I have been hopping in and out of this thread over the weekend. I’ve had a few thoughts pop up that I’d like to share, feel free to agree or disagree with any part of it.
I feel as though Kabam believes that the next phase of the game requires painful, ultra-challenging content. Players have their r3’s, so now there needs to be content to challenge those rosters. However, not only is that a miscalculation of how players’ rosters actually are, and it straight up isn’t fun. One of the best things the game has had in recent months was “Summer of Pain.” Even though the fights weren’t that bad, I think it is just the pattern Kabam has set for future content, being long and painful.
More grueling challenge, less fun. I really believe this is what they want
My problem with recent content hasn’t had anything to do with the difficulty of any individual or string of fights (setting aside the travesty of V8 on release). Rather, I’ve been thoroughly disliking all of these side objectives that require hundreds of fights.
This month requires 500 arena fights for maximum rewards. For regular arena grinders, that’s no big deal at all. For people like me who despise arena with every fiber of their being, it’s a massive chore. But this objective only gives you some Cavalier fragments, so it’s not the worst offender.
That distinction goes to the September objectives, which gated the entire SQ behind fights that were a chore at any difficulty level. I would far rather have 3 difficult fights in a lane and be done with it than 300 mind-numbing fights.
It’s the objectives that just require time and nothing else that grind my gears. No skill, no thought, no challenge. Just “how many hours can I pour into this.” That’s not fun, that’s work. And I don’t even get to bill for it.
The bad part of the objective is that it gives only cav crystal fragments Which means there is 80% chance that you will get 3*s after 500 arena fights
This game has become a boring grind for me. It feels like the rewards are nerfed because I was actually able to R2 about a dozen 6*’s in a decent amount of time and now, it seems to take forever to get enough T2A or T5B. I’ve noticed that 6* shards seem to be given out in lesser amounts or more sparsely too. I could’ve sworn that I was opening a 6* crystal every 2 weeks or so, a few months ago, but now it just feels like it’s taking longer.
I think things got worse after the Summer of Pain. The difficulty seems to be ramped up while the rewards feel dismal if you don’t play at the highest level. I struggled to complete the latest chapters of this SQ at Epic difficulty, so I’m not even bothering with Legendary, especially since I have to handicap myself with 3* Ikarus & Sersi to proceed.
These monthly Cavalier crystals are ok but you barely get a handful of them over the course of the month, unless you pay for the Daily Specials during the last week. It’s just stingy and chances are, you’ll just get useless 3*’s. If it takes all month to only get 3-5 of these things, then at least make them Legendary.
I don’t grind arenas so this month’s requirement of 500 fights feels like pulling teeth for a R1-R2 5* gem?! R4-R5 gems would be better, at this stage in the game. It hardly seems worth the effort to me for such a low-level reward.
Overall, that’s the general vibe I’ve been feeling, as a casual player… It doesn’t seem worth it to do much more than login and maybe run a path or two on the EQ. New content doesn’t excite me because it’s generally too difficult for me to play. After playing this game every day for 4+ years, it sucks to see my best champs wiped out like nothing if I don’t play like a competitive gamer. I recently saw my R2 6* duped White Widow get one-shotted by a Level 2 special. Instant 90% damage and killed in only 3 hits…On Epic difficulty?! I’m not even playing endgame content and this is NOT fun!
If we hadn't seen what the Devs can do when they get it right, we'd most likely not be having this kind of discussion. There have been some genuinely great events in mcoc - boss rushes where you actually have to think about counters rather than just go with the meta and the thanos event where different avengers were buffed by different infinity stones (that hulk was the best hulk😭) spring to mind.
What we've seen this year just seems lazy in comparison. The symbiote event was fun, but the amount of work we had to do just to take part was unnecessary to the point of feeling almost punitive.
Combined with the myriad bugs, inconsistent champion reworks, a swing back towards narrow node counters, stultifying alliance modes and sporadic communication from kabam it's come down - for the most part - to a sense of duty to your alliance more than any sort of enjoyment or excitement for tackling new content. If that's the only reason for longer term players to log on then the entire end-game community is on a shoogly peg.
I'm one of the ones that left my alliance. I was only hanging around because I had built relationships with them. But ultimately, the game was just too stressful, not fun, and too time consuming.
When you add in all the increased difficulties and effort with diminished rewards, also coupled with the likely odds of getting champs and resources that aren't even useful once get your hard earned crystals just sucks the life out of you.
Walking away from the alliance mode was the best decision I could have made. The good news is that I can still communicate with the alliance members through other messaging apps, so the relationships are not lost.
I was just going to focus on SQ, EQ, and story mode. But now with the increased difficulty, I don't even want to do that. I only log on now to keep my calendar streak going but I don't have a desire to actually play. It's a sad case, and unfortunately I will walk away altogether unless something changes for the better.
My suggestions to Kabam to keep players like me around:
Reward us for effort. If we have to jump through all of these hoops and challenges to complete content, make the rewards worth it. If you aren't going to change the rewards, reduce the difficulty and requirements back to what they were.
Because there hasn't been any communication, we can only assume that things have changed to appease the end-game players. However, not all of us look forward to extremely difficult and time consuming content where your top champs will die from one mistake against an incredibly stingy and opportunistic AI. Some of just want to aquire, rank up, and smash with our favorite champs. Life is already hard enough as is; we are not looking for a game that causes us frustration only to lose. For those end-gamers that want all of that, make a separate mode just for them, but communicate that it is only intended for them. Name it "Impossible mode" or something, but give the rest of us the chance to continue to progress without all the unnecessary hassle.
I'm one of the ones that left my alliance. I was only hanging around because I had built relationships with them. But ultimately, the game was just too stressful, not fun, and too time consuming.
When you add in all the increased difficulties and effort with diminished rewards, also coupled with the likely odds of getting champs and resources that aren't even useful once get your hard earned crystals just sucks the life out of you.
Walking away from the alliance mode was the best decision I could have made. The good news is that I can still communicate with the alliance members through other messaging apps, so the relationships are not lost.
I was just going to focus on SQ, EQ, and story mode. But now with the increased difficulty, I don't even want to do that. I only log on now to keep my calendar streak going but I don't have a desire to actually play. It's a sad case, and unfortunately I will walk away altogether unless something changes for the better.
My suggestions to Kabam to keep players like me around:
Reward us for effort. If we have to jump through all of these hoops and challenges to complete content, make the rewards worth it. If you aren't going to change the rewards, reduce the difficulty and requirements back to what they were.
Because there hasn't been any communication, we can only assume that things have changed to appease the end-game players. However, not all of us look forward to extremely difficult and time consuming content where your top champs will die from one mistake against an incredibly stingy and opportunistic AI. Some of just want to aquire, rank up, and smash with our favorite champs. Life is already hard enough as is; we are not looking for a game that causes us frustration only to lose. For those end-gamers that want all of that, make a separate mode just for them, but communicate that it is only intended for them. Name it "Impossible mode" or something, but give the rest of us the chance to continue to progress without all the unnecessary hassle.
I agree on the crazy hard content. Use objectives like the Carina Challenge to challenge the players that want super hard content without punishing the people who play the game to have fun. I don’t want stress, I get plenty of that in real life.
The game hasn’t been fun for a few months now. Aside from being totally broken control wise. They have used this time to increase difficulty across the board.
Comments
Which means there is 80% chance that you will get 3*s after 500 arena fights
I think things got worse after the Summer of Pain. The difficulty seems to be ramped up while the rewards feel dismal if you don’t play at the highest level. I struggled to complete the latest chapters of this SQ at Epic difficulty, so I’m not even bothering with Legendary, especially since I have to handicap myself with 3* Ikarus & Sersi to proceed.
These monthly Cavalier crystals are ok but you barely get a handful of them over the course of the month, unless you pay for the Daily Specials during the last week. It’s just stingy and chances are, you’ll just get useless 3*’s. If it takes all month to only get 3-5 of these things, then at least make them Legendary.
I don’t grind arenas so this month’s requirement of 500 fights feels like pulling teeth for a R1-R2 5* gem?! R4-R5 gems would be better, at this stage in the game. It hardly seems worth the effort to me for such a low-level reward.
Overall, that’s the general vibe I’ve been feeling, as a casual player… It doesn’t seem worth it to do much more than login and maybe run a path or two on the EQ. New content doesn’t excite me because it’s generally too difficult for me to play. After playing this game every day for 4+ years, it sucks to see my best champs wiped out like nothing if I don’t play like a competitive gamer. I recently saw my R2 6* duped White Widow get one-shotted by a Level 2 special. Instant 90% damage and killed in only 3 hits…On Epic difficulty?! I’m not even playing endgame content and this is NOT fun!
What we've seen this year just seems lazy in comparison. The symbiote event was fun, but the amount of work we had to do just to take part was unnecessary to the point of feeling almost punitive.
Combined with the myriad bugs, inconsistent champion reworks, a swing back towards narrow node counters, stultifying alliance modes and sporadic communication from kabam it's come down - for the most part - to a sense of duty to your alliance more than any sort of enjoyment or excitement for tackling new content. If that's the only reason for longer term players to log on then the entire end-game community is on a shoogly peg.
When you add in all the increased difficulties and effort with diminished rewards, also coupled with the likely odds of getting champs and resources that aren't even useful once get your hard earned crystals just sucks the life out of you.
Walking away from the alliance mode was the best decision I could have made. The good news is that I can still communicate with the alliance members through other messaging apps, so the relationships are not lost.
I was just going to focus on SQ, EQ, and story mode. But now with the increased difficulty, I don't even want to do that. I only log on now to keep my calendar streak going but I don't have a desire to actually play. It's a sad case, and unfortunately I will walk away altogether unless something changes for the better.
My suggestions to Kabam to keep players like me around:
Reward us for effort. If we have to jump through all of these hoops and challenges to complete content, make the rewards worth it. If you aren't going to change the rewards, reduce the difficulty and requirements back to what they were.
Because there hasn't been any communication, we can only assume that things have changed to appease the end-game players. However, not all of us look forward to extremely difficult and time consuming content where your top champs will die from one mistake against an incredibly stingy and opportunistic AI. Some of just want to aquire, rank up, and smash with our favorite champs. Life is already hard enough as is; we are not looking for a game that causes us frustration only to lose. For those end-gamers that want all of that, make a separate mode just for them, but communicate that it is only intended for them. Name it "Impossible mode" or something, but give the rest of us the chance to continue to progress without all the unnecessary hassle.
Who would have thought I’d play a fighting game in the style of some 2D fighting games I grew up with using Marvel characters I love.
I know there are bugs, but I’m confident we’ll get through this.
Just please buff Captain America
That is all