It's about time.

Unknown

@IceIX Two questions

1) If you're going to use little-to-no rubberbanding from now, does it not make sense to revert PvE to time-based bracketing? It's demoralizing to join a bracket where the leaders are several refreshes or even one entire sub ahead.

2) How about previewing the funbalance changes on the forum, accepting feedback from players, and possibly making tweaks based on that feedback? While you devs know what's best for the game, the players' opinions are valuable too, especially those that play the game the most.

Unknown

I feel out of place with a short question. With all that's being done for newer players, is there anything in the works to facilitate veteran player retention?

I know they have been asking for a new game mode as one of their key issues for example.

Unknown

gobstopper wrote:

@IceIX Two questions

1) If you're going to use little-to-no rubberbanding from now, does it not make sense to revert PvE to time-based bracketing? It's demoralizing to join a bracket where the leaders are several refreshes or even one entire sub ahead.

2) How about previewing the funbalance changes on the forum, accepting feedback from players, and possibly making tweaks based on that feedback? While you devs know what's best for the game, the players' opinions are valuable too, especially those that play the game the most.

And while you're at it for #2, please present the funbalance changes in an easy-to-understand, intelligible manner. Remember the Daken changes that were pulled (postponed) some time ago? We would not want to read that again.

Pwuz_

IceIX wrote:

X-Force is now as much a monster as Fury is. Don't let him heal. But don't let him not heal.

I'm betting he has some type of increased damage for lower health skill. I'm assuming his red and/or green abilities have been reworked to this end. It would certainly fit his character well to have abilities that scale up as he takes damage, and only a true healer like Wolverine would it ever be worth using such skills.

Kelbris

IceIX wrote:

can this be put on hold to make the user interface during fights not awfully terrible **** bad

Knyghtmare

Since death brackets were mentioned, one thing that would prevent it greatly is to not allow alliance members to fight each other (major trick used is to attack shielded members in your team). It would also help accidental attack which create drama. Think about it, if you were in a real-life alliance, would you attack your friend. It may not fix it completely, but it would definitely help.

Spoit

Knyghtmare wrote:

Since death brackets were mentioned, one thing that would prevent it greatly is to not allow alliance members to fight each other (major trick used is to attack shielded members in your team). It would also help accidental attack which create drama. Think about it, if you were in a real-life alliance, would you attack your friend. It may not fix it completely, but it would definitely help.

Not really, with the mega alliances, they'd still have 80 people to hit

Dayv

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.

I'd rather see vaulting than have the newer character tiers continue being unavailable.

reckless442

Phantron wrote:

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.

If that's the game design, it's idiotic and has never been the case since the beginning and never will be. In any game with characters with different powers, there are going to be certain characters that are stronger than others. But that isn't the idea. It's ridiculous to say that any combination of 3*s should be equal to any other combination. Different characters have different strengths and weaknesses. For instance, Psylocke is very underrated offensively, when paired with Patch. She doesn't work with Modern Storm because they both rely on black (and used to rely on red) attacks. Storm is a support character and actually is a good counter to certain characters, including Sentry, except the nerf made her less effective.

Part of the problem is that the Devs decided a few months ago that board control is a bad thing. Most likely, they realized that when you can control the board with powers like Storm's green and now-yellow and Mags' blue, you reduce the number of turns that the AI gets and, thereby reduce the amount of damage he can inflict with cheap powers in PVEs by characters like Rags, Ares, and Juggs (not to mention Team-Ups). So those powers cut down on the amount of damage you take and the number of health packs you need to use. That is why Storm was nerfed and is probably the real reason why Mags is being nerfed too.

Pwuz_

Spoit wrote:

Knyghtmare wrote:

Since death brackets were mentioned, one thing that would prevent it greatly is to not allow alliance members to fight each other (major trick used is to attack shielded members in your team). It would also help accidental attack which create drama. Think about it, if you were in a real-life alliance, would you attack your friend. It may not fix it completely, but it would definitely help.

Not really, with the mega alliances, they'd still have 80 people to hit

BUT if you took away player names from the information you get, that could put a serious dent in that strategy. Unless you looked at their roster and knew it was them based on some goofy character (Level 69 Bagman or some other non-maxed character) it would almost cripple that strategy.

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

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.

Sounds like 2* Sentry to me. He was an Avenger prior to joining up with Osborn & Co.

Trisul

As a 2* player I'm excited by the 2* Daken and Hawkeye updates. Also glad I didn't invest in CMags yet!

In Hearthstone, the devs allow full crafting cost refunds for changed cards for a limited amount of time. Do you think MPQ might be able to do something similar (i.e. CMags sells for more iso for a week or two post-change)?

Unknown

reckless442 wrote:

If that's the game design, it's idiotic and has never been the case since the beginning and never will be. In any game with characters with different powers, there are going to be certain characters that are stronger than others. But that isn't the idea. It's ridiculous to say that any combination of 3*s should be equal to any other combination. Different characters have different strengths and weaknesses. For instance, Psylocke is very underrated offensively, when paired with Patch. She doesn't work with Modern Storm because they both rely on black (and used to rely on red) attacks. Storm is a support character and actually is a good counter to certain characters, including Sentry, except the nerf made her less effective.

Part of the problem is that the Devs decided a few months ago that board control is a bad thing. Most likely, they realized that when you can control the board with powers like Storm's green and now-yellow and Mags' blue, you reduce the number of turns that the AI gets and, thereby reduce the amount of damage he can inflict with cheap powers in PVEs by characters like Rags, Ares, and Juggs (not to mention Team-Ups). So those powers cut down on the amount of damage you take and the number of health packs you need to use. That is why Storm was nerfed and is probably the real reason why Mags is being nerfed too.

Why wouldn't the game be designed assuming it's balanced? If the attempt is simply to generate more sales why is Deadpool not actually all that good? Surely it can't be that hard to make him into another P2W character and he certainly seems popular. But there's a rather serious disconnect between design and reality. Nobody expects even reasonably balanced game for all teams to be competitive, but you do expect most team to be playable. Moonstone is playable against Thor at the 2* level. There's no doubt Thor is stronger but it's a handicap that is generally manageable. Play any subpar 3* against Sentry and all you'll get is a spanking.

I think this game has a poor model of the power of board control. I'm guessing they model board control's power based on the likelihood of gaining AP, but it's more like the other way around. In this game, you should consider the primary value of making a move is that you changed the board. Getting 3 AP is a side effect. Moves that change the board a lot, like a match 4, are valuable because they move the board a lot, not because you got 8 AP out of it. Magneto's blue and red both create a ton of movement and most of them creates more movement than any normal move can possibly do, so you can argue his moves are more valuable than creating an extra turn most of the time. Likewise you can see how powerful when something like Godlike Power or Unstoppable Crash can be used repeatedly, and those don't even generate AP compared to Lightning Strike, which is probably THE original board control move. A move like Unstoppable Crash should be considered equivalent of 3-4 turns since it usually takes at least that many turns to move the board that much, and there's no consistency in the order they hand out such moves.

avs962

Trisul wrote:

As a 2* player I'm excited by the 2* Daken and Hawkeye updates. Also glad I didn't invest in CMags yet!

In Hearthstone, the devs allow full crafting cost refunds for changed cards for a limited amount of time. Do you think MPQ might be able to do something similar (i.e. CMags sells for more iso for a week or two post-change)?

They offered an increased sell price for Spidey when they took his budding manhood away, and when they made changes to Thor and Wolverine. It wasn't much, but it was more.

Unknown

Trisul wrote:

As a 2* player I'm excited by the 2* Daken and Hawkeye updates. Also glad I didn't invest in CMags yet!

In Hearthstone, the devs allow full crafting cost refunds for changed cards for a limited amount of time. Do you think MPQ might be able to do something similar (i.e. CMags sells for more iso for a week or two post-change)?

They have done it before, though I don't recommend selling developed characters unless you've decided to stop hoarding meaningless characters. For example, Spiderman was offered such a deal, but you shouldn't sell him because Spiderman is useless (even though he is). You should sell him only because you decided to stop paying 500 HP for another roster spot for another person that you'll never use.

Unknown

j12601 wrote:

IceIX wrote:

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.

Sounds like 2* Sentry to me. He was an Avenger prior to joining up with Osborn & Co.

Or 2* Hood. I just read the Hood 5 issue series that the in game cover is taken from. He does try to be a decent guy for his girlfriend and kid, and even tries to give up the cape to be rid of Dormamu's influence. Hmm...

Unknown

j12601 wrote:

j12601 wrote:

IceIX wrote:

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.

Sounds like 2* Sentry to me. He was an Avenger prior to joining up with Osborn & Co.

Or 2* Hood. I just read the Hood 5 issue series that the in game cover is taken from. He does try to be a decent guy for his girlfriend and kid, and even tries to give up the cape to be rid of Dormamu's influence. Hmm...

Also, I may be reading this wrong. I'm reading it as the 2* being a variant of an existing 3* villain.

Kelbris

Sandmaker wrote:

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.

why would you fix something that's making money?

Unknown

I'm just going to summarize all my thoughts on recent development and game development philosophy in general by saying "I agree with Phantron".

Also this,

reckless442 wrote:

If that's the game design, it's idiotic and has never been the case since the beginning and never will be. In any game with characters with different powers, there are going to be certain characters that are stronger than others. But that isn't the idea. It's ridiculous to say that any combination of 3*s should be equal to any other combination. Different characters have different strengths and weaknesses. For instance, Psylocke is very underrated offensively, when paired with Patch. She doesn't work with Modern Storm because they both rely on black (and used to rely on red) attacks. Storm is a support character and actually is a good counter to certain characters, including Sentry, except the nerf made her less effective.

This statement is ridiculous, even if it's true (which it is, for Psylocke and Storm). The IDEA is this: Whatever 3* you get to 13 covers first should help you bridge the gap to 3* land from 2* land. If you get Storm and I get Sentry, we are going to have very very different experiences. They don't have to be equal, but they do have to be "close enough".

A while back, I read a theory thread that stated "We are fast reaching the point where any 3* team can beat any other 3* team, so the highest scores belong to the people who play the fastest". While this is no longer true (thanks shields...) the core premise that vs the AI any team of 166 166 166 characters should beat the AI the majority of the time (75% to use Phantron's example), and this just doesn't hold true vs Daken/Sentry/Featured. It's a clear outlier in the power scheme and thus, needs fixed.

Unknown

Stupid mouse...

Sorry for double post.