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

DarkestDestroyer

DNA3000 wrote: »

BillLisBack wrote: »

Here we are day 3 and the pain is real again.

I don’t know what to say, I’ve always given you the benefit of the doubt but you guys really are the worst.

Like others I’m spending resources just to try to keep up so now I can’t use those elsewhere. Also, I have 12/17 5*s sitting at rank 1 because I can’t get enough resources to rank them. But they now have to wait even longer because I need to rank 4*s I hadn’t planned to to counter these sentinels and Morningstar. And oh yeah, no additional resources. As I said previously all pain and no gain. Pretty lousy way to do things.

I know it will probably be seen as heresy by some to say this, but I've been thinking that this AQ change may justify granting RDTs. I don't say that lightly: I am generally against using RDTs to respond to every little change that happens to the game. But here the logical argument for RDTs is pretty compelling to me. AQ was changed, and it was changed significantly, and it was changed in a way most people will agree poses a new challenge to players to adjust their play, both in terms of their skills and in terms of the champions they bring to AQ. I think most players would agree and the devs would agree that's a reasonable statement to make.

But AQ changed very suddenly, relative to the time it takes to save up rank up resources. If the actual intent was for players to look at their roster and reexamine the strengths and weaknesses of their champs, Kabam should realize that it can take weeks or longer for the average player to save the resources to rank up champions even if they already possess them. If the meta-game aspect of the change was to re-evaluate roster, players need to be able to actually make changes to their roster based on that re-evaluation. And if it is going to take a very long time to do that, then the meta-game isn't actually playable by most of the players. They can't always do what the devs expect them to do: use different champs.

This sounds like precisely the situation RDTs are useful for. When the devs themselves make an explicit change to the game that they actually *want* the players to think about, strategize around, and potentially re-evaluate their rosters for, they either need to make the change gradual enough for players to respond through rank ups, or they need to temporarily speed up the rate at which players can make roster rank up changes. That's what RDTs do: allow players to change their minds about roster and adjust quickly, rather than at the normal rate rank up materials are earned. Directly nerfing a champion in a materially harsh way is one situation where an RDT might make sense. But asking the players to re-evaluate their roster to deal with all new content that it is difficult to opt out of is in my opinion another such situation.

Champs ranked up for AQ can still be used in all other content. Can still be used in AQ, just for instance wolverine can’t bleed a sentinel. He can still KO one and regen

1captainbob2

Sentinels are a cash cow for Kabam ! They don’t act glitchy in a normal quest so it’s clearly a way of getting the loyal players of this game to spend more cash ! If they had the same characteristics as the normal quest not the alliance quest ones I wouldn’t care !!!!!!! STOP RUINING WHAT WAS A GREAT GAME KABAM

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Speeds80

Pfft, wolverine has sat on my bench since sentinels came in, he’s too slow at killing means charges add up and the fight is just long and boring and timeouts are lame, I would rank him down in a flash. he’s never been in my quest team, but he used to be aq mvp. the annoyance is I need my top fighter now for aq, that’s 5 days a week I can’t use him for questing, before this I had a good balance as war is every second day, so starky could do eq on defense days. now I get to do one run between aq days and then wait 2 hours to finish that run or buy another energy refill thanks to the stupid 76-90 energy paths in eq. Also dropping starky out of my war team kills my blade synergy

NinjaiX

Nihung wrote: »

NinjaiX wrote: »

@Kabam Miike do you still believe the sentinels are not harder? I still want to see you fight one to prove us all wrong

@NinjaiX , I personally don't find them hard, I find them easy, but saying that, I want them gone. They are boring. They are killing the game.

That's fair enough. I have no idea what level you are playing at but difficulty comes down to the map type, prestige and sentinel class right? I personally find them difficult. We do 5x5 and our AQ starting prestige is 6k and on day 5 the prestige is almost 10k. That means on day 1 they have 40k health which means you can't kill them quick and they get up to 40 analysis charges very quickly.

NinjaiX

And it's not just facing one of those sentinels. It's facing them 7, 8, 9 times which gets to you.

DrVD99

Sentiels is on most nodes. AQ maps are boring now to the point where half the player base do not even play and quit the game.

If the Whales want the Sentinels to stay then leave them in map 6. For the other maps 1-5, change back to Adapoids. Kabam need to keep new players and the majority of the player base happy or more of the players will quit soon.

kmbell81

DrVD99 wrote: »

Sentiels is on most nodes. AQ maps are boring now to the point where half the player base do not even play and quit the game.

If the Whales want the Sentinels to stay then leave them in map 6. For the other maps 1-5, change back to Adapoids. Kabam need to keep new players and the majority of the player base happy or more of the players will quit soon.

Map 6 doesn’t have sentineloids. That’s why the whales aren’t upset by the change. It does not affect them.

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Nihung

DNA3000 wrote: »

I know it will probably be seen as heresy by some to say this, but I've been thinking that this AQ change may justify granting RDTs.

@DNA3000 , I don't think RDT's will solve the problem.

The issues why people want Sentinels gone range from they are hard to play, to the animation is boring, to they require no skill.

I posted above that I don't find them hard to play against . For me it is purely about playability. I love the fact you have to vary your attacks and defence as well as skill. Sentinels have changed that. They just involved button mashing with an occasional block.

The fun is gone for me. I genuinely want Kabam to look at this thread and develop this game to the next level. Sentinels are a backward step IMHO.

BigDaddyJoe

All this is doing is widening the gap between the elite map6 runners and the mid-high end gamers. We went from running map 5/5 the last year to now a 5/5/5/3/3 schedule. This day 3 map5 is even tougher than last weeks with more deaths and despair. I’m starting to see more people wanting to rage quit and the only thing holding back from doing so is not wanting to let the alliance down. Something has to change soon. Watched a couple videos yesterday of aggravated guys selling off all their champs and items. I guess that’s one way of cold turkey quitting. There’s no coming back at that point

Vincew80

So who’s everyone using successfully on Morningstar, specifically the 2nd one? We’re struggling big time.. not cause she’s difficult but because we don’t have a bunch of r4+ 5* dorms & GRs. Having to share mini boss kills due to timing out with our bleed immune champs on day 3 is feeling pretty ridiculous.

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Vincew80

Mcord117 wrote: »

Vincew80 wrote: »

So who’s everyone using successfully on Morningstar, specifically the 2nd one? We’re struggling big time.. not cause she’s difficult but because we don’t have a bunch of r4+ 5* dorms & GRs. Having to share mini boss kills due to timing out with our bleed immune champs on day 3 is feeling pretty ridiculous.

I am just throwing absurd amounts of potions stashed during the halls of healing at it. It’s not sustainable for me. Already notified alliance I am out after aq.

Anytime I’ve ever used potions before it was because I did something boneheaded & typically after several drinks. That was on me & could deal with that. However, when I can’t avoid dying/timing out because my best 5* champs are useless then it’s pretty tough to enjoy this. I’m hoping I’m missing something & there’s more than a couple champs will actually work.

Afrid

@Vincew80 I've been using r3 5* LC. Others in my alliance have one shotted her with quake too.

Str

I am hopeful that the upcoming changes announced will take players feelings into account.
#ibelievein@"Kabam Miike"

NragedSixx

GR does really good against Morningstar, fight is longer though.

Vincew80

@afrid I’m using him too & he worked on the 1st mini but not on the 2nd one. I originally planned on taking him to r4 just for her but I can’t see him working on day 4 or 5 even then. One teammate with an r4 dorm got her to 12% before he timed out today after 186 hits.

Hulk_77

I'm still waiting to hear what the "very common counter" for Morningstar with 100% power gain and 5 souls is. Day 5 is going to be a blood bath, wait and see.

teekq

Well 5star r4 iceman still isn’t enough to solo second Morningstar. And timed out take half of your health.

kmbell81

teekq wrote: »

Well 5star r4 iceman still isn’t enough to solo second Morningstar. And timed out take half of your health.

That’s only on day 3. I cannot imagine what day 5 is gonna be like.

Il_JooO

kmbell81 wrote: »

teekq wrote: »

Well 5star r4 iceman still isn’t enough to solo second Morningstar. And timed out take half of your health.

That’s only on day 3. I cannot imagine what day 5 is gonna be like.

it's just a matter of time, you'll have to pass day 4 before xD

teekq

I don’t even want to think day 5 will be. Looks like we dropping down off expert tier

Foxtrot_Tango84

Same here. I used a duped 4/55 Iceman on the 2nd MS on day 2 and timed out. There is no reason a 4/55 champ should be timing out on a mini. Kabam needs to seriously evaluate this. You significantly increaed the difficulty and didn't increase the rewards. It's a terrible move and I'm about done with this game. After 2+ years you guys almost have me tapping out.

Address these totally unnecessary changes or I'm out, and I'm sure a lot of people share my mindset on this.

Also, we better not be seeing more EQs with energy requirements like this current one. That's another huge issue with the gane right now that has people ready to quit.

Vincew80

The bad part about this whole thing is they obviously didn’t even test their own changes & make sure they were somewhat reasonable. Had they done so we wouldn’t have gotten the ignorant remarks like sentinels aren’t harder, we wouldn’t be timing out on day 3 & the extra node on section 1 would’ve been caught before it ever got released.

Ultimatheory

Vincew80 wrote: »

So who’s everyone using successfully on Morningstar, specifically the 2nd one? We’re struggling big time.. not cause she’s difficult but because we don’t have a bunch of r4+ 5* dorms & GRs. Having to share mini boss kills due to timing out with our bleed immune champs on day 3 is feeling pretty ridiculous.

Like @Afrid said I used a 5* rank 3 LC. Our prestige is high enough that MS is maxed out on health on Day 3. Use MLLLL to give the highest chances on stacking debuffs and as many SP3’s as possible. Don’t try and bait SP1 just go straight to SP2 as it is much easier to bait. It’s unblockable but not hard to evade at all as it is identical to something like a Cyc SP1 or a Iceman SP1. That being said I still came close to timing out. A rank 4 I would imagine would have no issue but unless you’re using him for something else I’m not sure it’s worth a rankup just for MS.

Vincew80

Ultimatheory wrote: »

Vincew80 wrote: »

So who’s everyone using successfully on Morningstar, specifically the 2nd one? We’re struggling big time.. not cause she’s difficult but because we don’t have a bunch of r4+ 5* dorms & GRs. Having to share mini boss kills due to timing out with our bleed immune champs on day 3 is feeling pretty ridiculous.

Like @Afrid said I used a 5* rank 3 LC. Our prestige is high enough that MS is maxed out on health on Day 3. Use MLLLL to give the highest chances on stacking debuffs and as many SP3’s as possible. Don’t try and bait SP1 just go straight to SP2 as it is much easier to bait. It’s unblockable but not hard to evade at all as it is identical to something like a Cyc SP1 or a Iceman SP1. That being said I still came close to timing out. A rank 4 I would imagine would have no issue but unless you’re using him for something else I’m not sure it’s worth a rankup just for MS.

MS is the only reason I’m considering taking him to r4. He’s unduped & I have a duped Red Hulk I’d rather rank for better prestige. I’ll try you’re strategy on her next time though.. I only used him in arena before so I’m sure it’s not helping. Regardless, it’s just plain poor taste they added a mini that so many solid r4’s can’t solo.

Username1521

Man, I never had to revive in Map 5 before, but since the addition of the sentinels I had to revive or potion use at least a few each time. My alliance used about 32 items to finish map 6 day 1. We used about 47 on map 5 day 3 because of the sentinels. It should be the other way around. Seriously, the Sentinels are a cash cow. How do you fight them if they keep power gaining. I know there are video to fight them, but it's really difficult if you cant keep a full combo. Kabam said you can easily beat them with armor break champs, but it's not like you can pull those champs out of your pockets. I cant believe running map 6 is easier than 5, but the cost to run map 6 is so expensive. I rather them beef up the symbioids.

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