It's about time.

ThatOneGuyjp189512

so Ice is this pic legitimate? someone in my alliance posted it in our chat

TheHueyFreeman

IceIX wrote:

Ben Grimm wrote:

Any idea when the backlog will be added to tokens? It's up to four characters now.

I know Fury is getting added very soon, so that's one less. Not so sure on the rest. The reason it's backed up is that we're trying to work out a way to get more characters in without pulling a Disney Vault thing where we have to remove characters to add more so that the odds stay somewhat reasonable. It could happen that Vaulting is what we go with, but we don't want to add now then have to do a mass remove later if something like that is the solution.

This may sound silly but you could split the token pulls into two groups. For example, heroic and standard tokens can be cashed in to one of two groups. Group A has half the 2 & 3 stars wile group B has the other half (4 stars odds could be shared between the two). I know it takes little bit of programming but it isn't new territory considering how many token types PQ has and is less drastic than vaulting.

Mawtful

TheHueyFreeman wrote:

This may sound silly but you could split the token pulls into two groups. For example, heroic and standard tokens can be cashed in to one of two groups. Group A has half the 2 & 3 stars wile group B has the other half (4 stars odds could be shared between the two). I know it takes little bit of programming but it isn't new territory considering how many token types PQ has and is less drastic than vaulting.

This sounds very smart.

IceIX

wymtime wrote:

Thanks iceEX. If X-force is the beast you are saying then PVP is going to be death brackets big time.

ice can you let us know when the next new character is going to be released? We are still waiting for the X-men starting with a B.

Beast is coming with the start of Heroic Chapter 3. That starts Friday. After that we've got on the docket Colossus, a 2*, and a 3* that haven't been announced yet with as yet undecided launch order. I'll give some slight teases there and say that the 2* is a variant that's about as similar to their other form as Black Widow (Original) is to Black Widow (Modern). The 3* is a good guy at heart, when it comes down to it. Really.

IceIX

ThatOneGuyjp189512 wrote:

so Ice is this pic legitimate? someone in my alliance posted it in our chat

It is not. The pose for Beast and Colossus aren't the ones we have in-game. Think that may even be Phoenix 5 Colossus, so that's off too. No clue who the other two even are. Scarlet Witch maybe?

IceIX

TheHueyFreeman wrote:

This may sound silly but you could split the token pulls into two groups. For example, heroic and standard tokens can be cashed in to one of two groups. Group A has half the 2 & 3 stars wile group B has the other half (4 stars odds could be shared between the two). I know it takes little bit of programming but it isn't new territory considering how many token types PQ has and is less drastic than vaulting.

That's not very intuitive for end users though (especially newbies that aren't aware of which characters they may want to go for), and raises the same issues with Event packs unless we split those out too. Complicates the UI a whole bunch but *does* solve the issue until we need to split it into thirds or such.

Unknown

Thanks, IceIX, for the quick reply.

Some other questions I can think of:

-- As an broken record from the last Q+A: What do the devs think about the Sentry situation now? Surely, Sentry bombing has to be good for monetization purposes. But, it this good as a gameplay mechanic in general? A player doesn't need to worry about the 5 health pack limit when all that matters is two fights before reshielding and letting health packs regenerate. Does sharding mitigate much of this issue away to just the veteran players and away from the population in general? Also, if the Patchneto combination is effectively eliminated though the upcoming change to CMags, doesn't this place even more emphasis on using Sentry at the high level of the Versus event progression scale than there already is?

-- With the infamous "list" finally being resolved once and for all, will other characters be looked at for rebalancing next (or those that are still missing third powers?)

-- Does the magic 8-ball still project that boosts will be retired once and for all in favor of team-ups at some point in the future?

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

Wow, it's been forever since I saw an image made in MS Paint.

IceIX

Ghast wrote:

Wow, it's been forever since I saw an image made in MS Paint.

Looks better in full res at least. Forums push it down to 1200x720 and kill the DPI.

Mawtful

IceIX wrote:

Beast is coming with the start of Heroic Chapter 3. That starts Friday. After that we've got on the docket Colossus, a 2*, and a 3* that haven't been announced yet with as yet undecided launch order. I'll give some slight teases there and say that the 2* is a variant that's about as similar to their other form as Black Widow (Original) is to Black Widow (Modern). The 3* is a good guy at heart, when it comes down to it. Really.

2* Venom and 3* Shocker (based off the Shocker: Legit, clearly) confirmed then? (cc: Psykopathic)

Unknown

Hi iceIX welcome back!

Just 2 quick questions-

Is death bracket sharding for here to stay? It's impossible to get top 10 now even when I score 1000 in PVP...

Also will we even have a hulk PVP? I have not seen one ever in the last 120 days I have been playing

Thanks and hope to see u around more

IceIX

Lyrian wrote:

Thanks, IceIX, for the quick reply.

Some other questions I can think of:

-- As an broken record from the last Q+A: What do the devs think about the Sentry situation now? Surely, Sentry bombing has to be good for monetization purposes. But, it this good as a gameplay mechanic in general? A player doesn't need to worry about the 5 health pack limit when all that matters is two fights before reshielding and letting health packs regenerate. Does sharding mitigate much of this issue away to just the veteran players and away from the population in general? Also, if the Patchneto combination is effectively eliminated though the upcoming change to CMags, doesn't this place even more emphasis on using Sentry at the high level of the Versus event progression scale than there already is?

-- With the infamous "list" finally being resolved once and for all, will other characters be looked at for rebalancing next (or those that are still missing third powers?)

-- Does the magic 8-ball still project that boosts will be retired once and for all in favor of team-ups at some point in the future?

- Sentry is going to be looked at with an electron microscope after this since he's obviously the second most popular niche strategy. He's still very low on the actual userbase usage rate, but we can't be sure how that will change once the Patch / Magneto situation changes.
- Yes. More towards rebalancing, less towards third abilities. That doesn't mean we don't want thirds still, just that we're focused more on user experience right now as opposed to additional experiences.
- We're currently looking to add Team Up AP/damage Boosts, so in the near term, no. In the grim darkness of the future, can't say.

IceIX

Vanapak wrote:

Hi iceIX welcome back!

Just 2 quick questions-

Is death bracket sharding for here to stay? It's impossible to get top 10 now even when I score 1000 in PVP...

Also will we even have a hulk PVP? I have not seen one ever in the last 120 days I have been playing

Thanks and hope to see u around more

Death brackets are a definite annoyance on our end. We keep making changes which normalizes one portion of the player base but another pops back up. It's largely a function of some brackets having extremely coordinated users that push up ratings in them. Fixing that will require a larger fix than messing around with MMR in general.

Good thought on Hulk, I don't think I've seen one planned for a while either. I've got nothing to do with Event planning though, I largely ignore the calendar unless I need specific info. Still, I can poke someone.

GuntherBlobel

IceIX wrote:

TheHueyFreeman wrote:

This may sound silly but you could split the token pulls into two groups. For example, heroic and standard tokens can be cashed in to one of two groups. Group A has half the 2 & 3 stars wile group B has the other half (4 stars odds could be shared between the two). I know it takes little bit of programming but it isn't new territory considering how many token types PQ has and is less drastic than vaulting.

That's not very intuitive for end users though (especially newbies that aren't aware of which characters they may want to go for), and raises the same issues with Event packs unless we split those out too. Complicates the UI a whole bunch but *does* solve the issue until we need to split it into thirds or such.

Well, if you end up "vaulting" some 3* characters you could introduce a 3* token that would upgrade any 3* ability, so that people could at least finish characters they started before vaulting.

Unknown

I think IW will naturally be buffed if the game slows down because all her abilities tend to require a game going on for a while before they do something useful. Force Bubbles can literally bring a game to a complete halt. Sure right now that doesn't matter because the game usually ends before you can have enough for Force Bubbles, but we know the guys capable of such offense aren't remotely balanced.

After playing with Fury he actually looks about right for what I'd expect a 4* to be. On paper their superior HP and big moves should make them strictly superior, but assuming the costs for X Force doesn't change, you'll find a lot of game you still never get those 12-15 AP to fire off the big moves even if it goes on for a while.

Of course Sentry isn't going to be on high on the usage list since only the P2W + very competitive players have him maxed. But that's like saying Fury is used in a tiny % of the games so clearly he must totally suck too, even though he's quite capable.

IceIX

Phantron wrote:

Of course Sentry isn't going to be on high on the usage list since only the P2W + very competitive players have him maxed. But that's like saying Fury is used in a tiny % of the games so clearly he must totally suck too, even though he's quite capable.

This is true, but I'm actually speaking of the funnel of "Uses Sentry + Strike tile character, uses Strike generation, uses World Rupture, kablooey" more specifically. Right now that type of user is relatively rare in the high end.

NateDoggTac

Long time player and lurker, first post! I'm glad to see some exciting changes!
I am scared to see what's going to happen to Classic Magneto though...

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

I'll give some slight teases there and say that the 2* is a variant that's about as similar to their other form as Black Widow (Original) is to Black Widow (Modern). The 3* is a good guy at heart, when it comes down to it. Really.

I'm gonna guess Ares just based on the below excerpt from the Marvel Wiki:

Wanting his son to live the life of a mortal instead of under the rule of his father, Ares decided to raise his son on Earth instead of Olympus. While at work Ares was confronted by Ms. Marvel and Iron Man to register under the Superhuman Registration Act and offered a job as an Avenger. Ares agreed as long as they would match his hourly pay.

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

Phantron wrote:

Of course Sentry isn't going to be on high on the usage list since only the P2W + very competitive players have him maxed. But that's like saying Fury is used in a tiny % of the games so clearly he must totally suck too, even though he's quite capable.

This is true, but I'm actually speaking of the funnel of "Uses Sentry + Strike tile character, uses Strike generation, uses World Rupture, kablooey" more specifically. Right now that type of user is relatively rare in the high end.

But that's because he's already one of the best strike tile generator in the game to begin with. Having Daken is just throwing two ubers together for even more uberness, but it's not like Sentry can't do a game ending World Rupture combo by himself. At any rate I don't think Sentry needs anything fancy as long as his 'I get up to 48 strike tile hits from my 16 CDs that hits everyone' interaction with strike tiles ends. He'd still be overpowered but it'd at least be in an acceptable range of power.

wade66

I agree, having his countdown tiles resolve simultaneously, and only getting the strike tile benefit once would be enough.