It's about time.

OnesOwnGrief

All of the changes drop at the same time. Hot damn!

TheHueyFreeman

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.

While I agree that it is not a scalable solution, I'm not sure that there is a solution that addresses your concerns while fixing the problem. My solution does create a potential dilemma for newbies on which to pick but vaulting simply makes the choice for them which I would think they would complain about more. Also, if it gets to the point that the character base is so large that it doubles or triples, then the current character rollout model (while I enjoy getting characters as much as the next guy) is what isn't scalable.

For the UI, it could be segregated by things like heroes/villains or male/female to make the shop process as intuitive as possible.

Unknown

http://youtu.be/gbO2_077ixs?t=32s

Spoit

IceIX wrote:

Lyrian wrote:

Glad to "see" you, IceIX!

I guess I'll start with the potentially obvious question. Are all of the buffs/nerfs for the characters you just pictured going to occur at the same time or will they be spread out?

Currently planned for the same time. You all already know about the Daken part of it, those are the ones we pulled earlier.

Is the Laken nerf going through with this too? Or are the usage numbers still not high enough to justify that part?

Also, any chance of getting actual numbers for each part of fury's yellow?

Unknown

Please nerf the hell out of Classic Magneto. I understand that he's an uber-mutant in the lore, but he's obnoxiously powerful in this game. I hate fighting him, no matter the build i'm facing. I have no particular fixes for him, but raising the AP on both his red, blue, and purple may be appropriate. He's fantastically powerful at the moment and I hate to have him on the other side.

Unknown

Ghast wrote:

IceIX wrote:

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

Not even remotely true unless you've blocked my awesome signature.

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

The 3* is a good guy at heart, when it comes down to it. Really.

I didn't recognize that as a tagline for any Marvel heroes, so:

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=c ... n+to+it%22

James from Team Rocket confirmed as a 3*

IceIX

gamar wrote:

IceIX wrote:

The 3* is a good guy at heart, when it comes down to it. Really.

I didn't recognize that as a tagline for any Marvel heroes, so:

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=c ... n+to+it%22

James from Team Rocket confirmed as a 3*

It wouldn't be a teaser if I gave you a definite indicator.

Thanos

Ice, are you guys making any headway on new game play modes? Anything at all to spice things up or are we stuck with the standard PvP and PvE formats till the end of time?

SunCrusher

I really appreciate that there's 'funbalancing' and that the devs are interested in keeping a good balanced game going, but from a 'playing catch up/I'm not good enough or spending enough to be running at the front of the pack' point of perspective, this is getting really, really old and YES, I HAVE spent money and more than just $10 on this game.

Kind of makes me glad I never got a chance to build CMags even though Mags is my favorite character. How ironic; I'm getting my CMags blue card tomorrow!

So I guess what's becoming a pattern now is, 1) release some decently powerful/useful characters, 2) the people who were able to build them first get the most out of them, 3) when it's time to move on, nerf the heck out of them because of the supposed OP-ness, and 4) leaving behind neutered characters for the people who never had the chance to build them at the beginning?

1) I got my first Ragnarok pull right before his nerf.

2) I just started building Wolverine and Thor right before both of their nerfs.

3) I built OBW to being something a little more than tissue a few weeks before her nerf.

4) I get my CMags blue card tomorrow (yeah, I missed some logins) and his nerf is coming up.

5) I was just ready to start being able to truly participate in the Lightning Rounds when the cards got removed from the Lightning Rounds.

Is this ever going to end or is the message I'm supposed to be getting is, "Either cough up more money or simply be content playing with everyone's leftover neutered characters when they finally become unpopular because they're finally deemed too OP and all the big boys and girls no longer want him around?"

I admit this; there's a personal bend to this gripe and I can admit to it.

Thing is, I pulled CMags as my first introductory Heroic Token pull way back when and I so **** looked forward to building him (didn't give too much of a care about the others) that I pushed myself to participate in events so I could finally participate in his LRs so I could build him some more... only to not just have the LRs end but to also see him nerfed before I could play him as he was originally created.

Really, really disappointed that this is the pattern that I've personally kept experiencing.

The only reason I'm not more upset is because I spent my money on roster slots and not on covers.

reckless442

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.

This is why this game is dying. Sentry/Daken or Hood/featured character appears in 95+% of the matches players face past 1100 points, but that doesn't matter to the Devs because those players make up a small percentage of the overall player-base. Yet that should be a critical component of the users that the Devs should be listening to and want to please. Veteran players provide guidance to new players, they are the players that new players want to emulate, and the ones that should be the biggest promoters of the game. But instead of looking at the problems affecting those players, like the fact that Sentry has completely unbalanced the game and made it impossible to even compete at the high-end of the game without spending significant amounts of HP, the Devs don't even have this as a priority. Instead, they are continuing to insist on nerfing Mags, a decision that makes no sense at this point. Maybe when Mags was totally overpowered compared to every other characters, a nerf could be justified, but with massively powered characters like Modern Thor, Sentry, Deadpool and the buffed Black Panther, how does Mags even matter now?

It's quite obvious that what is happening at the high-end of the PVP rankings doesn't matter. There is blatant cheating going on, but it is not being addressed because as scores go higher, it forces everyone else trying to compete to spend more to keep up. Once upon a time, the mere claim that S.H.I.E.L.D was spending too much on shields caused the game to change the rewards structure; now, people are spending more in a single PVP than we spent in an entire season and the Devs have done nothing to modify the game mechanics to minimize the P2W aspect of the game. Players are stuck in 2* transition because they can't get 3* covers given the sheer volume of 3*s we now have (24), the difficulty of winning covers due to death brackets, and the top of brackets being filled by max-level teams already, but a solution like making heroic and PVE tokens 3* only doesn't even seem to get traction. So veteran players are leaving in droves and players trying to make the transition to 3* are giving up in frustration and the Devs don't even seem to care.

I've never seen Devs who are as tone-deaf to such important parts of their player base as MPQ's.

reckless442

BigMac3 wrote:

Please nerf the hell out of Classic Magneto. I understand that he's an uber-mutant in the lore, but he's obnoxiously powerful in this game. I hate fighting him, no matter the build i'm facing. I have no particular fixes for him, but raising the AP on both his red, blue, and purple may be appropriate. He's fantastically powerful at the moment and I hate to have him on the other side.

Who are you running against Classic Magneto? He doesn't have high HP, so he is not particularly difficult to beat. I've never seen him deter attacks at high levels so that doesn't suggest he is obnoxiously powerful. And the AI doesn't play him particularly well in combination with other characters, i.e., using Patchneto well, so that is an exploit that benefits players.

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

gamar wrote:

IceIX wrote:

The 3* is a good guy at heart, when it comes down to it. Really.

I didn't recognize that as a tagline for any Marvel heroes, so:

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=c ... n+to+it%22

James from Team Rocket confirmed as a 3*

It wouldn't be a teaser if I gave you a definite indicator.

Well, we know it's not Batman

http://i.imgur.com/3SsGLh5.jpg

Unknown

Jjosh wrote:

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.

Why would they make a 2 star variant of a 2 star?

Unknown

Lerysh wrote:

Jjosh wrote:

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.

Why would they make a 2 star variant of a 2 star?

Oops. Read it the other way around (making 3* variant of existing 2*). My bad

Unknown

I don't think it's necessary to appease the high end players but it's not like Sentry's dominance at the high end of PvP is some kind of accident. Magneto may have a bigger overall impact when measured by the amount of players affected, but it's rather obvious that Sentry is also causing a lot of problems too. Do devs really think as more people get characters maxed they'll be seeing Punisher + Psylocke + Nick Fury beating the Sentry teams? Sentry's on the top of the PvP ladder for a rather obvious reason, and it's particularly bothersome because unlike most balance fixes that could be complicated, Sentry you can solve most of the problems by fixing his interaction with strike tiles. I think he'd still be overpowered but won't be more so than Thor and while Thor is of course not balanced either, but at least Thor takes some time to win instead of just bombing the opposition to oblivion by turn 5.

daveomite

reckless442 wrote:

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.

This is why this game is dying. Sentry/Daken or Hood/featured character appears in 95+% of the matches players face past 1100 points, but that doesn't matter to the Devs because those players make up a small percentage of the overall player-base. Yet that should be a critical component of the users that the Devs should be listening to and want to please. Veteran players provide guidance to new players, they are the players that new players want to emulate, and the ones that should be the biggest promoters of the game. But instead of looking at the problems affecting those players, like the fact that Sentry has completely unbalanced the game and made it impossible to even compete at the high-end of the game without spending significant amounts of HP, the Devs don't even have this as a priority. Instead, they are continuing to insist on nerfing Mags, a decision that makes no sense at this point. Maybe when Mags was totally overpowered compared to every other characters, a nerf could be justified, but with massively powered characters like Modern Thor, Sentry, Deadpool and the buffed Black Panther, how does Mags even matter now?

It's quite obvious that what is happening at the high-end of the PVP rankings doesn't matter. There is blatant cheating going on, but it is not being addressed because as scores go higher, it forces everyone else trying to compete to spend more to keep up. Once upon a time, the mere claim that S.H.I.E.L.D was spending too much on shields caused the game to change the rewards structure; now, people are spending more in a single PVP than we spent in an entire season and the Devs have done nothing to modify the game mechanics to minimize the P2W aspect of the game. Players are stuck in 2* transition because they can't get 3* covers given the sheer volume of 3*s we now have (24), the difficulty of winning covers due to death brackets, and the top of brackets being filled by max-level teams already, but a solution like making heroic and PVE tokens 3* only doesn't even seem to get traction. So veteran players are leaving in droves and players trying to make the transition to 3* are giving up in frustration and the Devs don't even seem to care.

I've never seen Devs who are as tone-deaf to such important parts of their player base as MPQ's.

Completely agree with this.

There is a major difference from what MPQ was and what it is now. Back when people were first complaining about cMags was before Seasons. Back then, 800-900 would get you first place in a PvP usually. Now, 800-900 would be lucky to get most people into the top 10. When you've got "mega" alliances spending through the roof, completely jacking the system to where it's broken, that's a problem.

Example. After the first pvp of S5, it was already clear to people like Reckless and myself that we had already lost the season. Given by who is in our season bracket (yes, reckless and I are both in the same bracket) - and judging by the 2k+ scores they all got in that first pvp, how are you supposed to catch up? FOUR Shield members were over 1700 points each, others over 1600 points. But in Seasons - doesn't matter. Because, now all of a sudden, they are all pushing beyond 2k, then boasting about it. If players like us have hard times with it - how do you think newer or transitioning players are able to deal with that? Seriously - part of playing a game, is because you have HOPE that you can play well in it... leading to more confidence that you WILL do well in it. Now, this game is more about completely breaking people's spirit, because it's becomes obvious at the start, that it's hopeless for them. That has got to be incredibly hard for many newer players to deal with. It's completely gotten out of hand.

There just seems to be little to no thought process of what is actually going on in the game. But D3 just keeps kicking out the same things over and over again, burning people out with too many things happening at the same time - multiple things happening within 8-12 hour windows, etc. How are people supposed to place well if they would say, like to sleep? Just like countless tickets never get responded to. Cheaters pop up with level 404 Juggs in events... yet no comments. Boosts completely removed from drops... no comments other than Will saying "people don't like boosts because they're cheaty. We think people prefer Team Ups." What?

Seriously - I think it's time that someone there actually pays attention to what is actually going on in the game, by the people who are actually playing it. Stop looking at ONLY some "research" - actually play the game, like we do. Maybe then, you will actually get to see with your own eyes things that many of us have been saying for a long time now.

It really, really says a lot with so many veterans of the game that have either already left, are in the process of walking away, or about to walk away. Given how much time they have all put into this game, their rosters and alliances... they are just dropping like flies now. To me, that's a very telling sign. Even releasing new characters all of a sudden just won't bring many, if any of them, back to the game. That's sad. Period.

SunCrusher

Once Alliances came in and then on top of LRs stopped giving covers, the gap that was already there widened hugely.

I'm not surprised and I saw it coming when Alliances were first announced. It's just inevitable with a Freemium system where you can buy additional extras while in-game to boost your way through. The people with pocket money to spend and -keep- spending gather together and spend more collectively and push their way up and the people who don't have that luxury simply can't or don't unless they started with the game in its first few months.

That's just the way it works and in a lot of ways, I'm actually okay with it in a sense.

However, it isn't enough to 'spend some' - like, as much as you would on a AAA console game at pre-order prices - you need to have either been a veteran or have that money to -keep- spending to keep up and not fall so far behind that by the time you're ready to build better characters to usable levels, they've gone under the proverbial knife and THAT is what I'm picking a bone with.

I don't mind waiting to get my characters! But I HATE how it always happens that by the time I'm just about ready, they're headed into surgery!

Getting everyone's leftovers - all the characters that keep getting nerfed - isn't my idea of fun and I hardly think this gives an incentive to anyone new to spend or even keep going because who wants to build characters - heaven forbid spend money on covers themselves because they're having a hellacious time pulling them (and now there's no LR covers, either!) - only to have them spayed and neutered shortly after?

Some other games do the same, but at LEAST they're transparent about it. First 3 months of release, they're buffed for the events with the notice that afterwards, they'll be 'back to what they were originally intended to be'. It isn't a 'nerf'; it's a temporary buff and it's a more honest system than suddenly pulling the rug out from people's feet.

That said, I acknowledge that sometimes, some things don't become apparent until later, but really?

This is a serious pattern that's developed now and as a formerly paying player, I'm not sure what to expect for the future.

Should I even bother building anyone remotely recent/useful? Will I be able to build them in time much less get to use them as they were originally offered?

Sandmaker

Honestly, the ridiculous point inflation can be fixed with one simple change. Make it so that skipping a target breaks the shield.

This changes shielding back to it's original purpose, which was to prevent points loss while afk, instead of its current use as a "click me for 40-90 points" button.

Unknown

SunCrusher wrote:

Once Alliances came in and then on top of LRs stopped giving covers, the gap that was already there widened hugely.

I'm not surprised and I saw it coming when Alliances were first announced. It's just inevitable with a Freemium system where you can buy additional extras while in-game to boost your way through. The people with pocket money to spend and -keep- spending gather together and spend more collectively and push their way up and the people who don't have that luxury simply can't or don't unless they started with the game in its first few months.

It isn't enough to 'spend some' - like, as much as you would on a AAA console game at pre-order prices - you need to have either been a veteran or have that money to keep spending to keep up.

Getting everyone's leftovers - all the characters that keep getting nerfed - isn't my idea of fun and I hardly think this gives an incentive to anyone new to spend or even keep going because who wants to build characters - heaven forbid spend money on covers themselves because they're having a hellacious time pulling them (and now there's no LR covers, either!) - only to have them spayed and neutered shortly after?

Some other games do the same, but at LEAST they're transparent about it. First 3 months of release, they're buffed for the events with the notice that afterwards, they'll be 'back to what they were originally intended to be'. It isn't a 'nerf'; it's a temporary buff and it's a more honest system than suddenly pulling the rug out from people's feet.

That said, I acknowledge that sometimes, some things don't become apparent until later, but really?

This is a serious pattern that's developed now and as a formerly paying player, I'm not sure what to expect for the future.

Should I even bother building anyone remotely recent/useful? Will I be able to build them in time much less get to use them as they were originally offered?

The game is designed assuming the characters are relatively balanced. The character covers are handed out in an approximately random fashion because it's assumed that if you happen to get a lot of Mohawk Storm + Psylocke cover that's supposed to be a competitive against a guy who happened to get Sentry + Daken instead.

Of course the game is really nowhere balanced. The philosophy doesn't require everything to be perfectly balanced. It's sufficient that Mohawk Storm + Psylocke is considered playable on the top tier, which could be something like winning 75% of games versus 90% for a top tier character. Of course if you tried to fight Daken + Sentry with those two you'd be lucky to win 50% of the time so that's where things break apart. It's easier to see this in the 2* tier, which isn't balanced at all either, but characters like Wolverine or Moonstone are at least playable compared to Thor/Ares. Unfortunately, most 3* aren't even playable against Sentry/Daken/Thor/Magneto.