**UPDATES TO ENLISTMENT GIFTING EVENT:**
To prevent exploitation, we will prevent new Accounts from being able to Gift enlistment crystals. We will also be taking action on those who are using 3rd Party Sellers, Bots and other farms to gift themselves mass amounts of Enlistment Crystals. Lastly, we will be adding an expiration timer to Enlistment Crystals. All unopened Enlistment Crystals will expire on Oct 18 @ 17:00 UTC. For more information, please see this post: https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/346104/updates-to-enlistment-gifting-event
To prevent exploitation, we will prevent new Accounts from being able to Gift enlistment crystals. We will also be taking action on those who are using 3rd Party Sellers, Bots and other farms to gift themselves mass amounts of Enlistment Crystals. Lastly, we will be adding an expiration timer to Enlistment Crystals. All unopened Enlistment Crystals will expire on Oct 18 @ 17:00 UTC. For more information, please see this post: https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/346104/updates-to-enlistment-gifting-event
Comments
However, I think it's important that Cav players keep something in mind. Veteran players were once in the same position that you are. For example, when Uncollected EQ first came out (release of MODOK as a character) I found it quite difficult at the time, for me personally anyway. And was faced with the decision to either only do initial completion or to use many items if I wanted the rewards for full exploration. So, believe it or not, most of us do actually know what it feels like. We've all been there at some point or another. Growing our experience and rosters is what allowed us to eventually claim the rewards at low or no cost.
But, I think part of the root issue is that too many players are being grouped into the same difficulty. We need a TB version and/or a new title. So Cav can be tuned for Cav and TB for TB/TB+, etc.
But for the time being, hopefully Kabam takes everyone's feedback and works on a solution for all. And in the mean time, if anyone is struggling with the current version, please don't hesitate to ask veteran players for advice. It's what we did, before we were veterans players.
For a lot of the quests this month, I just built a team ignoring the tags, and had no issues. When I did have champions ranked that matched the tags, I would bring them and enjoy the boost.
I think in the past, CEQ restricted you to only the class champions, and made others unplayable for the paths at least. As a relatively new Thronebreaker, this made some quests really easy, but others very difficult.
So, while less people be may able to enjoy the benefits of the nodes, I believe that more will be able to get through and explore CEQ by using their normal go-to champions.
I don't feel that the difficulty has increased. The missions are perfect to be able to complete them with 5 * r4 even 4 * r5.
The last EQs was boring to me.
The tags get boosted... But there is no punish for not using as opposed as the class one...
This is actually better!!!
U can do a longer fight with your top champ that cant counter the node without buffs.. or u can do it with a tagged chamo WITH buffs.
Class benefits give you far more options and makes sense in my opinion. Now if you raised the rewards I would have 0 complaints because overall it was fun but for these rewards its not worth the effort.
I hate having to do so much research and planning when if they had implemented it well -- for example, a filter for the relevant champs -- it could be interesting. I've skipped it so far; as you said, I'm demotivated.
I feel Kabam missed the mark, but can fix it. The pools need to be bigger, we’ve gone from about 35 available champs per quest with the class tags, but these tags have about 20-25 per quest. Not to mention the quality of some of the tags are downright awful, champs that’s you’re not going to rank up unless you lose a bet.
These pools of champions absolutely need to be increased, and not just to the same as classes, but more. People tend to rank up champions based on classes. “Oh my skill class is weak, better rank up this champ”. Nobody ever said, oh wow, I don’t have many A-Force champs ranked up, better fill up this gap in my roster. Most rosters have a fairly even split throughout classes. To accommodate that fact, I’d say the tags should cover around 40-45 champions, to increase the likelihood that people have suitable champions.
The mercenary quest is an abomination, the AI doesn’t play into reparry, it throws a heavy, the passive bleed is way too short, and unstoppable has been slapped on it just as a final sigh-worthy mechanic. Not to mention only like 8 champions available in the pool who can bleed on basic attacks, as relying on specials isn’t enough with the timer. And two of those champions are trophy champs, Platpool and Weapon X.
The symbiote/spider verse/ sinister 6 needs a slight tweak to make the passive stun longer, unless your champ has a decent heavy reach it’s much harder to cope with. It’s doable, but stressful. Not what you want from Cav EQ.
The tag filter system needs to get updated, it’s way too finicky right now to choose one tag at a time.
But what do I like? I like that all the boosts are attack boosts, I prefer that to prowess boosts like the mystic and mutant class boosts. Some champions don’t benefit from more prowess, whether that’s because they don’t use specials, or most damage comes from other forms, but all champions benefit from an attack boost. If feels more inclusive to your roster.
I also love the cross fight concept, it’s awesome to ramp up champs a little. Do you focus on just 1 and go crazy, or ramp up 3. I also love, love, love that this attack boost works on the boss. This is awesome.
So personally, I hope not all of this gets thrown out, I think there’s potential for it to be improved and iterated into something we can enjoy. Hopefully they take our feedback on the bad parts, but hopefully they don’t listen to people saying it’s all 100% bad, just go back to class based. Cav EQ was getting repetitive just being class based, I like the idea of the change, it’s just not hit first time for me
I haven’t had time to do completion, with this I don’t want to play it. It’s just really really annoying.
What's that opportunity you might ask? Well, most people are thinking about the lag filters as roster gates. If you don't have those champions, the content will be excessively difficult. You *could* overcome that with sufficient skill, but that's true everywhere in the game. For most players, there would be super-strong incentive to grow roster to encompass all the roster gates in the game. That's cool, but depending on where the content is, the gates have to have some reasonable size. In something like Cav EQ, the gates have to be reasonably big as you mention.
But that's not the only way to use the Cav nodes. They could be used as bonuses instead of gates. Instead of "if you don't have these champs you're going to struggle" they could be "if you happen to have one of these champs, lucky you you're going to breeze this one." I'm not saying this month does that, exactly. But *most* of this month is something where you can safely ignore the nodes and still get by without a ton of difficulty without using any of the tagged champs.
I've seen some people say "that's bad design." It is not. It is actually a good option to have among all the Cav node combinations: some can feel like gates, but it would be nice if some of them felt like occasional bonuses. You don't *have* to have them, but for the players that do it is a nice to have.
Again, I'm not saying this month achieves this perfectly. But it does take a step in that direction, in that many maps genuinely do not require the tagged champs at all, and the tagged champs just offer some additional benefit you can take or leave. Difficulty is relative, so any bonus could be perceived as a "must have" by some players. But in my opinion, the average difficulty of this month's Cav EQ is roughly where I think Cav EQ should be completely ignoring the buffs. Which means having the tagged champs is a bonus, not having them is not a penalty.
There has to be a balance, and Kabam can get this balance wrong. But I think there should be a range of "filters" on the Cav nodes, some big and some small. The big ones can be balanced between carrot and stick: if you have the champs things are easier, if you don't have them things will be harder than average. The small ones need to be shifted over: there's no penalty if you don't have them, but a sizeable bonus if you do. Mixing these up will give Cav EQ some beneficial diversity without overcomplicating things: roster checks will feel less like penalties and more like balanced rewards.
I said at the top that you can't really do this with larger filters Why not? Well, you can't make filters so big that everyone has the champs, and then make the node all benefit and no penalty. That's just making the content universally easier. If you make the filters big enough that you're reasonably sure everyone has the champs, you have to design the difficulty on that assumption, and the difficulty will have to rise, and it won't be the players who have the champs that get a benefit, it will be the rare player that doesn't have the champs that get a huge penalty. When the filter is small, you *know* most players won't have them, so you balance the content on that assumption, and the content gets easier, and the few people who do have those champs get a bonus.
I'm still thinking about the Cav nodes (and I haven't fully explored the maps yet with different teams for test purposes) so I'm still not sure what my final judgment on the nodes is. But so far, I'm not hating them as much as the early reviews do. They aren't - mostly - necessary, and I don't find that lack of necessity to be a problem. It might even be a good thing, if leveraged properly.
There is something I feel is problematic about this month's Cav specifically, but that's a subject for another post. Basically, I think the content takes up too much head space. The content isn't more difficult at least on paper, if you understand how it works. But processing everything a player needs to process to play through it effectively is a lot higher than is typical, and probably something most players are not accustomed to. And probably higher than it should be on average.
Especially 3.1, with guardians.. Extremely stupid and unfriendly.
Hey, Kabam, have you tried to beat Juggernaut??
There have been zero levels where any of my other 35 or so 5/65 or r2/3 with the tags that would have been better.
From that alone, it's making me wonder what the point of the tags were. The only level that I've benefited from the tag boost is the last one with corvus. Nick was ok too with wolverine horseman but that's not using tags.
Maybe on additional runs, if I bother, I'll use them. The last level for example; with the trick being to armor break or nullify, was not too bad. But illuminati? That's really only red mags as useful. It's just the lack of options; you'll be sound on that level if you have corvus, cull, cgr, hood or morningstar ranked. Which I do! But sucks if you don't.
All the other levels were just long, plus Unstoppable, unblockable, power gain.
Maybe that's the issue; some levels, if you don't have the tags feel painfully long and even with them, the unstoppable and unblockable. It's just not fun.
And I agree with the comment above; we pretty much universally hated root and yet you bring it back. It really needs to go.