Let's talk about Canadian Difficulty

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Silver_Saga

As a mere mortal, I mean uncollected, I can do it so it's probably too easy but I'm loving it, it's fun and the nodes are a great balance between challenge and reward. Keep in mind that Kabam repeated many many times that this was NOT representative of what the Cavalier difficulty would be but just a first step on the road to what I believe will be far more challenging. They are going to use the data from this month to tune up next month difficulty to something a little more substantial, don't worry... In the meantime, I'm enjoying some well designed fights that reward the players for doing the right stuff, and not just punish them. That in itself consitute a good base on which to build the real deal.

And now I look forward to not being able to complete it next month !

Ok so seems like a lot of people are forgetting that this is a side event so naturally this won't be as difficult as an actual Cavalier Difficulty EQ. Just like the Epic version of the side quest is no where as difficult as the Epic EQ. This simply is a way to showcase the kind of things to expect. Side events vary in difficulty from easy ( gwenpool) to hard (MODOK labs). The mole man expeditions wasn't hard just took a long time completing all the paths.

Also its hard to balance difficult content for people who have the majority of the champs without scaling attack values to crazy amounts and keeping the game fun. Imagine every fight in this difficulty being like the Sasquatch. So the approach taken here to minimize the choice of champions you can use via combinations of nodes is the better approach. People who have just completed 6.1 will find this very hard as their roster will be weak. People who have done act 6 and abyss not so hard because your roster is quite developed.

Using the node combinations to restrict the champions you can use will mean people can not rely on the same champs to steam roll everything i.e. using Corvus, Omega and Ghost etc.
They could take this a step further by restricting champions by tags. They did this before once but never did it again possibly due to complaints.
May force players to play those meme tier 6* we all got

You might want to consider how close the last epic modok labs were to their respective uc eq. I'd even go as far as saying that the most recent modok labs were at least as hard as the currenr canadian difficulty.

It is too easy all things considered.

Labs are not a reasonable comparison. They come about once or twice a year, and are always more jacked up than the usual status quo.

Also, following Labs, people are going to say they're too easy by comparison. The bottom line is, Side Quests aren't going to be that hard. It's not End-Game content.

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CoatHang3r

“PEopLe dON’t HaVE Th3 skILLz to KnOW the nODes”
Also
“ThiS conTenT takes No skiLL”

Smh

Ok so seems like a lot of people are forgetting that this is a side event so naturally this won't be as difficult as an actual Cavalier Difficulty EQ. Just like the Epic version of the side quest is no where as difficult as the Epic EQ. This simply is a way to showcase the kind of things to expect. Side events vary in difficulty from easy ( gwenpool) to hard (MODOK labs). The mole man expeditions wasn't hard just took a long time completing all the paths.

Also its hard to balance difficult content for people who have the majority of the champs without scaling attack values to crazy amounts and keeping the game fun. Imagine every fight in this difficulty being like the Sasquatch. So the approach taken here to minimize the choice of champions you can use via combinations of nodes is the better approach. People who have just completed 6.1 will find this very hard as their roster will be weak. People who have done act 6 and abyss not so hard because your roster is quite developed.

Using the node combinations to restrict the champions you can use will mean people can not rely on the same champs to steam roll everything i.e. using Corvus, Omega and Ghost etc.
They could take this a step further by restricting champions by tags. They did this before once but never did it again possibly due to complaints.
May force players to play those meme tier 6* we all got

You might want to consider how close the last epic modok labs were to their respective uc eq. I'd even go as far as saying that the most recent modok labs were at least as hard as the currenr canadian difficulty.

It is too easy all things considered.
Labs are not a reasonable comparison. They come about once or twice a year, and are always more jacked up than the usual status quo.
That was in direct response to side events never being comparable to the main eq in difficulty. Labs are a side event, so that statement is incorrect.

I really don't follow how they aren't a reasonable comparison. Especially when we're talking about the general difficulty of side events.

The Labs are uncharacteristically harder than the usual Side Quests. I just made that point last month when I suggested adding a step up. For about 5 months, Epic had the same par, roughly. Then Labs came and it was a mini-gauntlet going up to 35k Champs with randomized Nodes. That's not a reasonable comparison because it's not the norm.

Mr_Platypus

“PEopLe dON’t HaVE Th3 skILLz to KnOW the nODes”
Also
“ThiS conTenT takes No skiLL”

Smh

Tbf, someone can have the skill to swipe left and right perfectly while still lacking the ability to read and comprehend nodes

CoatHang3r

“PEopLe dON’t HaVE Th3 skILLz to KnOW the nODes”
Also
“ThiS conTenT takes No skiLL”

Smh
Tbf, someone can have the skill to swipe left and right perfectly while still lacking the ability to read and comprehend nodes

That’s kind of the point. Swiping is not the only skill being challenged here.

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Bidzy7

Ok so seems like a lot of people are forgetting that this is a side event so naturally this won't be as difficult as an actual Cavalier Difficulty EQ. Just like the Epic version of the side quest is no where as difficult as the Epic EQ. This simply is a way to showcase the kind of things to expect. Side events vary in difficulty from easy ( gwenpool) to hard (MODOK labs). The mole man expeditions wasn't hard just took a long time completing all the paths.

Also its hard to balance difficult content for people who have the majority of the champs without scaling attack values to crazy amounts and keeping the game fun. Imagine every fight in this difficulty being like the Sasquatch. So the approach taken here to minimize the choice of champions you can use via combinations of nodes is the better approach. People who have just completed 6.1 will find this very hard as their roster will be weak. People who have done act 6 and abyss not so hard because your roster is quite developed.

Using the node combinations to restrict the champions you can use will mean people can not rely on the same champs to steam roll everything i.e. using Corvus, Omega and Ghost etc.
They could take this a step further by restricting champions by tags. They did this before once but never did it again possibly due to complaints.
May force players to play those meme tier 6* we all got

You might want to consider how close the last epic modok labs were to their respective uc eq. I'd even go as far as saying that the most recent modok labs were at least as hard as the currenr canadian difficulty.

It is too easy all things considered.

and if you refer to what i said, i stated that the difficulty changes and placed MODOK labs at the upper end of difficulty. All other side quests do not compare to their respective EQ. Mole man expeditions were no different in this regard. They were simply a chore to do. I never stated they never compare which is what it seems you took my post to state.

So if you are saying this now comparable to MODOK labs then you need consider how this will scale with the EQ and other side events.
I can see bosses in the new difficulty being similar to the Sasquatch in health and attack values but also having nodes attached to them.

Don't forget Kabam are trying to appeal to players who recently became cavalier and those who are experienced with a wide roster. I don't see many newly Cav players to be able to breeze through this without super lucky pulls or a developed roster.

Also this was simply a taste of things to come, they don't plan on releasing Cav until September as they are still fine tuning it. This was given to us in response to people being fed up/bored etc with the game. They even stated that they aren't ready to release Cav but because side events are easier to tune they decided to give us a taste of Cav difficulty before its official release.

Also, following Labs, people are going to say they're too easy by comparison. The bottom line is, Side Quests aren't going to be that hard. It's not End-Game content.

Some side quests are easier than the average monthly EQ of the same ordinality (i.e.: Epic vs UC). Some are harder. Some are much, much harder, like some of the older randomizer buff ones. It depends on the structure of the event.

16wegnerk

I’ve had a lot of fun with the side quest honestly. I know lower difficulties will be a bore, but Canadian difficulty has been a fun change of pace. Nice opportunity to switch up the team, and give certain champs an opportunity to decimate, while leaving the door open to new options. Played with my R4 ultron for the first time in years, because breakthrough makes all champions viable. Even able to bring a 3* for the bosses because, why not? Certainly had a lot of fun and looking forward to the future weeks (and hoping difficult ramps up slightly more. Not a lot, but slightly)

It is too easy all things considered.

There's one thing people aren't considering. It might be exactly as difficult as it is supposed to be, because it isn't supposed to be precisely as difficult as Cavalier difficulty will ultimately be. It may be that one of the purposes of this side quest and next month's side quest is to collect data on how strong the players are. This is something they might want to do by bracketing the content in and around where they are guessing the appropriate difficulty level is.

The target for the difficulty isn't going to be where any one of us feels it should be, it will be where the data tells them it should be, and this may be in part an attempt to gather more data on attempts and completion rates to quantify how "easy" or "hard" these kinds of nodes and paths are.

Also, something else worth noting. I've seen people either say or imply that if the difficulty is allowed to be higher the rewards would also be higher, so the difficulty should be higher for that reason. This is not how rewards are designed in a game like this, and this is not a safe assumption to make. When it comes to one-shot content like the Abyss that's more likely, but when it comes to content that is repeatable or cyclical, that's generally not how it works. The devs have to balance those rewards based on longer-term criteria, and it is closer to the truth to say the rewards are chosen first and the content difficulty set second and not the reverse. So you can ask for the content to be more difficult, but you can't automatically assume the rewards will get proportionately higher as a result. They could remain exactly the same.

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Rockypantherx

All things considered, I found this week fairly easy. Noticeably harder in terms of nodes but nothing strenuous. I’m Throne Breaker though so I guess it should be fairly easy.

One thing I do want to mention is that I really like a lot of the node combination in this quest. A lot of them feel like they reward you for fulfilling a requirement, or provide some sort of reward with their punishment. I’m hoping we see more of this going forward.

Honestly the thing I’m worried about with this new difficulty is it’s longevity. It’s been based off a title/level that the game has moved past fairly significantly. It feels like we’re going to right back here in a year looking for a new difficulty. That’s how it feels to me anyway.

When UC EQ, even the upper echelon of players were struggling with it. Most of them are walking through this with ease. Obviously we need to see the next few months to truly judge it’s long term impact and lifespan in the game, but I have a bad feeling.

All things considered, I found this week fairly easy. Noticeably harder in terms of nodes but nothing strenuous. I’m Throne Breaker though so I guess it should be fairly easy.

One thing I do want to mention is that I really like a lot of the node combination in this quest. A lot of them feel like they reward you for fulfilling a requirement, or provide some sort of reward with their punishment. I’m hoping we see more of this going forward.

Honestly the thing I’m worried about with this new difficulty is it’s longevity. It’s been based off a title/level that the game has moved past fairly significantly. It feels like we’re going to right back here in a year looking for a new difficulty. That’s how it feels to me anyway.

When UC EQ, even the upper echelon of players were struggling with it. Most of them are walking through this with ease. Obviously we need to see the next few months to truly judge it’s long term impact and lifespan in the game, but I have a bad feeling.

It depends on how you're extrapolating difficulty from Canadian to Cavalier. For reference, UC EQ starts somewhere around 6k PI and goes up to about 16k PI, more or less, for the basic fights. 16k is about where Canadian difficulty sits more or less in weeks one and two. If you think that's supposed to be representative of average Cav difficulty, that does seem low. But if it represents the lower level of Cav difficulty, that seems more reasonable. That would imply Cav difficulty would range from about 16k to about 43k with commensurately higher bosses. That's at least in the general ballpark of reasonable Cavalier difficulty numbers.

It is interesting to me that the Sasquatch ambush in Canadian difficulty is very similar to the difficulty I would have extrapolated for an intermediate Cav difficulty boss. That's what I would expect to be facing on, say, Cav Chapter 2.1.

Rockypantherx

All things considered, I found this week fairly easy. Noticeably harder in terms of nodes but nothing strenuous. I’m Throne Breaker though so I guess it should be fairly easy.

One thing I do want to mention is that I really like a lot of the node combination in this quest. A lot of them feel like they reward you for fulfilling a requirement, or provide some sort of reward with their punishment. I’m hoping we see more of this going forward.

Honestly the thing I’m worried about with this new difficulty is it’s longevity. It’s been based off a title/level that the game has moved past fairly significantly. It feels like we’re going to right back here in a year looking for a new difficulty. That’s how it feels to me anyway.

When UC EQ, even the upper echelon of players were struggling with it. Most of them are walking through this with ease. Obviously we need to see the next few months to truly judge it’s long term impact and lifespan in the game, but I have a bad feeling.
It depends on how you're extrapolating difficulty from Canadian to Cavalier. For reference, UC EQ starts somewhere around 6k PI and goes up to about 16k PI, more or less, for the basic fights. 16k is about where Canadian difficulty sits more or less in weeks one and two. If you think that's supposed to be representative of average Cav difficulty, that does seem low. But if it represents the lower level of Cav difficulty, that seems more reasonable. That would imply Cav difficulty would range from about 16k to about 43k with commensurately higher bosses. That's at least in the general ballpark of reasonable Cavalier difficulty numbers.

It is interesting to me that the Sasquatch ambush in Canadian difficulty is very similar to the difficulty I would have extrapolated for an intermediate Cav difficulty boss. That's what I would expect to be facing on, say, Cav Chapter 2.1.

Honestly the Sasquatch ambush was kind of what I was expecting to be the baseline difficulty. Maybe that was having too high expectations. But I agree, if this is lower cav difficulty it’s fine. We’ll need to see how the next few events pan out to judge. I think they’ll have played it somewhat safe this time round which is something to consider

Thebgj

1- it’s not easy (for me, my opinion). It’s not super difficult, definitely a struggle if you don’t have the right champ.

2- doesn’t kabam keep saying and said recently that they are trying to stay away from champ specific fights. Aren’t yet doing the exact opposite but making these paths like only a few champs can do?

3- I feel like the ones that have cleared act 6 it explored it, are asking for this content to be made for them. I’m ok with that, as long as they make a difficulty between cavalier and uncollected.

4- just want to repeat my first point- I would never ever say that it’s easy. Even with the right champs, one combo and you’re fudged.

Bidzy7

1- it’s not easy (for me, my opinion). It’s not super difficult, definitely a struggle if you don’t have the right champ.

2- doesn’t kabam keep saying and said recently that they are trying to stay away from champ specific fights. Aren’t yet doing the exact opposite but making these paths like only a few champs can do?

3- I feel like the ones that have cleared act 6 it explored it, are asking for this content to be made for them. I’m ok with that, as long as they make a difficulty between cavalier and uncollected.

4- just want to repeat my first point- I would never ever say that it’s easy. Even with the right champs, one combo and you’re fudged.

regarding point 2 Kabam said it will not have very niche fights with only a couple of counters e.g. Acid wash Mysterio. All theses nodes have a wide range of counters to deal with the path, so isn't very limiting. You also have access to 4* if you are really struggling for a counter in your 5/6* roster

ESF

Is there no one who views this as good practice, a good test of your skills and roster and understanding good counters?

The players who have completed everything aren’t going to find this difficult. Absolutely.

But I am gonna post the picture of who I did the first Diss Track lane with — including a Sasquatch ambush — and am about to do the second:

That’s a 3/45 Nick Fury, a 3/45 Elsa Bloodstone, and 1/25 Luke Cage for any Sasquatches that show up.

Don’t get me wrong: I am not saying that everyone has these characters. I understand completely that RNG hinders you.

But at the same time, I don’t face Diss Track hardly at all. Certainly never when the paths are free energy. So I just took the time to go through my roster and see who could do what effectively, and who couldn’t.

I understand that is boring and not everyone wants to take the time to do that stuff.

But it’s hard for me to understand how if you don’t do that at least some of the time, how you actually get better at the game.

As a side note: I had no idea how good Elsa was for Diss Track. I had always had a soft spot for the kit. Good to know that if I take it up one more rank, it’s useful to some degree

LeNoirFaineant

Man that diss track buffet mojo in week 2 was one hell of a fight...
They really did adjust the difficulties well by putting breakthrough global node tho

AA melted him

Also, following Labs, people are going to say they're too easy by comparison. The bottom line is, Side Quests aren't going to be that hard. It's not End-Game content.
Some side quests are easier than the average monthly EQ of the same ordinality (i.e.: Epic vs UC). Some are harder. Some are much, much harder, like some of the older randomizer buff ones. It depends on the structure of the event.

Labs have always been harder than the status quo, and I've made my point a number of times. They can vary, for sure. Not to the extent that it throws as many people off as it does with situations like Labs. The whole basis of me vying for a new Difficulty in Side Quests was because the demographic being catered too was too wide. You have everyone from newly UC to Vet Cav in Epic, and when you jack it up too much, it's a detriment to the growth of others who have been doing it consistently.

Notsavage19

3- I feel like the ones that have cleared act 6 it explored it, are asking for this content to be made for them. I’m ok with that, as long as they make a difficulty between cavalier and uncollected.

"as long as they make a difficulty between cavalier and uncollected"
I'm assuming you're talking about the EQ that is in the making. The difficulty should be between cavalier and completion fo Act 6. Not between Uncollected and Cavalier.