Alliance Quest Miniboss and Sentinel Refresh - April 2018 - Discussion Thread [Updated April 13]

Summoners,

We've just announced a small refresh of Alliance Quests that will start April 2nd. This will include new Minibosses, and a farewell to our Symbioid friends!

Read all about it, then ask your questions!

UPDATE:
We've just posted an update in regards to your feedback on Alliance Quests. This post includes some adjustments to Sentinels and Alliance Quests that will be coming with the next series (Starting April 18th). Take a look right here: http://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/62626/upcoming-adjustments-to-alliance-quests-april-18th-2018

Comments

Magiknight

Those sentinels just keep defending, making the fight boring and leading to time out. Just release onother map (without being so expensive like map 6) to make things interesting (not boring to death).

Karakanli

Ah no. in the Event I suffered some full analysis at 100 stacks. Finished it few weeks ago so maybe they changed it during EQ running?

GarryDK

I am all for harder content, Sentinels are alot harder than syms. I know Miike has said they are not but they clearly are, unblockable specials, immunity IS harder than syms. If content is made harder then rewards should be adjusted. Most people now need to rank new champs to cope with this difficulty change, which again is fine we shouldn't be stapled to the same champs all the time, but again if we are dealing with the same rewards how is that possible? . All of us are working harder, learning harder and in some cases spending more for zero increase in rewards. That is wrong on every level.

CovahYdoolB

@Matt1985
I see your point with sentinels but they have not released any content in game to improve gameplay VS them via duels, quest, anything I can think of that will allow us to improve our skill without wasting a bunch of money on being destroyed by the things a month or two down the road till they decide to change the game or make a small side quest to fight all sentinels for practice. Wouldn’t that make more sense! Instead of releasing updated bosses that become finale unblockable for more revenue. Sentinel with no way to practice against them but by using items and get wrecked day in and day out till someone NOT FROM KABAM gives us tips and guides best to defeat them. Ask yourself are ther sentinels in act 5 we can practice on all classes? Cause they can’t afford to actually help there player base out once in awhile! If you agree let me know! If you disagree let me know!

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CovahYdoolB

You can’t say last months quest was practice none of the sentinels had unblockable specials or insane power gain like they do in AQ!! Instead of making bossrush they should have made sentinel rush.

MEKA5

@Kabam Miike @Ad0ra_ you ask for players feedback, which is quite constructive so far...while not providing any return. This is just wrong.

Maat1985

CovahYdoolB wrote: »

@Matt1985
I see your point with sentinels but they have not released any content in game to improve gameplay VS them via duels, quest, anything I can think of that will allow us to improve our skill without wasting a bunch of money on being destroyed by the things a month or two down the road till they decide to change the game or make a small side quest to fight all sentinels for practice. Wouldn’t that make more sense! Instead of releasing updated bosses that become finale unblockable for more revenue. Sentinel with no way to practice against them but by using items and get wrecked day in and day out till someone NOT FROM KABAM gives us tips and guides best to defeat them. Ask yourself are ther sentinels in act 5 we can practice on all classes? Cause they can’t afford to actually help there player base out once in awhile! If you agree let me know! If you disagree let me know!

That is actually a good point.... all these sentinels have different abilities to regular sentinel and we cannot find them for practice.... mayb kabam could create some dummy accounts with these varing sentinels sonwe can have something to practice on

jevitor

Sentinels have CONSIDERABLY increased the level of difficulty of QA. The difference is HUGE and the pleasure is gone!

Zeke_the_Xbot

Yep glad to see Sentinel AI is set up with a what like .01-1% chance to use specials. They seem to have an unmarked L2 Bias. Spend several attempts trying to bait the L1 only to miss time and evade get comboed and they get their L2 and low and behold they are more then happy to spam that ability.

Legendsend

Maat1985 wrote: »

No need for insults.....

I get the analagy just fine....
But it is not totally correct....

My boss asks me to do a harder task then normal....
I ask him for more money....
He says well do it for a while... we will see how you go and then we will talk....

Hard work first.... pay increase after....

How can you not understand that.... Action A happens before Action B happens....

Evn if i go to my boss and say
I need more money...
He will say
Do this harder job.... once i i know you can do it well then we will talk...

Hard work first.... more money later... simple

You're working the wrong way... And you're obviously fine with being underpaid...Good for you,
Not for me... unfortunately that mind frame is your problem... Elite do not think that way

Rednick69

I assume this is why they have the hauls of healing going is for the new AQ bs they put in. I know more people are using items now.

Legendsend

ItsTheBroski wrote: »

phillgreen wrote: »

This will sound harsh but isn't the usual advice given to everyone on the forum who has an issue with content difficulty to either "git gud" or "not all content is for all summoners blah blah blah"?

Seems to me, some might benefit from dropping a map down, you know, where the content suits their ability and roster?

The problem with most on here isn't skill. It's the fact that Kabam make AQ harder without bumping up the rewards you feel?

Exactly... I'm completing it with no problem as I've said on the other forum posts but they act like it's not harder and give no better rewards... others in my alliance aren't doing as well and it's not right... I just want compensation... don't change **** about your changes, just give me my compensation

MaddMatt05

I want to add my 2 cents that my entire allince is of the opinion this is an increase in difficulty without an increase in rewards. Even if the difficulty is primarily due to its newness, we have been presented with a challenge to adapt to, with rewards that were already feeling outdated to congragulate us for overcoming this challenge. We aren’t at a place to update rewards sounds very fishy to me. If it is unfeasable to do SOME kind of incremental reward increase, then it is also not feasable to update the opponents as well. Esecially without sharing any further update plans beyond, “we arent there yet with the community”

While I have grown used to Kabam’s approach to development, this is just another item in the con list, and it has me considering trying to move my alliance on to a new game, where the management doesn’t seem have such disregard for the players.

PS: I do want to add that I love the concept behind the Sentinels, but the rollout, especially lacking rewards, is where the problem lies.

BitterSteel

Kabam DK wrote: »

BitterSteel wrote: »

Kabam Miike wrote: »

But how are you so sure that the difficulty has gotten worse?

Granted, Bleed and Poison champions may not be as effective in Alliance Quests as they were before, but Sentinels melt at the power of a Armor Break Champion, and a lot of the new Mini-Bosses have very common counters!

Kabam DK wrote: »

With regards to the comments about how this version of Alliance Quests will be harder, we understand where you're coming from. As with anything you're unfamiliar with, it will be definitely be harder at first. It might take a little while to get used to, but we know our summoners, and we know how quickly they learn and can get used to new content, especially content that is recurring like Alliance Quests. If this update was so inconsequential that it was as easy at the start as you all find Alliance Quests right now (after months of practice) then there would be no point in us making this update, or ANY update for that matter.

It will take some time to get accustomed to the new encounters, but refreshing recurring content is important to keep the game fresh, and exciting!

So it seems here that DK is admitting it’s harder, and Miike is saying it won’t be. Which one is right, I’m inclined to think it will be harder so I’ll go with DK. The thing is, what is the point in releasing the update to AQ now? Why not wait a little longer and have the difficulty and rewards go up at the same time, in the manner it should.

Let me clarify:

I am saying ANY change of consequence will be harder AT FIRST, but not because the actual difficulty/complexity of the fights is harder, simply because you will not be as experienced at doing the fights. Miike is saying the complexity/difficulty of the fights is approximately the same: i.e. not necessarily harder. Both are accurate statements, but we're sorry for the confusion around them.

Ok, so after a couple of days fighting sentinels. I’d like to say that this is still as ridiculous as it was when originally posted. The sentinels are very clearly more difficult to fight and not just because they are “a chance of consequence”. Take the mystic, with a symbioid there was a small power gain but no other abilities with an easy to evade l1 and L2 and the sentinel is a massive massive power gain (40% total power per buff expiring at max analysis) which is Just mystic dispersion on steroids, then they have a medium difficulty l1 to evade and a very difficult L2 to evade which triggers effects through your block.

Please tell me @Kabam Miike and kabam DK, if you had to choose one of those to fight, assuming you hadn’t fought either one before, which would you want to fight?

Or what about the skill ones. Symbioid has a form of purification that will remove debuffs on being hit. So you can parry without issue, occasionally you’ll hit them after stunning and the stun will go but that’s fine because you’re already in your combo. Apart from that, no abilities and easy specials to evade. The sentinel however, has an instant 100% effective tenacity that gives them a large attack buff. So essentially stun Immune for the majority of the time, usually you’d be able to stun and hit before purification but unfortunately the game is too laggy. Not to mention that the almost unevadable, and at 40 analysis unblockable, deals energy damage through your block.

I agree that sometimes things can be harder to start with, but when adaptoids were changed to symbioids do you really think there was this level of difficulty associated with symbioids being introduced? I struggle to imagine how you could genuinely believe that sentinels and symbioids will eventually be the same difficulty after we “get used to them”. In 3 months time, after we have fought them for a while, you can ask any player if they would rather fight a sentinel or a symbioid due to the difficulty and they will almost every time say that they think sentinels are harder.

Don’t patronise us. It’s not just a “change of consequence” that means sentinels are harder. You know that.

Vani11a_Gori11a

The problem with Sentinels taking the place of Symbioids is no matter the class, EVERY Sentinel's attack is the SAME! At least the Symioids have different attacks for different Classes. Now half the fights in AQ are EXACTLY THE SAME. BORING CONTENT

TheBlackDefense

You have some nerve you change the mini-bosses and the symbiods and not the rewards and say it's because you aren't increasig the difficulty? That is a load. let's just start with the largest elephant in the post symbiods to sentineliods symbiods were usually vulnerable to bleed and poison sentineliods are not making those fights significantly more difficult. The abilities of sentineliods also significantly increase the difficulty. Then with the bosses Cable to Nightcrawler a champ that was not that difficult to fight to a champ the evades everything you throw at him as if we don't get enough of Nightcrawler in Alliance War Lol. And again changing those to increases the difficulty. And you have the nerve to day you will change Alliance Quest and not increase the rewards because "YOU" think it doesn't increase the difficulty
Come on
Since they took down my post

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Cptnkillr_89

Kabam is just slowly killing off wolverine in AQ. Dude is useless now thanks to the sentinels.

Gwm83

Spend spend spend lol kabam is ridiculous the sentinels are op...and I'm actually good at the game. Can go thru all the eqs with hardly any items...but sentinels on day 3 are a pain. Nice job kabam I expect nothing less

Hlpr35

İf kabam gonna stubborn on that like every other matter at least make aq sentinels special attacks blockable because unblockable special attacks speciallly s2 is really stupidly Hard with this rewards and btw make miniboss nc more willing to Change mod

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Farwey

You made the AQ boring and harder with same rewards... We should leave a bad commenr for rhe game at app store.

SirBud

Sentinels are not fun to fight. After two and a bit years and several dozen odins later...I might have to retire from this game. More work for the same rewards isn't very motivating. If my alliance mates jump ship because of this, I have no reason to stay.

SirBud

Legendsend wrote: »

Maat1985 wrote: »

No need for insults.....

I get the analagy just fine....
But it is not totally correct....

My boss asks me to do a harder task then normal....
I ask him for more money....
He says well do it for a while... we will see how you go and then we will talk....

Hard work first.... pay increase after....

How can you not understand that.... Action A happens before Action B happens....

Evn if i go to my boss and say
I need more money...
He will say
Do this harder job.... once i i know you can do it well then we will talk...

Hard work first.... more money later... simple

...isn't this supposed to be a game and not a job?

Evad

Sentinals are complete garbage! Make bleed and poison champs worth nothing. Change is good but you need to keep a eye out on what your doing, a lot of people ready to quit. I backed you on the nerfing of certin champs but this is a horrible change.

Abracadaver12

Kabam see the dolla signs and let the cash blind em.

DNA3000

Feedback: so far I've fought Nightcrawler several times in AQ now. If you can't consistently switch him, and I can't seem to do that consistently, then his defensiveness makes it difficult to defeat him before timeout. I think combining a buffed evading boss with a timer is not a good idea. He'd be a perfectly fine miniboss or boss in a single player map where there was no time limit. In AQ I personally don't think Nightcrawler is properly balanced as a miniboss.

There are counters to evade but typically the choice is between being able to play more aggressive with an evade counter or being able to play more tactically and deal with the evade. But the three minute timer makes the second option not really feasible in my opinion. I don't think eliminating gameplay options without a good reason is generally a good idea, and I don't know why that would be desirable here. And even with Iceman if you don't apply cold snap consistently, the time it takes to tactically reapply it can be too high relative to the timelimit, which means even some evade counters are not always sufficient to beat the clock.