Dev Diary: Added Difficulty - Discussion Thread

Greetings Summoners!

Our latest Dev Diary post has been added to the MCoC blog! Check out our new plans on how we intend to challenge our most experienced Summoners with the upcoming content! These plans are still in progress, but we wanted to give you an early look at how this is shaping up.

Take a look at our Blog Post here: https://playcontestofchampions.com/dev-diary-added-difficulty/

And join in on the Discussion in this thread!

Comments

Rhysi0_

So I imagine that the rewards for map 7 will be significantly higher the current highest difficulty...that’s all this will mean is that the players who like normal sleep patterns who do map 5 will again slip further behind the front runner or they wil be forced to pilot in AQ...why not rework how things scale instead of just throwing another level on top...new players have no chance to catch veterans...this is how games die...

RogerRabs

While I do like additional content that tests our skill and understand the big spenders may need more of a challenge, I have some concerns with this outline.

First, Map 7 definitely feels premature. I'm in an alliance that runs 1 BG of Map 6 on weekdays where we don't have AW attack. We do this because 1) People don't have the time to reliably finish Map 6. 2) People don't want to spend the time in arena farming BC. 3) We don't all have enough R4 or R5 5 stars to do the Map.

Second, the emphasis on roster diversity also has some issues. I love getting chances to use new champions, but unfortunately I am rarely incentivized to use any champion who isn't at 4/55 or higher. There are plenty of champions I would love to take to 4/55, but T2A doesn't come in fast enough unless you run Map 6 every day.

Third, is another issue with roster diversity. Awakening 5/6 stars either takes a lot of crystal RNG or cold hard cash for awakening gems / FMGC. A good amount of high end champions need their signature abilities to be useable. More ways to awaken champs would allow me to use more of my roster.

While I like the direction the game is heading, I worry if these factors may be creating too large of a divide between the Top 1% of players and other who have finished Act 5 but aren't at the highest level of Alliance competition (call it the t 2-10% of players or top 500ish Alliances).

@Kabam Miike

SparkAlot

Kabam Miike wrote: »

Hey there!

Our goal with Map 7 is not to make it more time consuming, or having individuals commit to logging in more often than Map 6, but the time you do spend on the map is going to be much more intense! There are fewer reserve lanes, which means that everybody is going to have to bring their A-Game if they are aiming to take the Map on!

Why not also add different maps for the lower levels? Always having the same one over & over & over again gets to be so tedious, that it isn't funny.

As for map 7, yeah, the whale accounts that have all the champs already maxed out won't really care that much, they might end up with a few more rewards, but, I really don't see this as a incentive to play map 7. They have everything anyway, and if they don't have something they just whale out and buy it.

The thing that is missing between all maps is the fun factor, randomly changing enemies only goes so far, if the paths are the exact same thing all the time, it should be a new map every week or two.

BLEEDlNG_DGE

Was going to complain about how new, harder content defeats its own purpose when upper tier resources are unrealistically scarce but I remembered that top tier summoners are big spenders and therefore Kabam don't need to cater to this imbalance.
None of this is for those of us who still have to scavenge for resources. Hope everyone else enjoys it though.

Thatweirdguy

I presume that Kabam knows that most alliances who avoid map 6 do so not because of the difficulty but rather the time constraints. But I guess those who do map 6 now will enjoy an upgrade. You guys do know it is the time and not the difficulty level....right?

Also I presume act 6 is going to be filled with things like inverted controls. yipeeee

unknown

This content has been removed.

KevanproG

When will the new difficulty be added

V1PER1987

The idea of encouraging diversity is nice but what is going to make me bring my 1/25 Spider Gwen over a 5/65 Sabretooth? The only way I could foresee that happening is if you add a node “Any specials that deal zero damage makes the defender laugh so hard, they instantly lose 25% of their max HP. Defenders can only take damage this way.” Also with 120+ champs in the 5* and a really poor featured crystal system it makes it virtually impossible to get those valuable champs you want. Is anything being done to address this? Like I said I’m all for diversity and mixing it up, but obtaining a diverse roster has to be made a lot easier.

Jh_Dez

RogerRabs wrote: »

While I do like additional content that tests our skill and understand the big spenders may need more of a challenge, I have some concerns with this outline.

First, Map 7 definitely feels premature. I'm in an alliance that runs 1 BG of Map 6 on weekdays where we don't have AW attack. We do this because 1) People don't have the time to reliably finish Map 6. 2) People don't want to spend the time in arena farming BC. 3) We don't all have enough R4 or R5 5 stars to do the Map.

Second, the emphasis on roster diversity also has some issues. I love getting chances to use new champions, but unfortunately I am rarely incentivized to use any champion who isn't at 4/55 or higher. There are plenty of champions I would love to take to 4/55, but T2A doesn't come in fast enough unless you run Map 6 every day.

Third, is another issue with roster diversity. Awakening 5/6 stars either takes a lot of crystal RNG or cold hard cash for awakening gems / FMGC. A good amount of high end champions need their signature abilities to be useable. More ways to awaken champs would allow me to use more of my roster.

While I like the direction the game is heading, I worry if these factors may be creating too large of a divide between the Top 1% of players and other who have finished Act 5 but aren't at the highest level of Alliance competition (call it the t 2-10% of players or top 500ish Alliances).

@Kabam Miike

This is the major problem I'm facing with the roster diversity
There are a lot of loyal subjects under poor rng

IanMooneIsBack

Uncollected was fun at first but then you had to go and turn it in Act 5 2.0 which i recall no one asked for it but still went for it anyways.

Variant Difficulity for Ultron you stated it will stay for good does this mean its like Act Story Quest or will you rotate the old quest? Bc i am really interested as i do miss kicking ultrons ass and his drones haha

Spurgeon14

MavRCK_ wrote: »

When you wish to “shake up our team” then we need the ability to obtain new teams or to awaken and advance new champions to fill this “shaking up of teams”.

How does a 0.81 or 0.91% chance to obtain a new 5* champion from a $10 crystal allow us to do this? Or infrequent opportunities to get a random class awakening gem? Or get a valuable champion out of more than a hundred champions (and ever increasing) in a 5* basic crystal? And how can we “shake up our team” when takes months of careful resource management to rank up and to level just one champion which can easily be made superfluous by the sudden change of desires by the developers?

THIS!

Worknprogress

Wow people have no idea what the difficulty or costs of any of these are and are already moaning about it. Guys if it's too hard or too expensive, don't do it. I highly doubt we'll be running any map 7 but I'm sure not about to start complaining about it getting added.

Helicopter_dugdugdug

Word salad with nothing concrete ... map 6 requires arena grinding to pay for it .. thta is the issue with AQ! We would love to run map 6 but no one wants to grind and we are all 3 years+ players with advanced rosters ... map 7 ain’t gonna do jack for us

Secondly my roster is limited bcoz u have tied the hero acquisition to getting lucky ... I cannot pull those good champions that r supposed to be counters to something ... i have knowledge of most counters but don’t have the tools.. how r u fixing that?!

unknown

This content has been removed.

cyfer

@Kabam Miike with so many changes to the game content, is there any plan for bringing back scarlet witch, wolverine, widow and thor as 5*. With so many good tier champs out there, why are they being left out?

unknown

This content has been removed.

Kabam DK

Hey everyone, I can tell you're all VERY interested in more information on Map 7 and specifically how much it and Map 6 will cost. I said this earlier in this thread, but I want to reiterate that we're looking at the economic elements more thoroughly once we feel the difficulty of Map 7 is more solidified. Your concerns about Map 6's costs especially once Map 7 comes out are certainly not the first time we've thought about this, but the details of those costs are just not our focus right now. If Map Costs are step 7/10, we're at Step 3 or 4. I know it sucks being told "we can't say anything" but we actually have nothing to say right now! Anything more specific than what we've said already would literally just be a made up number. Rest assured, your concerns are very much noted, and we'll be keeping them in mind once we get to the stage where we tune things like Map Costs.

Buttehrs

How bout you go the route of transformers forged to fight and have no map costs ever? Seems to work fine over there lol.

Zuko_ILC

Spurgeo14 wrote: »

MavRCK_ wrote: »

When you wish to “shake up our team” then we need the ability to obtain new teams or to awaken and advance new champions to fill this “shaking up of teams”.

How does a 0.81 or 0.91% chance to obtain a new 5* champion from a $10 crystal allow us to do this? Or infrequent opportunities to get a random class awakening gem? Or get a valuable champion out of more than a hundred champions (and ever increasing) in a 5* basic crystal? And how can we “shake up our team” when takes months of careful resource management to rank up and to level just one champion which can easily be made superfluous by the sudden change of desires by the developers?

THIS!

I do agree with a lot of this, champs and resources are so scare its the main reason only certain champs are ranked up. We don't want to waste these scare resources and our $$$ on characters that aren't considered good champs.

Philly3974

For the all the new content being added, on top of story mode, monthly event quests, special side events, etc, and since it was made clear in previous posts that you have no intention of increasing levels beyond 60, each mode of content should have separate energy (story, monthly EQ, back issues..) or lower costs of energy per move to 1 or 2 energy (max)...

players will have to buy LOADS (probably Kabam intended to make player spend) of energy refills to complete content esp with the energy recharge timer taking as long as it does now.. 70 energy doesn’t go far when last chapter of events take 3-4 energy per move..

Clayton

So y’all gonna fix the way to acquire donations or y’all just ok with top allies and people paying Mercs for mass amounts of donations. I personally have to grind and grind mass amounts of arena to pay for the gold and BCs and barely scrap by from winning wars donating loyalty doing 6x5. It shouldn’t be like that.

unknown

This content has been removed.

BLEEDlNG_DGE

cyfer wrote: »

@Kabam Miike with so many changes to the game content, is there any plan for bringing back scarlet witch, wolverine, widow and thor as 5*. With so many good tier champs out there, why are they being left out?

Makes no sense. Champs like Ghost, Corvus, Blade, Stark Spidey etc justify Wolverine, S Witch, Thor & Dr S 5*s in their current state. They wouldn't even come close to breaking the game.

LeNoirFaineant

Kabam DK wrote: »

Hey everyone, I can tell you're all VERY interested in more information on Map 7 and specifically how much it and Map 6 will cost. I said this earlier in this thread, but I want to reiterate that we're looking at the economic elements more thoroughly once we feel the difficulty of Map 7 is more solidified. Your concerns about Map 6's costs especially once Map 7 comes out are certainly not the first time we've thought about this, but the details of those costs are just not our focus right now. If Map Costs are step 7/10, we're at Step 3 or 4. I know it sucks being told "we can't say anything" but we actually have nothing to say right now! Anything more specific than what we've said already would literally just be a made up number. Rest assured, your concerns are very much noted, and we'll be keeping them in mind once we get to the stage where we tune things like Map Costs.

Thank you for the reply. Being told that there is literally nothing to report is better than no response. In the meantime, could you retune the cost of map 6 since the reasons we were given for the expense no longer exist?

becauseicant

As the game advances into these new tiers of difficulty (which are exciting and needed) there is going to be a much larger focus on things like class and champion restrictions along with needing very specific champions and abilities to take on certain fights. My question/concern is that the ever expanding pool of champions available in the basic 5* crystal along with the more recent change to the featured 5* crystal has made it exceptionally difficult to target or acquire any specific type of champion, especially if you don't spend a large amount of real money. Do you have any plans to address this issue in the near future? Can you give us any insight into what that would look like?

Some examples would include things like class specific 5* crystals, a splitting of the crystal pool into a "classic" crystal and a newer "modern" crystal, or even perhaps something like a crystal that has only bleed inflicting champions. Taking it a step further would be things like character specific shards or some kind of pity timer where after a certain number of crystals or some other condition you are guaranteed some kind of specific reward.

NOOOOOOOOPEEEEE

What about Champions challenge? When is this thing coming.

Alpha07

Thatweirdguy wrote: »

I presume that Kabam knows that most alliances who avoid map 6 do so not because of the difficulty but rather the time constraints. But I guess those who do map 6 now will enjoy an upgrade. You guys do know it is the time and not the difficulty level....right?

Also I presume act 6 is going to be filled with things like inverted controls. yipeeee

I don't mind inverted controls as long as it's only after an special and for a short amount of time. More than that and I'll consider it ridiculous lol.

Volcanic45

The random and 2015 champs kills it for me I play this game way way less then I use to and I will admit you caught my attention but I remember those days grinding just to spin a random crystal and 9 out of 10 times get what I dont want or need I still have a mystic 5 star gem I've had for 3 years ...the random is such bull why cant we choose for our hard work and money smh

RO53TT1

This new harder difficulty is great for those top tier players that don't feel challenged and I'm happy for them, but I'm not 1 of them, I'm in another tier, I'm in that tier where I haven't become uncollected yet, it's still pretty tough for some of us who are trying not to spend hundreds or thousands of units on revives and potions to complete it, granted I know u have to spend some I get that, so uncollected is to difficult but like act 4 for the most part has been pretty easy, hard difficulty is pretty easy, I can get thru master on the monthly quests with a little difficulty depending on the month, but I really don't feel like I'm getting any better and it's really frustrating at this point and I'm really not sure if it's time to just move on andef find something else or not and I know I can't be the only 1.

Woody_feder

In order to untilze more of our rosters will there be more abundance of rank up materials such as tier 2 alpha?