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

altavista

After fully exploring this new EQ I can say overall the new nodes are worse and more restrictive. The tech, science and skill are just annoying. The mystic node is the most annoying if it is working as intended. Even when a stagger is placed to stop the unstoppable, it still procs up for a brief second. Allowing the defender to still become stun immune and unstoppable for a brief second before it goes away. Not sure if that is a bug or not, but I am still having to worry about the unstoppable which slows down the fight. Stagger should prevent this from ever happening.

That seems to be the major theme for this month's nodes. Things that you think would work based on the Node descriptions, don't work smoothly. If you bring the champions that should work based on the Node descriptions, you expect it to work smoothly. Previous Cavalier nodes worked pretty seamlessly - apply debuff and get fury; get buffs and get aptitutde, etc. In contrast, for example - apply Disorient, causes an evade failure prior to where it would be categorized as an evade failure, so you don't receive the benefit.

On principle, I don't have an issue with rotating nodes, or even these types of nodes this month. I just want Kabam to smooth the interactions between the beneficial and the difficult node.

Mr_Platypus

Well that’s that 100% done.
As usual, pretty easy. Though some of the new nodes are slower imo.
Namely the science (could be solved by having furies cap at 10, instead of 20, with double the current potency)
And cosmic (Could be solved by making it a 20-30% fury chance per armour break).
Also not a huge fan of mystic node as it’s seemingly set up so that you nullify the unstoppable to make your prowess permanent, but really you’re only pulling that off safely with stagger or a nullification aura of some kind, but it is possible to work around with most opponents by nullifying the other buffs.
Actually I can understand why the cosmic one was done to be 10% per armor break. Personally, I feel that 20% will be a more comfortable range. That being said, Aarkus and Cull absolutely shredded the map.

Don’t get me wrong, I shredded it with cap Marvel, but she was the only one really that consistently got close to the fury cap of 10.

Corvus could if I let the opponent stack up a bunch of armour a couple times, but that was somewhat slower than just playing normally.

Hyperion i ignored the node for the most part.
Heimdall sort of worked and terrax seemed alright as well.

xNig

Well that’s that 100% done.
As usual, pretty easy. Though some of the new nodes are slower imo.
Namely the science (could be solved by having furies cap at 10, instead of 20, with double the current potency)
And cosmic (Could be solved by making it a 20-30% fury chance per armour break).
Also not a huge fan of mystic node as it’s seemingly set up so that you nullify the unstoppable to make your prowess permanent, but really you’re only pulling that off safely with stagger or a nullification aura of some kind, but it is possible to work around with most opponents by nullifying the other buffs.
Actually I can understand why the cosmic one was done to be 10% per armor break. Personally, I feel that 20% will be a more comfortable range. That being said, Aarkus and Cull absolutely shredded the map.
Don’t get me wrong, I shredded it with cap Marvel, but she was the only one really that consistently got close to the fury cap of 10.

Corvus could if I let the opponent stack up a bunch of armour a couple times, but that was somewhat slower than just playing normally.

Hyperion i ignored the node for the most part.
Heimdall sort of worked and terrax seemed alright as well.

Oh. Aarkus and Cull were 10 furies for almost all the fights (Cull usually killed the defender when he had 4-5).

Liquidkold

This months Cav Difficulty was the worst one yet. I have 30 5/65, 6 r3 and 13 r2 six stars. This was a step backwards. Last month was a lot better with time spent. I feel the changes to the global nodes narrowed down the champs that you can use. I think that there needs to be better balance to the time spent playing it and the rewards you receive. If you do not have the proper counter in the benefitting class you can use a different class but plan on being over 100 hits even with a 5/65. I would open the gates a little to allow more champs of that class to be useful if that is what the end goal is. I also would not keep changing the nodes if you are going to force us to rank up champs that we will typically not use for other content. Rank ups are costly. This is Cav Difficulty and Not Thrown Breaker.
This is nothing near what TB should be. If you think that this is TB and not Cav, you're mistaken.

I was not meaning to say it is TB but that Cav level is so much lower then this. Some CAV players have may not have a crazy large roster yet. I think think is tuned too high for what CAV should be. Just my thoughts. I have no problems beating it with 0 revives or potions, just think it takes too long unless you have the best counters. I have beaten every month 100%, just thought this was a step backwards compared to last months.

Notsavage19

This months Cav Difficulty was the worst one yet. I have 30 5/65, 6 r3 and 13 r2 six stars. This was a step backwards. Last month was a lot better with time spent. I feel the changes to the global nodes narrowed down the champs that you can use. I think that there needs to be better balance to the time spent playing it and the rewards you receive. If you do not have the proper counter in the benefitting class you can use a different class but plan on being over 100 hits even with a 5/65. I would open the gates a little to allow more champs of that class to be useful if that is what the end goal is. I also would not keep changing the nodes if you are going to force us to rank up champs that we will typically not use for other content. Rank ups are costly. This is Cav Difficulty and Not Thrown Breaker.
This is nothing near what TB should be. If you think that this is TB and not Cav, you're mistaken.
I was not meaning to say it is TB but that Cav level is so much lower then this. Some CAV players have may not have a crazy large roster yet. I think think is tuned too high for what CAV should be. Just my thoughts. I have no problems beating it with 0 revives or potions, just think it takes too long unless you have the best counters. I have beaten every month 100%, just thought this was a step backwards compared to last months.

CEQ completion is aimed at Cavs. Those who have gone further within Act 6 than 6.1 Cavs should be able to complete it. IMO, it's more of a step forward, seeing how Kabam stated that exploration of CEQ would be difficult, even to people who completed 6.4, which the last iteration of CEQ was not. This iteration is definitely more difficult, which is a good thing IMO.

DNA3000

This months Cav Difficulty was the worst one yet. I have 30 5/65, 6 r3 and 13 r2 six stars. This was a step backwards. Last month was a lot better with time spent. I feel the changes to the global nodes narrowed down the champs that you can use. I think that there needs to be better balance to the time spent playing it and the rewards you receive. If you do not have the proper counter in the benefitting class you can use a different class but plan on being over 100 hits even with a 5/65. I would open the gates a little to allow more champs of that class to be useful if that is what the end goal is. I also would not keep changing the nodes if you are going to force us to rank up champs that we will typically not use for other content. Rank ups are costly. This is Cav Difficulty and Not Thrown Breaker.
This is nothing near what TB should be. If you think that this is TB and not Cav, you're mistaken.
It is disappointing how many players believe that "Cavalier tier difficulty" is supposed to be trivial to complete for anyone who manages to get past 6.1. Like the point to becoming Cavalier is that once you get that title the game starts fanning you and peeling grapes for your consumption.

This is a progression game. The reward for reaching a progression point is opening the door to earning the next progression point. Cavalier difficulty is not meant to feed rewards to Cavalier players through a tube. It is meant to challenge them. Like, a lot.

I wish I could say that the number of people who think the current Cavalier EQ difficulty was Thronebreaker-appropriate was surprising, but it is not. A lot of us were predicting more or less this attitude before Cavalier difficulty itself was announced.

You know, I've completed every 4* objective challenge for Cavalier difficulty since the first one. I remember when UC first came out: it was a struggle, and no way could I have done UC with 3* champs. Even a year later I don't think that's something I could easily do. On a relative basis, Cavalier difficulty is easier for me today than UC was when it was released, and it allows for more ways to tackle it in my opinion than UC did, which often required a lot more brute force or narrower options (relative to what existed back then). It is very hard for me to reconcile the complaints about difficulty, even from what appears to be veteran players, with the game's history. Have we collectively gotten that soft?
Calling a massive portion of the playerbase soft is a massive understatement. Anything remotely difficult gets labeled BS and anything incredibly easy gets called "fun"
I dunno, easy can be fun. Depending on context. Just saying.
Depends on the person. It typically feels like a tedious chore to me, especially if it's long like EQ or story content. If it takes me 5 min a day, who cares. If I'm spending hours doing something I don't even have to pay attention to and use a ton of energy to finish, I'd rather at least have to pay attention to what I'm doing
+1.

Tbh I’ll gladly have them make Cav difficulty 10x harder and more punishing, and make it 2 paths.

But of course the kids will start crying saying it’s too hard.

Well, I'd probably be saying that's too hard also.

I think it is important to remember that difficulty isn't linear: what's easy for someone is difficult for someone else and vice versa. So I think if there's one good thing about the many paths instead of just having one or two is that those paths theoretically can present a variety of challenges, such that the paths aren't necessarily "easier" and "harder" but just different, so that a player who can do 25% of the challenges can still get some of the rewards and still has something to work towards.

I don't focus on the absolute difficulty, so much as I focus on the path to progress. If Cavalier maps had two paths with difficulty 10 (contradicting my own assertion that difficulty isn't linear, but just to simplify) then a player that can only do difficulty 5 is just stuck, and possibly permanently stuck. If the map has five paths of difficulty 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, then maybe there's a path for such a player to conquer path 6, and work their way up to 7, and eventually reach 10. That was actually the fundamental core idea of my Act 6 analysis as well: not that it was too hard and needed to be made easy, but rather it offered no practical path for a lower player to work their way up.

I like the *concept* of the Cav maps not having different *levels* of difficulty (except for the easy path) but rather just different *kinds* of difficulty, and instead of players having to just "git gud" they need to instead broaden their roster, knowledge, and skills. I'm not saying the execution is perfect, but the concept is a good one, and it requires that the content have many paths through it. I think they could reduce them, because we also have six maps so we can disperse the variety across them (even with the scaling of the maps). But requiring just one or two really hard paths removes the ladder of progress (or ramp, or whatever, as it is wider than tall) element.

Now, the question of an *optional* way to get full exploration rewards while running fewer paths is something I'm open to. In fact I suggested a way to do that a couple times now. Use linked paths and have one path contain the bulk of the rewards, but have all other paths boost-link to it. So if you can do that one path with all the boost links up, you can snag all the rewards doing just one path. But if you can't, you can do all the other paths to remove those links, and that path just becomes a regular unlinked path with normal difficulty. Or, you can do something in the middle: clear a couple outside paths to remove half the links, and then hit the reward path while it has some, but not all the links, for a harder but not hardest path.

Presume that the fully linked path would have no cheese mode, and individual fights comparable to or even harder than Abyss-class fights, to give maximal Thronebreakers something to work towards. Something like that is I think workable in theory. If not Cavalier difficulty, I hope they consider it when they get around to Thronebreaker difficulty.

DrDirtface

You'd use iron man and iron patriot? No one ranks up war machine either. Basically sentinel,darkhawk and mysterio benefited from this (im listing champs ppl would use). Guilly 2099 and guardian got massacred
Agreed no one would use the first 3 and IMIW only if you have him awakened. I liked Sentinel. His ravage is great and he won’t go down if you slip up on a combo

The_Sentry06

You'd use iron man and iron patriot? No one ranks up war machine either. Basically sentinel,darkhawk and mysterio benefited from this (im listing champs ppl would use). Guilly 2099 and guardian got massacred

Agreed no one would use the first 3 and IMIW only if you have him awakened. I liked Sentinel. His ravage is great and he won’t go down if you slip up on a combo

So Warlock's become outdated huh?

Mr_Platypus

You'd use iron man and iron patriot? No one ranks up war machine either. Basically sentinel,darkhawk and mysterio benefited from this (im listing champs ppl would use). Guilly 2099 and guardian got massacred

Damn my boi warlock just got completely disregarded.

Marshwolf

I am having a issues in using my unites

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World Eater

My favorite is when your skill attackers don’t remove the flux dispersal charges via heavy attack becuz of AAR.

Notsavage19

Many of these new nodes are not working properly.

Poisons are not being converted into fury on my science champions when I parry or dexterity. I'm also not getting fury on my skill champions when I cause my opponents' evade to fail. I've wasted dozens of revives having to compensate for this stuff.

Please tell me you will be sending out compensation to players who encountered these bugs? I can't afford to keep blowing through my resources like this.

It could be a result of AAR from Pacify.

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Nyale

So Kabam in a typic fashion made fun of all of us announcing changes to cav dificulty that were supposed to make the quest faster and easier and instead made the most horrible cav quest to date .Got an almost 2.8 mil account with countless max ranked champs including 4 stars but the new nodes are a joke especially skill and science ones .At least the old ones while not doing much to help weren't restricting u in bringing your best 4 stars from other classes now u can only use poison immunes for science and true strike for the skill one . Never used so many revives to get trough the 4 star challenge and the supposedly easy path with only 3 global nodes has the nasties defenders in game .Shame Kabam for ruining the cav dificulty experience instead of using act 7 and variant 6 fun to play design concept

xNig

So Kabam in a typic fashion made fun of all of us announcing changes to cav dificulty that were supposed to make the quest faster and easier and instead made the most horrible cav quest to date .Got an almost 2.8 mil account with countless max ranked champs including 4 stars but the new nodes are a joke especially skill and science ones .At least the old ones while not doing much to help weren't restricting u in bringing your best 4 stars from other classes now u can only use poison immunes for science and true strike for the skill one . Never used so many revives to get trough the 4 star challenge and the supposedly easy path with only 3 global nodes has the nasties defenders in game .Shame Kabam for ruining the cav dificulty experience instead of using act 7 and variant 6 fun to play design concept

2.8m and don’t read nodes? Lol

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Mr_Platypus

So Kabam in a typic fashion made fun of all of us announcing changes to cav dificulty that were supposed to make the quest faster and easier and instead made the most horrible cav quest to date .Got an almost 2.8 mil account with countless max ranked champs including 4 stars but the new nodes are a joke especially skill and science ones .At least the old ones while not doing much to help weren't restricting u in bringing your best 4 stars from other classes now u can only use poison immunes for science and true strike for the skill one . Never used so many revives to get trough the 4 star challenge and the supposedly easy path with only 3 global nodes has the nasties defenders in game .Shame Kabam for ruining the cav dificulty experience instead of using act 7 and variant 6 fun to play design concept

What do you mean the old nodes weren’t much help? They were very helpful for ramping damage up very quickly.

ShinobiGuy

Haven't done it all 100% yet. But done all quests except mystic.

For science I was planning to use She Hulk and had ranked her up to r4, but ended up just using Luke Cage and Void same as before it just now takes longer than before.

Tech I use the same champs as before, Hulkbuster and G2099, but added in P2099. Thought this node was on par with the last one. HB still kills it.

Skill was more annoying than last time, still using BWDO. Same champ, slightly longer fights.

Mutant, Apocalypse kills it. Using him instead of Omega. About the same for me.

Cosmic. Terrax is killing it. It takes a bit too long to get furies with Corvus but he's OK too. Maybe it's more inclusive now that Angela isn't the only option. Takes a bit longer than before.

All in all, not as bad as I originally thought, but it feels longer than previous. It's not difficult but boring. Once I get that last 10% tech T5CC (hopefully after this one) I don't think I'll 100% more of these.

Matty_Ice

All in all, not as bad as I originally thought, but it feels longer than previous. It's not difficult but boring. Once I get that last 10% tech T5CC (hopefully after this one) I don't think I'll 100% more of these.

I feel the exact same way. It wasn’t difficult, I just felt it was more annoying. I’m almost 100% through it. Going to focus on getting TB and then probably not do another cav EQ for a while.

ninjachameleon

Good Day to the Kabam team

I am not anti the update because it affects me (it doesn’t), but I think consideration for people who ranked up champs for the very purpose of the previous nodes needs to be taken into consideration. It is EXTREMELY unfair to low level Cavalier players with a limited roster who now got shot in the foot for possibly ranking up champs that your designed nodes forced them to rank up.
With regards to the rewards: I do not see an issue with the rewards, as much as the troll overs for T5cc bother me, because I know with time I will finally form a t5cc. However, that being said, I would like to suggest that the cavalier challenge (this month’s 4* challenge) be rewarded with a selector. They are the most tedious challenges for a gamble. I think if anyone fully commits to those challenges, then they should be rewarded with a 10% selector.

Please note this is in no way meant to be offensive towards all your hard work. It is constructive criticism

Notsavage19

Good Day to the Kabam team I am not anti the update because it affects me (it doesn’t), but I think consideration for people who ranked up champs for the very purpose of the previous nodes needs to be taken into consideration. It is EXTREMELY unfair to low level Cavalier players with a limited roster who now got shot in the foot for possibly ranking up champs that your designed nodes forced them to rank up.
With regards to the rewards: I do not see an issue with the rewards, as much as the troll overs for T5cc bother me, because I know with time I will finally form a t5cc. However, that being said, I would like to suggest that the cavalier challenge (this month’s 4* challenge) be rewarded with a selector. They are the most tedious challenges for a gamble. I think if anyone fully commits to those challenges, then they should be rewarded with a 10% selector.

Please note this is in no way meant to be offensive towards all your hard work. It is constructive criticism

Selectors should not be given out as rewards for monthly content at this point.

KnightZero

Just my two cents
1) Science node: Not bad, sucks at times with passive AI, but still allows you to use a lot of champs. Just maybe increase chance of poison by 10% and reduce the weakness efficiency?
2) Tech node: This one is fun. Actually use the node. Last time i barely noticed it.
3) Mutant node: Much better than the previous one imo. Can technically do the full lane with 1-2 champs and just get a synergy to get prowess if needed.
4) Cosmic node: Not bad, but would like chance of fury proc to increase. Again, even a 10% increase makes the fight faster.
5) Skill node: Not too bad, but a few changes could be made. Reducing evade chance so that we can atleast parry and heavy comfortably. And I find it weird that Disorient is stated as a way to stop champs from evading, but doesn't give the fury. I get that it is to stop AAR champs from getting the fury, but atleast let champs putting Disorient get it.
6) Mystic node: I hated it. There are barely any buffs to nullify, so you're just holding specials if you want to convert the prowess. Which makes it a longer fight sometimes. Also, the unstoppable still procs even if staggered, so you can't do a cycle/combo comfortably and have to keep looking at when you parry to see if they will suddenly come out of stun or not.

xNig

I disagree on the skill one though. Lowering evade chance means slowing down the fury buildup. Disorient fails to give fury at times due to AAR. Iirc it’s around 30% if you’re using NF.

Mystic one was tricky. Defenders didn’t have enough buffs to nullify but I found no issue getting to 5 furies every fight. I think that’s probably why the node only gives up to 5 and not 10. It’s a slower build up, but each buildup gives a larger increase.

Sergeant_

To the people who are demanding for buffed rewards, enjoy the game my dudes. Kabam is anyway gonna release harder content in the future with much better rewards to or else they're gonna buff the rewards of current content sometime later. I know that some people aren't satisfied by the rewards, but just hang on for some more time. And if you're just a new Cav player and don't like the rewards of EQ, go do more of Act 6 or go tackle the variants if you haven't done that yet. This is just my opinion.

DNA3000

I disagree on the skill one though. Lowering evade chance means slowing down the fury buildup. Disorient fails to give fury at times due to AAR. Iirc it’s around 30% if you’re using NF.

I think the problem with the Skill nodes is they are a little too narrow. One way to offer a skill-path through the Skill nodes could be to assert that if the champ is blocked from evading due to stun, that counts as an evade prevention. That way separate from the three debuffs, every skill champ would have a theoretical way to get a momentary evade prevention (via parry-stun), which would make every champ usable (but with a much harder way to get the buffs and get in attacks).

You might need to lower the evade chance if you allow that, but maybe not.

Berjibs

I’ve fully explored pretty much on both my accounts which are 700k (cav) and 950k (tb). Just finishing up last few lanes of mystic. Both itemless.

TLDR: Didn’t find it harder as such but at the moment it’s slower. I’m sure that will change as we collectively fine tune next month who the op champs are and best play styles.

Science - feels about the same as last node, maybe a little slower with the weakness but that’s easy to play around with short combos using the parry stun to remove it. Used a range of champs. Red hulk, ibom, capiw, torch all strong.

Tech - feels about the same as last time if a little more reliable in fury applying. Warlock and HB destroyed it. R1 6* HB was finishing fights sub 20 hits I think 11 being the best. Warlock hit count is higher than old node but I think just as fast. Imiw was decent as backup but not really needed. He was faster than old node.

Skill - initially thought this was annoying but if played right, champs are slapping hard very quick. NT was totally OP. He’s made for this node, 10 furies plus the node furies and the damage is awesome. Bwdo, Elsa and moleman were also great. R3/4 5*s were more than sufficient. You can build fury incredibly quickly by hitting into block while you have the relevant debuffs up (no parry stun to inhibit evade). As fast as old node but champ pool feels small.

Cosmic - didn’t have many options to explore but r3 5* cull destroyed it. Corvus works really well too but overall it’s a bit slow. Feel like a r4 cull will be as quick as Angela was on final version old node.

Mutant - used OML, colossus and omega. Would have thought OML would shred this node but he was maybe twice as fast on the old iteration. Avg 25 hits old vs 45 new. Preferred old biohazard using colossus w/ warlock/vision, omega and OML synergies, that was a blast. New nodes def slower overall.

Mystic. This one kinda sucks vs old node. Maybe need to just work out how best to play it but neutralise/stagger is the way to go over nullify, could just use a strong slow champ too? Sym sup destroyed it, had no issues with the stagger not working immediately vs unstoppable in the way it does with doom (which was super annoying). Longshot was pretty good, likewise tigra w/black panther. Doom was great if you paid close attention to unstoppable.

All the bosses seemed really easy. Maybe I had perfect counters.

Of the new champs, AA destroyed both. In other runs SymSup obliterated skrull and hype and CMM made light work of PsyM.

Outside of maybe cull don’t feel like any of the champs that work really well with the nodes wouldn’t be otherwise extremely useful to an underdeveloped cav roster.

xNig

I disagree on the skill one though. Lowering evade chance means slowing down the fury buildup. Disorient fails to give fury at times due to AAR. Iirc it’s around 30% if you’re using NF.
I think the problem with the Skill nodes is they are a little too narrow. One way to offer a skill-path through the Skill nodes could be to assert that if the champ is blocked from evading due to stun, that counts as an evade prevention. That way separate from the three debuffs, every skill champ would have a theoretical way to get a momentary evade prevention (via parry-stun), which would make every champ usable (but with a much harder way to get the buffs and get in attacks).

You might need to lower the evade chance if you allow that, but maybe not.

Doing so, as you mentioned, will allow all skill champs to do that. However, I believe the intent of having these nodes is for the playerbase to develop a wider roster, and not relying on ABC champions. It was either this, or gates (tbh I prefer gates. It’s faster and more straightforward).

Anyway, because of this intent, it’s counterproductive to allow all skill champs to do the quest, rather than the 30-40% or so due to the restriction.

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SatsuiNoHadou

I disagree on the skill one though. Lowering evade chance means slowing down the fury buildup. Disorient fails to give fury at times due to AAR. Iirc it’s around 30% if you’re using NF.
I think the problem with the Skill nodes is they are a little too narrow. One way to offer a skill-path through the Skill nodes could be to assert that if the champ is blocked from evading due to stun, that counts as an evade prevention. That way separate from the three debuffs, every skill champ would have a theoretical way to get a momentary evade prevention (via parry-stun), which would make every champ usable (but with a much harder way to get the buffs and get in attacks).

You might need to lower the evade chance if you allow that, but maybe not.
Doing so, as you mentioned, will allow all skill champs to do that. However, I believe the intent of having these nodes is for the playerbase to develop a wider roster, and not relying on ABC champions. It was either this, or gates (tbh I prefer gates. It’s faster and more straightforward).

Anyway, because of this intent, it’s counterproductive to allow all skill champs to do the quest, rather than the 30-40% or so due to the restriction.

With gates which has in itself proven rather divisive amongst the community, you’ll also be opening up another proverbial can of worms.