We are so close to a 'balanced' endgame!

Unknown

Calling for 4*s to be balanced against 3*s as some kind of "balanced end game" is frankly stupid. May as well start calling for 3* Thor to be balanced against 2* Thor because apparently the number of stars is irrelevant....

Since I think the concept is stupid i'll just confirm I disagree with (almost) all the nerfs, including Hood's blue which is, on offence, probably worse than Loki's green and notably worse than OBW's stealing skill set. He is a pain on an uncooperative board but then again so are a whole bunch of heroes, his way of hurting you is just more frustrating.

I think the devs did themselves no favours by leaving Xforce and IW as such colossal jokes for SO LONG that people apparently think 4*s are meant to be 3*s that cost more. As soon as the 4* tier starts to be noticably better than the 3* tier out come the nerf calls because that's not what people have come to expect.

The issue is actually balance in the 4* tier. IMO XF should be an approximate benchmark for 4*s. He should be the 4* Punisher, because he's appreciably better than any of the 3* heroes BUT a pair of 3* heroes can beat a max XF + 3* in a similar way that a pair of 2*s can beat a max 3* and a 2*. On the other hand 2 heroes of XF's caliber would be tougher for a pair of 3*s to beat (well except Hulk bombing but that's a niche issue) BUT still not as tough as beating 2 top tier 3*s with a pair of 2*s.

I therefore think a few of the 4*s need a boost. I'll also agree that making XoR only charge red/yellow might be a good way to stop chain stunning with her, although it's by no means guaranteed you can get a charged blue 3 match next turn after surging, or in fact gater 9 AP in the 4 turns after surging (although being unable to get 10 red or 9 blue is fairly uncommon and either normally does the trick). Personally though I would prefer charge tiles to be 2xAP + DMG or 1xAP and 3x DMG. Her health is completely appropriate.

I will agree with one point made by Northern Phantronality as well though. It WOULD be nice if the featured hero mattered more. Personally I think a max featured should be lvl 332 (double level) to make them matter more vs 4*s. On the flip side it does make them potentially overwhelming vs 3*s if you happen to have that one maxed and the other guy does't. Whether that would be a good or bad thing is a matter of opinion.

h4n1s

LEAVE ... HOOD ... ALONE!!!

It took me year to max him, even during that time he already was nerfed!

He's not as scary defender as some might suggest, his health is squishy and his blue does nothing unless the opponent has already some AP collected. He's good support character, but not awesome, I think he's well balanced in the 3* land.

Instead of endless calls for nerfing higher rarity characters, raise your concerns about putting different rosters in the same battlefield fighting for the same reward structure...

Unknown

Without an OP combo, MPQ is just an endless boring grind. OP combos are fun, in every game. If you nerf the latest OP combo, you have to make sure there's something new to play with. Will that be Iron Fist ?

In PvP, we have to clear around 40 matches. I wouldn't play much if I had to climb with good but slow teams.

Instead of nerfing Gthor, there should be some challenge in the 4*s playing field. Most of the 4*s are useless, and that's a shame, considering the efforts it takes to max them :

A crazy PvE, an additional competitive PvP, tons of Iso, and lots of work/money to get the missing covers.

The latest 4*s were not worth the effort.

Unknown

I agree with the other posers about bringing balance to the 4* game by buffing existing 4*s not nerfing the only good ones. 4*s deserve to be on the top of the heap, not just grouped in with the "really good 3*s".

Phase 1) Buff Nick Fury. Give him XF health, 10600. With no regen possibility that's still not a lot in 4* land. Give more damage to Escape Plan. With odd color damage combos Fury can be good given the right situation, expanded health and damage will increase the situations in which he is good.

Phase 2) Buff IW. I don't care how, just do it. She's an embarrassment. Also change her art, she looks more like Mr. Incredible than Sue Storm.

Phase 3) Tweak Elektra/Starlord. Double-Double Cross needs to create a even if none exist on the enemy side. Starlords should be more like Ms. marvel, with the 6k damage up front single target and the placed CD for 1400 team damage. Also maybe make his do the damage on placement of the tile.

Those changes would bring potential balance to the Force (pun intended). As it stands XF/IF and Thor/Cyclops may start seeing some use anyway. There is room for other teams, but the other 4* characters have glaring flaws that make them unattractive to use.

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

People on this forum do not want a balanced metagame, they just want to stomp with their xors. I attribute this to Demiurge traumatizing everyone with the Ragnarok Spidey nerfs: everyone has PTSD. Say the word 'nerf 4or', and you'll have a crowd of pitchforks waiting to **** you.

Honestly the only way we're going to see any progress is to start buffing the other 4*s to at least X-Force tier. If you touch a hair on their baby 4or, even something relatively innocuous as your changes (well, the surge change, probably not the HP change), then everyone just goes up in arms. It's frankly disgusting, but that's the world we live in right now, so yeah. I would try to aim the changes more at promoting a healthy 4* metagame instead, which can be accomplished without any nerfs and inciting the mobs.

In any game you'll ever play, Nerfs will almost exclusively be met with animosity rather than praise.

However, after the nerf, you'll eventually see people come to their senses.

Take the Sentry nerf for example. When it was first announced, I was upset because Sentry allowed me to get to 1300. I knew that if he disappeared, my chances of getting to 1300 would take a significant hit. This would make it harder to get 4 star covers and impede my progress in the game.

But once the nerf set in, and we all saw how the game shook out, I was ultimately happy about it.

In a competitive game, the majority of people will play the most competitively powerful character/team/clan/group/whatever. It is like that in every game.
So when a lot of people get accustomed to a certain "known" best team, and then it is going to be nerfed, that makes them fear that they will no longer have the competitive edge.

But, when it comes to game health, I still think nerfs are the way to go.

I've played too many games that experienced insane power creep. It ruins the game. You don't want every character to be incredibly powerful. That just negates the power of your characters.

I think nerfs to Thor and possibly Xforce are warranted and, in some regards, needed if this game is to continue to grow.

Because right now, Xthor is just boring. And everyone who isn't playing it is tired of it.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

For Dormammu's Aid, it needs to be weaker but he needs to have way more HP to make up for being in such a low HP tier status. One idea I had was make Dormammu's Aid reduce damage taken from activated abilities by 10/20/30/40/50% on top of whatever a balanced version of it might be. That'd make him quite resilient which is needed if Dormammu's Aid is no longer game breaking, but he'd still die very quickly to attack tiles/strike tiles and that's probably okay because the strongest attack/strike tile characters currently aren't top tier minus possibly Black Panther (who seems slightly overpowered but probably within acceptable limits). Well, Iron Fist is going to be a top tier character as is, but he's also not balanced either so I don't particularly care what further imbalance happens with a character that is obviously not balanced.

So you want to take a character whose sole purpose is to steal AP, and make him a character that just reduces damage, but no longer steals AP? At least, I hope you mean he reduces team damage, not just damage to himself?

Because otherwise, he would just be a glorified walking mat. No purpose, but at least he's kinda but not really hard to kill...

Sounds like an excellent way to never see Hood ever again. That's worse than Spider tier.

"This character does nothing, but he's mildly hard to kill. Great support, yea?"

I've heard suggestions like it won't activate until you have 5 blue AP, much like Falcon's blue. I think that is a much more reasonable nerf than changing everything about the ability.

But even then, nerfing Hood is not really an issue right now. Xforce and Thor are the people manipulating the balance of this game, not Hood. His low health makes him an easy one off target that would barely impact the team on defense.

The only reason he is a good defensive character is because people without Hood could probably beat him, but don't want to risk getting a bad board and being drained of the one color they need.

And Black Panther isn't even a top 5 character, let alone overpowered. He may have been overpowered 4 seasons ago. But he's been passed over by Xthor, Hood, Loki, Fury and LThor, at the very least.

Unknown

I don't mind that 4* are OP even though I know I'll probably never have a maxed 4hor (not hardcore enough to grind for #1 in pvp). Honestly, I don't. People spent HP or many hours to get their covers and, in addition, they spent 400+k ISO to level them. They should be powerful. Maybe not 16k health for 4hor, but I am skipping this.

What bothers me is the wall of 4* when I get to 650-700 and the fact I can't skip those teams because the game is rigged to trap me with 5-6 more teams (usually 4*) in a death cage. I know there are other teams with similar MMR as mine, but they don't let me find them. Unless they fix their matchmaking and their skipping system, people will always have a problem with the game. Why call it "skip button" when all it does is cycle teams? Again and again and again. At least, make the skipping free since it doesn't work properly.

Unknown

Yeah, way too many calls for 4* characters to be balanced against 3* characters. It's dumb. 4* characters fighting each other can be exciting and difficult; if 4* characters fighting against 3* characters is less so then that's just the price of doing business. As others have said: improve Fury's purple, seriously revisit IW and Elektra, and make the 4* pool deeper and more varied. Don't try to make it so that 3* characters can compete with them. If you can't consistently beat the 4* wall with your 3* roster--good.

The only character that really needs a nerf right now is Iron Fist. His purple makes me more and more angry every day that I think about it. If you have less than 12 black, you get to produce a ton of black tiles for the ridiculous low price of 5 AP. If you have more than 12 black--you don't, because the only black skill worth using that costs more than that belongs to Cyclops and you've probably already used Surgical Strike. Producing colored tiles is the most problematic ability in the game; it's the reason they had to rework Loki and Ragnarok and Thor, and I hope like hell it'll be the reason they rework Iron Fist.

Trisul

No need to get worked up over nerf calls. You are forgetting that a more balanced game benefits us all.

Unknown

The_Valeyard wrote:

Ppl also confuse how good characters are when players use them with being just as good with ai. For example 4or seems great when players control her, but she's a bit of a pushover when the ai is in charge.

Not suggesting a 4Thor nerf but this statement is invalid.

The only thing that matters in this game is ATTACKING. There is no defense aspect to this game with shields and boosts. All top tier PVP is shielding. There's your 100% guaranteed defense right there. The game is now just ATTACKING and QUICKLY. This is the only thing separating #1 from #10+.

Even if xforce or 4thor did 9999999999999 dmg and the AI used them perfectly, it wouldn't matter. With boosts and the right chars you can kill any char without them ever getting an attack off. Hulk, Thor, Capt America...these are all big names that people put on "Defense" thinking it stops anyone. Those are just easy slow targets that pose 0 risk with the mechanics of the game currently.

Unknown

I'd just like to point out that removing AP Boosts would absolutely DESTROY the current PVE scaling setup. Yes the scaling needs to be pulled back, but until they do, I just don't see how it'll be possible to beat a 249 Ares/Daken/Bullseye team unless you're bringing in a maxed 4Thor/XForce team.

Pylgrim

The_Valeyard wrote:

Removing boosts should be done, but some players lack the skill to son harder matches without them.

Wow, way to be elitist and patronising. Sure, it is easy for you to sit behind your wall of 270s and dismiss anyone who has trouble passing by them as "unskilled', but the truth is that when a character is as oppressive as X-Force you are playing at huge disadvantage if you cannot match his raw power, speed and HP so you need insurances. Yes, I know how to beat him, but bringing boosts help speed things up to minimise the chances of things going long which is synonymous with them going wrong.

Just yesterday, in the Cyclops event I was sitting at 830 with time and shields for a last push for the 900 cover. I brought my best team, including Hood and boosts and picked carefully my fights, two of them that would get me into 900. In both of them, enemy X-force got a cascade in the first few turns for which not even Hood could do anything about and I got Surgical Strike into X-Force into defeat. Twice. Needless to say, I missed the cover because by the third and fourth battles, I had already been mauled defensively. Without boosts you just have to expose yourself longer, giving more chances to the opponent to cascade into the inevitably defeats that are Surgical Strike and Power Surge. No matter how hard you try to deny those colours, there's nothing "unskilled" about not being able to stop the RNG from transforming a harmless team-up tile match into 9 black and 6 green in cascades. So if you forgive us, we'll keep using boosts to give our 3*s with HPs that are a fraction of the maxed 4*s and powers that deal a fraction of what theirs do, a better chance at not being cascaded into infuriatingly helpless defeat.

rednailz

I'm so sick of the "nerf xforce and GT" movement.

Wouldn't be much of a game if everyone was alaways the same. Why are we supposed to nerf whomever is at the top of the list all the time.

Leave them alone, play the game. Fix the broken ones and move on.

Trisul

rednailz wrote:

I'm so sick of the "nerf xforce and GT" movement.

Wouldn't be much of a game if everyone was alaways the same.

You kind of undermine your own argument there, since it seems like at the top level that everyone IS always the same (XF+GT).

Wouldn't you prefer a game with more diversity in the top tier?

I'm don't necessarily support nerfing XF or GT, but there's no denying that character balance and diversity is good for the game. I'd probably want them to nerf them if there were no new characters to be released ever, but since D3 is committed to creating more 4*, there's always hope that a clear purpose behind 4* power level will emerge.

simonsez

Trisul wrote:

Wouldn't you prefer a game with more diversity in the top tier?

If that diversity is achieved via nerfing characters that keep me from getting my **** handed to me in PvE, I'm going to have to say "no"

rednailz

Trisul wrote:

rednailz wrote:

I'm so sick of the "nerf xforce and GT" movement.

Wouldn't be much of a game if everyone was alaways the same.

You kind of undermine your own argument there, since it seems like at the top level that everyone IS always the same (XF+GT).

Wouldn't you prefer a game with more diversity in the top tier?

I'm don't necessarily support nerfing XF or GT, but there's no denying that character balance and diversity is good for the game. I'd probably want them to nerf them if there were no new characters to be released ever, but since D3 is committed to creating more 4*, there's always hope that a clear purpose behind 4* power level will emerge.

No Rags used to be top dog- nerfed. Then spiedey - nerfed. Cmags used to be top dog - he got nerfed (and it was necissary and they did a good job) sentry was top dog - he got nerfed into uselessness.

Now it's xforce that needs to be nerfed and when he's nerfed people will scream for whoever's on top to be nerfed, and so on until everyone is "the same" and "fair"

I'd like more diversity at the top tier, easisest and funnest way to do that is fix broken charecters and add new decent thoughtful 4* to compete. Look at how relevant Loki became all of a sudden with a good fixing.

Am I sick of the 270 wall in pvp? yup. less sick of it than the sentry wall, and it's easier to take down than the sentry wall (if you didn't have the right tools for sentry dismantling).

It's touch to balance and organically grow. But I'm not sure if I'm more sick of the xforce/gt always in my way after 700 pts or hearing about how they need to be nerfed. The meta in this game has been more about nerfing than about putting out good balanced charecters. You know what I want more than nerfing xforce? An xforce kiler. There are many powerful beings left in the marvel universe to be good 4*'s that would chew through him and GT pretty easily (although GT should be near the top in meta)

Unknown

The solution is easy (and unpopular)

Release more 4*s.

Will people still be complaining about XThor when Phoenix Xavier rules the meta?

NorthernPolarity

rednailz wrote:

Trisul wrote:

rednailz wrote:

I'm so sick of the "nerf xforce and GT" movement.

Wouldn't be much of a game if everyone was alaways the same.

You kind of undermine your own argument there, since it seems like at the top level that everyone IS always the same (XF+GT).

Wouldn't you prefer a game with more diversity in the top tier?

I'm don't necessarily support nerfing XF or GT, but there's no denying that character balance and diversity is good for the game. I'd probably want them to nerf them if there were no new characters to be released ever, but since D3 is committed to creating more 4*, there's always hope that a clear purpose behind 4* power level will emerge.

No Rags used to be top dog- nerfed. Then spiedey - nerfed. Cmags used to be top dog - he got nerfed (and it was necissary and they did a good job) sentry was top dog - he got nerfed into uselessness.

Now it's xforce that needs to be nerfed and when he's nerfed people will scream for whoever's on top to be nerfed, and so on until everyone is "the same" and "fair"

I'd like more diversity at the top tier, easisest and funnest way to do that is fix broken charecters and add new decent thoughtful 4* to compete. Look at how relevant Loki became all of a sudden with a good fixing.

Am I sick of the 270 wall in pvp? yup. less sick of it than the sentry wall, and it's easier to take down than the sentry wall (if you didn't have the right tools for sentry dismantling).

It's touch to balance and organically grow. But I'm not sure if I'm more sick of the xforce/gt always in my way after 700 pts or hearing about how they need to be nerfed. The meta in this game has been more about nerfing than about putting out good balanced charecters. You know what I want more than nerfing xforce? An xforce kiler. There are many powerful beings left in the marvel universe to be good 4*'s that would chew through him and GT pretty easily (although GT should be near the top in meta)

Ah, there is my example of a PTSD victim! Someone who sees the horribleness that saw what happened to Rags / Spideys, and thought to themselves "if nerfing means make the character unplayable, then I don't want to hear the word nerf ever again". The thing you fail to realize is that as a result of all of these nerfs, the 3* metagame is actually (somewhat) balanced. Do you think that buffing everyone to Rags tier where they would win turn 2 solve anything? No... that would make every single character in the game completely OP and take away any fun from the game whatsoever. Look at the 3* metagame right now. Hood / LazyThor are currently a little too good, but look at tier 2 which is very close to power level to tier 1: Cage / BP / Doom / Blade / etc. Do you think this would be even remotely possible if old C. Mags existed? The point was that as a result of all these nerfs, overall game balance got to a point where multiple characters STARTED to become viable. Each subsequent top dog got closer and closer to balance, until we are where we are now with there actually being some sort of semblance of balance in the 3* meta. That's why nerfs are useful.

Your vision of an "X-Force killer" doesn't really work out. How would someone kill X-Force? Well, they'd have to be more powerful than X-Force. So lets make the new guy an X-Force killer: new guy:10k hp, 9AP: 10k damage.
Oh, now we need someone to kill the new guy. new guy 2> 10k hp, 6AP: 10k damage. Oh now we need someone to kill new guy 2... Eventually we power creep so hard that we're seeing turn 1 wins and everything has gone to tinykitty. Yeah, that sounds like a great idea.

Bonfire, I think boosting the featured to 332 would fix the useless featured problem, but at the same time isn't as good of a solution as just lowering the power level of 4*s to somewhere between X-Force and Fury.Based off the current state of the game, you can already see that X-Force / GT are more than 50% better than a 3* character, because so many 3* characters are just HP bags in their featured tournaments as is. 332s make it so that 3* transitioners just have 0 chance of competing as that boosts everything up to a 4* metagame that is XF GT level, which is significantly better than 3* (more than 50%, probably 100%), whereas the alternative would be to nerf X-Force / GT slightly to make the 4* meta into a 50% better than 3* meta, which makes more sense to me. But wait! I said the word "nerf", so people are going to completely ignore the "4*s should be 50% better than 3*s" statement I just said and just reply with "Naw 4*s should be more powerful than 3*. They don't need to be nerfed. I hate nerfs."

I feel my salt levels rising just thinking about this so I will be off now.

Unknown

This came up in another thread, so I won't belabor the point: X-Force doesn't fall into line with the other nerfs we've listed because those other nerfs were all addressing imbalances of 3* characters against other 3* characters. They also addressed issues with infinite turns or first-turn wins. X-Force is smashing 3* rosters from a 4* position, and isn't doing it infinitely or on the first turn (without IF...). So this kind of nerfing call is substantially different, and I think a little wrong-headed.

More good 4* characters and a better way to earn them is what we need.

Trisul

simonsez wrote:

If that diversity is achieved via nerfing characters that keep me from getting my **** handed to me in PvE, I'm going to have to say "no"

Well I'm certainly glad you're not in charge of game balance then. That's a pretty short-sighted view of balance, especially considering that PvE difficulty gets inflated with winfinite in the game. Winfinite is a self-fulfilling prophecy, as all the victories with winfinite scale up the nodes so that only winfinite can beat them. Nerfing that would ease the PvE difficulty for all players due to decreased scaling.

@rednailz
Just to clarify, are you saying that those nerfs you reference weren't justified? That the game would be better if they weren't nerfed?