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Unknown

Phantron wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Darkwing Duck wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

...
These two changes in particular just really show to me that the devs are continuing to overdo nerfs
...

You lived through OBW, Spider-Man, CMags and countless other hard core nerfs and you really have the nerve to say this is overdoing it? These characters are still functional.

You missed the point. It's about the implications of the Thoress yellow nerf, not the results of it. Obviously the yellow nerf is meaningless since no one used her yellow anyways. My point was that think about the dev's thought process that lead to this change in the first place.
Dev 1 - "Hey, charged tiles are actually pretty good. Surge and smite should be changed and toned down".
Dev 2 - "Yeah! What about yellow though? That ability uses charged tiles too."
Dev 3 - " Hmmm.... I dunno. I haven't heard any complaints about yellow, but you may be right just because its the same mechanic. Lets nerf it to be safe".

This is EXACTLY the line of thinking that led to wheelchairing Sentry - a character needs a nerf. The devs don't understand how to nerf the character properly, and play it safe by overdoing it, while neutering the character in the process. They need to fix this thought process so that future characters don't end up suffering the same fate as Sentry. As a whole this is clearly not as bad as Sentry / Spider-man, but it doesn't mean that there aren't lessons to be learned and things to improve on.

I doubt they went through that. I think it's far more likely they went through a numerical analysis of budget like you mentioned earlier, something like:

4* abiities have 10000 points of power

Striking Distance does about 6000 damage that uses up 6000 out of 10000.

Before charged tiles are valued at 800 points so this ability creates 5 charged tiles.

After realizing they grossly undervalued strike tile they now cost 1500, so this Striking Distance now creates 3 charged tile instead of 5.

In this particular case it's also hard to place a value on 'remove arbitary special tiles'. At removing 5 it pretty much gets rid of everything besides World Rupture, Phermone Rage, Hail Storm, or The Thirst, and that could be pretty powerful. At 3, it's possible something might slip through. I'm not sure how practical it is, but that probably cost something too.

Didn't get a chance to reply myself, but yes, this ^^^

Look at all the 5/5/3 hoods. No one (yes I'm sure someone does) uses hoods black. Hoods black costs 12 ap to do a little over 1k dmg and although great in theory rarely comes into play for its other effect. This power could be a lot stronger for its cost, but due to hoods other abilities which are good, this one lags behind.

Yes they nerf ed 2 of her powers, but to justify keeping her yellow those nerfs would have to be bigger still, so I welcome them dumping some nerf energy on an unused power

Unknown

I'm thankful Demiurge Miles provided some commentary. It might give me some confidence, except it's hard to have confidence in rebalances when you look at the recent Sentry rebalance.

I saw Northern Polarity's comment in this thread that he sees some or much of the rationale behind the rebalance, aside from the 4hor yellow. I'd be interested to see his analysis on 4hor's red/blue, especially blue, and whether it's overdone or whether it really makes sense. I couldn't find it if it's hidden somewhere in one of these threads. If anyone has the link to his comments on that, I'd be interested to read it and would appreciate it.

I'm also curious how these changes impact PVE scaling, and the ability to reach 1k progression in PVP.

Now that I'm moving permanently to free 2 play, I can totally divorce monetary loss from these character rebalances and just find interest in observing how the metagame continuously shifts.

Mikaveus

Having played Mystique, she's the only nerfed character I feel comfortable commenting on. It just seems to me that (A) raising the cost of her blue power AND (B) decreasing the number of changed tiles is too much at once. Why not just do one? If it continues to be an issue, then amend her abilities further. Why run the risk of making her outright useless like Sentry?

darkmagearcanis

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Darkwing Duck wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

...
These two changes in particular just really show to me that the devs are continuing to overdo nerfs
...

You lived through OBW, Spider-Man, CMags and countless other hard core nerfs and you really have the nerve to say this is overdoing it? These characters are still functional.

You missed the point. It's about the implications of the Thoress yellow nerf, not the results of it. Obviously the yellow nerf is meaningless since no one used her yellow anyways. My point was that think about the dev's thought process that lead to this change in the first place.
Dev 1 - "Hey, charged tiles are actually pretty good. Surge and smite should be changed and toned down".
Dev 2 - "Yeah! What about yellow though? That ability uses charged tiles too."
Dev 3 - " Hmmm.... I dunno. I haven't heard any complaints about yellow, but you may be right just because its the same mechanic. Lets nerf it to be safe".

This is EXACTLY the line of thinking that led to wheelchairing Sentry - a character needs a nerf. The devs don't understand how to nerf the character properly, and play it safe by overdoing it, while neutering the character in the process. They need to fix this thought process so that future characters don't end up suffering the same fate as Sentry. As a whole this is clearly not as bad as Sentry / Spider-man, but it doesn't mean that there aren't lessons to be learned and things to improve on.

My question is, if no one used 4Thor's yellow, why complain about it? What is the point? To me it sounds as if her yellow was used more than what you claim. If it was so unused, you should be looking at it like "oh they changed her yellow? HA! Jokes on them, it was never used" and leave it at that.

simonsez

darkmagearcanis wrote:

My question is, if no one used 4Thor's yellow, why complain about it? What is the point? To me it sounds as if her yellow was used more than what you claim. If it was so unused, you should be looking at it like "oh they changed her yellow? HA! Jokes on them, it was never used" and leave it at that.

Not really... the joke's still on us, because this is a stark indication that they're really, really bad at understanding the game and balancing characters.

SnowcaTT

darkmagearcanis wrote:

My question is, if no one used 4Thor's yellow, why complain about it? What is the point? To me it sounds as if her yellow was used more than what you claim. If it was so unused, you should be looking at it like "oh they changed her yellow? HA! Jokes on them, it was never used" and leave it at that.

Blue was obviously the problem, but created synergy. If they left yellow alone, there still could be synergy - and options on a build. It could be 5/4/4. It could be 4/4/5. It could be almost anything!

Different builds make characters interesting, imo. I like seeing no consensus about the best Blade, Doom, Daredevil, Daken - it's a bummer when anyone can glance at BP/Psy and immediately know they don't want five blue.

IamTheDanger

I was thinking about all the upcoming changes to infinite combos and OP characters last night, and I realized something.

They forgot one ! There is one aspect of this game that is WAY, WAY, WWAAAAAAAAYYYYY over powered and needs an immediate nerf.

What is it you ask? Well, it would be ...... Roster Slot Prices! The prices are not only OP, but get stronger will each one added. D3 said they want to get rid of broken, infinite parts of the game. Well, roster slots continue to go up in price infinitely! So why have they not been nerfed yet?

Unknown

JCTthe3rd81 wrote:

I was thinking about all the upcoming changes to infinite combos and OP characters last night, and I realized something.

They forgot one ! There is one aspect of this game that is WAY, WAY, WWAAAAAAAAYYYYY over powered and needs an immediate nerf.

What is it you ask? Well, it would be ...... Roster Slot Prices! The prices are not only OP, but get stronger will each one added. D3 said they want to get rid of broken, infinite parts of the game. Well, roster slots continue to go up in price infinitely! So why have they not been nerfed yet?

Come to think about it, goons feed NPCs AP...isn't that an infinite? nerf them d3!!

3*Iron man generates AP, better nerf him

3*BW generates ap better nerf her

x-force is completely fine tho

Unknown

I just updated my toilet. Coffee always does the trick

Unknown

Storm/Mags combo Axed!?!..

I for one am not thrilled with the Mags (MN) nerf. For some of us the S/M combo is the only way we have the ability to compete. It's hard enough to transition from 2* to a viable 3* roster when faced with so many battles pitted against level 100+ opponents. This combo allows players to at least have a modicum of a chance to complete PVE events, which are/were the major source of reward tokens. Personally it's the only way I have to be able to earn enough points (barely) to be able to win the seasonal 10 pack reward, and to be able to complete 98% of the PVE's thus getting the 3*'s I do have. It's hard enough trying to put a decent 3* combo and/or roster together as is. Taking away about the only combo available that lends to the capability to earn the 3* necessary to transition. At least without pouring money into packs to be able to.
I myself have a decently sized roster, but not enough 3*s at competitive level powers and/or life.
I've noticed a lot of players remarking that the 2* transitioning players will be fine because they can now use the "New and Improved" Rags...
As I stated:
1. We have to be able to compete in PVE'S Which with the scaling system is next to impossible causing us to be faced with 150+ foes(which was stated that it's our fault because we win battles using boosts)which are necessary to be able to defeat 80% of our opponents..

2.Competing in PvP is also inarguably difficult Once I personally reach 350 am faced with the 200+ XF wall (I know veterans state that it depends on when you enter) thus I can't even reach the HP reward level.. and obviously I don't stand a chance of ranking high enough to win the necessary covers 2 level 3 stars I have enough to build a competitively viable team.

3. Out of 9 mos. of play I've not seen 1 Rags token (that includes $ I've spent on 10 packs) the Seasonal 10 pack rewards I'm lucky to get 1-2 gold tokens..
So how am I/we supposed to get "Rags" to be able to use the only combo that allows us any chance of transitioning to 3* ?

4* players have taken a hard hit..
3* players suffer a bruise..
2* players have been completely neutered..

Play for free has been effectively taken off the table for transitioning 2*-3* players..
With our inability to effectively compete and earn the rewards necessary to transition. What chance do we have of making it to a viable 3* roster?
Seemingly we're left with no option but to pour $ in and cross our fingers..
They may have cost themselves $ from the 3 & 4* Players but they've forged a new $ pipeline from all 2*-3* players and any newcomers..

I agree with what one player suggested Everyone should go to place of download and leave negative feedback and down rate them..
Who knows? In a perfect world it might make them take notice....

Ran dom thought.... Hawkeye has one reason to live...
GSBW, @ her Purple (once maxed) will at least do some damage ...@least until NERF her Purple. .. ..

rixmith

I'll continue to withhold judgement on the Rags changes until I get to play with him, but I am enjoying getting Team Ups from him. Having his red generate blue to power cMags or Cap is nice, and using his blue to create charged green tiles which I get first crack at is good as well. And I certainly do not miss his seemingly infinite turns with the old Godlike Power feeding his red which feeds his Godlike Power... And he has moved from being the first character I need to take out to one I want to save for last so that I don't get hammered because of his healing.

Unknown

I'll start with the worst tragedy: for 19 AP, TGT now stuns a dude and smacks a second for 7k damage. This is incredibly close to what Mystique does, except Mystique has an explicit ability to accelerate into her damage combo.

Thor and X-Force were setting the standard for 4* characters...now? Just X-Force, who will assuredly get neutered down to approximately 3* levels of power now that he will be otherwise uncontested. Why am I bothering to progress to 4* characters, again?

Bottom line: if charged tiles are a problem, change charged tiles. I can live with that. But give the Goddess her hammer! The stun can stay at 4 turns, and her raw Smite damage can be tweaked to make up for the tile loss, and her yellow...really, that one didn't need to be changed. Making a 4* into a high HP 3* isn't balancing. Otherwise Devil Dino might be less of a joke.

Unknown

Moon 17 wrote:

Bottom line: if charged tiles are a problem, change charged tiles. I can live with that. But give the Goddess her hammer! The stun can stay at 4 turns, and her raw Smite damage can be tweaked to make up for the tile loss, and her yellow...really, that one didn't need to be changed. Making a 4* into a high HP 3* isn't balancing. Otherwise Devil Dino might be less of a joke.

100% this. The stun at 3 turns I'm OK with even, but Smite needs a damage boost now.

It seems, to me, most everyone is OK with the charge tile changes. It was too good, now it's merely OK. The problem is Smite working it's damage off of charge tiles, so her initial damage levels (at a level where 4*s should be) got gutted by the change to Power Surge. There needs to be a corresponding increase to Smite base damage, or to damage provided by charge tiles, or split over both, so that Smite is still doing in the range of 10,000 damage for 19 AP.

In various interviews D3 has said they wanted her power level to ramp up with charge tiles, and that they were proud of her design. You have a funny way of showing it.

Unknown

I'll move on to lesser tragedies: Mystique and Ragnarok.

Mystique will soon be generating 9 random tiles in 2 colors for 10 AP. Meanwhile, IF can make 7 in one color for 5. Are you guys actually innumerate? In a vacuum, maybe IF's lack of black makes this fair...but in a vacuum, there's no winfinite to screw up Mystique's power set--so I have no reason to pretend that we're playing in a vacuum.

Please don't eviscerate her blue with a double nerf that is already made redundant after the change to Magneto. One change of the two seems fine; if she and Chuck end up wrecking the joint in the future you can always go back and make the other.

As for Ragnarok: he is terrible. Seriously. His blue ability almost doesn't do anything, and I still can't decide if it's worse that his red is now feeding that instead of his expensive, underwhelming, suicidal green.

Are you guys afraid that a red/blue/green character with 3 playable abilities would somehow break the game?

Unknown

Finally, Magneto and Iron fist.

Magneto's purple was cheap and targeted; I get that this is a problem. It's tough to see a 2* with a unique role to fill having his niche power cut, but if that's necessary for long term balance I guess that's fine. And let's not forget that his red is really good; feeding it is a fine thing. I'm willing to wait and see on this one.

I'll wait and see for IF, too...but I don't think his incredibly mild nerf did much to curb his danger. His crazy free attack tile remains untouched, and his tile creation is still second-to-none. Anyone upset about his nerf should make it a point to never again read the text of his purple without subsequently rereading the text of Loki's. Those abilities, despite their identical cost, are in no ways equal. And if you think that disparity is made up for by IF's low health or lack of quality skills to accompany his purple, I have a few other things you'll need to read...

GrumpySmurf1002

Moon 17 wrote:

I'll start with the worst tragedy: for 19 AP, TGT now stuns a dude and smacks a second for 7k damage. This is incredibly close to what Mystique does, except Mystique has an explicit ability to accelerate into her damage combo.

Thor and X-Force were setting the standard for 4* characters...now? Just X-Force, who will assuredly get neutered down to approximately 3* levels of power now that he will be otherwise uncontested. Why am I bothering to progress to 4* characters, again?

Bottom line: if charged tiles are a problem, change charged tiles. I can live with that. But give the Goddess her hammer! The stun can stay at 4 turns, and her raw Smite damage can be tweaked to make up for the tile loss, and her yellow...really, that one didn't need to be changed. Making a 4* into a high HP 3* isn't balancing. Otherwise Devil Dino might be less of a joke.

Because of the nature of the game, we're used to discussing things in terms of "what does it do on first pass?" But 4Thor, while yes, equivalent to Mystique for 19AP, does potentially more damage the longer a match goes (or say wave matches), presuming charged tiles remain. This is especially key once it gets to the stage where Thor can stun-lock the last character.

Also unlike most other combos, there's the chance that we get another character that creates charged tiles, in which case Thor becomes more powerful as a partner than she is as an individual.

Unknown

Yeah IF's purple is still way too cheap. Having a specific color generator for only 5 AP is just ridiculous. Generate 7 black tiles for 5 AP ... seriously ...

And nerfing MN magneto is a real tragedy. 2*stormneto is the only way for 2* to compete in pve and pvp. I'm so thankful that I'm well into my 3* transition, so this nerf won't affect me that much, but I just feel bad for all those ppl with only 1-4 months of game time. I have no idea how they'll ever get to 3* land without 2*stormento.

Also, when you're using MNneto's purple, will the 5 added red tiles affect existing blue tiles? If so, that'll be pretty counterproductive if you're trying to make a 5 blue match and one of the 5 blues turns into a red!

Unknown

Moon 17 wrote:

Finally, Magneto and Iron fist.

Magneto's purple was cheap and targeted; I get that this is a problem. It's tough to see a 2* with a unique role to fill having his niche power cut, but if that's necessary for long term balance I guess that's fine. And let's not forget that his red is really good; feeding it is a fine thing. I'm willing to wait and see on this one.

I'll wait and see for IF, too...but I don't think his incredibly mild nerf did much to curb his danger. His crazy free attack tile remains untouched, and his tile creation is still second-to-none. Anyone upset about his nerf should make it a point to never again read the text of his purple without subsequently rereading the text of Loki's. Those abilities, despite their identical cost, are in no ways equal. And if you think that disparity is made up for by IF's low health or lack of quality skills to accompany his purple, I have a few other things you'll need to read...

Magneto's red needs to be placable(Hawkeye, Rocket & Groot) among other things if they expect us to use it in place of MagStorming.

Unknown

MNMags + CStorm + Hawkeye was my absolute favorite 2* combo. It's ruined. I was coming back and doing the dailies for the extra 3* covers since I am not regularly playing the game anymore. Well this did it again for me. That combo was the one that I was using to take down the waves since I don't have any other 3* except from LCap maxed. The change to MNMags is not good and this character will go and sit at the end of my roster and maybe get sold. Grats, you took one of the best 2* and made him almost completely useless.

Unknown

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

Because of the nature of the game, we're used to discussing things in terms of "what does it do on first pass?" But 4Thor, while yes, equivalent to Mystique for 19AP, does potentially more damage the longer a match goes (or say wave matches), presuming charged tiles remain. This is especially key once it gets to the stage where Thor can stun-lock the last character.

Also unlike most other combos, there's the chance that we get another character that creates charged tiles, in which case Thor becomes more powerful as a partner than she is as an individual.

This is currently true of every ability in the game that doesn't just do flat damage.

Attack tiles modified by strike tiles, any tiles modified by Falcon or Chuck, healing or protect tiles...how long was Mystique's Shape shift tile out before Masterstroke? The argument that Thor's attacks will get stronger in a long game is not irrelevant, but outside of survival nodes they don't have much bearing on her damage output relative to initial cost. Over a long enough timeline and under ideal circumstances, Cap does 4k damage per red AP on average and Daredevil's damage is infinite and free. Does Thor have to one-shot another 4* for 19 AP? Not necessarily. But her damage ratio is waaaaaay under what we're used to after these revisions.

As I said, if charge tiles are the problem, change the production of charge tiles. But if the power of Thor's attack presumes the proliferation of charged tiles (as you're suggesting) and charged tiles are a previously undercoated and dangerous commodity (as the developers said), then there's no reason to believe that we'll be able to ever churn them out in sufficient quantities to make her red relevant.

Again: her damage, health, and ability set were not a problem in matches against suitably developed rosters. So if they nerf her charged tiles they need to do it without weakening her overall functionality.