Discussion on Year 1 Champions

[OldGamer]

So as we know that CNE want to take away Year 1 Champs I just want to get a discussion thread going on some of the suggests I have read and also had.

Firstly, like to say I am opposed to totally relegating these champions to timegate duties. This would effect new players, such as myself and even newer players. I personally like to chronologically go through a game, even if I am "late to the party" so to speak.

However, suggestions:

1) Timegate Duties
The Year 1 champions, if CNE do decide to relegate them, I think at LEAST the year 1 champion (which would have been in that particular event) is FREE in timegate during the event.
This way, you don't lose timepieces but you can still unlock said champion and for oldies out there, they have a free upgrade for them.

2) Choices, Gamers Love them!
The Year 1,2,3,4 etc are "pooled" when you go into the adventure where the player selects (like you do with every adventure) what champion will go to that event that year.
This kills two birds with one stone. New players can choose to go new or old, old players can debunk the year 1 or kill off year 2 and 3 to upgrade 1,4 and new etc.
Also, in a story sense, this makes sense. No one would be going around in a 50+ champion squad to go on an adventure. Especially to an event.

3. Event Toppling
This is probably more work for devs.
But if you create new events totally separate to the others and you have two running alongside eachother based on your time in the game.
Now this splits players into new/old, which is possibly bad. But also solves the issue of having "too many" event champions at once.

4. Evergreen Buff
Year 1's come off the event turntable and into the Evergreen.
So now the Year 1 champs count in silver and gold chests.
This
a) rewards older players for sticking around as now it is free to upgrade gear
b) for new players they are just an added champion haul. You could have level caps on where they are unlocked or they could just unlock for free in their (would be) event, or simply, they just are there from the beginning.
Why not just wait?
You be waiting 3 years...
I think that, even for me, would be very frugal just to save on time pieces.

5. Token Reduction
Although I do disagree you couldn't unlock all 10 champions in Year 10 if your a new player. They take 25 tokens per free play, and you need to get level 50 to unlock. That takes around what half a day? If it takes around 40 minutes each. My first event (the one with Aila), I managed to get all three and got 1 variant done. So yes they are not very well equipped, however, you can still achieve in unlocking said new champions.

6. Sloppy Sides
Also side note: It be also quite great to see a weekend buff style, buffs on all event champions over a course of an event (so players are more likely to use them).

Anyway, any more? How do you like mine?

OG

[ptor]

I can't but agree on the Y1 heroes expected treatment being a rubbish decision. At least make them free unlock of the character for new players at their event. I could even venture and say "and their variants free as well" (maybe not the free plays), so new players are not TOO disadvantaged:
- 17xY1
- free TGs are every 3 weeks, and champions are randomly chosen
- one choose-your-own TG every 6 weeks
-> 34 weeks JUST to unock and barely equip a few slots
- it takes 2-3 TGs to fill every slot
-> good luck with that

While bounty contracts are the best way to get tokens, new players wont get many, and contracts only work on fully-clothed champions.

I don't dislike the free TG option, which is better for long term players but won't allow the 3 variant achievement for new players (unless a new kind of TG is made)

The pick 3 isn't bad either, but new players won't know whom to pick

TBH I'd be happy with all 4 champs available, but I also understand new players will be struggling with the tokens

[OldGamer]

Originally posted by ptor:

I can't but agree on the Y1 heroes expected treatment being a rubbish decision. At least make them free unlock of the character for new players at their event. I could even venture and say "and their variants free as well" (maybe not the free plays), so new players are not TOO disadvantaged:
- 17xY1
- free TGs are every 3 weeks, and champions are randomly chosen
- one choose-your-own TG every 6 weeks
-> 34 weeks JUST to unock and barely equip a few slots
- it takes 2-3 TGs to fill every slot
-> good luck with that

While bounty contracts are the best way to get tokens, new players wont get many, and contracts only work on fully-clothed champions.

I don't dislike the free TG option, which is better for long term players but won't allow the 3 variant achievement for new players (unless a new kind of TG is made)

The pick 3 isn't bad either, but new players won't know whom to pick

TBH I'd be happy with all 4 champs available, but I also understand new players will be struggling with the tokens

I also put it down to time in doing those timegates. There is SOOO much to do in this game (which is quality) but for a new player, having to do 1 step>2 step>3 step for just one champion is a bit overhwleming.

For me, I didn't touch combinations, timegates or patrons until I was 3/4 weeks into the game. And only unlocked a patron, in July I think.

So 17 unlocks to do in a TG is almost unbearable to even think about!

[Noeh23]

On one hand I agree (because I like options), however I don't agree with the reasoning that if something takes long it's the inherently bad. I for one like the fact that achieving stuff over a long period of time.

Anyway, we also assess this based on our play style and time spent in game. Very active players will not have a problem with getting TGs done, some super passive players will not even notice as there is so much stuff to do that adding more is just behind their horizon. And slowly uncovering all the things they can do is good imho.

I am around a year into the game. Recently caught up and finally have all the heroes. Modron cores are a new fun thing to play with.

When they added Strahd I though that is was overwhelming and there is no way people could complete weekly limits on all 3 patrons. Now with all speed heroes at my disposal and more familiars I am done on Tuesday evening usually.

So it's really about what kind of experience does CNE want to give to an average player I guess.

So having said all that I think the best solution would be to number 2 and I would even go as far as saying if a new player does not have any of the 4 heroes then they would be forced into taking the first 3 - this would make the experience of the game similar to players who started earlier and would get the heroes in a similar order. But maybe that's overkill.

[Coo Coo Pigeon]

I noticed there's a few you can unlock with patron currency already as as well...
I think there's more to it than timegates . . .

[thegrassyknoll]

simply. just have all hereos years ( 1-4 or even 1-8 if game gets there) available for each event. Simple done. Cant split the contracts very effectively between 3 anyhow, so what difference does having another hero make? Other than so newer players have a chance . Once you unlock patrons, u have soo many timegate pieces and patron chests to later equip the guys with but at least new players can experiment and have a sense of completion.

[muljostpho]

At first, they were already doing something like your second suggestion. It was like that through a single event's run at the start of year 3 events. (You had your choice of which branch of the event to unlock and the first unlock was free. A second unlock cost some time gate pieces. And you weren't allowed to unlock the third one.) People hated it. Then it got changed to the way it is now by the time the next event started and people were... annoyed at the promise of characters eventually getting kicked out of their own event, but more open to the 3-character selection than the crap they tried to pull on us before.

The devs kind of created a strange situation for themselves with the format of events in this game.

In their previous game, Crusaders of the Lost Idols, the idols and talents (equivalent to the favors and blessings in Champions) are a single unified system across all campaigns. In an event you're always the same strength as you are in the regular campaigns. So each new year of Crusaders events is meant to be designed as a new tier ramping up the difficulty beyond what the previous year had reached. Crusaders event tiers are strictly chronological, with 100% completion of one tier required before you can start on the next tier. They've been running events in that game for five years and no character ever gets evicted from their own event. There's just no way that they could do that if they wanted to.

And then here in Champions we've got separate favor / blessings systems associated with each permanent campaign and separate favor with NO blessings associated with the events. There are some things like global blessings and like gear that stick around to give us some power that a newer player wouldn't have, but for the most part we all go into each Champions event with a clean slate. That fact necessitated that they approached their design of new years of Champions events as functioning in parallel with older content in that event. Every year has to be scaled to be compatible with a zero start. They can't expect to be able to force us to chain them together in a strict chronological path. But there is realistically only so much that a player can get done during an event because of time and because of the token (a very strictly rationed out resource if you don't use contracts to get more of them) costs to start the objectives and free plays from each branch of the event. The devs want to start restricting options in the events to keep all those equally valid parallel choices from getting to be too intimidating for newer players. It kind of sucks but it's hard to see a better alternative.

Maybe the time gate thing from your first suggestion could help. Something that highlights the legacy character(s) from the currently active event and lets you start them for free.

Hmmm... Wait a second... Aren't the time gates only open for a couple days at a time while the events run for 2 weeks? If legacy character time gates were offered for free during the events that they used to be a part of, you could potentially start and finish their time gate multiple separate times during the duration of the event. So there would be no need for a new time gate format to allow access to all of the objectives that were a part of it. You'd just have to run the character's gate three separate times, getting a different objective in each one. Of course, in doing so you're going to be dealing with the mechanic built into time gates where the "reach area X / reach area Y" objectives in the time gate would keep pushing the goalposts back, making the repeat runs of the same time gate ask that little bit more out of you each time. And I'll also have to acknowledge that it would be questionable whether or not they'd really allow unlimited free runs of an event's legacy characters. They might add a cost for repeat runs.

Anyway... Your third suggestion is really just a bigger and more complicated version of your first suggestion. Time gates are really just condensed events that don't require a currency to start the objectives or free play. If they offered a legacy event instead of just using time gates for it, they would need to drop some sort of token for it on top of dropping the token for the main event.

[muljostpho]

Hmmm... What if...? Suppose that they add a legacy option and treat it like a whole other event, but when you click on it it's presented in a format that's like the time gates UI instead of being like a normal campaign / event UI. No token currency for the legacy event. Free access to first tier content for every legacy character that used to be associated with the main event that's also going on (which would mean their free play, their "reach 50" TG-style objective, and their first variant objective). Maybe a TG piece cost of around 1 or 2 pieces to unlock second tier content ("reach 100" and second variant for all legacy characters). Maybe a TG piece cost of around 2 or 3 pieces to unlock third tier content ("reach 150" and third variant for all legacy characters). Perhaps one final unlock to pay for after that which just unlocks "reach 200", "reach 250", and "reach 300".

Whatever the costs would be exactly, I'd propose that they can add guaranteed TG piece drops from (first-time, of course) milestone bosses in each of the main event's versions of free play. Kind of like how time gates have guaranteed silver chest drops when beating certain milestones for the first time in that time gate run. Set costs on the legacy event tier unlocks appropriate for the number of free TG pieces an average new or somewhat new player might be expected to get from the main event.

EDIT: The legacy event would run the same duration as the main event. Favor conversion from the legacy event would still be reduced like it is for the time gates, though.

[ptor]

Originally posted by muljostpho:

Your third suggestion is really just a bigger and more complicated version of your first suggestion. Time gates are really just condensed events that don't require a currency to start the objectives or free play. If they offered a legacy event instead of just using time gates for it, they would need to drop some sort of token for it on top of dropping the token for the main event.

Which is why I suggested "make the Y1 character's unlock/challenges free: simpler to make, sucks time but not tokens, and you get the character started

[OldGamer]

I also missed a big suggestion:

4. Evergreen Buff
Year 1's come off the event turntable and into the Evergreen.
So now the Year 1 champs count in silver and gold chests.

This
a) rewards older players for sticking around as now it is free to upgrade gear
b) for new players they are just an added champion haul. You could have level caps on where they are unlocked or they could just unlock for free in their (would be) event, or simply, they just are there from the beginning.

Why not just wait?
You be waiting 3 years...
I think that, even for me, would be very frugal just to save on time pieces.

[Coo Coo Pigeon]

That would piss me off...
Just spend over 200 timegate pieces on equipping Y1's, if they'd get from default chests... !#!#!#!$%@%!!$%@$

[OldGamer]

Originally posted by Coo Coo Pigeon:

That would piss me off...
Just spend over 200 timegate pieces on equipping Y1's, if they'd get from default chests... !#!#!#!$%@%!!$%@$

but its been 3 years, so you would. It's like those exclusive offers you get now for like a year in other game stores. then they come to steam and you actually buy them :)