Upcoming Change: Character Level Shift

IceIX

malfunkshen wrote:

I'm in agreement with killerkoala. I'm confused as to how this is going to change anything or make a character more useful. If they raised the starting level, but left the level cap alone, that makes sense, but since everything is just raised, I don't see the difference or how this will help make characters more useful. the difference in levels between the starting and the max levels for three stars are exactly the same, 126. This might help if my 3* chars are going against 2* chars, but MMR makes sure that doesn't happen. Maybe I'm missing something in the explanation, so if I'm missing something, can someone explain how this is going to help the community?

Right now, many many players get to having 3 Level 50 1*s and never level up 2 stars. Why would they? They would have 44 levels before they even became possible replacements for their 1*s. As well, a 3* is only level 15, so they're going to take a ton of work to even get to the 1* max level. So they sit with their 1*s until they get bored with the game since there's "nothing else to do". With this change, suddenly 2*s are more viable at start, and 3*s suddenly become completely viable *and* worthwhile to level up if they get extra covers since they'll be somewhat comparable to a maxed 1*. Gameplay options open up for the people lower down on the totem pole. Repeat this process for the 2* players who look at the 70 level differential to even get started in replacing a 2* and it's a really rough sell for many players who don't see the further value. Cut that differential down significantly and suddenly that's not such a hard thing to do.

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

Trust me, we're listening.

The birth of another IceIX quote that he will never live down.

IceIX

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

Most forumites seem to agree that Magneto is overpowered and deserves a small nerf, but also seem to agree that he isn't being heavily overused.

He's not heavily overused in PVP. In PVE on the other hand, he and Good Ol' Tuxedo Man are by far and away the most used characters in the advanced 3* crowd.

IceIX

Ghast wrote:

IceIX wrote:

Trust me, we're listening.

The birth of another IceIX quote that he will never live down.

Oh, I figured that'd be the case when I wrote it. It's the truth though.

IceIX

killerkoala wrote:

Jdberia wrote:

I didn't see this anywhere, but if I missed it, feel free to reply with the link. I have 6 or 7 maxed 2* characters. Will these automatically go to lvl 94 with the change or will I have to drop more ISO to lvl up 9 more levels? Obviously, this would be less of a pain than somebody having to lvl from 141 to 166, but the question is still the same.

Characters will automatically shift the number of current levels equivalent to their rarity. This change will be retroactive, so all characters in the game will automatically be adjusted to the new levels.

from what i can infer we will retroactively gain these levels so everyone will get a bump.

Correct. You'll just see the patch come in and your 85s will be 94s via the magic of the intarwebz.

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

Right now, many many players get to having 3 Level 50 1*s and never level up 2 stars. Why would they? They would have 44 levels before they even became possible replacements for their 1*s. As well, a 3* is only level 15, so they're going to take a ton of work to even get to the 1* max level. So they sit with their 1*s until they get bored with the game since there's "nothing else to do". With this change, suddenly 2*s are more viable at start, and 3*s suddenly become completely viable *and* worthwhile to level up if they get extra covers since they'll be somewhat comparable to a maxed 1*. Gameplay options open up for the people lower down on the totem pole. Repeat this process for the 2* players who look at the 70 level differential to even get started in replacing a 2* and it's a really rough sell for many players who don't see the further value. Cut that differential down significantly and suddenly that's not such a hard thing to do.

That's simply not true. One of the biggest rookie mistakes players make in this game is assuming that a higher level character with 1-2 covers is better than a lower-level character with 10-13 covers. On match damage maybe, but powers win the battle. A single 3* cover becomes a de facto Hulk in the eyes of a 1* player - a harmless giant to one-shot after mopping up the real threat.

TheHueyFreeman

IceIX wrote:

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

Most forumites seem to agree that Magneto is overpowered and deserves a small nerf, but also seem to agree that he isn't being heavily overused.

He's not heavily overused in PVP. In PVE on the other hand, he and Good Ol' Tuxedo Man are by far and away the most used characters in the advanced 3* crowd.

But that doesn't mean you guys are planning on nerfing Patch right?

Unknown

Lucky me. I level up my Daken from 15 to 40 and next thing Demiurge does is buff up all 3* to level 40. Thanks for nothing (unless you're automatically bumping up my Daken to 65, which would be groovy )

Nonce Equitaur 2

I've seen many rosters where someone has a 3* character with 6 or fewer covers.

Suppose someone currently has a 6 cover level 35 LThor, and a 10 cover level 51 Ares. After the change, both will be level 60. It's cheaper to add levels to LThor, who will top out at level 89. Currently, when I see a transitioning player in PvP, they have Ares/Thor/Cstorm/OBW. After this change, transitioners will have all sorts of teams.

Unknown

sorcered wrote:

Lucky me. I level up my Daken from 15 to 40 and next thing Demiurge does is buff up all 3* to level 40. Thanks for nothing (unless you're automatically bumping up my Daken to 65, which would be groovy )

All your 3* will magically have an extra 25 levels whenever this change goes in.

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

Most forumites seem to agree that Magneto is overpowered and deserves a small nerf, but also seem to agree that he isn't being heavily overused.

He's not heavily overused in PVP. In PVE on the other hand, he and Good Ol' Tuxedo Man are by far and away the most used characters in the advanced 3* crowd.

I see two options, but my vision is hazy for some reason.

1. Figure out why endgame players rely on C. magneto so heavily in PVE and fix the underlying problem.

2. Nerf C. Mags and wait for the backlash to die down.

Where's Miss Cleo when you need her?

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

We haven't abandoned discussion on the healing changes, there's simply nothing for us to actively contribute at the moment. The change is made, we're monitoring that thread (and others) to see what general discussion is like. We're also heavily monitoring associated data streams such as play times and play patterns across multiple tiers of player types to see if the change made the difference we were expecting. We need at the *very* least a full PVE Event to see how player patterns change during the Event to start to get an idea of what worked and what can be iterated on. Trust me, we're listening. I just don't have anything that I can say other than that until we figure out precisely what the change did in total.

I don't think you realize just how valuable a contribution "We're reading the thread, but we need a week or three of data before we can productively talk about it again," is. Seeing 'IceIX' in red is actually the only indication we players get that *anyone* at D3 reads or cares about the forum threads.

Five minutes ago, the general stance on the healing issue from D3 seemed to be "This is what we're doing. We don't actually give a tinykitty if you like it or not, but here's a thread you can make noise in."

Now, it's "We're not sure about the change, and we're watching closely to see how it turns out - but we really need more data before we can open up the issue for discussion again."

It makes all the difference in the world. I'd actually seriously suggest you copy-paste that paragraph into the discussion thread, just so the people who don't read this one in depth will see it.

Nonce Equitaur 2

IceIX wrote:

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

Most forumites seem to agree that Magneto is overpowered and deserves a small nerf, but also seem to agree that he isn't being heavily overused.

He's not heavily overused in PVP. In PVE on the other hand, he and Good Ol' Tuxedo Man are by far and away the most used characters in the advanced 3* crowd.

Ah, good to know. Handling countdown tiles. I think I've done that many times as well, though I'm using Cap more. Add 1AP to the cost of Blue and it won't be quite as magically useful.

Unknown

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

IceIX wrote:

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

Most forumites seem to agree that Magneto is overpowered and deserves a small nerf, but also seem to agree that he isn't being heavily overused.

He's not heavily overused in PVP. In PVE on the other hand, he and Good Ol' Tuxedo Man are by far and away the most used characters in the advanced 3* crowd.

Ah, good to know. Handling countdown tiles. I think I've done that many times as well, though I'm using Cap more. Add 1AP to the cost of Blue and it won't be quite as magically useful.

I suspect it's less about that than it is that Magneto is pretty useless defensively, in PvP.

IceIX

gobstopper wrote:

1. Have you considered that perhaps the reason those players have 3*s sitting doing nothing is that they don't have enough covers or ISO to level them? It is incredibly unlikely that people who play this type of game "cap out" on purpose.
2. "Players aren't getting what they should out of the more powerful characters" - How does one do this without covers/ISO and/or $?

1. Yep. We have quite a lot of players that are sitting on mounds of growing Iso-8 and maxed 1*/2* characters. Every now and then a new character release will make a couple people level one, then we see them suddenly blow the rest of the Iso-8 on leveling others as they figure out that there's a whole new world out there.
2. They don't get what they should because they don't invest the Iso-8 that they have in them when that's available. We've got a not insignificant percentage of players sitting there with 3-5 85s and a half dozen or so completely viable 3*s that have enough covers to overtake those 85s. Those same users also tend to be hoarding Iso for... I dunno, the Isopocalypse or something. Users that don't crunch the numbers or read guides simply don't realize that with a relatively minimal Iso-8 expenditure, the characters that they already have could give them a strong boost.

gobstopper wrote:

Adding 25 levels to a 1 cover Punisher is not going to all of a sudden make him competitive. Like you said, since the level shift is global, whatever "bonuses" are canceled out by the boost that everyone else has too. I would even argue that the power difference is actually exacerbated by this change, because while the level difference is the same, the level 166 has 2-3 abilities that have scaled but the underleveled 3* only has 1-2. Can you share playtest results that compare level 15 vs level 141 and level 40 vs level 166?

A Level 40 Punisher base shows a 1* holdout that these 3* characters without much of a push will be stronger than their current roster. They then have something to work for and will likely start down the path of leveling 2*s and 3*s to do so. 2* players similarly suddenly have less than half the deficit to make up to start pushing into 3* land. As for shift in power levels, a 15 vs a 141 will get thwomped more than a 40 versus a 166. Tile damage and ability damage don't scale linearly. The difference isn't night and day, but there is a tad more survivability there.

gobstopper wrote:

TLDR This change is meant to "gently nudge" players to spend $ on their "suddenly more powerful" characters.

Nope. The people we're targeting are generally sitting on hoards of unused/unusable Iso. They're not likely to suddenly buy more if they haven't figured out a use for it by now. Of course, a few weeks down the line when they're again down to normal levels of Iso-8 in the bank, who knows. Our main goal here is to get people that have stalled to realize that there's more to the game than the little tiers they've set for themselves and continue to play as a result.

IceIX

Ghast wrote:

IceIX wrote:

Right now, many many players get to having 3 Level 50 1*s and never level up 2 stars. Why would they? They would have 44 levels before they even became possible replacements for their 1*s. As well, a 3* is only level 15, so they're going to take a ton of work to even get to the 1* max level. So they sit with their 1*s until they get bored with the game since there's "nothing else to do". With this change, suddenly 2*s are more viable at start, and 3*s suddenly become completely viable *and* worthwhile to level up if they get extra covers since they'll be somewhat comparable to a maxed 1*. Gameplay options open up for the people lower down on the totem pole. Repeat this process for the 2* players who look at the 70 level differential to even get started in replacing a 2* and it's a really rough sell for many players who don't see the further value. Cut that differential down significantly and suddenly that's not such a hard thing to do.

That's simply not true. One of the biggest rookie mistakes players make in this game is assuming that a higher level character with 1-2 covers is better than a lower-level character with 10-13 covers. On match damage maybe, but powers win the battle. A single 3* cover becomes a de facto Hulk in the eyes of a 1* player - a harmless giant to one-shot after mopping up the real threat.

This is true, but these same players that we're trying to unstick are also sitting on 2*s that could easily be leveled and viable with perfectly feasible power sets. Same goes for those with 85s with 3*s that are something like 3/2/2 or greater that just don't want to put in the effort to make that extra jump.

Spoit

IceIX wrote:

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

So ... this block of stats... what sort of health increase and changes to tile damage are we looking at?? Whoever maintains these lists is looking at a huge amount of work updating all the starting and max damages. Oh tinykitty -- that's me!

<snip>

I've got a 166 Hulk in front of me. His stat line goes:
At Max Level: HP: 11475 Tile damage: 12/70/13/11/79/61

Versus

At Max Level: HP: 9788 Tile damage: 11/60/12/10/67/52

Course, normal caveat of "pre-release info" applies to that bit.

Do you have a statline for 2*s? I specifically underleveled my laken so that OBW would still be able to take the purple, so if this pushs her under...

IceIX

TheHueyFreeman wrote:

But that doesn't mean you guys are planning on nerfing Patch right?

Not in the cards at the moment, nor am I aware of it even having been discussed. He's pretty powerful, true, but his ability downsides are what keeps him in line. It's his interaction with a small number of abilities that makes him go nuts.

Nonce Equitaur 2

IceIX wrote:

Isopocalypse

Oh no!

scottee

Edit: Nevermind.