They made everything harder for casual players, without increasing rewards. However, they added a more difficult level for the veteran players to gain more rewards. The only people that should be happy with this are those with a robust R4 6* roster.
People: LOL Watch me autofight ur Side Quest lanes, KabamAlso People: Boring I completed your content the first day give me something to doAlso People: LOL why do you make these characters with all these words when I just can YOLO your easy content with my amazing roster*Kabam makes side quests more challenging*People: OMG KABAM WYD
I don't have a problem with increasing the difficulty if the rewards are changed to reflect the increased difficulty.
All I know is stop wasting my rewards slots with stupid relic ****.