OFFICIAL: Rift Battle Rework Details

[Dusty00]

I'm gonna strike while the iron is hot and get one more kick in at Decay before anything in the new system is finalized.

I've already stated before why Decay broke the connection between Rank and Strength in the Rookie to low Gold ranks, but there's another, arguably much bigger issue with it.

It's causing the system to 'leak' points, which is why the cutoffs for the lower ranks are steadily decreasing over time.

I'm going to use some terminology from economics here, so bear with me. Put simply, think of every interaction where you gain or lose points as a transaction. Let's go down the list of possible transactions, and look at how they affect the point economy as a whole.

• A rift battle: One player wins and gains the same amount of points the other player loses. A net 0 transaction, no issues here.
• Decay: A player loses points over time. These points are deleted from the system, permanently. They aren't given to any other player, they are just gone, lowering the total amount of points in the the economy. With the numbers of players decaying at any given time, this is the largest 'leak' the system has.
• Finishing above 2000: Again, these points are just permanently removed from the system. Deleted. Gone. However, it's pretty small compared to the losses from decay, since so few players finish over 2000 each week.
• Finishing below 1000: Points are added in to get you back up to 1000, resulting in the system 'gaining' points, however there are some issues from the the fact that points are only added in right at the bottom. More on that later.
• A new player joins rift: A little complicated, but I would argue that they're not really adding points into the system just by existing, since they start out with only 1000, the absolute bare minimum baseline, but then try to get more from others through battles. Basically, they bring more 'demand' than 'supply' into the system, and result in the existing points being spread even thinner than before.

Put simply, the amount of points being lost by Decay isn't being balanced out by any other gains in the system, and the falling of rank cutoffs is a result of this, since all ranks are affected by Decay to some degree. The leak is happening all across the system, from Bronze to Diamond, and even though Dia folks are usually more active and less likely to let their rank decay they also remove points from the system if they finish over 2000, which is it's own little point leak.

The 'below 1000 bonus' does prevent the system from going too far, but it really only affects Rookie and Bronze to any large degree, an artificial stopgap preventing the system from bottoming out, but these points added right at the bottom aren't really carried too far beyond that before they're out-numbered by the points lost from Decay. This results in a large percentage of people being concentrated just barely above the bare minimum of 1000, with more people joining them each and every week as they decay down to Rookie.


Put simply, in order to get rid of this point leak either Decay has to be removed or it has to be balanced out by some new system which adds points in at all levels. However, if you add too many points in you might end up with inflation and the opposite problem, where a large chunk of folks are concentrated right at the top and only kept in check by the 'over 2000 penalty'.

Either way, it'll be a hard system to balance, but unless something is changed the new Rift will have the same point leak problem as current Rift, with all the associated issues that causes.

I’ve always thought and have said several times that the simple solution to decay is to not allow players to decay below a certain threshold.

If a player goes on a hiatus and lets the decay kick in, that player should decay until bottom of their tier. Diamond 1 taking a break? Lowest you drop is D4. By the time you come back a lot of people would’ve caught up to you and you’re still strong enough to compete there. You get the idea.

 

[Lililira]

I’ve always thought and have said several times that the simple solution to decay is to not allow players to decay below a certain threshold.

If a player goes on a hiatus and lets the decay kick in, that player should decay until bottom of their tier. Diamond 1 taking a break? Lowest you drop is D4. By the time you come back a lot of people would’ve caught up to you and you’re still strong enough to compete there. You get the idea.

I do like the idea of not decaying below a threshold, as it does reduce the point leak, however it doesn't remove the leak completely, since any points lost to decay are permanently removed from the economy, while the ones gained by beating other players to climb back up the ranks afterwards are net 0 transactions that do not affect the total number of points in the economy.

Someone going through a cycle of decay and then climbing the ranks only to decay again still causes a point leak, even if they're prevented from decaying past a certain point.

I like the idea, as it's more agreeable to individual players, but it doesn't solve the overall system leak and it would still need to be coupled with something else that adds new points into the system to balance out the ones lost to decay.

( Tbh, my first thought of a way to add new points into the system was bonus points for completing matches past the bare minimum, as a way to reward extra effort and incentivize participation. It'd still need to be balanced very carefully though, to prevent it outpacing Decay and adding so many points into the system that we end up with the opposite problem where a large portion of the playerbase is right at the artificial maximum of 2000. )

 

[jamar]

Decay: A player loses points over time. These points are deleted from the system, permanently. They aren't given to any other player, they are just gone, lowering the total amount of points in the the economy. With the numbers of players decaying at any given time, this is the largest 'leak' the system has.

They could always put all the decay points into a pool and evenly distribute them among those that play the most matches. That is, assuming
1. There are enough decay points to make a significant change,
2. There is still a limit on how many rifts can be played in a week,
and 3. They can even program it

 

[NamelesstheBeardless]

This is probably a minor note in the grand scheme of things but I hope we get more customizability down the line...! Things like naming our bases and other things like that. It's a minor touch but it helps our base really feel like OUR base, you know?

I made a post a long time ago suggesting stuff like getting character skins with successful base defendings, it'd still be cool if you could give just your boss node characters unique colors skhdjfskdjh

 

[Matsuru]

Hey devs!

Love that you’re considering a total rift rework. I like a lot of things in what in read from this note but it also raised some concerns. I’d like to stress out that I only give feedback based on my experience in rifts that may not be representative of the playerbase. I started in D3 when rift got introduced and have been ranking D1 since last may/june.

I like rift battles ... but ?
This game is full of grinding game modes (dailies, PF) that already takes quite some time to complete (e.g. both expert and master for dailies and top 10% in PF). While some may find this grinding satisfying as it is, a competitive mode as rifts ultimately makes all this investment worth something to me. Yet, be they at the top or in the middle ranks, players haven’t been playing much rifts these days. If we have a look at the statistics, I guess most of us play between 5 and 7 rifts a week. Rifts feel like a chore. They are competitive and thus stressful. They may feel unfair and you have to expect losing much more than in all the other game modes. Rifts might be boring since meta is pretty settled even if 4.2 AI made us leave our comfort zone. Yet, they are mandatory since they give you the diamond keys you need to use your splendid nat dias. Imo, these characteristics explain why rifts are far from perfect these days: it is a competitive game mode that feels unfair but that you can’t really afford to ignore.

Why rifts cannot be anything but unfair today ?
A lot of complains come from the fact that you can match with people significantly better bases/ratings than yours. Queueing is stressful and people even adapts their schedule to play at “safer” hours. Yet, the battle that follows may not be felt like worth playing at all. In the same way, when matching a significantly weaker opponent, you’ll have no problem against their base but the points you’ll get from the rift may not compensate your previous loss against a tougher opponent. 

The underlying problem is the ELO rating system that was chosen for rifts. In my own experience, ELO works best when you can play a lot of battles (thus not caring about unfair losses) against opponents with varying strength (thus playing with both stronger/equal/weaker opponent). In that sense, 2h rifts and fair matchmaking made this rating system destined to fail. Asynchronous matchmaking and snappier rifts seem to be good answers. Yet, "unfair" rifts got to stick if one wants ELO rating to work. It might still make the mode unpopular.

Can we make rifts fair ?

Why not shift to a league system (at least for diamond ranks) of closed rank battles? You could commit to a certain number of rifts the day before and pay extra tickets with theo (I don’t think this is a problem for diamond ranks where people usually connect daily and automatic commit could be implemented). Asynchronous matchmaking will provide rift opponents inside your rank for the whole day. We will face bases we couldn’t before due to different schedules and what is more fair than rifting with people the same rank as yours ? Ratings will be updated from Monday to Friday. During the week-end, lowest 1/3 of the rank will face the best of the rank right under in a 3/5 rounds rift to decide whether they go down or not. Best 1/3 will do the same for the rank above. Middle 1/3 is secure for the week and may rift between each other for rift coins. In D1, best 4 might go through a tournament for the podium.
In a league system, if you feel like somebody doesn’t belong in this rank, he won’t probably be there next week. Decay is at most one rank per week and I guess you can climb back more easily than in the current system. Minimal number of games during the week is required for rewards.

If they cannot be fair, should they be mandatory ?
A lot of collection games made participation in their competitive mode not mandatory for game completion. Instead they offered valuable deterministic rewards that could be obtained by range otherwise. Why can’t we keep rifts really competitive and just change the rewards? Let’s say rift rewards for diamond ranks was not diamond keys but rather a given number of non-PF golds fighters that change each week. I won't mind losing most of the time and I could really concentrate on rifts when there is a variant I really need. Diamond keys could be accessible in a more popular game mode where people mostly wins.

In conclusion
You rock guys! It really shows you listen to your player base and try to work on the raised concerns. And I think your proposals address a lot of issues of the current rift system, namely :

1. Asynchronous matchmaking and snappier rifts can make current ELO rating work.
2. Randomized maps will definitely make rift funnier and shake the current meta.​

Yet,

1. I feel like this new rifts might be more time consuming (more battles) and less competitive (players can choose their battles).
2. I’ll definitely miss the one-on-one part of the rifts that was my main motivation for improving my collection both off and def wise.
3. I’m still dubious about you wanting to keep ELO rating AND fair matches. Combined with the new grinding aspect of these reworked rifts, I’m concerned about how it will affect ranking integrity.​

 

[DJ TécHH 89 E.M.X]

I don't play in Rifts Battles because it seems to me that there is a lot of cheat that hacks the game from a computer using the **** mods that win in "one hit"
... and if there are any for rift battle as well as for prize fights with the only difference that they can be saved in the session started without being detected by the game verifier and obviously without being banned.
... I only demand that junk cheats be banned for life by those who duplicate their accounts or use illegal programs and "one hit" mods or those that "increase points and theonites"

 

[saintshish]

1) Encourage using non-repeat fighters on offense.
For example, using Sketchy strat with 4 different Sketchy units is a great strategy right now, but I feel like it goes against the spirit of the game. Ideally there would be a way to reward players for using rarely used units, like "You were the only player to use Number One in a rift battle, here is extra 50 rift coins".

2) I would love to battle my own defense nodes. First, to test different fighter/catalyst combinations; second, to practice dealing with stuff like Scratching Post or Blue Screen with Frost Armor on the Immunity node. With random modifiers it would be even more desirable.

3) I'm wondering if the random modifiers could be element or character specific. I'm thinking about this mainly as a way to give some love to those poor fire characters and Fillia's, that don't have a good catalyst of their own and are basically left out of the meta right now. Then again meta might change with the rework anyways.

 

[Cartoon friend]

I dont really know how to implement it, but i really dont like the you lose a node once and you lose completely. Because i really like the tense moments when you are a defense win down but you give it your best and in the end you end up winning because you scored better in total. it's not a common occurance even if it happens more with this new update thanks to the more realistic and thus inconsistent ai, but i think it's a thing it should be kept in some way, especially since one of the reasons i find prize fights so tedious is because it takes only a mistake to see the streak you took a hour to build gone in an istant.

 

[Display Nameeeeeeeee]

I dont really know how to implement it, but i really dont like the you lose a node once and you lose completely. Because i really like the tense moments when you are a defense win down but you give it your best and in the end you end up winning because you scored better in total.

It's part of the strategy, which is the most interesting aspect of rift IMO. I'm one of the players who tried to build their base around this, with the specific goal of making my opponents win as few points as possible so I can have a chance of winning even vs stronger opponents if I play my attackers well (by scoring more points than them).

Most skilled players can clear any node as long as they have the right attacker(s) for the job. I think insta losing after a single failed attempt would keep things tense, and force players to be cautious, but it would also make some of the current strategies kind of pointless. Most characters are not such good defenders that they can give trouble even to very skilled players, but many of them are still useful currently because their abilities can make the opponent earn fewer points by making them waste time or lose HP, or prevent them from using blockbusters, etc.

On the bright side, randomized node modifiers should at least keep things somewhat interesting...

 

[jamar]

1) Encourage using non-repeat fighters on offense.
For example, using Sketchy strat with 4 different Sketchy units is a great strategy right now, but I feel like it goes against the spirit of the game. Ideally there would be a way to reward players for using rarely used units, like "You were the only player to use Number One in a rift battle, here is extra 50 rift coins".

This would be nice if they first implemented catalyst diversity. It sounds nice to always use a different fighter until you run into 2 scratching posts, 2 darknuts and 4 frost armors.

 

[buggy.]

Finished a rift.



As can be seen, opponent used two summer salt and two silent. And that's the lowest amount of same-variant-spam got in past twelve rifts. On the previous rift - opponent used six diamond surgeon general. Before that - four surgeon general , two xenomorph. And that's how it's always been.

I usually roam between diamond 2 and 3 league. Not sure how it's for others. At first, 4 -6 surgeon was almost a must for every diamond 1 to above met this far. Now, around one thrid of diamond 2 - 4 also spams surgeon and other variants. In time, gold and below will also start spamming as they grow.

Surgeon directly affects rift's total score.
How? Surgeon proc heavy regen and immunity after every 30 seconds, meaning, you're getting health back after every 30 seconds. 1 hp = 1 point. If opponent use three surgeon general on triple nodes and you only use one, opponent's total hp bonus will be higher. Course that is unless they mess up. Talking in common ground here, assuming no side messes up.

This has been plaguing rift for a while now and it'll continue to even more if rift become's shorter. Currently, there are 10 nodes. People usually spams on 3 - 5 nodes. If rift has 5 nodes in total, they will start using surgeon (and others) on all nodes .

Not talking about catalyst spam as dynamic modifiers might affect it.

On every major thread about rift, including this one, developers have encouraged players to build a diverse roster. It'd be cool if they stop same variant and catalyst spam. Which will give players the incentive to do such.

Although there are fewer nodes on each map, you'll nonetheless need to build a variety of defenders and Catalysts if you want to take advantage of the Match Modifiers for that season, and you'll need a variety of attackers to counter the defense nodes that your opponents come up with!​

Thank you.

 

[Dusty00]

Finished a rift.

View attachment 9280 View attachment 9281 View attachment 9282 View attachment 9283

As can be seen, opponent used two summer salt and two silent. And that's the lowest amount of same-variant-spam got in past twelve rifts. On the previous rift - opponent used six diamond surgeon general. Before that - four surgeon, two xenomorph. general. And that's how it's always been.
I usually roam between diamond 2 and 3 league. Not sure how it's for others, though 4 -6 surgeon is almost a must for every diamond 1 to above met this far.

Surgeon directly affects rift's total score.
How? Surgeon proc heavy regen and immunity after every 30 seconds, meaning, you're getting health back after every 30 seconds. 1 hp = 1 point. If opponent use three surgeon general on triple nodes and you only use one, opponent's total hp bonus will be higher. Course that is unless they mess up. Talking in common ground here, assuming no side messes up.

This has been plaguing rift for a while now and it'll continue to even more if rift become's shorter. Currently, there are 10 nodes. People usually spams on 3 - 5 nodes. If rift has 5 nodes in total, they will start using surgeon (and others) on all nodes .

Not talking about catalyst spam as dynamic modifiers might affect it.

On every major thread about rift, including this one, developers have encouraged players to build a diverse roster. It'd be cool if they stop same variant and catalyst spam. Which will give players the incentive to do such.



Thank you.

Attacker and catalyst diversity have been asked by the players for a long time now. With exp boost pots so easy to obtain and now shiny variants, it only takes a couple of days to prepare a competitive fighter since you can reuse the same lv12/15 move sets.

I think someone else already said but one way to make rift fair and require a “diverse” collection is to force players to go through some sort of a “drafting” phase prior to the start of rift week. With the new vision of getting a new map each week, this can be very fun but will need to be done carefully.

One example is that Players should have to select a team of maybe 20 characters total and that’s all you get to use for both offense and defense. During the drafting phase you also need to lock in the moves and once rift begins for that week you cannot remove or change the moves for that week, both offense and defense. Then, you are given a map and can set up your base. @Display Nameeeeeeeee @Yujipooji @Brother Null @OozyGamer @Blimeylimey just pinging you guys to see what you guys think.

I think this would encourage players play carefully for the week. Perhaps the first day of rift week is just preparation and no battles.

 

[saintshish]

This would be nice if they first implemented catalyst diversity. It sounds nice to always use a different fighter until you run into 2 scratching posts, 2 darknuts and 4 frost armors.

This is a point I forgot to include, but it's definitely on my wishlist!

 

[GreatTiny]

Attacker and catalyst diversity have been asked by the players for a long time now. With exp boost pots so easy to obtain and now shiny variants, it only takes a couple of days to prepare a competitive fighter since you can reuse the same lv12/15 move sets.

I think someone else already said but one way to make rift fair and require a “diverse” collection is to force players to go through some sort of a “drafting” phase prior to the start of rift week. With the new vision of getting a new map each week, this can be very fun but will need to be done carefully.

One example is that Players should have to select a team of maybe 20 characters total and that’s all you get to use for both offense and defense. During the drafting phase you also need to lock in the moves and once rift begins for that week you cannot remove or change the moves for that week, both offense and defense. Then, you are given a map and can set up your base. @Display Nameeeeeeeee @Yujipooji @Brother Null @OozyGamer @Blimeylimey just pinging you guys to see what you guys think.

I think this would encourage players play carefully for the week. Perhaps the first day of rift week is just preparation and no battles.

Personally, I don't like the sound of that. I would need to see it implemented to know for sure, but from my point of view it removes variance altogether instead of increasing it. And not been able to change moves? That sounds completely awful. 3 out of 4 fights don't need outtakes. But the ones that do, they really do. Not been able to modify that and other things makes thing annoying. And IMO, that's no "good annoying" like the AI update. That's just plain annoying.

 

[ZeoW]

Personally, I don't like the sound of that. I would need to see it implemented to know for sure, but from my point of view it removes variance altogether instead of increasing it. And not been able to change moves? That sounds completely awful. 3 out of 4 fights don't need outtakes. But the ones that do, they really do. Not been able to modify that and other things makes thing annoying. And IMO, that's no "good annoying" like the AI update. That's just plain annoying.

Agreed with the above. I'm a huge proponent of Fighter/Catalyst diversity but move locking isn't viable for F2P players or most players below D2. It's hard enough to find a move with your desired stats for defense in the current Rift. Having to do the same for offense just adds unnecessary burden and spreads resources way too thin. I rather spend my coins to build a new variant rather than another set of moves that does pretty much the same things.

 

[Blimeylimey]

It's difficult for me to come to any conclusions without additional details regarding how the changes will be implemented. These are just a few thoughts:

1) Asynchronous matchmaking opens up a lot of possibilities for the format. Small change would be something like: spend ticket -> find opponent. Big change would be something like: spend ticket on Sunday -> Monday have all your opponents for the week to be completed before next Monday.

2) The game is very grindy. Should rift battles be a grindy format? While others in this thread have stated that it feels like a chore, it does not seem that most are grinding rifts. If it does change to encourage grinding, should exp gains be added? Is rift going to become diamond prize fight?

3) Randomized node modifiers opens more space for new modifiers to be introduced to the game. I'm afraid that there will be feel-bads for a lot of players who are just blanked by the randomizer whether on attack or defense. I have one of the most advanced collections right now and still have holes in my defense because I'm missing a few cards and catalysts.

4) How is this format going to be monetized?

On the topic of attacker/catalyst diversity: I don't really feel like this affects me one way or the other but generally feel like players should be able to use what they get.
Attacker diversity already exists (kind of) since you can't use the same card more than twice and are penalized for using it more than once. I currently have 42 cards at level 60, none are duplicates, and 15 of them are never used in rifts on attack or defense. If someone is dedicated to actually leveling multiple copies of the same fighter, let them use them. If someone else wants to put their exp gains to better use than I do, then they should be able to. If you're lucky enough to open multiple copies of a fighter you find useful, then use them. What else are you going to do with copies? Especially now with shinies, I finally have a reason to level a second copy of something. If I see someone going Silent Kill x5 or Summer Salt x3 or Surgeon General x6 against my base, then I need to decide what I'm going to do about it.

If catalyst diversity is implemented, then it should simply not be possible to obtain more than one copy of a catalyst.

Drafting fighters/moves sounds interesting but probably needs a beta test. As pointed out, probably less viable for smaller collections.

 

[Dusty00]

Agreed with the above. I'm a huge proponent of Fighter/Catalyst diversity but move locking isn't viable for F2P players or most players below D2. It's hard enough to find a move with your desired stats for defense in the current Rift. Having to do the same for offense just adds unnecessary burden and spreads resources way too thin. I rather spend my coins to build a new variant rather than another set of moves that does pretty much the same things.

I should clarify that the move lock idea is for the drafting of that week only. Once the drafting is done you can freely swap moves again for other modes. This is to prevent players using the same moves on different variants. With a smaller rift map most gold and diamond rank players shouldn’t have an issue with this.

 

[Stone]

I should clarify that the move lock idea is for the drafting of that week only. Once the drafting is done you can freely swap moves again for other modes. This is to prevent players using the same moves on different variants. With a smaller rift map most gold and diamond rank players shouldn’t have an issue with this.

Move locking will be, like others already said, plainly annoying. I'm assuming you are suggesting this so that battles will be more diverse(?)

However, just like how some players have multiple fully upgraded fighters of the same variant, high players will just get a "dupe" moveset with simular stats while lower players suffer from the locked movesets. And what about a fighter you use both defensively as offensively (D4 and lower)?

With exp boost pots so easy to obtain and now shiny variants, it only takes a couple of days to prepare a competitive fighter since you can reuse the same lv12/15 move sets.

I personally don't see anything wrong with being able to prepare a fighter in a couple of days. Why should I not be able to use my newly acquired variant as soon as possible?

 

[buggy.]

Attacker and catalyst diversity have been asked by the players for a long time now.

Yup. Repeated cause of this -

Please also note that feedback shared on Discord, Reddit, YouTube, MySpace, Tumblr, Neopets, and private Club Penguin servers, etc, is likely to be missed. If you want us to read it, please share it in this thread.​

One example is that Players should have to select a team of maybe 20 characters total and that’s all you get to use for both offense and defense. During the drafting phase you also need to lock in the moves and once rift begins for that week you cannot remove or change the moves for that week, both offense and defense. Then, you are given a map and can set up your base.

Understand where you're coming from.

Issues : With current stall modifiers, it might've been possible. Though with dynamic modifier, suspect people might find things unpredictable and in need of using a variant that they didn't choose for that week. It'd be annoying if you're unable to use a variant that you've maxed out cause you didn't predicted beforehand, right? That can repeat again on next week as there'll be different modifiers.

Possible solution : Lock duplicate copies after using one on offense. E.g. if you have ten surgeon general and use one of them, rest nine will be locked for that match.
Secondly, keep the 2 hour timer. If someone is unable to beat all nodes of a base, they can forfeit or the match will end after 2 hours. And matches will automatically end after beating all nodes.


Monetization : As for same variant spam on rift, does a decent chunk of revenue come from it? (Not talking about raising 3 of the same variant for prize fight defense team, raising same variants specifically for rift.)
Cause if it does, then guess people have to bear with it or quit rift if it becomes too much. Wouldn't want the game/devs to lose money. Unless there's another way to monetize rift, there's still prize fight, story and p.v.p.

 

[Lililira]

Finished a rift.

View attachment 9280 View attachment 9281 View attachment 9282 View attachment 9283

As can be seen, opponent used two summer salt and two silent. And that's the lowest amount of same-variant-spam got in past twelve rifts. On the previous rift - opponent used six diamond surgeon general. Before that - four surgeon general , two xenomorph. And that's how it's always been.

I usually roam between diamond 2 and 3 league. Not sure how it's for others. At first, 4 -6 surgeon was almost a must for every diamond 1 to above met this far. Now, around one thrid of diamond 2 - 4 also spams surgeon and other variants. In time, gold and below will also start spamming as they grow.

Surgeon directly affects rift's total score.
How? Surgeon proc heavy regen and immunity after every 30 seconds, meaning, you're getting health back after every 30 seconds. 1 hp = 1 point. If opponent use three surgeon general on triple nodes and you only use one, opponent's total hp bonus will be higher. Course that is unless they mess up. Talking in common ground here, assuming no side messes up.

This has been plaguing rift for a while now and it'll continue to even more if rift become's shorter. Currently, there are 10 nodes. People usually spams on 3 - 5 nodes. If rift has 5 nodes in total, they will start using surgeon (and others) on all nodes .

Not talking about catalyst spam as dynamic modifiers might affect it.

On every major thread about rift, including this one, developers have encouraged players to build a diverse roster. It'd be cool if they stop same variant and catalyst spam. Which will give players the incentive to do such.



Thank you.

Oof, looking at this post made me realize that adding Attacker Diversity without also adding Catalyst Diversity would be a huge mistake. I know it wasn't the point of your post, but I kinda had a realization when looking at the screenshots and thinking about how the last few rifts I have fought have been.

Setting aside the part about duplicate supports (like SG and Sketchy); The two fighters shown in the screenshots here, Silent Kill and Summer Salt, are both buff removers, and very good ones too. In most rift matches, I end up using my buff removers to counter buff catalysts like Darknut or Frost Armor, since it's pretty much guaranteed to see one or both of them in every match. Whenever I have to reuse a buff-remover, 9 times out of 10 it's to counter a dupe catalyst.

If there was an Attacker Diversity requirement but not a Catalyst Diversity one, people could make Rifts that were impossible to full score simply by spamming Frost Armor on every node because there simply aren't enough easily-obtainable buff-removers for people to use a different one on every node. This would be neither fun nor interesting, and would make dupe Catalyst spam a much bigger issue than it is now.

On the other hand, adding in Catalyst Diversity without also adding Attacker Diversity would lead to a lot of folks having weaker bases then they do currently, which might lead to other issues regarding the 'optimization' of scores by spamming dupe supports, rather than having to figure out specific counter strategies or thinking up multiple ways to defeat the same defense node. (Tbh, I haven't had to face much dupe fighter spam in rift yet, so I'm having a hard time thinking of specific examples, but I don't think this would be as big of an issue as the first one.)

Basically, one without the other would make the dupe spam an even bigger problem than it is now, so Attacker and Catalyst Diversity bonuses need to be added in at the same time, since they balance each other out in a way. One incentivizes varied offensive strategies while the other incentivizes varied defensive strategies. They would lead to a more fun and varied experience overall, but only if they're added together.