Dev Diary: Cavalier Difficulty in 2021 and Beyond - New Buffs for February!

Summoners!

Everybody's favourite Balance Designer and sick beast of a gamer, Kabam John, has taken some time to jot down some thoughts on Cavalier Difficulty, what we've seen so far, and what's to come in the future! There's also a sneak peek at the new Buffs coming in the Cavalier Difficulty Event quest in February!

Read the post here!

Comments

Ironman3000

Does Warlock's infection count as a heal block for the Tech node?

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BarricadePrime

Sry I somehow quoted the wrong post

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Worknprogress

my rank up decisions for the past month have all been based around making the cavalier eq easier with the nodes i've come to expect. i can't bring my 5r4 angela or 5r4 luke cage into act 6/7 and expect them to perform to the same level that champions with higher power levels can perform to. if you want to change the nodes, fine, but i would like to see more rewards or rank down tickets as i can't get those t1a back.
That’s on you. No one asked you to rank based on Cav EQ. And please don’t tell me you spent T2A instead of Rank Up gems on those rank ups.

T1A? They come in truckloads nowadays.
@xNig did you fell on your head as a kid or did someone hammered your pea sized brain?
Actually Kabaam is telling you to rank up specific champs if you want to complete the monthly quest. If you did not have the correct champs ranked up you would not be able to complete it. Which from what they are saying is the goal.

You think EQ is going to be the last place you see those nodes though? There are buffed up, disstrack, KT, biohazard, etc... paths in Act 6 as well. Did you maybe stop to think that they're encouraging rankups to deal with things you'll come across in story content as well?

I can't believe people are seriously complaining about expanding their roster options to cover more diverse situations. Maybe that's something some of you should have been doing already without someone having to hold your hand and point you in the right direction

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Worknprogress

my rank up decisions for the past month have all been based around making the cavalier eq easier with the nodes i've come to expect. i can't bring my 5r4 angela or 5r4 luke cage into act 6/7 and expect them to perform to the same level that champions with higher power levels can perform to. if you want to change the nodes, fine, but i would like to see more rewards or rank down tickets as i can't get those t1a back.
That’s on you. No one asked you to rank based on Cav EQ. And please don’t tell me you spent T2A instead of Rank Up gems on those rank ups.

T1A? They come in truckloads nowadays.
@xNig did you fell on your head as a kid or did someone hammered your pea sized brain?
Actually Kabaam is telling you to rank up specific champs if you want to complete the monthly quest. If you did not have the correct champs ranked up you would not be able to complete it. Which from what they are saying is the goal.
You think EQ is going to be the last place you see those nodes though? There are buffed up, disstrack, KT, biohazard, etc... paths in Act 6 as well.

Pretty sure they meant the champs that can get the furies from the node not any diss track/buffed up counter

Those are champs that naturally counter whatever the restriction node is though... That's kind of the point

Mr_Platypus

my rank up decisions for the past month have all been based around making the cavalier eq easier with the nodes i've come to expect. i can't bring my 5r4 angela or 5r4 luke cage into act 6/7 and expect them to perform to the same level that champions with higher power levels can perform to. if you want to change the nodes, fine, but i would like to see more rewards or rank down tickets as i can't get those t1a back.
That’s on you. No one asked you to rank based on Cav EQ. And please don’t tell me you spent T2A instead of Rank Up gems on those rank ups.

T1A? They come in truckloads nowadays.
@xNig did you fell on your head as a kid or did someone hammered your pea sized brain?
Actually Kabaam is telling you to rank up specific champs if you want to complete the monthly quest. If you did not have the correct champs ranked up you would not be able to complete it. Which from what they are saying is the goal.
You think EQ is going to be the last place you see those nodes though? There are buffed up, disstrack, KT, biohazard, etc... paths in Act 6 as well.

Pretty sure they meant the champs that can get the furies from the node not any diss track/buffed up counter

Majority of those champs are more than viable for act 6/7 though

slacker

my rank up decisions for the past month have all been based around making the cavalier eq easier with the nodes i've come to expect. i can't bring my 5r4 angela or 5r4 luke cage into act 6/7 and expect them to perform to the same level that champions with higher power levels can perform to. if you want to change the nodes, fine, but i would like to see more rewards or rank down tickets as i can't get those t1a back.
That’s on you. No one asked you to rank based on Cav EQ. And please don’t tell me you spent T2A instead of Rank Up gems on those rank ups.

T1A? They come in truckloads nowadays.
@xNig did you fell on your head as a kid or did someone hammered your pea sized brain?
Actually Kabaam is telling you to rank up specific champs if you want to complete the monthly quest. If you did not have the correct champs ranked up you would not be able to complete it. Which from what they are saying is the goal.
You think EQ is going to be the last place you see those nodes though? There are buffed up, disstrack, KT, biohazard, etc... paths in Act 6 as well.

Pretty sure they meant the champs that can get the furies from the node not any diss track/buffed up counter

To be fair, some champs are really good and worthy to rank up for cav eq or even outside that quest, so that not too specific rank up, you only need 2 or 3 rank up or even 1 is enough to deal with cav eq.

RiderofHell

Seeing as i am struggling to 100% and spent close to 240 units on mini i certainly wont be doing cavalier no more or forseeable future

Kabam Miike

Hey everybody, thank you all for the feedback. Please keep it coming, as it will help us improve Cavalier Difficulty as we move forward.

One thing I want to point out: With the addition of the new Buffs, we are not doing away with the older ones. Our goal is to create a pool of buffs to pick and choose from for Cavalier Difficulty, but still not as wide as what you might remember from Uncollected difficulty.

Your Champions you've ranked up are still going to help you in these Quests, but maybe not the same Champions every month.

I hope this clears that up a little bit.

Jaded

Hey everybody, thank you all for the feedback. Please keep it coming, as it will help us improve Cavalier Difficulty as we move forward.

One thing I want to point out: With the addition of the new Buffs, we are not doing away with the older ones. Our goal is to create a pool of buffs to pick and choose from for Cavalier Difficulty, but still not as wide as what you might remember from Uncollected difficulty.

Your Champions you've ranked up are still going to help you in these Quests, but maybe not the same Champions every month.

I hope this clears that up a little bit.

Why does the community have to wait and beg for reward improvements? Regardless if they/we are right or overreacting. We always have to wait till the reward structures are extremely outdated before we see improvements. Going forward can we get a better response or in-depth diary on reward structures?

So many areas need improvements, and waiting 2+ years for improvements on monthly event quests is a bit ridiculous.

BarricadePrime

@workinprogress
Forgive me for the inability to quote your post. It seems with age apparently my lack of technical understanding is getting worse. However with age does come perspective. Thank you for taking the time to reply and thank you for quoting my post as it seems to have been deleted as have my other posts on this topic. (My argument must be too close to the truth I believe)
Let’s take the biohazard node for example as this is very prevalent and I believe is seen as early as act 5 with the poison and bleed nodes. Previously I was able to rank up any champ I wanted to that I thought was best suited to deal with this node. Personally for me it was nebula then later on I ranked up warlock. With the cavalier monthly quest if I wanted to complete it I was forced to rank up a mutant champ to deal with the node and it wasn’t just for a single lane but for each and every path. Now the mutant I ranked up and don’t care for playing will sit on my bench as a constant reminder of wasted materials. An example I will give you on my account is I ranked up a 6 and 5 star version of guilly2099 to do the tech quest...I hate guilly 2099 and have 0 intention of playing her. There are other champs that I ranked up because of the class restrictions on the particular node and I am not asking for any type of rank downs like other people are I just think it’s **** that every few months we will be forced to rank up toons we don’t want to play. Thanks again and I look forward to your reply.

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BarricadePrime

I know that you can bring in any champion that you want. However, to take advantage of the node it is required to bring in a mutant. If not then the time and effort to 100% this would not be with it. At least to me. Thank you

Sarvanga1_

@FTPAllDay Sorry to say but you got shafted for the skill cav eq

No he didn't. He has fury.

Mr_Platypus

I know that you can bring in any champion that you want. However, to take advantage of the node it is required to bring in a mutant. If not then the time and effort to 100% this would not be with it. At least to me. Thank you

I mean, literally any mutant works for that though, so if you ranked up a subpar mutant then that’s a you problem when there’s so many excellent choices.

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Notsavage19

I know that you can bring in any champion that you want. However, to take advantage of the node it is required to bring in a mutant. If not then the time and effort to 100% this would not be with it. At least to me. Thank you

But it's not required to "take advantage" of the node. If you don't want to rank up a champion, then you don't need that champion to complete the quests.

BarricadePrime

@Mr_Platypus
I was referring to that as my example only. I’m sure there are others out there and when I find some more time today if you’d like I will share each one of mine with you.

Notsavage19

(My argument must be too close to the truth I believe)

Let’s take the biohazard node for example as this is very prevalent and I believe is seen as early as act 5 with the poison and bleed nodes. Previously I was able to rank up any champ I wanted to that I thought was best suited to deal with this node. Personally for me it was nebula then later on I ranked up warlock. With the cavalier monthly quest if I wanted to complete it I was forced to rank up a mutant champ to deal with the node and it wasn’t just for a single lane but for each and every path. Now the mutant I ranked up and don’t care for playing will sit on my bench as a constant reminder of wasted materials. An example I will give you on my account is I ranked up a 6 and 5 star version of guilly2099 to do the tech quest...I hate guilly 2099 and have 0 intention of playing her. There are other champs that I ranked up because of the class restrictions on the particular node and I am not asking for any type of rank downs like other people are I just think it’s **** that every few months we will be forced to rank up toons we don’t want to play. Thanks again and I look forward to your reply.

"My argument must be too close to the truth I believe"
First of all, LMAOOOO.

Second, you don't need to rank up specific champions to be able to complete the quests. You didn't need to rank up G2099 for the Tech chapter. You could've brought in any other champion, yet you chose to rank up G2099.

Every decision has a pro and a con. You have to figure out if the benefits outweigh the costs of a rank up for yourself. Sure, it will take longer to complete without a Tech character, but that's your choice to make. No one is forcing you to rank up anyone. The nodes don't punish the player for bringing in a non-Tech champion.

BarricadePrime

Could you imagine the amount of time and effort those quests would of taken without the “correct” champion? I have to believe that’s why most people are not doing it is the effort isn’t worth the reward and forgive me if I’m wrong but kabaam is actually wanting people to complete this quest I thought. I guess bottom line if you don’t have the champion don’t do it that’s where I’m at now.

Mr_Platypus

@
I was referring to that as my example only. I’m sure there are others out there and when I find some more time today if you’d like I will share each one of mine with you.

You can if you like, Ill probably just say the same thing though as there’s nothing wrong with building up a strong diverse roster.

Could you imagine the amount of time and effort those quests would of taken without the “correct” champion? I have to believe that’s why most people are not doing it is the effort isn’t worth the reward and forgive me if I’m wrong but kabaam is actually wanting people to complete this quest I thought. I guess bottom line if you don’t have the champion don’t do it that’s where I’m at now.

Tbf I do the entire mutant chapter without taking advantage of the node because mags, apoc, AA and OR don’t really take advantage for various reasons.

xNig

my rank up decisions for the past month have all been based around making the cavalier eq easier with the nodes i've come to expect. i can't bring my 5r4 angela or 5r4 luke cage into act 6/7 and expect them to perform to the same level that champions with higher power levels can perform to. if you want to change the nodes, fine, but i would like to see more rewards or rank down tickets as i can't get those t1a back.
That’s on you. No one asked you to rank based on Cav EQ. And please don’t tell me you spent T2A instead of Rank Up gems on those rank ups.

T1A? They come in truckloads nowadays.
@xNig did you fell on your head as a kid or did someone hammered your pea sized brain?
Actually Kabaam is telling you to rank up specific champs if you want to complete the monthly quest. If you did not have the correct champs ranked up you would not be able to complete it. Which from what they are saying is the goal.
You think EQ is going to be the last place you see those nodes though? There are buffed up, disstrack, KT, biohazard, etc... paths in Act 6 as well. Did you maybe stop to think that they're encouraging rankups to deal with things you'll come across in story content as well?

I can't believe people are seriously complaining about expanding their roster options to cover more diverse situations. Maybe that's something some of you should have been doing already without someone having to hold your hand and point you in the right direction

Lots of counters for the new nodes even within the class as well. If someone doesn’t even have 1 ranked up, their rosters might be too shallow and they can’t play without their god tiers. 🤷🏻‍♂️

DarthVadid

Why 50% chance to evade
It's mix masher korg and doom all over again
The idea here is to encourage Evade encounters, and combined with the Skillful Distraction buff, this gives more Skill Champions access to the kit necessary to prevent Evasion.
This is a horrible idea, lets talk about the number of skill champs that can cause Disorient, Incinerate or Shock effect.
- Disorient (Fury[SP1], Night Thrasher[Synergy], Ronin [SP1])
- Incinerate (Agent Venom [SP2], Cross Bones[SP2], Gwenpool [SP1], Winter Soldier [SP1/SP2]
- Shock (Black Widow DO [Basic], Night Thrasher[SP1], Thor Rag [SP3]

Okay based on that only 8 out of 32 skill champs are useful for this buff and only one of the champs can inflict the debuff without having to rely on a special attack
That's not Counting Champions that suppress Evade with their natural Kits. True Accuracy/Strike, and Ability Accuracy reduction. Those aren't limited to the Skill class either. Remember that you do not have to use the Class that gets the bonus from the buffs, but you get a nice bonus for doing so.

This is terrible logic. I absolutely loved CAVALIER diff. I even loved ranking obscure champs to counter nodes. But now your changing the game again with out a good reason. Now I am looking at ranking other champs which is fine but you need to make 5 star champ rank ups from 1-4 way more available. T2 is scarce iso is scarce. Your heading down a bad path again. Nowww with a significant rewards buff I any many other would shut up about it. Because the ends would justify the means

DNA3000

Why is this community in a constant outrage mode?

It isn't. There's probably about 5000 players (out of maybe a million or so) that comprise the forum community at large. There's a couple dozen complaining about Cavalier rewards and also claiming to represent the masses. An insignificant fraction of a tiny slice of the playerbase. Most of the player community isn't here expressing outrage, possibly because they are too busy playing the game for that. More than half my alliance is barely aware that forums exist at all.

Keep in mind people have been continuously talking about the game being in a death spiral of getting worse and losing players and revenue since 12.0 (and before). I don't have exact figures of the size of the playerbase, but it doesn't seem all that smaller, and I do have pretty accurate figures of the size of the game's revenue and the general trend there has been upward.

To be fair, though, pretty much game communities always look like they are in constant outrage mode, not just this one. It is the common denominator of every online game community I've ever been a part of, or even heard of. The people happy with the game tend to focus on playing the game. The people unhappy with the game tend to be the ones that talk about the game. So the online communities tend to be disproportionately skewed towards malcontents.

Notsavage19

Could you imagine the amount of time and effort those quests would of taken without the “correct” champion? I have to believe that’s why most people are not doing it is the effort isn’t worth the reward and forgive me if I’m wrong but kabaam is actually wanting people to complete this quest I thought. I guess bottom line if you don’t have the champion don’t do it that’s where I’m at now.

"Could you imagine the amount of time and effort those quests would of taken without the “correct” champion?"
It's not that much effort even without the attack bonuses.

"I have to believe that’s why most people are not doing it is the effort isn’t worth the reward and forgive me if I’m wrong but kabaam is actually wanting people to complete this quest I thought."
The little effort it takes is definitely worth 1/2 a 6* + more than a full 5*. Furthermore, Kabam gave us the nodes to benefit us for bringing in the right character. You don't get punished for not.

"I guess bottom line if you don’t have the champion don’t do it that’s where I’m at now."
You don't need the champion to do it. If you think it's not worth it, that's on you. End of discussion.

DNA3000

I think the issue cavalier difficulty has is it isn't particularly clear who it is for.

That's not entirely true. Cavalier difficulty is for players above Uncollected. Period. That includes a wide range of players, but that's always going to be true. You're *never* going to get a difficulty tier that directly targets the very top of the curve, because the very top of the curve is always going to be just a small number of players. You're not going to spend that much developer time making monthly content for that small number of players.

Cavalier difficulty is first class seating. First class seating is targeted at all the people who can afford it. But that includes millionaires, billionaires, and people who just saved up for ten years for the ticket. It can't be a perfectly tuned experience for all those people, but it isn't intended to. It is just intended to be first class. Cavalier difficulty is intended to be Cavalier difficulty. It isn't intended to be tuned to every Cavalier player. If you're a billionaire sitting in first class, that's the best you get. You can choose to switch to an airline that has private staterooms, or you can choose to buy your own plane, but you can't expect an airline to create a special class of seat just for billionaires.

xNig

Just off my roster options at 5*R5 and 6*R3 within the own class alone,

Science - Void, CptIW + either Cosmic/Tech/Science, Wasp, She Hulk, Spider Gwen, Quake, or any Science that can inflict a non-damaging Debuff.

Skill - NF, Elsa, KM, Moleman, Falcon

Mutant - Havok, Emma, Sunspot, Magneto, any mutant with CptIW + Storm/Beast/Wolvie

Cosmic - Cull, Aarkus, Corvus, Heimdall, Venom, Medusa, CMM

Tech - Sentinel, IMIW, Warlock, OGV, Mysterio

Mystic - Doom, SymSup, Longshot, Hood, Tigra, Man Thing

Nodes are so open that there are more choices in each class than the previous ones.

DNA3000

Why is it so difficult to increase the rewards?

It is the easiest thing to do to increase rewards. Takes a couple minutes.

The hard part is justifying it. All you have to do is present an argument that the guy in charge of reward systems will buy. And none of them here appear to do so. Especially the one that goes "everyone knows the rewards are too low, so just increase them already." Historically, that one seems to have a very low success rate.