Scaling of powers for Bumps

MaskedMan

Is it me or do some characters scale a lot better when bumped than others? I mean like huge differences. 1* Iron man when scaled to 270 does 4,500 damage with red power but 2* Captain America does 1,500 (barely more than he does at 94)? 3* Captain America is an absolute Brute doing 6,500 damage and giving you back the APs (more than once I've wiped whole teams with that one power). Meanwhile characters like Devil Dinosaur go from 1,900 at around 140 to 2,500 at 270 barely changing.

Is there some logic to how this works that I am missing? It seems very random as to who gets massively better and who doesn't seem to change at all.

orbitalint

Across the board, 1*'s do better than 2*'s when boosted, 2's better than 3's and 3's better than 4's. In theory, having lower starred characters have better stats than the next level above them is to allow players to transition from one tier to another, while still being able to use the lower starred characters for a time. They pack more of a punch at similar levels which makes them relevant while you build up covers for the next tier.

If 2* and 3*'s were just as good as 1*'s at lower levels, there would be little incentive to ever use a 1*. Although, one could argue, there is no incentive anymore to start anywhere but 2* with how easy those covers are available.

However, in practice, it creates a lot of trouble when a 1* character like Jugg is scaled to over 200 in PVE events because he has more HP and does more damage than any 3*. The distortion really only comes into play in versus in Balance of Power when you see everyone with Jugg, who has more health than Hulk and does 7k damage for 6 red. They just get absurd when they are used outside of their original design context.

GothicKratos

A lot of that has to do with the slope they use for the actual ability, I reckon, also. If I recall, 2* Capt's Red doesn't really ramp up in damage at all, whereas with 3*'s version of the ability, each cover/level gives it huge bumps.

MaskedMan

The above makes sense I suppose. although in the case of the 4*s that seems really backward. Characters like Devil Dino get large increases for covers (5 covers is triple 3) but damage just doesn't go anywhere as you level. Still seems random when 2* Ares and 3* Cap get massive damage when boosted but you can barely tell Wolverine got a boost (pick a Wolverine) but Gamoras ability to throw down strike tiles is like the hand of god.

With this as a base structure like this, it will be very difficult to make meaningful 4* characters except as tanks. Damage dealers are hamstrung, Non-healing support characters (invisible woman) are worthless without a great power, and a healing 4* would likely be as hamstrung as the damage dealers due to same scaling (although it does make the palms sweat to think of a 4 star version of Classic Widow her only weakness is HPs).

orbitalint

Welcome to unbalanced character designs. Ares is one of the top 3 2* characters in terms of damage per AP and HP at that level. 2* Wolvie is maybe top 8 in 2* land? There is a top tier of any star level and those guys are just better at almost everything. Have you seen the Sentry threads pre-nerf?

Although, for 4*'s, you need them to play nice with 3*'s in terms of match damage because of the transition we're seeing now to 4*'s. If they ramped up at the same rate on a per level basis as a 2* or 3*, those extra 100 levels vs a 3* would have them tanking every color by 270. There is very little character design in those situations and team synergy is non-existent. The only character that would make any sense as a 4* would be maybe patch with 10k health and self-heal in game because 4* characters would be making every color match and eating healthpacks. That just sounds like a character I never want on my team.

I would say throw out how many levels your character currently has and look at stars and covers you have for them. 1* vs 4*, you're obviously going to see the 1 cover 4* is vastly under powered vs a 13 cover 1* 20 levels below him. Would you expect Ares with 1 cover to perform like he should and with enough damage to remotely compete?

Hope that helps. I'm more troubled by the fact that they'll likely introduce a 5* in the next few months that starts at level 100 and won't be comparable to any current 3* until level 250. Power creep is really un-fun. I'm sorry, Elektra is not 4* worthy! Sorry, rant over, lol.

MaskedMan

Covers isn't something I was asking about. I am comparing 5 covers for powers in all cases.

I think I see what the issue is however. They designed the characters with X power at their max level. Because of that the fewer levels the character has the more they tend to increase per level. Hence Marginal 50's like Jugg become powerhouses which characters that are supposed to be high level are comparatively weak at max levels.

Of course this still doesn't explain why 2 * Cap is so worthless that even bumped to 270 with 5 covers his red damage ability only does 1,500 damage.

orbitalint

Yeah, 2* cap just stinks. He was a very early character where they tried to keep a lid on damage dealing - look at IM40 if you want a 3* example. On a damage per AP basis, they both are terrible compared to newer characters. They thought 2.6k AOE damage with AP drain for 20 AP was reasonable and balanced back then - BP does way more than that with 12 and only a small inconvenience.

I think they compensated for the stinkage in his 3* version and didn't feel like going back to revise 2*. I also think they've ramped up the damage curve with powers for the last 6-8 months too, so newer characters will likely fare better in terms of damage per AP ratio.

If you are looking for some sort of internal consistency between characters in the game, don't, you'll drive yourself crazy. They are likely designed in isolation with some consideration for how they might interact with other characters or powered compared to other characters. Balanced game design is sparse excect when someone is seriously OP. I will say that we're beginning to see some changes as they are buffing out-of-rotation characters, which is nice.