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My personal review of Sanctum map

After running two days of this map, there are some serious issues that have nothing to do with bugs.

First and foremost, the singular biggest problem with this map is the complete elimination of any team based play.

The reason this is an issue is because of the bot/mod combinations and the class matchups placed on the lanes for each theme.

It is literally impossible to bring a 3 bot team to cover 3 different themed lanes with the bot classes in those lanes.

Since other players in the BG can't double up or cross into alternate lanes midway through to support with their team on a bad matchup, individuals are stuck having to revive repeatedly.

Next up, the mods themselves. I can go on for days with these... Hemophilia lane in particular is absolutely heinous. DoT effects should never be the standard to deactivate buffs. They do not trigger reliably. I bring r4 WB and BC to that lane, and I have had rounds where I can't trigger a bleed to save my life, literally.

It's absolutely ridiculous to have a power gain mod that is shut off by DOT effects. You need to rethink what is happening here, and severely reduce the power gain bestowed by any power mod if you insist on retaining that mechanic. The nature of AM is extremely high level bot AI, they gain power way too fast, and it turns back on far too quickly for what it does.

You are giving players zero recourse for a strategic fight, and they have to charge mindlessly into the enemy. Not fun whatsoever.

At least on the SL map you had lanes designed where players could pick 3 bots reasonably suited for the classes occupying those lanes.. sharks were the wildcards.. but now, you have themed mods and counter class bots residing on them that eliminate all possibility of class advantage or direct counters. In some cases you have no choice but to fight at class disadvantage to counter the mod.

Go back to the drawing board on the bots you've put in these lanes and put some effort into making it logical instead of an obvious middle finger to the players.
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Comments

  • I completely agree. In my battles I have over 50 hits on a bot and only once did I make the enemy bot bleed. Drift can only make Airhead bleed once in over 50 hits? This isnt the only time, but other matchups your bots normally bleed, shock, or burn now trigger way less.

    Im not even on a high level of Sanctum and know if anyone decided not to do sanctum that we are gonna rank lower than someone that stayed doing SL. Pretty demorilizing to think your doing a higher map, but getting less points and will therefore rank less?

    Manthro hit it on the head. The only thing this map helps with teamwork is at the miniboss. If someone has a bad day, or accidentally goes down wrong path. Its a failure and waste of everyones time. There is no team work and the only thing that is team is “hey, link to mini-boss is down”, which doesn't even have to be said.

    Now the other thing is mixed time zone bg’s can no longer function correctly. I use to be able to field all sorts of time zones in a single bg and through talking and teamwork we could accomplish defeating the map. Now im having to look at switching players with other alliances so everyones time zones work together and in sync. The rest I may have to let go so we all match up. I feel that this is the most damaging as I like playing and learning other peoples cultures, etc. Kinda defeats the purpose of a global game and teamwork.

    Anyhow, im done rambling and those are rhe biggest things I have an issue with
  • BubianBubian Posts: 82
    The mods are far too OP. Starscream can kill with a sp1. This isnt fun at all, and 2/3 days so far ive thought about rage quitting in frustration. Forcing perfect play is one thing for the guys who want to play at the top tier, but seriously. None of the other bots can kill in 1 shot.
  • ManthroManthro Posts: 2,752
    edited December 2017
    On top of all this, the daily payouts for this level of insanity are not worth the time, effort and energon spent to get through even low difficulty Sanctum maps.

    I did the math, and I'm better off joining a reasonably active alliance for daily/weekly alliance quest rewards, and just buying resources from the store while doing low level AM maps. The number of shards you give out for this map, and the contents within them are not equivalent for the challenge.

    There is no motivation to push boundaries right now.

    When alliances were fighting 7500pi bots on SL map and getting through it within reason, then drop to almost half that on Sanctum map and are getting owned, it's pretty apparent the mods are OP.
  • DavienDavien Posts: 758
    Agree 110%.. I do not need to add any further you covered it all.

    Manthro is a high lvl player. If he is suffering and disagree with the current AM system, what more those below him are feeling.
  • Completely agree with the above. Why should I continue to spend money on this game for less rewards for more items usage & fustration for all. OP mods and no teamwork are ruining AM
  • It's simple. If map 3 is too hard, go back to map 2.

    Just because map 3 is 'too hard' for you, it doesn't mean Kabam should rework their whole map.


  • New map rewards are a total joke compared to what it takes to make it thru. And people are tired of running the same old map so they wanna play something different. But just because some spend tons of money on this game and others don’t doesn’t mean the “pay to play” people should be the only ones who get to enjoy a new fighting platform.
  • SabreSabre Posts: 1
    Agree 1000%. Its not a matter of it being too hard. The paths+mod combo's are just ridicules for this stage of the game. What if nobody in your bg has an ironhide for the burn path? Your stuck reviving just to get through it. Also, they took the decent map 2 rewards out with lowering the top diff lvl.
  • Faithz17Faithz17 Posts: 842
    Hmmm at one point I was stuck with no IH for the burn path. I actually did better on that path with Mirage than with IH. Mirage is quick enough to avoid getting hit so the attack buff doesn’t matter. I do find all the buffs pretty distracting so I just try to concentrate on whittling away the bot’s health rather than trying to remove buff then kill bot.

    Do a lower level first, one that allows you to make plenty of mistakes as you learn your way through the mods. Then you won’t need to spend. :)
  • Keymaster wrote: »
    It's simple. If map 3 is too hard, go back to map 2.

    Just because map 3 is 'too hard' for you, it doesn't mean Kabam should rework their whole map.


    No, it is not that simple because they now restricted map2 to level 65
    So you are left between a teamwork-map2 limited to level 65
    Or a sololaned map3, relying on 18 individual to take a lane on their own, without any possibility of any teamwork on a mission that I thought was supposed to be teambased play.
  • JKL wrote: »
    (...) I can't ask one of my BG members for help if I need it. There's almost no need for a map when I'm basically on my own, here's your path, see you at the boss. You KO, better revive because no one can help you. (...)

    Excactly. Every player is constantly pressure to finish their own lane, there is no help to get from your team, which is a problem. You are basically forced to choose members who can afford to clear a lane even on the days they make just one mistake. The same if someone quits mid-AM, something I think most alliances have experienced. Previously you could just take a lower level, now you will be forced to take map2 no matter what if just one person is unavailable a single day.
  • DavienDavien Posts: 758
    @Kabam Miike better improve AM before more ppl quit.. even I myself is leaning heavily towards quitting now... recent patches recently just making things difficult for us players, and removing more and more rewards from us. If u guys think this is the best way to move forward then let all the player-base die off, and left with yourselves playing the game..
  • TerminalTerminal Posts: 789
    I agree with all the points that have been made.

    But looking at the entire game, it doesn't really seem out of place and we allowed them to do equally bad things in other areas. We're not united about issues, we can't really expect anything better than what we're getting now. For example, arena 8-12%+ got a whopping 60% nerf to rewards while 1-7% got a buff and somehow we weren't unanimous in that being bad, instead we got posts mocking the issue trying to undermine it. Rewards are a joke throughout the game. We give an inch, they take a mile and we're too busy fighting amongst ourselves.

    Did anyone not expect a significant cost increase for the new map? Map 2 diff killed forcing in to map 3. 6 lanes, prime challenge style mods, of course it was going to be like this. No way alliances would be able to keep their ranks without spending more than before.
  • My solution has been to cancel the purchase made after the update.
    This is at least possible on iPad and iPhones by going to your mail inbox, find the purchase and Press “report a problem”

    I never did this before but the newest update simply is not a workable app currently
  • CandKaneCandKane Posts: 718
    I freely admit I'm not a hardcore player or anything, but I play daily, hit 10-12% on most arenas, and have a handful of decent 4* bots to take on AM. My alliance tried out the new map at level 1, which (supposedly) translates to diff 40 in SL which is just a bit above what we've been running.
    We got steamrolled.
    Part of that was due to bugs, yes. I ran into the infamous Rhinox and lost Grindor to a level of shock damage that makes the Green Mile look cozy. But most of it was due to bot/mod combos that strip out all of your options but "rush headlong into the fray and hope you get lucky". It was fun in its own way, I suppose, but it felt like i was all on my own running the Prime Challenge with half a team instead of battling alongside my alliance.
    I'm a little frustrated, but at least we've got breathing room to keep advancing on map 2, not sure how I'd feel if I was already running diff 100.
  • New map is 100% maverick land... which to me is the worst part.

    I think some of the mods probably need tuning so they aren't so pay wall and allow for more strategy and countering the mod, and not RNG to hope that you get what you need to get through cleanly...

    BUT the biggest issue of this map to me is that it takes the fun out of it because we are no longer working together.

    For a game that already lacks much true "connection" with other players, this map makes it feel like rats in a maze, all on different lanes of the maze.

    I don't think the entire map is awful by design, but I think a lot of work needs to be done to make it more fun, a bit more accessible for alliances who were in the 65-75 level on map 2, and more compelling rewards.
  • LafozaLafoza Posts: 28
    Actualy I like the new mods , may be the 200% dmg one need to be fixed. I like the idea that we need to get special bots to do stuff , but bots in that lane need to be fixed in a way that they do not get our bots in disadvantage.

    The very stupid thing about this map is having 6 lanes all the time from the start to the end if we do not count the mini bosses. 6 paths in 1 room and 4 paths all the time sounds better that way you get 2 persons on a side with 1 backup to help them if they fail or do not have the bots for the lane.

    Having proper bots is very hard because its all about luck and great amount of energon. Not everyone is able to have high ranked bot with shock , burn or bleed. For this we need to be able to have 1 backup player for 2 lanes.

    And the AM is not that fast . Even if one member need to work , get sick or have problems and can not login to kill 1 node its very hard to finish the map...
  • Sabre wrote: »
    What if nobody in your bg has an ironhide for the burn path?

    Give some love to the 4* Mixmaster that you never levelled or placed on base defense purgatory.

  • Danhansen wrote: »
    Previously you could just take a lower level, now you will be forced to take map2 no matter what if just one person is unavailable a single day.

    IIRC you can technically complete the mod without fighting through a linked node with 12 players. You won't get exploration rewards, but you can get completing rewards.

    Whether those rewards are commensurate with time and effort is another story.

  • tekkn1kal wrote: »
    New map is 100% maverick land... which to me is the worst part.
    ...
    BUT the biggest issue of this map to me is that it takes the fun out of it because we are no longer working together.

    For a game that already lacks much true "connection" with other players, this map makes it feel like rats in a maze, all on different lanes of the maze.

    THIS.

  • KittenPrimeKittenPrime Posts: 1,144
    Y'all were complaining about map2d100 being too easy so here you are. Kabam ain't gonna hold your hands, map3 is supposed to be insanely hard.
  • The part I don't like (like many otthers) is that really there is almost no teamwork anymore. 6 people join the same BG, but you can't even see half of them, and it requires no communication whatsoever. That's just boring. At least give some path crossovers or -something-. Or make part of the map have 6 lanes, but not the entire thing.

    I think some of the mods/bots need some tweaking as well, but people will learn to adjust to those. Maybe it's a lot of people just using luck and brute force at the moment, but with experience, that part will get easier.

    It's not as simple as saying go back to map 2 if we don't like it. They took away the 66+ maps. There isn't anything of interest for some alliances to go back to.

    Another good point made: The effort and items used don't balance with rewards given.

    I think many of us want the challenge! But we can just go do spotlight missions if we want to do that solo. The fun of AMs is working together on the map.

  • After 2 AM rounds my alliance went back to map2 cos only one bg was playing AS wholeheartedly and was ready to burn energon if necessary to complete it. On the second day of AM in map3 a member left his designated lane and took mine forcing me to take his which was inside left lane requiring burn debuff to remove the 200% dmg buff and I had mirage og and mm. If the map was teamwork based, issues like this wont cause any scare or frantic fights. It would be in kabams interest to revise lane pattern, bot placement, and mod abilities to make this new map very challenging without losing any bit of FUN
  • Y'all were complaining about map2d100 being too easy so here you are. Kabam ain't gonna hold your hands, map3 is supposed to be insanely hard.

    Y'all who? There were only 2 or 3 alliances doing d100 at any point, and I don't see any of them here complaining about the difficulty of map 3.
  • ManthroManthro Posts: 2,752
    tekkn1kal wrote: »
    Y'all were complaining about map2d100 being too easy so here you are. Kabam ain't gonna hold your hands, map3 is supposed to be insanely hard.

    Y'all who? There were only 2 or 3 alliances doing d100 at any point, and I don't see any of them here complaining about the difficulty of map 3.

    Perhaps not d100, but a select few alliances were in the 90's, including my own.
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