I made a similar thread to this a few weeks ago, but I feel this issue in particular needs to be emphasized.
As far as I can tell, Shadow Lords MP is pretty much dead aside from a few casuals / new players trying it out. There’s no reason to play it in favor of standard MP because there’s no reward beyond dailies, the only thing that differentiates it from regular MP is the guardians and consumables which you spend as resources for no particular payoff, and there’s no competitive edge to it. Frankly, this is a massive waste for an entire mode.
A lot of people have suggested making it so you using guardians and items in SL MP doesn’t spend them, but I don’t think that by itself will be enough for myself and many others to seriously bother with it.
My idea is to keep the cost when using using items but reward players with currency or something else valuable for winning. I would be much more willing to spend guardian charges and consumables if I knew I’d get something good for winning with them and that my opponent would also be going all out to get that delicious reward over me. Then you could spend these rewards for the Shadow Lords SP or more MP matches.
There are other problems with Shadow Lords MP and I’ll address those quickly with a few ideas:
- Give players a Quick Rematch option that allows them to use the same guardian and consumable without having to go to character select. Maybe also give them a way to set up an equipment load-out before going into matchmaking. There’s a sore need for more Quality of Life.
- Eliminate or equalize the Attack and Defense bonuses guardians give in MP. These are unnecessary and can offer unreasonable power differences between players using different guardian tiers. It’s enough that players are given their guardians’ special abilities.
- I’m unsure about this one, but some consumables might need to be toned down for MP. Is it fun for a player to have to deal with 15 seconds of complete damage invincibility on their opponent? Nope.
- Some guardians may need to be reevaluated for MP. IMO some like the Ram are too negatively disruptive to the flow of matches and are irritating to deal with.
- Perhaps with everything I’ve suggested above, some changes to the matchmaking system may be necessary to avoid certain players stomping others and getting excessively easy rewards.
I think the Shadow Lords MP will see more traffic if it becomes more competitive and refined than it is now. Regardless, I want all the content in KI to be polished and worth playing which includes this mode.
This isn’t an issue I see people bringing up much, and I hope to spark a good discussion that will catch the devs’ attention with this thread. Feel free to speak your own thoughts and opinions, or build/refine/criticize on anything I’ve said in the OP.