Adaptive Event Quest Difficulty: Negative Impact on Casual Players

The new Adaptive Event Quest (EQ) system, particularly the Classic and Elder tiers, has become prohibitively difficult and resource-intensive for the core casual player demographic.
Key Issues for Casual Players:
Loss of Difficulty Choice: The removal of established tiers (like Uncollected/Cavalier) forces players into content scaled solely by Prestige (roster size/rank), not by individual skill level or time commitment.
Overtuned Fights: Fights feature excessively high Defender HP and Attack, turning the traditionally casual monthly EQ into grueling, high-stakes "Everest content."
Increased Item Consumption: The combination of restrictive nodes and high defender stats leads directly to increased consumption of essential resources (Potions and Revives), making the content too costly for players who do not spend heavily.
Misaligned Effort vs. Reward: The significant effort and time required for high-health pool fights are not matched by accessible rewards, especially with backloaded milestone structures, discouraging completion or exploration.
Suggested Solutions for Casual Player Retention
To restore the Event Quest as a fun, sustainable monthly experience for the casual player base, we suggest the following adjustments:
Reintroduce Player Choice: Allow players to manually select a lower "Casual" difficulty tier, even if their Prestige qualifies them for a higher tier. This prioritizes player time and enjoyment over forced competition.
Rebalance Difficulty: Significantly reduce the Defender Health and Attack values in the base Classic difficulty to align it with a relaxed, low-stakes experience, requiring minimal use of combat items.
Front-Load Rewards: Adjust the Etherion and milestone reward structure to ensure early completion of paths provides meaningful, immediate rewards, making even partial participation feel worthwhile for casual players.
Decouple Difficulty from Prestige: Re-evaluate the Prestige scaling mechanic to ensure the difficulty increase is manageable for players who progress their account in skill but may not maintain an optimally high Prestige rank across 30 champions.

Comments

Buttehrs

If you got the skills needed, prestige shouldn't even be an issue. Its a roster check, not skill check.

Suckmysigma

Miss being able to have fun with lesser champs in a cool story

Vendemiaire

It's way better than the slug we had for 10 years. Rewards for effort is also way better. No need to explore a lot of paths on a lot of different difficulty. It's just EQ. It still is the easiest monthly event.

Powermamacisca

ik vind die nieuwe missies helemaal niks de kampioenen zijn veels te hoog om nog te kunnen verslaan. Ik heb gemerkt dat veel mensen afhaken met het spelen. Je moet wel erg goed zijn om dit te kunnen halen. Je kunt geen moeilijkheidsgraad meer instellen. De gewone speler kan hier dus niks mee

Ercarret

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2895997#Comment_2895997

I agree that the old format really needed a shake-up. However, having to swap out your champion after every fight makes it extremely roster-dependent. I recently decided to pick up my alt account and actually do a push, and made my way from Proven to Paragon in a few weeks. The problem I have with the Elder format is that I have 1-3 6* champions in each class ranked up to r3 or beyond. However, if I look at my Top 15 champions in any given class, I very quickly land in r1 6*s, if not r1 5*s or even somewhat ranked-up 4*s. In other words, it's very easy to start fresh, advance in a timely manner, and then get absolutely roadblocked by the focus on roster depth in what has always been the most casual monthly mode.

What's worse is, it's very difficult to plan your rank-ups accordingly. If I look at the Tech chapter of this EQ, it demands that your champions either power drains/burns or shocks the opponent. Only one of my ranked-up Tech champions does that reliably. However, I can't prepare for the next instance of that node by ranking up a Tech champion with shocks or power manipulation; I need 14 more Tech champions with that type of utility. The same goes for every other class as well. And if next month's Elder EQ has a different set of nodes that require 15 champions with a different set of utility, that's 13 or 14 champions in each class that needs ranking up….just to clear the monthly quest.

I like the intentions behind the new EQ format, but I struggle to scrounge up the right number of champions with the required utility even on my almost a decade old main account.