The recent direction of content design and the game in general
Worknprogress
Member Posts: 7,233 ★★★★★
Well map 8 was the nail in the coffin for me as far as taking this game seriously.
In the middle of a T1 war season on course to finish Master in, that I was also deathless in with 4 of the 5 boss kills so far so it's not like I was struggling, I decided to leave my alliance and be done with a game I've loved for years and have invested a ton of time and money into.
Between the likes of 7.3, the 7.4 beta, V8, and now map 8, I've decided that I just have zero interest in the current direction of the game.
With so much new content just spamming massive damage reductions, tons of power gain, constant unblockable opponents, and punishing simple mechanics such as blocking and dexing, along with unreliable input controls for months, the game has just gotten to a point of annoyance. Everything seems designed to just slow things down to a crawl (which is super fun and interactive in a 3min fight) and just be generally as annoying as possible.
The vast majority of the paradox lanes in 7.3 were just a massive nuisance that often you were better off ignoring completely and just using a nuke option to blast through it. Instead of actually listening when countless people said this, they instead doubled down and slapped them all over 7.4 as well. I ran two paths in the beta and decided I couldn't be bothered to touch it again.
With map 8, it's full of damage reductions and incredibly passive AI so that even top meta R3s were timing out on day 1. That's absurd. Opponents are either gaining massive amounts of power or have nodes/mechanics so that for 3/4 of the fight you're doing basically zero damage bc of trying to bait specials from uncooperative AI or juggling some stupid damage reduction timers. The fight timers weren't increased to compensate for this which is laughable.
V8 was supposed to be targeted at mid range progressing players but even end game players with massive rosters felt it was too restrictive. That's not even touching on the fights that were so bugged or poorly designed at release that even I can't believe they made it through in house playtesting.
I'm not really sure what their goals are for content these days but if it's to annoy their playerbase into never wanting to play their game, great job Kabam you're killing it. I'm not quitting forever or never touching the game again but you've done a great job at turning someone that typically spent at least 4-5hrs a day on this game and has spent tens of thousands of dollars on it into a casual player that will probably log in a few times a week at most for the time being. Congrats.
212
Comments
This is a big statement
More seriously though, I’m sorry you’re feeling like this it really must suck. Hopefully in the future you feel like you can come back.
There are some issues with how the game is at the moment, for me, I’m just focussing on the parts I do enjoy. Quest content is ok, Cav is a drag, variants aren’t great, AQ is boring, but I do really enjoy War at the moment with my BG. I guess it’s just trying to find the bits you enjoy.
Best of luck!
(Who’s going to post their overwhelmingly stacked rosters now?)
On a serious note, I completely understand the frustrations.
I've timed out more times yesterday and today than I have ever timed out in map 7 including mini and boss fights..and that's on paths.
V8 wasn’t supposed to be an end-game content but it sure looks like it is. Fewer #mercs in the game, terrible boost to them and heavy punishment for non-mercy. If you don’t have a heavy roster and properly ranked, forget it some lanes are a pain, you’ll pay for both clearing them and “buggy” fights with your resources (not that mediocre compensation). @Worknprogress isn’t lying about those node designs just to frustrate you. There’s a vivified lane in V8, 200% combat power gain and Trial by fire (incinerate timer if you haven’t made contact). You need a #mercs to do the fights, not only that also AI to work with you and a few out of the already small pool mercenaries can do those fights smh. If this isn’t end-game what is? And this is something you Kabam can control, also Guillotine buff but you let it become a problem adding to issues you’re already struggling with. Game annoyance has relegated me to Map4 not like I even play it I join when I can 1bg lol. Sorry for you Map 8 guys.
Anyway not to derail OP's thread (I'll just git gud) - i just think a lot of the node combinations with defenders they have been releasing lately doesn't make for good content.
Progress wise I don't seem to be getting anywhere. I'm not at all motivated to do alliance events, even though I do. The SQ rewards to difficulty ratio are definitely off as well.
The bugs are a matter of their own. I hate to see how this game is deteriorating. It just isn't getting better.
And then the 'buffs'. I absolutely agree that Kabam have delivered some amazing buffs, but a lot of the recent ones seem to have fallen short.
To top it all off, there just isn't anything exciting anymore, things have been drab for quite a while now. I think quite a lot of us are holding out and hoping December can make up for all the dullness.
I really wish for more transparency, because I'm sure we don't want to see this game die either. It's been a bit of a solace for me, and I've invested a lot of time into it.
It really sucks to see a lot of older and more progressed players are giving up on the game, and I just hope there's a light at the end of the tunnel.
I want more fun content in the game, even if the rewards are not amazing. To me this is a game, so it should be fun to play, not aggravating. Too often I read node combos and think, "ugh". That's not good.
I'll do a completion run on 7.4, but if it is like beta I doubt I will care about exploration at all. What's the point? Unless you are in the very top end of AW, you don't need rank 4 champs for anything. And I am not. I am TB in a chill alliance that does mid-tier alliance stuff only.
I'm currently sticking by the game over Christmas and the New Year, and then we'll see what happens. I probably won't quit altogether but I'm just tired. I'm tired of pushing hard in AW and AQ for no reward, and I'm tired of hard and boring sidequests that dole out little to no rewards, and I'm tired of seeing the positive trajectory from back in the Act 7.1/Variant 6 days take a nosedive as of late.
I really hope Kabam gets their stuff together and rights their boat quickly.
I always looked up to you as someone with a huge r3 roster. The frustration is reasonable. The ostrich approach of burrowing heads underground till things pass over isn't a new one, unfortunately.
All the best with your life mate!
Then get a coffin ready cause you are probably gonna get response like 18-20 years later
What is with these stupid attack values in day 2 Map 6 ...
Has kabam really lost it
1) Content was too easy
2) Champ progress was too fast. (i.e. the outcry when 6* were released)
It appears that Kabam listened.
Best regards,
Dr. Zola
It’s felt for a while that it’s been building up to the point where some kind of reset or new roadmap is required. The general mood was horrendous the week that the Deadpool gold offers came out (months of bugged gameplay, the Guillotine buff fiasco) but those offers seemed to surprise and placate everyone for a while.
In the weeks since V8 the mood has definitely got worse again. I think the community needs to be reminded that the devs are (hopefully) listening and it really needs something to look forward to.
How would you have them ramp up the difficulty?
I agree that power gain is lazy, but highly effective in ramping difficulty.
I think they are running out of ideas. (I'm pretty impressed with the number of nodes they have come up with.)
Would you prefer less power gain, but gates that require sub-optimal counters?
Honestly curious.
If we can brainstorm some good alternatives, maybe they will take them.
I have been playing this game for nearly seven years so Kabam has been doing some things right but lately it seems like almost everything they do makes me lose more interest.
I was planning on getting through Christmas with my alliance and then take my first break from the game ever but the changes to the AQ are really making me question that. I just want to have fun while I do something in my spare time...
Nothing has kept me interested for this amount of time so maybe it is just time for something else.
Maybe I should type "time" a few more times...
I’ve lost so much interest that I'm even contemplating not finishing the side quest. Granted, you’re on a much higher lever than I am, but I’m really losing interest and it really seems like they don’t care at this point.
I’ve said this before but it’s a shame that it was only when a big content creator like Seatin decided to step away (the first time) is when Kabam’s attention was caught. With Seatin out, how can we hope the developer to listen to us?
- this Seatin portion is my opinion of course
I'm not on the edge but I'm close and I haven't been this close ever to just uninstalling and finding something else Marvel to play.
There is also a lots of vacancies on the official website.
Just out of curiosity, what If Kabam run 2 big spending events, let people spend whatever they spend, and in the New Year just shut the game, finish, end.
I'm not saying that is what going to happen, and don't imagine it would happen like that, but in theory it can. What we spend on the game is for now, there is nothing when we spend that say it will guarantee us gameplay for another 6 months, 2 years...whatever it maybe.
It is not like in the old day where we got hard copy of the game for offline playing. Anyone want to play Everquest?
Again, I'm saying any of this will happen, just a thought, a scary thought