Healing Compromise [With D3 Q&A]

Spoit

Demiurge_Will wrote:

(The lists you've linked to are also missing some things that I think most forumites would classify as substantial buffs (like the PvP rewards rework) and the nerf list includes some things that are pretty questionable as nerfs (writing patch notes in fiction? we might do that again when it makes sense and can be clear, but we got a lot of complaints that the fictional language made them unnecessarily hard to understand, and I don't think you'd usually call something like that a nerf) but for the reasons above, I'm not going to spend time hashing the details of those lists.)

Now returning from game-design-philosophy-land; hope the diversion has been interesting.

So how about every other patch having some stealth change that wasn't included in the notes?

jojeda654

Cragger wrote:

Code and testing is already there.

Not quite. If I remember correctly, the whole reason why he got Spider-Sense v2 was because this version rarely triggered. Additionaly, most players had difficulty recognizing the ability went off. With Spidey's new blue AP costs, I don't see this working well.

Unknown

Demiurge_Will wrote:

When unlimited healing is available, the playing field shifts away from strategy and towards sheer number of matches finished. Before the change, we heard a lot of folks say that they felt forced to play too many hours in a day to be competitive.

I'm curious then how you justify the move to 2.5 hour refreshes in PvE. You might be able to rubberband up into contention at the end, but if you're not hitting every refresh you're falling behind the guy who is. How is this not exactly what you claim to be trying to eliminate with the healing change?

You have to understand our cynicism and distrust at this point, because everything you've done seems to be just another heavy-handed attempt to make more money with the least amount of effort possible. Token drop rate adjustments, lazy characters, etc. Maybe you really think the changes to healing are for the betterment of the game. Anything's possible. But it seems like just another way to tweak the system to make more money, either from health pack sales or indirectly by helping new players (without healers) compete so they hang on longer and spend money on roster spots et al.

What boggles my mind is how no attempt has been made to add anything to the game that your established customer base WANTS to buy: no new game content, no vanity items, none of the other many good suggestions that have been made here by people much more creative than I. There are people here who have been very loyal to this game, are very addicted to this game (something you should love to hear), who would happily shower you with money if you gave them something they actually WANTED. But again, cynicism, it appears your'd rather go after the low-hanging fruit and squeeze cash out of the noobs before they figure out which end is up.

And while I'm on a roll here, what exactly do you spend your development time on? To borrow from Office Space, "What would you say you do here?" We've been waiting on adjustments (see, I didn't say buff or nerf) to CMags, X-Farce, and MHawkeye for months now. How long can that possibly take? Okay, you rolled out a few new characters...most of which were copy/paste lazies. You did fix that Sunder bug...no wait, not quite. Oh, I've got it! You've been working hard to stop cheaters!...okay, I'm done now. Just wanted to get that stuff off my chest. I feel better now, don't you?

Demiurge_Will

orionpeace wrote:

Because of the "articles" posted by your President/CEO and comments by IceIX, we read that as, "we are actively watching the metrics to determine if this is having a negative impact on revenue generation, talking about said revenue, and unless we see that drop don't expect a change".

Changes in revenue trail a change to the rules of the game by so much time and in such subtle ways that, even if we were cold, calculating, soulless, revenue-optimizing evil robots, we'd still be gathering information through all the ways we do: these forums, Twitter/Facebook/Reddit/blogs, emails to us, CS tickets, calling up players or bringing them into the studio and interviewing them, playing the game ourselves, talking to our friends/family/colleagues that play, looking over peoples' shoulders when we see them playing on public transit and starting conversations with them, and using analytics to study at how play patterns are changing (how all of player behavior is changing, not just spending). All of those sources have their shortcomings and biases, and only in the context of all the other information does the last piece, the "metrics", make any sense and lead to actionable intelligence.

P.S. I swear I am not an evil robot.

P.P.S. That's exactly what an evil robot would say.

Nonce Equitaur 2

Interesting comments on nerfs/buffs. Let's go into one that's upcoming.

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.

That's great reasoning there. It's important to have a good reason for making a large change. With Ragnarok-CStorm from months ago, some PvP stats on how overwhelmingly they were being used should have been released at the same time. For the Healing changes, Prologue stats and PvP stats showing the overwhelmingness of OBW & Spiderman should have been released. Make the case up front, announce that healing times have been sped up, and then put out the new mechanic.

Demiurge_Will wrote:

You take something underpowered and make it perfectly balanced. Expert players are not likely to care or notice, or they'll think of the change as minor, since the optimal, overpowered strategies haven't changed.

The expert players will notice and care. Daredevil could be made relevant in numerous ways (#9). Many players are leveling up Wolverine X-Force in the hopes he'll be made more relevant. If Ragnarok and Loki were brought more in line with the rest of the 3-start characters, players would use them more. When Ragnarok, Doom, Loki, and Bullseye get third powers, everyone will notice. If Bagman had the cost of his powers dropped, people would try to make a strategy around Switcheroo. The mechanics for the substandard characters are good, but they are priced high enough to make them unplayable.

Demiurge_Will

Thugpatrol wrote:

Demiurge_Will wrote:

When unlimited healing is available, the playing field shifts away from strategy and towards sheer number of matches finished. Before the change, we heard a lot of folks say that they felt forced to play too many hours in a day to be competitive.

I'm curious then how you justify the move to 2.5 hour refreshes in PvE. You might be able to rubberband up into contention at the end, but if you're not hitting every refresh you're falling behind the guy who is. How is this not exactly what you claim to be trying to eliminate with the healing change?

That's a fair point and a good question.

In that case, the need to make the points refresh mechanic as clear and understandable as possible outweighed the fact that it adds additional time pressure for top-scoring players. (Only the top ~0.2% or so of players seem to be changing the way they play to hit the refreshes precisely. For most folks, playing a few more missions is a more efficient way to improve their standing than timing refreshes.)

I had a conversation earlier this week about ways to make this better. Nothing in progress about that right now, but we're floating some ideas.

LordWill

Feel free to call me anytime. I PM'ed you my number

Unknown

Demiurge_Will wrote:

(The lists you've linked to are also missing some things that I think most forumites would classify as substantial buffs (like the PvP rewards rework)

Speaking of rewards rework, while I appreciate the lowering of the 3* threshold from top50 to top100, I find the removal of the alliance hp reward to be much more significant. Where before a top 2500 alliance received 50 hp, now only the top 250 receive that. This is a determental policy to the development of the 2 star and transitioning players, as you need a 20 person alliance to get those hp now.

Any thoughts of opening this back up again?

Nonce Equitaur 2

Perhaps you can try something.

Release some PvE stats for Magneto. Make the case a balancing is necessary. With that, an experiment with the consensus suggested fix -- Magneto's Red and Blue powers will increase in price by 1 AP, for two weeks. After the two weeks, release the new stats.

If he's fixed, then he's fixed. Done. Release the "new" Magneto you've designed as a 4*.

If he's not fixed, then you've concretely proven that Magneto needs a more substantial balancing than the consensus suggested fix. Arguments against his change have been addressed.

TheBaku

Will,

First off, thanks a million for responding in this thread... I really never saw it coming!

It's cool to think the Lead Designer read the idea I posted in the beginning of this thread... even if it's a no-go.

A couple of reasons I think the "kill shot/final blow bonus is a neat idea are:

1) It gives healing ability to every character to some degree (with a bit of foresight, planning and choice)
2) if the restore is % damage taken the during that match it benefits both low and max level characters fairly and equitably while destroying the "prologue heal" option
3) the "extended playtime" is modest, because % based healing still ensures health loss from match to match

Anyways, thanks for taking the time to read my ideas,

Love the game, love it... Puzzle Quest player from the original on the DS, and you've done an amazing job modernizing the game.

In all honesty, I didn't think "true healing" was as bad as it was made out to be by some posters around here...

Cheers!

wymtime

Will,
I have a thought that could help with covers for players. Have you thought about instead of having 1 roster slot costing X having each recruited character cost so much. It would look like this:

1* character would cost 50HP or 500 ISO to recruit. This is a low level character for starting out and they abundant.
2* characters cost 150-200HP This is a more rare cover and needs HP to recruit
3* characters cost 350 HP to recruit. Rare cover should cost some coin
4* characters cost 450 HP to recruit.

This way when you give experienced players a new 2* character it is not costing us 450-500hp for a 2* cover. If we don't have the HP then we can sell a 1-4* roster slot for the HP cost associated with it and can then recruit our cover.

Your thoughts?

Unknown

Oh my god there's an admin. Quick, beg him to institute ReCaptcha or Askimet! Nonce, it's your only hope!

On a more serious note... (Actually, that first paragraph is the most important part of my post. Seriously, even if you ignore all the rest of this - I wouldn't blame you - please please please for the love of god give us a Captcha on registration or something!)

This doesn't directly answer your question, but I wanted to say how much we've appreciated these polls and the analysis in the threads. Super useful feedback as we decide how to prioritize future balancing work.

Are there any balancing decisions you'd consider "quick fix"? Like, say, upping the damage on 2* cap, or lowering the cost/increasing the utility of Moonstone's Purple and Black powers? Moreover, is there any likelihood that we'll see a buff to certain underpowered 2* characters? Like, just to put this issue into perspective, if I had to restart my roster, I would not even consider keeping covers for Bullseye, Bagman, or Moonstone - they're just really terrible. Cap I probably wouldn't, Hawkeye I probably wouldn't, Wolverine I'd only level if I didn't have the covers around for a second Ares or Thor... See where this is going?

Also, I don't mean to criticize you guys, but I remember starting to play this game when the Magneto/Spidey nerf and XForce buffs were announced. It's been several months. I understand wanting to do it right with Magneto (after all, Spidey was kind of an issue), but when it comes to buffing... I really doubt you're going to get a lot of hatemail if you guys just throw together a buff package for XForce and it ends up being a little too strong or a little too weak. I don't know how you guys are staffed, but it really hurts confidence in the company when it takes this long. It shouldn't. Especially when he's so underpowered. I mean, I'm a games engineering student. I've made games, I know this **** takes time. But this doesn't seem like the kind of change that should take months. I don't want to sound like a ****, but this should've been the work of a week or two, tops.

Like, would XForce be horribly broken if his green dropped strength 50 strike tiles instead of strength 15 strike tiles (for a grand total of still less strike tile damage than Patch)? Maybe, but I doubt it because for even less green AP, Thor is ending the game. Would he be horribly broken if his yellow had a 1-2 turn countdown? I dunno, but again, in that same AP range, Iron Man is making 2-turn countdown tiles that, when they go off, will usually end the game. Would he be OP if his red did 3k team damage instead of single-target? Noooo, because if a power costs you 15 AP, it should be game-changing. Skills for less than 15 AP net you 1.2k damage in attack tiles, or 5k+ AOE damage, Or 3k damage every 2-3 turns, or 3k+ AOE damage, or 600 points of protect tiles, or 1000 damage in strike tiles and a good 900 direct damage, or 7k direct damage... I mean, for a combined 15 AP, Sentry kills literally any team in the game solo.
This is compounded by the fact that Xforce doesn't have any powers that cost less, shares those colors with some of the best damage-dealers in the game, and is, as a result, both easily replaced with a better character (Thor, Patch, Sentry) and very vulnerable to AP denial strategies or just succumbing to burst damage before he can get a power off.

I mean, maybe I'm wrong here, but I'm assuming that you guys are trying to balance him right the first time, so that once you buff him, you're sure you don't have to touch him again. Or why else has it taken so long? Why not, instead, go for more of an iterative method? Why not look at his values, say, "Okay, no way is this guy good enough", tweak the damage values upwards and/or AP values downwards to what might seem a little more reasonable, then put him out with a provision that "we're still balancing this guy; if he's too good or too weak we will have to retweak him". This obviously doesn't work for nerfs - you kinda have to get that right on the first try. But buffs? I mean, hypothetical. You implement all three changes I outlined above. Now, when XForce hits 15 Green or Red AP, it's really going to hurt. A lot. What's the worst that will happen? Worst-case-scenario, you've got a character who is very rare in the general populace and is too good (although let's be honest, even with that he's still not as good as Sentry), and players know that these were provisional changes that needed more testing, so they don't feel ripped off when you end up tweaking the values down a little. If he's still weak, you've lost nothing, and all you have to do is try a little bit more, slowly getting him to where you want him to be.... But here's the best part. Those guys who had XForce before? Even if the change is not enough, you let them know that it's still something being worked on. They know that you're trying to fix the problem, they know that something is happening, their character is better (if not "better" enough to merit a slot on the team above Thor, Sentry, or Patch), and nothing is lost.

I'm just a little worried you guys are letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. I could be way off base here, but if that's the issue... In an environment like this, a buff that doesn't go far enough means progress, a buff that goes a little too far won't be particularly harmful if you catch on fast enough, and you stand to make real progress. But holding back until it's perfect... Sometimes I understand that being necessary - don't ask me how to buff Bagman, I got nothing (actually, I got some really cool ideas, but everything you could do with him is really playtesting-intensive and easy to break) - but it shouldn't take this long! It shouldn't take months and months and months to buff XForce. It should take hours to days. And that worries me. :(

Unknown

Looking retroactively at changes in my own play habits recently.
-Was a genuine noob for a long while had fun earned rewards, don't remember any trends or anything relevant from this stage
-The Laboratory started taking off, was never a power alliance but we pulled in some good rewards for a while until stronger alliances pushed us out of top 100 land. (First complete 3* during this time Steve Rodgers)
-There was then a drought I felt like I couldn't compete in PVP and trying to do so was maddening, spent most of my time in PVE's and just hoping for something good out of any tokens I came across and played really casually.
-They broadened the reward structure back out and I started picking up a few 3* covers again which was nice but also brought me back into the competitive mindset. So was winning more but back to playing quite a lot.
-True healing and bundled changes hit. 3*s more powerful, healing scarce. MMR scene sure to be shaken up. I started doing even better in PVP, and by playing less time top 25 or better seemed like the new personal norm. ~but I was now neglecting PVE which used to be my bread and butter. With only so many characters I just don't have a deep enough roster to compete heavily in both and as a steam user my rankings in PVE were way down from what I was used to I doubt I will get top 150 in this sim.

Long term analysis the recent changes have ended my drought which was terrible. I can play some MPQ, take a league of legends break, and hit up a few more nodes and do fairly well the way things are. Play time down, enjoyment per hour spent up. Keep the heal changes it has made a difference. PVE is where I personally think the next line of changes need to come in.

Demiurge_Will

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

10. Spiderman got a quadruple nerf. Can he be given something like the following?

Web Interference - Blue 5AP
Spider-Man picks a strategic spot for a web countdown tile. Opponent powers using the chosen color are unusable for 2 rounds. When the countdown is over, just the webbing remains.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Powers are unusable for three rounds. Level 3: Countdown tiles powered by the chosen color are halted. Level 4: Protect, Strike, and Attack tiles of the chosen color stop functioning. Level 5: Interference lasts for 4 rounds.

Cool. Creative!

(Pretty overpowered as written, but that's probably fixable with tweaks to cost and duration. A deeper problem is that the effects are hard to communicate clearly - this would involve much more new UI than we typically use on a new ability. Super-strong control/denial doesn't seem right for Spidey to me, flavor-wise. And it doesn't rule the ability out - we have lots of abilities with this problem - but it's a downside that the AI won't use it well. It'd be neat to see this effect in the game somewhere, though!)

Demiurge_Will

Okay, I need to duck out now (and check in some changes relating to an upcoming feature I'm really excited to tell you about but can't yet), but I appreciate all the comments in this thread. Lots of thoughtful, frank, and perceptive feedback, and I'm thankful that you haven't (all) flamed me to death.

Unknown

Demiurge_Will wrote:

Okay, I need to duck out now (and check in some changes relating to an upcoming feature I'm really excited to tell you about but can't yet), but I appreciate all the comments in this thread. Lots of thoughtful, frank, and perceptive feedback, and I'm thankful that you haven't (all) flamed me to death.

Later dude. Hope we hear back more often.

Demiurge_Will

papa07 wrote:

Demiurge_Will wrote:

(The lists you've linked to are also missing some things that I think most forumites would classify as substantial buffs (like the PvP rewards rework)

Speaking of rewards rework, while I appreciate the lowering of the 3* threshold from top50 to top100, I find the removal of the alliance hp reward to be much more significant. Where before a top 2500 alliance received 50 hp, now only the top 250 receive that. This is a determental policy to the development of the 2 star and transitioning players, as you need a 20 person alliance to get those hp now.

Any thoughts of opening this back up again?

We moved those Hero Points to the progression rewards so that folks can get them whether or not they're in an alliance.

Nonce Equitaur 2

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

Oh my god there's an admin. Quick, beg him to institute ReCaptcha or Askimet! Nonce, it's your only hope!

I've banned about 2500 spammers and removed about 4000 spam messages from the boards. I was able to figure out how to handle the China-Bots without administrative help, though it would be appreciated.

I'm more concerned about the heavy encouragement to send bots by offering website links to people that have been long-banned banned from the site.

Unknown

Demiurge_Will wrote:

Okay, I need to duck out now (and check in some changes relating to an upcoming feature I'm really excited to tell you about but can't yet), but I appreciate all the comments in this thread. Lots of thoughtful, frank, and perceptive feedback, and I'm thankful that you haven't (all) flamed me to death.

Thanks for dropping in. Please come back soon! There are few things that are better for overall morale (and faith in the game, and customer behavior) around these parts than actual dev interaction. Hearing from you guys. Learning what's going on in your heads. It makes us feel wanted, you know?

yogi_

Just to pick apart one thing.

"For one thing, the terms aren't necessarily clear or useful. A buff for one character/ability/mechanic/strategy is a nerf for everything else in the game, and vice versa. Any change can be interpreted as a buff or a nerf. Team healing not lasting between missions? Clearly a nerf, right? To Black Widow (Original), Spider-Man (Classic), and those poor long-suffering hot-dog vendors, you bet. But it's also a buff to health packs, Protect tile generation abilities, strategic play (vs. volume play), stun, users that play in typical mobile patterns (vs. those that play all at once), characters with self-heal, and so on. And it's a nerf to a bunch of other tangentially related things as well."

Your list of buffs:
* Health packs - Used more, sold more. Hardly what I could call a design sort of improvement.
* Protect tiles - Yes, even more annoying now than before, in many/most cases, not a game changer.
* Stun - Largely same as before? Oh you mean you didn't get rid of it. Must be a buff then.
* Characters with self-heal - Um, no. Not a buff, just the same as before. Only now going to be more and more used.
* strategic play (vs. volume play) and users that play in typical mobile patterns (vs. those that play all at once) - Are the same thing. Also, you should not confuse your use of the word strategy for less and/or more selective. By your own admission here, you are nerfing people who play volume and all at once.
* And so on - So, in summary, a bunch of things that existed already. That you didn't remove.

I'm going to say none of these are really buffs. I would more accurately consider it "the illusion of increased effectiveness now that genuine healing is gone".

You removed a core character gameplay feature - the ability to use characters in match heal. That's the summary and totally your design decision but was poorly communicated and then compounded by silence.

What also did not help in addition was then the work around excuses about roster diversity and so on, that are loosely related (but not actually connected) side issues. This is turn left you open for even wider criticism because there are gaping areas in need of attention there too.

Had you just come out and said "Hey folks, we've made the decision to remove the game mechanic allowing characters to heal themselves and others in match. This will affect Black Widow (Original) and Spider-Man (Classic). Here's why and what we are going to do about it.", a lot could have been resolved much earlier.

Oh and if you could actually put redesigning the affected colours on the funbalancing queue and removing "temporary" healing while adding something else, that would be super. Heal or don't - none of this temporary nonsense.