**Mastery Loadouts**
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Who Are Cav and Thronebreaker EQ for?
Ercarret
Posts: 2,739 ★★★★★
The long-awaited Thronebreaker difficulty is finally here. As a Paragon player, I have really enjoyed Cav EQ ever since its release back in the day since it was an important stepping stone between the titles of Cavalier and Thronebreaker for me. However, as I've progressed in the game, the old difficulty has grown less and less challenging and Act 8.1 really showed me how much fun an appropriately difficult challenge can be. I never expected a monthly 8.1-esque experience from the then-coming Thronebreaker difficulty, but it did whet my appetite for whatever was to come.
Now it's here. The first thing that strikes me is that it is...very similar to the old Cav EQ. Slightly higher health pools and attack values, but otherwise not much different. Some annoying enemy placements and some annoying nodes that increased the difficulty, but for the most part it all felt very familiar.
I explored the new difficulty and then ran through Cav in order to compare the two, only to discover that the latter difficulty had been almost stripped bare of nodes. Gone were all of the class-specific ones that have been a hallmark of the difficulty ever since its inception years ago, and in its place were only a single node that gave a buff to certain classes.
The reasoning, as I've understood it, is that it has been adapted down to today's Cavalier players. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. I've been a Cavalier player in the past but I am not anymore so I can't really speak for them. While most of this post is me speaking about what I truly do believe Cavalier players need from their EQ difficulty, I am aware that I do so from a very different place in the game than where they currently are.
What I always appreciated with Cav difficulty was that it's various and constantly changing nodes forced me to rank up different types of champions that had various pieces of utility that eventually helped me progress toward the Grandmaster and the Thronebreaker title. However, this incentive to build your roster to counter future content has now been removed from Cav EQ. It is no longer a preparatory difficulty that guides players forward but rather a fairly rote standard quest. I recognize that I'm saying that as someone who has a roster that simply blitzes through both the past and current Cav EQ, but I do not really see the logic behind removing the old node system. Even if the health and attack values had to be retuned for a different Cavalier audience, I think the old nodes still serve a vital purpose for that specific group of players.
What's even more baffling is that they are instead recycled for Thronebreaker difficulty. Why are TB and Paragon given the same nodes that were meant to advance Cavalier players to the Thronebreaker title in the first place? Perhaps we will receive new nodes in the future, but if this EQ is any indication for how things will look like going forward, it seems like the new Thronebreaker difficulty is just the old Cavalier difficulty with slightly higher attack and health values; the latter of which has already been nerfed. How does this help Thronebreaker players to prepare their roster for what lies waiting for them on their road to Paragon?
This feels like a missed opportunity in many ways, not least because the road between the Thronebreaker and Paragon title is some of the most fun I've had in the game. Act 7 is a terrific piece of content and building the new difficulty toward mastering that Act could have had the potential to create a truly spectacular monthly quest. The TB difficulty has some endgame nodes but it never really gels together into something that feels fresh and new compared to what we saw in past Cav EQs. Perhaps that is indicative of how that difficulty outgrew its intended demographic but I'm not sure that jettisoning the educational challenge altogether in Cav EQ is the best solution to that problem.
Meanwhile, Thronebreaker+ players are left with a new difficulty that feels like little more than an increased health pool. There is not a new challenge to overcome and nothing to expand your roster to counter. As a Paragon player, I don't mind the increased health pool per se. One of the things that had begun to bore me with Cav EQ was how my champions tended to run through it without really being put to the test. There was rarely room to build up anything elaborate before the fight was over. An increased health pool allows more champions to shine. It was needed.
However, it's not the only thing that was needed. Hopefully the Thronebreaker difficulty evolves into something more fun in the future, and I hope that Cav players get a more evolved version of their difficulty as well. I truly do believe that it's an important step to help and guide their progression.
Now it's here. The first thing that strikes me is that it is...very similar to the old Cav EQ. Slightly higher health pools and attack values, but otherwise not much different. Some annoying enemy placements and some annoying nodes that increased the difficulty, but for the most part it all felt very familiar.
I explored the new difficulty and then ran through Cav in order to compare the two, only to discover that the latter difficulty had been almost stripped bare of nodes. Gone were all of the class-specific ones that have been a hallmark of the difficulty ever since its inception years ago, and in its place were only a single node that gave a buff to certain classes.
The reasoning, as I've understood it, is that it has been adapted down to today's Cavalier players. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. I've been a Cavalier player in the past but I am not anymore so I can't really speak for them. While most of this post is me speaking about what I truly do believe Cavalier players need from their EQ difficulty, I am aware that I do so from a very different place in the game than where they currently are.
What I always appreciated with Cav difficulty was that it's various and constantly changing nodes forced me to rank up different types of champions that had various pieces of utility that eventually helped me progress toward the Grandmaster and the Thronebreaker title. However, this incentive to build your roster to counter future content has now been removed from Cav EQ. It is no longer a preparatory difficulty that guides players forward but rather a fairly rote standard quest. I recognize that I'm saying that as someone who has a roster that simply blitzes through both the past and current Cav EQ, but I do not really see the logic behind removing the old node system. Even if the health and attack values had to be retuned for a different Cavalier audience, I think the old nodes still serve a vital purpose for that specific group of players.
What's even more baffling is that they are instead recycled for Thronebreaker difficulty. Why are TB and Paragon given the same nodes that were meant to advance Cavalier players to the Thronebreaker title in the first place? Perhaps we will receive new nodes in the future, but if this EQ is any indication for how things will look like going forward, it seems like the new Thronebreaker difficulty is just the old Cavalier difficulty with slightly higher attack and health values; the latter of which has already been nerfed. How does this help Thronebreaker players to prepare their roster for what lies waiting for them on their road to Paragon?
This feels like a missed opportunity in many ways, not least because the road between the Thronebreaker and Paragon title is some of the most fun I've had in the game. Act 7 is a terrific piece of content and building the new difficulty toward mastering that Act could have had the potential to create a truly spectacular monthly quest. The TB difficulty has some endgame nodes but it never really gels together into something that feels fresh and new compared to what we saw in past Cav EQs. Perhaps that is indicative of how that difficulty outgrew its intended demographic but I'm not sure that jettisoning the educational challenge altogether in Cav EQ is the best solution to that problem.
Meanwhile, Thronebreaker+ players are left with a new difficulty that feels like little more than an increased health pool. There is not a new challenge to overcome and nothing to expand your roster to counter. As a Paragon player, I don't mind the increased health pool per se. One of the things that had begun to bore me with Cav EQ was how my champions tended to run through it without really being put to the test. There was rarely room to build up anything elaborate before the fight was over. An increased health pool allows more champions to shine. It was needed.
However, it's not the only thing that was needed. Hopefully the Thronebreaker difficulty evolves into something more fun in the future, and I hope that Cav players get a more evolved version of their difficulty as well. I truly do believe that it's an important step to help and guide their progression.
5
Comments
if they wanted a challenge mode, they'd have to revisit it every month. THis is just "harder" content for cheap.
But the release of Thronebreaker difficulty just further exacerbates the disconnect between Kabam and its players amongst all progression levels. Hopefully we see a some rebalancing for EQ going forward.