Why the Rag nerf keeps me motivated to play

Unknown

Kiamodo wrote:

This is my main question. When do these changes stop!? It's a game, by nature it's free time activity and not the end of the world but it's just a cheap way to change the players stratagies.

You used rag and widow. I used a rag mag punisher team. Punisher relilied on rag green generation and now his effectiveness is diminished too. Just disheartening.

Honestly, thats a big reason why he was nerfed. Not just him by himself, but because in addition to being fast and spammable on his own, he made other characters fast and spammable.

Kiamodo

In my heart of hearts I think every Rag apologist knew this was coming. It was done so in a manner which was no conducive to building a good community of supporting players.

Unknown

Kiamodo wrote:

In my heart of hearts I think every Rag apologist knew this was coming. It was done so in a manner which was no conducive to building a good community of supporting players.

I was expecting 3, maybe 4 AP. Never in my wildest dreams was I thinking 6.

Kiamodo

I agree with you Dum

Unknown

DumDumDugn wrote:

Kiamodo wrote:

In my heart of hearts I think every Rag apologist knew this was coming. It was done so in a manner which was no conducive to building a good community of supporting players.

I was expecting 3, maybe 4 AP. Never in my wildest dreams was I thinking 6.

not to mention less damage and tile generation than a 30 level lower thor (who will probably be nerfed to 800 damage and 3 tile generation)

Nonce Equitaur 2

Here's Nemek's strategy.

Nemek wrote:

For the past month, every single boosted PvP match has looked like this for me:

• Is there a red match on the board? Take it.
• Target opponent with highest health.
• Use Thunderclap until he is below 3300 health.
• After 4 Thunderclaps, I'll most likely have 19 green AP.
• Switch to opponent with current highest health.
• Shoot GSBW sniper rifle.
• If anybody is still alive, I probably have tons of AP from cascades that I could finish them off with whatever.

This is boring. Really boring. But, I couldn't change it or else I wouldn't win.

The lack of creativity shows only a lack of creativity. There are many good teams. This is not the only competitive team. I've placed #1 many times, with at least 10 different teams. Some are good at taking down C.Storm and Thor, some are good at taking down Rags and BWGS. I look for which teams are being overused, and come up with a team that annihilates them.

The main problem with Rags was the +200% buff in the Lightning rounds. The solution there was easy -- don't give Rags a buff in the Lightning Rounds. Sadly, the devs did not heed this frequent suggestion, and Rags could be seen getting a +200% buff hours before getting the 300% nerf.

The devs have now indicated that they will be nerfing the top 5 characters (Rags, Mags, Spidey, Thor, Wolverine), which nerfs BWGS by default since she can't get as much green. I've been focusing on other characters, so the upcoming nerf-fest will make my roster much more powerful. It was already easy to win against uncreative players, but the new changes will make winning a triviality.

Nerfing the top 6 characters into mediocrity is not good game design.

Unknown

I suppose the best bet is to use the new heroes like Hulk and Punisher with the idea that everyone will be nerfed down to make them good. Ironic that I felt weakened so much when forced to use them in the Hulk event. Can't wait for the backlash when they stop Spidey from being able to chain stun which is the real overpowered skill. Funny that this weeks events will result in a lot more people getting Spidey and then they will cut his webs off. At least people have a chance to know that (at least forum readers) and not over invest in him. Wish I had that heads up with Rags and held on to my HP.

EDIT: Thinking more about what you posted in the OP I have to say that you make a lot of sense. I think the key that gives you perspective is that you had time to get tired of Rags. Many of us had just gotten to the point of being overpowered and wanted to enjoy it a bit or at least not have him rendered useless right after dumping a ton of hard earned (or bought) HP into him. You do mention this in your post. Very good post and perhaps I'll try to figure out the next team that works and this time try to enjoy it with the expectation that it will be temporary. My preference is that they release better heroes that make my favorites useless rather than trash existing ones but oh well.

Purty_Hawkeye

Fantastic post Nemek!

I've said in most of the threads from players wondering what was next now that I've got high-level 3*'s; how much I've been enjoying playing with unconventional teams in the Prologue testing to look for good synergies. That time has now paid off for me. Just mowed through The Hunt Alaska with no problems. Took a couple hits from Ares first pass but he is pretty easy to take down to the point that it was Venom that became my priority in the final mission after the first time.

In almost every strategy game which had a meta-game aspect to it I've always enjoyed looking for the next thing because once everyone is doing the same thing the game developers will surely change it.

I understand the frustrations of many, especially those that most recently spent $ or time-earned iso/HP, but this is the second major nerf I've been through as I powered up Loki in the early days and got him nerfed to insensibility. Built up Rag and now the same thing. I'm going to be contrary but I've enjoyed the change and am looking forward to the next iteration. These changes have continued to keep the game fresh for me.

Unknown

It makes no sense in a game that features 30 characters you'd just always use the same 3.

Clearly this game is intended that being good with every character is supposed to be an advantage. That is, it's not hard to play with whatever the eventual 'A team' is, but while the A team is down if you can squeak out a few more victories with your backups, that's supposed to help you more. With the addition of shields the risk of being hammered while the slightly weaker team is up is also reduced.

The problem is that you can't have a rotating bench of players if every game ends with the A team winning with 100% of their health in the first 3 turns. Even Spiderman, who is likely to be nerfed, you at least give up speed, and if you've a standard red/green power team, he is actually pretty vulnerable (will be matching blue, yellow, and purple).

Right now there's no real incentive to know how to play any other characters besides your best 3 plus whoever happens to be boosted. Soon there might be.

TheVulture

A well thought out post, and yes indeed: it is a brave new world without Ragnorak - feels like I'm playing a different game tonight!
I don't think buffs have ever been so important before, nor have Punisher & Hulk looked so tempting.

That said, still motivated to play - no longer to pay... I spent real money on Rags and Grey Widow as a holiday treat to myself and, while of course I was spending money I could afford, the fact that the devs went straight through nerf and in to retirement (outside of villain lightning rounds) shows that it's not wise to invest (in any sense) whole-heartedly in characters.
There were so many avenues to either not invalidating Thunderclap or elevating Godlike Power (6 green AP to destroy 16 tiles vs 1* Storm 10 green AP to destroy 16 tiles and generate 16 AP), not to mention bringing him in line with everyone else by assigning a 3rd damage tile... to reject moderation on all 3 fronts does leave him quite redundant (for just being a meat shield the lack of a 3rd tile colour is devastating).

Forging ahead with developing a low-rarity no-cost roster though, I think that - ironically - my number one balance request at the moment is to move on the other nerfs sooner rather than later; taking out one pillar of the speed game only makes the remaining ones exponentially more impactful.
With the roster I have, I wouldn't even think of taking on Mags - and even the omnipresent Wolverine is a health-sapping double threat of regen & special tiles in the slower game (not exactly a match winner, but shreds through health packs).

Unknown

Good post. I'm not a Rag user myself, but a heavy user for Thor / Wolverine. Personally, I'm looking forward to experimenting and trying to find ideal team compositions when the changes come. Lately tournaments have been getting kind of stale.

Spoit

DumDumDugn wrote:

Kiamodo wrote:

In my heart of hearts I think every Rag apologist knew this was coming. It was done so in a manner which was no conducive to building a good community of supporting players.

I was expecting 3, maybe 4 AP. Never in my wildest dreams was I thinking 6.

Exactly, he needed to be nerfed, but the whole tack they're taking with the changes concerns me. If that is the level of balance that they're aiming for, I'm not motivated to grind out 20 minute matches, with only being able to trigger a move every few minutes.

Unknown

Why are people so convinced that any nerf/buff is final? That which was changed, can be changed again. Who knows? Maybe D3 will decide he needs another smaller tweak and lowers Tclap to 4AP and the max damage to 200% base. Or maybe the playerbase will get used to 6-AP Tclap and it'll be moot.

Unknown

Nemek: WOW, what a great summary. Thanks.

I never got a single Rag cover, but experience the same boredom with what I do have, repeating same stuff every game. Well, I do pay attention to opponent without the instakill, but the variety is minor. Got pretty excited discovering the effect of buffs in different arenas - -especially coexisting in time, say having the hulk epic and no barred and BW -- how I actually had to think, adjust, use different characters or the same caracters differently. The current hunt is also a great twist.

So yeah, just a few days back I was considering a shutdown out of boredom, but now look ahead for new stuff, especially as a full series of changes got announced.

For reference in other games similar things happen, if the metagame loses diversity and sinks to boredom -- especially if it's due to some small set of elements, it gets changed. for overall good. I played Magic the Gathering, where cards got routinely banned when some got overly huge effect. And each time there was a big turmoil, people crying doom and the end of the world -- then in a few weeks everyone got adjusted and had MORE fun.

Guess as other things get adjusted at later point Rag might be betting another change in the other direction, so those having it might recover -- just as Invisible Woman was just a slot-killer this far.

Unknown

Good post nemek. I would argue that raising his red to 3 and lowering green production to 3 or changing it to a count down tile which produced 3 would not force rag usage, but instead make him an option. The current nerf is largely forced removal outside of lightning rounds. But who knows, loki has gotten some love since his nerf (not enough imo) maybe rag will get another change in the future.

Unknown

Mehhh wrote:

Why are people so convinced that any nerf/buff is final? That which was changed, can be changed again. Who knows? Maybe D3 will decide he needs another smaller tweak and lowers Tclap to 4AP and the max damage to 200% base. Or maybe the playerbase will get used to 6-AP Tclap and it'll be moot.

Loki is still crying in the corner of his cell, you know

Unknown

In my experience, every single nerf I've ever seen in every game ever was met with cries of "This ability/character/deck/play style is now completely useless." I've been guilty of doing so in a game I was part of the design team for (and the change made the game SIGNIFICANTLY better). I'd bet that in a month's time Rags will be found to still be usable, just not dominant. Overreaction is the natural response every time.

Spoit

ApolloAndy wrote:

In my experience, every single nerf I've ever seen in every game ever was met with cries of "This ability/character/deck/play style is now completely useless." I've been guilty of doing so in a game I was part of the design team for (and the change made the game SIGNIFICANTLY better). I'd bet that in a month's time Rags will be found to still be usable, just not dominant. Overreaction is the natural response every time.

Again, loki

Unknown

ApolloAndy wrote:

In my experience, every single nerf I've ever seen in every game ever was met with cries of "This ability/character/deck/play style is now completely useless." I've been guilty of doing so in a game I was part of the design team for (and the change made the game SIGNIFICANTLY better). I'd bet that in a month's time Rags will be found to still be usable, just not dominant. Overreaction is the natural response every time.

You may be right but that won't happen until they nerf Thor and Wolvie. Thor for sure is a better option than Rags right now. At least my 85 Thor is better than my 89 Rags.

Unknown

Great post. I have the exact thoughts, and as others also have mentioned, am skeptical about the future (personally depending largely on what they do with the official list of characters to be redesigned in the near future).

Hope the game goes in a good direction, working towards a vibrant metagame, and not degrade into a one dimensional "healpot-centric" beat me down PQ. For this, I watch with much interest.