True Healing Discussion (Live 6/25)

Unknown

Another question - in most systems that I've seen with this 'temporary HP' mechanism (which admittedly is mainly MMORPGs and tabletops), you can exceed a character's max HP. Will that be the case here?

Unknown

Ok, I promised myself I'd stop getting mad on the forum, but are you **** kidding me? THIS is what they spend their time on? Lets not fix the obvious problems many people have complained about, lets make it impossible to play more than 3 matches per session. I hope you all know that this is just a money making scheme to get people to buy health packs, because there is no way any sane human being would ever believe that this would improve the game.

IceIX

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.

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. In Versus this is a bit rougher of a prospect as players that battle have their last winning team placed on defense. So it's not always the best idea to fight with a less powerful defensive team in order to make up more points. That's something that we're always thinking about. We've discussed allowing players to set a defensive team, but with many other games out with similar versus situations this results in a very precise meta-game where an extremely large percentage of the user base chooses the same defenders. That's not a very fun time for most players.

However, in Events, we continually buff different characters, and outside of Heroics, still allow for characters to be used that aren't buffed. What we want players to do is to play with the breadth of their roster instead of using Spider-Man or Black Widow as necessary crutches and only building 3 other characters. This change is intended to result in exactly this as players see that they can't just rely on in-battle healing and look for other ways besides spending Health Packs to continue playing. We want you to keep playing on your own schedule. We want you to play with multiple characters. Doing so keeps players on their toes and making them think of character combinations that they wouldn't otherwise go with if they weren't forced out of their single set of heroes.

TheHueyFreeman

1. Its good to know this before I planned to level SheHulk for healing purposes.
2. When is this change expected to happen?

theshadeofopal

All web bandages does is heal. So it does nothing now? Maybe make it 50/50 true/temp. I still actually wanted to level spidey despite of how badly he got nerfed. That top 5 for spidey tourney feels kinda pointless now.

mohio

ZenBrillig wrote:

Another question - in most systems that I've seen with this 'temporary HP' mechanism (which admittedly is mainly MMORPGs and tabletops), you can exceed a character's max HP. Will that be the case here?

Was starting to type this question too, so I will just quote and second it. If that is the case and temporary HP can be higher than nominal max HP, it doesn't seem nearly as bad. It's like giving your characters a defense shield that the enemy has to eat through before actually damaging you, which doesn't seem completely unreasonable.

Droc76

Just when things were getting better aka PvP progression rewards they have to screw it up. I don't use a healer but I do use Patch/Cmags/whatever. Once they nerf Cmags as bad as they did Spiderman I'm out. There is no way to keep "grinding" if they go to this format. It's just a push to make you buy health packs or use only "true healers" as a team till they deside to hammer Patch with the nerf bat. Oh **** he selfheals for waaaay too much. Gots to fix that so they will spend more money!!!!! Go Go Go! Maybe its time to start playing console games again. *dusts off BF4*

Unknown

So when someone attacks me with low true health, do I retaliate against a team with full health or a team with "true health."

Also, what about defense teams? Right now teams that you use to retreat or lose a match become your defensive team at full health. This change means that we still get to fight Lazy Thor/Lazy Daken/ Sentry every match because people can just take their 1 health point characters in for a quick retreat if that is the case.

Unknown

ZenBrillig wrote:

Another question - in most systems that I've seen with this 'temporary HP' mechanism (which admittedly is mainly MMORPGs and tabletops), you can exceed a character's max HP. Will that be the case here?

This is a good question; my guess in this case is no, because they would have to code in mechanisms for "this hero has more than max value health," so "temp heal" in excess of max health would just be wasted overflow. That said, their implementation could be anything.

Unknown

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.

I know I'm cherry picking here by just taking this one quote, but: On one hand you say this, but the change pretty much forces people who want extended play time for top scores into Patch/Lazy Daken/? teams. There will be even less diversity than there already is. That or super heavy Health Pack purchases.

Here's an idea, don't let people play the Prologue missions with OBW or Spidey anymore. Ta-dah! I didn't even need to rewrite entire game mechanics to make this fix.

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

It's not something that's fun. It's not something that's enjoyable.

Unknown

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. In Versus this is a bit rougher of a prospect as players that battle have their last winning team placed on defense. So it's not always the best idea to fight with a less powerful defensive team in order to make up more points. That's something that we're always thinking about. We've discussed allowing players to set a defensive team, but with many other games out with similar versus situations this results in a very precise meta-game where an extremely large percentage of the user base chooses the same defenders. That's not a very fun time for most players..

Ice, I get what you're saying here, but this isn't a good way to do it. I say that as someone with a VERY broad roster - I level my top people together, and that's currently 17 people, all 106th or 107th level, plus six maxed 2*s, and 3 more 3*s at 89 or 102 (plus 2 more getting leveled there). And I try to use everybody.

But what this is going to do is just reward people who pay for health packs, either legitimately or illegitimately. An we'll probably see more cheaters. If you want to reward using a diverse roster, REWARD USING A DIVERSE ROSTER. Do something direct, like bonuses for diversity or penalties for lack of it. Don't go about it sideways; this simply won't work. It will make the game pay to win, and people will still be using the same five combinations, except that the top of the charts will be nothing but whales and cheaters, and Patch and Daken will be the new power combo. Otherwise, it'll be exactly the same.

Unknown

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.

Flo98 just burst into tears.

TheHueyFreeman

Droc76 wrote:

Just when things were getting better aka PvP progression rewards they have to screw it up. I don't use a healer but I do use Patch/Cmags/whatever. Once they nerf Cmags as bad as they did Spiderman I'm out. There is no way to keep "grinding" if they go to this format. It's just a push to make you buy health packs or use only "true healers" as a team till they deside to hammer Patch with the nerf bat. Oh **** he selfheals for waaaay too much. Gots to fix that so they will spend more money!!!!! Go Go Go! Maybe its time to start playing console games again. *dusts off BF4*

You shut your mouth!!

Patch will never be nerfed!

cries

Unknown

Ghast wrote:

So when someone attacks me with low true health, do I retaliate against a team with full health or a team with "true health."

Also, what about defense teams? Right now teams that you use to retreat or lose a match become your defensive team at full health. This change means that we still get to fight Lazy Thor/Lazy Daken/ Sentry every match because people can just take their 1 health point characters in for a quick retreat if that is the case.

When did this happen again? For a long time now, you've had to actually win a battle for your team to be put in as the defensive team.

Unknown

mohio wrote:

ZenBrillig wrote:

Another question - in most systems that I've seen with this 'temporary HP' mechanism (which admittedly is mainly MMORPGs and tabletops), you can exceed a character's max HP. Will that be the case here?

Was starting to type this question too, so I will just quote and second it. If that is the case and temporary HP can be higher than nominal max HP, it doesn't seem nearly as bad. It's like giving your characters a defense shield that the enemy has to eat through before actually damaging you, which doesn't seem completely unreasonable.

Sounds somewhat reasonable. But the chances of getting off a temp heal before you've taken damage is unlikely unless you get a good board. Unless you are starting AP boosted.

Unknown

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.

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. In Versus this is a bit rougher of a prospect as players that battle have their last winning team placed on defense. So it's not always the best idea to fight with a less powerful defensive team in order to make up more points. That's something that we're always thinking about. We've discussed allowing players to set a defensive team, but with many other games out with similar versus situations this results in a very precise meta-game where an extremely large percentage of the user base chooses the same defenders. That's not a very fun time for most players.

However, in Events, we continually buff different characters, and outside of Heroics, still allow for characters to be used that aren't buffed. What we want players to do is to play with the breadth of their roster instead of using Spider-Man or Black Widow as necessary crutches and only building 3 other characters. This change is intended to result in exactly this as players see that they can't just rely on in-battle healing and look for other ways besides spending Health Packs to continue playing. We want you to keep playing on your own schedule. We want you to play with multiple characters. Doing so keeps players on their toes and making them think of character combinations that they wouldn't otherwise go with if they weren't forced out of their single set of heroes.

I know I'm probably in the minority but I welcome this change and see where they are coming from. I see this leading to more diverse matches and it rewards having a good team instead of 2 max characters.

Unknown

OSU Buckeyes wrote:

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.

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. In Versus this is a bit rougher of a prospect as players that battle have their last winning team placed on defense. So it's not always the best idea to fight with a less powerful defensive team in order to make up more points. That's something that we're always thinking about. We've discussed allowing players to set a defensive team, but with many other games out with similar versus situations this results in a very precise meta-game where an extremely large percentage of the user base chooses the same defenders. That's not a very fun time for most players.

However, in Events, we continually buff different characters, and outside of Heroics, still allow for characters to be used that aren't buffed. What we want players to do is to play with the breadth of their roster instead of using Spider-Man or Black Widow as necessary crutches and only building 3 other characters. This change is intended to result in exactly this as players see that they can't just rely on in-battle healing and look for other ways besides spending Health Packs to continue playing. We want you to keep playing on your own schedule. We want you to play with multiple characters. Doing so keeps players on their toes and making them think of character combinations that they wouldn't otherwise go with if they weren't forced out of their single set of heroes.

I know I'm probably in the minority but I welcome this change and see where they are coming from. I see this leading to more diverse matches and it rewards having a good team instead of 2 max characters.

You're right. You are in the minority

Unknown

gamar wrote:

Ghast wrote:

So when someone attacks me with low true health, do I retaliate against a team with full health or a team with "true health."

Also, what about defense teams? Right now teams that you use to retreat or lose a match become your defensive team at full health. This change means that we still get to fight Lazy Thor/Lazy Daken/ Sentry every match because people can just take their 1 health point characters in for a quick retreat if that is the case.

When did this happen again? For a long time now, you've had to actually win a battle for your team to be put in as the defensive team.

At the exact time the greyouts began. Losses also now show up as retaliation nodes.

IceIX

Spoit wrote:

Is there any plans to change any of the other systems to accommodate these? Or is the 8 hours of downtime for 3*s working as intended?

We both plan to check in on the downtime for characters as you say and also monitor the healing values for the characters that offer Temporary Healing as well. The former would probably have changes made before the latter, and we actually have some temp values for healing timers that we've got in mind for play patterns. Whether that's rolled out with this change or not is a different matter.