Is Purple intentionally underrepresented?

Unknown

This isn't a troll-post, I'm genuinely curious if good Purple powers/characters are intentionally rarer than the other colors from a devs perspective. I personally would like to see the full rainbow more equally represented to allow more interesting combinations on teams, but I don't know if my wants match the intentions of the game's makers. Do we know if it's intentional? If it is, do we know why? Would love to see some thoughts on this, especially from IceIX or Hi-Fi! Thanks everyone!

Unknown

It depends on what you meant by "underrepresented". In a damage capacity, yes, they are, but in a support capacity there are a number of purple powers. OBW, M.Hawkeye, MNM, Daken 2* and 3*, Falcon, Daredevil, Spiderman, Loki, Venom, and Bullseye with Moonstone, Deadpool and Fury being the only damage ones available. It's very similar to blue in that aspect. Support color with a couple damage powers.

Edit: I just read somewhere there are 50ish characters in game, so you expect to see 12ish purple powers, which counting above, there are 14. Seems about right. Some of them are on characters who are terrible tho, maybe that's what you mean by underrepresented.

simonsez

Lerysh wrote:

Edit: I just read somewhere there are 50ish characters in game, so you expect to see 12ish purple powers, which counting above, there are 14. Seems about right.

If there are 6 colors, and (almost) everyone has 3 skills, shouldn't there be 25 purple powers?

Unknown

Lerysh wrote:

It depends on what you meant by "underrepresented". In a damage capacity, yes, they are, but in a support capacity there are a number of purple powers. OBW, M.Hawkeye, MNM, Daken 2* and 3*, Falcon, Daredevil, Spiderman, Loki, Venom, and Bullseye with Moonstone, Deadpool and Fury being the only damage ones available. It's very similar to blue in that aspect. Support color with a couple damage powers.

Edit: I just read somewhere there are 50ish characters in game, so you expect to see 12ish purple powers, which counting above, there are 14. Seems about right. Some of them are on characters who are terrible tho, maybe that's what you mean by underrepresented.

That is more what I meant, I meant good, preferably active Purple powers on viable 3/4-star characters. Let's look at the ones mentioned, plus the other two Widows (I think that's all the purple folks?). Doom also matches purple but has no ability, I think.

1-stars:
Venom - OK ability
MBW - Mid-quality version of a good ability
Yelena - Worst version of a good ability, bad character

2-stars:
OBW - Fantastic ability
M.Hawkeye - Ability looks really promising, passive
MNM - Quite good ability
Daken 2* - Excellent ability, passive
Bullseye - Mediocre ability, passive
Moonstone - Inconsistent ability
Bag-Man - He is Bag-Man

3-stars:
Daken 3* - Excellent ability, passive, great character
Falcon - Mediocre ability, good character (depending on team composition)
Daredevil - Very inconsistent ability, weak character
Spiderman - Good ability, passive, mediocre character
Loki - Underrated but still only OK ability, weak character
Deadpool - Great effect on an expensive power, OK character
GSBW - Excellent ability, OK character

4-stars:
Fury - Excellent ability, excellent character, rarity means tough to get/max covers/build levels

So looking at this, I should amend my initial question - Are good, active Purple powers on strong characters intentionally underrepresented at the 3-star level? Looks like the best options in that regard are GSBW and Deadpool. Daken is awesome but can't actually use Purple AP.

Nellyson

RemusThirty wrote:

Lerysh wrote:

It depends on what you meant by "underrepresented". In a damage capacity, yes, they are, but in a support capacity there are a number of purple powers. OBW, M.Hawkeye, MNM, Daken 2* and 3*, Falcon, Daredevil, Spiderman, Loki, Venom, and Bullseye with Moonstone, Deadpool and Fury being the only damage ones available. It's very similar to blue in that aspect. Support color with a couple damage powers.

Edit: I just read somewhere there are 50ish characters in game, so you expect to see 12ish purple powers, which counting above, there are 14. Seems about right. Some of them are on characters who are terrible tho, maybe that's what you mean by underrepresented.

That is more what I meant, I meant good, preferably active Purple powers on viable 3/4-star characters. Let's look at the ones mentioned, plus the other two Widows (I think that's all the purple folks?). Doom also matches purple but has no ability, I think.

1-stars:
Venom - OK ability
MBW - Mid-quality version of a good ability
Yelena - Worst version of a good ability, bad character

2-stars:
OBW - Fantastic ability
M.Hawkeye - Ability looks really promising, passive
MNM - Quite good ability
Daken 2* - Excellent ability, passive
Bullseye - Mediocre ability, passive
Moonstone - Inconsistent ability
Bag-Man - He is Bag-Man

3-stars:
Daken 3* - Excellent ability, passive, great character
Falcon - Mediocre ability, good character (depending on team composition)
Daredevil - Very inconsistent ability, weak character
Spiderman - Good ability, passive, mediocre character
Loki - Underrated but still only OK ability, weak character
Deadpool - Great effect on an expensive power, OK character
GSBW - Excellent ability, OK character

4-stars:
Fury - Excellent ability, excellent character, rarity means tough to get/max covers/build levels

So looking at this, I should amend my initial question - Are good, active Purple powers on strong characters intentionally underrepresented at the 3-star level? Looks like the best options in that regard are GSBW and Deadpool. Daken is awesome but can't actually use Purple AP.

You forgot a 1*
Classic Hawkeye- Great ability- Ok character. Needs another power.

Unknown

Nellyson wrote:

You forgot a 1* Classic Hawkeye- Great ability- Ok character. Needs another power.

I did! My mistake, but I totally agree with your analysis.

Raffoon

simonsez wrote:

Lerysh wrote:

Edit: I just read somewhere there are 50ish characters in game, so you expect to see 12ish purple powers, which counting above, there are 14. Seems about right.

If there are 6 colors, and (almost) everyone has 3 skills, shouldn't there be 25 purple powers?

Correct. 3 skills*50 characters is 150 total skills. If the colors were evenly distributed, then given that 1/6, or 16.667% of 150 is 25, that would be the expected number of purple powers.

However, based on the list above it seems there are actually 19 purple powers so,
19/150 = 12.667%
12.667 the actual representation/16.667 the expected representation = 76%
so purple is represented about 76% as much as would be expected with an even distribution, assuming 50 characters.

Also interesting would be how underrepresented it is among 3* and 4* characters, but I don't feel like counting that stuff up right now.

FierceKiwi

Raffoon wrote:

Also interesting would be how underrepresented it is among 3* and 4* characters, but I don't feel like counting that stuff up right now.

Here's a large data dump...for those too lazy to read through it the short story is Purple is about as represented as Green but it's disproportionally in 1/2* land (a full 1/4 of 1* skills are Purple and less than 1/10 of 3* ones) also Purple is the most likely color to be a Passive (Black and Yellow aren't far behind) while currently all Red/Green are Active. EDIT: (I'm reasonably sure the numbers are all correct but there is a chance I input something wrong in my skill 'database' or grabbed inaccurate data when gathering this data)

For sanity's sake I'll hide the data in a spoiler tag.

TOTAL SKILLS: 138
TOTAL * SKILLS: 16
TOTAL ** SKILLS: 38
TOTAL *** SKILLS: 75
TOTAL **** SKILLS: 9

YELLOW SKILLS: 25 / 138 ~= 18%
YELLOW ACTIVES: 20 / 25 = 80%
YELLOW PASSIVES: 5 / 25 = 20%
YELLOW * SKILLS: 3 / 16 ~= 19%
YELLOW ** SKILLS: 6 / 38 ~= 16%
YELLOW *** SKILLS: 14 / 75 ~= 19%
YELLOW **** SKILLS: 3 / 9 ~= 33%

RED SKILLS: 27 / 138 ~= 20%
RED ACTIVES: 27 / 27 = 100%
RED PASSIVES: 0 / 27 = 0%
RED * SKILLS: 3 / 16 ~= 19%
RED ** SKILLS: 8 / 38 ~= 20%
RED *** SKILLS: 16 / 75 ~= 21%
RED **** SKILLS: 0 / 9 = 0%

BLUE SKILLS: 25 / 138 ~= 18%
BLUE ACTIVES: 23 / 25 = 92%
BLUE PASSIVES: 2 / 25 = 8%
BLUE * SKILLS: 2 / 16 ~= 13%
BLUE ** SKILLS: 7 / 38 ~= 18%
BLUE *** SKILLS: 14 / 75 ~= 19%
BLUE **** SKILLS: 2 / 9 ~= 11%

PURPLE SKILLS: 19 / 138 ~= 14%
PURPLE ACTIVES: 14 / 19 ~= 74%
PURPLE PASSIVES: 5 / 19 ~= 26%
PURPLE * SKILLS: 4 / 16 = 25%
PURPLE ** SKILLS: 7 / 38 ~= 18%
PURPLE *** SKILLS: 7 / 75 ~= 9%
PURPLE **** SKILLS: 1 / 9 ~= 11%

GREEN SKILLS: 20 / 138 ~= 14%
GREEN ACTIVES: 20 / 20 = 100%
GREEN PASSIVES: 0 / 20 = 0%
GREEN * SKILLS: 2 / 16 ~= 13%
GREEN ** SKILLS: 5 / 38 ~= 13%
GREEN *** SKILLS: 11 / 75 ~= 15%
GREEN **** SKILLS: 2 / 9 ~= 11%

BLACK SKILLS: 22 / 138 ~= 16%
BLACK ACTIVES: 17 / 22 ~= 77%
BLACK PASSIVES: 5 / 22 ~= 23%
BLACK * SKILLS: 3 / 16 ~= 19%
BLACK ** SKILLS: 5 / 38 ~= 13%
BLACK *** SKILLS: 13 / 75 ~= 17%
BLACK **** SKILLS: 1 / 9 ~= 11%

Unknown

Thanks for all the data, guys. So that leaves the initial question - is that skewed distribution (at least in 3-star land) intended by the devs or inadvertent?

FierceKiwi

RemusThirty wrote:

Thanks for all the data, guys. So that leaves the initial question - is that skewed distribution (at least in 3-star land) intended by the devs or inadvertent?

I'd imagine it's at least known to them. If I had to guess I'd say Purple will probably always lag behind a bit and mostly fill a mostly support role instead of doing direct damage...but maybe the Devs will prove me wrong and release 4 straight 3*s with decent powers.

Nonce Equitaur 2

I was facing Bullseye the other day, and I didn't have a purple power.

Unknown

I have no idea why 3* Maggy lost his purple ability and got the same ability in blue. I kinda liked that he used purple, even though he didn't do much match damage with it for some reason. Very frequently the purple tiles just sit unused.

Unknown

Neither Dakens nor Hawkeye have ability though. They have passives that are colored like their high match damage, but have otherwise no synergy with AP. Daken strike generation is/should be looked as a power. Hawkeye is a power.

@Nonce
All I'm seeing is so many crit tiles it will kitty-up Bullseye before your first round ends, and probably consume majority of protect tiles afterwards... and man, how long did you take to make that?

Unknown

I have a theory that purple is associated with sneakiness, and no this doesn't fit with every possible skill but it works a very significant number of time. Let us recap skills:

Venom - nope
MBW - she's a spy
Yelena - she's a spy
Hawkeye - maybe shooting arrow is supposed to be sneaky

2-stars:
OBW - she's a spy
M.Hawkeye - see 1* version
MNM - nope
Daken 2* - according to Prodigal Sun, Daken used his phermone to trick Hulk into attacking Sentry!
Bullseye - see Hawkeye
Moonstone - nope
Bag-Man - switcheroo is definitely sneaky

3-stars:
Daken 3* - see Daken
Falcon - nope
Daredevil - I think he's supposed to stalk in the night or something
Spiderman - similar to Daredevil, maybe?
Loki - definitely sneaky
Deadpool - he's a ninja
GSBW - she's a spy

4-stars:
Fury - the ability says he stole some intel, so it's sneaky even though it sure looks like he just shot everyone according to the animation

GothicKratos

Daken frequently used his pheromones to waver people's intuition. [/random.addition]

over_clocked

To me, is about manipulation and deception, be it the board (Gravity Warp, Take Aim, Illusions, old Translocation, Switcheroo, Deceptive Tactics, Polarity Shift, Speed Shot), AP (Recon, Radar Sense), swings of the battle (Venom, Bullseye, Spidey, Falcon, Daken). Deadpool's ability is the only one that breaks the fourth wall (red is still same as Retribution, just inversed), and Fury's has Escape Plan in its name and also functions as AP steal/swing of the battle method.