To be honest, for the game Black Moon, I originally went for the dark style and plot. The nightmare is coming, the witch's memory and so on, the atmosphere is full and it's quite right. But after playing for a long time, I found that what really attracted me was its competitive system and character balance design. How to put it this way, it is not like the traditional krypton gold game with mindless value accumulation. Instead, it provides a set of very sophisticated strategic logic in the arena and team copies.
Let's talk about the competitive environment first. The current mainstream T0 lineup is nothing more than a high-explosion assassin with a strong control mage, and a quick attack flow that takes away the support with a set of combos. This style of play is very popular in the lower divisions because it has many crispy skins, fast pace, and low fault tolerance rate, making it very exciting to play. But at high levels, everyone's defensive equipment and skill predictions have taken shape, and the fast-attack style can be easily countered. Nowadays, in high-end games, a positional lineup with dual tanks and pull-type output has become popular, and the game is broken through attrition and counterattack. I think this kind of environment change is very good, it shows that the game has depth and does not just rely on the speed of krypton gold accumulation.
Regarding balance, I really want to give the official a thumbs up, but I also want to make some comments. Judging from the current version, several veteran characters, such as the protagonist given at the beginning, have simple skill mechanisms, but they are better because they accumulate energy quickly, can create a stable control chain in a specific lineup, and are very strong. There are some newly released limited characters, and their skill multipliers are indeed a bit supermodel. Once they take shape in the arena, they will basically be crushed against the regular lineup, and the experience will be somewhat compromised. Fortunately, after this update, the official has noticed this problem, weakened the core passive of that character, and strengthened some unpopular characters in response. I approve of this wave of balance adjustments.
From a tactical perspective, I think the most interesting thing about "Black Moon" is actually the character's skill combos. For example, the classic "Freeze of Time and Shadow + Shadow Raid" two-person combo skill, which involves first controlling the field manually and then bursting out, is simply an unsolvable way to start a team in the 3v3 mode. But this requires a very high degree of tacit understanding among teammates, and it is difficult for individual players to achieve this effect. Therefore, when our team plays ranked games, we basically use fixed voice communication. If this game is played as a stand-alone game, the fun of competition will be reduced by half.
Now after the version update, several new BUFF points have been added to the map, which directly changes the tactics of grabbing resources. In the past, everyone would go straight to the big group in the middle at the beginning, but now they have to send someone to the side to explore the field of vision and grab the block penetration buff, otherwise the group will suffer a lot in the mid-term. Such detailed changes make me feel that this game is really paying attention to competitive balance, rather than just changing skins and making money.
Finally, I would like to make a small suggestion. I hope that more resource systems for auxiliary players will be opened in the future. The gap between pure auxiliary and semi-auxiliary output is now a bit large, resulting in a very single number of auxiliary heroes selected at high levels, which makes the competitive experience of auxiliary players worse. If the unpopular auxiliary's jungle clearing efficiency and self-protection ability can be enhanced, I believe the ecology of the high-end game will be richer.
Overall, "Black Moon" is a rare game that combines competition and development on the mobile game side, and I think it has research value. It is not the kind of mindless lawn mowing, but a game that requires you to constantly analyze your opponents and adjust your thinking on the field. Occasionally losing to a supermodel lineup is a bit depressing, but seeing that the officials are trying to adjust the balance, an "old e-sports person" like me is still willing to continue. Waiting for the next version update, let's see who can break through in the new season 😎