Finally, destruction of bad metagame!

Dauthi

MakeThemHomeless wrote:

Dauthi wrote:

orionpeace wrote:

I think that you need to think it through a little better.

Cause the casual player will now get next to nothing.

And any player who was in the process of making the switch from 2* to 3* is royally screwed.

Oh really, why is this? Please enlighten me.

Most players with a two star team will have OBW and Thor/MN Mag/Ares/C.Storm. They might have Modern Storm for certain maps. The rest of their roster is filled with 3 stars they're attempting to get covers for.

There's quite a lot of players in this position as OBW could constantly keep your team topped off so you could run with a small handful of heroes while you built up your 3 star team. This is a lot worse than the "Funbalancing" update by far.

But since you all are not able to heal to get ahead, you will all be in the same situation. This only means less effort for the same amount of points. Also, what Phantron said

Unknown

While you are transitioning to 3*, or have a very small 3* team, PVE teams vs fully leveled teams are pretty common. It is a well known situation, where the actual number of 3* covers you can reliably get actually decreases. I used to top 10 a whole lot in season 1: I got enough high level teams that know I am at the bottom of the big kid pool, so it takes a whole lot of prologue healing to top 100.

The people at the top have little problem with this. They have full sentries, dakens and such, which will make climbing very difficult for those of us with inferior rosters: We were already fighting 2v3 more often than not, and now we are fighting 2v3, and fighting slowly.

So it's not that the old metagame was any good, but that the current metagame puts anyone that doesn't have a large usable team or true healers at a disadvantage. a 3* transition is the moment where you have the LEAST playable characters (as your level 85s get eaten in seconds by the level 141 opponents), and little chance of having true healers.

Frankly, the system would be far better without that true healing concept. Because the changes made Daken and Patch, two top 10 heroes in their own right, far better than they were, since half the field got nerfed.

We'd not have a problem if there wasn't such a tiny MMR window between people with a dozen maxed 3*s and people with 1 or 2, but there is. And as long as it's there, problems will happen. The change just made them bigger.

Ducky

_RiO_ wrote:

Dauthi wrote:

Forcing players to play constantly due to prologue healing also increases burnout for many. It makes much more sense to increase health regeneration and allow people to spread their gameplay through out the day while still being able to compete, in fact it makes even mores sense with the recent refresh rates to PVE. Since it affects all players it means that casual players will have a slightly better chance at competing and all players will have to play less to keep up with those who used to play all due thanks to a terrible metagame.

It also means players of Steam / PC edition of the game are now royally screwed out of any chance to effectively compete and place for 3* rewards.

PC players are only able to play in two bursts per day; a short period in the (very) early morning before leaving for work, and one big long chunk in the evening. They get no benefit out of the sped up health regeneration and they get no benefit out of the regeneration of the basic 5 health packs. Meanwhile, players of the mobile editions of the game get to spread out their matches over the day and use the regeneration mechanic to its full benefit.

What are these players supposed to do? Cave in and buy health packs just to place themselves at a competitive level with mobile players that pay nothing?
No; I think those players are going to have a mass exodus away from the game and to greener pastures.

To be fair, I am a Steam user and have never used prologue healing to increase my ability to play during PvP tournaments. I didn't even have a workable Spiderman until after his recent cover giveaway, and my OBW has never been leveled to be usable in anything other than goons in PvE.

It's all about timing and shielding and team comp.

Unknown

OnesOwnGrief wrote:

Has anyone actually managed to take a step back from this for a moment and think about what effect this is going to have on MMR? This will officially bring balance to that over time so that they can isolate those in MMR hell and fix those too. People in 2* will actually spend longer periods of time in 2* as they build up their rosters unless they dump money into 3* characters. Even then, 3* will keep you within the 2 star range as long as you don't hit past the upper-mid 90s effectively giving you more players to work with before you take that last leap into the fire.

For those that want longer play sessions, Daken and Wolverine will be sought after for the 2* and 3* sets as they are allowed to keep their regeneration. Hulk may see more play because of his faster natural healing, and the damage he could do against the other team in terms of damage. You are now forced to think more about what combination of characters you're going to use and how they will effect the opposing team as you climb and as you set a team to defend. This would also allow Demiurge, God willing, to further balance characters other characters up to reasonable levels.

Based on past history, I doubt Demiurge will be spending any real effort/resources to truly fix MMR or balance characters. Devs, please prove me wrong

Unknown

Dauthi wrote:

But since you all are not able to heal to get ahead, you will all be in the same situation. This only means less effort for the same amount of points.

No, it means more work for the same amount of points, and every single attack you get is that much more devastating. Sure, if you're in a bracket almost entirely with 2* players, then it'll even out to an extent, but progression rewards? Boy, I thought they were a little generous giving us hero points at 400 and 600; now I see that those are going to be hard to reach! Forget the 800 reward. The people in my alliance were scoring 800+ with 2* rosters. Now we're just collectively boned, and the value of an alliance is determined almost entirely by "how many 3* rosters are present". You know nothing about the 2* transition right now and should just shut up.

Dauthi

hibikir wrote:

While you are transitioning to 3*, or have a very small 3* team, PVE teams vs fully leveled teams are pretty common. It is a well known situation, where the actual number of 3* covers you can reliably get actually decreases. I used to top 10 a whole lot in season 1: I got enough high level teams that know I am at the bottom of the big kid pool, so it takes a whole lot of prologue healing to top 100.

The people at the top have little problem with this. They have full sentries, dakens and such, which will make climbing very difficult for those of us with inferior rosters: We were already fighting 2v3 more often than not, and now we are fighting 2v3, and fighting slowly.

So it's not that the old metagame was any good, but that the current metagame puts anyone that doesn't have a large usable team or true healers at a disadvantage. a 3* transition is the moment where you have the LEAST playable characters (as your level 85s get eaten in seconds by the level 141 opponents), and little chance of having true healers.

Frankly, the system would be far better without that true healing concept. Because the changes made Daken and Patch, two top 10 heroes in their own right, far better than they were, since half the field got nerfed.

We'd not have a problem if there wasn't such a tiny MMR window between people with a dozen maxed 3*s and people with 1 or 2, but there is. And as long as it's there, problems will happen. The change just made them bigger.

This is a common misconception I see is trending. This is a problem with MMR/Tanking and should be fixed. Healing was like a terrible bandaid to fix this for some players. Hopefully this is the first step before it is sorted out.

Unknown

Your understanding of the issue is somewhat shallow.

If you think this is a zero sum kind of change for 2* players then explain this one to me....

Player A has a 2* roster and can only play after work and before bed. He puts aside 3 hours (he likes the game) and plays in that time.
Player B has a 2* roster and pops onto the game regularly throughout the day. He goes on 3 times a day for 1 hour.

Pre healing nerf both have a chance to do well. Player B can get more use out of health packs because they are regenerated for each time he plays and his heroes have mostly patched themselves up if they were damaged but player A can just use OBW in fights and keep in fighting shape saving health packs for bad enemy cascades.

Post healing nerf player B will struggle to play for a full hour on his 5 free health packs + 1 regenerating but he can still get work done thanks to his packs regenerating between play sessions. Player A on the other hand is screwed. He can play for 45mins-1hour (less if unlucky) on his 5 health packs + 1 regenerating in that time then what? do nothing for a couple of hours while he waits on enough health packs to play again and get a few more matches out?

This change does NOTHING but hurt 2* players ability to actually play the game, especially if they want to do it on their own schedule (how dare they!!!!). It benefits well established 3* players whilst simultaneously harming anyone in their MMR bracket who's not got enough 3* heroes to swap them out OR one of the super effective (overpowered?) combos and has been relying on OBW to bridge the gap. They will now struggle even more to progress their 3*s unless they are willing to pay, or their alliance is picking them up covers (OR they are able to play every few hours for 30 minutes cause that's a common thing).

It's a **** change.

Unknown

I like the idea someone had about defending teams having the same health the characters had leaving their last victory.

_RiO_

bonfire01 wrote:

Your understanding of the issue is somewhat shallow.

If you think this is a zero sum kind of change for 2* players then explain this one to me....

Player A has a 2* roster and can only play after work and before bed. He puts aside 3 hours (he likes the game) and plays in that time.
Player B has a 2* roster and pops onto the game regularly throughout the day. He goes on 3 times a day for 1 hour.

Pre healing nerf both have a chance to do well. Player B can get more use out of health packs because they are regenerated for each time he plays and his heroes have mostly patched themselves up if they were damaged but player A can just use OBW in fights and keep in fighting shape saving health packs for bad enemy cascades.

Post healing nerf player B will struggle to play for a full hour on his 5 free health packs + 1 regenerating but he can still get work done thanks to his packs regenerating between play sessions. Player A on the other hand is screwed. He can play for 45mins-1hour (less if unlucky) on his 5 health packs + 1 regenerating in that time then what? do nothing for a couple of hours while he waits on enough health packs to play again and get a few more matches out?

This change does NOTHING but hurt 2* players ability to actually play the game, especially if they want to do it on their own schedule (how dare they!!!!). It benefits well established 3* players whilst simultaneously harming anyone in their MMR bracket who's not got enough 3* heroes to swap them out and has been relying on OBW to bridge the gap. They will now struggle even more to progress their 3*s unless they are willing to pay, or their alliance is picking them up covers (OR they are able to play every few hours for 30 minutes cause that's a common thing).

It's a **** change.

And now guess which hardware platforms best fit the profile of player A and B and you'll have the point I'm trying to make as well.

Dauthi

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

Dauthi wrote:

But since you all are not able to heal to get ahead, you will all be in the same situation. This only means less effort for the same amount of points.

No, it means more work for the same amount of points, and every single attack you get is that much more devastating.

You should explain yourself more, how does it mean more work when you can't heal to do the work? Was it easier to get into a point bracket (800) that a 2* shouldnt be in and get picked apart by 3*s only to have to gain all the points over again?

Sure, if you're in a bracket almost entirely with 2* players, then it'll even out to an extent, but progression rewards? Boy, I thought they were a little generous giving us hero points at 400 and 600; now I see that those are going to be hard to reach! Forget the 800 reward.

Who would have thought that better progression rewards could be earned by those whose rosters are progressed.

The people in my alliance were scoring 800+ with 2* rosters. Now we're just collectively boned, and the value of an alliance is determined almost entirely by "how many 3* rosters are present".

Those who earned 3* rosters will be more useful than those with 2* rosters? Sorry, but why does this just make sense?

You know nothing about the 2* transition right now and should just shut up.

That's quite the assumption. I played when getting to 2* was as hard as 3* is for you today. The drops today that you can get for 2* are insane, and yet you still feel entitled to the best rewards for low progression. No, no I wont shut up. Thanks for the well thought out response though!

bonfire01 wrote:

Your understanding of the issue is somewhat shallow.

If you think this is a zero sum kind of change for 2* players then explain this one to me....

Player A has a 2* roster and can only play after work and before bed. He puts aside 3 hours (he likes the game) and plays in that time.
Player B has a 2* roster and pops onto the game regularly throughout the day. He goes on 3 times a day for 1 hour.

Pre healing nerf both have a chance to do well. Player B can get more use out of health packs because they are regenerated for each time he plays and his heroes have mostly patched themselves up if they were damaged but player A can just use OBW in fights and keep in fighting shape saving health packs for bad enemy cascades.

Post healing nerf player B will struggle to play for a full hour on his 5 free health packs + 1 regenerating but he can still get work done thanks to his packs regenerating between play sessions. Player A on the other hand is screwed. He can play for 45mins-1hour (less if unlucky) on his 5 health packs + 1 regenerating in that time then what? do nothing for a couple of hours while he waits on enough health packs to play again and get a few more matches out?

This change does NOTHING but hurt 2* players ability to actually play the game, especially if they want to do it on their own schedule (how dare they!!!!). It benefits well established 3* players whilst simultaneously harming anyone in their MMR bracket who's not got enough 3* heroes to swap them out OR one of the super effective (overpowered?) combos and has been relying on OBW to bridge the gap. They will now struggle even more to progress their 3*s unless they are willing to pay, or their alliance is picking them up covers (OR they are able to play every few hours for 30 minutes cause that's a common thing).

It's a **** change.

This sounds like most phone/facebook games. They limit what you can do in a certain amount of time to avoid burnout. These games aren't meant for hardcore gaming as they offer a lot less content than something like WoW. They are meant to get on during small intervals in your life and are often promoted to do such (new PVE timers, health packs, health regen, shields etc). I also believe if you can't play longer than an hour on 6 health packs your problem is MMR/Tanking, not healing.

You believe that 3*s are progressing faster? Note that they often get rewards they already have, limiting their progression as well. Meanwhile whenever a 2* roster gains any 3* it is 100% progression. The more 3*s you the slower your progression to boot.

Unknown

Dauthi wrote:

You should explain yourself more, how does it mean more work when you can't heal to do the work? Was it easier to get into a point bracket (800) that a 2* shouldnt be in and get picked apart by 3*s only to have to gain all the points over again?

So you believe 800+ is reserved for 3* rosters only. How does someone in 2* land reach that level if he can never score high enough to get covers in the first place?

That's quite the assumption. I played when getting to 2* was as hard as 3* is for you today. The drops today that you can get for 2* are insane, and yet you still feel entitled to the best rewards for low progression. No, no I wont shut up. Thanks for the well thought out response though!

You played when getting to 3* was much easier than it is today. It doesn't matter if your X was harder than his Y if his Y is much much harder than your Y

GrumpySmurf1002

Phantron wrote:

The 2* player is slightly worse off but not in a way that's meanignful. Previously the guy with OBW slowly grinded his way through prologue healing to say 700 points and then someone with Patch + Mag or any similar team with 500 points sees this 700 team and quickly put that team out of their misery, and the 2* guy goes back to slowing grinding again for the whole process to repeat and hope one of these times he gets lucky (or shielded on time). .

This isn't entirely true. Without prologue healing, I could and have averaged 800 for the better part of two seasons now with a 2* roster, with only the occasionaly 141 smashing, and no more than 2 3hrs or 1 full day shield (depending on finish of the event).

Without OBW, however I don't know that it's still a feasible goal. It might be, climbing with one of the 'true' healers, but I have my doubts.

Unknown

I must be imagining things when I tear apart the 2* roster on my usual climb, usually winning 10 games in a row without the need to heal at all. I'm sure those guys that I destroyed are totally not affected because they can go back to prologue heal and get destroyed again if I see them pop up on my matchup list.

The disparity of the top tier teams and everything else is rather huge, so much that healing never amounted to any difference when a team can defeat you about 99.9% of the time and you have very little chance of retaliating. That issue also goes far beyond true healing. It seems like most 2* players don't realize all they do is being harvested by the same top tier teams over and over. In fact the guy with the 300 rating super team is waiting for you to grind more games with your OBW so he can hit you for 40 points in 3 minutes which saves him a lot of time compared to fighting teams that can actually threaten him, and those guys are always around. No you won't be any better off with this change, but you were always pretty screwed whenever you show up on a matchup list against a team that you have no possible chance of winning. Do people somehow not get smacked by hopelessly powerful teams at the 2* now? Because I sure still have no problem finding teams that are hopelessly outclassed by my roster.

Unknown

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

Phantron wrote:

The 2* player is slightly worse off but not in a way that's meanignful. Previously the guy with OBW slowly grinded his way through prologue healing to say 700 points and then someone with Patch + Mag or any similar team with 500 points sees this 700 team and quickly put that team out of their misery, and the 2* guy goes back to slowing grinding again for the whole process to repeat and hope one of these times he gets lucky (or shielded on time). .

This isn't entirely true. Without prologue healing, I could and have averaged 800 for the better part of two seasons now with a 2* roster, with only the occasionaly 141 smashing, and no more than 2 3hrs or 1 full day shield (depending on finish of the event).

Without OBW, however I don't know that it's still a feasible goal. It might be, climbing with one of the 'true' healers, but I have my doubts.

Yes, but the 141 guys just smash you for their 1000 points, so you were never going to pass them up unless you're just lucky enough to not be seen as a matchup. Now that number goes down for you, but the 141 guy was always going to smash you if he can see your team. Placement relative to the 141s is unchanged because the guy who can smash your team is almost certainly always going to place better. Progression reward is harder to get, but the lower stuff is actually far easier to reach, and the 1100+ stuff is pretty much always in the realm of shielding.

It does mean that guessing correctly on when to shield is going to be much more important, because in the past you can climb to 800, get knocked down, and try over and over and hope one of the times you might get especially lucky. That said, there's no reason to believe trying over and over again is any better than shielding early, since there's no shortage of 141s waiting to smash hapless victims too.

Dauthi

gobstopper wrote:

Dauthi wrote:

You should explain yourself more, how does it mean more work when you can't heal to do the work? Was it easier to get into a point bracket (800) that a 2* shouldnt be in and get picked apart by 3*s only to have to gain all the points over again?

So you believe 800+ is reserved for 3* rosters only. How does someone in 2* land reach that level if he can never score high enough to get covers in the first place?

They should be earning the single cover in PVP and rewards in PVE. This is a lot of progression even when compared to 3*s who need the extra covers because often they need a specific cover, not any cover.

That's quite the assumption. I played when getting to 2* was as hard as 3* is for you today. The drops today that you can get for 2* are insane, and yet you still feel entitled to the best rewards for low progression. No, no I wont shut up. Thanks for the well thought out response though!
You played when getting to 3* was much easier than it is today. It doesn't matter if your X was harder than his Y if his Y is much much harder than your Y

You must have missed the point. The amount of progression needed for a full 2* roster is very low now, so why should the best rewards be given to them?

Phantron wrote:

I must be imagining things when I tear apart the 2* roster on my usual climb, usually winning 10 games in a row without the need to heal at all. I'm sure those guys that I destroyed are totally not affected because they can go back to prologue heal and get destroyed again if I see them pop up on my matchup list.

It seems like most 2* players don't realize all they do is being harvested by the same top tier teams over and over.

This.

Unknown

Dauthi wrote:

This sounds like most phone/facebook games. They limit what you can do in a certain amount of time to avoid burnout. These games aren't meant for hardcore gaming as they offer a lot less content than something like WoW. They are meant to get on during small intervals in your life and are often promoted to do such (new PVE timers, health packs, health regen, shields etc). I also believe if you can't play longer than an hour on 6 health packs your problem is MMR/Tanking, not healing.

You believe that 3*s are progressing faster? Note that they often get rewards they already have, limiting their progression as well. Meanwhile whenever a 2* roster gains any 3* it is 100% progression. The more 3*s you the slower your progression to boot.

Most phone/facebook games aren't purely competetive. Progression in this game is almost completely tied to how you do compared to other players (at least in the 2* to 3* transition period which is the longest and most painful stretch now). Tanking only impacts 2* players when 3* players who have tanked hit them. I can't comment on how much that happens to each player but since 2* players apparently outnumber 3* players I imagine a lot of their time is spent beating up on each other. Since D3 has stated they want "challenging" fights then your MMR locking you to equivalent rosters won't change so what kind of fix are you envisaging?

As far as 3*s go are we meant to be getting sympathy for those duplicate covers? I don't expect a great deal.... I can get hold of pretty much whatever covers I want. Unless I get unlucky with my bracket I can generally get 1st in PvP if I want to.... so what's limiting my progression? Are you saying having to wait for covers you want to rotate around is somehow worse than struggling to win anything at all? Especially when 2* transitioning players need to complete individual heroes to be of any use so they ALSO need to wait for heroes to rotate around and then somehow win the covers.

@Phantron

I get what you're saying but it's not like there is going to be 100 established 3* players putting forth effort in every reward bracket. Lots of 2* players are essentially competing with each other for 3* covers and the healing nerf both makes it even more P2W to get ahead of your fellows AND hammers people on certain playing schedules (see above).

The fact they get fed off of by 3* players who've tanked on occasion doesn't seem to be a big issue to most ppl and being able to sustain a push vs similar teams seems to be the determining factor in who gets the rewards they want.

not everyone's aim is to come first or even top 25 remember.... it's not the only way ppl progress...

Unknown

Dauthi wrote:

They should be earning the single cover in PVP and rewards in PVE. This is a lot of progression even when compared to 3*s who need the extra covers because often they need a specific cover, not any cover.

Excepting the fun part that it takes a lot of work to get a useless single 3* cover. With the ability to heal in combat, I've been able to scrape together 18 3* characters, none of which are usable. Giving a 2* player any random cover is meaningless. They need specific covers just as much as anyone else, since it takes so many to level a character anywhere near being useful for even a 1* player.

Unknown

Could everybody please replace "true/temporary healing" with "Spiderman/OBW nerf"? The former makes it seem like this big overall game changer, when really this only affects two characters. And of those two, I feel more sorry for the Spidey users than for the OBW crowd. Talk about kicking a 'Man when he's down... The OBW nerf also seems pretty fair. She's still just as good on defense, her AP theft abilities are unchanged, and her blue still helps out wounded characters. It just doesn't carry over into the next match. So now, instead of making sure to have 9 blue AP before finishing the enemy off to stay fully healed, people will finish off the opposing team as quickly as possible, which seems like a move in the right direction to me.

GrumpySmurf1002

Phantron wrote:

Yes, but the 141 guys just smash you for their 1000 points, so you were never going to pass them up unless you're just lucky enough to not be seen as a matchup. Now that number goes down for you, but the 141 guy was always going to smash you if he can see your team. Placement relative to the 141s is unchanged because the guy who can smash your team is almost certainly always going to place better. Progression reward is harder to get, but the lower stuff is actually far easier to reach, and the 1100+ stuff is pretty much always in the realm of shielding.

It does mean that guessing correctly on when to shield is going to be much more important, because in the past you can climb to 800, get knocked down, and try over and over and hope one of the times you might get especially lucky. That said, there's no reason to believe trying over and over again is any better than shielding early, since there's no shortage of 141s waiting to smash hapless victims too.

Nowhere am I whining about getting to 1100. I understand there's a wall. I don't try to pass the wall. I play at a time where I can get to 800-850, shield up, and I'm done. Especially with the new rewards, 800 is plenty for two covers and some iso/hp, which is all you can ask.

Trying to win the top prizes in the bracket has zero to do with this. It's about gameplay and frequency. Without being able to heal in match (forget about prologue), 2* characters die off much faster, which means health packs are consumed much faster, which means you need more time to play to make any kind of meaningful climb.

So people (like myself) that devoted a couple hours to a climb now have to spread that out over smaller chunks, or run less than ideal teams, opening up to even more retaliation. If you're on Steam (like myself), that's not realistic. If you have a career, that's not realistic. If you have kids, that's not realistic.

That's the problem with healing. We're not threatening your precious spot up on high.

Unknown

yes. thank you for letting me fight more than thor obw and storm with your diversity movement. Oh, wait you mean im still fighting only those teams? but now i can only play 2-3 matches before i have to wait several hours? looks like i wont be doing well in any tournaments now. which means i wont shield, which means i dont need HP which means ill now spend ZERO on this game