Do you think there's power creep in MPQ?

atomzed

Putting aside GT (who is in a tier of her own along with Xforce), do you think there's a power creep among the new 3*s?

We should define old characters as any characters released before colossus (since he's vaulted now he should qualified as being old).

Unknown

Not really. Original Spidey and Mags would still be powerhouses amongst the current 3* crop, Hood is still exceptional and LThor (while not an 'old' 3* per se) is always in people's top 10. Patch is still the choice to grind early points. Doc Oct, Beast, Gamora, SG... all way below the standard. Cage is one of the few genuinely 'new' 3* (I'm not counting Loki) that might be considered comparible to the best old ones.

They've done a remarkable job ensuring there hasn't been power creep at 3* level and keeping most 4* at a level that a skilled 3* player can beat relatively comfortably (as can be seen by the low % of defensive wins in pvp, even with a 4* team).

There is power creep emerging in the game, but only in terms of the transition to 4* endgame.

Unknown

I'd tend to agree with Dr. Unpleasant. The 3*s you see the most aren't, for the most part, new, and the newer ones you see or are likely to soon see in PVP a lot - Blade and Luke Cage, primarily - aren't overpowered, they're just good. The 4* transition, however, is a real thing, and is distorting the game, but it was probably inevitable that would happen at some point. But there are still probably 10 3*s I'd take over most of the 4*s.

JamieMadrox

I find that the new 3* are better balanced compared to the older ones overall. SO while there are less unplayable characters, the ones that are coming out are raising the overall quality. Look at the top 3* character now.

CMags
Hood
Loki
Daken

All older than Colossus and some MUCH older.

GuntherBlobel

Yes and no. I think a lot of the newer 3* characters are more powerful than the older characters, particularly in terms of AP cost. GSBW, IM40, and Hulk pay a lot more to do what they do than a newer character would. Also, many of the new 3* characters seem to be more oriented towards PvP than PvE, which I think many people see as power. The complaints about Doc Ock and She-Hulk are a good example of this, because both of them are actually really good at fighting goons (goodbye countdown tiles!), but hated for how they fare in PvP.

On the other hand, have you noticed that older ability designs that create critical tiles or change tile colors (like Deceptive Tactics) are now off the design table? In that sense, mnMags and GSBW remain pretty powerful due to their uniqueness and synergy with newer abilities (like Speedshot and the new Ambush).

EDIT: Oh wait! Since launch: yes. Since Colossus: no. I need to work on my reading comp.

simonsez

atomzed wrote:

do you think there's a power creep among the new 3*s?

Given that the top 5 in the latest poll were LT, LD, BP, LCap and Hood, the answer is clearly "no"

Joey Jellico

A resounding NO.

This game is so much like MTG: Lthor,Ldaken,Cmags,xforce,****thor,fury,hood,panther,steve

That's your Power 9 right there.

Trisul

It's hard to make exceptions for the 4*s. It's like saying, if all the top-tier _____ were removed in any competitive game, is there power creep? Almost by definition it would be no.

simonsez

Trisul wrote:

It's hard to make exceptions for the 4*s.

But you have to remember that for the vast majority of players (eg the 99.9% who aren't on this forum), 4*s aren't an option. So it's really not an unreasonable exception.

Trisul

simonsez wrote:

But you have to remember that for the vast majority of players (eg the 99.9% who aren't on this forum), 4*s aren't an option. So it's really not an unreasonable exception.

True, but power creep isn't really even a relevant issue if you're transitioning.

simonsez

Trisul wrote:

True, but power creep isn't really even a relevant issue if you're transitioning.

Why not? If I'm dumping ISO into a 3*, and by the time I finally get him maxed, they've released a bunch of other 3*s that are all better than the one I spent all this time and ISO on, that'd be pretty soul-crushing.

Unknown

For 3 stars:
Nope.

In the last 6 months these are the 3 stars that have been released. Let me know if I've forgotten any:
Squirrel Girl 21/01/2015
Luke Cage 07/01/2015
Gamora 04/12/2014
Rocket & Groot 25/11/2014
Mystique 09/11/2014
Blade 28/10/2014
Dr Octopus 31/09/2014
Colossus 15/09/2014
Beast 01/09/2014

Luke Cage is a defensive stud, yes.
Blade is a serviceable support if you don't have Daken.
Mystique has a tiny tiny niche as part of the “winfinite” combo with Marvel Now Magneto.
And Rocket and Groot is generally considered “good enough to level.”

I would only really define Luke Cage as an "elite" or "powerful" character among those 4.

But outside of those four, there isn’t a single character on that list that is worth leveling.

Most of the powerhouses in the 3 star range, such as Thor, Hood, Patch, Daken, Captain America, Black Panther and Magneto have been around forever.

There is one exception; Loki’s remake has made him elite. But that was a revamp of a long time unusable character. Dr Doom’s remake made him playable in certain niches and Daredevil’s remake made him not a joke…but still kinda sucky.

Even in the 4 star range, there isn’t ALL that much power creep.

Yes, Xforce’s buff was insanely strong and 4hor was not properly tuned prior to release.

But the last 2 4 star releases indicate that power creep has not taken effect yet.
Elektra: Garbage of all garbage.
Starlord: Conceptually okay, but countdown tiles makes him useless in a practical sense.

D3 has done well to prevent power creep in the past. Instead of releasing more powerful characters, they are instead eliminating the outliers; Ragnarok, 2 star Thor, 2 star Wolverine, Spider Man, Magneto, Sentry. All nerfed to prevent the requirement of power creep.

However, unless Thor and possibly Xforce follow suit, power creep may be required if D3 wants to continue its cash flow.

But the bets are on the top 2 being nerfed, rather than stronger characters being released. It has been D3’s pattern and I don’t expect them to rethink that strategy any time soon.

Phaserhawk

Power creep from IM40, yes, power creep overall, no.

I think the biggest sentiment everyone has is that they don't care if a character is the most powerful, they just want a character thats playable. What do I mean unplayable? I mean they offer nothing you either can't get from someone else or some does what they do so much better to where they have no redeeming qualities.

4*----Invisible Woman, Elektra

3*----Beast, Gamora, Psylocke, IM40, Doc Ock, Colossus (Luke Cage made him unplayable), Sentry (not county Ragnarok because he doesn't have 3 skills)
(almost unplayable list---Black Widow (expensive but can still serve a purpose), She-Hulk (red is her saving grace, blue can be helpful)

2*----Bullseye, Moonstone, Bag-Man

1*----Yelena

Don't get me wrong, I think Spiderman, Punisher, Hulk and a few others need some rebalance, but they have a role. The above characters serve no purpose in the game currently.

Unknown

Power creep would be like if every 4* released now is at least as powerful as X Force. Obviously that isn't happening. That's also what's causing the problem because if there's a power creep at least there will be several guys as strong as X Force and you might have some variety of who you get.

From what I can tell the game is intended to not have power creep except for mistakes that make certain characters way too powerful. Unfortunately mistakes happen often enough in this game.

atomzed

Phaserhawk wrote:

Don't get me wrong, I think Spiderman, Punisher , Hulk and a few others need some rebalance, but they have a role. The above characters serve no purpose in the game currently.

The pun comment is what prompted me to raise this topic. Pun has been a solid low ap character. For a period of time, pun has been hailed as the model of good balance.

But now people are asking him to be buffed... Won't such a constant series of buffs cause more power creep?

I don't know, I am ok with pun as he is now. He may not be top tier but he's quite playable, especially when paired with obw.

GothicKratos

I don't feel like there's a noticeable power creep, per se, but I do feel like they are overall becoming better at creating solid characters and characters with meaningful interactions, rather just a new guy that's stronger than the last guy.

CrookedKnight

The one place where there is "creep" isn't really in an overall power sense, but in usability. We're never going to see another character like GSBW or IM40 whose moves are so expensive that you can go an entire match without building up the AP for them, even if they have a good cost/damage ratio. So the **** characters now have skills that are "why would you use this when there are better options" instead of "you will never be able to use this even when you want to."

Unknown

There is definitely power creep. It started with Fat Thor making anyone with 8500 health obsolete. Then came Sentry making EVERYONE obsolete. Then the XF power up and sentry Nerf and now TGT. There will always be a top meta strategy, and if they release anyone that shifts that strategy, that is power creep.

Mainly I think it was done to counteract the effectiveness of Dormammu's Aid. At 5100 hp The Hood just can't hang with the big 10200 boys, he gets killed and then your team gets rolled. He's still great on offense for climbing and the occasional defensive win where you can't match the color needed to kill Hood early.

BTW, power creep is how any collectible game (and this is a collectible covers game) keeps its profits up. If you have to spend HP and $$ to get the latest thing to stay competitive then power creep means more sales. I would not be at all surprised if soon Vaulting led to "only these heroes are usuable in PvP right now".

Unknown

Lerysh wrote:

There is definitely power creep. It started with Fat Thor making anyone with 8500 health obsolete. Then came Sentry making EVERYONE obsolete. Then the XF power up and sentry Nerf and now TGT. There will always be a top meta strategy, and if they release anyone that shifts that strategy, that is power creep.

Mainly I think it was done to counteract the effectiveness of Dormammu's Aid. At 5100 hp The Hood just can't hang with the big 10200 boys, he gets killed and then your team gets rolled. He's still great on offense for climbing and the occasional defensive win where you can't match the color needed to kill Hood early.

BTW, power creep is how any collectible game (and this is a collectible covers game) keeps its profits up. If you have to spend HP and $$ to get the latest thing to stay competitive then power creep means more sales. I would not be at all surprised if soon Vaulting led to "only these heroes are usuable in PvP right now".

If they simply rotate characters out then you wouldn't need power creep. It doesn't matter how overpowered X Force or Thor is compared to Star-Lord, as long as both of them are rotated out then Star-Lord is still stronger than 2 characters you can never use. That's essentially how MTG works and it's a great idea because you don't need to make things more powerful to continue to make more money.

Unknown

^See that^ ? That is probably coming.

Unknown

Lerysh wrote:

There is definitely power creep. It started with Fat Thor making anyone with 8500 health obsolete. Then came Sentry making EVERYONE obsolete. Then the XF power up and sentry Nerf and now TGT. There will always be a top meta strategy, and if they release anyone that shifts that strategy, that is power creep.

Mainly I think it was done to counteract the effectiveness of Dormammu's Aid. At 5100 hp The Hood just can't hang with the big 10200 boys, he gets killed and then your team gets rolled. He's still great on offense for climbing and the occasional defensive win where you can't match the color needed to kill Hood early.

BTW, power creep is how any collectible game (and this is a collectible covers game) keeps its profits up. If you have to spend HP and $$ to get the latest thing to stay competitive then power creep means more sales. I would not be at all surprised if soon Vaulting led to "only these heroes are usuable in PvP right now".

I disagree.

Power creep implies that, as the game goes on, the old characters are never played because every new character is better.

I know I reference this game a lot, but it is kind of the perfect example of how NOT to build a game:
In League of Legends, they added a new character every 2 weeks or so for about 2 years.
In the beginning, a "gap closer" or an instant movement ability, was relatively rare.
They are really powerful both for positioning, catching people an many other aspects of the game.
As the game went on, though, it got to the point where every new character was either in the "gap closer" category or the "not played at all" category.
So, the creators just began **** out gap closing characters week after week.
This made the original cast of characters, without gap closers, the worst characters in the game.

That is an example of power creep.

What you're referring to is just the cycle of the top meta.

Among the original characters, Loki, Hood and Magneto still see regular use. Doom is seeing more use as well. There were 7 original 3 stars, so 4 out of 7 (granted, with 2 new abilities) ain't bad.

Hulk and Patch, released about a year ago, still see regular use.
Lazy Thor and Lazy Cap are coming up on their year anniversary.

The old characters are, by no means, being phased out by the new characters, with the exception of Lady Thor and, if you consider him a new character, X-Force, who is about 6 months old now.

I personally like that D3 nerfs the top dog rather than buffing or releasing equally strong characters to compensate.