How to avoid IF fiasco 2.0

Unknown

Change the rote format for releasing a new character.

1. Keep the PVE offering covers, make it a longer one.

2. At the start of that pve run lightning rounds with the new character, loaner is a high level 4/4/4

3. Let the community playtest the tinykitty out of the guy.

4. Pay attention and listen! at this point no one has any covers yet and you can still make any necessary changes without a fiasco.

5. Make any necessary changes/nerfs/buffs.

6. Then finally after steps 4-5 are completed give people their first covers and let them purchase more as they see fit.

Unknown

I really like the idea of having a playtest node in either pvp or pve using a loaner of a yet unreleased character! However, I would put the node in the PVE before the one where they are released so that people don't work a whole week for a character that suddenly changes once the covers are rewarded. It would build enthusiasm for the character (possibly increasing token sales when the character is released), and yet people would know that the character is subject to change.

Another idea might be to keep track of which forumites are consistently right in terms of character balance. There's a good deal of people who could tell that IF was broken, and Thor's charged tiles and Surge->Smite was a tad overpowered. There's also a great deal of forumites who are indiscriminately pro-buff, anti-nerf.

Unknown

They didn't need playtesting. The community told them IF was overpowered within about 10 mins of the character details being posted on this forum - just like we picked up on the OP nature of Prof X with Mags/Mystique in PvE within a couple of minutes.

wirius

Good idea. Playtesting gives better feedback then complaints and whines alone.

Unknown

DrUnpleasant wrote:

They didn't need playtesting. The community told them IF was overpowered within about 10 mins of the character details being posted on this forum - just like we picked up on the OP nature of Prof X with Mags/Mystique in PvE within a couple of minutes.

I find that how characters look on paper do not always correspond with how they play in the game. On paper, I thought Squirrel Girl was Beast level bad, but playing the loaner in PvE was not an awful experience. Below average but situationally usable, not in need of an overhaul. And maybe it was hope blinding me since I was riding Sentry in PvP at that time, but I thought his nerf might be okay on paper. Obviously, in play he is useless for that purpose.

While the community frequently has an idea, getting our hands on a loaner to see how it really plays, is very useful to confirm those hypothesis.

simonsez

Isn't this pretty much exactly what they did with GT? Except of course for the part about making any changes upon release.

Unknown

This is what they did for the anniversary and it just happened to be GT in the chamber at the time. And, surprise surprise people loved that nonsense. The tokens raining from the sky helped but D3 really should look into using that method regularly and get free live server playtest data out of it.