This is easier?

I still used 6 revives to get through the first lane. Please go back to the way it was before so we can decide what level we want to play at.

Comments

WhoDaPoo

Feels a bit better to me. I did all of normal in one go, where as per nerf I had to slit it across two nights.

Elders, it took me about 50min to clear a path pre nerf. I did two paths tonight in the same amount of time. It's still challenging but far less time consuming. Feels more like the first time they launched valiant gauntlet, which is what I was hoping for when they launched EQ this month.

As for construction feedback, it is still ridiculous to do normal before elders. It's a waste of time, and if people want to read the story, they should self opt in by doing normal. Elders paths still feel too long. It should be two paths like v2 and v3 of valiant gauntlet or one path with 10-11 fights.

Last note is the rewards display. The entire game is standardized on a model of finishing something and show the rewards. This new model of showing progress across milestones still feels too confusing and weird. I'm not confident I know if I got the rewards or not. And if not, I'm not confident it's because of the progress towards earning them, or if the game bugged out. Given the past 3 months I have grown to be cautious of expecting things to work as they should, and that undermines satisfaction. I share this note just so Kabam knows they still need to put out several bug free releases to overcome the community's decrease of trust.

spiderknight616

New Elder difficulty is so much easier. Barely broke a sweat playing through the mutant quest, only panicked with Classic DD because I'm an idiot and took Cassandra for that fight

Zacharias10719

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2878168#Comment_2878168

I think some of it may be down to people only liking playing when they are winning so they keep to the simple stuff and the moment they run into a piece of content they can't just win in they stop. Look at how many players never progressed past act 6 back in the day because it was hard. Tackling harder content/fights and getting your arse beat over and over is ultimately how you learn to get better at the game.

Vanitelia

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2878207#Comment_2878207

Agree on all these points.

If people are still struggling with where they are at prestige-wise, allowing them to choose their difficulty would be a great way for them to find the level that works for their account.
Having a switch up on nodes would allow more of the roster to be used. If anything, it would decrease some pain points for players.
Classic difficulty isn't needed if change 1 is made. If anything, make classic difficulty an adaptive paragon gauntlet-style opener. That way, players can get an idea of the boss nodes before entering into Elder's. Another idea would to keep Classic (for lower tiered players), add the Paragon Gauntlet as their post-completion challenge and give a starting point for those that want to do Elder's.

smy168

Its the same, whatever adjustments were made, it was bare minimum, I did the classic because it wasn't so bad the first time around but the Elder just by looking at the Map looks the same…Prestige based EQ looks like a failure for me, huge miss and "no"….the rewards are not worth it at all…

I can appreciate doing something based on prestige but this ain't it, between the energy debacle to this prestige fail… its starting to feel like I'm only doing story and end game.

I will say that 9.3 was fun, I actually enjoyed EmpDoom, the Daily stuff is spot on as well, if they can blend in that style into EQ with a Valiant Guantlet v.1/v.2 difficulty….they may have something….

In the mean time…I want to see what they do with BG energy and how that shakes out.

Until then…I'll do the classic and call it a day. Smart change takes steps up the mountain….drastic change falls off the cliff….

Peace

TotemCorruption

So I did 100% on both iterations. I didn't notice any difference in classic but that also wasn't really something that I thought was a problem because there are no choice nodes so you can just use your top champ to run through the whole path.

As far as elder, yes, it was much easier this time. The health pools and attack ratings went down about 30% for my tier, some defenders were swapped out for easier ones, and some tricky nodes just disappeared.

So I went from having to use some items to basically doing it itemless. Now part of that is obviously because I was doing a second run so I could avoid some mistakes I made during the first run by not reading nodes or bringing bad counters.

So yes, it was a lot easier this second time. BUT that's only because the first iteration was so ridiculously overtuned for a monthly quest with mediocre rewards. And this is still way too long and way too difficult for monthly content

Magrailothos

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2877277#Comment_2877277

Not meaning to sound unsympathetic, but what do you mean 'after an SP3'?

If you took an SP3 from an opponent who doesn't have any kind of Power Gain ability or node, then isn't that your fault?

Outside of an All-or-nothing node, that's just player error.

Usagicassidy

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2878219#Comment_2878219

Remember a few months back when a lot of players were complaining that they "couldn't read the story in Valiant EQ and had to do a run of an easier mode of event quest to get it" and Kabam said "we've heard your feedback, don't worry, we have a solution for that"…

And THIS is their solution? Forcing players to do this terrible overturned (for the crappy rewards) "Classic" mode, where you get the story, to only be able to run Elder once you've completed classic.

In every conceivable way, this is worse.

SirGamesBond

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2878238#Comment_2878238

You mad bro..... talking sense in forums?

ItsClobberinTime

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2878200#Comment_2878200

1. It is harder, which is fair since the rewards are actually relevant now, and that is exactly the whole point old EQ was so boring and rewards were so outdated there was no point in doing it.

2. I don't have 15 7* per class at r3 or r4 I simply used 6* for the vanilla fights and then saved my r3s and r4s for the tough ones.

3. If you don't lose health on vanilla fights like OG Cap Marvel and Daredevil that really doesn't change anything, literally half the defenders in every quest are vanilla defenders you people can't be serious lol.

4. You don't need a whole team to take on a bunch of vanilla fights, hardly any tough defenders in there it's mostly just the nodes making some defenders a little rough but nothing crazy.

5. You can make mistakes, I made some myself I actually popped one 80% rev on each quest but that was it no potions or anything else. However, if you are popping multiple 80% revs on each quest and you end up spending half your stash then that is a skill issue indeed.

Solvseus

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2878325#Comment_2878325

I went in blind a little after it came out, just to test it and see what would happen. Was just hitting DD with everything I had, and he threw an sp3. When it was over, I watched helplessly as my Wolverine bled out. When I came here to read more about it and see what people thought, the game went down. Waited for the new one, and started going through it, only to make a mistake and get frustrated again.

Probably could have read more on the nodes, ranked up champs better suited for it, etc, but I play casually for fun, and I was not having any fun. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Magrailothos

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2878500#Comment_2878500

Like this says. You absolutely don't need multiple r3/r4s.

I took 7r1 champions like Gambit, 6*Magneto, and even one 5*Asc champion (believe it or not, Goldpool!) into vanilla fights, so that they could use their Bleed resistance for Willpower healing, and save me resources.

Goldpool, who I took in as an Ascended 5* champion, started low on health, but finished with a full yellow bar because his (usually irrelevant) 20% bleed resistance adds to the 90% from the node to mean he takes zero bleed damage. Avoid hitting into block, and it's just healing all the way.

Other mutants who can be helpful for willpower healing would include Weapon-X, Sauron, and Omega Red. Sauron and Red are both bleed-resistant and poison-immune; and Omega Red is so insane for Biohazard, you could take him in as a 5* too, if you wanted.

LordSmasher

Besides the attack values they also subbed out some of the harder defenders. I'm still using 6 star R4 Ascended for some fights. Generally only 5 and the boss are remotely difficult.

Tech, Cosmic and Mystics suck thou as the node means if you want the big damage you have an even more limited pool

NWD0021

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2878127#Comment_2878127

I completely agree and respect you @ItsClobberinTime. But in the old EQ I could decide to just play the easier difficulties, enjoy the story and grab some rewards. So, it may not be a difficulty issue, it's a choice issue. Right now my choice is to struggle with this EQ or choose not to play it. If I choose not to play, I might as well choose not to play at all. I'm sure it's not just me, I can tell from this thread it's quite a few people. If we all stop playing that is a money hit for Kabam as not all of us are F2P players. You would think that Kabam would like to avoid that, but maybe they just don't care….

Usagicassidy

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2878580#Comment_2878580

I mean, you just described Quest 1 which has a node that's quite friendly to mutants meaning you could take literally anyone in your roster, and there are a lot of good options.

But for much much more restrictive Quests/nodes like the ones for Tech, Skill, and Mystic, you have a much more limited roster of champs you can use, with the majority of them not even rewarding benefits to any of the champs they released in the past few years, so you're forced to use old/unranked champs. They even completely remove Willpower from the Skill quest so you can't even heal up if you wanted to besides using the only few skill healers like Nick Fury or Chee'ilth.

I wouldn't even call this Elder difficulty challenging, as much as I would call it frustrating. I have easily used more resources/items than any of the previous Valiant quests, that's for sure. And with the AI and input/lag issues having no end in sight, it's easy to lose 80% of your health just from one 5-hit combo.

World Eater

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2878500#Comment_2878500

Outdated rewards was the easily biggest issue with monthly quest. Are current rewards vs time invested worth it compared to other things in game ? Debatable.

I understand and am all in favor of slimming down monthly quest and all other aspects of this bloated game however , I don’t think anyone asked for it to be reduced to be single fights instead of a team .
Bye bye synergies.
Bye bye being able to use another champ if one of your other champs got KOd.
BYe Bye Aegon or corvus, etc… being used to their potential in monthly quest

There’such less room for error with it being 15 fights where health carries over. God forbid you take some chip damage, encounter some lag or make a mistake.

Bye bye casual play in monthly quests.
Bye Bye casual fights vs new champs to get a feel for the animations and the fight (considering the nodes).
Nope, jump in vs a 100k PI enemy you’ve never fought and hope for the best.

Attack values being higher or equal to epoch fights is just warped. Again, bye bye casual play , bye bye auto fight.

It’s seems like an obvious design to try and get more item use.

ItsClobberinTime

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2880060#Comment_2880060

You’re assuming you need champs who benefit from the node only to complete the whole thing, the truth is you don’t because 10 out of the 15 fights are completely vanilla with barely any tricky nodes. Take the tech one for example, you guys think I used champs with armor buffs and power drain strictly? Absolutely not I used Stark Spidey Shocker Zola Bastion Shuri Arcade for the vanilla fights and saved the powerhouses that benefit from the node like Red Skull Warlock and FAM for the actual tricky ones. The skill one is even easier, literally every skill champ benefits from the node except for Crossbones.

I really find it hard to believe people are having this much trouble with basically 10 ROL fights in a row in 2025, I can understand missing a parry here and there cause it happens to me too but if it’s happening often enough that the whole thing is turning into a revive fest for you then maybe you need to focus a little more on improving because when they set the bar that low we end up getting outdated boring crappy design like old EQ which nobody bothered playing for a reason.

ItsClobberinTime

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2880056#Comment_2880056

I can agree with letting people choose a lower difficulty than their prestige dictates for them, what I completely disagree with is reverting EQ to the old boring messy outdated slog with terrible rewards that it used to be. This change happened for a reason

Magrailothos

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2880060#Comment_2880060

I agree that the Skill universal node removing Willpower is a bit crappy, on a path with 15-18 fights. They could do with tuning that differently; even if it's switched to something like a 50% Spectre passive. Or, Kabam could consider adding in some healing nodes before the gates (like the ones in Incursions).

Tech was a lot less restrictive than people think. No, you can't use the ultra-recent Tech champions; if you want to use the nodes but actually, you could argue that that's actually a pro-FTP move: I'm FTP myself, and like a lot of people, I simply don't have newer champions like Bastion, Jack, Solvarch or the Maker.

But I do have War Machine, Iron Man, Lady Deathstrike, CapSam, Infamous Iron Man, Guillotine-2099, Red Skull...

These are all commonly available options that you can use as either 6*/7*s. They don't need to be ranked up, and many of them have built-in regeneration abilities.

I used all of those guys at 7r1 equivalent. Heck, I did a vanilla fight with a 5* Kang, just to have a bit of fun using him. And yes he got the solo.

Screenshot_2025-09-23-07-32-02-329_com.kabam.marvelbattle.jpg

Also, like @ItsClobberinTime says, if you've got modern champs like Bastion or Solvarch at high ranks, you can still use them, as they don't need the benefits of the node, in the first place.

So, I don't really buy the argument that this quest are excessively restrictive - the fact that you have to use old champs to benefit from the nodes (but you can use them at 7*r1, 6r5 or even 5r5Asc) is the opposite of restrictive.

ItsClobberinTime

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2880090#Comment_2880090

To me they are, barely used any revives and I don’t have to play that much to get it done unless I want to.

I enjoy single fights Crucible style personally, especially the last couple of iterations of the Valiant gauntlet.

Then that’s just where our views differ I suppose, to me this is casual play, barely used any revives barely any effort and skill requirements really aren’t anything too crazy because most defenders are just as vanilla as ROL WS.

ItsClobberinTime

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2880112#Comment_2880112

Funny that you mention Sam Lady D and War Machine because I used all three of them as well for some of the hardest fights and they nuked everything in under a minute even at r1, War Machine was literally two sp2s and fight was over. That’s what people aren’t realizing you can still use the newer champs as long as they’re r2 or above, and additionally the node helps you even further by giving trash champs a huge damage boost to the point even r1s work.

Usagicassidy

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2880102#Comment_2880102

Well I think the problem is that this assumes that the defender AI and the game itself "plays nice." With how many issues and problems as are rampant in the game, the massively large health and attack pools makes these even easy fights sometimes tedious - especially if you're not gaining any benefit from the node, the fight is going to be a whole lot longer.

The reality is, I was dying and having to use revives on even some of the 'vanilla' fights, because the timing of my swipes, or lag at parries or striker activations, or input delay causing me to miss the timing of their special and then I go from 100% health to dead in just a couple of hits.

It's no lie that I used WAY more items on this (and even some on Classic cause of the same issues) than I have on all previous Valiant EQ iterations, so there's multiple things at play that can go wrong.

ItsClobberinTime

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2880144#Comment_2880144

See those are different issues tho not the tuning of EQ itself, might not be a skill issue but it isn’t a tuning issue either, that’s just a game issue in general.

NWD0021

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2880103#Comment_2880103

If you look back to my original post it was give us up to Thronebreaker of the way it was, and make this new quest Paragon and Valiant content. I do want the ability to run easy content and mine units back though…

YodaKaj

Don't even get me started on the SQ. It's not fun…

ItsClobberinTime

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2880175#Comment_2880175

Well you said “go back to the way it was before” so I thought you meant everything in general.

the_eradicator

Adaptive difficulty is here to stay I think and So if Kabam sees this thread here is my feedback

- the updated health and attack values for elder difficulty was manageable so thats good. I think attack value is still on the upper side so if that could be tuned it will be much better.
- the amount of fights you need to do while carrying over a single health bar is a bit too much for EQ standards. So split the single path into 2 paths atleast. The valiant gauntlet was perfectly distributed in that way so I am drawing from that design.

PuppetMaster_18

Classic seem the same to me after rework and bf changes only did 100% classic as hp was too high and dont have resources to spend for Elders. After rework Elders was better and with some boosts i finished it. I have a small roster with 2 r4 7* and 15-16 r3s which means many fights i used 7* r1s and even 6* r3/4s where some even was without relics. Im not even skilled so i dont buy ppl saying "you must have r3/4 7*…". You dont. Eq is better..not good..but better and with some adjustement im sure it will be good.

SirGamesBond

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2880536#Comment_2880536

Nice