True Healing Discussion (Live 6/25)

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  • oh another thing D3 devs if you are reading.

    one of the main reasons stated by icex for this healing change is about roster diversity. i am ALL for roster diversity, because as it stands now there is very little. all top 2* teams run the same comps and all top 3* teams run the same comps. everyone rushes to get the most blatantly overpowered 2* and 3* heroes to 85 and 141, leaving the rest of their roster at very low levels, with almost no hope of realistically leveling them to a playable state in any reasonable amount of time, especially with the ever increasing difficultly of getting iso. this leads down a very easy-to-understand logic road. if you spent time balancing all the existing heroes instead of pushing out new ones (who irritatingly tend to have the same R/G/Y combo or no new color combos) then people would be encouraged to level all their heroes evenly instead of rushing only the overpowered ones, thus, *GASPS* encouraging roster diversity!!

    is it really that hard of a concept? i know a usable bag man sounds like heresy, but it's the solution. really.
    It took them 4 months to "funbalance" 1 character. And they funbalanced him wrong.

    You expect impossible.
  • IceIX wrote:
    One of the intentions with this change is to cut down on things like Prologue Healing, which prolongs play time through something that is pretty obviously just a time intensive process that doesn't involve actual strong gameplay. It's something people do because it's there, much like tanking. It's not something that's fun. It's not something that's enjoyable. It's something that exists and is taken advantage of because of pure efficiency.

    I don't know if it's been already said (just woke up, can't read those 15 pages icon_e_surprised.gif ), but if the main intention is to avoid prologue healing, why not just lock some characters in the prologue ?!?

    To avoid having the same defese team ? we will have Ares + Thor because they have higher hit points. Who will go with a Bulleye + Bagman ?!? (I speak from my 85' point of view). Who will start a fight against Ares + Thor, with a half health team ?

    You want diversity, but when you see the iso cost of a 3* (150 $ ?), that's sure everyone will afford a full 20 team of 3* ...

    With 5 health pack (and let's say 5 viable character), how to you manage to grind a 9 days pve, score around 700 in a pve to do a top 100 and battle in the shield training ?!?

    quick ideas, good or bad, I don't know :

    - Allow 5 healths pack PER event (5 in the pve, 5 in the pvp, 5 in the training for example)
    - Temporary healing ? ok, so temporary wound : allow a 30 % (or other number) of self healing after a combat.
  • ThatOneGuyjp189512
    ThatOneGuyjp189512 Posts: 543 Critical Contributor
    someguy wrote:
    disable healing in the prologue only.

    this is by and far the simplest and yet most effective suggestion i've seen thus far, it would not do much either, force people to heal in PVP/PVE where there are consequences(well in PVP at least) cause the longer you're in a match the longer you're open to being hit, and it'd definitely make it a risk reward system.....
  • Tharos
    Tharos Posts: 129
    This is why I hate this change:
    I did not used prologue heal since I got more than 3 2* characters, a few months ago.
    I agree that prologue healing is not fun, but the reason prologue healing is here is simple: we need to heal if we want to play this game.

    Now, if I want to heal, I take OBW, and I go shield training, because if I lose, it does not matter to lose points. I take a risk to start a battle with characters at low health, but it's because the rewards are worth it: longer play session.

    Removing prologue healing is fine, but you need to replace by something else.
    Health pack?
    No way. It does not fit my play habits. I do not play a game every hours. Instead, I play 2-3h daily, in one shot. Because my real life is like that. 5 health packs are not enough for a long play session with my poor roster if I can't use OBW.

    Now, if I want to play MPQ, I have to play one hour for free, then pay to extend my play session. Nice, you just made the game a "pay to play".
    Of course, I can change my life in order to make free time every 2-3 hours just for playing a game...

    You say: we remove healing because we do not want prologue healing, nothing else.
    I say: I did not used prologue healing, but this change will make me able to play far less.

    This time, there is no way my alliance mates make me stay in the game, for a simple reason: the game will force me to play far less, and not being able to compete with Patch and other "longer play characters".


    Removing prologue healing is a thing.
    Removing game to game healing is another.
    You did well at the second thing, while trying to address the first one. You missed the target, but shot a lot of your players.
  • I like it.

    Because rewards are placement based the removal of prologue healing is a great idea. If no-one can grind for 5 hours straight due to healing limitations then it's great for everyone that doesn't want to have to do that to keep competitive. If all of our PVP scores drop by 200 because of this change, so will the progression rewards and no-one will mourn having to grind fewer points. As it stands if you don't have Spidey or OBW you're at a pretty significant disadvantage at various stages of progression, as evidenced by the overwhelming number of those two in PVP lineups.

    Take away their ability to give the average non-pay-to-win player an infinite grinding session length then all of a sudden the playing field is still just as level- just requiring less time investment and benefits roster depth a bit more. The pay-to-win crowd will pay-to-win regardless, be it via shields, healthpacks, boosts or covers; its immaterial. The rest of us will benefit from this change once the meta shifts to not requiring the playstyle that relies on obw/spidey sustained marathon sessions.

    Another factor is that defensive teams are that much more scary- if you eat a Thor green during a match it's just an inconvenience to heal up, but if you can't heal as effectively then suddenly you're going to re-evaluate the benefit of attacking into a strong team. Same thing with defensive tiles- all of a sudden they're not trash tier because you can actually use them to get a few extra rounds out of your health packs.

    I like the changes to the meta-game that this promises: shorter play sessions required to be competitive, defensive teams are more meaningful, shield tiles become stronger... taking damage becomes more meaningful than taking a few extra blue/yellow matches to erase.


    That said- as a middle ground why not just make it so you cant leave a fight with more HP than you went into it with?

    It fixes all variations of going to some easy match to heal
    If you sit around trying to heal yourself at the end of a pvp round then you're gaining points slower as well as being vulnerable to attacks
    Leave the PVE scaling as it is with regards to healing; it's a balance between grinding harder opponents and taking damage vs easier ones
    Spiderman is pretty weak at 141 which helps to balance the sustain he gives on offense; OBW has needed balancing for a loooong time though.

    It won't go as far in terms of shifting the meta, but it will at least bring some balance and probably stop the tears flowing so freely.
  • Mavericat
    Mavericat Posts: 17 Just Dropped In
    I really, really hate the prologue healing and all the OBW on every time I face, but holy **** is this the worst solution to any of that.

    I'd really like to know who in D3 saw those problems and thought this was the best solution, because it's absolutely awful. If you bothered to ask anyone who plays and enjoys that game, you'd know that instantly.

    I'm honestly disappointed. I've stuck with the game, hoping it would get better but this post just goes to show you're continuing down the wrong path. At this point, I don't even understand how D3 can be so disconnected with it's customers.

    It's pretty obvious that money is the driver of all D3 decisions at this point, which I understand you're trying to run a business, but somewhere you've lost sight of what drew all your customers to your game. There's a point when companies end up prioritizing profit over building a valuable product, very much the 'jump the shark' moment for a company. It's clear you've past that point and just kept going. If you don't change strategies, the same thing that happens to other companies that jump the shark, will happen to Marvel PQ, you'll start losing customers to more valuable products or in this case more fun, rewarding games; and that's really disappointing because I want Marvel PQ to do well. I really like it and I remember how much fun it was, and know how much fun it can be.
  • Tharos
    Tharos Posts: 129
    I like it.

    Because rewards are placement based the removal of prologue healing is a great idea. If no-one can grind for 5 hours straight due to healing limitations then it's great for everyone that doesn't want to have to do that to keep competitive. If all of our PVP scores drop by 200 because of this change, so will the progression rewards and no-one will mourn having to grind fewer points. As it stands if you don't have Spidey or OBW you're at a pretty significant disadvantage at various stages of progression, as evidenced by the overwhelming number of those two in PVP lineups.

    ...

    I like the changes to the meta-game that this promises: shorter play sessions required to be competitive, defensive teams are more meaningful, shield tiles become stronger... taking damage becomes more meaningful than taking a few extra blue/yellow matches to erase.

    It will only shift the issues.
    Teams with a Patch or Lazy Daken will be far more effective, and will be able to do longer play sessions because they will be able to heal in fight. Same as OBW before, but far more expensive, thus out of reach for people who do not have them.
    Then, the only "viable" opponents if you want to play more, are big fat opponents like Cap or Thor, because you have more chance to win with a few points loss. During this fights, OBW will still be effective, but because of her steal.
    On the other side, characters with fast striking tools will have more skip on defense, because people will avoid being hit.

    This change will not resolve the issue. It will only shift it to another issue, that will be fixed in a few months in an ugly manner, and so on....
  • HairyDave
    HairyDave Posts: 1,574
    Mawtful wrote:
    I've been looking at this from another perspective:

    Months and months of "Nerf OBW! She is OP!" threads.
    demiurge nerf OBW. (Well, she's collateral in the healing nerf, but you never said that's not what you wanted.)
    And now there will be months and months of "NOOOO! Why did you nerf OBW?!" threads.

    It's like those genies that will grant your wish but purposefully misconstrue your words. Be careful what you wish for next.
    That's one way of looking at it but her blue was never the problem...
  • Twysta
    Twysta Posts: 1,597 Chairperson of the Boards
    In terms of the steam charts, that player quota is already on a steady decline.
  • kensterr
    kensterr Posts: 1,277 Chairperson of the Boards
    Here's a free idea and something constructive:
    Healthpacks divided into PVP and PVE use only. 5 free healthpacks of each kind which regen faster than current rate, maybe 15 minutes. Why? For cases like current Heroics and Hotshot PVP, where Human Torch is the featured character. If player has limited roster then it is VERY hard to compete in both events if HT keeps getting downed. If you ask players to increase their roster then forumites who are shouting "P2W" is correct as the only way to increase roster slot is to buy it through HP.

    It is quite understandable that people are angry because the explanation given is short and doesn't seem like too much thought has gone into the change of game mechanics. Before implementing these changes please go back onto the drawing board and have a rethink. Thanks!
  • Twysta wrote:
    In terms of the steam charts, that player quota is already on a steady decline.


    It's hard to gauge the real meaning of that though, especially.cuz its steam (meaning they are on a real gaming device, and not just a phone". Honestly, any ppl.would play this on a computer is beyond me...so many better options at that point. Console games dropped around march, summer time sees a decline in gaming generally (or an increase in volume for some, buf the overall number will generally be down), time naturally leads to a decrease as well.

    The only real telling times are the huge drop in Feb imo. Could be linked to a lot of things, but the sound is loud enough that you can assume its not just noise. Other than that, a steady decline for a game that's been out for (closing in on a year) isn't that surprising at this point. I would personally that thier peak, imo, was somewhere probablyafterthe rag nerf but before alliances ...so Feb interestingly is probably around that time.
  • Oh, nice change! You're probably gonna start handing out LOTS of 3* covers and thousands of Iso to everyone so we can actually USE more than 3 characters instead of having a whole lot of useless 1-8 Cover 3* characters, right? RIGHT?

    No? ... Well, never mind then.

    This change sucks. I only have a few useable 3*. Three to be precise, only two of those are actually at 13 covers and max level (3rd one is a 12 cover Psylocke with a terrible 3/5/4 build). And I've been playing this game for almost 200 days, mind you!

    Do something about the inability to get a good roster before you make us "use more than 3 characters"! I don't mind playing to make progress but my rosters is hardly evolving at all.

    You keep pumping out new characters which are then the prize for PvP and PvE for a couple of weeks before they go on a HUGE prize hiatus. Most new-ish characters like 3* Daken sit at around 3-8 covers in my roster and I haven't had a chance to improve them at all for the last months. Just for the record: A 3* character with less than 10 covers is absolutely useless (unless bosted).
    More 3* characters overall also means much less chance of a character I really want/need to show up as a prize or even just as a random cover from a token.

    I wouldn't even mind finishing of a character by buying the last cover I need. But I don't have the HP or money to buy 6+ covers plus millions of Iso to make more characters useable.
  • spccrain
    spccrain Posts: 249
    So basically spidey has been REnerfed and made completely useless and obw is only good for a double tap here and there. I mean I don't use either very often but it was nice to have the option to heal in story mode instead of waiting 15 hrs for hulk to recharge but hey I guess I have no life anyway. I will never buy another health pack I know that much. And the prenerf of she hulk is a bit discouraging but she still has some potential I suppose. I think this is more greed based than anything else but I believe it is going to backfire for them. I know there are a lot of obw based teams out there and it really won't affect her on D but I do see it as a pretty big game changer.
  • Roster diversity? You need to balance the roster for there to be roster diversity. There are no other usable 2* characters that use P/Bk/Bl to work with all the good G/R/Y characters. All this change will do is make people drop MNMags and CStorm from their roster to make 2 more OBWs.

    And no, 3* characters don't count. You can't get those 3* covers if you can't win tournaments due to a lacking 2* roster that you have.
  • HairyDave
    HairyDave Posts: 1,574
    It's hard to gauge the real meaning of that though, especially.cuz its steam (meaning they are on a real gaming device, and not just a phone". Honestly, any ppl.would play this on a computer is beyond me...so many better options at that point. Console games dropped around march, summer time sees a decline in gaming generally (or an increase in volume for some, buf the overall number will generally be down), time naturally leads to a decrease as well.
    Hey, for a F2P casual match-3 game it wasn't bad when I started back in December and I'm still here cause Gottacatchemall.

    I do spend FAR more gaming time on other things though icon_e_biggrin.gif
  • If this means I have to purchase health packs for my 2* roster to be competitive, I won't. I just won't. I like this game a lot, I love my alliance, but if this goes the way I think it's going, I'm done. I realize this is already pay to win, but you could perform decently without spending money, and I felt like I was finally getting ahead of the curve, finally able to expand my roster. Like this? Well, let's see how this pans out. I know D3 ain't the best designers in the history of the world, and I know their obsession with ARPDAU is kinda silly, but this change just seems too dumb even for them.
  • zapzap wrote:
    I don't know if it's been already said (just woke up, can't read those 15 pages icon_e_surprised.gif ), but if the main intention is to avoid prologue healing, why not just lock some characters in the prologue ?!?

    Absolutely this.

    However, if the net effect of reducing the effectiveness of healers is that everyone's 'uptime' in the game decreases and more team diversity takes effect (mainly due to people having to use chars when their 1st choices are all dead) then I'm actually in favour of those outcomes. MPQ currently takes up far too much of my time to be considered a casual game.
  • IceIX wrote:
    What we intend, and continue to drill in on is that we want players to have a broad mix of characters instead of a Top 3 that is their sole team to play with.

    There are 2 problems with this....

    1) For people to have a diverse, playable roster, you need the ISO to level them up. There simply isn't enough ISO in the game for that. You need to inject more ISO into the community if you want to promote us having larger, more playable rosters.
    2) Why am I effectively being dictated to in how I play the game? Yes, D3/Demiurge make the game, but I'm the one who plays it and I should be allowed to play it in the way I choose without being punished for it. If I choose to only use a small number of characters, why is that an issue? Why do you care if I use the same characters over and over again?

    I believe I kinda understand the thought process behind the nerfing of healing. It can screw the scaling of an individual, and it can also give a potential unfair advantage to the people with healers over the players who don't have a healer in their ranks. However, simply making the change to healing without changing anything else alongside it is simply stupid IMO. If you want it to work, you need to do at least a few things alongside it....

    1) Increase the amount of ISO floating around. Even though it's not a huge amount, if you increase the amount of ISO a player can win in a given week by 5-10k, you are giving them the chance to level up more of their roster.
    2) Make 3* covers easier to come by in tokens. The poor drop rate of 3* covers makes it difficult for people without a decent roster to get any 3* covers at all. You've helped this is a little by changing the reward structure in PvP a little (and I welcome that change), but if you're just starting out or you don't have a powerful roster, you still don't have much chance of placing well enough to win them. Increase the drop rate and let people have a better chance of pulling a random 3*.
    3) Drop the cost of cover slots slightly, and place a cap on the cost. I'm at 40 roster spaces and my next slot will cost me 550 HP. With shield hopping being more essential to place well in PvP, the HP I win in events is generally being eaten up by shields. This means that if I want to be a F2P player, I wouldn't be able to afford roster slots. This is unacceptable. Drop the price, allow people to buy single slots again at the lower levels, and you're giving people a better chance of actually keeping the random 3* cover they might pull from a token.
    4) Increase the limit on the amount of health packs we can store. 5 isn't enough, it should be capped at 10. After all, if you want me to play with a diverse roster, I'm going to have more injured heroes. Give me the chance to heal them all if I want to. This wouldn't overly hurt health pack sales too much IMO, as when you get to the business end of a PvP, people tend to use a single team repeatedly (their obvious best team), so they'll still burn through health packs quickly.

    You need to balance out the change if you expect the community to at least have a chance of accepting it. If you force it through as it stands, despite the exceedingly clear hatred for the idea from the community, then this game is lost. Your feelings about the community will become clear - we are nothing more than cash cows to be bled dry as quickly as possible.

    We might be the minority of the players on the forum, but I guarantee that in this case, our opinions will represent the majority.
  • Bowgentle
    Bowgentle Posts: 7,926 Chairperson of the Boards
    All this talk of roster diversity works up to a point when you look at PVE.

    For high level PVP this will not work at all.
    There are about 4 really _good_ characters you can run, and maybe 3 more semi-viable ones.
    As much as I'd like to run Falcon, it's not going to fly when he's on my defensive team and I get torn apart by everyone running UDaken/LT/Sentry/Patchneto.

    You guys really need someone on your team who has even the foggiest notion of what it means to play high level PVP
    Running a diverse roster sounds nice but means you will be stopped at 700 when you run into all 3* teams who will eat you alive.
  • Ronfar
    Ronfar Posts: 150
    This change does seem like it will drastically limit my ability to play the game as much as I want without running out of useable characters. I used to just fight fight fight in PvP events until my score was high enough that I started losing points to attackers as quickly as I could win them, and then shield for a finish good enough to get me 3* covers. I don't know if this is a viable strategy any more, now that I won't be able to fight forever without running out of health packs. Making OBW's and Spider-Man's healing no longer work seems like it would make it a lot harder for a player who doesn't spend (much) money to compete with players who do. I always used to be able to win back the Hero Points I would spend on shields, but if I also have to spend Hero Points on health packs, things could get rough.

    It would be sad if the game becomes a contest of who is willing to open their wallet the most.
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