How many B-/C+ new characters do we have to sit through

Ludaa

Are newer players at all interested in them? Building a 3* character in this game is such a huge commitment of your time and resources. They need to present a clear advantage to being on your roster, and I'm just not seeing any with the new ones. Granted, my view is different at 200+ days, but I chose who to build by looking at whatever point wall I couldn't pass in PvP. I doubt we'll see any of the new characters at such walls. Yeesh, am I just a jaded veteran now?

Characters that people are interested in and actively leveling in my alliance chat ( is yours any different? ):
Xforce
Sentry
LThor
LDaken ( The one guy I dropped some cash for, 2 months or so ago, and it kicked my game into high gear. Totally worth it. )
Hood
Patch
Panther

Characters nobody has been interested in since their release:
Storm (Mohawk)
Deadpool
She Hulk
Beast
*Colossus (Verdict is still out, but probably another pass or just for PvE)

Nonce Equitaur 2

R60 seems fairly successful compared to past releases, even though they nerfed the most fun-to-play character in the game.

They weakened Magneto, but didn't make him useless. They Daken is slightly weaker. Also, they buffed several B-/C+/F characters.

D3 will likely repeat that. For the next release ...

Expect something to happen to Sentry to eliminate the 30-second win against any team. Sentry will remain formidable, though.
Expect a weak character to get a buff.

Unknown

I may go on a limb and say Colossus will be similar to hulk in terms of ranking. Simply of his high hp/protect/fastball which would make it a good defensive setup. And, depending on how his black works. This may pave the way for high ap casting characters like Ironman40 to become more effective which in turn raises his value over time. Something tells me, he may become a counter for Sentry team as well, especially Sentry will be the focal point for the next patch, along side Colossus's entry....

Dayv

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

R60 seems fairly successful compared to past releases, even though they nerfed the most fun-to-play character in the game.

They weakened Magneto, but didn't make him useless. They Daken is slightly weaker. Also, they buffed several B-/C+/F characters.

D3 will likely repeat that. For the next release ...

Expect something to happen to Sentry to eliminate the 30-second win against any team. Sentry will remain formidable, though.
Expect a weak character to get a buff.

I have to disagree on Magneto being that much fun to play in his broken incarnation. To me it was tedious and a bit shameful, like hiding in a wall glitch in a deathmatch game until only one other player is left.

Otherwise, I totally agree, they did a very good job balancing characters in this real ease. I'll be surprised if we get a significant amount of character changes in the very next one, though. I think we won't see another batch of existing character changes until R62, at least.

Cragger

I'm stealing this post from a similar topic on another forum.

I have seen many posts that talk about bad cards, cards needing buffing, and other inter-related discussions, and I recalled seeing an article from years ago explaining why bad cards exist in a ccg/tcg, and why they should exist.

This article was written way back in early 2002 by Mark Rosewater, who was a lead designer for MtG, at that time. He is now MtG's Head Designer. I went and dug through the dusty old archives of WotC's website and found the article to share.

Short story:

1. By definition, some bad cards have to exist. (The most important reason.)

2. Some cards are “bad” because they aren’t meant for you.

3. Some cards are “bad” because they’re designed for a less advanced player.

4. Some cards are “bad” because the right deck for them doesn’t exist yet
.
5.“Bad” cards reward the more skilled player.

6. Some players enjoy discovering good “bad” cards.

7. Some “bad” cards are simply R&D goofing up.

If you want to read the article, where he goes into great detail on each of the 7 reasons, you can read it here:

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr5

It is a very interesting read.

zonatahunt

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

R60 seems fairly successful compared to past releases, even though they nerfed the most fun-to-play character in the game.

They weakened Magneto, but didn't make him useless. They Daken is slightly weaker. Also, they buffed several B-/C+/F characters.

D3 will likely repeat that. For the next release ...

Expect something to happen to Sentry to eliminate the 30-second win against any team. Sentry will remain formidable, though.
Expect a weak character to get a buff.

Nonce, with respect to your last three sentences...do you know those claims to be fact? Thank you!

Nonce Equitaur 2

zonatahunt wrote:

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

R60 seems fairly successful compared to past releases, even though they nerfed the most fun-to-play character in the game.

They weakened Magneto, but didn't make him useless. They Daken is slightly weaker. Also, they buffed several B-/C+/F characters.

D3 will likely repeat that. For the next release ...

Expect something to happen to Sentry to eliminate the 30-second win against any team. Sentry will remain formidable, though.
Expect a weak character to get a buff.

Nonce, with respect to your last three sentences...do you know those claims to be fact? Thank you!

"D3 will likely...", so no.

It may not be next release, but eventually they'll put a stop to the trivial 30-second win.

NorthernPolarity

Cragger wrote:

I'm stealing this post from a similar topic on another forum.

I have seen many posts that talk about bad cards, cards needing buffing, and other inter-related discussions, and I recalled seeing an article from years ago explaining why bad cards exist in a ccg/tcg, and why they should exist.

This article was written way back in early 2002 by Mark Rosewater, who was a lead designer for MtG, at that time. He is now MtG's Head Designer. I went and dug through the dusty old archives of WotC's website and found the article to share.

Short story:

1. By definition, some bad cards have to exist. (The most important reason.)

2. Some cards are “bad” because they aren’t meant for you.

3. Some cards are “bad” because they’re designed for a less advanced player.

4. Some cards are “bad” because the right deck for them doesn’t exist yet
.
5.“Bad” cards reward the more skilled player.

6. Some players enjoy discovering good “bad” cards.

7. Some “bad” cards are simply R&D goofing up.

If you want to read the article, where he goes into great detail on each of the 7 reasons, you can read it here:

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr5

It is a very interesting read.

It is pretty interesting, but I don't think it's applicable at all to MPQ because they're two games with completely different designs. The difference is that in magic, they have to release anywhere from 100-200 cards per expansion in order to support the limited format. Having bad/redundant cards is perfectly fine in this scenario because there simply isn't enough design space to make every single card unique while keeping the game the way it was originally designed. MPQ is more like Street Fighter. Even though character tiers gradually emerged after playing, the ideal scenario is that every character is unique and balanced to be competitive in some way or form, and this is possible because there are so few characters that need to be pushed out consistently (1 character every couple of weeks is easy to not exhaust all the design space in MPQ compared to 200 cards every 3 months) relatively speaking and so much design space for a single character that they can make a lot of new characters without repeating themselves and making identical characters. While you might argue that characters like Dan are intentionally bad, the developers clearly tried to make every single other character viable, and MPQ should be trying to follow the same philosophy. In Magic, you buy a booster, and get 15 new cards. You don't have a real sense of attachment to the majority of the cards, especially the bad ones. In MPQ, you spend 2-3 months waiting for them to release enough covers to max out a single character. You pour weeks of farming iso into that single character, and have an attachment to that character and an expectation that that character is going to be viable in some way and not completely obsoleted by other characters such as Sentry. The "intentionally bad" argument makes no sense for MPQ, and the devs should try to buff every character to at least Psylocke tier so that they are viable in some shape or form.

TLDR: MPQ is not a traditional TCG/CCG because there are so few cards and people become significantly invested in the cards they have, and as such the "intentionally" bad card argument doesn't apply.

wymtime

silverrex wrote:

I may go on a limb and say Colossus will be similar to hulk in terms of ranking. Simply of his high hp/protect/fastball which would make it a good defensive setup. And, depending on how his black works. This may pave the way for high ap casting characters like Ironman40 to become more effective which in turn raises his value over time. Something tells me, he may become a counter for Sentry team as well, especially Sentry will be the focal point for the next patch, along side Colossus's entry....

I think Colossus will be a best on the right team. Imagine being able to throw LThor and getting CoTS followed up with Colossus red? I also agree with Nounce that the Dev's will buff some of the older characters that have been not so usefull

NorthernPolarity

silverrex wrote:

I may go on a limb and say Colossus will be similar to hulk in terms of ranking. Simply of his high hp/protect/fastball which would make it a good defensive setup. And, depending on how his black works. This may pave the way for high ap casting characters like Ironman40 to become more effective which in turn raises his value over time. Something tells me, he may become a counter for Sentry team as well, especially Sentry will be the focal point for the next patch, along side Colossus's entry....

He's going to be a lot worse than Hulk unfortunately =(
1. The AI sucks at placing tiles, so they could place his yellow on a tile that will get matched immediately.
2. His yellow reduces BASE damage, so you take the full amount of strike tile damage, meaning that even if he miracuously gets off yellow, Sentry's WR + strike tiles still deals near full damage, since only the base WR damage gets reduced.
3. The attacker can just select another character so Colossus isn't in front when he uses his red, meaning that he's almost never going to get a fully charged red off.
4. Black is also completely random, so Colossus could either throw the wrong guy, or if he throws the right guy, the right guy might whiff by using the wrong ability. It also costs 13AP which takes forever to get off. The ability will also probably do nothing if the other 2 guys are dead and Colossus is the only one alive.

He just seems... really really bad on defense. He's fine on offense because his red is mini call the storm, but on defense, he's a pushover.

Unknown

Beast was a disappointment to me, sadly. While I like the general concept, his green power is just too weak, and the same goes for his blue. With stronger blue and green, he could be rather good. And back in the times when there was actual healing, he could have been great.

Spoit

silverrex wrote:

I may go on a limb and say Colossus will be similar to hulk in terms of ranking. Simply of his high hp/protect/fastball which would make it a good defensive setup. And, depending on how his black works. This may pave the way for high ap casting characters like Ironman40 to become more effective which in turn raises his value over time. Something tells me, he may become a counter for Sentry team as well, especially Sentry will be the focal point for the next patch, along side Colossus's entry....

You mean incredibly overrated because people look at the HP and the single good power, ignoring that the other 2 are 1) terrible and 2) actively harmful to your defence with how the AI plays your team?

HailMary

Ludaa wrote:

Characters nobody has been interested in since their release:
Storm (Mohawk)
Deadpool
She Hulk
Beast
*Colossus (Verdict is still out, but probably another pass or just for PvE)

While I agree with your "chars that people wanna max" list, I consider DP to be worthy of serious leveling, if not maxing.

Also, some of the characters your alliancemates are interested won't "present a clear advantage to being on your roster" to a roster with a high-level Sentry already on it. Patch brings serious sustainability via regen, but if you already have Sentry + UDaken + Hood, LT and BP are entirely optional, and don't really increase your competitive power beyond more flexibility in PVE with required characters. XF is basically a somewhat faster, funner LT.

P.S. - I considered Colossus to be high-mid-tier before finding out that his yellow does nothing against strike tiles. Sigh, I need to reevaluate him now.