2025 Banquet Pre-Mortem

Hello everyone. For the last two Banquet events I have written post-mortem design thoughts, explaining our design decisions for the event after it ended. At Summoners Fest, I was chatting with Seatin about changes to the upcoming Banquet event and he suggested this year I publish my thoughts before the event. So I welcome you all to the first Banquet pre-mortem! Mike already shared a lot of this on the recent live stream but this post should hopefully help players understand why we made the changes we made.

I am going to try to keep this post as far from editorialization as I can. Last year on a live stream I shared my personal thoughts about my excitement for the event and that wasn't well received. This post isn’t about trying to convince anybody to do anything. When the event launches you can all decide for yourselves if you want to participate or not. This post is simply to outline design changes we have made and further explain why we made them.

What is the same (or similar) to last year’s Banquet?

First I’m going to start by talking briefly about what isn’t changing, or at least isn’t changing very much. As you will see, the overall structure isn’t changing much.

There are three Milestone events, a Solo Event, a Realm Event and an Alliance event, and every player Conqueror and above gets the same events. Generally the milestones of these events are structured the same, though the Solo Event is slightly cheaper to finish in terms of Units, halting the trend of increased costs which we have seen in recent years.
There are three tiers of Banquet crystals. Conqueror and above have access to Banquet Crystals and Greater Banquet Crystals, Thronebreaker and above have access to Superior Banquet crystals (SBC).
There is a box of six champions being featured as part of the event.
There will be a trophy champion (Punisher) as a rare drop in the crystals and in ranked rewards.

What is changing?

Superior Banquet Crystal Design

Last year the biggest point of criticism was that the crystals felt bad to open. This year we have made a lot of changes to the Superior Banquet Crystals in an effort to improve the crystal opening experience.

First, we have increased the number of drops in each crystal. Last year, each SBC dropped three items, a Main Prize, some ISO, and some Gold. This year, each SBC will drop five different items. The additional drops were not factored into the value of the Main Prize, they were added on top to provide more value in the crystal. Here is the list of the drops and the rationale for why we made these changes:

A Main Prize - As with past Banquet crystals, there is a Main Prize drop in every crystal.
Progression Catalyst Fragments - Last year the Banquet crystal ended up being imbalanced because we thought it felt bad to pull lower tier catalysts from the crystal. This year, we have separated T6B, T3A and T5CC from the Main Prize. This allows us to balance the catalysts required for 7-star champions without players getting these lower catalysts from the Main Prize drops. (Note from Mike - I wrote T6CC instead of T5CC on the Livestream Slide for the Progression Catalyst Fragments under bucket 2. T5CC is correct.)
A small amount of 7-Star or Titan-Shards - For players still building out their 7-Star rosters, every crystal will be guaranteed to drop some champion shards in addition to the Main Prize.
Relic Alloy Fragments - We wanted Summoners to have an opportunity to progress their Relics as part of the event, but know that many players would not want to see Alloys take up the Main Prize drop slots. So we decided to simply add some Alloy Fragments to a supplementary drop.
Gold or ISO

Second, we wanted to create a more consistent experience with exciting rewards for more Summoners. To facilitate this, we have created a new Jubilant Crystal, which contains the most exciting stuff we have to offer. It has a 7.77% chance of dropping from every SBC, but critically, to achieve our goals, the SBC is set up to work with the Grandmaster’s Grace system. Summoners will be guaranteed one Jubilant Crystal for every 15 SBCs they open. The Jubilant Crystal includes only a single drop and does not grant any points in the event.

Ranked Rewards Design

We have also made substantial changes to the Realm Event ranked rewards, with the goal of making them more attractive to a larger group of Summoners:
We have added more granularity at the top to account for the very large discrepancy in Units spent between the 4th and 30th spots from last year.
We have also added more value to the top spots, aiming to create a durable reason to chase these ranks. This includes a Rank 6 Punisher (not a typo) for the top 3 finishers, which will be the only three Rank 6 Champions that will exist in the Contest for close to a year.
Including more value at the top means we are able to spread better rewards down deeper into the ranked rewards. For instance the top 600 will get a Rank 5 Rank Up Gem Crystal. Last year, Rank 4 was only awarded to the top 90 spots.
We have added a number of vanity-related rewards to top spots, including First Appearance Champions and custom profile pictures (work with a Kabam artist to design your own 1 of 1 profile pic).
We have added other exclusive perks meant to increase the value of ranked rewards. For example, top ranks will vote on a champion rework, and will be the only ones with access to that champion’s Ascension for an exclusive period of time.
2026 Champion Vouchers will award chosen champions as First Appearance at Rank 4 Sig 200.

Alliance Event Changes

Additionally, we have made a few changes to the Alliance Ranked rewards:
Similar to Solo, we’ve added much more granularity to the ranks. Last year’s event had reward buckets to top 10, then it jumped to top 5%. This year has buckets all the way to the top 200, then 1%, 3% and 5% buckets.
We also slightly increased value for Alliance ranked rewards. The focus remains on the Realm ranked rewards but there is a little more on offer in the Alliance Event as a whole.

Summary

Our main design goals for Banquet 2025 were to improve the crystal opening experience and to increase the perceived value of Realm Event ranked rewards. It’s not possible to make everyone happy, but we hope the changes we have made will improve the overall experience for all Summoners who choose to participate in the event.

Comments

MARIISAN

Nice ! Thank you Crashed!!!!

Ab_Samad

W post 👍

Furrymoosen

One important question when it comes to milestones - are Valiant players stuck sharing the same rewards as the pity progressions of TB and Paragon? I can understand the crystal access, but there's no reason we should be getting identical rewards as progressions that don't even have to be earned anymore.

Kabam Crashed

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2904807#Comment_2904807

As the post says, the events are the same for everyone. This has been the design for the Gifting/Banquet event from the start, and as I said in my post last year it means a larger proportion of spending comes from the lower progressions compared to other sales. I think that's good for everyone.

We tune all the rewards for the top progression, the lower progressions get to roleplay as Valiants for one event a year.

Usagicassidy

Love this pre-mortem!

From the livestream and your post, it seems like some of the biggest concerns and issues I had with the events previous years have been addressed and and definitely excited for Banquet this year.

Introducing a Jubilant Crystal with a high probability AND incorporating the grace system is a MAJOR win.

Increasing the percentage pools of rewards for milestones in alliances and solo and such is really exciting as well. Thanks for all the insight, can't wait to open some!

Graves_3

Can you give us a hint on the cost of the SBC? Is it still going to be 300units like in the past?

Kabam Crashed

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2904825#Comment_2904825

Yep they are still 300 Units.

Herbal_Taxman

so… what items can be dropped as the “main prize”?

maybe we never know that until the event begins. Can’t recall.

DannyB01

Really good post, thanks for sharing. R6 Punisher for the top 3 is a really crazy top prize, but getting your own custom profile picture is the coolest idea, I absolutely love it.

Herbal_Taxman

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2904839#Comment_2904839

agree, the creativity around some of the cosmetics / trophy prizes is cool.

Asher1_1

Question - does the SBC main prize will have the key to box for those 6 champs ??

Darkness275

There are so many things about this post that I love, thank you Crashed and team. This in combination with the information we were given on stream is just utterly amazing.

Apologies, but I want to break this down and address.

This post isn’t about trying to convince anybody to do anything. When the event launches you can all decide for yourselves if you want to participate or not. This post is simply to outline design changes we have made and further explain why we made them.

I really hope this section right here resonates with the community and lingers. This is exactly what we've been begging from Kabam for so long. A "pre-mortem" like this is providing us with a level of transparency and knowledge, immediately prior to a "major spending event", that helps people set and manage expectations. It helps us plan, this is massive.

Progression Catalyst Fragments - Last year the Banquet crystal ended up being imbalanced because we thought it felt bad to pull lower tier catalysts from the crystal. This year, we have separated T6B, T3A and T5CC from the Main Prize. This allows us to balance the catalysts required for 7-star champions without players getting these lower catalysts from the Main Prize drops. (Note from Mike - I wrote T6CC instead of T5CC on the Livestream Slide for the Progression Catalyst Fragments under bucket 2. T5CC is correct.)

Thank you for this. The balance of the crystal drops last year was so off balance, I do believe this will go a long way in providing that additional need.

Second, we wanted to create a more consistent experience with exciting rewards for more Summoners. To facilitate this, we have created a new Jubilant Crystal, which contains the most exciting stuff we have to offer. It has a 7.77% chance of dropping from every SBC, but critically, to achieve our goals, the SBC is set up to work with the Grandmaster’s Grace system. Summoners will be guaranteed one Jubilant Crystal for every 15 SBCs they open. The Jubilant Crystal includes only a single drop and does not grant any points in the event.

Huge W. Love seeing the Grace system show up here, that is such a tremendous yet soft guarantee of "consistent" value. Consistent being in quotes because it's clearly still RNG but the assurance of it's existence provides something that previously never existed.

Ranked Rewards Design
+
Similar to Solo, we’ve added much more granularity to the ranks. Last year’s event had reward buckets to top 10, then it jumped to top 5%. This year has buckets all the way to the top 200, then 1%, 3% and 5% buckets.

Going to address this section as a whole rather than quote each part. Big W and a very necessary change. This is exactly what should be addressed and I say this comfortably as someone who knows they won't likely be in the top 30 but will still spend far more than most.

The value this actually allows you to spread out and provide to lower tiers should absolutely be felt and the Alliance aspect is just an added layer. More value to solo, across all ranks and more incentive for people to push individual ranks means more opportunity for Alliances as a whole to benefit from increased granularity within the Alliance reward ranks.

—

TL;DR: Based off this post and the live stream info, I'd say I'm optimistic of two things happening this year simultaneously rather than combatively: Kabam hitting their banquet goal, and the community being satisfied with the results.

Certainly much more optimistic of this than I was when I was heading to Vancouver.

Thanks for the info Crashed. Can't wait to see what's next.

BringPopcorn

At least there wasn't a joke about TBs running around with 7R4s....

JDH

thank you for giving more context to the event. Imo this is a huge W and im excited.

ahmynuts

Will we be getting double the banquet crystals if we open them within the first hour?

JogiDas

Will we get grace crystal number like how many more we need to open until we get to Jubilant crystal out of 15? That would be good if i can see that so i know when i can stop.

Usagicassidy

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2904846#Comment_2904846

Don't think we were given any explicit answer as to this but I would expect there's a chance for for them in the crystals but a very very low chance, like last year. In addition to the "guaranteed 3 by hitting milestones"

Midnightfox

I sincerely hope this year is better than the last 2. I know I was hard on you earlier in the year, but this is why. I know you don’t make all of the decisions, but your voice carries weight in final decisions and I hope to be excited this year. I hope that some of my very brunt criticisms also influenced some changes. It seems like some pro player seem to be showing in the notes for the diary. Thank you crashed.

Diplodocus

Can we have one selector for the 6 banquet champs. Spending so many units and still getting unlucky enough to not get the most wanted champ is disheartening.

rcm2017

Looks good in writing but please have your team test and vet these changes well, so that you guys dont have to spend time designing comp packages during holiday season.

palfall

As one of the guys above said, there should be a selector for those founder box champs as a top milestone, maybe in realm events. I want some guarantee, not spending 40k units to get the champs i don't want.

Herbal_Taxman

if you spend 40k, you’ll probably get six keys and won’t need to worry about it.