**Mastery Loadouts**
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Alliance Quest Season 5: Kingpin's Conclave
Kabam Miike
Administrator∙Moderator › Posts: 8,213
Summoners!
The end of Dormammu’s Dominion is near, and the time has come to enter Kingpin’s Conclave!
You’ve all been facing off against Dormammu for over a year now, and though we have done some refreshes lately, it’s been about that long since we really overhauled what Alliance Quests are. That’s all about to change, because we’re introducing a whole slew of new features, and exciting updates to Alliance Quests!
Here’s a quick look at all of the changes that we’ve made with Season 5, with more details for each further below:
- We now have different Maps for different Battlegroups! Battlegroup Map choice allows different Battlegroups to play different Alliance Quest Maps, so Alliances with different types of players can still enjoy Alliance Quests together!
- Alliance Leadership can now select the number of Battlegroups they wish to play at the start of each Alliance Quest Day.
- Each Map now has a cost per Battlegroup instead of a total cost for 3 Battlegroups to incentivize different Map choices for different Battlegroups!
- Randomized enemies in certain sections keep things fresh from week-to-week.
- Some all-new encounters across all Maps will shake things up alongside an all new boss: Kingpin!
- A new difficulty scaling system raises the ceiling on difficulty for the most powerful Alliances in the Contest, but will also yield more points to coincide with the addition of new Peak Milestones!
- New Season 5 Map Crystals offer increased rewards for Summoner efforts!
- More Tier 2 Alpha availability in Ranked rewards will help Summoners to Rank Up their top Champions more quickly!
Settle in Summoners, because from this point forward there’s going to be a lot to take in. Let’s begin!
The Goals of Season 5:
Before we get into the specifics of what has changed, we’d like to give you some insight into why we made these changes, to better frame the thought process behind each of these new updates for you!
- We want to make Alliance Quests a more engaging experience for Alliances containing players of differing skill, progression, or engagement.
- We want to add some more variety to weekly Alliance Quests, to help prevent that feeling of monotony and boredom.
- We want to refresh the challenges across most Alliance Quest maps.
- We want to Increase Tier 2 Alpha availability in Alliance Quests, and have Alliance Wars Seasons as the “Go To” place for Tier 5 Basics.
- We want to promote more involvement throughout the Alliance Quest Series.
We made a lot of improvements to Alliance Quests with these goals in mind throughout the planning process, and they formed the base of everything else here!
Map Choice Per Battlegroup!
The biggest new feature coming to Alliance Quests this season is one that many of you have asked for repeatedly in the past – the ability to select different Maps for different Battlegroups!
With Season 5, if Alliance Leaders and Officers choose to, each of your 3 Battlegroups can now play on Different Maps. We had 3 primary reasons behind this:
- Alliances with 30 members of varying skill or commitment levels, but who are all friends, can remain intact without the tension of having to choose between a Map that satisfies one group over another.
- Alliances with fewer than 30 members, who are still growing, can participate in higher Maps without needing to donate for 3 Battlegroups while they add members.
- Alliances who want to have more control over difficulty on a per-Battlegroup basis can choose to do so (BG1 and BG2 play Map 5, BG3 plays Map 6, for example).
We’ve also put in a safeguard to warn Alliance Leaders or Officers if they won’t be able to fully explore their selection of Maps as well!
Just like now, if you participate in the Alliance Quest you will still get rewards from all of the Battlegroups that complete/explore the Map. For example, if you are in a Battlegroup running Map 3, and your Alliance has another battlegroup running Map 6, you will receive completion, exploration, and conqueror rewards generated from both Map 3 and Map 6!
Note: Just as currently you must participate in a Battlegroup to get these Battlegroup completion-type rewards.
In Short: Now, you can run up to 3 Different Maps in 3 Different Battlegroups, so more skilled/experienced Players will be able to take on Harder Maps, while less experienced members of your Alliance can take on a less challenging one. You’ll all get the rewards from all of them, so you can help less experienced players grow!
Battlegroup Choice
In order to let Alliance Leadership pick different Maps for different Battlegroups, first, they will need to select the number of Battlegroups they want to run daily when they start the Alliance Quest. Then, then will be able to select the Maps to be run for each Battlegroup.
This is what you’ll see when you launch Alliance Quests every day:
Map Costs
Now that you can choose different Maps per Battlegroup, instead of TOTAL Map Costs (3 Battlegroups), there is PER BATTLEGROUP Map Cost. The total cost for running all 3 Battlegroups has not changed (so running Map 5 in 3 Battlegroups would be the same as it is today), unless you are running less than all 3. Check it out below:
Map 4 is evenly split (33%) between each Battlegroup, because we want to encourage growth into higher maps, without discouraging partial (not all 3 Battlegroups) participation.
Map 5 and 6 Battlegroup costs are distributed 25%-50%-25% because we want to encourage Alliances who are interested in dabbling in higher level maps to try them out, but also if you’re already considering doing 2 Battlegroups, we want to encourage you to take on all 3! Our goal here is still to maintain a sacrifice in resources for running less than 3 Battlegroups, but reduce the burden that currently exists by a measurable 25%.
Note: We also looked at other breakdowns between Battlegroups before and after landing on these numbers, but believe that this one is the most likely to accomplish our goal above.
The cost is not dependant on which Battlegroup you choose for which Map. So, if you decide to Run 4,5,6, You’ll pay the first Battlegroup price for each of them, but if you choose to run 5,6,5 you’ll pay for the Battlegroups 1 and 2 of Map 5, and 1 of Map 6.
All in all, even if you choose to run just 2 Battlegroups of Map 5, you’re still going to be paying less than the 100% that you were paying before.
In Short: Map Costs are now split into per Battlegroup costs, so you’ll only pay for the Battlegroups you run in that Map. Some Maps have a higher 2nd Battlegroup cost than their 1st or 3rd, but no Map costs more to play than before.
More Variety!
We’ve heard your concerns that Alliance Quests can quickly become routine and repetitive. We want to combat this feeling of monotony and keep Alliance Quests fresh to keep you guessing.
That is why we are introducing randomized enemies to Maps 2-5! Randomized enemies will only ever be found on Locally Buffed nodes (no linked nodes!) and will not be hidden, so you can always scout ahead to see which enemies are on your path this week. These randomized enemies function similar to how the current random Minibosses work. Each node will have a pool of 3 different Champions that can appear there (Map 2 will only have 2 potential enemies), and every week, one of those opponents is randomly selected for each node to fill that spot!
We will be keeping an eye on these encounters, and will be reviewing data to determine if any further tweaks or changes may be needed in the future.
The Map will remain consistent across Alliances, so the randomized Enemies you see on any given week are the same enemies all other Alliances running the same Map are seeing as well! Enemies are randomized every week, and will not change from day to day. Now you should note, there are some potentially tricky Opponents in this list, including some like Dormammu and Iceman, though their Signature levels will be pretty low, or non-existent.
For the most part, the random enemies will all be of the same class, save for a few that appear on paths with multiple classes on them, where they could be either.
With randomized enemies now coming into play, there are literally thousands of different Map combinations that you can encounter!
Let’s take a look at a few examples:
In Short: Locally Buffed Nodes on Maps 2-5 will have a pool of 3 Champions to choose from every time a new series of Alliance Quests spawns. All Alliances running the same maps will see the same enemies, and those enemies will stick around until the next series starts.
The end of Dormammu’s Dominion is near, and the time has come to enter Kingpin’s Conclave!
You’ve all been facing off against Dormammu for over a year now, and though we have done some refreshes lately, it’s been about that long since we really overhauled what Alliance Quests are. That’s all about to change, because we’re introducing a whole slew of new features, and exciting updates to Alliance Quests!
Here’s a quick look at all of the changes that we’ve made with Season 5, with more details for each further below:
- We now have different Maps for different Battlegroups! Battlegroup Map choice allows different Battlegroups to play different Alliance Quest Maps, so Alliances with different types of players can still enjoy Alliance Quests together!
- Alliance Leadership can now select the number of Battlegroups they wish to play at the start of each Alliance Quest Day.
- Each Map now has a cost per Battlegroup instead of a total cost for 3 Battlegroups to incentivize different Map choices for different Battlegroups!
- Randomized enemies in certain sections keep things fresh from week-to-week.
- Some all-new encounters across all Maps will shake things up alongside an all new boss: Kingpin!
- A new difficulty scaling system raises the ceiling on difficulty for the most powerful Alliances in the Contest, but will also yield more points to coincide with the addition of new Peak Milestones!
- New Season 5 Map Crystals offer increased rewards for Summoner efforts!
- More Tier 2 Alpha availability in Ranked rewards will help Summoners to Rank Up their top Champions more quickly!
Settle in Summoners, because from this point forward there’s going to be a lot to take in. Let’s begin!
The Goals of Season 5:
Before we get into the specifics of what has changed, we’d like to give you some insight into why we made these changes, to better frame the thought process behind each of these new updates for you!
- We want to make Alliance Quests a more engaging experience for Alliances containing players of differing skill, progression, or engagement.
- We want to add some more variety to weekly Alliance Quests, to help prevent that feeling of monotony and boredom.
- We want to refresh the challenges across most Alliance Quest maps.
- We want to Increase Tier 2 Alpha availability in Alliance Quests, and have Alliance Wars Seasons as the “Go To” place for Tier 5 Basics.
- We want to promote more involvement throughout the Alliance Quest Series.
We made a lot of improvements to Alliance Quests with these goals in mind throughout the planning process, and they formed the base of everything else here!
Map Choice Per Battlegroup!
The biggest new feature coming to Alliance Quests this season is one that many of you have asked for repeatedly in the past – the ability to select different Maps for different Battlegroups!
With Season 5, if Alliance Leaders and Officers choose to, each of your 3 Battlegroups can now play on Different Maps. We had 3 primary reasons behind this:
- Alliances with 30 members of varying skill or commitment levels, but who are all friends, can remain intact without the tension of having to choose between a Map that satisfies one group over another.
- Alliances with fewer than 30 members, who are still growing, can participate in higher Maps without needing to donate for 3 Battlegroups while they add members.
- Alliances who want to have more control over difficulty on a per-Battlegroup basis can choose to do so (BG1 and BG2 play Map 5, BG3 plays Map 6, for example).
We’ve also put in a safeguard to warn Alliance Leaders or Officers if they won’t be able to fully explore their selection of Maps as well!
Just like now, if you participate in the Alliance Quest you will still get rewards from all of the Battlegroups that complete/explore the Map. For example, if you are in a Battlegroup running Map 3, and your Alliance has another battlegroup running Map 6, you will receive completion, exploration, and conqueror rewards generated from both Map 3 and Map 6!
Note: Just as currently you must participate in a Battlegroup to get these Battlegroup completion-type rewards.
In Short: Now, you can run up to 3 Different Maps in 3 Different Battlegroups, so more skilled/experienced Players will be able to take on Harder Maps, while less experienced members of your Alliance can take on a less challenging one. You’ll all get the rewards from all of them, so you can help less experienced players grow!
Battlegroup Choice
In order to let Alliance Leadership pick different Maps for different Battlegroups, first, they will need to select the number of Battlegroups they want to run daily when they start the Alliance Quest. Then, then will be able to select the Maps to be run for each Battlegroup.
This is what you’ll see when you launch Alliance Quests every day:
Map Costs
Now that you can choose different Maps per Battlegroup, instead of TOTAL Map Costs (3 Battlegroups), there is PER BATTLEGROUP Map Cost. The total cost for running all 3 Battlegroups has not changed (so running Map 5 in 3 Battlegroups would be the same as it is today), unless you are running less than all 3. Check it out below:
Map 4 is evenly split (33%) between each Battlegroup, because we want to encourage growth into higher maps, without discouraging partial (not all 3 Battlegroups) participation.
Map 5 and 6 Battlegroup costs are distributed 25%-50%-25% because we want to encourage Alliances who are interested in dabbling in higher level maps to try them out, but also if you’re already considering doing 2 Battlegroups, we want to encourage you to take on all 3! Our goal here is still to maintain a sacrifice in resources for running less than 3 Battlegroups, but reduce the burden that currently exists by a measurable 25%.
Note: We also looked at other breakdowns between Battlegroups before and after landing on these numbers, but believe that this one is the most likely to accomplish our goal above.
The cost is not dependant on which Battlegroup you choose for which Map. So, if you decide to Run 4,5,6, You’ll pay the first Battlegroup price for each of them, but if you choose to run 5,6,5 you’ll pay for the Battlegroups 1 and 2 of Map 5, and 1 of Map 6.
All in all, even if you choose to run just 2 Battlegroups of Map 5, you’re still going to be paying less than the 100% that you were paying before.
In Short: Map Costs are now split into per Battlegroup costs, so you’ll only pay for the Battlegroups you run in that Map. Some Maps have a higher 2nd Battlegroup cost than their 1st or 3rd, but no Map costs more to play than before.
More Variety!
We’ve heard your concerns that Alliance Quests can quickly become routine and repetitive. We want to combat this feeling of monotony and keep Alliance Quests fresh to keep you guessing.
That is why we are introducing randomized enemies to Maps 2-5! Randomized enemies will only ever be found on Locally Buffed nodes (no linked nodes!) and will not be hidden, so you can always scout ahead to see which enemies are on your path this week. These randomized enemies function similar to how the current random Minibosses work. Each node will have a pool of 3 different Champions that can appear there (Map 2 will only have 2 potential enemies), and every week, one of those opponents is randomly selected for each node to fill that spot!
We will be keeping an eye on these encounters, and will be reviewing data to determine if any further tweaks or changes may be needed in the future.
The Map will remain consistent across Alliances, so the randomized Enemies you see on any given week are the same enemies all other Alliances running the same Map are seeing as well! Enemies are randomized every week, and will not change from day to day. Now you should note, there are some potentially tricky Opponents in this list, including some like Dormammu and Iceman, though their Signature levels will be pretty low, or non-existent.
For the most part, the random enemies will all be of the same class, save for a few that appear on paths with multiple classes on them, where they could be either.
With randomized enemies now coming into play, there are literally thousands of different Map combinations that you can encounter!
Let’s take a look at a few examples:
In Short: Locally Buffed Nodes on Maps 2-5 will have a pool of 3 Champions to choose from every time a new series of Alliance Quests spawns. All Alliances running the same maps will see the same enemies, and those enemies will stick around until the next series starts.
Post edited by Kabam Miike on
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New Encounters!
Almost every other non-buffed encounter across Maps 1-5 has also seen an update/change, and 17 of the 122 Map 6 encounters are getting an update to limit the amount of repetitive fights. Keep in mind, Map 6 still does not feature any randomized enemies, or node changes!
Node Refresh
We’ve also got new Buff Nodes coming your way! For the most part, we’re going to let you explore these on your own, but we want to call out two path changes in Map 5 Section 2:
- The Immunity Path has been changed to a Masochism Path
- The Power Gain Path is now a Power Reserve + Burden of Might Path.
These are sure to change up some of the Champions you want to bring to Map 5!
Welcome to Kingpin’s Conclave!
Goodbye Dormammu, it’s been fun, but it’s time for a new face to step in and rock the Battlerealm!
Kingpin will be taking over, and to offset some of the more challenging aspects of his base kit, We’ve reduced his Champion Boosts slightly on harder maps, but have also added 2 unique Buffs to replace Dimensional Anchor on Dormammu:
Buff 1: Force of Will:The Defender's Ability Accuracy cannot be affected by the Attacker.
Buff 2 (Map 6 Only): Unbridled Rage: Damage over time Debuffs are always converted into Rage Debuffs, and while Overpower is active, they are consumed immediately and reset Overpower's duration. Whenever any damage over time Debuff is removed, Kingpin gains 10% Power immediately.
These buffs are engineered to emphasize high base-damage Champions, and reward skilled players that can reliably intercept attacks, and bait specials!
Please keep in mind that Kingpin DOES have his Signature Ability activated, as it is far less punishing than Dormammu’s.
New Difficulty Limit
As you probably know, the difficulty of your Alliance Quest Map is based on your Alliance’s Prestige, which increases with every successful day of AQ. At this time, the limit is roughly whatever the PI of a Rank 5, Level 65 5-Star is. Many top end Alliances have been hitting this limit on Day 1 because their starting prestige was higher than the Base PI of the highest level of available 5-stars, and therefore are hitting the maximum number of points possible every week, and are not seeing an escalating difficulty.
In order to bring back the escalating challenge of Alliance Quests for these Alliances in particular, we’ve implemented a dynamic scaling system, which will still limit the Rank/Level/Rarity of Champions you’ll face to 5-Star 5/65, but will add HP and Attack beyond this to reach higher PI levels, similar to how Infinity Dungeons function.
While this can theoretically scale infinitely, in order to avoid potentially impossible situations, we have still limited the PI of Champions for the time being. The Cap is now approximately 20-25% higher than it was before, which should lead to about 2 additional days of not hitting that cap. This means that we can add even more Milestones on top of the ones we have now. Look for those below.
If your Alliance never hit that cap, this will have no effect on your whatsoever. But, for example, If your Alliance previously started fighting max PI enemies on day 3, you will now (likely) see max PI enemies on Day 5. This is not an exact science, however, since the difficulty of the enemies is still based on your Alliance Prestige, which varies slightly from Alliance to Alliance.
In Short: Alliances that previously hit the difficulty cap will now have more room to grow, which means their difficulty will once again scale up, but also gives them access to more points, which they’ll need for the additional milestones we’re adding.
Prestige Scaling
Previously, victory or failure on any Map would increase or decrease your prestige by the exact same amount, regardless of if you played. That means that an Alliance that only played on Map 1 would have the same relative difficulty increase from Day 1 to Day 5 as an Alliance that played Map 6 every day.
With the addition of Map choice per Battlegroup, this needed some adjustment! Under our new system, the rate at which Prestige increases for Map 5 and 6 will remain the same as it currently is, but Map 4 and below will see progressively less aggressive rates of change, with Map 1 Prestige being a little over half as aggressive as Map 5 and 6. This flatter slope of Prestige increase over 5 days would also typically result in less points overall, however…
Point Changes
...We’ve also reworked the points available per Map! These changes should ensure that you are getting the same, if not more points for playing the Maps that you do now!
In Short (x2): We’ve reduced how aggressively your Prestige scales in Maps 1-4, meaning that the increase/decrease of difficulty throughout the week will be lower, but we’ve also adjusted the points curve so that you get just as many, if not more, points every series.
New Peak Milestones
Because Alliances will now be yielding more points in general, and we’ve lifted the difficulty cap meaning a higher maximum point potential, we’ve also added 3 additional milestones above the current 190,000,000 point maximum!
New Map Crystals
Map Crystals for Maps 2-6 will have a new version for Season 5, which will include beefed up amounts of Catalyst Fragments! Sorry Collectors, old Crystals you currently have will not be updated. These are brand new crystals!
PLEASE KEEP IN MIND: These are approximate values, and the random nature of the crystal drops means actual yields will vary between individuals.
Map 6 Crystals
Now contain a very low chance to award a fully formed T2A
~200% increase in T2A Catalyst Yield (Includes fully formed T2A)
~200% increase in Tier 4 Basic Catalyst Yield
Map 5 Crystals
~40% increase in T4 Class Catalyst Yield
~60% increase in Tier 4 Basic Catalyst Yield
Map 4 Crystals
~50% increase in T4 Class Catalyst Yield
~30% Increase in Tier 4 Basic Catalyst Yield
~80% Increase in T1A Catalyst Yield
Map 3 Crystals
~50% increase in T4 Class Catalyst Yield
~40% Increase in Tier 4 Basic Catalyst Yield
~10% Increase in T1A Catalyst Yield
Map 2 Crystals
~90% Increase in Tier 4 Basic Catalyst Yield
Map 1 Crystals
No changes
You'll notice these are not broken down with specific per-crystal values, and this is intentional. Alliance Quests rewards so many of them, we wanted to present our changes in a way that more accurately reflects how these Crystals are opened: more than one at a time and over longer periods of time, typically. The value of Map Crystals is from the quantity of them that you receive, so these calculations are simulated over the long-term (longer than 1 or 2 weeks of AQ).
Glory Store
We’ve taken the opportunity to adjust the costs for 3 primary resources in the Glory Store: Tier 2 Alphas, Tier 1 Alphas, and Tier 4 Basic Fragments:
Rank Reward Adjustments
We wanted to distribute Tier 2 Alpha Fragments a little more evenly, so we’ve extended the baseline at which you can earn Tier 2 Alpha Fragments down from Rank 500 to Rank 1200:
GET READY!
In conclusion, this new season of Alliance Quests has a lot of new updates and features that have been asked for in the past, and we’re really excited to bring them to you!
We also want to let you all know that this is just the beginning. We know that Season 4 has been around for a long time, and until the update that brought Sentinels into the fold, hadn’t been touched in over a year! We’re not going to do that again, and want to be more frequent with our updates, and changes of Seasons.
You may find yourself asking why we haven’t made many changes to Map 6 this time? Well, with how demanding that Map is, we didn’t want to introduce a lot of change all at once. We are looking to do a big refresh to Map 6 in the coming months independent of changes to other Maps, but not until Alliances have gotten used to this update first.
Additionally, we wanted to let you know that while there are still some limitations to our Beta System that make it extremely difficult to Beta Test changes to Alliance Modes, we took some time to give this information to a small group of Summoners to get their feedback, and made some adjustments accordingly. We weren’t able to take on all of their feedback, but their feedback has given us a lot to think about for future iterations of Alliance Quests. We want to thank them all for their valuable criticism and suggestions, and for taking the time to help us make Alliance Quests better for all of the Summoners in the Battlerealm! We’ve also done things a little differently in this closed “beta”, and due to their feedback on the matter, will be allowing any Summoner that took part in these discussion to disclose their own participation, but this is at their discretion. We’re not going to be sharing who took part in these discussions, and have asked our participants to only disclose their own participation, and not share any names of other Summoners that took part as well.
They’ve also asked us some great questions that we’re adding into an FAQ in the next post down!
Schedule Shift
In order to accommodate for the release of our version 20.0 update, we have to make some adjustments to our upcoming Alliance Quest schedule. The downtime between the upcoming series of Alliance Quest and the following series will be reduced to 1 day. This means that the last Alliance Quest Series of Season 4 will begin on August 30th instead of September 1st. We don't usually like to decrease the break period, but opted to allow one last series of Alliance quests, instead of extending the break significantly.
Then, the first Alliance Quest of Season 5 will begin on September 9th! That means there will be an extended downtime between the last Alliance Quest of Season 4, and the first of Season 5!
Prepare your Alliance, Summoners!
Let's Discuss! You can find out Discussion thread here: https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/91154/alliance-quest-season-5-kingpins-conclave-discussion-thread/