Yet another great video calling Kabam out on their defender BS

https://youtu.be/e8CrLpG0vKE?si=szc9FVwC_xcnFqf0

Comments

this is brilliant. She is spot on. @Kabam - we see you. Stop w the bs, I’ve cut spending in half, and have one foot out, for many reasons outlined. Changes or bust🤷🏻‍♂️, for this 12.5 M acct player .

Polygon

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2891921#Comment_2891921

Youre on crack if you think a 6* torch is doing anything in BGs. Why do you think the 7* was locked behind a massive paywall

Elux

loved the truth video about Kabam she hit every point 100%

CheeseMaster482

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2891925#Comment_2891925

Yeah it's totally GW's fault that a specific group of clowns foam at the mouth every time they see one of his comments. He's definitely the one derailing the thread man totally 😮.

Herbal_Taxman

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2891811#Comment_2891811

One error that is easy for veteran players to make is saying “well, new players can do story content, they can focus on non-competitive modes while they build their account…”

And while that’s technically correct, a lot of forum posts and discord chat would indicate that newish players don’t think that way. They want to jump straight into the deep end of PvP, raids, etc. And while veterans might say, that doesn’t make any sense, your point about the comms ecosystem is spot on — all of the “buzz” around the game (forums, livestreams, social posts, YTers, etc) is focused on the edge content that’s just been released. So even if my account is 30 days old, the fomo is there regardless.

Jan_McFly_

Vol did a great job on that video.

She's speaking the truth!

GroundedWisdom

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2891953#Comment_2891953

People have been using him all along, before the 7* was introduced. He was one of my most frequent bans because Flame-On was an easy win. Why do you think people went gaga over the 7*? You think they weren't using the 6? Let's be real here.

GroundedWisdom

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2891940#Comment_2891940

I'm not having a conversation with someone who makes it an express purpose of taking personal shots at me everytime they come across my comments. If you want to discuss it with me, try editing next time.

JackTheSnack

don’t forget trap speaking out about Titania too🙂

Typhoon

Very well done video. I'd be interested to see an official Kabam response to it.

Frumpy_geezer

Going back to defenders having boss nodes built into their base kit. What do people think of a new champ having that "tiered" into their awakening. You would sort of need to "Level up" your champ to make them the best. Some champs awakening is just meh while others make them crazy. But what if the were all just ok at first and the more you ranked them the more it unlocked. Like serpents immortality wouldn't unlock until lvl 200 and his unblockable specials at lvl 100.

This way the whales can get their super defender for money, and the rest of us will have some time to deal with them before they were everywhere causing issues.

And everyone still has something to complain about. It's win win.

ahmynuts

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2891997#Comment_2891997

ItsClobberinTime

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2891903#Comment_2891903

There is a very big difference between fighting these defenders in BGs where you may or may not draft a counter and can't use boosts or synergies vs fighting them everywhere else where you get to pick the champ and as many boosts and synergies as you want. So yes, if you don't play BGs at high level where everyone has all of them ranked, you're not going to have an understanding of the scope of the issue. GW is out of touch because of the fact that he's a casual and that's not shaming, it's the truth. You don't understand how problematic these defenders truly are until you get **** multiple times by draft RNG and are stuck with no counters.

ItsClobberinTime

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2891921#Comment_2891921

So you think the 6* can get by and do the same crazy **** the 7* does taking out r4 Zolas Photons and even Serpents? This is why people say what they say to you, cause you're very out of touch and don't really don't understand the game despite you claiming you're a veteran and this and that.

Also, if you're still using and banning 6* Torch in BGs then this is further proof that you ARE a casual indeed. 6* died about 6 months ago when r3s became extremely common and these days they are pretty much extinct if you play anywhere in GC that isn't Gamma or below, with Kate metas being the only exceptions and the occasional Nico player who doesn't have the 7*.

GroundedWisdom

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2892027#Comment_2892027

That is a whole conversation on something I didn't say. I didn't say a 6* can do the same as a 7*. That's not even logical. I said people can get by with a 6*, and have used it before the 7* even came around.

It isn’t a pissing contest about where people are in BGs. Everyone plays the same contest. Up until the introduction of Radiance, the majority of people made it to the GC, unless they were gunning for rank. So let's not pretend the game mode only centers around people in the upper crust.

If you have to resort to making comments about me being a noob, then that's a sign of a last resort in an argument. It's pretty juvenile.

ItsClobberinTime

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2892033#Comment_2892033

You said the 6* can get by if you don't have the 7*, something that is factually not true unless you're a VT warrior.

When you make egregious takes such as the 6* can get by if you don't have the 7* yes it is, the 6* can't get by anymore because of r3s and r4s. This is also why you don't understand how big of a problem these bs defenders that they've been releasing since Serpent are. Every single deck up here is full of them, and unlike questing or any other type of content you don't have full control over the counters and you straight up can't use boosts or synergies which makes the mode extremely fair. There is nothing you can do against Serpent if the draft decides you are not getting Kushala Shathra Nico or Spiral, you just die. In what world does "oh well I guess I'll just die" sound like good fair player friendly game design? If you spent five minutes in Arcane or Quantum just for one season you would start to see the problem with having soany Domino level defenders at once.

It's not juvenile it's the truth, you keep speaking from a casual perspective so that's why I keep calling you that.

GroundedWisdom

You went from disagreeing with me about the efficacy of a 6* Torch, to talking about how challenging BGs are with R3s and R4s and with Champs like Serpent, to still belittling my perspective. Dude, you're all over the place.

Disagree and move on. I don't have the patience to spar words for the sake of it.

GroundedWisdom

I'm quite aware of the game, whether you agree or not. Don't have time for the cheap shots. Stay on topic.

GroundedWisdom

Back to the subject, you're going to have Champs that shut down and bypass Abilities eventually. Otherwise the game will eventually stop presenting a challenge in ongoing competitive modes. People adapt, quite efficiently I might add.

Frumpy_geezer

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2892048#Comment_2892048

Yeah, that's the thing though. People don't adapt. If you take away Onslaught, Gentle, Jean, and Captain Britain. Then there are no counters to Yelena. They release more counters to defenders after they come out. It's in the video you didn't watch yet feel the need to comment on.

JESUSCHRIST

I really enjoyed it when I win against BS defenders using older champions

Like Hyperion (Just spam specials) against Zola

Hercules (His heavy is quite long range) against Zola

Werewolf against Yelena

Juggernaut against Enchantress

Stark spider against Photon

Part of the fun in this game for me is to use older champions to test against BS defenders

JESUSCHRIST

Kabam gives CCP special quest to test against champions but not for every player

That's regrettable that players don't get to become better by practicing

BigBlueOx

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2892048#Comment_2892048

I find this line of reasoning to be pretty silly. Poor Kabam designers… players adapt to their challenges and raise their skill cap in response… what can they do but build unfair mechanics in response?

Really? That’s the only option? Nah, that’s just the laziest option. Kinda like making a check list of attacker abilities and building a laundry list defender kit to counter them. They created the loop, no sympathy here.

Maybe design new abilities that change the paradigm like Karolina and her interaction with sunshine. Explore actual new design space… what a concept!

ItsClobberinTime

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2892048#Comment_2892048

You mean like how Nico shuts down the entire cosmic class with buff immunity because of Serpent shutting down basically everything else the mystic class has other than neutralize but even those champs have their damage halved? Congrats GW, you have deduced what the next op cosmic defender will look like, severe buffs that can't be removed by buff immunity and a ton of chip damage. Putting out defenders that do so much on defense, on the long run will end up killing the game because you can only go so far with champ design and that's the truth for every game.

As for your adapting argument, no you won't unless you're apart of the 5% of players like Andrewtheruff who consistently place top 30-50 every season (not the players the game should be balanced around for obvious reasons), do you even have any idea for how long Korg and Thing were a pain in the arse on defense? You're a veteran player no? Lol and both kits have less than Photon's Jeans's and Onslaught's. We don't need absurd defender kits that take things to an extreme level with unavoidable chip damage every three months because that is what nodes are for, Onslaught still gets me wins even in Arcane and Quantum when people don't draft the usual counters BECAUSE of the nodes so this idea that everyone adapts is completely untrue and you should know better since you've never made it past Uru yourself.

ItsClobberinTime

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2892062#Comment_2892062

Exactly, or how they've been playing around with the root mechanic with Cassandra, evade with Spider Woman, and reversed controls with Jean. Hell even that node from last month's EQ with Silver Samurai that prevented you from moving away while he was throwing specials could make it into an actual defender kit, then there's also inoxerable, Karolina's and Leader's mechanic where you have to stay in a specific zone within the map. There are so many fun mechanics that could and should make it into defender kits that would still allow for a decent amount counterplay instead of this "I'm tanky I deal a ton of chip damage and I shut down your masteries so you better pray you draft one of my hard counters or you're just dead" bs they've been going for for the past year or two.

GroundedWisdom

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2892062#Comment_2892062

Didn’t say poor anyone. I said it's inevitable that Defenders will need to be harder eventually. I've heard people complain about unavoidable damage many times over the years, and it's not that low of a design. How can you challenge people who can learn how to avoid everything? Extend Fights until 20-minute slogs?

The bottom line is people complain when Champs are too weak and they complain when they're too strong.

Herbal_Taxman

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2892082#Comment_2892082

Most of the folks on this thread are talking about the actual issues in the game. You are talking about the talking that’s happening in the forum. Why participate in a thread when you have nothing to offer than “that’s just the way it is.” Why bother saying that? The whole point of the discussion is that people aren’t satisfied with the ways things currently are and it can be gratifying to imagine something different.

ItsClobberinTime

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2892082#Comment_2892082

By adding even more mechanics that require skilled counterplay not by adding unavoidable damage with no counterplay. How is unavoidable damage even fair there is no challenge there at all you either have the counter or you don't.

Furthermore, the type of players you talk about who learn how to fight every defender with any champ at full hp aren't even 15% of the entire playerbase, the game shouldn't be balanced around them.

DNA3000

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2891967#Comment_2891967

As with all game design decisions, there has to be a balance between competing and often contradictory requirements, and no one agrees what the balance point should be. Yes, there has to be stuff beginners can’t just do or the game is trivial, but if there’s too much stuff they just can’t do you turn them off and they go play Candy Crush.

I don’t have all the answers there: I’m not sure I have any answers there. But I think where the answers lie is that the game can have easy stuff and the game can have hard stuff and the difference between an approachable game and an inaccessible one is the degree to which there are clear paths from one to the other. Nothing is going to please everyone, but the people you want in a game like this are the people willing to progress, willing to start small and work their way up. Those are the players who will stick with the game, grow with it, be engaged by it, converts to spenders and support it. But of course, if it was that easy we’d already be doing it.

We kinda see something like that with solo raids, but that’s a very simplified and also bespoke example. Where’s the on-ramp to AW? Where’s the on-ramp to BG? Are such things even possible?

Incidentally, long ago in another life I proposed what I will call here the DNA PvP conjecture. The DNA PvP conjecture is this: No established game ever successfully adds PvP. There are lots of reasons why, but it’s an observation I made back in my old MMO days. PvE games follow a certain design philosophy, and central to that philosophy is: the player should usually win. If you make a game where the player loses most of the time, you end up with a game almost no one wants to play. Moderating difficulty is one of the most important elements of game design. But in a PvP game, that’s almost irrelevant. All PvP games have the same win/loss ratio regardless of design: 50/50. PvP games are not about difficulty, they are about equity: fair and balanced game play. To put it another way, PvP games are about being fair, and PvE games are about being properly unfair. These are almost incompatible mindsets. You can reconcile this difference at the beginning of time. But once a game is established? Good luck: you’re fighting upstream not just on game design gravity, but also against your entire playerbase.

In my opinion Battlegrounds was a great addition to the game. I’m not a top tier competitor, and I still enjoy playing it - for some definition of “enjoy”. It also causes me to want to throw my phone at the moon at times, but that’s competitive play. But its mindset clashes with the mindset that rules almost every other part of the game. The mindset everywhere else is the PvE mindset: the game should present me with a challenge that is reasonable for my strength. Whereas the mindset in PvP is: die scum.

it is hard enough dealing with FOMO in the PvE game, when our playerbase is dominated by much more casual players with casual mindsets. That problem is exacerbated to the point of intractability when it comes to competitive modes, particularly Battlegrounds. I don’t have a solution to that one either, and not for lack of trying.

JESUSCHRIST

Nobody ever put themselves in the shoes of a game developer

If your monthly salary depends on selling champions and generating revenue for the company, would you not want to create a BS defender that will sell like hotcakes?

If you watch other MCOC similar games under Kabam like Transformers and Disney Mirrorverse shut down, would you not want to sell more champions by creating BS defenders and selling counters later on?

Matter of fact that everyone agree is that BS defenders sell ALL THE TIME, players want BS defenders in their decks, there is demand so there is supply

Look at Dracula, the moment Kabam release a weak champion, players go to forums talking about little damage and low regen

Dracula could have been easily built to be another BS champion but seems like Kabam held back from doing so

Players are talking about future titan pool not attractive bcos the last 8 champions released are not BS enough