One common theme across every support is the prevalence of proc chance mechanics. A percentage, increasing with level, for a good thing to happen. I don’t think this bodes well for the direction of the game.
At a very high level, the goal in nearly every single match is currently the same: Win, and win fast. Minimizing damage taken is also somewhat important, but it’s not necessarily that big of a deal. Healthpacks are prevalent and fairly inexpensive. Speed matters more than anything.
This is also a game with a very high win percentage for the player. You don’t lose much. Instead, you play a lot of matches to distinguish yourself from other players, many of which represent no actual danger to the player, and most of which represent minimal danger. It’s just speed and timing that really matter.
Increasing the amount of good things that can happen leans into that game design. Over the course of a large number of matches, these proc chances smooth out, and increase your speed, and reduce the (already minimal danger). This support design synergizes with the current structure of the game.
The character design in this game, Gambit aside, has been pretty fantastic. Interesting mechanics that often times reward careful play, and that don’t rely that much on proc chances. Must more in the way of defined results in response to specific actions. Unfortunately, these great character designs only rarely get a chance to breathe.
Boss events like Apocalypse are an exception to this, but we only get stuff like that once in a blue moon. The rest is just a grind, with minimal variation. Heroics shook that up a bit, too, but those are dead.
I’d been hopeful for a long time that eventually we’d get something else. Even if it wasn’t a complete revamp of the game, an occasional mode where we could really enjoy the various characters would have been great. For years, I’ve been hoping for win conditions, or tough fights that gave good rewards, and that rewarded careful play.
Proc chance design throws that all out the window. It’s much harder to design tough fights, because with enough lucky procs, you’ll be able to beat it. Board drop RNG already made it tough to make tough fights with good rewards, but this adds another layer. Instead, proc chance design tells me that they’re doubling down on the “do a whole lot of low-risk fights, and do them fast” game design that I’ve been hoping they’d move away from.
I love the core match-3 gameplay, and I really love the character design in this game. There’s so much potential there for fun, and I hope we’ll really get a chance to use those. Seeing the new 5* essential nodes tided me over for a bit, but it’s such a small sliver of the actual gameplay, and it’s embedded within the pointlessly grindy PvE design. But now, with all the effort that went into supports, and the nature of the benefits that they provide, my hope of those kind of changes is pretty much gone. I still hope I’m wrong, but I’m less and less hopeful by the day.