I'm blown away by how well the majority of these posts are written. So much more refreshing than seeing people beg for rank down tickets or screaming obscenities about how awful the game is.
Bottom line is kabam really needs to listen to to their player base. I know they tailor most content to the whales but a mass exodus because of poor content design has to impact them just as much as losing the whales that just buy their way through the game.
I haven't heard 1 person say they completely enjoy the game as it sits... That should be taken very seriously by the developers. The top players are complaining that new content is too hard, enough said.
I agree fully. Came to a similar conclusion a while back. Stepped down and now enjoy semi retirement. We do map 2 AQ and one BG war. The latter is fun. AQ is horrible, even on map 2. Fights take forever due to passive AI. Timed out with a rank 3 Hercules against a Beast mini this morning. On Map 2! Variant 8 is way too restrictive. 7.3 was killed by Paradox (yes, I explored it fully, as I have all other content) and if 7.4 has more of that, skip. Arena is, well, arena. No fun at all. Side quests are meh (you need to bring a useless three star at the highest difficulty, because why not?) and parry/dex issues kill the rest. Oh, add in AI that suddenly does stuff it never could, making every fight significantly riskier, and longer. And presto: no fun left.
Sorry to see you step back WnP. I know we dont usually have common ground, but i enjoy your opinions, and i know we all want this game to do well. Unfortunately it seems to be testing patience at every turn lately.
To be fair to Kabam, a vocal set of end game players had 2 main complaints in the past (per forum posts): 1) Content was too easy 2) Champ progress was too fast. (i.e. the outcry when 6* were released)
It appears that Kabam listened.
Annoying doesn't equate to difficult.
What content have you considered “difficult” but enjoyed?
To be fair to Kabam, a vocal set of end game players had 2 main complaints in the past (per forum posts): 1) Content was too easy 2) Champ progress was too fast. (i.e. the outcry when 6* were released)
It appears that Kabam listened.
Annoying doesn't equate to difficult.
What content have you considered “difficult” but enjoyed?
Summer of Pain and the Grandmaster's Guantlet we're excellent. Some of the non Paradox parts of 7.3, including most of the bosses, and definitely Kang were fun though I don't consider most of Act 7 difficult really. I enjoy alliance war even though High Ground is a joke of a defensive tactic and is basically just a potion tax.
Having tiny little windows to do damage in timed fights with a passive AI that will just wait until the window closes isn't fun or interesting. It's just annoying.
I feel what this game needs now the most are new masteries (remove costs), new game mode with good rewards and look back on contents released and how the community as a whole enjoyed it. Compensation packages won't do any good only to stall time. Reduce rank up costs along all tiers so people can rank up fun champions and enjoy the game not limiting rank up resources to only God tiers because of scarcity of them.#my opinion#
Side EQ has been awful and boring for months. 7.3 has been just plain annoying with the paradox ****. It makes every fight into a drag and most times you're better off ignoring it. Every node is either insane power gain, unblockable, or damage reduction. One or two paths of these ok fine, but it seems like every map has this stuff.
I got so demotivated by 7.3 that I didn't even touch v8 day 1 and I usually start most new content day 1. I got 7 paths left in 7.3 and most of them are paradox stuff. Briefly checked out 7.4 beta and saw there was more paradox stuff and I left the beta. I didn't even bother playing it.
Control issues has not been fixed and it has been MONTHS now. No content is actually bug tested it seems. AQ has gone completely whack, v8 launch was a disaster. The most obvious things they don't seem to check and their only excuse is "we are busy fixing control issues". What are they actually doing? Most of the roadmap stuff promised has never actually come into existence. War was going to be "transformed" and its the same dreadful boring stuff that it has always been.
To be fair to Kabam, a vocal set of end game players had 2 main complaints in the past (per forum posts): 1) Content was too easy 2) Champ progress was too fast. (i.e. the outcry when 6* were released)
It appears that Kabam listened.
Annoying doesn't equate to difficult.
What content have you considered “difficult” but enjoyed?
Summer of Pain and the Grandmaster's Guantlet we're excellent. Some of the non Paradox parts of 7.3, including most of the bosses, and definitely Kang were fun though I don't consider most of Act 7 difficult really. I enjoy alliance war even though High Ground is a joke of a defensive tactic and is basically just a potion tax.
Having tiny little windows to do damage in timed fights with a passive AI that will just wait until the window closes isn't fun or interesting. It's just annoying.
What constitutes “difficult” and “fun” content for you?
A lot of long time players are on the fence. I'm one of them. The game has been spiraling downwards all year. Horrible content, so many gameplay issues, terrible offers, not sure why I continue either. But the amount I play is lowest ever. No AW, map 5 alliance. That's basically it. I'll run through Cav EQ, but skipped doing that a couple times too. Side quests, nope. What's the point?
To be fair to Kabam, a vocal set of end game players had 2 main complaints in the past (per forum posts): 1) Content was too easy 2) Champ progress was too fast. (i.e. the outcry when 6* were released)
It appears that Kabam listened.
Annoying doesn't equate to difficult.
What content have you considered “difficult” but enjoyed?
Summer of Pain and the Grandmaster's Guantlet we're excellent. Some of the non Paradox parts of 7.3, including most of the bosses, and definitely Kang were fun though I don't consider most of Act 7 difficult really. I enjoy alliance war even though High Ground is a joke of a defensive tactic and is basically just a potion tax.
Having tiny little windows to do damage in timed fights with a passive AI that will just wait until the window closes isn't fun or interesting. It's just annoying.
What constitutes “difficult” and “fun” content for you?
I'm fine with fights that make you choose non standard options or change playstyles but when windows get shrunk down to tiny windows that rely on absolute AI cooperation or massively punish accidental inputs when the entire input timing system doesn't actually work, it's not fun or interesting.
Having to rely on the AI doing things as simple as attacking or using a special when they should only to have a damage window slam shut when they don't or spending 75% of a fight doing basically no damage at all (the Pull/Flux dispersal shared fights in map 8 have two separate damage reductions in a fight that's timed to 3min) gets old incredibly fast.
I'm horrendous at remembering specific paths/fights so I don't have lists of examples of things I enjoyed besides the Guantlet and SoP, but they've made good content in the past. I just have no interest in dealing with this current trend of adding "difficulty".
To be fair to Kabam, a vocal set of end game players had 2 main complaints in the past (per forum posts): 1) Content was too easy 2) Champ progress was too fast. (i.e. the outcry when 6* were released)
It appears that Kabam listened.
Annoying doesn't equate to difficult.
What content have you considered “difficult” but enjoyed?
Summer of Pain and the Grandmaster's Guantlet we're excellent. Some of the non Paradox parts of 7.3, including most of the bosses, and definitely Kang were fun though I don't consider most of Act 7 difficult really. I enjoy alliance war even though High Ground is a joke of a defensive tactic and is basically just a potion tax.
Having tiny little windows to do damage in timed fights with a passive AI that will just wait until the window closes isn't fun or interesting. It's just annoying.
What constitutes “difficult” and “fun” content for you?
I'm fine with fights that make you choose non standard options or change playstyles but when windows get shrunk down to tiny windows that rely on absolute AI cooperation or massively punish accidental inputs when the entire input timing system doesn't actually work, it's not fun or interesting.
Having to rely on the AI doing things as simple as attacking or using a special when they should only to have a damage window slam shut when they don't or spending 75% of a fight doing basically no damage at all (the Pull/Flux dispersal shared fights in map 8 have two separate damage reductions in a fight that's timed to 3min) gets old incredibly fast.
I'm horrendous at remembering specific paths/fights so I don't have lists of examples of things I enjoyed besides the Guantlet and SoP, but they've made good content in the past. I just have no interest in dealing with this current trend of adding "difficulty".
This is especially vexing recently (past 24 hours) - so counterintuitive in addition to the 3 min timer. I cannot wait to see how it goes with mods added...
OP accurately echoes everything I have been feeling.
I am a handful of t3a away from a r4, could have gotten there anytime kabam ran the recent t3a deals but it feels pointless.. the health and attack differences are very low between R3 and r4..
I also don't understand the recent obsession with power gain nodes in content and so much restriction in using basic gameplay mechanics in 7.3 like parry, dex etc..
I ran the first quest in 7.4 beta and quit out as I had no wish to put myself through playing the same paradox nodes again when it eventually goes live.
To top it all the AI is now "smarter" and hold specials longer, intercepts like a pro and recovery and dodges back super quick once knocked down.
I know I won't be spending too much $$$$ if any come Friday and I will prob be gone for good if things don't start getting better soon.
@Worknprogress it is just not going to feel right overtaking your account now. I mean, it’s still going to feel wonderful, don’t get me wrong, but just not going to be the same kind of wonderful.
I get it though. I wouldn’t say all the recent content has been horrible, but a lot of it has been less interesting and more punishing. I don’t think it is a simple matter of just “making it more fun” but I can’t disagree with the notion that the balance of it is off.
I’m not where you are now, but that could just be because I’m not where you are now. I don’t push high tier war, or high map AQ. Most of the challenge (and the fun) in the game is on my own terms. And I hope you’ll find the step back gives you the opportunity to find your own answers.
@Worknprogress it is just not going to feel right overtaking your account now. I mean, it’s still going to feel wonderful, don’t get me wrong, but just not going to be the same kind of wonderful.
I get it though. I wouldn’t say all the recent content has been horrible, but a lot of it has been less interesting and more punishing. I don’t think it is a simple matter of just “making it more fun” but I can’t disagree with the notion that the balance of it is off.
I’m not where you are now, but that could just be because I’m not where you are now. I don’t push high tier war, or high map AQ. Most of the challenge (and the fun) in the game is on my own terms. And I hope you’ll find the step back gives you the opportunity to find your own answers.
You're definitely not wrong that everything hasn't been terrible. The Kang fight in 7.3 was another brilliant example of a fight done well in particular. They seem to be far more dialed in on being able to make single fights than paths it seems. Most of the boss fights in 7.3 were fine as well.
This post was meant to be far from slating everything done recently as being awful but moreso my opinion on general content design as of late. I'm actually champing at the bit for the solo competitive mode to go live and it's basically the sole reason I didn't come out and say I was done completely.
As of yet I still have no intention of completely hanging it up but I'm more concerned now than I have been at any other point in time while playing the game. Kabam has smart people employed so I certainly haven't lost all hope but I did feel the need to voice how I felt about recent game direction even though I don't expect anyone at Kabam or certainly not any other players to particularly care.
So for now we'll see how things go but depending on when the solo competitive mode goes live and how well it's received, we'll see how much of a gap you get to close until then 😂
I know we’ve had our differences in the past, but I’m sad to see you go. Another player with vast knowledge and skills gone.
But I’ve got to agree with, honestly, all of your points. The game, and particularly recent content, just has not been up to standard. Overall I think the devs have made a number of amazing improvements since the last rough spot, I don’t want to take that away from them.
However, your points on 7.4 and V8 rang particularly true. I often found that the fights were not challenging or fun, they only served to irritate me. Paradox particularly got on my nerves. It wasn’t tricky to handle, it just slowed down the pace of the fight to a crawl
I’m interested to see what’s on their roadmap next month, but considering how many items on previous ones are yet to come to fruition, I’m sceptical how much goodwill it can realistically garner.
I hope the game can find its way again. 7.4 looks like a continuation of 7.3 unfortunately, but hopefully we see more of the likes of Summer of Pain and Grandmasters Gauntlet.
And can we please see better SQ design. I don’t mind this month but parts of it are overtuned for a group of Cav players, which is ultimately what it’s targeted towards.
What we happened to the trials side quest? Trials of the king is still my favourite SQ to date
As for those mentioning not being overly rushed to take a champ up to R4: I agree. I am not hyped about that myself. At all. If I can (and I’m close), I probably will, but bar the prestige boost if you take, say, Doom up, it seems inconsequential. And being in a semi-retired alliance, prestige is the least of my worries. With much of the contest becoming more restrictive again – either because of specific champ requirements, like in V8, and/or because damage output is forbidden by fun and interactive nodes – the bump doesn’t have much real life consequences.
Sure, if I took up BWCV to rank 4, I might not time out to an AQ map 2 (!) Beast mini, like I did again today – a whopping 150 hits in – with my R3. However, I rather doubt that’s the right incentive. Also, even a rank 4 champ won’t clear content that (I don’t imply malice aforethought) seems to specifically play into the myriad of bugs players experience. Such as fights where you have to intercept/parry to be able to clear corresponding prompts. I dunno. If solo competitive doesn’t spice thing up, I can’t see myself playing this time next year. Let alone spending.
@Worknprogress it is just not going to feel right overtaking your account now. I mean, it’s still going to feel wonderful, don’t get me wrong, but just not going to be the same kind of wonderful.
I get it though. I wouldn’t say all the recent content has been horrible, but a lot of it has been less interesting and more punishing. I don’t think it is a simple matter of just “making it more fun” but I can’t disagree with the notion that the balance of it is off.
I’m not where you are now, but that could just be because I’m not where you are now. I don’t push high tier war, or high map AQ. Most of the challenge (and the fun) in the game is on my own terms. And I hope you’ll find the step back gives you the opportunity to find your own answers.
You're definitely not wrong that everything hasn't been terrible. The Kang fight in 7.3 was another brilliant example of a fight done well in particular. They seem to be far more dialed in on being able to make single fights than paths it seems. Most of the boss fights in 7.3 were fine as well.
This post was meant to be far from slating everything done recently as being awful but moreso my opinion on general content design as of late. I'm actually champing at the bit for the solo competitive mode to go live and it's basically the sole reason I didn't come out and say I was done completely.
As of yet I still have no intention of completely hanging it up but I'm more concerned now than I have been at any other point in time while playing the game. Kabam has smart people employed so I certainly haven't lost all hope but I did feel the need to voice how I felt about recent game direction even though I don't expect anyone at Kabam or certainly not any other players to particularly care.
So for now we'll see how things go but depending on when the solo competitive mode goes live and how well it's received, we'll see how much of a gap you get to close until then 😂
"you almost had me? You never had me - you never had your car..."
On point, I run a semi retirement alliance; nearly all TBs, 2 bgs g2 and 2 map 5, 1 map 4.
Everytime we bounce into tier 5 or 4 war, everyone gets despondent.
Map 5 was fun until this week and then hello 340k health, 20k attack torch, with 15% Regen buffet on day 3 and all named champion defenders 5/65 6* so taking 25% damage reduction sure to Challenger rating. So now I have Alli chat filled with grumbles again and a bunch of 11k to 12.5k prestige people wondering if it all is worth it anymore.
No one minds a serious challenge once a month, but the whole game is becoming a slog, even for alliances who have specifically tried to take it easier.
Map 5 was fun until this week and then hello 340k health, 20k attack torch, with 15% Regen buffet on day 3 and all named champion defenders 5/65 6* so taking 25% damage reduction sure to Challenger rating. So now I have Alli chat filled with grumbles again and a bunch of 11k to 12.5k prestige people wondering if it all is worth it anymore.
Not sure what you mean here: challenge rating doesn’t directly reduce your damage.
Torch is getting … interesting on Map 5 though. I’ve taken all of them so far, and while it is within my skill and roster limits (barely), I suspect weaker players are cursing the heck out of that guy, and probably wondering what’s even killing them (my guess, going nova super quick and removing all your block in the process is something most haven’t seen in-game before).
Map 5 was fun until this week and then hello 340k health, 20k attack torch, with 15% Regen buffet on day 3 and all named champion defenders 5/65 6* so taking 25% damage reduction sure to Challenger rating. So now I have Alli chat filled with grumbles again and a bunch of 11k to 12.5k prestige people wondering if it all is worth it anymore.
Not sure what you mean here: challenge rating doesn’t directly reduce your damage.
Torch is getting … interesting on Map 5 though. I’ve taken all of them so far, and while it is within my skill and roster limits (barely), I suspect weaker players are cursing the heck out of that guy, and probably wondering what’s even killing them (my guess, going nova super quick and removing all your block in the process is something most haven’t seen in-game before).
(Challenge rating reduces your chance to crit and a 5/65 six star defenders, means a 5/65 five star attacker crits less. Add to that a 5/65 six star has more armour and yes, damage reduces. So does challenge rating directly reduce damage? No....
But... Fighting a 5/65 six star, compared to a 5/65 five star, does reduce damage output of your attacker.)
Agreed on torch. It's not that it's just not fun.... We don't run map 5 as a bunch of people with average prestige of 11k, to have a serious challenge, that needs specific counters from a number of players as a just in case.
War does that. To a degree EQ does that if you are doing a section of it, or SQ.
Kabam so badly misreading the room on AQ and why 99.9% of players play it and hugely cranking up the labouriousness of it all, just rang true to WnP's post.
Comments
Bottom line is kabam really needs to listen to to their player base. I know they tailor most content to the whales but a mass exodus because of poor content design has to impact them just as much as losing the whales that just buy their way through the game.
I haven't heard 1 person say they completely enjoy the game as it sits... That should be taken very seriously by the developers. The top players are complaining that new content is too hard, enough said.
Thank you all again for the well-written posts.
I fully agree
Good luck!
Having tiny little windows to do damage in timed fights with a passive AI that will just wait until the window closes isn't fun or interesting. It's just annoying.
I got so demotivated by 7.3 that I didn't even touch v8 day 1 and I usually start most new content day 1. I got 7 paths left in 7.3 and most of them are paradox stuff. Briefly checked out 7.4 beta and saw there was more paradox stuff and I left the beta. I didn't even bother playing it.
Control issues has not been fixed and it has been MONTHS now. No content is actually bug tested it seems. AQ has gone completely whack, v8 launch was a disaster. The most obvious things they don't seem to check and their only excuse is "we are busy fixing control issues". What are they actually doing? Most of the roadmap stuff promised has never actually come into existence. War was going to be "transformed" and its the same dreadful boring stuff that it has always been.
Having to rely on the AI doing things as simple as attacking or using a special when they should only to have a damage window slam shut when they don't or spending 75% of a fight doing basically no damage at all (the Pull/Flux dispersal shared fights in map 8 have two separate damage reductions in a fight that's timed to 3min) gets old incredibly fast.
I'm horrendous at remembering specific paths/fights so I don't have lists of examples of things I enjoyed besides the Guantlet and SoP, but they've made good content in the past. I just have no interest in dealing with this current trend of adding "difficulty".
I am a handful of t3a away from a r4, could have gotten there anytime kabam ran the recent t3a deals but it feels pointless.. the health and attack differences are very low between R3 and r4..
I also don't understand the recent obsession with power gain nodes in content and so much restriction in using basic gameplay mechanics in 7.3 like parry, dex etc..
I ran the first quest in 7.4 beta and quit out as I had no wish to put myself through playing the same paradox nodes again when it eventually goes live.
To top it all the AI is now "smarter" and hold specials longer, intercepts like a pro and recovery and dodges back super quick once knocked down.
I know I won't be spending too much $$$$ if any come Friday and I will prob be gone for good if things don't start getting better soon.
I get it though. I wouldn’t say all the recent content has been horrible, but a lot of it has been less interesting and more punishing. I don’t think it is a simple matter of just “making it more fun” but I can’t disagree with the notion that the balance of it is off.
I’m not where you are now, but that could just be because I’m not where you are now. I don’t push high tier war, or high map AQ. Most of the challenge (and the fun) in the game is on my own terms. And I hope you’ll find the step back gives you the opportunity to find your own answers.
This post was meant to be far from slating everything done recently as being awful but moreso my opinion on general content design as of late. I'm actually champing at the bit for the solo competitive mode to go live and it's basically the sole reason I didn't come out and say I was done completely.
As of yet I still have no intention of completely hanging it up but I'm more concerned now than I have been at any other point in time while playing the game. Kabam has smart people employed so I certainly haven't lost all hope but I did feel the need to voice how I felt about recent game direction even though I don't expect anyone at Kabam or certainly not any other players to particularly care.
So for now we'll see how things go but depending on when the solo competitive mode goes live and how well it's received, we'll see how much of a gap you get to close until then 😂
But I’ve got to agree with, honestly, all of your points. The game, and particularly recent content, just has not been up to standard. Overall I think the devs have made a number of amazing improvements since the last rough spot, I don’t want to take that away from them.
However, your points on 7.4 and V8 rang particularly true. I often found that the fights were not challenging or fun, they only served to irritate me. Paradox particularly got on my nerves. It wasn’t tricky to handle, it just slowed down the pace of the fight to a crawl
I’m interested to see what’s on their roadmap next month, but considering how many items on previous ones are yet to come to fruition, I’m sceptical how much goodwill it can realistically garner.
I hope the game can find its way again. 7.4 looks like a continuation of 7.3 unfortunately, but hopefully we see more of the likes of Summer of Pain and Grandmasters Gauntlet.
And can we please see better SQ design. I don’t mind this month but parts of it are overtuned for a group of Cav players, which is ultimately what it’s targeted towards.
What we happened to the trials side quest? Trials of the king is still my favourite SQ to date
Sure, if I took up BWCV to rank 4, I might not time out to an AQ map 2 (!) Beast mini, like I did again today – a whopping 150 hits in – with my R3. However, I rather doubt that’s the right incentive. Also, even a rank 4 champ won’t clear content that (I don’t imply malice aforethought) seems to specifically play into the myriad of bugs players experience. Such as fights where you have to intercept/parry to be able to clear corresponding prompts. I dunno. If solo competitive doesn’t spice thing up, I can’t see myself playing this time next year. Let alone spending.
"you almost had me? You never had me - you never had your car..."
On point, I run a semi retirement alliance; nearly all TBs, 2 bgs g2 and 2 map 5, 1 map 4.
Everytime we bounce into tier 5 or 4 war, everyone gets despondent.
Map 5 was fun until this week and then hello 340k health, 20k attack torch, with 15% Regen buffet on day 3 and all named champion defenders 5/65 6* so taking 25% damage reduction sure to Challenger rating. So now I have Alli chat filled with grumbles again and a bunch of 11k to 12.5k prestige people wondering if it all is worth it anymore.
No one minds a serious challenge once a month, but the whole game is becoming a slog, even for alliances who have specifically tried to take it easier.
Torch is getting … interesting on Map 5 though. I’ve taken all of them so far, and while it is within my skill and roster limits (barely), I suspect weaker players are cursing the heck out of that guy, and probably wondering what’s even killing them (my guess, going nova super quick and removing all your block in the process is something most haven’t seen in-game before).
But... Fighting a 5/65 six star, compared to a 5/65 five star, does reduce damage output of your attacker.)
Agreed on torch. It's not that it's just not fun.... We don't run map 5 as a bunch of people with average prestige of 11k, to have a serious challenge, that needs specific counters from a number of players as a just in case.
War does that. To a degree EQ does that if you are doing a section of it, or SQ.
Kabam so badly misreading the room on AQ and why 99.9% of players play it and hugely cranking up the labouriousness of it all, just rang true to WnP's post.