More QoL Updates and Beta Features coming in v33.0!

Hey Everyone

Kabam Zero here and today I’m really excited to be able to share with you 3 QoL features and one beta feature that will be coming with the upcoming 33.0 release on November 1st. Going to start off small but they’ll keep getting better and better, so strap in and let’s get to it!

Smaller Quest Portraits

There’s often been the complaint that occasionally in certain maps, the boss portrait will block the path, making it hard to tap on. We actively try to avoid putting this type of layout in newer quests but there are still quests that have this issue. To help address this we’ve now resized the portraits to be slightly shorter which should allow you to tap behind it easier.

Boost Menu Popup Improvements

Boosts are incredibly helpful for tackling tough content but the current way we present boosts to summoners can sometimes make it a cumbersome process. This is especially true in the case of those who have acquired a vast amount of different boosts. To help make this flow better we have split up all the boosts into 4 different tabs with the following logic.

Common, All standard Attack, Health, Champion, and XP boosts
War, All Boosts specifically restricted to Alliance War
Class, Any boost that has a Class restriction
Other, Any boost not in the above 3 categories

The resulting screen will look like this.

If you have no boosts in a particular category and none of them can be purchased, then the tab will be hidden.
Another note is that we’ve removed the Loyalty Tab here, but all of those boosts are still purchasable in the Store.

Skip SP3 Animation Button

Special Attack 3 animations are one of the most amazing parts of MCOC. The artists here work really hard on them, and it shows when you see them. As awesome as they are, after the 1000th time seeing Hyperion throw your opponent into the sky, the charm does wear off a bit. In these cases, we’d like to just get on with the fight and the SP3 Animation can drag the fight on longer than it should. To this end, we’ve now added an option in the settings menu to show the Skip SP3 button.

When enabled, shortly after an SP3 is launched the button will show up allowing you to skip it.

The only restriction will be in timed fights, where we are currently disabling it until we determine the effect on game balance.

Beta Feature - Fight Summary Overhaul

Continuing with one of our goals of improving players’ knowledge and comprehension of the core fight spine of the game we took aim at the Fight Summary screen. Currently, when you lose a fight it looks like this.

This doesn’t tell summoners what killed them or guide them in any way on how to improve. To fix this we set out to completely redesign the screen into something more like this.

Since there’s a lot of new things I will break it down part by part starting from the top.

Health Bars and Character Portraits

In this section, we’ve added the health bar so you’ll be able to see how the health of both fighters was at the end. In addition, you can tap the hero portrait of either champion to open their respective detailed abilities popup. This means you can dig into their abilities without leaving the screen.
Top Damage Sources

In this section you’ll see the top 3 damage sources each champion received while in the fight. As we can see Human Torch does a lot of incinerate damage, with some basic hits and special damage thrown in.

Clicking on any of the damage sources will open a tooltip explaining the damage, like so

Finishing Blows

This section shows the damage received by the KO’d champion in the last 10 seconds of the fight with a max entry amount of 5. It will be in order of occurrence, so those on the top will be the most recent damage received. The goal here is to take a snapshot of the last moments of the fight.

It is also really cool when you win because you get to see the last burst of damage that finished off your opponent. On a slightly technical note, it will group together all damage of a specific type done in the 10 second period and show it in one entry. For example, the incinerate damage was likely done across the entire 10 seconds period with the other types of damage but one of its ticks of damage was the last to happen and thus it shows up top.
Stats

We’ve kept Successful Hits, Hits Received, and Highest Combo, removed Successful Combos as it wasn’t that useful, and then added two new stats. “Biggest Hit” tracks the biggest single tick of damage that you did to the opponent. Fight Duration shows just how long the fight took. It’s a pretty simple addition but these new stats should hopefully give better context on how well you did.
Bottom Buttons

Due to the more interactive nature of the Fight Summary, there will always be a button that needs to be tapped in order to continue from the screen. In the Standard quest fight, it will just be a continue button. For duels and Practice fights, we’ve added a replay button to allow you to instantly redo the fights.
Other Panels
There will be additional panels handling Rewards, PVP, and Alliance based content but they are mostly self-explanatory so won’t go into detail for them here.

Why is this a Beta Feature and what does that mean?
We have decided to make this a beta feature which means you’ll have to opt-in to it on the settings screen with the following toggle. If this isn’t ticked you will still go through the same flow as before this change.

The reason why we decided on doing this as a beta is that the scope of this feature is massive.

Many of our damage types were never built to be displayable and thus when it’s tracked as doing damage, they are often missing a name or icon or tooltip description that will be needed to properly display on this screen. In addition to this, we don’t just want to stop here, there are potentially many more visual passes and additional information that we’ll want to add but we want to get player feedback on it before going in any particular direction.

Releasing this as a beta allows us to gather feedback and also track whenever we have one of these unhandled damage types. Whenever there is an unhandled damage type found by any player we track that information automatically and generate a report of all the missing data. This allows us to identify and fix the issues faster. This means that by playing the beta and coming across any of the following

You have now helped us identify a damage type for us to fix. You won’t need to write up a report or file a bug as it is all done automatically.

Lastly, we don’t want to subject any of our players to an unfinished experience and thus we have made this opt-in. At the same time, we do believe it will present many Summoners a better experience and hope you decide to opt-in when it comes out on November 1st. There will be a separate forum post to gather feedback on the new Fight Summary Screen when it comes out, so once you get your hands on it please let us know what you think there.

That’s all for now. Thanks for taking the time to read and I hope you enjoy all these new features. Let me know which of the above features you’re most excited about as I'm eager to hear what you think.

Cheers
KabamZero

Comments

AverageDesi

Replay button for quests that are 100% done instead of the "Upgrade Champion" button please?

@Kabam Zero not to be entitled or pushy but would this feature be possible or completely not on the list? Cause this would help immensely while farming revives and potions.

Also Upgrade Champions is not something anyone is doing often if even at all immediately after exploring a quest. Even on the rare occasion it happens two extra clicks aren't a problem
I agree

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/116760/end-of-quest-prompt#latest

I suggested this back in Jan 2019
Should have both Play next and Reply buttons .. let us choose .. and stop trying to guess for us .

"Upgrade Champions" and "Open Crystal" was relevant during Game tutorial. And they just forgot to ever change it

dot_ditto

We live in a world where people still choose pineapple on pizza.. Are we sure we're that bright!?

Hey, I love pineapple on my pizza ...

Maverick75

About the portrait in front of the node :
You have chosen the easiest and safest way to avoid bug. But the node is still partially hidden.
There are other options :
1. Put the stars and the life bar at the vertical (and keep the IP and the class on the portrait). This is obvious because the nodes are not as close horizontally than vertically.
2. Remove the small arrow under the panel with the IP, the class and the life bar.

Otherwise, thanks for the improvements :-)

And the players still have ideas to improve the QoL ;-)
One of them: the practice on characters is good, but the constraint to have the character in that rarity should be removed.

unknown

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Fitnesscw

Id like to see in arena a filter for champion ranks. No one likes scrolling to lower rank champs

Ironside47

Awesome changes, much appreciated.

That said, I’m going to really miss watching Deadpool chatting on the phone… said absolutely nobody

Jeal79

Id like to see in arena a filter for champion ranks. No one likes scrolling to lower rank champs

Just generally adding "rank" as a filter to the Champion screen anywhere in the game would be great. Since 2 new characters are introduced every month, just filtering by 4* or 5* can still leave you a lot to scroll through.

This would also be useful when you have a rank-up gem to spend. Much easier if you can filter down to rank so you only see the champs it's applicable for.

And while we are on the subject of filters, one for the items screen would be very welcome. I'd love to see an option where you could filter to see only AGs and stones by class and by rarity.

Those suggestions aside, I'm loving all the QoL improvements we are getting each month. If it weren't for these, I'd feel a lot more depressed and disengaged from the persistent bugs. Please keep the QoL updates coming!!

satvik17

Continuing with one of our goals of improving players’ knowledge and comprehension of the core fight spine of the game we took aim at the Fight Summary screen. Currently, when you lose a fight it looks like this.

This doesn’t tell summoners what killed them or guide them in any way on how to improve. To fix this we set out to completely redesign the screen into something more like this.

Does this mean the Win screen would be the same? I would love to see the stats and additional info for a win screen as well

mostlyharmlessn

These sound great, can we also request that you quit making painfully long sp1's as well?

Kabam Zero

Continuing with one of our goals of improving players’ knowledge and comprehension of the core fight spine of the game we took aim at the Fight Summary screen. Currently, when you lose a fight it looks like this.

This doesn’t tell summoners what killed them or guide them in any way on how to improve. To fix this we set out to completely redesign the screen into something more like this.

Does this mean the Win screen would be the same? I would love to see the stats and additional info for a win screen as well

Yes the screen will be the new one for the win version too if you are opted into the beta

TheTalents

QOL is always important. The special 3 skip is by far the best thing you added amongst all the updates. Especially for Namor players lol.

Piviot

QOL is always important. The special 3 skip is by far the best thing you added amongst all the updates. Especially for Namor players lol.

Maybe do we know the skip will be instant or will it be affected by bugs or lag which it will so wait till say it’s best

Cerberus6p

Ok, and the Fps? My cellphone is galaxy s20+, and the fps fix in 30 in the game, an my cellphone suport 120gz!! fix it at once, in the next update!

unknown

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The_Sentry06

The new screen is great.

AverageDesi

It's kinda bad with doom. You're placed a bit farther than usual

AverageDesi

@Kabam Zero could you change the new power bar feature so that only the button we press greys out and not the power meter itself? Less visibility of the power bar is not something anyone wants

Symbiotemaster2

Dang I love how they did this it helps so much

Etm34

Maybe just takes getting used to, but on the Skip SP3 option I’d prefer it tuned so you catch the tail end of the special to have time to react. Just tested it against a Doom and got immediately combo’d because there’s literally no time to react from the special.

As for the fight stays, very cool, but there’s a bug after arenas where you get red letters that say “no data” before taking you back to the arena summary screen. And it makes grinding 5x as slow to load up the stats.

Still love the update, just passing along info to fine tune it

EDIT: turns out you guys are already on it with Skip SP3. Great job devs!

SunilDarur

@Kabam Miike @Kabam Vydious Enabling the BETA OPT IN option screws up AQ fights. As soon as we hit fight the match will end. This happens as many time as you try to fight in AQ until you turn off BETA OPT IN option.

Video URL :

https://youtu.be/uNNpZJ6w7sI

SunilDarur

Nomercy9

I have a question on the finishing blows section. When we throw a massive special attack to KO the opponent, the damage done by hits that took place after the opponent reaches 0 hp is reduced.

My question is this. Will the finishing blows section now provide us with the damage done by the special attack without the reduction or not?
Did some brief testing and it seems like it will still show the full damage of the SP3 even if the opponent only had 1 hp before it.

I don't think it does. Tested it in rol few times.

Kade7175

This is amazing!! Im super stoked.

Jovesbro

Could you guys please help in shifting the sp button to the right, or can also provide adjustable button.

Crine60

Why is my special power bar going almost invisible when the opponent throws their special and why does the gold reward after a fight flash bright white? Both of these things are annoying and seem like completely unnecessary changes.

Crine60

I see people saying the reason our special button and power bars are getting hard to see during enemy specials now is because that was Kabam's way of preventing people from thinking they could throw a special too soon after or even during the enemy special. If that is the case does this mean that this is the so called bug fix for the new update that was supposed to stop attempts at activating specials from causing a block instead?

If this is what is referenced in the update notes it does not fix the actual bug I have been experiencing when my champ blocks instead of throwing a special because I am not attempting to throw specials during the enemy special or even right after. The times my specials fail to activate are either at the end of my combos or when the enemy is dashing in, it has nothing to do with the enemy special attacks.

Also, as far as the change to the visibility of the power bar goes, I can see there may be some value to making the special button look different when you can't use it but it would be much better to leave the power bar portion the regular visibility all the time so we can more easily monitor and manage our power at all times.

Horror_punk

@Kabam Zero
There’s a suggestion on a little QoL change which i like to see in respect of arena.
When our champs were in cooldown then we can ask for help if we are in an alliance But that option of asking help doesn’t appear if we do not have an alliance.
Now if I don’t want to ask for help(while being in an alliance) then there should be an option to turn off that asking help thing. It creates unnecessary time waste to scroll all over the screen to use my champs while playing arena.
I never ask for help so simply i just want my refreshed champs on top of screen and not below of all used champs

Thanks

AverageDesi

@Kabam Zero
There’s a suggestion on a little QoL change which i like to see in respect of arena.
When our champs were in cooldown then we can ask for help if we are in an alliance But that option of asking help doesn’t appear if we do not have an alliance.
Now if I don’t want to ask for help(while being in an alliance) then there should be an option to turn off that asking help thing. It creates unnecessary time waste to scroll all over the screen to use my champs while playing arena.
I never ask for help so simply i just want my refreshed champs on top of screen and not below of all used champs

Thanks

Same. Help is a time waste I never bother with

LilMaddogHT

@Kabam Zero I really like the stats feature after the fights but I have currently turned this feature off for 1 reason only. It really slows down the arena grind. I hope that when this feature is put permanently in the game that we have the option to activate it for specific modes. When turned off w/ this update, transitioning into fight 1, from 1 to 2, and 2 to 3, the load times really fly and are an incredible enhancement. But when I activate this beta feature, the transition and load times between fights are noticeably slower. I'm not as interested in my arena fight stats, I want the whole process to go as quickly as possible. In my mind, these stats are more useful for AQ, AW, and questing. I hope we can select which modes we see if for. Thanks for your consideration. 👍🏼

becauseicant

Along the same lines of the new stat screen slowing down Arena grinds I have also turned off the new stat screen because the only way to close it is to hit the button in the middle whereas with the current version you can just tap anywhere on the screen to move on immediately. It sounds like a small issue but it builds up overtime. I would really like to be able to skip through it by tapping anywhere on the screen, or at least have an option to enable such a feature. That way we can have the best of both worlds, new stats when you want them but no slow down after the fight ends.