True Healing Discussion (Live 6/25)

Unknown

The moral of the story is: we have to suck it up! they don't matter of what base thinks. their game, their rules. Take it or leave it...

Unknown

CornerPocket wrote:

I'd be curious who actually reaches >600 anymore with these changes

I have 4 maxed 2**, 1 maxed 1*, and a smattering of other 2-3* covers that are mid-high leveled to between 50-70. I really, really liked the Balance of Power event because it evened the playing field and allowed me to compete with the high leveled 3* roster folks - while also seeing people at the top of the bracket using only maxed 1* covers (AI-controlled 1* Storm at level 270 is absolutely insane btw).

Here are my thoughts:

1 - I was able to finish top 10 with 780 points. The top people in the bracket had 900+ (surprisingly not many xmen alliance people in the bracket I was in...they scored much higher - in the 12-1500 range o.O)
2 - I seriously disliked the frequency with which I had to play. The only way that I could maintain a steady score climb was to play every 3-4 hours from event start to finish and retaliate most people that attacked me to regain lost points/ground.
3 - There was still a mad rush for points at the end of the event in the last 1-2 hours. I only had 5 health packs, so I couldn't do too much to up my score - I maybe got an extra 100 points before the health packs were gone (taking me from #25 to #10).
4 - I -had- to spend HP on a shield because for every match I won, I lost 2 other matches. Thankfully, I was able to luck out and get more points on some of the retaliations than I lost on the initial attack - otherwise, I would've dropped hard.
5 - Within 10 minutes after my shield went up, I had -8- notifications of attacks on me. 5 were losses (no points deducted), but 3 were wins (I still gained 10-15 points each).

Conclusion: I feel like I invested far more time overall to get to 780 points post-TH change than I would have done prior to the change. Just because it's spread out over 2 days doesn't make it OK, especially because it has to be done every few hours to obtain any meaningful amount of points. I'm glad I got the 2 Psylocke covers because I didn't have them before and it gets me a step closer to breaking into the 3* bracket, but don't really feel like the amount of time invested was worth it.

GrumpySmurf1002

CornerPocket wrote:

I'd be curious who actually reaches >600 anymore with these changes

It's still pretty easy, but requires multiple viable teams + shielding to maintain. If you're opposed to shielding, then yeah, you're going to have a hard time getting 600+. Although you should still be able to hit 600 for progression, you just won't stay there.

Couple other important keys:
- understanding how much health you actually need on offense. It's an inexact science of course because board luck, but you need to take those calculated risks sometimes. Worst that happens is use the health pack anyway, but at least then you're getting max benefit out of it.
- get the regen countdown started as quickly as possible. Don't use a health pack for 200 points of course, but every minute you're playing with the reserve full is a minute you're not generating more health packs for your session
- Quit when things go obviously bad quickly. It's much easier to regen 1/3 of a character than all of him.
- don't focus on just PvP. Taking a break to play PvE (which allows for better use of second/third tier characters) can give your PvP team a break. This is the one I assume creates the most frustration. But if you're not doing PvE, you're missing out on a bunch of easily obtainable progression rewards, incl 3* characters. (Torchling, Sentry, Rogers recently)

There's really no reason a full 2* roster (meaning at least 6 usable max characters, but ideally 8-10, plus a couple 70 lvl 3*s doesn't hurt) can't sustain a session. Yes, the days of near-infinite OBW play are gone, but 3 hrs is plenty doable.

Unknown

Everything Grumpy said is right on the money. I've got enough 2*s (and a level 100+ 3*) to field four teams. Pun/OBW is my go-to and they go as long as I have health packs left, MNMags/cStorm are my backup band, Cap/Moonstone is my 'reach' team that goes after the big meaty prizes of 35+ points since they suck but very few people are going to retaliate for such a small point total, and Ares/Thor is my finisher to play defense. Sometimes one of these teams is broken up for PVE duty, but even that doesn't affect me too much so long as I remember not to waste any health packs on the PVE crew.

Without boosts, I hit 700 easy. I just climb as high as I can before the retals start coming in and then shield once. Sometimes I hit 800, sometimes I drop down to 680-ish, but the point is, all you need to hit 600 is a long bench.

Spoit

So I guess this too has passed....onto the 2nd page

Unknown

Expalphalog wrote:

Everything Grumpy said is right on the money. I've got enough 2*s (and a level 100+ 3*) to field four teams. Pun/OBW is my go-to and they go as long as I have health packs left, MNMags/cStorm are my backup band, Cap/Moonstone is my 'reach' team that goes after the big meaty prizes of 35+ points since they suck but very few people are going to retaliate for such a small point total, and Ares/Thor is my finisher to play defense. Sometimes one of these teams is broken up for PVE duty, but even that doesn't affect me too much so long as I remember not to waste any health packs on the PVE crew.

Without boosts, I hit 700 easy. I just climb as high as I can before the retals start coming in and then shield once. Sometimes I hit 800, sometimes I drop down to 680-ish, but the point is, all you need to hit 600 is a long bench.

Well that's great, but eventually you'll transition to 3* opponents, and then what? Even if you've got all the covers, the Iso cost to level enough characters to field 4 competitive teams at that stage is staggering.

OnesOwnGrief

Or you could level just one or two competitive teams and enter tournaments at a reasonable time. That's all you really need and if you can get 5Y on patch, you can build around him.

I tend climb to 300-400 day one (joining after the previous tournament ends). Then the second day I go after retaliations that look promising or skip the ones I don't want at no cost heading up to 600+. If I get up to very close (20 points) to 800 or higher I'll throw up a 24r shield if there's less than 24 hours left. Sit and wait until the last 3-5 minutes, collect my 50 HP if I got it from defense wins. If I'm a single win to top 10 (25 points or less), I will uses basic ISO boost and grab a quick match to push me over.

The most my roster has are a few 125 3* characters but my team is really **** due to its over reliance on Hood. This tends to translate into some easy PvP events and some harder depending on the character but my goal is honestly just top 25. My alliance is also getting good enough to score consistently in top 100 which helps a bit. That will translate into 3 covers for placement and a return of at least 100 HP for shields next PvP.

Unknown

RockMonster wrote:

Well that's great, but eventually you'll transition to 3* opponents, and then what? Even if you've got all the covers, the Iso cost to level enough characters to field 4 competitive teams at that stage is staggering.

That's why you don't get in a hurry to get there. I run across the occasional maxed 3* team already but I just skip them. Until you max (or come close) your own first 3* then this should be the case. So, instead of spending all of my available ISO to level up one guy and then hitting that brick wall, I'm saving my ISO. I'll save it up until I have enough to max out two teams at once. Is the cost staggering? Yeah, it is. But it's a cost that you're going to have to pay anyway so it doesn't matter if you do it slowly over time or save up for one huge lump sum.

wymtime

Expalphalog wrote:

RockMonster wrote:

Well that's great, but eventually you'll transition to 3* opponents, and then what? Even if you've got all the covers, the Iso cost to level enough characters to field 4 competitive teams at that stage is staggering.

That's why you don't get in a hurry to get there. I run across the occasional maxed 3* team already but I just skip them. Until you max (or come close) your own first 3* then this should be the case. So, instead of spending all of my available ISO to level up one guy and then hitting that brick wall, I'm saving my ISO. I'll save it up until I have enough to max out two teams at once. Is the cost staggering? Yeah, it is. But it's a cost that you're going to have to pay anyway so it doesn't matter if you do it slowly over time or save up for one huge lump sum.

Cost staggering is an interesting idea. I am more in favor of leveling characters to the 127-140 range and then saving up ISO to get the right characters to max. What you see in PVP is also dependent on who you use to fight with. I have 5 3* above 127 and I still see a lot of 2* teams becuase I still use a lot of my 2* roster. If you do a lot of initial climbing with 2* and then when points get inverted (you are going to be retaliated against for more than your attack) you go to a 3* team. This way your 3* beat up on 2* and you get a 3* defensive team. You get less retaliations, but when you do get attacked it is usually from a strong 3* team. After a break you can usually find some 2* opponents again to make an additional climb.

GrumpySmurf1002

RockMonster wrote:

Well that's great, but eventually you'll transition to 3* opponents, and then what? Even if you've got all the covers, the Iso cost to level enough characters to field 4 competitive teams at that stage is staggering.

When you hit the 166 wall in the PvP, that's your cue to shield up and you're done. The arena for 2* rosters to compete for the top prizes is PvE, not PvP. They've thrown us a bone by making it two covers for top 25, which helps speed up the process a bit, but it should take some good luck with bracketing and a lot of shield hopping to get a 2* roster to 1st place.

As for the ISO, yeah, it's about 2m to fully level 12 3* characters. I have no idea what a good rate of accumulation is for a 2* roster (another thing I should probably track myself at some point). At 100k / week, it's 5 months. 50k/week, 10 months. Either way, it's a marathon, not a sprint.

SnowcaTT

Never Forget! It has one month since this went live. Dev's have said they don't see metrics for months, but the flood of people that immediately left (making alliance life difficult) shouldn't have been that hard to track. Or the rating by players of their game in marketplaces. A month has gone by, and all the player feedback was ignored - they assume that the voice of the player community is worthless. Eventually they'll realize that voice is hurting their bottom line.

I debated quitting immediately, but I've continued for now. True to my word, you have not seen (and will not see) a single cent from me since this change happened. Unfortunately, changes mid-season without notice have continued: this change just showed this player the true nature of the dirty ways in which this company works.

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.

Time intensive processes that aren't fun -- like the tanking you mention? What's been done about that in the last month? MMR is still horrible.
How about another time intensive process that isn't fun: 2.5 hour grinds on PVE's?
How about time changes forcing East Coast to try to play at midnight, and Europe to try to get up at 5am? That doesn't sound fun either.

True Healing let the players determine how much they wanted to play. Instead, you are forcing players to play "your way", and these ways are not pleasant.

Never Forget!

Unknown

I've said it before, but tanking has become critical in a way that it wasn't before, and tanking is more tedious than prologue healing. I spend more time tanking now than I ever did on tanking plus prologue healing before. And it's because tanking accomplishes two things: it removes a lot of the defensive losses, meaning you don't have to play as much catch-up, and it makes matches do less damage, meaning you can do more of them. The first is probably more important than the second.

I'll also say this: I'm seeing less roster diversity than I was before. The 2* teams are more-or-less exactly what they were, with maybe OBW slightly less omnipresent, but Thor and Ares even more, but the 3* teams seem to have contracted a little, losing Spidey, but meaning the 5-6 people you saw before have now become 4-5. And the keyword for this game, overall, is now about reducing risk and ensuring you never take chances. THat's become the key to the game.

Unknown

A useful maxed bullseye with reduced black cost (along with possible reduced damage of the explosion if there are multiple crit tiles) and a decent third power would make not having true healing suck a lot less (unless you play against falcon).

Spoit

AngryHulk wrote:

A useful maxed bullseye with reduced black cost (along with possible reduced damage of the explosion if there are multiple crit tiles) and a decent third power would make not having true healing suck a lot less (unless you play against falcon).

There's always gold bagman

GrumpySmurf1002

Ben Grimm wrote:

I'll also say this: I'm seeing less roster diversity than I was before. The 2* teams are more-or-less exactly what they were, with maybe OBW slightly less omnipresent, but Thor and Ares even more,

I've seen the opposite, Bagman's really the only 2* that doesn't appear in my climb, and even he I've spotted once or twice.

I see Thor/CStorm a ton lately (flash AOE damage team, I guess). Cap/Wolverine (?), Cap/Moonstone, and Ares/Daken are pretty common these days. I see some OBW, but definitely way down, and I see Bullseye here and there. Also see a lot more max 2* plus middling 3* (like a lvl 80 Hulk or IM40).

I do see the old standbys (ares/obw, ares/thor), but not nearly as often as before the change.

SnowcaTT

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

Ben Grimm wrote:

I'll also say this: I'm seeing less roster diversity than I was before. The 2* teams are more-or-less exactly what they were, with maybe OBW slightly less omnipresent, but Thor and Ares even more,

I've seen the opposite, Bagman's really the only 2* that doesn't appear in my climb, and even he I've spotted once or twice.

I see Thor/CStorm a ton lately (flash AOE damage team, I guess). Cap/Wolverine (?), Cap/Moonstone, and Ares/Daken are pretty common these days. I see some OBW, but definitely way down, and I see Bullseye here and there. Also see a lot more max 2* plus middling 3* (like a lvl 80 Hulk or IM40).

I do see the old standbys (ares/obw, ares/thor), but not nearly as often as before the change.

Wish I saw these. I see these on initial climb, when folks are using Cap/Moonstone to attack my team (or if I randomly matched them before they put in the 'real' team) as team #6 before they get to the better ones.

In the middle of the event, I see Wolvy/Daken, Storm/Mags, Wolvy/Other.

At the end of the event, all I see are OBW+thor/ares or Thor/Ares. Except bad MMR times, when I'm lucky to see those after hitting 500 points. Ben Grimm's experience has been mine: this has driven even less diverse teams by the end. Folks feel it necessary to run multiple teams to grind the early points, but you are begging retaliation if you don't go with one of the A+ teams at the end.

GrumpySmurf1002

SnowcaTT wrote:

Wish I saw these. I see these on initial climb, when folks are using Cap/Moonstone to attack my team (or if I randomly matched them before they put in the 'real' team) as team #6 before they get to the better ones.

In the middle of the event, I see Wolvy/Daken, Storm/Mags, Wolvy/Other.

At the end of the event, all I see are OBW+thor/ares or Thor/Ares. Except bad MMR times, when I'm lucky to see those after hitting 500 points. Ben Grimm's experience has been mine: this has driven even less diverse teams by the end. Folks feel it necessary to run multiple teams to grind the early points, but you are begging retaliation if you don't go with one of the A+ teams at the end.

Pre healing change, you saw OBW-Thor the entire way through. That's part of what's different.

Yes, once you get into the 600's, the diversity goes down, but that's no different than before the change.

SnowcaTT

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

the early points, but you are begging retaliation if you don't go with one of the A+ teams at the end.

Pre healing change, you saw OBW-Thor the entire way through. That's part of what's different.

Yes, once you get into the 600's, the diversity goes down, but that's no different than before the change.[/quote]

True enough, it was all OBW+Thor/Ares before, and it's still that (or Thor + Storm sometimes) after awhile now. Actually, the difference is the 3* teams had to change tactics (or MMR changed?), and at 600+ the other teams I see are 3* ones. Little diversity, horray.

While I'm at it: thanks D3 for having the PVP Sentry have red as the first ability. Area effect on 2* teams means an unlucky cascade means near team-wipe, and there aren't many teams to play with. This is why Thor+Storm works, I can really only play three teams after 300 points, and an area-effect going off kills one of them off right away. Maybe this is to get more money through healing packs? If so, I expect to see BP use his black as standard soon enough.

SnowcaTT

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2 ... disneyland

"We talk about monetization ten times more than we talk about community and that is {tinykitty} backwards"

See: this thread. I think the community has spoken, but the comments are ignored for the want of the almighty healing-pack dollar.

killerkoala

I think true healing is still suckage. but having max 3* fighting under their weight class in pvp is worst. MMR should be fixed based on team strength, points should be awarded bases on team strength not how many points ahead one person is in pvp. they should be fighting max 3*, not roster that can't really have a chance about hitting back. if you attack under powered team you should only gain and the other team should only lose like 10 or less points. if you attack comparable teams ( same strength) you should get 20-30 points. this would alleviate 3* not having points once they pass a certain threshold cause every team you would fight would be still be 20+, not 1-10. and for 2*/3* transitional teams from losing 100's of point with no hope to gaining them back in retaliations cause the other team are max 3* and only worth 10 points.