Miike said:

Arifutera said:
So, will we get a full quest, with 3 chapters? Also, complete set of rewards (which are subject to change later)
I know this is like a trial version, I want to know whether it resembles the actual cavalier quest....
Not yet. A side event is like the Island of Doctor MODOK, or the Red Rooms, etc. They are not the actual event quest, but the side event that goes with them.
Does this also mean that the current levels of difficulty will stay as they are, or will everything get a tweak now with the introduction of the new Cavalier difficulty?

That is a possibility, and something we'll be looking into. I can't make any promises at this time though.

RunamokUSA · June 2020

I would hope that they can back the UC difficulty down a bit?

FiiNCH · June 2020

Great news. Also the positivity in this thread is refreshing to see

DNA3000 · June 2020

Mauled said:

Kabam Miike said:

Arifutera said:
So, will we get a full quest, with 3 chapters? Also, complete set of rewards (which are subject to change later)
I know this is like a trial version, I want to know whether it resembles the actual cavalier quest....
Not yet. A side event is like the Island of Doctor MODOK, or the Red Rooms, etc. They are not the actual event quest, but the side event that goes with them.
Awesome news.

To clarify, are the Island of Modok side quests what you’re drawing your data from, or are we to expect an additional side quest further down the line that will be acting as the test dummy?

Technically neither. If I understand correctly, next month's side quest will have one more difficulty tier above Epic that will be the test bed for Cavalier difficulty. It isn't this month's side quest, and it won't be an additional special side quest. It will be Epic++ in next month's (and perhaps additional months) side quest.

Stagedear85 · June 2020

i applaud KAbam for this, not just taking input from the CCP but also the player base as a whole because honestly the CCP don't really speak for everyone just a small group of players.

DNA3000 · June 2020

Ebony_Naw said:
I think it's a very smart move. I applaud Kabam for thinking about the content, then using the player base to test it and give feedback. I doubt we will all agree on what it should look like, but if I read between the lines correctly in the announcement, this is targeted more towards the endgame players as opposed to someone freshly cavalier, or stuck in 6.2. If that's the case, I just think it's important to make that clear, so that we can then go ahead and give feedback as such.

My understanding is the content may not have a specific "target" as such. Certainly, it will almost certainly be intended for players that have at least reached Cavalier status. But the reason why there may be no specific target beyond that is because even the idea of targeting a player progress point is a bit fuzzy. Suppose the devs decide to target someone in the middle of Act 6, say they just completed 6.2. What does it mean to target that player? Should it be easy for that player, should it be moderately hard for that player, should it be a challenge to even complete for such a player?

If they were only making content for me, I would still expect some content to be easy for me, some to be a challenge, and maybe some would be out of reach, even though I was the target. Some content should be what I call aspirational, something to get me off my butt and push to achieve something. So I think the devs want to test drive this because even they don't exactly know what the target should be, and want to see how the players react to it. Not just in terms of how "strong" a player should be to do the content, but how hard it should be for those players to beat it.

And let's be honest, some of this is not an exact science. There's game balance requirements on the content, but separate from that there's also player perception. A lot of people think UC difficulty is way too hard. Many think it is actually too easy for the rewards it gives out. But the consensus median opinion is probably that it is in the general area, more or less, or at least close enough that no one is going to burn down Kabam's offices over it. It is acceptable. No one really knows what will be "acceptable" to the playerbase when it comes to Cavalier difficulty because we all have different opinions. Testing won't find the perfect point because there is no perfect point, but Kabam will learn a lot from us when we debate amongst ourselves what we think is wrong with it. And we're all going to think something is wrong with it. The goal is to minimize the perceived collective wrong.

If we were all game designers and had access to all the game design constraints, we could be given a target and asked to give an analysis on the content. But we aren't, and don't. And we don't want to exclude feedback from players that can't express their opinions that way. Instead, I think we're all supposed to grab a hold of the content and pull with bungee cables in all directions. Where ever the equilibrium point is, the devs are going to try to target that general spot with Cavalier, after applying their own design constraints.

The Road to Cavalier Difficulty

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