Dev Diary: Spring into Summer 2021

Greetings Summoners,

After what feels like an Age of Ultron since we last sat down for a homely fireside chat about The Contest. In that time, the team has been busy delivering on the majority of the awesome things we announced last year. From new Act content, a succession of Back Issues, Alliance tools, node improvements, undo button, a bonanza of Champion Updates, selling from stash, a raft of Incursions updates, and so much more in between.

We didn’t deliver on everything though (Summer of Pain, *cough* *cough*). Development priorities change, YOUR priorities change, and we evolve with The Contest as it grows. However, some things haven’t changed, and we’re still hard at work on some of the awesome things we announced last time, many of which are that much closer to being in your hands.

Last time out, we waxed lyrical about our vision and goals, this time, we’re getting straight to the meat. So without further ado, let’s dive into the first Dev Diary of 2021!

Read all about it here!

Comments

pseudosane

yeah not looking forward to relics at all.
I do like the rest of it, have you looked at reducing map costs for map7?

KnightZero

New game modes ...

Don't know how to feel about that one. The game is already too time consuming as it is, and having more content that will likely "force" us to play every X days or so might be a bit too much
I was thinking the exact same thing. I know people will say it's optional and no one is forcing you to do it and all that stuff, but adding permanent content makes me happy, adding content that resets every week or every month actually makes me a little nervous. Hopefully, with the reduced number of arenas, the milestones are quick and easy to get so that we have time to play the other modes.

Yeah. The rapid added content might get to me. May be time to drop down on alliance content if it gets too much

Raichu626

Gonna agree with the apparent consensus. With the current info about it, relics aren't exactly exciting me

Giuliameij

first of, the thing I don`t really like is the PROLOGUE INITIATIVE part. Making the initial part of the game faster will only create more intitled new players who want a 6 star in their first week, who do not have the skill for later chapters, because some things take time to learn instead of a tutorial.

second is the arena's. I think the idea about the way to obtain the basic and featured champs is great. But if I read it correctly there is 1 arena where I can use my 4 stars in to get units. And the other two arenas require my 4/5/6 champions. It is stated that we will still can get the same amount of units (even 5 more) but I am afraid it will be harder to obtain them, even for someone that has 15 teams of all rarities for arena. I don`t mind if I do not get all milestones, since I do not do the summoner trials and only sometimes the 3 star arena. So I hope I can still get my ~405 units I get now from the 30 milestones in the basic, and featured arenas. Within the same amount of rounds.
But that is something that can only be judged when the arena's go live. And I am really looking forward to them.

Third. PLEASE NO RELICS!!!!!!

Aomine_Daiki10

Don't add relics.

Nigelthornberry

I think kang will be the boss in 7.3

Aziz5253

Was gonna uninstall yesterday but told myself to hold onto for a while, maybe something good might be announced. And this comes out today. The whole diary is awesome but this particular part gets me holding on to for as long as it gets released.

Spidey983

Kabam is more transparent than the White House. This looks great and I'm looking forward to what you all have planned for the year. Thanks for considering and actually listening to your player base. Not many games do that.

Unitman

6* arena is dope but alas, never gonna happen for ur boy

MattMan

Kabam is more transparent than the White House. This looks great and I'm looking forward to what you all have planned for the year. Thanks for considering and actually listening to your player base. Not many games do that.

Don’t kid yourself.
Player base has told them again and again they don’t want gear...yet here it comes.

Demonzfyre

Kabam is more transparent than the White House. This looks great and I'm looking forward to what you all have planned for the year. Thanks for considering and actually listening to your player base. Not many games do that.
Don’t kid yourself.
Player base has told them again and again they don’t want gear...yet here it comes.

Sorry but that's just not true. There's a few on here but you can't say the "player base" meaning everyone doesn't want it. 7*'s are years away. Maybe relics will be part of duping max sig 6*'s giving that a bit of value. Unless you want 7*'s before we can even rank 5 a 6*, gear mods are a way to go.

unknown

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Remeli

I love the idea of relics. Lots of potential.

Daddrieda

Having the 6* and 5* in the same arena cutoff is bad. Whales will push the cutoffs too high, top 100 for the 6* isn’t enough. Mark my word, first one the cutoff for the 5* feature will break 100m.

Not looking forward to “gear” being added to the game.

The rest looks like good fluff.
The arena stuff I don't have much of an opinion on since when I do feel like running arena I only go for the milestones in the 4* basic 4* featured and 5* featured. The interesting thing to me is how the milestones will be adjusted with the new arenas, as now running fewer arenas might result in less battlechip gains. But that's a whole other problem.

I 100% agree with the gear sentiment. You absolutely know that this is going to be monetized to hell and back, and there are going to be meta relics, with rarities. Adding more systems into the game is just going to cause more issues in the future.

they're probably gonna make the same they did with golds with putting them all golds on the first three milestones.

RiderofHell

I think kang will be the boss in 7.3

More like 7.4, i see collector.champion and grandmaster, possible maestro and thanos returning for 7.3 lol

RiderofHell

Seems carina challenge will bring back t3a and t6b catalyst. Let the race for r4 begin while i still struggle to r3 any 6* to become TB 🤦‍♂️

Rasilover

5 star stryfe and Odin basic gonna go crazy

BeBubba_1

I think they worded everything in there near perfectly. The new arena sounds like an amazing idea, so that top players can go for the 6* champions, while others can still have a chance at just seeing the 3* - 4* through milestones. Truly filled with a lot of exciting things to come, all around great job to Kabam on this one!

Daddrieda

could make Arena more simple by limiting the champion collection access. 3* arena being only 3* champions access, 4* basic and featured being only 4* champions access while 5* continues to be 4* and 5* champion access. would greatly reduce the stress.

Nigelthornberry

I think kang will be the boss in 7.3
More like 7.4, i see collector.champion and grandmaster, possible maestro and thanos returning for 7.3 lol

They mentioned the first adversary making a return in 7.3, act 1 didnt an adversary and collector was on our side, act 2 has kang which is the first actual interesting boss there

unknown

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MattMan

No Wish crystals anytime soon *sigh*

6* dual class crystals would be nice

Negative_100

https://playcontestofchampions.com/dev-diary-spring-summer-2021/

Silver_Saga

Book 2 -> for endgamers
Carina's Challenge -> for endgamers
Grandmaster's Gauntlet -> for endgamers
Summer of Pain -> for endgamers
Alliance Raids -> for endgamers

Well ! That was an interesting read. But it's fine, I look forward to the various Youtube videos and streams of endgamers going through those pieces of content. And at least the usual suspects won't complain that "the side quest is too easy boohoo" anymore (yeah, keep dreaming), since that might be pretty much the only content left for progressing players like me who are still lights years away from TB

Also, no mention of Root. I take that as a win.

I reserve judgement on the arenas though, since we don't know what the milestones will look like... it could be as awesome as it could be terrible, although at first glance adding the 5 AND 6 stars in the same arenas seems like a bad idea. Those cutoffs are going to be insane !! We'll see. A little sad to see the 3* arena go though, but that's personnal since it was the only one I was doing every week to get some units, they were painless and fast to go through... perfect when you only have a couple of hours per week for arena grinding.

Relics, meet Root (hopefully).

More seriously, all in all for players at my progression level, which is early cavalier, there's not much excitement in the near future except for one more Variant in 2021. Which means, more time to push for TB. Let's take that as a win too.

unknown

This content has been removed.

Berjibs

Book 2 -> for endgamers
Carina's Challenge -> for endgamers
Grandmaster's Gauntlet -> for endgamers
Summer of Pain -> for endgamers
Alliance Raids -> for endgamers

Well ! That was an interesting read. But it's fine, I look forward to the various Youtube videos and streams of endgamers going through those pieces of content. And at least the usual suspects won't complain that "the side quest is too easy boohoo" anymore (yeah, keep dreaming), since that might be pretty much the only content left for progressing players like me who are still lights years away from TB

Also, no mention of Root. I take that as a win.

I reserve judgement on the arenas though, since we don't know what the milestones will look like... it could be as awesome as it could be terrible, although at first glance adding the 5 AND 6 stars in the same arenas seems like a bad idea. Those cutoffs are going to be insane !! We'll see. A little sad to see the 3* arena go though, but that's personnal since it was the only one I was doing every week to get some units, they were painless and fast to go through... perfect when you only have a couple of hours per week for arena grinding.

Relics, meet Root (hopefully).

More seriously, all in all for players at my progression level, which is early cavalier, there's not much excitement in the near future except for one more Variant in 2021. Which means, more time to push for TB. Let's take that as a win too.

You should be excited as a cavalier because currently the game dies around thronebreaker in terms of challenge. You’ve potentially got something to look forward to now when you get there. Good luck!

Timone147

Was liking it and looking great until the gear section.

Maybe it will be great or not what I’m fearing but just the thought of having to grind out something else in the game on top of champs and cats does not sound fun. We know the top build will dictate how the game is calibrated(especially when it launches game wide) so you will have to grind and plan your build around that.

Add in needing to think through the right builds for the content with that gear assuming it’s as customizable as it seems just feels like a lot to add to a game that has a lot and is getting a lot on top of that already.

Ironman3000

Relics could easily break the game. Especially once they start selling them.

Theshark1

Seems like they’re just catering to end game players again

DNA3000

Kabam is more transparent than the White House. This looks great and I'm looking forward to what you all have planned for the year. Thanks for considering and actually listening to your player base. Not many games do that.
Don’t kid yourself.
Player base has told them again and again they don’t want gear...yet here it comes.

*Some* of the players have said they don't want gear. But there are others who have said they want a post R5 progression system that doesn't involve the next higher rarity. Whether they implement that with "gear" or "unlockable skill trees" or "higher tier awakenings" is irrelevant: it is all just terminology. The properties of all roster progression systems in this game will involve a) hunting for resources and b) applying them to champions (aside from actually hunting for the champions themselves). And since that's how most people define gear, players have been basically asking for gear.

Anything you can do with gear I can do with masteries. Literally anything. I can make masteries unlockable with resources you have to hunt for in crystals. I can make masteries apply to a subset of champions, or even one. Anyone who says gear is bad but masteries are good doesn't understand how technology works.