Witness the Great Revival! Act 6 Chapter 1 - Coming March 13th

BORN AGAIN
Carina has awoken. For ages she’s been trapped in her crystal prison, but with the support of Ægon, The Collector finally has his daughter back, but she’s not interested in standing still. Keen to find her place in The Battlerealm, Carina begins to understand her power and explore the fringes of the unknown, but Carina’s rebirth has reminded the Elders that the scars of their past have yet to fully heal. Taneleer Tivan and En Dwi Gast must jockey for Carina’s attention as they both attempt to mold her into the Elder they think she ought to be. Unfortunately for the both of them, Carina is as rebellious as she is powerful, and her defiant nature might just prove too much for the old Elders to handle…

Join Carina, Ægon, The Collector, and The Grandmaster when the final episode in the Elder Saga begins in ACT 6: REBIRTH!

RELEASE + LEGENDS
Act 6 Chapter 1: Great Revival releases on MARCH 13TH for all who have completed Act 5: ELDER’S WAR to enjoy.

Alongside this release, we’re happy to announce a Legends Run for Chapter 1! This Legends run will begin the moment you start Act 6 Chapter 1, and end the moment you 100% explore all Quests in the Chapter. You’ll have until April 13th at 10:00:00 AM PDT to log a time. The rewards for the Legends run of Act 6 Chapter 1 are:

Rank 1-5
10x Tier 5 Class Catalyst Fragment Crystals (2% each of a random Tier 5 Class Catalyst)
22,500x Tier 5 Basic Catalyst Fragments
2x Tier 2 Alpha Catalysts

Rank 6-100
5x Tier 5 Class Catalyst Fragment Crystals (2% each of a random Tier 5 Class Catalyst)
11,250x Tier 5 Basic Catalyst Fragments
1x Tier 2 Alpha Catalysts

In a new turn of events, we’ll also be featuring a Legends Run for all Chapters of Act 6, and a special Act Legends Reward throughout the release of Act 6! The top times for each Chapter’s Legends will be collected, and awarded with a new 6-Star Champion never before owned by any Summoner!

In order to win the Act Legends Reward, you’ll need to place in the top times of each Chapter, as follows:

Chapter 1 - Top 20 Times
Chapter 2 - Top 40 Times
Chapter 3 - Top 60 Times
Chapter 4 - Top 100 Times

If you happen to qualify for all 4 Chapters, you’ll receive the Champion 4 times, meaning you can Awaken them this way! We will have more to reveal about each Chapter’s and the Act Legends rewards in the future, but that’s all we have for you for now.

CHAMPION REQUIREMENTS
Act 6 is some of the most challenging content to date, and the perils within require only the strongest Champions of The Contest. Chapter 1 will contain CHAMPION REQUIREMENTS that will restrict the Champions you use to ONLY 5 and 6-Star Champions.

BUFFS
There are 7 new buffs making an appearance in Act 6 Chapter 1. Each Quest features one or more of these Buffs as Global effects, so you’ll need to bring your best. See below for each Buff and a little description of our intentions with it.

NO RETREAT! - When the Attacker dashes back, they gain Degen Timer for 1.2 seconds. Dashing back again while the Degen Timer is active causes a Passive Degen, dealing 200% of the Defender's Attack as direct damage over 6 seconds.
This Buff is meant to impose the mentality of its title: Do not retreat. While other similar Buffs like Caltrops can be easily countered with an Immunity, No Retreat requires careful planning and execution on playstyle to overcome. No Retreat was designed to be possible - but challenging - to avoid.

Special Delivery - The Attacker begins the fight with 15 Combo charges. Each landed basic attack decreases the Combo charges by 1, and launching a Special Attack will reset the charges. If all charges are removed, they are reset, and the Attacker suffers a Passive Degen equal to 100% of the Defender's Attack Rating over 4 seconds.
Similar to fighting Thor Ragnarok, this Buff will require you to make sure you have a Special Attack at the ready, but there are sure to be challenges to that strategy strewn throughout…

Combo Party - For every 10 hits of the Combo Meter, the Attacker gains a permanent Cruelty Buff, granting +500 Crit Damage Rating. When struck, the Attacker loses all Cruelty Buffs if their combo meter is lost and takes 40% of the Defender's attack as direct damage for each Buff removed this way.
This buff is generally quite simple, and is intended to create a “ride the line” feeling - you want to get your combo count up, but losing it will cost you dearly.

Long Distance Relationship - While close to the Defender, the Attacker gains a Weakness Debuff every 3 seconds, reducing their attack by 10% permanently. Staying far away from the Defender causes these Weakness effects to fall off.
The goal here is to encourage you to find “openings” to deal as much damage as possible. Waste those openings, or just spend too long near the opponent, and you’ll need to back off in order to gain your damage back. If you’re pinned in a corner, you’ll want to use your abilities to create some space and start dealing damage again.

Close Encounters - While close to the Defender the Attacker Regenerates 1% of their Max Health every second. While far away from the Defender, the Attack Degenerates 3% of their Max Health every second.
Sort of the inverse of Long Distance Relationship, Close Encounters encourages you to stay as close to the Defender as possible, and being efficient as you bait specials or get out of the way of abilities that could cause trouble up close (like Mephisto or Omega Red).

Power Struggle - The Attacker cannot gain Power during the fight through normal means. Each time the Defender reaches a full bar of Power, the Attacker is granted one as well and whenever the Defender launches a Special Attack, the Attacker loses an equal amount of Power.
This one is all about a “use it or lose it” mentality - you’ll want to make sure you’re keeping an eye on your Opponent’s power and how it relates to your own. Characters who can control power using their specials, like Vision or Magik, will excel here.

Hurt Locker - Using the same type of Special Attack twice in a row gives the Attacker a Delayed Blast charge for 5 seconds which may be removed by landing a Heavy Attack. If the Blast expires, the Attacker takes 50% of their Health as direct damage.
This one is (as the name might suggest) focused on creating a “bomb defusal” moment while you play. If you make a mistake, you’ll have a small window to correct it before your mistake comes back to bite you. Rest assured there will be challenges that will threaten to trip you up…

PI RANGES
Keep in mind these are approximate - there is some variation around the values but in general, this is what you can expect:

Quest 1
Paths: ~22,500-28,000 PI
Boss: ~ 55,000 PI
Quest 2
Paths: ~23,000-30,500 PI
Boss: ~ 58,500 PI
Quest 3
Paths: ~23,500-30,500 PI
Boss: ~ 50,000 PI
Quest 4
Paths: ~23,500-35,500 PI
Boss: ~ 54,000 PI
Quest 5
Paths: ~27,000-31,000 PI
Boss: ~ 66,000 PI
Quest 6
Paths: ~28,000-39,000 PI
Boss: ~ 72,000 PI

ENERGY/PATHS
In general, quests in Chapter 1 have a consistent energy requirement the whole way through. On average, All quests in Chapter 1 will have:

3 Energy Per Step
~ 9-10 paths
~ 600 Energy for Quest Mastery

REWARDS
Of course, we know that any announcement of new Story content wouldn’t be complete without some nice rewards for your efforts. Here’s what you can expect:

Quest 1 - 6 (Completion + Exploration)

30x 5-Star Signature Stone Crystals
180,000x Gold
63,000x Tier 2 Alpha Catalyst Fragments
50x Units

Chapter 1 Completion
9,000x Tier 5 Basic Fragments
2,000x 6-Star Shards
5,000x 5-Star Shards
1x 5-Star Rank up Gem Crystal (2-3)
1x Tier 4 Basic Catalyst
1x Tier 4 Class Catalyst Crystal
500,000x Gold

Chapter 1 Mastery
1x Tier 5 Class Catalyst Fragment Crystal (25%)
1x 5-Star Rank up Gem Crystal (3-4)
Tier 5 Basic Catalyst
4,000x 6-Star Shards
8,000x 5-Star Shards
3x Tier 4 Basic Catalysts
3x Tier 4 Class Catalyst Crystals
1,000,000x Gold

Chapter Total (all of the above)

1x Tier 5 Class Catalyst Fragment Crystal (25%) (Note: This is a Special Crystal, and not the regular Tier 5 Class Catalyst Fragment Crystal)
1x 5-Star Rank up Gem Crystal (2-3)
1x 5-Star Rank up Gem Crystal (3-4)
13,000x 5-Star Shards
30x 5-Star Signature Stone Crystals
6,000x 6-Star Shards
1,680,000x Gold
63,000x Tier 2 Alpha Catalyst Fragments
4x Tier 4 Basic Catalysts
4x Tier 4 Class Catalyst Crystals
1x Tier 5 Basic Catalysts
9,000 Tier 5 Basic Catalyst Fragments
540x Units

BECOME A CAVALIER
A new Act, a new Progression point! Summoners that complete Act 6 Chapter 1 will gain the new designation of “Cavalier”!

This designation is not as game changing as Uncollected, and is a step up similar in scope to becoming Contender, Proven or Conqueror.

Cavaliers will have access to a brand new Cavalier Crystal that guarantees at least a 3-Star Champion with a 38% chance at a 4-Star Champion, an 11% chance at a 5-Star Champions, and a rare 1% chance of a 6 Star Champion! These Crystals will be available for 200 units each.

Cavaliers will also have access to:

- A 25 Unit Discount on Grandmaster Crystals
- A new Cavalier Calendar in place of the Grandmaster Calendar that will grant a Grandmaster Crystal over 7 days, instead of 14
- An upgraded Daily Crystal that contains a rare chance of T5B Fragments, 5-Star Shards, or 6-Star Shards, and double the amount of - T2A Fragments, T4CC Fragments, and T4B Fragments!
- A slightly upgraded Free (4-hour) Crystal with more Gold!

This is the next step after becoming Uncollected, and we plan to continue to add more as the Story progresses!

Comments

Psy26

There is a simple solution that could allow 4* into the act 6. Create a global node that behave slightly like an enrage timer in LoL. 5* and 6* can avoid it but anything below receives a penalty, nothing is restricted but using 5* and 6* gives you an advantage (or remove the disadvantage, depends how you look at it)

DiablosUltimate

You say you take feedback of players seriously so if that is really the case, you need to reconsider decision to ban 4stars from being used in act6, because it is very clear that it's what every single endgame player wants.

Jiren1234_

I honestly don’t care about the synergy aspect of it (which is what many players are complaining about). I just want to be able to use my 5/50 4* and mind you they are still useful. I wouldn’t have been able to easily breeze through the final ultron boss of 5.4.6, many uncollected bosses, and other content without my 5/50 void. Hulk and BW really helped with poison lanes and spiked armor, and AA was so useful for modok from 5.4.4. If we have specific counters to some champs as 4*, why shouldn’t we be able to use them? Thoughts?

Rockerman

If their player level system was far bigger, or just infinite with repeating xp values per level; then they prolly would've just put a level cap on it. And 'level capping' content is a pretty common and core design strategy for many games.

But now since they have such a low cap on player level, and there's no actual metric of player experience or progression, this is their way of locking content towards the group of players they're designing the content for. They've tried using player prestige as indication of progression before, and that's probably a worse idea to implement here.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not too happy that a hard lock like this is the way they separate playerbase. If they could spend more time on it, they probably could come up with a better metric than this to judge player's progression. And even if they couldn't come up with a better metric, there's better ways of implementing this metric itself, like giving a huge damage boost to 5* and 6* and designing the content around that, or a damage reduction to 4*, or some enrage timer -esque mechanic; I could go on.

Kabam clearly wants some sort of a lock though, and I highly doubt that they're gonna be able to come up with a different one and implement it(plus testing), by the time act 6 launches. A future synergy slot is just a suggestion to make their hard lock viable while not causing a secondary, more prominent issue than just fighting with 4*, which is synergy teams. And it adds a cool feature to the game. If they're able to come up with a new metric and replace the hard lock later, that would be pretty cool too.

After a good amount of 5*, one's luck would need to be pretty **** not not get any decent ones. And my luck is pretty **** too, I have 60+ 5*, but I only have 3 champs from 2018 as 5* and that too, they're VtD, IMIW and Proxima(who I pulled today). Bad luck with champs is a pretty common issue in this game. But eventually, some usable ones do drop, and since this is permanent content, those few with really crazy bad luck can still attempt it in the near future.

But making synergy teams in 5* isn't so inevitable as just getting usable 5*, and that's the real issue that I take a problem with, for the state of the game.

loader187

If you want to make this not look like a "money grab" than you should be dropping 5* heroes to 2k or 5k for a full crystal.

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Rockerman

@TheSquish671 ^^^

(forgot to quote your comment.)

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Voltolos

You are gating it based on RNG, something that has never been done before.

Having good champs was always rng based. Uncollected and act 5 isnt possible to do with 3 stars except with extreme skill. So if you can do act 5 with 3 stars you will be albe to do act 6 with bad 6* champs

Kobster84

You are gating it based on RNG, something that has never been done before.
Having good champs was always rng based. Uncollected and act 5 isnt possible to do with 3 stars except with extreme skill. So if you can do act 5 with 3 stars you will be albe to do act 6 with bad 6* champs

No you won’t because those 3* were especially strong for act 5 such as having regen or being specific counters

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IsItthough

@Kabam Miike Can you guys let us know if Beta testers were restricted to 5 and 6 Stars only? Was there any discussions to raising the level bar? Not sure how cutting half a roster allows you to track anything more if as you say "lost a numerical value of your time and experience in the game." If you don't raise the Level cap how will you track my time and experience?

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Arham1

The 4 star Versions of champions not available as a 5 star should be allowed. For eg: Scarlet Witch, Thor, Wolverine, etc.

redm4n

Gating to this level has never been done in progression based content (aka acts 1-5, LOL, RTTL, variant and ROL). If this is going to stay, are we now going to see all current champs not at 5 star coming next week so we can actually use the synergies. I would love a 5 star vision ( double immunity + Power control) that doesn’t cost $500. Or I have a better idea, listen to your consumers and let them play the game that pays your salaries.

cx23433

quit whining

Djin

No one is forcing you to complete it within few days of it's release. Take your time build you 5* roster and then try.

axelelf_1

quit whining

Says the collected.

Scotch

I know buying crystals has always been a bad gamble, but I find it funny that, AFTER completing content where you're only allowed to bring 5* and 6* champs Kabam is making a special crystal available to purchase that has a 50% chance for a 3* and a 38% chance at a 4*......."Nice job completing our hardest content, wanna buy something we won't even let you use?".....you have to admit, their troll game is on point!

Colinwhitworth69

I honestly don’t care about the synergy aspect of it (which is what many players are complaining about). I just want to be able to use my 5/50 4* and mind you they are still useful. I wouldn’t have been able to easily breeze through the final ultron boss of 5.4.6, many uncollected bosses, and other content without my 5/50 void. Hulk and BW really helped with poison lanes and spiked armor, and AA was so useful for modok from 5.4.4. If we have specific counters to some champs as 4*, why shouldn’t we be able to use them? Thoughts?

Kabam is presenting us with a new challenge. You might need to work on your roster a while before doing Act 6. I know I will. If they had made Act 6 just a somewhat harder version of Act 5, the veteran players would be done with it in a week or two and then demanding something else. This will keep everyone busy a while. No problem with that, IMO.

Zuko_ILC

To be honest it looks like they are trying to slow down completion of Act 6 possibly to extend the life of the game. I'm sure for some people it sucks that they can't try to complete it now due to their roster but if it extends the life of the game without losing those people I think it could be a good thing. Now if it backfires and they lose those people then the game's shelf live will be cut in half. So not sure which way its going to go.

CFree

To be honest it looks like they are trying to slow down completion of Act 6 possibly to extend the life of the game. I'm sure for some people it sucks that they can't try to complete it now due to their roster but if it extends the life of the game without losing those people I think it could be a good thing. Now if it backfires and they lose those people then the game's shelf live will be cut in half. So not sure which way its going to go.

Exactly. People quitting will affect Kabam’s analysis of future releases and help those who stay (e.g., me).

IsItthough

No one is forcing you to complete it within few days of it's release. Take your time build you 5* roster and then try.

Sure, let me just go and buy that power lock champ i need? This build your roster line is absolutely absurd. You have no control over your roster other than grinding away at a game for hours on end, in hopes of getting something worthwhile. Or spend a ton of real money!

loader187

You are gating it based on RNG, something that has never been done before.
Having good champs was always rng based. Uncollected and act 5 isnt possible to do with 3 stars except with extreme skill. So if you can do act 5 with 3 stars you will be albe to do act 6 with bad 6* champs

most people that are doing act 5 with 3* it is for the synergy so what your saying doesn't make sense. if they needed that synergy to help them like hiemdahl synergy than now you cant use it. I would say if you are going to implement a major change like this than act 6.1 should remove 1*-3* and give us time to enjoy the content and put a disclaimer saying 4* will not be allowed starting at 6.2 and beyond. This gives us plenty of time to decide if we want to spend money on crystals, grind for characters etc. @Kabam Miike

Jeff42000

I guess there is no reason to upgrade 4* champions at this point. If you arent grinding for the end game then what are you grinding for? Thanks kabam, ive wasted so much of my resources that I should have been saving for 5* champs I dont even have yet.

CFree

I guess there is no reason to upgrade 4* champions at this point. If you arent grinding for the end game then what are you grinding for? Thanks kabam, ive wasted so much of my resources that I should have been saving for 5* champs I dont even have yet.

They’re still useful if you’re not in a position to grind for end game. Plus they’re useful for plent of non-Act 6 content.

concepcion29

Hey everyone,

Thank you all for the discussion on this topic. There’s been a lot of constructive feedback and thoughts, and it’s been valuable to us for considerations and internal discussion. We wanted to be clearer with our intentions, and better clarify why we want to do this and how it aligns with our past direction in the game.

This is not the first time we’ve hard-gated something behind a form of progression. We use gates liberally, oftentimes to prevent players from having frustrating experiences in content beyond their capabilities, but also because we’re game developers and we have some intended play experiences in mind that we--through both iteration and personal gameplay experience--believe smooth out the ride and make the whole thing as enjoyable as possible.

At level 50-60, it's easy to forget that for much of an early player’s experience they are bumping into padlock icons all over the quests menu:

- A multitude of our arenas cannot be played without specific Champion rarities, and to be competitive requires a lot of them.
- Normal and Heroic difficulty event quests are locked behind levels 12 and 25, respectively.
- Master was, for a long time, gated monthly behind the 100% exploration of its Heroic counterpart.
- Uncollected difficulty requires not only reaching level 40, but completion of Act 5, Chapter 2.
- Even entering Beginner asks you to be level 6!

And this is just looking at the monthly event quests. Dungeons need you to have a sizeable count of certain rarities before you can access the very same ones. Side Quests follow similar locking mechanics to the Monthly Events, and we’ve used gating methods both inter-quest (Dimensional Rifts and their shards) and more explicit (Danger Rooms rarity requirements, the current Recon Missions) to craft a specifically targeted experience or to more tightly tune the content we’re making.

On the topic of tuning, that is our goal when using more stringent requirements in quests. Back Issues #1 used this explicitly with the Class requirements; we did this so we could build areas in each quest where lesser-used Champions could stand out--Hawkeye’s power drain capabilities in Chapter 1, Quest 1, for example--and be important for strategy where they normally would not. We’re aiming to do similar things in Back Issues #2, with a different approach. (More on that soon!)

One reason we do this is because of how progression changes over time. Once you’ve achieved Level 60, we lose a numerical value of your time and experience in the game. The gap between a fresh 60 and a veteran 60 can be massive, just like in many other MMO games. One of the best ways we have to continue using those gates as both protective and progression measure is targeting the baseline strength and breadth of your roster.

Act 6 (and other content) is built with specific challenges in mind. The requirement of 5 and 6-Stars is a broader application of the idea, but it allows us to build a more tightly-constructed experience around a more specific box of playstyles. Making one-size fits all content for an immense player toolbox can lead to things being more watered down and general, rather than the specific moments we can make when we know the lower and upper limits of each player as a matter of fact.

Lastly, this is permanent content. When we place strict requirements on a Side Quest, it’s a gold rush; there’s only ~30 days to build or enhance a team for the quest in question, and it can be a real crunch to get it done. (I myself am going to have a hell of a time with the Avengers leg of the Recon Missions.) Act 6 is going to be around forever. If you can’t get into it right away, that’s alright. It’ll wait for you!

Again I appreciate the discussion around this, and when we say we’re taking your feedback we mean it. When there are lots of opinions and discourse around a topic like this, we take it seriously. I’ve already had two meetings today to chat about it with a variety of teams. I hope my points better explain our stance on gating content, and why we feel comfortable doing it here in the way we are.

Since the 4* attack and health pool are much lower when looking at a 5 or 6* champion, you’re more than likely to not use the 4* for more difficult content but sometimes the champion or ability you need is only available to you as a 4*. Why punish players who don’t have deep pockets, time to grind arena, or horrible crystal pulls by restricting them to using their 5 and 6* only?

I understand what they are trying do here but it still doesnt make much sense. There are skilled players who have stacked 4* rosters and rely on those champs because they don’t have the right champs as a 5/6*. This restriction doesnt really affect me all that much but at the same time, we don’t even know what Act 6 looks like at the moment so it’s hard to tell if we would even need to use our 4*. Best if we wait it out until next Wednesday to see what Act 6 has in store for us.

Jeff42000

I guess there is no reason to upgrade 4* champions at this point. If you arent grinding for the end game then what are you grinding for? Thanks kabam, ive wasted so much of my resources that I should have been saving for 5* champs I dont even have yet.
They’re still useful if you’re not in a position to grind for end game. Plus they’re useful for plent of non-Act 6 content.

Cfree, I do agree with your comment. 4* champs will still be used for AW and AQ. But my 4* champs have brought me through Uncollected, Act5, labyrinth and the majority of realm of legends. So Act6 is going to be harder than Realm of Legends? I still use 3* champs just for synergies. I have 4* champs ive leveled over 5* just because they were awakened. Seems like a huge money grab, why would it matter to them what champ I use to beat their content?

Epistriatus

So.....maybe I missed it, but there was supposed to be some kind of statement or clarification from the game/devteam with regards to the champ requirements in act 6, specifically the exclusion of 4* champs.....?