The Gauntlet - BETA DETAILS

[Yup]

No clue about 1 or 2, My guess is #1 Yes, #2 No (at least I haven't seen level 86 characters in an actual PVP teams in a long, long time if ever). ..... but 3 is a Yes.

[Warlord]

I been playing and I'm at lvl B and like many have said way to much SOW to spend.. I had like 250 saved getting ready for next Arena event but already spent half of them and the rewards are just not worth it ( could be better with Launch ) so I just stop playing. I got every toon and Few Dupes so I'm sure can go further but the cost just don't seem worth it.. More SOW are needed in some way or form or a New Currency like others have said so we don't have to give up playing one game mode to play another... I have not had any issues at all and love the look and sit up and things that you need to due to move to each new lvl....

[Moonchild-6759]

I have never been into saving up dupes. This means that lacking a single warrior Eddie (clansman) allows for nothing to go wrong on tier AAA. I believe this is a good thing but limit it to using no dupes at all. Otherwise only warrior grades will be won using only clansman eddies by the top end players. Makes no sense.

Again, will the requirements change whenever the gauntlet resets? It’s all warrior/magus this time

[waymo]

I only got to the last battle on level D before I ran out of decent toons.

[edsel]

Feature for unlocking characters would allow us to continue. Stormseye suggested a purchase for this like if defeated after a battle you spend ironite to continue. As Yup stated he has all Eddies sharded and can only do so much because of not having 5 of the right ones maxxed. Unlocking once used to continue would be making us play more and spend more, why wouldn't NF do this? At AAA running out of decent Warriors forced to use Santa and Snowman against crazy powerful teams is junk. Unlocking my roster somehow would keep the run going instead of dormant until reset, and this will be a 2 week cycle. That means running on the first day until hitting wall then no action for 2 weeks.

[Rain88]

I think a new currency is pretty mandatory .

There was a long long long talk about new sand when brave new world was introduced but it wasn't implemented and nothing was done about the sand cost (and BNW is nowhere as bad as gauntlet sand cost wise) . I'm sure most people won't bother with the gauntlet if they need iron coins or working towards relics. if it remains this way, I won't bother with it as I would rather use my sand of war in arena (to get the weekly skill shards and fragment and save up to relics from the free sand of war), and playing the gauntlet would drastically decrease the amount of iron coins I could get every week.

Hopefully the devs will address the insane sand of war cost (but I highly doubt it).

[Fister]

Maybe the high cost is deliberate. It might ensure that we don't see the same players getting #1 everytime. Depending on cost/benefit ofc.

[Kamuz24z]

Devs I can’t move farther I got stuck in level SSS second fight once I press battle no matter what team I used the game freezes the good thing is it doesn’t consume sow every time the game freezes i got that last night I tried this morning and still the same problem you might want to check that, enemy’s ID OnTheEdge, enemy’s team Beast Eddie, Angel of Mercy, Magus and Sentinel Lilith.

[Tim28213]

I'm stuck on the third mission of AA. The first loss hurt, the second loss ensured it, the third time I went for my heavy hitters and still missed.
Up to this point I felt the challenge difficulty was definitely on the hard side but surpassable with a good deep roster. This one I just didn't have enough of the right characters to keep trying.
I've read others have gone several levels further, and I'm sure that I could in a few months IF I get lucky securing the right additions to my roster.

I'm torn on the conversation about allowing us to buy characters back somehow. I actually like the added challenge of seeing how far can I get knowing that some levels I cannot use this character again, and other levels that I cannot even use dupes of that character again. It makes my team selection really matter, A LOT. If I can buy Alexander back and re-use him in every fight if I'm willing to pay enough, that changes how I select my first team, and every team after that. I see the disappointment of being "done" with this content for 2 weeks if you burn through the first night and get stuck, but I also like the challenge of having to really get it right. I'm sure I will change my mind later when I am one battle away from the prize level I want and lose because of the coin flip.

I see a little bit of a disconnect here with the extremely low chance of getting new featured characters and the need to have them. I dropped over 70 event souls in the well trying to get Beast Eddie, about 150 rare gunner/assassin souls and still don't have him. I dropped over 40 trying to get Clansman during the event before I ran out of money/willingness to keep trying. He would have been darn helpful in the set of missions I'm stuck on, but I feel it is unlikely I will get him anytime soon. Getting lucky on getting the important characters is a huge bonus. In arena you can keep going with tweaks to old reliable to remain competitive. Gauntlet is not as forgiving.

I am curious how sacrifice events will go moving forward. I had a set of characters slated for sacrifice next month. After running beta I'm realizing that having 2 of most important characters may not be enough. 2 was plenty early on, but AA makes me wish I had 3-4 of a couple of really key characters. Anything that gives Immunity I've gone back and locked so I don't sacrifice it. Others that I was saving for an Ultimate sacrifice I won't dump now. This game has always been a fun challenging balancing act. How do I hoard enough resources to achieve what I really want and advance, but still sacrifice enough to fill in the gaps in my roster. I have no idea what next month's sacrifice will look like for me. I have characters I've wanted since I started the game day 1 that I still don't have and many newer ones I need to round out the roster. And to compete here I will likely need more than one of some of them. I just know that there are many characters I would have sacrificed previously if I got a third or 4th dupe of that I will now consider keeping 3-4 deep. Not all, just a few. But this is going to limit my sacrifice which will limit my ability to get the other powerful characters I want. This continues the balancing act NF created in the game of having to work towards a long term goal. It is frustrating at times, but that aspect is what keeps us coming back and trying over and over again. I am so sick of chasing 3 star evo runes that it isn't funny, but now I feel the need to do it even more. There are tons of 4* characters I suddenly see a "need" to evolve. Please God please increase the drop rate for the highest evo materials. I have dozens of 4* characters I simply cannot evolve because I can't get enough evo runes despite the fact that I farm LoTB for my entire trooper set most weeks.

I have not seen any real bugs in the beta as far as I have been able to progress through AA. I hope that once the load on that feature increases that it continues to run smoothly.

I really think Gauntlet is intended to be something played for the long-game. Gauntlet seems to be designed as something with the potential to challenge any player at any level. The early levels I really believe anyone could get through at level 100 or maybe sooner. Higher tier progression is going to require time and a great deal of resources and more than anything balancing hoarding and pure luck getting powerful characters in your roster. I suspect that as they rotate the challenges every two weeks that I will get farther sometimes than others just based on how lucky I am to have the right characters. I think that will make this different than arena. I pretty much know with arena where I am going to end up. With Gauntlet I think I will be surprised with each new set of challenges to see how far I can progress. I actually like that.

For Gauntlet I believe the best attitude will be to go in to challenge yourself to see how far can you progress and not expect to be able to win to a certain level every time.

[Nicko]

Great post Tim with excellent points - I agree with everything you wrote.

I think this is a beta in that the role of Gauntlet in the grand scheme of things is in flux. I think the developers need to define it.

Is it simply an icing on the cake challenge to it's big brother PvP? If that's the case progressing until you hit a wall is probably the way to go. It will involve less time commitment and be doable concurrently with PvP. It may be frustrating at times though, and if the wall remains too tough to overcome interest will wane quickly.

Is it meant to be a feature as potentially engaging as PvP? Then they're going to have to try to modify it so that the wall can somehow be climbed without becoming more "Pay to win" - perhaps giving a character back - or skipping a particular battle with a "Pass" feature - at the expense of dinging your rank.

I could have gotten my Clansman AND my Sekhmet back and I'm not convinced I would have beat the IE team I faced - I still occasionally lose to IE teams in PvP using my best toons, so ONE chance to beat a fully stacked G/A team like that (with a Gimp and Primordials no less) with only warriors was beyond what I could do. Perhaps Carlos or Kamuz could have found a way to pull it off, but many many players would be in the same boat as me.

I have no problem with it being a "play until you hit a wall" feature if the battles aren't as silly as the one that eventually halted my progress. I think the feature itself is great, and I'm glad the developers are reading this thread as there has been some really good input