Balance by Confusion

Unknown

A long time ago I saw this article on how Marvel versus Capcom 2 is reasonably balanced because there are so many characters and possible combinations that by the time people figured out what works the best, the game would've fallen out of favor with the fighting game community, and that since nobody seems to ever get a fighting game completely balanced this might be the best thing we can get. Looking at this, I think it's quite applicable to MPQ. Look at Balance of Power event. There are a ton of different teams fielded. I'm sure if you ran the event 20 times people will eventually figure out the top 5 teams, but at least on the first iteration of the event, nobody is really quite sure who to go with. If we assume balance is something that isn't happening anytime soon (still waiting for Hawkeye buff), then they can at least spice things up. Sure an alternate rules event like Balance of Power can easily suck too, but I think you'd have to try really hard to come up with a set of alternate rules that's worse than another Krakadoom. No this doesn't solve the game's underlying problems, but I'd like at least a band-aid fix over another God of Lies. I'm quite willing to take my chances with even very bad ideas with a free-form team over a large number of existing deadweight + (pick 2 out of 5 powerhouses) PvP events.

Unknown

I would like to see something that takes yet to be intoduced powers and randomly assigns them to various "test subjects" the power just have to work and dont necessarily need to have a particular character in consideration.

It would also be interestin if certain events had a temporary adjustment to abilities for certain characters in consideration for a change.

MarvelMan

I like the idea of a 6h or 12h tourney (no buy in) where they test out powers. Make it outside the season structure too. If they keep it short it can give an idea of whether the powers are viable, but not leave it open to massive exploitation if they are OP.

Unknown

I think that the no point nodes in PvE, where you can test the new characters at a full build level, has been an excellent idea, so even something like that for testing potential nerfs/buffs would be welcome.

wymtime

I have 2 ideas that might make things more interesting.
#1 Have a PVP where 1 2* and 1 3* character is buffed. You are required to use at least 1 of the 2 characters, but your 2* can now be overpowered. This might make 2* teams able to climb a little bit higher in the PVP and make the 3* teams have a little bit different set up. Not a major change but something differnt.

#2 Have a PVP where the AI covers rotate like the players roster rotates. So when the defense makes a match whomever is strongest moves to the front and the player can't choose who they are attacking. This could make for some very interesting teams. You would get some more support characters being active and would cause a lot of differnet strategy in taking out a team. Hood would definatly rule this event, but you would be able to bring some of the slower powered players to the game as well. Imagine having to take out Hulk first with BWGS/HT and Hood sitting behind him. Captain Marvel taking hits to fuel Captain America's Red. This would definatly make the game harder especially with TU, but it would be easier to see how different teams play with the AI.

Unknown

I'm not opposed to more events in general like the Top Gun Buy In but I don't see anything inherently sacred to the seasons. Is it that important to preserve the integrity of the dreaded Dr. Doom -> Loki -> Ragnarok cycle in a seasons event? Balance of Power counted toward the seasons and that was certainly an event that was nothing like the normal PvP and it didn't make the season winner tainted or anything. Sure I know they run the events to try to promote certain characters but I'm guessing people aren't rushing out there to buy Ragnarok for another Krakadoom, so why not replace the low profile events with other stuff? Unless the statistics show that everyone hated Balance of Power, I don't see how you can do worse than another rerun of a PvP event featuring someone no one cares about with a prize that no one cares about, and there are a lot of those events.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

I'm not opposed to more events in general like the Top Gun Buy In but I don't see anything inherently sacred to the seasons. Is it that important to preserve the integrity of the dreaded Dr. Doom -> Loki -> Ragnarok cycle in a seasons event? Balance of Power counted toward the seasons and that was certainly an event that was nothing like the normal PvP and it didn't make the season winner tainted or anything. Sure I know they run the events to try to promote certain characters but I'm guessing people aren't rushing out there to buy Ragnarok for another Krakadoom, so why not replace the low profile events with other stuff? Unless the statistics show that everyone hated Balance of Power, I don't see how you can do worse than another rerun of a PvP event featuring someone no one cares about with a prize that no one cares about, and there are a lot of those events.

BOP DID NOT count towards seasons. Although I agree with you 100%. Why couldn't it? Who cares about seasons? Why not bring back all the themed dark avengers/ girls only etc tourneys? They always preach how they want people to keep a diverse roster yet only have single person tourneys. Nothing matters anyways if someone is allowed to use sentry the other 2 guys are just along for the ride. I would LOVE to see what the x-men do in a pvp with no sentry allowed.

emaker27

Here's an idea... the environments can have a direct impact on characters. So, each environment has characters that receive a boost, are neutral, or are less effective. Then hold a PVP event per environment which effective forces you to have a large roster in order to be competitive in them all.

For added craziness (ignoring server issues), have them all run at the exact same time. It would be interesting to know if the mega alliances could be ultra competitive in them all.

EDIT: This wouldn't necessarily be a permanent change.

Unknown

sms4002 wrote:

Phantron wrote:

I'm not opposed to more events in general like the Top Gun Buy In but I don't see anything inherently sacred to the seasons. Is it that important to preserve the integrity of the dreaded Dr. Doom -> Loki -> Ragnarok cycle in a seasons event? Balance of Power counted toward the seasons and that was certainly an event that was nothing like the normal PvP and it didn't make the season winner tainted or anything. Sure I know they run the events to try to promote certain characters but I'm guessing people aren't rushing out there to buy Ragnarok for another Krakadoom, so why not replace the low profile events with other stuff? Unless the statistics show that everyone hated Balance of Power, I don't see how you can do worse than another rerun of a PvP event featuring someone no one cares about with a prize that no one cares about, and there are a lot of those events.

BOP DID NOT count towards seasons. Although I agree with you 100%. Why couldn't it? Who cares about seasons? Why not bring back all the themed dark avengers/ girls only etc tourneys? They always preach how they want people to keep a diverse roster yet only have single person tourneys. Nothing matters anyways if someone is allowed to use sentry the other 2 guys are just along for the ride. I would LOVE to see what the x-men do in a pvp with no sentry allowed.

DU will never do that because X-Men provide a big chunk of their revenue every PvP. Can't blame them really. If people are willing to spend small fortunes playing your game why wouldn't you take advantage

Unknown

I remember seeing some pretty insane scores in Balance of Power even though that was an event where the usual powerful rosters have no advantage whatsoever. The alternate rules need not to be fair. They could have a 4 star only event for all I care. As far as I can tell both the prizes and the featured character in PvP is on some rotating schedule. I doubt they'll change the prize, but the featured character should be changed. I can't imagine people are itching for the opportunity to use Ragnarok or Loki in a PvP event. I'm guessing at least half of the events in a seasons are just filler for your score so why not use them to test new things? Some of these new ideas might even work. Sure don't touch the event that has Deadpool as prize because that's probably a good moneymaker and you don't want to get people mad with new rules, but let's say instead of featured Ragnarok/prize Psylocke we ran an event where only red, green, and blue powers are usable, is there any inherent reason people would spend less money on this event compared to Ragnarok being the featured character? You can even argue that in such a bizarre rule event you have a lot to gain by spending money early to build a lead knowing that nobody can use the usual Sentry/Daken/Hood tactics (no Intimidation, no Phermone Rage, no Sacrifice under this ruleset) and have it carry over to the seasons rating.

OnesOwnGrief

Just something I'd like to mention. I love the mention of Marvel vs Capcom 2 but it still had major balancing issues across a very small set of characters, one of which turned out to be a character people have problems with in MPQ. Swagneto.

Unknown

OnesOwnGrief wrote:

Just something I'd like to mention. I love the mention of Marvel vs Capcom 2 but it still had major balancing issues across a very small set of characters, one of which turned out to be a character people have problems with in MPQ. Swagneto.

The point wasn't that MvC2 was balanced. It's that by had enough teams for people experiment that by the time the top teams emerged the game would've been replaced by something newer so they don't have to worry about balance anymore. Of course people always ask for the perfect balanced game but for whatever reason we never get anything close to that anywhere. So if the game can't be balanced then at least have the game feel balanced is better than nothing. Balance of Power is not necessarily any balanced than the normal game format, but do you know what the top 5 teams of Balance of Power are? I'm guessing one of them would look like Jugg + OBW + ???, but after that I have no idea. It's entirely possible the most powerful team from Balance of Power is even less balanced than the current normal game teams, but it'll take a while to figure this out and unless we're running Balance of Power back to back 10 times it'll be a long time before people figured this out, so until that happens an event like Balance of Power sure feels balanced. You don't want experimental events to take away from the main draw of the game, but I feel that at least half of the seasons events are just filler and that very few people would miss them if we have an experimental event replacing an event that features another deadweight that nobody uses normally. And some of the experimental events might even turn out to be good ideas.

Now of course D3 wouldn't want another game to replace MPQ while people are kept busy, but instead of being replaced that'd presumably be some major oversweeping balance changes. It shouldn't be too hard to get ideas for alternate rules. There are plenty of suggestions on the board to use, and while I wouldn't be confident if any of those are incorporated into the game permanently (including my own), I sure don't see the harm in running an idea from this board for an event and the D3 metrics can tell them if this was a good idea or not. I'm assuming some common sense would prevent D3 from picking ideas that turned out to be worse than another rerun of Krakadoom here.

OnesOwnGrief

There are actually very balanced games out there (even fighting games) but they tend to be unpopular because of lack of flair and peoples associations with brands and characters. My post wasn't trying to say anything new on the topic of MPQ or it's balancing but the irony of how the exact same character is running rampant among both games. Though, if you want my 4 paragraphs with my thoughts on balancing and a complete run over of a balancing list based on current powers in the game, I totally can do that. Game theory and mechanics is my thing but I can guarantee you that there is decent sized subset of players who are in it for imbalances because they want to win. People who want to win at all cost very rarely care about game balancing. Its either adapt to the new broken thing or gtfo. Also, they tend to cope poorly when losing.

Twysta

Unknown

When MVC2 first came out, it became quickly apparent that Sentinel and Cable were much higher tiers than anyone else. Not too long after, Storm and Magneto bece top tier as well. I'm not sure where the idea that there was balance for a while due to nobody figuring that out, but I spent a fair portion of the year 2000 and most of 2001 getting straight up whooped by the top tier characters in MVC2 by kids in Japan.

The article has a false premise.