**WINTER OF WOE - BONUS OBJECTIVE POINT**
As previously announced, the team will be distributing an additional point toward milestones to anyone who completed the Absorbing Man fight in the first step of the Winter of Woe.
This point will be distributed at a later time as it requires the team to pull and analyze data.
The timeline has not been set, but work has started.
There is currently an issue where some Alliances are are unable to find a match in Alliance Wars, or are receiving Byes without getting the benefits of the Win. We will be adjusting the Season Points of the Alliances that are affected within the coming weeks, and will be working to compensate them for their missed Per War rewards as well.

Additionally, we are working to address an issue where new Members of an Alliance are unable to place Defenders for the next War after joining. We are working to address this, but it will require a future update.

The recent direction of content design and the game in general

135

Comments

  • AverageDesiAverageDesi Posts: 5,260 ★★★★★

    DNA3000 said:

    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?
    .
    How does challenger rating reduce crit chance?
  • naikavonnaikavon Posts: 297 ★★★
    Op couldn't agree more. I've mentioned it in previous posts, annoying fights have become far too much of the norm.

    The funny thing here is I've long been a hater of war in its current incarnation. It's just never struck a cord with me. Anyway, it is now my favorite game mode. I was quite surprised when this revelation came upon me.

    So I examined why that might be. How can a mode I think falls so short, now be the best? It's not like aw has somehow drastically improved... it hasn't. The rest of the genre has FALLEN that far. So why?The answer, for me, was simple. The fights are generally challenging ( other than the lame potions tax... like seriously) and brief.

    That last part is particularly important for me it seems. Every fight length has been artificially lengthened... just to do it. This is incredibly frustrating to me. It's not difficult, but it ain't fun.

    Meanwhile, aw has been providing me with challenging fights at, what I consider appropriate length. The side quest is a great examine. Jacked up health pools just to lengthen the fights....becuase. That's boring, creatively blank game design imo and nothing about 7.4 alleviated my concerns
  • MoosetiptronicMoosetiptronic Posts: 2,073 ★★★★

    DNA3000 said:

    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?
    .
    How does challenger rating reduce crit chance?
    When you open up the stats of a character, where it shows crit rate, armour, block penetration etc, those percentages are against a rank 5 4 star, or challenge rating 100.

    A 5/65 six star has challenge rating of 150 (a 3/45 has 130). The lower the challenge rating of your attacker, the lower your crit rate and associated damage. It's a huge increase in challenge rating.
  • Gregdagr8Gregdagr8 Posts: 380 ★★★
    Couldn't agree with the op more. I literally shared this post with my Ally leads and said "this is exactly how I feel right now". I timed out 5 times in the first two days of map 8 on path 2 in section one. That path is absolute garbage. Any path that says "you have a 0% chance to clear this path at full health, no matter how skilled you are" should be removed.
  • WorknprogressWorknprogress Posts: 7,233 ★★★★★
    naikavon said:

    Op couldn't agree more. I've mentioned it in previous posts, annoying fights have become far too much of the norm.

    The funny thing here is I've long been a hater of war in its current incarnation. It's just never struck a cord with me. Anyway, it is now my favorite game mode. I was quite surprised when this revelation came upon me.

    So I examined why that might be. How can a mode I think falls so short, now be the best? It's not like aw has somehow drastically improved... it hasn't. The rest of the genre has FALLEN that far. So why?The answer, for me, was simple. The fights are generally challenging ( other than the lame potions tax... like seriously) and brief.

    That last part is particularly important for me it seems. Every fight length has been artificially lengthened... just to do it. This is incredibly frustrating to me. It's not difficult, but it ain't fun.

    Meanwhile, aw has been providing me with challenging fights at, what I consider appropriate length. The side quest is a great examine. Jacked up health pools just to lengthen the fights....becuase. That's boring, creatively blank game design imo and nothing about 7.4 alleviated my concerns

    War was pretty much all that was keeping me interested prior this late spattering of overly annoying content. As you said, it's challenging but far from tedious. With the introduction of map 8 and my alliance's insistence on continuing with it (which I don't hold against them in the slightest), that option is no longer available to me so here I am for the foreseeable future.
  • TheTalentsTheTalents Posts: 2,254 ★★★★★




    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.

    Wow I know we had our back and forth's but I couldn't agree with this post more. Map 8 passive AI and damage reduction is definitely taking my fun away as well. I appreciate you making a stand.
  • DNA3000 said:

    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.)
    All true, but when you said "25% reduction" that sounded like a common misunderstanding of how challenge rating works. Higher defender CR will lower your DR-affected stats and it can scale up the defenders damage mitigation somewhat, but all of this would probably amount to single digit reductions in damage output for the most part and different for different attacker/defender combinations.
  • TheTalentsTheTalents Posts: 2,254 ★★★★★

    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.

    I have no excitement to receive my first R4 either. It will likely be surfer for prestige purposes but even if I had Doom it wouldn't be fun because the node stop you from feeling the impact of increased damage in most game modes that are end game.
  • ImranImran Posts: 587 ★★★
    That's why I left competitive alliance and relaxing in a lad back alliance. This game in high tier, too much punishing, not so fun anymore.
  • StevieManWonderStevieManWonder Posts: 5,017 ★★★★★

    thepiggy said:

    The worst is getting ripped off by bad or shady AI and bad inputs.

    You're trying to bait a special 6 times in a row and they're still not throwing it and you get cornered or sp3'd.

    You try and dex but parry instead.

    You get a mix of passive and aggressive AI that stutters and spazzes out at the worst times and ends up catching you while you dash back.

    Or you dex with certain sized champions and the spacing isn't large enough and the AI follows up with another attack.

    Then you always dash back TWICE so you don't get hit with a follow-up but you end up getting cornered because the AI decides not to give you space or throw a special.

    And inputs are so broken that you can't tell if it's the game or you're playing bad. I mean, I know how to dex, been doing it fine for years, why is it an issue now?

    I know these things are probably bugs and bad systems but I can't help but think some if it's on purpose too. "Let them struggle baiting specials or landing attacks in time sensitive situations like in power gain or damage reduction nodes".

    Test this out. Use anyone but Ghost in a fight and stand there at the start with your block open and see how the AI reacts. They punch you 90%+ of the time. Now use Ghost and see what happens. AI suddenly gets passive, dashes back or comes in at the last second, and or they just wait out the phase entirely. I'm not against them tuning things but it feels so petty.

    The AI being passive is completely intentional, I don't think that is up for debate. The worst part of what they're doing is cheap at best. Passive AI, plus power gain, equals timeouts or you getting cornered even if you play it right. The game is far too reliant on baiting and throwing specials for that to be held against that. All AI should be aggressive outside of specific fights niche fights.

    Let me throw something out there that hasn't been said that can help with the difficulty we been looking for that hasn't been experimented yet. Why don't you create mechanics that are actually challenging to learn but doable like dodging Apocalypse's specials. Hard doesn't always have to equal stacked nodes with 5 to 10 total counters. We already explained a couple years ago that it isn't fun.

    I had to break out quake for map 8 just to be ultra safe to avoid item usage due to the weird mechanics and I'm almost timing out in 3 mins with less than 200k health. The artificial nerf damage has got to stop.
    Oof, hate to see Quake being used
  • TheTalentsTheTalents Posts: 2,254 ★★★★★

    thepiggy said:

    The worst is getting ripped off by bad or shady AI and bad inputs.

    You're trying to bait a special 6 times in a row and they're still not throwing it and you get cornered or sp3'd.

    You try and dex but parry instead.

    You get a mix of passive and aggressive AI that stutters and spazzes out at the worst times and ends up catching you while you dash back.

    Or you dex with certain sized champions and the spacing isn't large enough and the AI follows up with another attack.

    Then you always dash back TWICE so you don't get hit with a follow-up but you end up getting cornered because the AI decides not to give you space or throw a special.

    And inputs are so broken that you can't tell if it's the game or you're playing bad. I mean, I know how to dex, been doing it fine for years, why is it an issue now?

    I know these things are probably bugs and bad systems but I can't help but think some if it's on purpose too. "Let them struggle baiting specials or landing attacks in time sensitive situations like in power gain or damage reduction nodes".

    Test this out. Use anyone but Ghost in a fight and stand there at the start with your block open and see how the AI reacts. They punch you 90%+ of the time. Now use Ghost and see what happens. AI suddenly gets passive, dashes back or comes in at the last second, and or they just wait out the phase entirely. I'm not against them tuning things but it feels so petty.

    The AI being passive is completely intentional, I don't think that is up for debate. The worst part of what they're doing is cheap at best. Passive AI, plus power gain, equals timeouts or you getting cornered even if you play it right. The game is far too reliant on baiting and throwing specials for that to be held against that. All AI should be aggressive outside of specific fights niche fights.

    Let me throw something out there that hasn't been said that can help with the difficulty we been looking for that hasn't been experimented yet. Why don't you create mechanics that are actually challenging to learn but doable like dodging Apocalypse's specials. Hard doesn't always have to equal stacked nodes with 5 to 10 total counters. We already explained a couple years ago that it isn't fun.

    I had to break out quake for map 8 just to be ultra safe to avoid item usage due to the weird mechanics and I'm almost timing out in 3 mins with less than 200k health. The artificial nerf damage has got to stop.
    Oof, hate to see Quake being used
    Yeah I thought I was done with her but with my bath any two of the same basic attacks you go unblockable. I could do it with Fury and others but why risk it?
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