Let's Talk About the Contention Season, Ban Protection & Epic Seven's Balance (+ Survey)

As a non rta player, ban protection makes the game more competitive and fun rather than not competitive and unfun - cased closed video closed.

BAN PROTECTION IS AMAZING BACK OFF!!!!!!

I didn't even finish my placement fights, played 7 games, I think. I was just getting stomped by older accounts. I just don't have the units and turn 1 was so strong.

I just pre banned Death Dealer Ray the entire time

There is like one Question missing in the Survey. Something that would order the ppl by there skill, commitment. Something like, whith what kind of RTA level did u finish this season.

survey taken

I quit, I think this new CEO just overloaded the game with broken units. It’s not the game I downloaded in 2020

I started playing last october and this season was currently my very first season in RTA. Although i manage to climb champ, it's very very rough specially if you don't have the units, gears and you don't have any idea what you were supposed to do. I also can feel every point you've talked here that there's not enuf versatility to play around the meta units and this is bad as they have decided to pursue e-sports. I used to watch guides from valky back then talking about different playstyles like standard or aggro but this season doesn't have that, either you go fully tank down or fully aggro and cleave coz standard comps seems to doesn't exist. I know a lot will say "nah standard exists" hell no, coz if you throw one meta unit in there the whole scenario changes like who tf uses most of the MLblessing 1 now like stene? Arby and SSV was patched which is why they are good. In perspective of high placers in the ladder nobody would even bother to pick those units, how much more new players? In a perspective of a player who played competitive esports such as Dota and placed immortal several times in the ladder, i could say that discovering meta is the role of a player but in these games it's not even called meta but instead "most effective powercreep available" coz this is how it is and pretty sure you understood what I meant. I also understand their way of pushing powerful units nowadays so newer players wouldn't be much bothered by not having old units to play and focus on getting the latest units, but for someone like me who's not fully old and also not fully new player, it's hard to go with the flow on this current transition, like for example, half of my account is completely bricked due to old standards and guides, but now I have to fully change my perspective and playstyle to adapt, and where and how do I even start? I'm a complete f2p, and it's not that easy to gather resources specially mid-late transitions like me.

Man, the only way to get adequate changes is to get the spenders to stop spending. That’s the only language the SG decision makers speak. There is no other option for a dialogue with them. So far we have only been rewarding them for how they have been treating the community. It may be a strong word, but if they get punished instead, they might pause to think.

Yesterday, a friend asked if its a good time to return to e7. Told him just avoid this game if he just want to play pvp. Missing all limited/new released/buffed ml5 units in the last 2 years make RTA simply unplayable

I don't think ban protection is the problem here. Without it, people will still pick meta units and if you don't have an answer, you die. And even if you have an answer, they get banned so you need to have multiple answers (which is addressed in your balancing issue). Ban protection allows people to use shitty stuffs but it also allows people to have a protected answer. It benefits hoth ways. So the only problem I can find is the balancing, if they keep going with the method of "Making problems then sell solutions" then RTA will just become more and more boring with the faces that you keep seeing in every match and other units dusted in the corner

my worries is who to ban this season now bcu of ML illynav is so strong tanky how to counter ML illynav

E7 likes rng, right? They should make the ban protection pick a random unit after the team selection. Imagine how fun that'd be.

"THIS IS THE WORST RTA SEASON EVER!" followed by "This time though I think I can safely say this is the worst RTA season" it's the same thing I've been hearing for 2 years straight lmao

ban protection had 0 impact on my climb to masters but i do think its kinda dumb. if they're gonna ban protect something have it be 5th picks so you see where their draft is going and have some counterplay before the locked unit.
gear level is still the mostly deciding factor. Until they get rid of speed variance and 15%, variance is a mechanic you have to prep for. sometimes you do just lose with less skill, but that is part of the game. no one is going to luck sac their way to Emp.
turn 1 players look to eliminate variance, and turn 2 look to expand variance. If you arent cleaving/have a billion speed, youre gonna have a hard time if luck and variance arent what you are looking to maximize.

I reached masters with literally just Captain Landy on ban protection with a bunch of sustain and cleansers, going as far as making a 278 speed Green Ray just to counter ML Luna. (I'm Handguyless.)

37 win rate through sheer luck and grind, and rhats because of the ban protection.

I love the ban protection

The problem is the no nerf ideology.

Not everything can be solved with buffs

On top of that. We get "balance patches" where instead of doing something it is wasted on 3 star artifacts that no one uses.

Actually if sg can make u pick ban protection in the same time, bc getting ist pick kinda annoyinng if enemy can counter your banned protect in therir ban protect slot, just make it equal to pick both banned protection

Every match is the same 7-9 ml units… it’s discouraging fr

Ban Protection is a bit 50/50 for me. I like it since I can always make sure I can use some of my confident units like my Shalltear into people's Gala's or When I go ER Gang and Ban Protect Maid...without Maid, ER Gang doesn't work so its nice on that. Ofc I do agree with the issues of the annoying FP Laia into Ban Protect Nahkwol which I seriously hate, which is why I just say screw it and preban Nahkwol a lot...

With that said though...I can live with Ban Protect. But SG NEEDS to start actually thinking about balance for their game and just start nerfing things. SG doesn't want to since "People would demand selectors.." personally, just let us recall all resources we used on it, and maybe have a restriction like "Can't Nerf units that hasn't been out for 6 months" type of thing or so you can't nerf a unit some one literally just paid money on pulling etc. Yes people are going to complain, but the E7 community complains about literally everything so...if they want things to actually change, they're going to have to deal with Nerfs.

We tried it SGs way of just buffing/releasing counters to said problems, and what did that get us? Powercreep so high that the next unit is going to have to literally do everything in the game to be considered good. Speaking of buffing...we should be getting a Balance Patch on Friday, so you know...we'll see if anything changes or if this is just another filler Balance Patch that might have 1 decent buff in it.

The direction of the patches is also an issue to me. I don't have MlHaste, ML Vivian or Arby so all those patches made my game experience worse by creating new problems and making some of my units worse in the meta.

They should randomize every matches where sometimes there are games where theres no ban protection and just make more conditions in the future. Like 3 pre ban for both players. Or imagine a secret 6 draft mode and you get to ban 2 units. Like after the 5th pick they go to banning phase right? What if after that, a 6th pick suddenly appears then ban phase again. I know its not newbie friendly but it could be fun in challenger or champion and above.

Didn't watch the whole video, but yes i've been saying this from the start... ban protection ruins nuance and puts everyone in a weird standardized way of picking

Dude this game is all about numbers, skill my ass, person with better gear wins, that's why all the legend players are fkn whales, and veteran players

Ban protection is fine, the real problem is SG releasing back to back op meta-defining ml5 over and over! They're either so op that can be picked 1st without worries or as counters for other meta units. First this year they released Solitis being a better Lílias and harder to counter; then release bride Senya being a better Arowell with aoe pen dmg; then releases Luna (which is fine for being the e2wc unit); now they release Ilnav as the only real counter for meta pen dmg dealers such as Jenua, Haste and BSenya and next ml5 will probably be the boss of chapter 5 and we know it'll be another broken unit, that's five op ml5 in a freakin year. Last year i only recall Landy and Yufine as the meta units, so they basically almost tripled that! How can the average player that could get only one or two of them be able to play this pvp mode without having to whale to have these meta units? I'm not gonna even comment the pre-rolled 17 spd gear and Luna p2w gears they were selling during her banner, that was total bs.

The issue is not the ban protection and more so needing to have a lot of new and limited characters to play into the meta.

please do the e7 community a favor and uninstall the game

Cleanser with 250 ER under ban protection is what i like the most. makes the game better. idk i like ban protection most of the time

4 yrs in epic 7 and I still don’t have a fallen maya

well said Pat.. really elaborate and well put-together video covering an issues thats honestly, been there since the beginning. I've been following the game since like 2021, back when FCC, SSB and even A-Ras were the more predominant characters drafted in RTA sessions.. After seeing creators and other game-vids discussing the strats and the 'meta' i realized how much of a 'pay to win' influence this game has which is another reason why I just can't even go into RTA... hell, even guild wars.. I just get dominated because i dont have any speed gear, nevermind the fact that I also dont always get the 'latest and greatest' ML5 thats totally busted these days.
the gear grind, and roll-variance compared to the effort required to farm tons of gear, plus my RNG luck of not getting any thing decent, pretty much makes it impossible to compete in something like RTA or GW.. which was why I decided a Long long time ago, not to drop any more $$$ into this game thats so seemingly pay to win.. (granted i do get the burning passion packs from time to time, during hunt buffs etc, to help farm, but mystic packs or season packs etc etc.. nope!)
and allllll of this due to what u've mentioned several times; It just feels really, really awful to grind so much at a game, to take the time to try to build some heroes and then try to take them into the competitive PvP arena, and just get completely stomped on, like not even getting to take a turn due to stun/sleep, CR pushback etc.. just completely undermines ur entire play-time of gathering gear and building heroes that its just like, "well, guess its back to the drawing board and running hunts for another 6 months to try to get Maybe 1-2 pieces of gear so I can hopefully upgrade ONE unit"... the investment compared to return is just not worth..

I just came back to this game after 1-2 years and saw that I don't have a single meta unit. The only one is DDR and it's because he's free.

It was easier climbing champ for me this season.

My problem as a turn 2 is that defensive stats mean nothing in this game. 200%+ ER? Meh doesnt matter. 1700+ def? Meh doesnt matter.

I used to be able to climb RTA at a decent rate while having fun doing it despite plenty of losses. Now these past 3 seasons I find myself getting so angry to unhealthy levels.

Honestly the only real reason why Im still playing is because of the time Ive spent playing but the game is a chore at this point. But as more other games and other gachas Im looking forward to come out, dunno, might drop soon.

I am an absolute RTA newbie, I tried it for the first time this year and I've been playing this game for 4 years at this point. The protected slot absolutely saved my experience multiple times and it wasn't because I was using it to force units like Candy through. Mainly, what I noticed was that it made my opponent (and me) actually have to change up drafting when the unit was selected. Sometimes it worked for me and sometimes it didn't. Because I'm new...maybe I "shouldn't" get a say, but I think it's a boon for the game mode.

I would like an account review even if you didn't end Emperor. If you're feeling it of course.

Im a returning player, and the meta has railed me. Thanks for your insight.

If anything units with passives or skills that say "turn off X mechanic" reduce skillcap far more than anything like ban protection ever will.
Edit: Also, because E7 is Bo1 and people always complain about variance ban protection was one way to address this issue.

Ban protection is fine. At least I don't have to draft 2 soul weaver in every draft...
Major problem is the balance of the game. We need some nerfs.
There are currently "broken" units with over-full kits...and fighting against them, as you yourself said in the video, means picking Nakwol, Luna or debuffers in general.
The problem arises when these units are picked regardless, creating this suffocating meta with DDR - Atywin - Spolitis/nakwol - Albedo - DPS.
In addition, unpleasant situations such as Benya/BMHaste first pick and then politis - Ran (protected) - MLroana/jack-o/Eda - ML Ludwig.
They also continue to give solutions for no brain gameplay (Frida is the example) and they don't provide solutions with new SW or characters that block soulburn or cleans as they should...
So you literally have a meta and gameplay saturated with the same characters all the time, making all the others TOTALLY useless.
I can't even use Milim or Lilibet or some other favorite waifu like Melissa. There is just no way to use all these "old" units.
In my opinion we need a nice balance patch "WITH NERF" , some new defense/support characters (that you can't make them dps too with stupid artifacts) , plus an rta shop would be nice, at least people play more in rta and not just to get to master to get the skin.
Also a nice option and solution could be the limitation of drafting the same class multiple times.
Put a tank like Carmin? Forget to use Candy or other tank.
Put Zio first pick? Forget to put other mages.
In this way the game would become more varied and even old units would come back in fashion and suffocating combinations would not be created. ( maybe is not the best solution...but it's just an idea)

I bet if you were on the China server then they would listen.

I can tell you how new players played world arena and why I ultimately quitted E7. My best placement ever in RTA was the first season I competed in(release of light Adin), I got champion playing standard after skipping the very first season because my account was too fresh for my experience with the game. Each subsequent seasons was harder and harder, as I felt like I needed more and more units and gear to cover the metagame, despite my account getting objectively better, it was subjectively worst compared to how to game was evolving. I stopped after the season of release of MLLandy, failing to reach champion for the first time(I coulda reach it playing it more but I had a negative or neutral win rate ratio playing standard and I was over 60% win rate the first season I reached champion). Now when I look at e7 stream, the pool of unit played, 1 single year after I quit the game is so different, I don't even think I could compete at all, what the heck happened to this game?

Ultimately, I felt like I had to play really hardcore to keep up, like farming all the time, I was more or less obsessed with E7, and I felt like I had to keep that same pace for a very very long time if I wanted to maybe reach emperor(my personnal goal), and I thought it wasn't worth my time, if it was even possible, which I doubted with how the game was evolving. Those were my honest feeling, maybe they were wrong, but I valued having a better peace of mind in my everyday life vs the obsession I was having to keep up with the RTA metagame.

Look, I’m not finished with the video yet, but the concept of best of one being an issue of variance is kinda of lost take on me. Your are removing variance through the thousands of games your capable of playing throughout the season. Best of one is how the ladder should operate. Your right in the fact that best of one is high variance, but there’s not a high cost being determined by a single game.

I like ban protection but I wish gear wasn't so fucking hard to roll and the rng wasn't so oppressive

The most excited I am for epic7 is when they adjust/buff unused units or when they do a specialty change. With that said everything that could increase variety in the game like nerfs should be welcome.

They should make it so you can Preban 2 units all the time. Would be a nice change imo.

having played summoners wars for 8 years, NO its not better than E7, its way worse in every possible way. The balance patches are larger sure, but there s less of them, and you'd think they choose which unit to buff or nerf by playing darts.

I can 1000% testify than E7 balancing is way, way smarter. Buffing weak units to make them meta, and releasing solutions if a unit becomes the center of the meta (look at ML haste and ML ilynav). Summoners wars never nerfed the wind surfer that was the best rta unit for years after its release, and when they did nerf him 2 years later or so, it wasnt actually a nerf because they increased the CD of one of its skills, but his skills reduce their own CD and after the nerf you could skill do S3 into S2 into S3, so it was utterly pointless.

On the other side some units get buffed like 5 or 6 times, when most LD5 get ignored or get a one turn dot (5% max hp) as a buff. They also have a habit of randomly buffing one of the already overpowered LD5 of the game, because just why not buff them when they need a nerf.

That was my rambling about balancing. I'll keep it very brief for the other point i wanted to make. Summons. The base of any gacha game.
Summoners War,
does
not
have
any
PITY SYSTEM.
I've had summons using up 1000+ summons to get 1 new nat 5 and one dupe, when i should have gotten 6 five star units. THE WORST

It's not bad, just learn how to draft. But I think the number of prebans should be higher, like 4 at master each player. It's better not to see like the same 20 units every game, following the "meta trend" or at least force a more diversity into RTA. To make the players build and use less popular heroes more often.

Light Adin oneshots DDR, everyone can get her for free (for the new RTA players up to masters).

If no big changes happen I’ll just go back to Genshin and HSR