Upcoming Change: Character Level Shift

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Comments

  • simonsez
    simonsez Posts: 4,663 Chairperson of the Boards
    I don't see why the stated goal of this change couldn't be achieved by just raising the start values without raising the caps. Raising the caps means higher health, higher damage, so regen will take even longer than it did before. People referred to this as a "random change", but I see it as going completely hand-in-hand with the removal of healing. Waiting it out, rather than buying health packs, will be even less viable when this change happens.
  • scottee
    scottee Posts: 1,609 Chairperson of the Boards
    simonsez wrote:
    I don't see why the stated goal of this change couldn't be achieved by just raising the start values without raising the caps. Raising the caps means higher health, higher damage, so regen will take even longer than it did before. People referred to this as a "random change", but I see it as going completely hand-in-hand with the removal of healing. Waiting it out, rather than buying health packs, will be even less viable when this change happens.

    In reality, it's going to be maybe a couple minutes more of healing.
  • Cry-Havok
    Cry-Havok Posts: 10
    john1620b wrote:
    So...you increase the healing time on characters, and then increase their health to make healing take longer? icon_lol.gif

    So you need to spend more money on health packs.

    All planned out.
  • simonsez
    simonsez Posts: 4,663 Chairperson of the Boards
    scottee wrote:
    In reality, it's going to be maybe a couple minutes more of healing.
    How do you figure? If you have 1.5k to 2k more health, and you come out of a battle at only 40-50% health, that's an extra 1k regen to get back to 100%.
  • simonsez wrote:
    scottee wrote:
    In reality, it's going to be maybe a couple minutes more of healing.
    How do you figure? If you have 1.5k to 2k more health, and you come out of a battle at only 40-50% health, that's an extra 1k regen to get back to 100%.

    Why do you need to get back to 100% at all?
  • jozier wrote:
    simonsez wrote:
    scottee wrote:
    In reality, it's going to be maybe a couple minutes more of healing.
    How do you figure? If you have 1.5k to 2k more health, and you come out of a battle at only 40-50% health, that's an extra 1k regen to get back to 100%.

    Why do you need to get back to 100% at all?
    Because Ares is tight-fitting and hard-hitting. I am right now using Ares/OBW/AWolv with Wolverine tanking RGY so I can join with a damaged Wolverine and make some Yellow matches for Ares. Fielding a Damaged widow or a Thor/Ares (that tanks colors) under 50% of their Health is complete suicide.
  • GrumpySmurf1002
    GrumpySmurf1002 Posts: 3,511 Chairperson of the Boards
    PPPlaya wrote:
    jozier wrote:
    simonsez wrote:
    scottee wrote:
    In reality, it's going to be maybe a couple minutes more of healing.
    How do you figure? If you have 1.5k to 2k more health, and you come out of a battle at only 40-50% health, that's an extra 1k regen to get back to 100%.

    Why do you need to get back to 100% at all?
    Because Ares is tight-fitting and hard-hitting. I am right now using Ares/OBW/AWolv with Wolverine tanking RGY so I can join with a damaged Wolverine and make some Yellow matches for Ares. Fielding a Damaged widow or a Thor/Ares (that tanks colors) under 50% of their Health is complete suicide.

    Not really. Get OBW her 9 blue and start shielding in game quickly, and you can survive quite easily. New system dictates you have to take calculated risks, and in fact it's almost mandatory to take some battles at 50-75% if you want any kind of extended play.
  • I may have overlooked this but I'm curious as to if the cost of individual covers will remain the same and the sell price?
  • scottee
    scottee Posts: 1,609 Chairperson of the Boards
    simonsez wrote:
    scottee wrote:
    In reality, it's going to be maybe a couple minutes more of healing.
    How do you figure? If you have 1.5k to 2k more health, and you come out of a battle at only 40-50% health, that's an extra 1k regen to get back to 100%.

    Ice posted that the difference for OBW will be 115 health. 115. That takes a couple minutes.

    The highest health 3*, Hulk, Ice said will be about 1700. Everyone else will be less than that.
  • killerkoala
    killerkoala Posts: 1,185 Chairperson of the Boards

    Not really. Get OBW her 9 blue and start shielding in game quickly, and you can survive quite easily. New system dictates you have to take calculated risks, and in fact it's almost mandatory to take some battles at 50-75% if you want any kind of extended play.

    getting your healing in first is a good idea after your 1st battles when you already coming in damaged. but not if your freshly fully health, there is no overage healing shields.
  • The only battle I go into with full health is the first one.
  • DD-The-Mighty
    DD-The-Mighty Posts: 350 Mover and Shaker
    PPPlaya wrote:
    Because Ares is tight-fitting and hard-hitting. I am right now using Ares/OBW/AWolv with Wolverine tanking RGY so I can join with a damaged Wolverine and make some Yellow matches for Ares. Fielding a Damaged widow or a Thor/Ares (that tanks colors) under 50% of their Health is complete suicide.

    Not really. Get OBW her 9 blue and start shielding in game quickly, and you can survive quite easily. New system dictates you have to take calculated risks, and in fact it's almost mandatory to take some battles at 50-75% if you want any kind of extended play.
    Nope. OBW blue is not a true shield.

    It cant stack "False Health" on top of a maxed "True Health". its wholly reactive. so getting it too soon really does nothing special. At its best it just keeps your character from getting knocked out. before she was very good at mitigating nuke and aoe damage that would cripple you in the next fight. It made dealing with the glut of 2* ares/storm/thors much easier. now that balance is out of whack. even if you win they can pop off that aoe and pretty much hamstring you for the next fight.

    And really what is a calculated risk, when all of the teams are fielding aoe and nukes? A calculated risk is going one more match before you shield, a calculated risk is hitting that 141x2 team with a 2/3* mix before you shield, (because they will retaliate).

    Once your mmr is in the capped 85 and 3* level there really is no calculated risk. its just a guarantee that you're going to be hurting unless you have that very specific squad of speed killers. and if your still in the 2* 85 territory you losing 1/2 health a match is a very real possibility.
  • PPPlaya wrote:
    Because Ares is tight-fitting and hard-hitting. I am right now using Ares/OBW/AWolv with Wolverine tanking RGY so I can join with a damaged Wolverine and make some Yellow matches for Ares. Fielding a Damaged widow or a Thor/Ares (that tanks colors) under 50% of their Health is complete suicide.

    Not really. Get OBW her 9 blue and start shielding in game quickly, and you can survive quite easily. New system dictates you have to take calculated risks, and in fact it's almost mandatory to take some battles at 50-75% if you want any kind of extended play.
    Nope. OBW blue is not a true shield.

    It cant stack "False Health" on top of a maxed "True Health". its wholly reactive. so getting it too soon really does nothing special. At its best it just keeps your character from getting knocked out. before she was very good at mitigating nuke and aoe damage that would cripple you in the next fight. It made dealing with the glut of 2* ares/storm/thors much easier. now that balance is out of whack. even if you win they can pop off that aoe and pretty much hamstring you for the next fight.

    And really what is a calculated risk, when all of the teams are fielding aoe and nukes? A calculated risk is going one more match before you shield, a calculated risk is hitting that 141x2 team with a 2/3* mix before you shield, (because they will retaliate).

    Once your mmr is in the capped 85 and 3* level there really is no calculated risk. its just a guarantee that you're going to be hurting unless you have that very specific squad of speed killers. and if your still in the 2* 85 territory you losing 1/2 health a match is a very real possibility.

    If you're only playing with max health you'll only be playing about 3 games every 3 hours.

    Even with completely broken characters there's still a calculated risk. Going in a battle against Daken with 2000 health on Magneto is awfully risky, but fighting against Thor or Hulk is not. Note that this doesn't even mean Thor is weak. It's just that starting with full health would hardly matter when things go bad against Thor so you should be more willing to take risks against Thor than Daken, who has less game over potential but sure does very consistent damage.
  • Sounds good to me! One suggestion though: any chance you cold use this opportunity to fix up the scaling? Having a level 50 one-star be way stronger than a level 50 four-star never made much sense to me (and makes comparisons at simar levels much harder).
  • Sounds good to me! One suggestion though: any chance you cold use this opportunity to fix up the scaling? Having a level 50 one-star be way stronger than a level 50 four-star never made much sense to me (and makes comparisons at simar levels much harder).

    That's part of the point of these changes, to spread out the power of characters of different rarity levels.

    After the change, a fully covered 1* character with three powers will cap at level 50, but a 4**** with a single cover will now start at level 70. This should provide a considerable upgrade in health and well as match damage. There is still the downside of a lack of powers at 1 out of 13 covers, but that single cover now won't be completely useless to a player.
  • Lyrian wrote:
    Sounds good to me! One suggestion though: any chance you cold use this opportunity to fix up the scaling? Having a level 50 one-star be way stronger than a level 50 four-star never made much sense to me (and makes comparisons at simar levels much harder).

    That's part of the point of these changes, to spread out the power of characters of different rarity levels.

    After the change, a fully covered 1* character with three powers will cap at level 50, but a 4**** with a single cover will now start at level 70. This should provide a considerable upgrade in health and well as match damage. There is still the downside of a lack of powers at 1 out of 13 covers, but that single cover now won't be completely useless to a player.

    Yes but you still have the issue in PvE where a level 395 Juggernaut is going to wipe the floor with a level 395 Wolverine X Force even if both characters never used any special moves just because Juggernaut's stats are so much better. Since the overall levels in PvE is likely to go up as the result of this change this is going to be even more pronounced. Basic attributes like match damage or HP should be standardized across all rarities.
  • simonsez
    simonsez Posts: 4,663 Chairperson of the Boards
    jozier wrote:
    Why do you need to get back to 100% at all?
    I could have said 80% if it makes you happier. Doesn't really change the point at all. And if you're thinking about nodes where you can just go on in at 50% without risk, those aren't the nodes I'm talking about.
  • _RiO_
    _RiO_ Posts: 1,047 Chairperson of the Boards
    Lyrian wrote:
    Sounds good to me! One suggestion though: any chance you cold use this opportunity to fix up the scaling? Having a level 50 one-star be way stronger than a level 50 four-star never made much sense to me (and makes comparisons at simar levels much harder).

    That's part of the point of these changes, to spread out the power of characters of different rarity levels.

    After the change, a fully covered 1* character with three powers will cap at level 50, but a 4**** with a single cover will now start at level 70. This should provide a considerable upgrade in health and well as match damage. There is still the downside of a lack of powers at 1 out of 13 covers, but that single cover now won't be completely useless to a player.

    Relatively speaking it will be almost as useless, as the level cap(s) for the previous rarity class(es) will go up as well. Especially when we're talking 2* vs 3*. And really, 4* will still be just as infeasible to run, simply due to their rarity and ridiculous ISO cost.

    It's relatively simple to deduce why this change is being made. Remember that change a few months back, where roster slots were being 'bundled' for beginning players? Remember the outrage and players stating they would outright refuse to buy HP for slot bundles and would rather opt to toss awarded 3* covers instead? Well, my theory is that those players and others like them have put their money where their mouth is. Probably HP -> roster slot conversion has seen a rather sharp decline for players in the early game. So how to 'fix' that? Ofcourse, the obvious solution would be to unbundle the roster slots, but going back on that decision is probably a no-go, because it goes against the publicly stated reasons for that change. (Preventing players from feeling like they are being 'nickle-and-dimed'.)

    Raising the starting level makes characters seem more valuable; the operative word being 'seem', because a 2* at the same level as 3* will still be far more powerful than that 3*. Starting players are mostly unaware of that bit of the game's power dynamic. So, without upsetting the real 'balance' of the current game's power dynamic, a shift in levels will outwardly make that starting 3* seem a whole lot more valuable to starting players than it really is. And it might just be enough to 'gently push' them towards the purchase of the additional HP needed to get their next slot bundle.

    As always; don't evaluate these changes from the players' viewpoint. Evaluate them from the developer's viewpoint. Nothing in a free-to-play title comes free.
  • I think its the level cap mechanic that's ultimately what should be removed...

    If someone wants to level their Bagman to 200 they should be able to.. Just the HP/Damage increases and scaling should be less than for higher tier characters...i.e. a 1-star hawkeye would not equal a 2-star hawkeye..

    If the goal was truly to have roster diversity this would do it.. people would be able to select for powers they want, or compensate for very poor draw rates from packs.. like mine icon_e_smile.gif
  • So does this mean the 2 and 3 and 4* covers I have will automatically be bumped up No matter what level they are?