The ABCs of nerfing....

zonatahunt

Honestly, I've come to really appreciate the reasoning behind a good old fashioned nerf. Some of the characters release-date powers are simply too powerful. But here's the caveat...they're too powerful for where that character resides power-level in the Marvel Universe. A specific example is Black Panther's black AP nerf; while Black Panther is a cool character, in the Marvel Universe he simply isn't that strong and couldn't do that to the normal three-team mutant crew! So now that you can see where I'm going with this...let's discuss the pending nerf to classic Magneto. He is an über powerful mutant! There are very few that can match him in the Marvel Universe. By that right, shouldn't he be a bad-**** in the MPQ game? Why should his powers have the same overall affect on an opponents roster as someone like Falcon, Black Panther, or the Punisher? Shouldn't C-Mags pack one hell of a punch within the game?! Some mutants are simply better than others, and the effects of their powers should show it.

So, I am pleading with the Devs...nerf with love. There is no reason to take out the nerf bat and neuter C-Mags. He should be powerful...he should be one of the best in the game. Move his blue AP requirements to 6 rather than 5; that would halt the perpetual t- or l-shaped 5-blue moves that then generate the same AP to do it all over again...and again...and again. Moving it to 6 though would still allow him to retain his power but not be so devastating. Obviously his red power can simply be changed to a 5 AP requirement; problem solved. Keep his pink as-is...as he should have a devastating end-move! Just some thoughts.

I remember the Spidey nerf still to this day. He was everywhere before the nerf. Yes, Spidey was overpowered. So instead of undergoing a reasonable nerf...he was neutered two-times over. The MPQ community was told that the Devs would monitor his impact to the game post-nerf to see if he was nerfed appropriately. I can tell you by his almost 100% absence from the game post-nerf, that he was nerfed WAY too hard. Spidey is one of the most popular comic characters in the world. The fact that he was made useless to the game and is now never played does his character a total injustice. We WANT to play Spidey...but to use him in our three-character roster with how he is now is utter suicide. As I just stated, Spidey is world-renown, and he should be a big presence in MPQ, but given his current state unless there is a major buff thrown his way we have probably seen the last of our beloved neighborhood wall-crawler.

Devs, if you're out there, while nerfs must occur, remember...nerf with love!

Unknown

Although I love the Marvel IP you simply CANNOT balance heroes in a game based on how powerful they are in its setting beyond, in MPQ's case, the * ratings. Simple reason being there is nothing forcing you to use other heroes (at least most of the time when they aren't featured in PvP or a heroic) so as soon as a hero is too good they'll be used by everyone and the heroes who you deem to be weaker in the IP will never get used, thereby being pointless.

OFC there's a depressingly high chance they will screw up C.Mags' nerf and give him the golden Bagman treatment but that's an issue with their execution being bad rather than the principal of balancing him with other 3* heroes being bad. It would be nice to think they will simply make his abilities no longer abusable with strike tiles but instead I expect them to simply be made useless....

Unknown

I would forgive them if they gave us Superior Spider-Man (with different powers of course).

simonsez

I'm using CMag with only 4 blues at the moment, and I think a cost of 6 is still too low. You can't maintain infinite turns, but you still get too many in a row, past the point where it seems fair. But I also think making red cost 5 makes it a pretty lousy skill unless the damage gets raised.

Has anyone suggested changing the color of the blue skill so it doesn't feed itself, like the 2* mag? That might be a better fix.

Unknown

Ever play Budokai Tenkaichi 3? Yeah, Perfect Freiza shouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell against SSJ4 Gogeta, canonically. Much like Videl probably shouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell against Kid Buu, canonically. And the game reflects that - power levels are very clearly tweaked so that characters who are canonically more powerful are also more powerful in the game. This makes for good single-player development, but an absolutely lousy multiplayer fighter. I don't remember a single fight against one of my friends where one of us didn't just flat-out pick the most powerful available character. The point value pick system fixed it somewhat, but MPQ doesn't have that, and shouldn't. Canonical power cannot equate to in-game power. It doesn't make any sense at all to do that. Focus on making the characters flavorful and interesting - for example, it makes sense that Ares would be rash, cocky, and hurt himself in the process, or that Hulk would get angry if you hit him too hard - but don't try to balance them based on canon. After all, if they did that, Hulk would heal for about 1k per turn.

Unknown

Agree pretty much with what everyone already said on game balance > canonical power level for the most part, but that said some of their choices do annoy me a little. Juggernaut being a 1*, for example, just doesn't feel right to me. You're talking about a dude who used to routinely fight all of the X-Men at once, by himself, and do a pretty decent job of beating their **** until inevitably his $.10 costume helmet popped off and Xavier melted his tiny little mind. 1*? Come on, man! And why the hell is Sue Storm of all people elevated to super elite status in this game? Just seems really arbitrary.

Unknown

Your forgetting the ISO-8 angle. This makes the characters stronger. This is why other characters can rival C Mags.

But, I agree certain characters based on their body of work should be more powerful than others. They have gotten three correct for sure imo: Hulk (high health), Wolverine (regeneration and slash attack), and C Mags. The only change needed to be done is make the blue non-spammable, which could be done by making this his purple power to make two blue def tiles, and his purple becomes his blue power. This would be in line with MMN's powers and colors. The red is cheap because it does not do much damage on its own. If they're going to raise the AP cost, they should increase its effectiveness. Again something along the lines of MMN where you also gain AP and do more damage, but without a CD since this is the 3* version. His current purple power, aside from changing the color to blue, I would not change anything, unless you want to make it Purple and Red switch now. Although if you wanted to lower the power of this ability as well, leave it as is. By the time a player gets that many blues, they would have to wait before using, or use without as many blue tiles on the board to switch.

This would solve everything without over-nerfing. The spammable powers are gone. The current purple would not be as strong due to the lack of blue tiles (but his new purple could put at least two more blue out there, making more synergy for his abilities. And the red power is increased to balance out increasing the red AP cost, non-spammable new purple, and more strategic new blue ability.

Edit - changed swith to switch

Kolence

The problem would then be that his new purple could be used to accelerate his new blue and nuke out one enemy that much quicker. Maybe just let purple as is and let blue make 2 red shields? I don't know, but as long as those 2 tiles can be placed anywhere, whatever color they are, you could use them to boost some other power. Maybe just make them random color, but different than the adjacent tiles for instance. That way they'd have a greater chance to be destroyed quickly if you are unlucky, but at least you wouldn't be able to spam them anymore.

Speaking of spammable, blue needs to be at least 7 AP as it is now. With that cost, you can chain 2 or 3 uses in a row at best, barring some crazy cascade that would win you the fight anyway. The way Spidey or A. Wolverine have been nerfed though (both yellow powers to be precise), I'd be happy if the only thing they do to Magneto is increase blue to 8 and red to 5 AP, with or without increasing the strength of protect tiles or damage done. But I won't hold my breath.

simonsez

Kolence wrote:

as long as those 2 tiles can be placed anywhere, whatever color they are, you could use them to boost some other power.

How is that different than a lot of powers that already exist, eg LT, GSBW, Doom, etc? True, those are random, but I think 9+ random is better than 2 you can control.

Kolence

simonsez wrote:

Kolence wrote:

as long as those 2 tiles can be placed anywhere, whatever color they are, you could use them to boost some other power.

How is that different than a lot of powers that already exist, eg LT, GSBW, Doom, etc? True, those are random, but I think 9+ random is better than 2 you can control.

Only difference is that Magneto's cost only 5 AP. The question I was trying to address was that this ability is too spammable. Someone suggested to change the power (blue) by making protect tiles different color (purple) so it wouldn't be possible to maintain the infinite turn mechanic. If it just changed the color of the protect tiles it wouldn't be possible to keep itself going true, but it would be possible to quicken other characters' abilities of that new color. And with just 2 matches instead of 3 or 4 you'd typically need for Doom, GSBW or LT.

Unknown

Kolence wrote:

simonsez wrote:

Kolence wrote:

as long as those 2 tiles can be placed anywhere, whatever color they are, you could use them to boost some other power.

How is that different than a lot of powers that already exist, eg LT, GSBW, Doom, etc? True, those are random, but I think 9+ random is better than 2 you can control.

Only difference is that Magneto's cost only 5 AP. The question I was trying to address was that this ability is too spammable. Someone suggested to change the power (blue) by making protect tiles different color (purple) so it wouldn't be possible to maintain the infinite turn mechanic. If it just changed the color of the protect tiles it wouldn't be possible to keep itself going true, but it would be possible to quicken other characters' abilities of that new color. And with just 2 matches instead of 3 or 4 you'd typically need for Doom, GSBW or LT.

First, yea, using 5 (more probably 6) purple to make 2 blue makes the blue ability power up more quickly huh? You realize that it takes two purple matches (probably) to get only two blue? So while there is synergy (like thor, red gives yellow, yellow gives green, and green is most powerful), let's not act like it'll over power a blue ability (formerly purple). Even if the blue tiles make two blue matches of 3, that means that there will be close to 6 less blue tiles to switch. That is what keeps the two abilities in check. While they can help each other, they can also hinder each other at the same time aka balance.

simonsez

Kolence wrote:

it would be possible to quicken other characters' abilities of that new color. And with just 2 matches instead of 3 or 4 you'd typically need for Doom, GSBW or LT.

I still don't see what you're getting at. If I can place two tiles, best case scenario, I'm getting 5 or 6 AP back. But I use LTs yellow to place 9 random greens, I'd say there's a good chance of averaging at least 6 AP, if not more. If you're talking about the original cost of the skill, I already agreed it should be higher. But other than that, it's not quickening other abilities any better than other skills that are already in play.

Kolence

simonsez wrote:

If I can place two tiles, best case scenario, I'm getting 5 or 6 AP back.

No. That would be average case scenario. Or impatient case, because you don't have to use it right away if the board is so bad. Best case would be 10+ AP. But let's not get too crazy and say you can get a match-5 and a match-3 as a good case.

stephen43084 wrote:

Kolence wrote:

simonsez wrote:

Kolence wrote:

as long as those 2 tiles can be placed anywhere, whatever color they are, you could use them to boost some other power.

How is that different than a lot of powers that already exist, eg LT, GSBW, Doom, etc? True, those are random, but I think 9+ random is better than 2 you can control.

Only difference is that Magneto's cost only 5 AP. The question I was trying to address was that this ability is too spammable. Someone suggested to change the power (blue) by making protect tiles different color (purple) so it wouldn't be possible to maintain the infinite turn mechanic. If it just changed the color of the protect tiles it wouldn't be possible to keep itself going true, but it would be possible to quicken other characters' abilities of that new color. And with just 2 matches instead of 3 or 4 you'd typically need for Doom, GSBW or LT.

First, yea, using 5 (more probably 6) purple to make 2 blue makes the blue ability power up more quickly huh? You realize that it takes two purple matches (probably) to get only two blue? So while there is synergy (like thor, red gives yellow, yellow gives green, and green is most powerful), let's not act like it'll over power a blue ability (formerly purple). Even if the blue tiles make two blue matches of 3, that means that there will be close to 6 less blue tiles to switch. That is what keeps the two abilities in check. While they can help each other, they can also hinder each other at the same time aka balance.

OK, it has drawbacks. But suppose you already have 7 blue and enough purple and there is plenty blue on the board. In that case you can get to 10 blue and add another if necessary to maximize the number of tiles swapped one turn earlier. Anyway, I do not wish to gauge best or worse case scenarios. I just wanted to point out that such low cost (at 5 AP), targeted (unlike GSBW or MMN who can't overwrite anything), tile placing ability has potential to greatly quicken other abilities. I didn't say it would be OP. But the more there are such abilities, the easier it is to snowball and find some broken combinations; if not right now, then possibly later when some new characters are added to the game. But that's just my opinion and I may be wrong.

simonsez

Kolence wrote:

No. That would be average case scenario. Or impatient case, because you don't have to use it right away if the board is so bad. Best case would be 10+ AP. But let's not get too crazy and say you can get a match-5 and a match-3 as a good case.

I must be playing different boards, since my typical scenario is that I'm happy to get three close enough together to make 5, or have two pairs someplace to make 6. Half the time they're just scattered around the board, and 3 or 4 is the only option. Making a 5 and a 3 in one shot would be christmas. And 10+ is just a fantasy cascade. Yeah, they happen, but so do lightning strikes. Doesn't mean I'm gonna plan my day around it.

And patience has nothing to do with it if you've already used a Berserker Rage and you have no option other than to keep the turn going.

Unknown

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

Ever play Budokai Tenkaichi 3? Yeah, Perfect Freiza shouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell against SSJ4 Gogeta, canonically. Much like Videl probably shouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell against Kid Buu, canonically. And the game reflects that - power levels are very clearly tweaked so that characters who are canonically more powerful are also more powerful in the game. This makes for good single-player development, but an absolutely lousy multiplayer fighter. I don't remember a single fight against one of my friends where one of us didn't just flat-out pick the most powerful available character. The point value pick system fixed it somewhat, but MPQ doesn't have that, and shouldn't. Canonical power cannot equate to in-game power. It doesn't make any sense at all to do that. Focus on making the characters flavorful and interesting - for example, it makes sense that Ares would be rash, cocky, and hurt himself in the process, or that Hulk would get angry if you hit him too hard - but don't try to balance them based on canon. After all, if they did that, Hulk would heal for about 1k per turn.

Not to get completely off-topic but...I consistently destroyed the "powerful" characters with Chiaotzu and Yajirobe due to easy epic combos.

Unknown

[quote

quote="Kolence"]

simonsez wrote:

Kolence wrote:

="Kolence"]

simonsez wrote:

If I can place two tiles, best case scenario, I'm getting 5 or 6 AP back.

No. That would be average case scenario. Or impatient case, because you don't have to use it right away if the board is so bad. Best case would be 10+ AP. But let's not get too crazy and say you can get a match-5 and a match-3 as a good case.as long as those 2 tiles can be placed anywhere, whatever color they are, you could use them to boost some other power.

How is that different than a lot of powers that already exist, eg LT, GSBW, Doom, etc? True, those are random, but I think 9+ random is better than 2 you can control.

Only difference is that Magneto's cost only 5 AP. The question I was trying to address was that this ability is too spammable. Someone suggested to change the power (blue) by making protect tiles different color (purple) so it wouldn't be possible to maintain the infinite turn mechanic. If it just changed the color of the protect tiles it wouldn't be possible to keep itself going true, but it would be possible to quicken other characters' abilities of that new color. And with just 2 matches instead of 3 or 4 you'd typically need for Doom, GSBW or LT.[/quote]

First, yea, using 5 (more probably 6) purple to make 2 blue makes the blue ability power up more quickly huh? You realize that it takes two purple matches (probably) to get only two blue? So while there is synergy (like thor, red gives yellow, yellow gives green, and green is most powerful), let's not act like it'll over power a blue ability (formerly purple). Even if the blue tiles make two blue matches of 3, that means that there will be close to 6 less blue tiles to switch. That is what keeps the two abilities in check. While they can help each other, they can also hinder each other at the same time aka balance.[/quote]

OK, it has drawbacks. But suppose you already have 7 blue and enough purple and there is plenty blue on the board. In that case you can get to 10 blue and add another if necessary to maximize the number of tiles swapped one turn earlier. Anyway, I do not wish to gauge best or worse case scenarios. I just wanted to point out that such low cost (at 5 AP), targeted (unlike GSBW or MMN who can't overwrite anything), tile placing ability has potential to greatly quicken other abilities. I didn't say it would be OP. But the more there are such abilities, the easier it is to snowball and find some broken combinations; if not right now, then possibly later when some new characters are added to the game. But that's just my opinion and I may be wrong.[/quote]

Supposed I get one of those cascades the CPU gets all the time and I end of 10 of each color. It's possible, it may happen occassionally, but it's the exception, not the rule.

babinro

I'd argue that 7 blue for magneto would probably be balanced while still very powerful.
8 blue would also be reasonable but borderline weak.

As for Spidey...I'm one of the few people who only truly used him POST nerf. He was actually GREAT until the true healing change came in. Post true healing he's simply good. His purple is wonderful and mitigates so much damage. His yellow is sadly useless now. Only useful in potentially saving your life one out of a dozen games at best. I'd like to see spidey's yellow retuned if not completely reworked. His blue and purple are just fine though.

yogi_

Thugpatrol wrote:

Agree pretty much with what everyone already said on game balance > canonical power level for the most part, but that said some of their choices do annoy me a little. Juggernaut being a 1*, for example, just doesn't feel right to me. You're talking about a dude who used to routinely fight all of the X-Men at once, by himself, and do a pretty decent job of beating their **** until inevitably his $.10 costume helmet popped off and Xavier melted his tiny little mind. 1*? Come on, man! And why the hell is Sue Storm of all people elevated to super elite status in this game? Just seems really arbitrary.

A suggestion that I made - http://www.d3pforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=12694.

emaker27

zonatahunt wrote:

Spidey is one of the most popular comic characters in the world. The fact that he was made useless to the game and is now never played does his character a total injustice.

This... Depending on your level, there are 2 usable Wolverines, a Black Widow, Thor, Daken, Sentry.... And not one usable Spiderman who happens to be one of the most popular heroes at any company worldwide.

Unknown

Sue storm got 4 stars because she is one of the most powerful people in the marvel universe. She can literally kill most of the marvel u if she felt like it.

Unknown

Paintsville wrote:

Sue storm got 4 stars because she is one of the most powerful people in the marvel universe. She can literally kill most of the marvel u if she felt like it.

on Marvel Earth MAYBE (arguably). In the Marvel universe? Heh. No. Not even close.

but seriously, why would Wolverine and Nick Fury be grouped with her if that were true? and Hulk, Thor, Sentry, and etc. are lower than them? Nah.