Dev Diary: A Contest Evolved

Summoners!

We're coming to the end of our series of 4 Dev Diaries on the Future of the Contest, and we're ready to go out with a bang! Get ready for a glimpse into the far future of The Contest of Champions!

This Dev Diary not only covers some improvements to Arenas and Incursions, but will also give you a first look at some features and systems that are still in their Prototyping and early design phase. As a reminder, all information in our Dev Diaries is subject to change as they develop further, but that is especially true of this one!

You're gonna have a lot of questions about some of the features that are far in the future, but we're not going to have many answers yet. That doesn't mean you shouldn't ask or discuss them, just that you might not get a response from us on them.

So, without further adieu, read about the future in our latest post, A Contest Evolved!

UPDATE:
Hey Summoners, we're hearing a lot of questions about the lack of an update on Masteries in the Roadmap. This is intentional, but we haven't forgotten about it.

As some of you had brought up, we had plans for a Mastery revamp featured in one of Dorky Diggedy Dave's videos earlier in the year. Unfortunately, while we had it planned, it didn't pass one of our design gates, preventing it from going any further.

Like you, we want to update Masteries and while it seems simple on the surface there are a lot of challenges in changing something that affects every Champion and fight in the game. BUT, we are working on it and we'll get a proper Dev Diary out about it when the time is right. We know it's important to you, as it is to us, that's why we want to get it right and we're looking forward to sharing more on that soon!

Comments

Sensei_Maat

a really nice little QOL change that would be an amazing addition would be an "OPEN ALL" button for crystals.
opening 10 at a time can be really annoying and time consuming for things like solo crystals, sig stone crystals, max sig crystals, crystal shard crystals etc.....
a little button to just OPEN ALL would be such a minor thing but would really go a huge way to QOL as it would just save time and make opening crystal stashes much much easier.

winterthur

No mention whether 5-Star basic arena is coming and when.

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BigManOnCampus

With the increase of featured champions from 150-300 in the 5* featured Arena , will we see a Six Star Arena soon ?

Nkan99

I was hoping that there would be a "restart quest" button when you are in a quest and struggle with some of the first fights. Sure its a Qol change but it would be nice not to click through all those menus just to restart a quest

@kabam mike please do this

Silver_Saga

Not a fan of what I just read. Lots of stuff are certainly interesting from a developper point of view, but probably unecessary or even undesirable from a player point of view. I don't see the point of Root, and Volume Trigger sounds awful and not really fun, not to mention how it would make some complicated fights even more complex. Sometimes during fights there's already so much stuff going on that we need to stay aware of (Mojo's missions come to mind, the various timers and triggers on each side, the nodes...) that you don't really need to add another level of complexity on top of it... same for Strikers.

Still, some nice improvements are indeed planned, like arenas or selling from stash, but as others have said multiple times in this thread, Masteries are a big part of what makes the Contest what it is, allowing players to radically change the way they deal with some of the challenges proposed by the various game modes, and being able to quickly switch between different setups would be a huge QoL. I'm sure if you can envision adding something like Strikers to the game, you can also add the possibility to save 3 differents mastery setups for example, that you can load back later when you need to switch. I'm not even talking about the cost in units here, it is what it is and if you chose to keep them then so be it, but just being able to switch by pressing just one button instead of going over all the trees just to change 4 points would be nice.

Mentalboy1

Some good things there! Some ideas
How about letting us exchange iso into our stash eg. I have too many of a skill iso and not ready to rank a skill up so I swap them for normal iso from my stash

Incursions takes way to ok long to get shards

Basic crystal odd of getting higher champs are bad with 2 years plus of play had one 4* and few 3* mainly 2*

Also for variant we need 1* champs so have a special crystal or event to gain?

Loving the game

Mentalboy1

Also one more point a lot of items are locked to people finishing act 5 chapter of 2 , finishing chapter 4 should also have good items to help tank ups to get to that level

Gomezlink

We like the game for the simple game mode, evolution is always good, but I didn’t like to read about the STRIKERS mode, we already have that in other games, and it’s not cool, so I hope this idea doesn’t go further ...

StevieManWonder

Also, is it really that hard to just make masteries free once we unlock them? It’s been done in the past, why can’t it just be made a permanent feature?

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Crine60

I don't like the sound of root as a tool being used against us and I'm not too sure about the volume triggers either. You already have enough ways of making difficult content/fights for us to take on.

I think you are really missing something in the desired implementation of duel targets. Not everyone can or wants to fight r3 6* champs. You should add multiple accounts for each champ with the top hero being a 3*, 4* and 5* to go along with your current 6* ones. All you need to do is throw the number for the star rating onto the end of the names and then people can pick one that suits their needs/skill.

Also think the overlooking of mastery changes is ridiculous at this point.

Kapitz

Is it just me, or is adding an 'Auto Request Help' feature for arena approaching this pain point from the wrong perspective? If 'Help' as a concept has to remain, in what possible scenario would a player not want to request help? Why not just automatically put used champs in the Alliance Help queue instead of adding a toggle that will presumably always sit in the on position?

BigManOnCampus

Is it just me, or is adding an 'Auto Request Help' feature for arena approaching this pain point from the wrong perspective? If 'Help' as a concept has to remain, in what possible scenario would a player not want to request help? Why not just automatically put used champs in the Alliance Help queue instead of adding a toggle that will presumably always sit in the on position?

I agree, Auto Request Help will probably have a very slow animation

… wish they get rid of the help system all together.

Diksh619

Few points to ponder about:
1. Prestige is killing the F2P experience as prestige is behind payment gateway and even if you spend moderately RNG may not be on your side - Hence plz think again about 6 star arena
2. Tier 4 basic arena should have more t4 basics and t1 alpha arena needs revamp too.
3. Daily events can get some attention

Lostone

Instead of a straight out 50% penalty for CONNECTIVITY ISSUES... which are supposedly aimed at DISHONEST SUMMONERS ... why can’t the penalty be in stages.. The first connectivity issue should be seen as a real connectivity failure and KABAM should take SOME RESPONSIBILITY and rather than put the onus on the summoner..

The most frustrating thing I find in this game is watching that little circle spin spin spin spin spin spin and then blank out.. only to restart again and find that you have been ROBBED of 50% of your health.. it’s like going in to buy something and you open it and find that it is half there..they have ripped you off and you do not care.. you paid $300 for a pair of shoes and they only give you the left one...

I have NEVER dropped out of an AQ or AW on purpose and see it as a blight on the game that the 50% of remaining health is removed from the SUMMONER in the first instance.. ..

So.. in the 1st instance make it 10%...2nd ...20%.. 3rd ... 25%.. ( I even give KABAM an extra 5%)..

Seriously it is so unfair yet there are SUMMONERS that agree with KABAM... can u explain why you agree?

Lostone

Is it about time the insignificant AW and AQ revives and health as bonuses in the game are improved on... I know you finally increased the value of paid ones..why are they straight out health and not percentage health like in events..

Mauled

Don’t see why they can’t just be free to switch about. The system and engine work is already in place as when you changed parry etc. They were free for a week. This would be an easy 10 second job and have such a positive effect on the game.
Nothing planned, but that doesn't mean we're not thinking about it. This was really only showing what we've planned so far. Other things might still happen in the meantime.

Gamer

Don’t see why they can’t just be free to switch about. The system and engine work is already in place as when you changed parry etc. They were free for a week. This would be an easy 10 second job and have such a positive effect on the game.
Nothing planned, but that doesn't mean we're not thinking about it. This was really only showing what we've planned so far. Other things might still happen in the meantime.

No it won’t help to just make it free it stil take 4 to 5 minutes to swich them all I’m rather hav a built u can tourn one for with one u wil like to use.

Mauled

Don’t see why they can’t just be free to switch about. The system and engine work is already in place as when you changed parry etc. They were free for a week. This would be an easy 10 second job and have such a positive effect on the game.
Nothing planned, but that doesn't mean we're not thinking about it. This was really only showing what we've planned so far. Other things might still happen in the meantime.

No it won’t help to just make it free it stil take 4 to 5 minutes to swich them all I’m rather hav a built u can tourn one for with one u wil like to use.

Oh I’d much rather then build a system where we can switch between two or three builds, but that clearly isn’t on the cards despite those interviews in January/Feb? But a good stopgap would be making it free to adjust as you please.

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DNA3000

Instead of a straight out 50% penalty for CONNECTIVITY ISSUES... which are supposedly aimed at DISHONEST SUMMONERS ... why can’t the penalty be in stages.. The first connectivity issue should be seen as a real connectivity failure and KABAM should take SOME RESPONSIBILITY and rather than put the onus on the summoner..

The most frustrating thing I find in this game is watching that little circle spin spin spin spin spin spin and then blank out.. only to restart again and find that you have been ROBBED of 50% of your health.. it’s like going in to buy something and you open it and find that it is half there..they have ripped you off and you do not care.. you paid $300 for a pair of shoes and they only give you the left one...

I have NEVER dropped out of an AQ or AW on purpose and see it as a blight on the game that the 50% of remaining health is removed from the SUMMONER in the first instance.. ..

So.. in the 1st instance make it 10%...2nd ...20%.. 3rd ... 25%.. ( I even give KABAM an extra 5%)..

Seriously it is so unfair yet there are SUMMONERS that agree with KABAM... can u explain why you agree?

I think the penalty is problematic myself, but the problem isn't as simple as you're making it out to be either. The timeout penalty is there in part to eliminate a trivial exploit: I can just disconnect myself from the network if I don't like how a fight is turning out. A zero penalty disconnect is basically a free global purify: even if both sides' health bars continue from where they left off, you're still reset to zero power and no buffs and debuffs. That's a huge advantage.

Making the penalty low instead of zero doesn't eliminate this problem, it just changes the mental equation a bit, so you have to decide if losing 10% health is worth resetting the fight. It often will be.

You could then argue that it is irrelevant what people who exploit the game do, you shouldn't "punish" the people who play fair just to go after the people who exploit the game. Except you aren't getting away unpunished if you allow this behavior to continue, because the game's difficulty is always balanced around the average player performance. Players who exploit the game are like people who cheat on an exam in a class that grades on a curve. They *do* affect you, by altering the curve, and in effect lower your grade. If the game doesn't attempt to moderate exploitive behavior, the players who do it will benefit, and the players who don't will get double penalized for playing fair: they will fall behind the ones that don't, and they will experience an even harder game besides.

Reducing the penalty without some other means of negating this strategy incentivizes exploiting timeouts. More people will do it, and it will cost everyone else who doesn't.

This idea that Kabam should "take responsibility" for things like network connectivity problems completely fails to account for the fact that the people injured by exploitive behavior are the players not exploiting the game. The developers do not lose anything when a player exploits the game. The rewards that are gained don't come out of the developers' pockets. And the rewards that are gained don't universally help all the players either, just a small number of them. And they are ultimately gained at the expense of other players.

The need to address these kinds of issues, because they ultimately harm the majority of players (since most don't exploit the game's systems or mechanics), sometimes forces the developers to take actions that have bad side effects. They aren't always right, and they often use solutions almost as bad as the problem (sometimes, not even almost) but the fundamental motivation is sound, and the supposed simple alternatives are often worse in the long run.

Lunae

Can something be done about iso expiration? It wouldn’t be so bad if gold was more available and I’m not saying more gold, but something needs to be done. I’m always in a position where I have the gold, but no iso or I’ll have to iso, but no gold so to see it expire is just pity.

Could they be converted into bigger or smaller blocks of iso maybe, just to refresh them? Increased amount of gold when sold as a last resort?

Kabam Miike

Hey Everybody, I've got a response to your questions about Masteries directly from our game team here for you:

Hey Summoners, we're hearing a lot of questions about the lack of an update on Masteries in the Roadmap. This is intentional, but we haven't forgotten about it.

As some of you had brought up, we had plans for a Mastery revamp featured in one of Dorky Diggedy Dave's videos earlier in the year. Unfortunately, while we had it planned, it didn't pass one of our design gates, preventing it from going any further.

Like you, we want to update Masteries and while it seems simple on the surface there are a lot of challenges in changing something that affects every Champion and fight in the game. BUT, we are working on it and we'll get a proper Dev Diary out about it when the time is right. We know it's important to you, as it is to us, that's why we want to get it right and we're looking forward to sharing more on that soon!

TheTalents

Hey Everybody, I've got a response to your questions about Masteries directly from our game team here for you:

Hey Summoners, we're hearing a lot of questions about the lack of an update on Masteries in the Roadmap. This is intentional, but we haven't forgotten about it.

As some of you had brought up, we had plans for a Mastery revamp featured in one of Dorky Diggedy Dave's videos earlier in the year. Unfortunately, while we had it planned, it didn't pass one of our design gates, preventing it from going any further.

Like you, we want to update Masteries and while it seems simple on the surface there are a lot of challenges in changing something that affects every Champion and fight in the game. BUT, we are working on it and we'll get a proper Dev Diary out about it when the time is right. We know it's important to you, as it is to us, that's why we want to get it right and we're looking forward to sharing more on that soon!

There are 2 options that will satisfy the player base. This would a huge win for Kabam as people faith in the future have grown.

1) Make it possible to remove 1 mastery point at a time instead of having to reset the entire offense or defensive tree.
2) Just make it completely free. You all have done it numerous times before including a few months ago. We know the technology is there so no need to reinvent the wheel here.

Piviot

If it’s so hard why can you. Make it free at will

If it’s so hard to switch, why does arena know what last match I played(champs) after the cool down

StevieManWonder

That’s not really a satisfactory answer and it doesn’t even address the main concern—which is why aren’t Masteries free after we pay to unlock them? Why nickel and dime us every time we need to change masteries? We know that you can make masteries free since you’ve done so in the past. Why not just make it permanently free?

BigManOnCampus

Masteries will always cost something they don't want you, for example to tailor each fight in abyss around your masteries For free!!!