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

DNA3000

Blooregarde wrote: »

DNA3000 wrote: »

Blooregarde wrote: »

Kabam DK wrote: »

Mcord117 wrote: »

Kabam DK wrote: »

Batty_Numppo wrote: »

What is Morningstar’s curse buff?

When you block one of her hits, she will gain a soul (her persistent charges)

Wait, what??? So why not just give her 5 charged to start the fight? Unreal

The goal with the Oppressive Curse buff is to give Morningstar ways to gain Souls (otherwise she'd never gain ANY) while also providing a way for skilled players to avoid giving them to her. If you intercept her, she'll never gain any. If you don't, you'll need a bleed immune Champion

Hi @Kabam DK , I just wanted to inquire a little more about this comment you made. You had indicated that the whole point of the Oppressive Curse buff is to allow Morningstar a way to gain Souls, and that if we intercepted she'll never gain any at all...and further added that if we don't, we'll need a bleed immune champion (thus implying), if we played flawlessly, we wouldn't require a bleed immune champion. However, from the screenshots I've seen of Morningstar on Map 5, it seems that she's awakened, and by being awakened, she automatically starts with at least 1 Soul, no matter what, and 1 Soul is all she needs to inflict bleed onto the enemy at a 50% chance. Does this not make your comment incorrect? Or are we able to bring champions that are not bleed immune and should be able to play flawlessly and take 0 damage? I think it would be nice if this was clarified to avoid having members of the MCoC community bringing champs that are ill-suited for Morningstar and end up using more resources than intended due to incorrect information?

I've attached an image to confirm that she is awakened.

Your analysis sounds correct to me. Ordinarily, Morningstar should start the fight with one soul if she is awakened, and one soul is all she needs to inflict bleed 50% of the time an attack makes physical contact. Whether you intercept her or not, you will need a bleed immune champion as far as I can see. @Kabam DK statement about needing a bleed immune champion if you don't intercept appears to be misleading, as interception appears to have no bearing on Morningstar's ability to inflict bleed.

When DK made that comment, I presumed that she would be not awakened and thus not starting with 1 soul, so then if you were to play and always intercept and not block, you wouldn't need a bleed immune champ. So either DK's comment was incorrect/misleading, or Morningstar shouldn't be awaken? No?

It is possible Morningstar was awakened incorrectly. We already know the map has one bug on it, it is entirely possible it has two. The Morningstar bug if it is a bug frankly is more understandable. Both bugs combined whisper "intern" in my ear.

BigDaddyJoe

Howard isn’t that bad

Midnightfox

Clap clap. Kabam always outdoing themselves on bugs. Guess what since it’s not beneficial to the players they are gonna keep it all aq. Yay! Now if that bug had benefitted us the game would have went down for emergency maintenance and be fixed promptly. This is why people are walking away and no one trusts anything the mods say. Ridiculous that as always we have to bend over and take it.

Jesse0013

Just wish they would listen to a concerned player base

shchong2

Midnightfox wrote: »

Clap clap. Kabam always outdoing themselves on bugs. Guess what since it’s not beneficial to the players they are gonna keep it all aq. Yay! Now if that bug had benefitted us the game would have went down for emergency maintenance and be fixed promptly. This is why people are walking away and no one trusts anything the mods say. Ridiculous that as always we have to bend over and take it.

Well said, thanks for voicing this out! I know not everyone will agree, but I guess many will.

DNA3000

Midnightfox wrote: »

Clap clap. Kabam always outdoing themselves on bugs. Guess what since it’s not beneficial to the players they are gonna keep it all aq. Yay! Now if that bug had benefitted us the game would have went down for emergency maintenance and be fixed promptly. This is why people are walking away and no one trusts anything the mods say. Ridiculous that as always we have to bend over and take it.

To be honest, I think if the bug deleted an unoccupied node the devs would be similarly slow to make changes even though that would be a small net benefit.

There's a germ of truth to the notion that bugs that benefit the players are acted upon faster than bugs that hurt the players. How fast and how dramatically the devs take steps to address a bug generally involve what that bug's overall impact on the game is, especially in terms of resource management. A bug that hands tons of resources to the players is going to have a much higher priority than a bug that withholds resources from players. And that's because of a simple if harsh truth: when the game has an exploitable bug that can convert into tons of resources allowing that bug to persist will rapidly unbalance the game because players will quickly gravitate to that exploit if left unchecked. But when a bug exists that withholds resources from the players, all that tends to do is globally slow everyone down, which isn't as big a threat to game balance.

Game developers don't explain this very well, or at all. And it translates into honestly predictable suspicions surrounding their motives when they act to stamp out bugs in obviously different ways for different bugs that have nothing to do with the effort involved to address them.

shchong2

DNA3000 wrote: »

Midnightfox wrote: »

Clap clap. Kabam always outdoing themselves on bugs. Guess what since it’s not beneficial to the players they are gonna keep it all aq. Yay! Now if that bug had benefitted us the game would have went down for emergency maintenance and be fixed promptly. This is why people are walking away and no one trusts anything the mods say. Ridiculous that as always we have to bend over and take it.

To be honest, I think if the bug deleted an unoccupied node the devs would be similarly slow to make changes even though that would be a small net benefit.

There's a germ of truth to the notion that bugs that benefit the players are acted upon faster than bugs that hurt the players. How fast and how dramatically the devs take steps to address a bug generally involve what that bug's overall impact on the game is, especially in terms of resource management. A bug that hands tons of resources to the players is going to have a much higher priority than a bug that withholds resources from players. And that's because of a simple if harsh truth: when the game has an exploitable bug that can convert into tons of resources allowing that bug to persist will rapidly unbalance the game because players will quickly gravitate to that exploit if left unchecked. But when a bug exists that withholds resources from the players, all that tends to do is globally slow everyone down, which isn't as big a threat to game balance.

Game developers don't explain this very well, or at all. And it translates into honestly predictable suspicions surrounding their motives when they act to stamp out bugs in obviously different ways for different bugs that have nothing to do with the effort involved to address them.

What DNA3000 said is very true, and this is how we normally trust dev from any company. When I played Clash Royale, when there's a bug NOT being fixed for 2 months, we NEVER suspect it is bcos the company want to grab cash. It is naturally to think the dev is working behind the scene, and they have a plan to validate their fix, and there's a plan to roll out a complete fix. However, can we apply the same trust here, after what we have seen in v12.0 and sooooooo many things from now and then that I don't even want to mention anymore? TRUST is NOT given, TRUST IS TO BE EARNED!

This AQ maybe a crisis like the v12.0 saga, but make no mistake, a crisis can be turned into an opportunity if handled correctly and properly. Any smart company will probably quickly step out of the crisis shadow and sincerely and transparently admit mistake and keep everyone posted on the progress of their fix. And honour their promise with a timely and robust fix. This is how a smart company may turn a crisis into an opportunity, an opportunity form them to earn trust from its player base and an opportunity to expand its player base bcos now folks know they can count on the sincerity, the integrity and the pro-activeness of this company.

Or maybe I'm just being naive

LOL .... Talking about trust in this capitalist world and in this online gaming in virtual world?

raffster

This game is broken and needs to be fixed. ASAP.

Sentinels just basically added insult (% drop rates are basically telling the players to go suck an egg) to injury (increasing difficulty without ample time to adjust and/or rewards).

Stark_90

@Kabam Miike I am not sure if you have noticed the general opinion on the Sentineliods being introduced in AQ. It is clear the player base is not at all excited about them. Yet, you say the difficulty has not increased. It indeed has increased from what it used to be, your come back "sentinels melt at the power of armor break champions" assumes each one of us has armor break champions. So let me ask you a question, which I am unsure if at all will be answered.

How are you sure everyone has a viable armor break champion?
and also, how are sure everyone is enjoying the changes made to the AQ?

I would really appreciate you answer these questions.

Stephen_Lynch

DarkestDestroyer wrote: »

DNA3000 wrote: »

DarkestDestroyer wrote: »

Stephen_Lynch wrote: »

My alliance is a 15 million rated alliance we have been doing map 5x5 for past year 100% every time. You added Sentinels and all of a sudden we struggled to get through the first section without using pots and day 4 had a BG not finish. We also have had 4 people quit the game and 5 more waiting until the end of our war we are in to finish. But no you didn’t make it harder. You just killed Wolverine because he heals too much and you don’t get enough people buying alliance pots. Be honest @Kabam Miike this is a way to increase difficulty. I know there are counters. But symbiods don’t need counters. There for you did increase the difficulty and you know you did. Get rid of the stupid sentinels. They are annoying as hell. I did the halls of healing everyday and stocked up knowing it was going to be rough. I maybe use 1-3 pots on day 4 and 5. I use all 15 pots day 2 and 3. Only fights I lost on were sentinels that can hit me even when I’m blocking and all there many other annoying abilities.

@Stephen_Lynch you can still use wolverine and regen against them you know?

They hardly have any health it’s a simple fight.

I’m so mind blown by all the outrage

Its now an observable fact that the combined changes to AQ have made it a huge quantum leap harder for a large percentage of the players. Precisely why it is happening is debatable, but that it is in fact a huge difficulty jump is no longer debatable. The question now is what to do about it. If you don't understand how it could be more difficult, that's simply a fundamental limitation of your ability to engage in the details of the situation.

I'm saying this as someone whose alliance materially benefitted from the change. We jumped over 200 places in AQ standing last week even though we scored fewer points. That doesn't impact my ability to see that the change would have a large negative impact on players as a whole. And as Kabam's official position was and still amazingly is that there was no intent to increase difficulty beyond novelty, it is entirely understandable that players would be upset about a change that clearly went completely overboard what it was described to do.

If the devs say a change will do X, and it actually does something completely different than X, and that change materially harms the playing experience of a large percentage of the players, and the devs refuse to even acknowledge this is actually happening I would expect those players to react strongly negatively. I don't see how anyone's mind could be blown by the obvious and predictable. It is doubly annoying when the devs were so obviously wrong it is difficult to invent an excuse that allows for that level of wrong to happen by accident.

Dude just because they can’t bleed or be poisoned doesn’t make them more difficult to fight.

Yeah the mini bosses are slightly difficult but when there are 10 people with 3 champs each it’s easy to defeat them, they all have various counters, NC is bugged so he won’t evade.

I mean instead of trying to sound clever why not give a solution? What is it you want done?

You are right. Just because they are bleed and poison immune doesn’t make them hard. But last time I checked symbiods weren’t bleed and poison immune so that makes them harder. Bringing wolverine against sentinels means long fights which more unavoidable damage because Kabam hates free heals. If Kabam wants to make AQ harder I’m cool with that. But make compensate by increasing the rewards. It feels like they changed for change sake cuz @Kabam Miike and other workers were sick of seeing the same thing every AQ. But that’s not right. Should have waited until they were ready for a complete remake of AQ including new better rewards. Could have made a line or 2 of sentinels so only a couple people needed to bring sentinel counters and not everyone is bringing sentinel counters because not everyone ranked up or were lucky enough to get sentinel counter champs.

Brainimpacter

Kabams excuse for nerfs and changes in the past were so it would make the game more interesting by getting people to play with a wider variation of champs, but all the new AQ changes did was make a lot of champs useless and force people to pick from a more narrow pool of champs to take in AQ.
After these AQ changes I dont want to hear that excuse from kabam ever again for justifying nerfs and introducing op node buffs, because its obviously a cover story for trying to make people use more resources, proven by the fact these AQ changes are causing the very opposite of everything they have said in the past

unknown

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MEKA5

Jesse0013 wrote: »

@Kabam Loto @Kabam Miike @Kabam Wolf @Kabam Zibiit @Kabam Vydious

Congratulations Kabam! Keep releasing unfinished content with untested changes, unworthy rewards and "unintentional" features...people are quitting or retiring from this game.

BigDaddyJoe

Mcord117 wrote: »

So Morningstar

Day 1 second sub modest 5400 prestige rank 3 5* ultron 250 hits 2 time outs 6 pots mixed of 3k and 1200 to heal past processing points. Real fun gaming experience

Yea same here with my Ultron. Thought he was hitting like a wet noodle @Mcord117

Vincew80

Mcord117 wrote: »

So Morningstar

Day 1 second sub modest 5400 prestige rank 3 5* ultron 250 hits 2 time outs 6 pots mixed of 3k and 1200 to heal past processing points. Real fun gaming experience

Told our guys before this round ever started that timing out would be an issue the last couple days. One member used an r4 dorm & finished with around 40 seconds left... gonna be real fun on day 5.

Rockon

but why is cyclops viable for aq anymore with the mini boss changes? unless cyclops is getting adjusted to work with aq

unknown

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Primmer79

Mcord117 wrote: »

Throwing this out there but who is the heavy hitting bleed immune champ to counter this morning star? Come day 5 I am expecting 3 to 4 members needing to time out unless maybe you have rank 4 or 5 5* iceman and even then you will probably time out

Didn't you pay attention to Kabam? they said if we intercept her we will never need a bleed immune!!!
/s

I'm wondering how GR is matching up. Longer fight, will be able to get multiple specials off as well as maybe 2-3 sp3. I used ultron and didn't go well. Morningstar herself would probably be a decent option

unknown

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Primmer79

Mcord117 wrote: »

Primmer79 wrote: »

Mcord117 wrote: »

Throwing this out there but who is the heavy hitting bleed immune champ to counter this morning star? Come day 5 I am expecting 3 to 4 members needing to time out unless maybe you have rank 4 or 5 5* iceman and even then you will probably time out

Didn't you pay attention to Kabam? they said if we intercept her we will never need a bleed immune!!!
/s

I'm wondering how GR is matching up. Longer fight, will be able to get multiple specials off as well as maybe 2-3 sp3. I used ultron and didn't go well. Morningstar herself would probably be a decent option

If you have collected 5 souls a high rank morning star may make sense.

I can’t see ghost rider not timing out but on the plus side you can completely heal back every fight

It sounds like any 4* version of these characters will time out. Wish I had a 5* or 6* of them.

So I had to laugh at myself when I thought of this... but what about OML? Probably have to go 5*, at least r3, but I am curious if anyone has tried him.

RagamugginGunner

The fact that AQ is still full price AND full timers is a joke. At least give us free maps and/or 30 min timers while you "look at your data".

Glad my top 100 alliance is just running a week of map 3 while they sort their **** out.

World Eater

Mcord117 wrote: »

Throwing this out there but who is the heavy hitting bleed immune champ to counter this morning star? Come day 5 I am expecting 3 to 4 members needing to time out unless maybe you have rank 4 or 5 5* iceman and even then you will probably time out

Maybe ghost rider?
Nebula with 20 charges ?

General_Vis

Luke Cage has the class advantage so might see if he can take her down in one go.

lazapridvorice91

Please fix Daredevil dont use auto evade against sentinel sp1 @kabam miike

Pc1988

@Kabam Miike @Kabam Wolf @Kabam Vydious @Kabam Loto @Kabam Zibiit

Sorry for the mass tag and apologies if this is a repeat question but can’t find the answer anywhere:

Given than medusa’s armour shatter is theoretically supposed to reduce ability accuracy by 100%, should the skill sentinel be able to “purify” armour shatter? Is this working as intended or is it a bug that will be rectified? I understand that they can purify her armour breaks but L3 armour shatter should prevent them from being able to activate purify.

Thanks in advance!

SomeoneElse

It is extremely disappointing to see how out of touch Kabam is with their players, despite their very vocal community. The Sentinels are a significant jump in difficulty, but the rewards remain small. We will not get increased resources to adjust our rosters for this new challenge.

Some say we want something for nothing, but that could not be further from the truth. We play for the challenge. But there is a huge difference between well-designed challenges that we can beat with skill and practice and challenges that have no counter or are just plain annoying. They added Sentinels, which should give us a challenge of having to fight differently, e.g. no repetitive attacks, and should encourage us to use different champs, like those with armor break. But then they starve us of resources so that we can’t level up our armor break champions, which have not been as useful in other areas. This makes the challenge frustrating insteading of enjoyable. There is a lot of backlash from the community. It really should not come as a surprise given that this pattern has been repeating for a long time.

unknown

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Jjwarrior55

Rank down tickets would be nice. At the very least I can rank a previous AQ player down and now rank up a sentinel counter

MarzGroove

DNA3000 wrote: »

bugs that benefit the players are acted upon faster than bugs that hurt the players.

Actually it is more like this: "bugs that benefit one player over another player are acted upon faster than bugs that hurt all players equally"

mostlyharmlessn

The block damage is insane on day 2 this week... a 4* 5/50 lvl 99 blocked the second set of missiles from a science sentinel sp2. This happend twice during the fight and each time lost 20% health.... the first part of the sp2 was evaded.

This can't be right...