It's about time.

ThatOneGuyjp189512

Kelbris wrote:

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

this is precisely why i chose to play on steam over playing on my iPod...the UI on mobile is not that great, if on tablet they'd allow a landscape mode to mimic steams UI i'd play it on that....till then meh

TazFTW

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.

Because of the OBW/mBW comparison, my guess is the 2* will be Juggy or Venom. If it's downgraded 3*, I'd like to see Matt Murdock or Daredevil (Yellow). A Daredevil that you can use against goons.

If it wasn't for that "Really." part I'd say the 3* description sounds like Gambit.

reckless442

Lerysh wrote:

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.

Different characters serve different purposes in this game. Why is that so hard to understand? Some are better in PVE than others. Have you tried Falcon and Storm against goons? When Storm's black is doing 2000 damage per turn, after your match damage, it's pretty damn good. But she isn't great in PVP. But when was the last time you saw Falcon in PVP if he's not the featured character? He's pretty useless there. Sentry is massive in PVP, especially with boosts, but he is not feasible as a main character in PVE because of the damage he inflicts on his own team. (The possible exception is if the player is intentionally trying to cause damage to prevent scaling and is willing to pay for health packs.) Certain characters in this game are support players or designed to be counters to others. They are not going to all be equal in power.

So it's not accurate to assume that any random 3* cover should necessarily be "close" to the top 3*. There are going to be tiers. I think what you should expect is that if you manage to build 5-6 3*s, you should be able to be competitive, because then you are likely to have some balance in terms of offense (LT/Sentry/BP/HT/Patch/Psylocke), high health (LT/Sentry/Hulk), and support powers (Storm/Spidey/Mags/Falcon/Hood). Mags and Spidey have been great equalizers, since they could offset not having health and offense by reducing the opponent's opportunities to inflict damage (with a downside of increasing the time those matches take). My problem that the Devs have been so concerned about increasing health-pack usage that they have destroyed a lot of the best support powers, which has really diminished the game experience.

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.

I think people are reading IceIX's hints wrong. He mentions 4 characters, and then provides additional teasers for the last two. In order, these are:

• Beast; "coming at the start of Heroic Chapter 3" This phrase suggests Beast will be available during Heroic Chapter 3, but I suspect he'll be available afterwards as the reward.
• Colossus
• a 2*; "a variant that's about as similar to their other form as Black Widow (Original) is to Black Widow (Modern)".
• a 3*; "a good guy at heart, when it comes down to it".

My Analysis to follow. Going to use spoiler tags so that this post doesn't take up too much space.

The 2* is the most intriguing. Worth noting that the comprison is OBW and MBW (and not GSBW who is significantly different from her lower star counterparts). Possible similarities include:
Power Colours/Tile Strengths (Purple/Blue).
"Shared" Ability - I believe "Aggressive Recon" is unique in that 2 very similar abilities on two different version of the same character share the same name.
1* character has 2 powers, 2* character has 3 powers.

Fortunately, there's not too many "solo" 1*'s left - Yelena, Venom, and Juggernaut. Both Venom and Juggernaut could easily get 2* versions that fit one or more of those similarities. There's also Iron Man, who's noteable for not yet having a 2* variant. A new Iron Man would fit the bill and is probably a character that demiurge can guarantee that new players will spend money on.

Also worth noting that the clue makes a point of comparing similarities across forms without making reference to specific rarity values. OBW -> MBW is comparing a 2* to a 1*; we know that this new character is a 2*, but this may be another "de-star" of an existing 3* character. 2* Johnny Storm definitely took me by surprise, so it could be possible.

There's a many more characters with only 3* covers - Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Daredevil, Deadpool, Dr. Doom, Falcon, Hood, Hulk, Loki, Psylocke, Punisher, Ragnarok, Sentry, and She-Hulk.
From that list, I think the only stand out is Hulk.

As for who the 3* character might be? Sounds like a bit of an anti-hero. Maybe Ghost Rider?

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

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.

How up to date are your numbers on this? As many others have said so far, 1100 and up is all sentry daken/hood. I very rarely see patch mags combos that high up anymore. I think what's happening here is that in terms of the TOTAL player base sure, sentry may not appear to be used that much because its only maybe 500 top guys out of the 100,000(?) players that play the game. Set up a sandbox account and climb up so it won't affect anyone and just take note of all the teams you see. Take a look at all the top teams hitting these crazy numbers every pvp and notice that every single one of them are using sentry. Hell, please notice that some of them are literally using a loner character and a 1 star hawkeye plus sentry and STILL taking down a max Lthor, Hulk and BP. Put yourself in the shoes of those top players and see what they see. Sentry is single handedly making this game p2w and widening the gap between the veterans and the guys trying to climb up. He is severely overpowered and needs a nerf over any of these guys.

OnesOwnGrief

On the topic of 2* Variants. In the case of Venom, he's on only listed as Venom, not Mac Gargan. This can lead to introduction of Venom (Flash Thompson), Venom (Eddie Brock) that will sell buckets (should be a 3*), or maybe a 2* healer as Anti-Venom (Eddie Brock). Having a secondary healer for 2* would actually be a plus in my opinion.

Yelena seems out of the question. Okay, maybe not but we could always go the super adaptoid route.
Juggernaut could see a Colossus varient later if not already the one we're getting or a non-Cytorrak version.
Iron-Man, It'd be to soon no matter how long it's been to see another armor to me.

Moving on to only 3 star characters, I really don't want to think about it to be perfectly honest. List is small and a headache to even think where that would go.

Bowgentle

sms4002 wrote:

IceIX wrote:

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.

How up to date are your numbers on this? As many others have said so far, 1100 and up is all sentry daken/hood. I very rarely see patch mags combos that high up anymore. I think what's happening here is that in terms of the TOTAL player base sure, sentry may not appear to be used that much because its only maybe 500 top guys out of the 100,000(?) players that play the game. Set up a sandbox account and climb up so it won't affect anyone and just take note of all the teams you see. Take a look at all the top teams hitting these crazy numbers every pvp and notice that every single one of them are using sentry. Hell, please notice that some of them are literally using a loner character and a 1 star hawkeye plus sentry and STILL taking down a max Lthor, Hulk and BP. Put yourself in the shoes of those top players and see what they see. Sentry is single handedly making this game p2w and widening the gap between the veterans and the guys trying to climb up. He is severely overpowered and needs a nerf over any of these guys.

To play Devil's advocate here, you're arguing for even more sharding.
Because if the guys using Sentry are bracketed together, the transitioning guys can be in their own cute little brackets and get their 3* covers for 700 points.

Another devil's advocate thought: You really think nerfing Sentry will reduce the points the X-Men put up? No, it won't. They'll just switch to the next speedkill combo, say Patch/Hulk. Sure, Hulk needs a Health Pack after every match instead of after 3 like Sentry, and you might get a bad board, but it's still 3 fights every shield hop.

I don't think the solution to the crazy high scores is as easy as nerfing Sentry.
Yes, he needs a nerf because he's more prevalent than Thorverine at their best times, but it won't solve the underlying problems.

Polares

Oh yeah! A buffed XForce!!! I ve been waitin ages for this!

And please, don't destroy Magneto, leave Blue as it is now

My only question is about when is going to be released. Maybe this week or the next? I hope it is really soon

reckless442

Bowgentle wrote:

sms4002 wrote:

IceIX wrote:

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.

How up to date are your numbers on this? As many others have said so far, 1100 and up is all sentry daken/hood. I very rarely see patch mags combos that high up anymore. I think what's happening here is that in terms of the TOTAL player base sure, sentry may not appear to be used that much because its only maybe 500 top guys out of the 100,000(?) players that play the game. Set up a sandbox account and climb up so it won't affect anyone and just take note of all the teams you see. Take a look at all the top teams hitting these crazy numbers every pvp and notice that every single one of them are using sentry. Hell, please notice that some of them are literally using a loner character and a 1 star hawkeye plus sentry and STILL taking down a max Lthor, Hulk and BP. Put yourself in the shoes of those top players and see what they see. Sentry is single handedly making this game p2w and widening the gap between the veterans and the guys trying to climb up. He is severely overpowered and needs a nerf over any of these guys.

To play Devil's advocate here, you're arguing for even more sharding.
Because if the guys using Sentry are bracketed together, the transitioning guys can be in their own cute little brackets and get their 3* covers for 700 points.

Another devil's advocate thought: You really think nerfing Sentry will reduce the points the X-Men put up? No, it won't. They'll just switch to the next speedkill combo, say Patch/Hulk. Sure, Hulk needs a Health Pack after every match instead of after 3 like Sentry, and you might get a bad board, but it's still 3 fights every shield hop.

I don't think the solution to the crazy high scores is as easy as nerfing Sentry.
Yes, he needs a nerf because he's more prevalent than Thorverine at their best times, but it won't solve the underlying problems.

Bowgentle, I think you may be misunderstanding the prior post. sms isn't proposing sharding; he's suggesting that the devs actually play the game and see what happens when you get to a certain level and start seeing endless Sentrys. The problem is that Devs are looking at metrics that show the total playerbase, but the concern is that the tens of thousands of people who play only a few games in PVP are providing metrics that obscure what veteran and higher-level players are experiencing. If the Devs care about their most avid players but don't see those problems because they are lost in tr data dump, how can they ever be fixed?

Bowgentle

reckless442 wrote:

Bowgentle, I think you may be misunderstanding the prior post. sms isn't proposing sharding; he's suggesting that the devs actually play the game and see what happens when you get to a certain level and start seeing endless Sentrys. The problem is that Devs are looking at metrics that show the total playerbase, but the concern is that the tens of thousands of people who play only a few games in PVP are providing metrics that obscure what veteran and higher-level players are experiencing. If the Devs care about their most avid players but don't see those problems because they are lost in tr data dump, how can they ever be fixed?

Nope, sms brought the "how should transitioning players get covers when they need 1100 to get into t10" argument.
Bracketing the vets away from "the guys climbing up" would solve that problem.

I'm not arguing for sharding - just saying that the argument of the transitioning player isn't a good one to make.

Let's be honest: We hate seeing nothing but Sentries at high points. No need to bring in the little guys when it's really not about them but about us vets not liking the current meta because it heavily favours P2W.

modmousests

Its gonnabe beast and he is in a pve starting today

themoneymaker

finally the cmags buff and x force nerf ive been waiting for

HairyDave

Polares wrote:

And please, don't destroy Magneto, leave Blue as it is now

Sure... cause infinite turns aren't broken at all

IamTheDanger

Mawtful wrote:

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.

I think people are reading IceIX's hints wrong. He mentions 4 characters, and then provides additional teasers for the last two. In order, these are:

• Beast; "coming at the start of Heroic Chapter 3" This phrase suggests Beast will be available during Heroic Chapter 3, but I suspect he'll be available afterwards as the reward.
• Colossus
• a 2*; "a variant that's about as similar to their other form as Black Widow (Original) is to Black Widow (Modern)".
• a 3*; "a good guy at heart, when it comes down to it".

My Analysis to follow. Going to use spoiler tags so that this post doesn't take up too much space.

The 2* is the most intriguing. Worth noting that the comprison is OBW and MBW (and not GSBW who is significantly different from her lower star counterparts). Possible similarities include:
Power Colours/Tile Strengths (Purple/Blue).
"Shared" Ability - I believe "Aggressive Recon" is unique in that 2 very similar abilities on two different version of the same character share the same name.
1* character has 2 powers, 2* character has 3 powers.

Fortunately, there's not too many "solo" 1*'s left - Yelena, Venom, and Juggernaut. Both Venom and Juggernaut could easily get 2* versions that fit one or more of those similarities. There's also Iron Man, who's noteable for not yet having a 2* variant. A new Iron Man would fit the bill and is probably a character that demiurge can guarantee that new players will spend money on.

Also worth noting that the clue makes a point of comparing similarities across forms without making reference to specific rarity values. OBW -> MBW is comparing a 2* to a 1*; we know that this new character is a 2*, but this may be another "de-star" of an existing 3* character. 2* Johnny Storm definitely took me by surprise, so it could be possible.

There's a many more characters with only 3* covers - Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Daredevil, Deadpool, Dr. Doom, Falcon, Hood, Hulk, Loki, Psylocke, Punisher, Ragnarok, Sentry, and She-Hulk.
From that list, I think the only stand out is Hulk.

As for who the 3* character might be? Sounds like a bit of an anti-hero. Maybe Ghost Rider?

The 2* could be She Hulk in the form of Jennifer Walters. If you remember back when they did the event to release her, her human form was pictured on the "recruit hero page". Which means they already have the art work.

The 3* sounds like a villian with a conscience. But, since some of the character releases have coincided with the release of Marvel movies, it could be AntMan or even Darren Cross(but I doubt it'll be Cross, even though his hearts came from good people, Really).

With so many characters in the marvel universe to choose from, i'm not going to worry about it too much. Instead, I'll just enjoy this wonderfully fabulous game that is like crack to me, and just wait until the new characters get here. When that will be and who they are is something we'll all find out eventually.

JJ

Unknown

gobstopper wrote:

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.

Where did Ice mention anything about little/no rubberbanding? I can't see anything to that effect but I guess you're talking about recent reductions to rubberbanding in the Hulk/ISO events.

Obviously >>here<< is where I'd usually ask Ice (or any of the Dev/Pub crew) about plans to fix the UK/Euro PvE end time issue but... meh...

Unknown

if your going to end up vaulting players, then do a huge pvp event where its easy to get them so people can finish them, and allow trading so people who couldnt get them can get them

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.

Firstly, YAY Colossus! My first thought for the 2* would be Juggernaut or Venom but then I realized he didn't really imply it was a 1* so then I thought about it and Iron Man, Falcon, and Hulk came to mind as potential 3* guys that could be getting another cover.

First two characters that come to mind with that 3* tag line are Ghost Rider and Cable.

Polares

HairyDave wrote:

Polares wrote:

And please, don't destroy Magneto, leave Blue as it is now

Sure... cause infinite turns aren't broken at all

But you can't have infinite turns just with blue, you need a very spammable red for that. If you try to use magneto's blue without never using red, you can tipically use blue 3-5 times in a row, if you are vey lucky maybe more, but the typical scenario is 3 to 5 times before you need to match blue again.

I know it is broken right now, but it is algo fun, so I hope there can be a compromise where it remains fun, but it is not so OP (leave blue more or less as it is now, but make red with a cost of 8+ or so, with more damage, etc.)

Jathro

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.

Seeing as we have a 1*, a 2* and a 3* Black Widow, that portion leads me to think the 2* will be a variant of someone who will mirror that.... and the only character with both a 1* and a 3* already is Iron Man. My guess is we'll get a 2* Iron Man.

As far as the 3* speculation, could "at heart" be a pun? "When it comes down" to it? Yeah, I got nothing.

Unknown

I'm not really expecting much more Q&A than we've already gotten out of this thread, but just in case, I did have a couple of questions.

A common perception is that no one really plays the PvP events until the end. Maybe a few people will play to a certain reward tier earlier than that, but for the most part all the action takes place in the last 8-10 hours of an event. How accurate is that view?

To follow up, what kinds of play patterns do you guys expect and what kinds of play patterns do you want?

What's being done to reinforce or change those patterns?