Human Torch (Johnny Storm) - 2*

Bowgentle

The PACman wrote:

This is a problem because the players for whom he will be of any use are the ones with a 1* roster and a handful of under-levelled 2*s and a player like that will not be placing high enough to win him. If you can place in top 100 with the roster you already have then chances are you dont need him at all.

Actually those people with 1* and 2* rosters are what I'm seeing at the top of PVE brackets all the time.
They just get pushed out by us veterans who know how to meta-game our way to victory at the 11th hour.

So if all of us who don't care about Little Torch do _not_ RB our way to victory this time, the new char will actually end up in the hands of those who can use him.
That's a win in my book.

The rest of us can just get to our green Sentry cover and then just collect the big ISO nodes for the rest of the event.

Unknown

The question here is "who could be interested in starting from scratch a new 2* hero when his 3* version exists ?".

Makes even less sense if you got classic Human Torch maxed.

I try to find reasons to grind my **** out as usual, but I objectively don't see any. Not even the sentry progression reward (got him maxed too).

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Twysta wrote:

I think while your point is well taken Pol, what he's trying to say is that despite these slew of new characters...

We're seeing no evidence of any activity of popular new content.
Instead we're seeing things like, new crit boost gem, new sound on desert ability, Nerf, nerf, nerf, new reward page, event rerun, event rerun, server down, server down.

Personally for me I'm disappointed that they've repeatedly gone back on their word.
Most of us know these things take time, but I've seen smaller teams do things faster and more efficiently than this.

I'm just disappointed... just disappointed

Those are all perfectly valid complaints, and I'm disappointed as well in the lack of new content/changes that you're talking about. However, what irritated me was that a lot of the people on this forum didn't react in that way at all, and instead complained about the character being a rehash of a 3* and that d3 should make new 2* characters instead: as you can see here, or here, how about here, and here... the list goes on.

A more fully fleshed out explanation of my reasoning: Suppose you're d3 and you want to release a new 2* character. Your two options are to either:
A. Release a new character. This means creating/balancing new abilities, character models, animations, and sounds. Since you need to do everything from scratch, lets say that it takes two weeks of development effort to do.
B. Release LazyTorch. Since you have 3* Torch to work off of, all you need to do is tweak the numbers on his abilities, and make a new skin for the already existing character model/animations. This would take considerably less time and only take a few days to finish.

The thing about 2* characters is that they don't make d3 a lot of money. Since hardly anyone is going to spend HP cover maxing a character that they can win the covers for by just playing PvP, they aren't going to make nearly as much money from releasing a 2* than from a 3* such as Sentry or even She-Hulk. Furthermore, none of the 3* players even remotely care about the 2* anyways. Even if the 2* was a completely new character, the 3* guys would go "Oh that's nice", and just straight up never use the character again outside of buffed events. So if the devs made a new character, they would have spent two weeks on something that didn't make them a lot of money and that a large majority of their playerbase will never use. Given this, I think that them releasing a lazy 2* character is a perfect way for them to get a new 2* character out while being able to focus their time on other stuff.

Keep in mind that this reasoning ONLY applies to the scenario where the two options were to either release a new 2* character or release a lazy 2* character (which again, is the scenario that a lot of people are thinking about). When you factor in options such as buffing **** 2* characters to make them playable, bug fixes, etc, then yeah, its reasonable to argue that they should have done all that stuff and just have another PvE without a new character instead. But what I'm seeing instead is what I perceive to be a knee-jerk reaction that people want new 2* characters without actually thinking about the opportunity costs and such of creating those new characters.

In general, when I try to see whether or not an argument like this is valid, I would just think to myself that if I was talking to a manager and asked him, "Why did you make 2* LazyTorch instead of a new 2* character", I would think how he would reply to that question and whether or not it was a reasonable response. I would guess that their response would be something along the lines of what I just said, and conclude that what they did was perfectly reasonable. Now, if I were to ask a manager, "Why did it take 7 months for you to funbalance Spidey/C. Mags, why is the Ares sunder bug not fixed, why is it taking you so long to buff characters that are clearly underpowered", I'd probably get a response like "Lots of unforeseen issues happening during development. Haven't gotten around to bugfixing/balancing because its hard and we need to release new content, etc", and think that response was a lot less reasonable.

I think one of the sadder things thats happening as a result of this is that I feel like the general post quality of this board is devolving due to responses like the ones I've mentioned, and that as the board degrades more, our voice will be heard less and less because the majority of the arguments just don't really make any sense. Not to say that the devs have really been listening to us too much to begin with, but they at least did to some extent back in the day with things such as the victory bonus. We need to be asking the right questions if we want to be taken seriously, but I guess that might be too much to ask as the community grows larger.

You make a well thought out argument for this and it makes it all a little more understandable. I think the main reason people are annoyed by all this is because the 2* Torch is the big prize here and it's a really pathetic prize. Some have tried arguing that "Oh it's for the 1* to 2* players, it's giving them a new cover cover they can max" but that is entirely false since only a few of those players will make it into the top 150 to get this cover and even then can't use him. This is why i think they should have had the 3* human torch for the topprize and the 2* one as the lower prize. I think a set up like that would be much better, and really really easy to set up and would make a lot more sense to do. I think that's why people are so frustrated and are venting about it, the reason behind making the new 2* Torch as you have explained is very resonable and makes a lot of sense, but the way they set this event up prize wise is not reasonable. It's a problem they have had in the past, sometimes it comes down to trial and error, this time though it's them just being lazy and not putting any real thought into it.

Also I think one way they could solve these problems is if they stop bring in the new season as soon as the first one is finished, have it set up ready to go sure, but take a break from it. It's not like the players would get angry with say a two week hiatus from the season event when this one finishes, a lot of players are getting burnt out from the constant season events so they would enjoy the break. It will also give the devs some time to work on new content and focus a bit more on fixing some of the bugs people are complaining about. Then start the new season event up again. If the devs want to keep players then this is how they need to go about it, start really addressing the problems with the game that players have pointed out, and if they need to put event on hiatus for a period of time to make a more smoother fun game for everyone, most people will be happy about that.

Unknown

That would be kind of a valid plan IF he wont be needed in events to come. And that is hard to believe.

Unknown

As a 2* player, nothing here is appealing to me. Certainly not appealing enough to grind much. There's a Sentry and a Daken cover at points that will be impossible to reach for the most part...

dr tinykittylove

I hope to get at least top 150 to get the probably required cover, then take my time building him. If nothing else it'll be nice to be able to look forward to training up a usable character again instead of collecting captain bagmerica covers because I managed to add a spare roster slot.

(And yes, I got a simulator token, and did in fact pull a captain bagmerica as promised by the odds. I expect any others I manage to earn will also furnish me with the good captain.)

I vote Torchlet for new name. Because piglets are cute and it rhymes with 'toilet'.

Bowgentle

yemet wrote:

That would be kind of a valid plan IF he wont be needed in events to come. And that is hard to believe.

Oh, of course I'll make sure to get one cover. Still, that's top 150 instead of top 5, which I'd make for a new 3*.
So that's 149 people ahead of me that are welcome to grab the covers I don't care about.

Unknown

i didnt read teh longer posts, but i am ok with giving 2* players a new character, just cause im just now entering 3* territory doesnt mean i wouldnt have liked this card to be released like 60 days ago. A lot of us agreed taht they should add some 2* characters and honestly the easiest way to do that and not take time away from anything else is to release a lazy one. if they feature him in required nodes very soon, I will not be pleased because i have no reason to grind this simulator cause i burnt myself out getting the sentry covers and then buying a 5th sentry green just to see its an easy progression reward here. But im not going to complain about a new 2*

I know this nickname is too long but he'll always be johnny shortbus to me.

Unknown

I'm all for one or two new 2* chars. But even a lazy 2* character still needs its numbers tweaked so it fits in with the power level of other 2* chars. D3 had a few options here that don't take the time of a "full new character":

1) Make Moonstone or Bullseye actually playable
2) Make a 2* Falcon, or BP, or PSylocke
3) Make a R/G 2* who won't ever be used because he's outclassed by Thor and Ares

What's annoying people is: "Lazy characters are less effort" doesn't justify why they chose option 3!

Unknown

gamar wrote:

I'm all for one or two new 2* chars. But even a lazy 2* character still needs its numbers tweaked so it fits in with the power level of other 2* chars. D3 had a few options here that don't take the time of a "full new character":

1) Make Moonstone or Bullseye actually playable
2) Make a 2* Falcon, or BP, or PSylocke
3) Make a R/G 2* who won't ever be used because he's outclassed by Thor and Ares

What's annoying people is: "Lazy characters are less effort" doesn't justify why they chose option 3!

all great options. i think option 1 would be a no brainer. if i was in the 2* phase, a 3rd power or lower AP cost for current power and lv cap of 94 for bullseye woud make me happy. id also be happy with a few tweaks to moonstone.

marc

Unknown

gamar wrote:

I'm all for one or two new 2* chars. But even a lazy 2* character still needs its numbers tweaked so it fits in with the power level of other 2* chars. D3 had a few options here that don't take the time of a "full new character":

1) Make Moonstone or Bullseye actually playable
2) Make a 2* Falcon, or BP, or PSylocke
3) Make a R/G 2* who won't ever be used because he's outclassed by Thor and Ares

What's annoying people is: "Lazy characters are less effort" doesn't justify why they chose option 3!

all great options. i think option 1 would be a no brainer. if i was in the 2* phase, a 3rd power or lower AP cost for current power and lv cap of 94 for bullseye woud make me happy. id also be happy with a few tweaks to moonstone.

marc

Unknown

The sad thing about this may be that D3P sees poor figures for this PvP and think : "we shouldn't release more as no one cares".

I just hope they will just realize that they could have made better choices for a new 2*.

Unknown

Sooo what do we call him. Typically Lazy char are 3*. If 2* Torch becomes Lazy Torch we're looking at confusing people. Does 2* torch retroactively become the original?

Is demiurge sly enough to make this confusion on purpose so we're required to say 2* or 3* char instead of accusing them of laziness everytime one of their char come up?

Unknown

Baby Torch?

unimatrix

Lousy Torch as opposed to Lazy Characters

DD-The-Mighty

NorthernPolarity wrote:

gamar wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

The whole point of having these lazy characters is so that the devs can spend minimal effort working on releasing a new haracter so that they can FOCUS ON NEW CONTENT INSTEAD.

*Releases a dozen lazy characters*

meanwhile

*takes seven months to funbalance two characters*
*every PvE is a rehash*
*Ares Sunder bug still not fixed*

Well look at it this way: if these lazy characters werent released, then the 3 months it took to balance spidey could have easily turned into a year . I was just trying to answer all these complaints im seeing of people going "omg why didnt they release a new 2* character instead", since those people dont seem to recognize that there is limited dev time available and opportunity cost involved in developing a new 2* character. And yes, your point is perfectly valid in that there are all of these problems that the devs have neglected to answer, but those things would take even longer to fix if they spent time developing new 2*s instead of releasing the lazy chars.

I love the smell of of rationale in the morning... Its smells like...Acquiescence.

unimatrix wrote:

Lousy Torch as opposed to Lazy Characters

I prefer Low Level Torch.

Unknown

This wasn't exactly what I meant when I said they should try to balance character gender ratios better...

On a more serious note, if they want to keep introducing all these lazy versions of characters, they really ought to change required nodes to requiring distinct characters rather than requiring a specific version of a character. Granted the extent of my playing since TH went live was about 30 min yesterday, but nothing's more annoying than seeing a Cap node in PvE that you end up skipping because it requires the useless 2* version and won't let you use lazy cap.

Actually, since I've shifted to playing a lot more casually (if at all), maybe this is a good time for me to delete all my useless 2* versions of stronger 3* heroes to make roster space.

Unknown

unimatrix wrote:

Lousy Torch as opposed to Lazy Characters

I like Lousy Torch, but shortened to LTorch doesn't work. Baby torch wasn't bad.

Spoit

gamar wrote:

I'm all for one or two new 2* chars. But even a lazy 2* character still needs its numbers tweaked so it fits in with the power level of other 2* chars. D3 had a few options here that don't take the time of a "full new character":

1) Make Moonstone or Bullseye actually playable
2) Make a 2* Falcon, or BP, or PSylocke
3) Make a R/G 2* who won't ever be used because he's outclassed by Thor and Ares

What's annoying people is: "Lazy characters are less effort" doesn't justify why they chose option 3!

A 2* falcon would be interesting. Might make bullseye and not-laken actually viable...ish

Unknown

theHappyDance wrote:

This wasn't exactly what I meant when I said they should try to balance character gender ratios better...

On a more serious note, if they want to keep introducing all these lazy versions of characters, they really ought to change required nodes to requiring distinct characters rather than requiring a specific version of a character. Granted the extent of my playing since TH went live was about 30 min yesterday, but nothing's more annoying than seeing a Cap node in PvE that you end up skipping because it requires the useless 2* version and won't let you use lazy cap.

Actually, since I've shifted to playing a lot more casually (if at all), maybe this is a good time for me to delete all my useless 2* versions of stronger 3* heroes to make roster space.

That's such a pet-peeve of mine. Lazy versions are the same character, no extra work went in to their development, so don't put it on us to put extra work in to collecting both.