You're not going to like this (but you should)

Today's patch was part of a gear and progression change that will alter the new player experience.

I want to share my reasons as to why this change will be good for the players, the devs, and for the game.

[KicksGaming]

Let me know what you think of today's patch and my essay in the comments!

[logan]

Loved your thoughts on this! I agree I think this was a much needed update, when starting out it was very hard as a new player to get good gear and progress I'm sure this will help people out and make the grind easier but not too easy

[TheBattons]

Just started playing about a month ago. Thanks for working out the bugs for us newbs. 😉

[petrovski]

I unlocked dungeons about a week ago, but i like the grind now but most of the times i get carried

[mr.shadix_]

THIS!!! We are so glad for all the work and time you put in helping out the player's! I hope that this new update will change the way newcomers will have to level up instead of being dragged through shortcuts or ride the whale. Great video! When next? 😎👍

[landesfootbag]

100% I agree with you. I was at 3/5 kraken epic gear, then maze dropped and the balance shifted a lot. I feel bad for new players who bypassed all the dungeons and went straight to maze, and also for the people who spent months getting epic yeti only to have common gear outclass it. I think this is a viable fix, and will help newer players and guilds

[yobergalar]

Thank you very much, this information is worth a lot for someone who is starting, without a doubt the best guides are with you <3

[parkerrogers]

Thank you for making this video. As a new player who has no clue what to do, this is great guidance.

[mjohansing]

I am a fairly new player, meaning I "skipped" the first 3 dungeons. But I can completely appreciate what this change will to to help the game dynamic. Well said KicksGaming

[moomarkel]

This change is fantastic, sorta wish I started now haha. Took me months to farm near maxed out dragon epic. I wanted to play maxed dragon for the experience. Than Start in the next sets as the game didn't really have much more going for it. But than mazed dropped lol. Either way the game and devs are making great changed and in am excited to be playing a game with progress and hard working devs with all be it a smaller community, A Great one!

[viniciusteodoro]

I fully agreed. That update made me really happy. I play with some friends and I got a clan where I try the most to help them, they are all newbie, like they entered my clan with 1k trophies. But, really, drop rate for dragon was really disappointing, and I can't waste ALL day long focused in one member to grow a little to make game more enjoyable for him. Because for me, that's the point, have fun.

[TheDennyBros]

Additional content means the time to reach new content has to be shortened on the old content. we see it all the time with older MMO's. its still gotta be played but only a fraction of the time. Yes, some of us spent week grinding for sets and even month to progress which can be no done in hrs, but what would you think if you had to do that just starting the game now? I would quit before i began. player input is massive on a devs game devolpment. im happy with how they have implemented new systems and progression. Thumbs up from me Papakicks!

[cespie]

...nah.
The devs had countless warnings from hundreds of players telling them not to make Maze gear so OP that it overshadowed all the other 3 dungeons.

Then they did exactly that.

On top of that, maze was so easy, that all of their musings about how people would need Yeti or Kraken epics to do it, was bullshit. People were getting to Maze 10 in Yeti commons, it was arguably easier than Yeti.

Then 3 days into the patch, virtually everyone and their grandmother's dog had gear that was better than Yeti epics which had taken several months to grind. Any comments on what kind of old gear you needed to progress became pointless, because anyone who spent 4 hours in Maze got gear that was better than Yeti Epics.

Then they introduced the extremely awful GS lock system in which progression is essentially impossible because nobody played the old dungeons, and the old gear progression system meant you'd spend 15 minutes doing a dragon 3 clear with a random, for the grand reward of like 4 dragon gems or something.

It was basically impossible to progress, because prior to maze, high geared players would occasionally do Dragon for easy trophies or farming Epic gems solo.

But in that system, nobody did. It basically created a vertical wall that isolated all new players in dead content.

Now they've attempted yet another band-aid fix by making the progression faster... but... news flash... they're just going to get boosted through DD and KK faster now than before, and Yeti....

You trying to sell Yeti as a challenging dungeon is straight up funny.

Half of the players in Yeti are grinding Hero title. It's basically a coinflip on getting another low geared guy who'll leave instantly, or a guy in full Maze legendaries and Lvl 6 gems blasting the boss in 15 seconds on every level.

This hasn't revived the old content, it's made it faster to skip past it.

The damage was done when they went full Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls on the Maze gear...

One thing is that we move twice as fast, level twice as fast, and hit twice as hard, as the Yeti set...
But you'd think that making people immortal and have infinite dps (poison) would be a bit of a red flag during beta test? No? Nobody raised this concern or what? I don't get how this colossal blunder was allowed to pass.

Within 3 days of Maze coming out, with me having zero connections to the testers or devs at the time, I did my first full Maze 20 solo. That's while getting gear, learning what the dungeon even was, and how the new meta would shape up, let alone the solo meta... 3 days, from being totally in the dark... to solo clearing it.
At that point, progression becomes vanity.

I did not manage to solo Yeti 20 in my months of playing before Maze, even though I managed to get epic Yeti and was well underway in leveling it, got to 10-14 on most items.

But solo carrying Maze 20 is not just easier than Yeti 20 or even Kraken 20 was...
It's so easy, almost all of the semi-weathered playerbase can do it.

Honestly, poison and Lifedrain was a mistake.
They should not have been added.
Also, Maze should have been a LOT harder on the lower levels.

Maze was meant to be the final challenge at the end of the dungeon progression.

Instead, it became the easiest dungeon of them all.

There's virtually no skill involved in Maze, because only level 19 is even a challenge at all, and that's solo. Duo, it's laughable.

Pulling archer camps on Kraken took weeks to perfect, months for some.

Running straight up to the boss at level 1 and going afk for 20 seconds until it dies, is so easy that my 5 year old son can do it.

Then there's Daily Maze.
The poster child of "kill your darlings" not being applied. The awful navigation system that the devs failed to implement in multiplayer, which still isn't working properly in singleplayer as of today where everyone got stuck, is only in this game because the devs does not want to bite the apple and scrap their failed work.
It isn't fun. I haven't found a single person who thinks so.

It also doesn't reward trophies, so you feel like it directly interferes with your socially competitive game experience.
But you know what it does reward? Like 3x the rewards of a regular Maze 20, while being EVEN EASIER.

A had a friend who joined this game. As soon as they got the gear to solo daily maze, they no longer had any incentive to play the actual game with other people, they just stayed in Daily Maze for about a week and a half... before quitting.

Even if they had played regular maze, it's not like it would have been the cooperative experience that dungeons were before Maze. It'd just be the same no-brain boss zerg.

I'm very disappointed in how Dungeon was transformed from a high replayability game mode with conservative progression on gear, and actual skill progression.

Picks needed to be coordinated. Characters needed to play according to their strengths. There were pulls to do that took practice.

There was so much depth to these dungeons. The gap between a good and a bad player was huge. For a mobile game, I've never seen anything even close to it.

But now?
Honestly, can you even remember what kinds of monsters appear on which floors in maze 1-15m?
I sure can't.
Because it doesn't matter. All of my characters are immortal. They heal to full hp instantly, no attacks need to be dodged. It truly doesn't even matter what kind of enemy you're attacking.

It's terrible, and what's even worse, is that now even the trophy grind is reduced to just spamming Yeti.

So in summary, this is what dungeon is now:

1) Join Discord
2) Get carried to Yeti in like 1 hour
3) Get carried in Yeti by Hero grinders
4) Get carried in Maze by randoms or clan mates for like 3 days.
5) Start farming daily maze for gear.
6) Spam Yeti 20 for eternity while watching TV for trophies.

The game is going to die very soon unless the devs do something drastic about this.

Removing the drain and poison gems would do the trick, but they wouldn't dare. The game is now populated by noobs who think they're good because they can afk on a boss until it gets 10000 poison stacks.

There'd be an outrage if they unrung that bell.

Idk, I think the damage is done.
Once I get my hero title, I might quit.

[JustMichael]

hello i have a question, how to get the awaken ability of the hunters?

[kelvinperalta]

@KicksGaming question, is there a link to the spreadsheet for gear on timestamp 2:14? new player here

[Vinyassshetty-enkc]

I feel sorry for old players they played months to get strong but after maze came new player who got guild played yeti first they became strong in just 1 or 2 months

[maciekwiniarski]

as new player with not even half of hunters -only 2 lev 10. must say that transition from drag to ktraken when you not getting carried its very hard, iu can get drag gear and level up mysel and still not beeing ab;le to carry full drag myself let alone do anything on kraken. without guildmates who carry alot i would be stuck in limbo

[coffeebean]

I think there should also be an upper cap. Because when a 6k or 7k or 8k player carries, i feel sorry for the boss. This also kills all the grinding fun experience. So like 2k for dragon 3k for kraken and 4k for yeti would be nice. This solution may not be perfect but it at least keep the fun. Some players got the maze gear so quickly that they forgot the hunters. Once while i was carried by a 7k player in YETI he failed at atound maybe level 15... I mean the hunters were chosen so wrongly.
I also know that dungeon before maze, maze and abyss all have different mechanics. Also awakening may charge hunter from maybe C to S tier but i have no awakened but I have a few level 10s.
2* gearing up without help is almost impossible. Even DD level 1 to 3 can be really hard with 0 gear power. Also, even with 1, 3k gear yeti is too hard. And even if you clear 5 levels in these dungeons gear and gem stone rewards are too low. Nowadays people dont play kraken dungeon. There is just no need.
3* Dunegon monsters and boss need variety. Instead of no healing or 50% xp, the challanges should focus on monsters variety such skills, damage etc..
4* i would recommend new dungeons to be not 2-3 min constraint but some additional fun challanges.

[LokeHyun-qd]

I started 3 days ago and i got 3 dragon epics. Carried by some powerful players. And i level those to 10. I think im going to use the same method as this but one question. If i get the full set of kraken set after dragon. Is it ok to sell dragon set for gems lol

[matthewdonaldson]

Needs to add one for the newest update. It messed me up really bad. Need all three gems to upgrade your gears.