It's about time.

amarrero

So, what's going to be final Laken/Daken nerf? I remember that the original post was full of errors before they announced that the nerf would be postponed. I was about to pump ISO into Laken (now that I've maxed Patch) but I'd like to know what the final tally of the nerf will be before I do.

Unknown

reckless442 wrote:

Since the AI does not use Mags' blue that effectively, how is "infinite turns" that big a problem? Why isn't stalling your opponent so you can do extra moves as much an effective strategy as world rupture/sacrifice or berserker rage/rage of panther?

Because:

reckless442 wrote:

Mags' blue is the best counter to damage because he reduces the AI's opportunities to attack.

Your argument seems to be "don't nerf mags because players don't take damage when they use him, and players don't like taking damage." Um, so? How is that a realistic expectation? Why not go all the way and just remove the "enemies take a turn, ever" mechanic from the game entirely?

I think the fact that high-level play devolves into "who can shield-hop the fastest" instead of "who is effective at matching gems and using abilities" is a major FLAW in this game. You seem to be advocating that d3p just give up on the whole "battle" concept and make shield-hopping 100% of the game instead of 80% or whatever.

IceIX

flnn1 wrote:

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.

I'll just answer off this quote so I hit both.

1) Were tweaking PVE balancing a bit again as you've noticed, mostly with the idea that shorter Events may be better than longer ones. Longer events get more overall players but shorter Events get more engagement. Problem with short Events is that subs also get shorter which reduces the effectiveness of rubber banding.

2) One of the methods of gaining feedback on ability changes is already the forums, but in a proactive manner. When we consider changes we look at what people are saying about the abilities, concepts for changes, balancing issues, etc and use that to formulate what our plans are.

2a) We've got both a block of abilities like for Daken as well as a post which details the thought process behind each change. So you'll have both.

IceIX

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)?

We normally do increased sell prices for changed characters when the change is at all major, yes.

IceIX

Kelbris wrote:

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?

This is a rhetorical question, but the answer in any case would be because it's bad for the game. That and Shield/Health Packs/Boosts aren't really money makers, so changing things around them aren't huge marks for/against the bottom line anyway.

wymtime

gamar wrote:

reckless442 wrote:

Since the AI does not use Mags' blue that effectively, how is "infinite turns" that big a problem? Why isn't stalling your opponent so you can do extra moves as much an effective strategy as world rupture/sacrifice or berserker rage/rage of panther?

Because:

reckless442 wrote:

Mags' blue is the best counter to damage because he reduces the AI's opportunities to attack.

Your argument seems to be "don't nerf mags because players don't take damage when they use him, and players don't like taking damage." Um, so? How is that a realistic expectation? Why not go all the way and just remove the "enemies take a turn, ever" mechanic from the game entirely?

I think the fact that high-level play devolves into "who can shield-hop the fastest" instead of "who is effective at matching gems and using abilities" is a major FLAW in this game. You seem to be advocating that d3p just give up on the whole "battle" concept and make shield-hopping 100% of the game instead of 80% or whatever.

To add on the Dev's did not intend to have any ability to be used 5+ times in a row. I have CMags at level 91 with 4 blue and I completly abuse this power. By throwing strike tiles out first CMags can wipe out all 3 players in 1 turn by thowing out defensive shields, and then destroying 5 tiles at a cost of 2AP which stil do a lot of damage with strike tiles. Players have been able to take advantage of this for a long time and it is good that they are changing him. You can call it a Nerf if you want, I will not call it that unless he becomes unplayable. The Dev's have taken a lot of time to work on his changes so I am hoping he is still strong since he is such a powerful Marvel character. If it is a nerf then at least I got some time to abuse him while I could.

IceIX

Polares wrote:

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

Blue is changing to be more of what its intention was originally (creates strong Protect tiles) more than an infinite AP/damage/Critical tile generator.

Release of changes requires R60 for a couple of things, so timing depends somewhat on when it comes out of first party.

wymtime

IceEX are there any rebalancing to older characters comming in the near future to make them more playable? Here are a couple of my suggestions
IM40- red 12AP does not drain other colors. Blue cost 15 AP does not drain other colors. Yellow cost 9 AP for levels 1-5 and get rid of the self stun. Becuase of his recharge blue is now atainable and is really a game ending volley when used with strike tiles. By fixing the cost of yellow to 9AP you don't have to **** him to 5,5,2 or 5,5,1.

GSBW- drop the cost of sniper rifle to 15. Aggresive recon to sniper rifle nuff said.

HT- get rid of the AP drain on his black and raise his health a little. He does high damage and has 3 strong damage abilities.

Lcap- lower yellow to 9 AP. This will let him throw out his protect tiles early and give him some time to get his red and blue. They can also reduce the power of his shield tiles since they will cost less.

Unknown

Bowgentle wrote:

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.

I don't really agree with this. Without sentry you can't do 2 50 point matches in 1 min and not get hit. With the other combos, you are out a lot longer and have the possibility of getting hit a lot more than with 30 second sentry matches. It's no coincidence that the scores started getting crazy right when sentry was introduced. Remeber flo98? he was hitting 2k with JUST sentry daken. I don't think even xmen could hit 2k without him no matter how many hops/ shields they use.

Unknown

is the daken change going to be on the 3 star version? if so, get the **** out of here with the 2 star art.

lol @ nerfing patchneto and potentially sentry/daken, basically the only teams that can compete with sentry/hood in terms of shield hopping. really nice, 10/10. I get magneto's blue is broken, but I think something should be done about sentry/hood (or just sentry in general) if you're going to be taking away the only other shieldhop teams.

IceIX

Kaden wrote:

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?

Depends on player type. The harder core (people on these forums for example) types tend to do what you say. They play at the beginning to hit a progression tier then wait and make their pounce at the end. A much larger contingent of players tend to play all throughout the Event with a slight spike at the end for last minute score adjustments, generally with a shield when they're happy with their current score.

What do we want? People to engage with every Event that suits them. That may be every Versus Event to keep up their Season ranking. Could be only PVE. Could be only Versus. We just want people taking advantage of our timed Events in general. Play patterns within those Events are important in that too large of skews one way or another can influence things, but we don't want to *force* players into a particular play style. That was one of the reasons for introducing shields in the first place, so that people didn't need to play at the end if they didn't want to.

Unknown

Uan31 wrote:

I do feel that IW is due a buff too. Perhaps a power that helps to freeze special tiles such as countdown, strike etc? Just a thought cos that would tie in nicely with her powers in comics.

I have bad news to you. She already buffed.

Unknown

sms4002 wrote:

Bowgentle wrote:

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.

I don't really agree with this. Without sentry you can't do 2 50 point matches in 1 min and not get hit.

That doesnt make sense. If you don't have Sentry and your matches take longer, then it will also take longer for other people to beat you, so you have more time.

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

Kelbris wrote:

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?

This is a rhetorical question, but the answer in any case would be because it's bad for the game. That and Shield/Health Packs/Boosts aren't really money makers, so changing things around them aren't huge marks for/against the bottom line anyway.

I've been saying this for a while but just because health pack makes money doesn't mean it makes sense to try to promote them even if D3 is totally greedy, because promoting them may lead to loss of sales elsewhere. The last known breakdown has tokens, ability upgrade, and roster expansion as the big 3 for HP expenditure. If Daken/Sentry is all you ever need, that doesn't exactly give people motivation to ever spend on the big 3 categories that makes the most money once you've Daken and Sentry.

Unknown

PPPlaya wrote:

sms4002 wrote:

Bowgentle wrote:

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.

I don't really agree with this. Without sentry you can't do 2 50 point matches in 1 min and not get hit.

That doesnt make sense. If you don't have Sentry and your matches take longer, then it will also take longer for other people to beat you, so you have more time.

Not true - let's say currently matches with Sentry take 1 minute. 3 wins = 3 minutes. Let's say it takes someone 2 minutes to find you once you unshield + 1 minute to beat you, also 3 minutes so you can get those wins and reshield without the loss.

With a Sentry adjustment, wins now take 3 minutes. 3 wins - 9 minutes. However, it still takes 2 minutes to find you + 3 minutes to beat you, so 5 minutes on the loss. Not to mention the other 10 people that may find you in that longer window.

The key now is that you can get 2 wins in before anybody gets you queued up (due to slow servers and the skipping process in general) for a relatively safe 3 attacks per hop. If matches take longer, that safety goes away

BearVenger

wymtime wrote:

IceEX are there any rebalancing to older characters comming in the near future to make them more playable? Here are a couple of my suggestions
IM40- red 12AP does not drain other colors. Blue cost 15 AP does not drain other colors. Yellow cost 9 AP for levels 1-5 and get rid of the self stun. Becuase of his recharge blue is now atainable and is really a game ending volley when used with strike tiles. By fixing the cost of yellow to 9AP you don't have to **** him to 5,5,2 or 5,5,1.

GSBW- drop the cost of sniper rifle to 15. Aggresive recon to sniper rifle nuff said.

HT- get rid of the AP drain on his black and raise his health a little. He does high damage and has 3 strong damage abilities.

Lcap- lower yellow to 9 AP. This will let him throw out his protect tiles early and give him some time to get his red and blue. They can also reduce the power of his shield tiles since they will cost less.

Otersey, let me counter your suggestions with the premise that all characters should have some drawback, so they can keep a balance with the rest if the roster. For example, HT's red is cheaper and more powerful than IM40, but he's a lot harder to keep alive than IM40.

However, IM40, BWGS, CMags, and Ragnarok definitely came from a time when 1*s were the intro, 2*s were the meat of the roster and 3*s were rare, complementary characters (If I had to throw out an arbitrary dividing line, I think Punisher was the first standalone 3*). I do think that IM40 and BWGS are not in line with the rest of their 3* comrades in terms of ability cost/effect.

I think both should be carefully tweaked (so not to appear as the toys that don't get taken out of the box anymore), but still retain their handicaps: slowness or fragility at the expense of.powah!

Unknown

papa07 wrote:

PPPlaya wrote:

sms4002 wrote:

Bowgentle wrote:

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.

I don't really agree with this. Without sentry you can't do 2 50 point matches in 1 min and not get hit.

That doesnt make sense. If you don't have Sentry and your matches take longer, then it will also take longer for other people to beat you, so you have more time.

Not true - let's say currently matches with Sentry take 1 minute. 3 wins = 3 minutes. Let's say it takes someone 2 minutes to find you once you unshield + 1 minute to beat you, also 3 minutes so you can get those wins and reshield without the loss.

With a Sentry adjustment, wins now take 3 minutes. 3 wins - 9 minutes. However, it still takes 2 minutes to find you + 3 minutes to beat you, so 5 minutes on the loss. Not to mention the other 10 people that may find you in that longer window.

The key now is that you can get 2 wins in before anybody gets you queued up (due to slow servers and the skipping process in general) for a relatively safe 3 attacks per hop. If matches take longer, that safety goes away

3 Minutes is probably an exaggeration. With 2 minutes the calculation becomes much more managable. And if it cuts down on shield-hopping I am all for it. I am not in a top 10 alliance but the guys there would probably be glad they dont have to compete with 1900 scores.

Spoit

DrUnpleasant wrote:

Jathro wrote:

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

You could be on to something if it's referring to Hearts as in the suit of cards. Gambit? Hmmm, another X-Men character might be overkill.

Jack of hearts

Red: blow up and kill another member of your team

Unknown

I'll ask again. A lot has been said regarding making newer players happy and making game attractive for new players. My question, are there any plans to help in retaining veteran players (more and more keep leaving or playing very little) such as new game modes, etc.?

Obviously, if there is no plan, or if this is not a conern, then no answer is necessary.

Spoit

Oh IceIX actually came back!

Any chance you could answer:

Spoit wrote:

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?