Diversity and balance

Unknown

A thought or two on "diversity", since it's the stated goal of the healing change.

If diversity in roster is the goal, it is my experience that balance is the key to making diversity happen more or less organically. You can always use game design equivalents to Affirmative Action, but those are kludges at best.

I always point to Street Fighter 2 and StarCraft for this theory. The former is the basis for a post I wrote on game design years ago, http://tishtoshtesh.wordpress.com/2011/02/12/balance-part-2-asymmetry-and-art/, and the latter is a prime example of balance without precise symmetry. They work well because each character or faction brings unique tools to the table, but each are capable out of the box. Playstyle, strategy and tactics rule the day, letting player choice be the driving force, not the developer's design foibles.

This paradigm doesn't work when leveling is in the system, as noted in this article by David Sirlin from a while back, http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130976/soapbox_world_of_warcraft_teaches_.php, mocking the idea of a "level 60 Chun Li".

I submit that diversity simply isn't compatible with the core design of Marvel Puzzle Quest. It's an honorable goal, making for more staying power and more interesting metagaming, but the leveling, cover scarcity and rarity tier designs of MPQ just don't support it.

Unknown

I guess there will always be popular choices. I keep my own team diverse and adapt to my opponents, but some people will just imitate what they commonly see others doing because it seems to work.

So what would you have the devs do? Abolish the levelling system? Somehow I don't think this would change things.

Unknown

Abolishing levels wouldn't solve everything, but it would help a great deal (and it doesn't even do much as-is, since competitive PvE has scaling and PvP has MMR matching).

Alternatively, normalize levels for all characters in PvP and make it a contest of skill and team choice. Every character plays at level 50 or 100 or whatever. This allows the devs to balance their abilities around a baseline, and for all players to play with usable characters, making for a diverse playing field. Cover hunting becomes more of a question of how to customize your approach, rather than trying to scrape together a baseline competitive team.

Levels and competition don't mix well in general, but that's just part of the stress in this system.

As I note, I think the real problem is one of balance, and the rarity tiers are just as much at fault there. Rarity moves tokens, and levels push players to grind, both of which lead straight into monetization. It's understandable that they went there. It's just antithetical to a finely balanced overall roster of possible characters, and changing healing isn't addressing any of the underlying game design issues.

My point isn't so much that they should abolish leveling, it's that they have their design and they have to stick with it, knowing that diversity and balance aren't going to happen without some serious changes... and healing isn't one of them. The assertion that they want diversity flies directly against their core design pillars.

wymtime

I think the Dev's need to also create a better synergy between characters. in the 2* level there are some that only Match well with 1 or 2 other covers MMN and Cstorm. As you level up 3* some of them feel like they don't mesh well with others. I am thinking of HT who drains AP, and Psylock who A needs more covers dropped, and B works best with someone who can drop fast strike tiles to make hers optimal. On the 3* level there are a lot of good RGY with multiple good powers but others who have Blue,Purple,or Black usually have 1 really good power and 2 that are meh... the only 2 I see as outliers are Mags , about to be nerfed and LDaken.

Unknown

The Devs said these changes were to make it more diverse. But it hasn't. You still see almost the exact same team set-ups as before. The only reason people thought it worked was because the PVP event they had "conveniently" going at the time was A black widow event, so no one could use OBW, so you saw some more diverse team set ups then. But as soon as that event was done all you see now are the same teams, OBW with Thor or Ares, the only changes are you now see Wolverine or Daken on teams a little bit more (mostly wolverine) because they still heal normally. Some people might say they have seen more classic Storms on teams, but that isn't diverse either because before the changes if you didn't run into OBW with Thor/Ares you would run into a team with Classic Storm instead.

So in the end this mean 1 of two things.
1. The Devs knew this wouldn't make things more diverse and would only bring slight changes to people team set-ups. Which proves they purely did this to make more money in the hope it would cause people to buy health packs.

2. The Devs honestly believed it would make things more diverse. Which proves how little they know about the game and players, because anyone could see how it wouldn't make things more diverse, because the only thing that actually changed was how long players can play. That's it, the changes don't actually effect anything else. I still use OBW and Thor because OBW is still really good and her abilities still make her an asset in PVP matches. The only difference is now I can't have prolonged game sessions.

So in the end as much as the Devs say they did this to make the game more diverse, it doesn't. Their bottomline isn't to make this game a fun experience for players, but to make money. Which is normally fine, businesses need to make money. But the way these Devs are going about it, they are slowly digging their own graves because all their changes are turning more people off the game, and making it a lot harder for new players to do well, which in turn makes it harder to attract new players.

Unknown

I can't speak for everyone, but I personally have used a much wider array of my roster than I had before.
Combos I have run recently
Shield Bro + IM40 + GSBW
Shield Bro + OBW + Doom
MnMags + cStorm + whoever
Doom + mnMags + hood
Doom + mnMags + OBW (she is too little now and doom covers all her colors)
Thor+Ares
Hulk + ares
Obw+ ares
obw + wolvie + mStorm in pvp
and others that didnt work so well but I tried anyway