A new outlook on MPQ and it's positive.

CNash

Miles, you say that you changed 2* Magneto's Polarity Shift in order to prevent the infinite turn combo with Mystique. But what are your feelings on the long-standing combo with Polarity Shift and 2* Storm's Wind Storm? Did you feel that this combo has always been "too powerful" for its initial cost? Is there a "sweet spot" with combinations of powers like this, where they would (in your estimation) feel "balanced"?

Secondly, and following on from this, since the Polarity Shift / Wind Storm combo is now a lot slower to get going, a lot of players will eschew it entirely in favour of their reliable Ares / Thor / Black Widow teams. Do you plan to address the diversity of the game at the 2* level, perhaps by making a character as powerful as Ares, so that PVP players don't end up seeing the same three faces over and over?

simonsez

The_Valeyard wrote:

Why is it so hard to wait and try the changes? If they stink, you can still rant AND have evidence they don't work. If they do work, then what was all this for any way?

Because maybe there's a 1% chance that they'll listen to the 99% of the people who are saying the GT nerf goes too far. And besides, I was just reacting to the OP. Pre-emptive nerfs are unecessary.

Colognoisseur

Demiurge_Miles wrote:

We didn't nerf Rangarok, we made him different. Honestly, try him with his new power and see what you think. Don't just judge him based on how the AI plays him.

Here is how I judge that he isn't very good. When facing a team including him in The Hunt at level 200+ he went from being one of the first to take care of to now he is the least threatening of the team usually. That's how I can judge that he is not very good. Venom, Ares, Moonstone, Daken are all more problematic and a necessity to deal with. Now i can just leave Rag alone until last.

Phaserhawk

simonsez wrote:

Am I supposed to give a **** that future characters might make her suck less? If this is really the thought process that's going on over there, they're even more lost than I thought. Pre-emptive nerfing because of something that MIGHT happen at some undetermined point in the future? That's completely absurd.

Here's an idea: wait until these other charged tile feeders actually EXIST before doing a nerf like this!

You can give a "****" about whatever you want, and like most games they are probably 2-5 characters in advance playing the game, to them it's not pre-emptive its live. League of Legends has a beta server to test things months out and that's what they have for players, they are playing a game 4 or more updates ahead of what you see. I've been playing over a year and from what this was to what it has become is amazing. I rember the first 6-8 months it was technically beta.

atomzed

Phaserhawk wrote:

That means they do care about the game, they do care about the longevity and they want everyone to have a good experience.
Phaser

I have come to this conclusion very early in this game. They are especially concern about balance, and they really want to ensure that there is no broken combo.

In many other F2P mobile games I have played, it's all about releasing newer and more OP characters than the previous one..needless to say, going down that rabbit hole of only releasing more OP or buffing characters will eventually kills the game.

I do question their decision making competence at times.... But I believe the main intent is to make the game better.

Polares

The_Valeyard wrote:

Polares wrote:

****!?!? Thor is still fun? Using 19 AP for 7000 hps is still fun? I think you have a very strange definition for fun...

Phaser, YOU CAN'T NERF something in a PREEMPTIVE way. And if devs were going to introduce new characters with more charged tiles, they should have made 4hor with that in mind. Now there is people that has invested time and money into this character and they have lost this investment.

And now you are telling me that maybe, and that is a big maybe, if there is a new char that uses charged tiles 4hor is going to suck less, ****?!?! So now I will need to use this other future char with her always! Wow what a great perspective! And if this future char is as good as Rags, then what?

I'm sorry, but I'm tired of hearing this 19 ap for 7000 damage crud. Be accurate. You also get 3 turn stun and charged tiles. And stop acting like 4or is the only character on the field. 3 turn stun is an advantage and worth 9 ap by itself.

People can be sad 4or is no longer op, but she is still good. And despite all the whining, after the change ppl will still be fielding their 4or. Why? Because she is still that good.

She is still good? Captain America is waaaaay better now, better at stunning and better at dealing damage, her only advantage is her HPs. She was the second best char, now Thor, BP, Cyclops, IF, Luke Cage are better and they are 3*

And it is not just a problem about if now is good or not, it is about you selling something for 4 months and then changing the value of what you have been selling and degrading its value. If it was something like Spidey and CMags I could understand, but this is not the same thing.

simonsez

Demiurge_Miles wrote:

These kinds of infinite turn combos tend to be very grindy and slow, so not only do they break the difficulty scale of the game but they are also no fun to play.

Here we go again, being protected from stuff that's "not fun" for our own good.

I'm sure other people will insist otherwise, but my experience with Magstique is that it was FAR from being an autowin, even if you were able to get it going. You still ran the risk of getting stuck, and vs. lv395 opponents, that could be deadly. I thought it was great fun to try to keep it going when you were in jeopardy of losing the combo.

And sorry for not remembering who was who in the Q&A video, but one of you guys said this was his go-to team at the moment. Are we to assume now that he was using that team, but not having fun doing it? That's really not how it came across in the video.

simonsez

Phaserhawk wrote:

like most games they are probably 2-5 characters in advance playing the game, to them it's not pre-emptive its live.

How hard would it be to wait and push the nerfs if/when those characters actually come out? Doesn't do us any good if only their test servers are filled with awesome synergies.

Unknown

Demiurge_Miles wrote:

mjh wrote:

while all that sounds good I think the 4Thor nerf was barely a nerf. I never had a problem with her blue change.

It's MNMags that got hit hard for no reason. He is a critical part of the 2* transition. The little guys are suffering more than the 270 veterans with this change.

Just wanted to jump in here real quick and give a little bit of explanation about the change to Magneto and Mystique. Both of these characters have been part of an infinite turn combo for a while now. These kinds of infinite turn combos tend to be very grindy and slow, so not only do they break the difficulty scale of the game but they are also no fun to play.

I think when people get their hands on the new Magneto they'll find that he's still quite good. You can almost always make a match 5 given two blue tiles in the same quarter of the board and three placed tiles. Not to mention there are no other 2* red generators. Tile placement powers are significantly stronger than they might seem on paper, and this one was way over the top.

As for Mystique, when we originally balanced Mystique we purposely made her Blue slightly more powerful than normal because we weren't entirely sure how well it would work (generating two colors instead of one, would it be reliable, would it be fun?). This change brings her in line with other tile converters. As to why we changed her:

Our game provides lots of powerful combinations of characters, but there's a fine line between powerful and broken. We changed Magneto about as far as we could while maintaining his original feel, but it just wasn't enough to stop the infinite turn combo. So we took a look at Mystique and decided that with a little tweak we could at least slow the momentum of that combo to a point where it's more on the powerful side of the line.

Hopefully this answers some questions. If I can leave you with anything it's this: These changes aren't out yet and I know they seem terrible, but wait till you get to play with the characters. I promise you we've thought this through. Magneto is still fun, Mystique is still fun, Iron Fist is still fun, Thor is still fun.

The Mmags and Mystique combo isnt always infinite, if you dont boost you can be badly beaten up sometimes. I admit i use this combo at times against lvl 270+ goons, why?
Well the sniper goon can do 9k dmg for 0ap!... and makes a Countdown tile from turn one, if that tile goes off its goodbye. I dont see how this is a fair game mechanic so why should we play fair against a cheap enemies like that? Imo the combo is fun, how can it not be fun? causing all those cascades is a delight to see, but its not like anyone uses this combo against a real pvp team.

The new infinite combo is now Xforce + Iron Fist, if anything the new patch will make Xforce even more viable.

I agree the Magneto nerf imo could actually be a buff since the red can help accelerate his red skill, and you mentioned there are no 2* red generators so hes still a viable option.

As for mystique i dont think the skill should cost 10ap. No way, look at other comparable 3* generators..
Doom - costs 9 ap - converts 9 at lvl4 , all blue at lvl5 covers
Iron Fist - cost 5ap - converts 9 tiles (soon to be 7)

Both are better converters ap ratio conversion wise.. Not to mention Mystique has low HP and i dont think the nerf justifies it.

Thor got hit very hard, i'll rather not babble on it as you probably read enough complaints about the nerf... But i really do wonder if you guys playtest the game and characters at all before release.

I'd agree Magneto will still be fun, Mystique will now be too slow,Iron Fist will still be fun (until another nerf hits the fan..)Thor is a former shell of herself.

Unknown

CNash wrote:

Miles, you say that you changed 2* Magneto's Polarity Shift in order to prevent the infinite turn combo with Mystique. But what are your feelings on the long-standing combo with Polarity Shift and 2* Storm's Wind Storm? Did you feel that this combo has always been "too powerful" for its initial cost? Is there a "sweet spot" with combinations of powers like this, where they would (in your estimation) feel "balanced"?

Secondly, and following on from this, since the Polarity Shift / Wind Storm combo is now a lot slower to get going, a lot of players will eschew it entirely in favour of their reliable Ares / Thor / Black Widow teams. Do you plan to address the diversity of the game at the 2* level, perhaps by making a character as powerful as Ares, so that PVP players don't end up seeing the same three faces over and over?

Ok, probably the last question I'll be able to field today, so here goes:

We had thought about tweaking the colors of both Magneto's and/or Mystique's powers but when given the option We'd rather make a numbers change first over a mechanics change. It keeps the character feeling and working the same and is less jarring. I think a lot of people on the forums forget that 90%+ of our players don't get these announcements ahead of time, so I'd rather have an ability do less or more of the same thing than do something else if possible. I know we have some precedence for changing character's colors around in the past, but that is literally the last thing when considering a change to a character since it's such a jarring change (even if the power is more or less the same).

Trisul

simonsez wrote:

The_Valeyard wrote:

Why is it so hard to wait and try the changes? If they stink, you can still rant AND have evidence they don't work. If they do work, then what was all this for any way?

Because maybe there's a 1% chance that they'll listen to the 99% of the people who are saying the GT nerf goes too far. And besides, I was just reacting to the OP. Pre-emptive nerfs are unecessary.

No way it's 99%.

Lots of respected vets are (understatedly) holding a wait-and-see attitude to how the balance change affects the game, which is a reasonable thing to do. Gather evidence, make judgements on gameplay rather than speculation, then make judgements. That should be the right process.

woopie

Demiurge_Miles wrote:

Just wanted to jump in here real quick and give a little bit of explanation about the change to Magneto and Mystique. Both of these characters have been part of an infinite turn combo for a while now. These kinds of infinite turn combos tend to be very grindy and slow, so not only do they break the difficulty scale of the game but they are also no fun to play.

You know what's no fun to play? 395 Juggs nodes. Or 395 Hood + yellow feeding goon nodes. But you just nerfed all of the teams that could reliably slow them down. I guess we'll just have to wait until we get creamed in PVE after PVE until the scaling goes back down. That sounds like a blast.

turul

Demiurge_Miles wrote:

CNash wrote:

Miles, you say that you changed 2* Magneto's Polarity Shift in order to prevent the infinite turn combo with Mystique. But what are your feelings on the long-standing combo with Polarity Shift and 2* Storm's Wind Storm? Did you feel that this combo has always been "too powerful" for its initial cost? Is there a "sweet spot" with combinations of powers like this, where they would (in your estimation) feel "balanced"?

Secondly, and following on from this, since the Polarity Shift / Wind Storm combo is now a lot slower to get going, a lot of players will eschew it entirely in favour of their reliable Ares / Thor / Black Widow teams. Do you plan to address the diversity of the game at the 2* level, perhaps by making a character as powerful as Ares, so that PVP players don't end up seeing the same three faces over and over?

Ok, probably the last question I'll be able to field today, so here goes:

We had thought about tweaking the colors of both Magneto's and/or Mystique's powers but when given the option We'd rather make a numbers change first over a mechanics change. It keeps the character feeling and working the same and is less jarring. I think a lot of people on the forums forget that 90%+ of our players don't get these announcements ahead of time, so I'd rather have an ability do less or more of the same thing than do something else if possible. I know we have some precedence for changing character's colors around in the past, but that is literally the last thing when considering a change to a character since it's such a jarring change (even if the power is more or less the same).

You could have buffed Magneto's blue to make people less hurt, and also, you could have buffed the numbers for several characters, to make the change more welcome.
A little AP-cost reduction to well-known overcosty abilities and it would be a whole less butthurt.

Unknown

turul wrote:

Demiurge_Miles wrote:

CNash wrote:

Miles, you say that you changed 2* Magneto's Polarity Shift in order to prevent the infinite turn combo with Mystique. But what are your feelings on the long-standing combo with Polarity Shift and 2* Storm's Wind Storm? Did you feel that this combo has always been "too powerful" for its initial cost? Is there a "sweet spot" with combinations of powers like this, where they would (in your estimation) feel "balanced"?

Secondly, and following on from this, since the Polarity Shift / Wind Storm combo is now a lot slower to get going, a lot of players will eschew it entirely in favour of their reliable Ares / Thor / Black Widow teams. Do you plan to address the diversity of the game at the 2* level, perhaps by making a character as powerful as Ares, so that PVP players don't end up seeing the same three faces over and over?

Ok, probably the last question I'll be able to field today, so here goes:

We had thought about tweaking the colors of both Magneto's and/or Mystique's powers but when given the option We'd rather make a numbers change first over a mechanics change. It keeps the character feeling and working the same and is less jarring. I think a lot of people on the forums forget that 90%+ of our players don't get these announcements ahead of time, so I'd rather have an ability do less or more of the same thing than do something else if possible. I know we have some precedence for changing character's colors around in the past, but that is literally the last thing when considering a change to a character since it's such a jarring change (even if the power is more or less the same).

You could have buffed Magneto's blue to make people less hurt, and also, you could have buffed the numbers for several characters, to make the change more welcome.
A little AP-cost reduction to well-known overcosty abilities and it would be a whole less butthurt.

I'd venture a guess that they're assuming 5 extra random red tiles is a buff to help even out the nerf...but it still doesn't feel right.

DrStrange-616

Demiurge_Miles wrote:

... so not only do they break the difficulty scale of the game but they are also no fun to play.

Chrono_Tata

First of all, thanks Miles for jumping and addressing some of these questions.

Demiurge_Miles wrote:

As for Mystique, when we originally balanced Mystique we purposely made her Blue slightly more powerful than normal because we weren't entirely sure how well it would work (generating two colors instead of one, would it be reliable, would it be fun?). This change brings her in line with other tile converters.

I don't quite fully agree with this statement that Mystique's change is bringing her in line with other tile converters. Taking a look at other active basic tile converting abilities:

- 2- and 3-star Thor - Thunder Strike - 9 random tiles converted to 1 colour plus a significant amount of damage for 12AP. Compared this to new Infiltration, which creates the same amount of tiles but in 2 colours, significantly reducing the chances of matches happening, no damage as a bonus, and requiring the same number of matches (4), I'd say that Infiltration is a much weaker power

- Grey Suit Black Widow - Deceptive Tactics - 6 targeted tiles converted into 1 colour for 11AP. Only 1AP more than Infiltration and with a pretty good amount of targeted tiles, often leading to multiple match-5s. Let's say that 1 targeted tile is worth 2 random tiles generated (VERY conservative estimate), Infiltration gives a much worse value per AP spent, on account of how many of the generated tiles are likely to be useful.

- Dr Doom - Technopathic Strike - for 9AP, all blue tiles converted to black tiles. This ability does depend on how many blue tiles are left on the board (probably not as much as you would like since you probably have been matching blue to charge up the ability in the first place), but it does have a huge advantage which is that you know for sure which tiles will be converted. This lets you decide whether you think activating the ability will be a good idea or not, and you can hold off until you get some good placements of blue tiles. Because of this, I'd say this ability is much better than Infiltration which depends a lot more on chance, and Doom's is cheaper too.

- Post-nerf 2-star Magneto - Polarity Shift - 3 targeted blue tiles created and 5 random red tiles created, for 9AP. Again, taking into account the value of targeted tiles over random ones, this is easily better than Infiltration

- Post-nerf Iron Fist - Iron Fist of K'un-Lun - 7 random tiles converted to 1 colour or a ton of damage for 5AP. Do I need to say anything?

- Cyclops - Mutant Revolutionary - 8 red tiles converted from TU tiles for 7 APs, Clearly much better than Infiltration

So, from the way I look at it, Infiltration doesn't really seem to be in line with these powers, but actually quite a bit weaker than all of them. Not to mention that Mystique's low health makes her a poor character for sitting around and collecting a bunch of AP in order to charge up her power, unlike Thor for example. As a character I guess she is in line with Grey Suit Black Widow, but while Mystique does have a better support ability (Shapeshift vs Pistol), GSBW's charging power is a lot more reliable than Mystique's.

Even if Mystique and GSBW are balanced, I don't think GSBW is a very good benchmark to balance a character at, given that everyone and their uncle agree that GSBW is probably one of the pretty low-tier 3-star characters.

Unknown

simonsez wrote:

I'm sure other people will insist otherwise, but my experience with Magstique is that it was FAR from being an autowin, even if you were able to get it going. You still ran the risk of getting stuck, and vs. lv395 opponents, that could be deadly. I thought it was great fun to try to keep it going when you were in jeopardy of losing the combo.

I wish this would be amplified considerably as a concern for the devs to address.

I'm sure the math works out with the Magneto and Mystique changes as far as breaking the "winfinite" combo is concerned, but the combo even in its current state is conditioned upon being able to get the combo going and keep it going despite Magneto (and/or Mystique) being a squish. This involves experience running it in a real game environment, conditioned upon how and when it is used. I can say from personal experience, this is not a given. I am using this combo right now to try to power through nodes that are level 200+ in The Hunt (none of my characters are above level 94) and at best this is a 50/50 proposition. Half of the time, the board is bad enough (even with boosts) that one of Mystique or Mags gets dropped.

Is it a testament to the combo's power that I can drop 200+ nodes with it? Absolutely, it's broken. But the margin for victory is smaller than the "winfinite" name implies. The Magneto changes alone will make this inefficient enough to make the combo undesirable in most situations with high-level nodes, and even if the "winfinite" scenario is theoretically possible at lower levels it's likely that player has any one of half dozen or more other teams that can reliably beat the same node while using the same amount of resources. At that point, what exactly is the negative impact of the few percent of cases where it will work?

Marc_Spector

thanks, Phaser/Miles.

and thanks, Phaser, Phantron, Valeyard, and several other regulars for being among the mature voices of reason & regard in that toxic cesspool that is the update thread.

Things change. Games change. Being heavily involved in numerous longrunning paid-MMOs of the past 15+ years, I learned to approach patchnotes not with the selfentitled terror of how this will affect ME, but rather excitement about how this will benefit the game's community as a whole.

I think the devs probably could've done a better job of advance-communicating the changes and reasoning thereof, but that doesn't change the fact that IF's black, winfinite, and [arguable aspects of] Goddess Thor were OP. This was inevitable and should surprise nobody, whales or otherwise.

The optimist in me is choosing to see MNMags' change as a buff, and already thinking about how best to combine him with other combinations of red-heavy characters. I'm disappointed in Rags' changes, but will reserve judgement and not fly off the handle about 'em until I have at least 3 blue covers, bump him from 140 to 166, and try him out in a few different group configurations.

CNash

Demiurge_Miles wrote:

CNash wrote:

Miles, you say that you changed 2* Magneto's Polarity Shift in order to prevent the infinite turn combo with Mystique. But what are your feelings on the long-standing combo with Polarity Shift and 2* Storm's Wind Storm? Did you feel that this combo has always been "too powerful" for its initial cost? Is there a "sweet spot" with combinations of powers like this, where they would (in your estimation) feel "balanced"?

Secondly, and following on from this, since the Polarity Shift / Wind Storm combo is now a lot slower to get going, a lot of players will eschew it entirely in favour of their reliable Ares / Thor / Black Widow teams. Do you plan to address the diversity of the game at the 2* level, perhaps by making a character as powerful as Ares, so that PVP players don't end up seeing the same three faces over and over?

Ok, probably the last question I'll be able to field today, so here goes:

We had thought about tweaking the colors of both Magneto's and/or Mystique's powers but when given the option We'd rather make a numbers change first over a mechanics change. It keeps the character feeling and working the same and is less jarring. I think a lot of people on the forums forget that 90%+ of our players don't get these announcements ahead of time, so I'd rather have an ability do less or more of the same thing than do something else if possible. I know we have some precedence for changing character's colors around in the past, but that is literally the last thing when considering a change to a character since it's such a jarring change (even if the power is more or less the same).

Thanks for this, but did you mean to quote me? It seemed like your response is answering a different question to the one I posted (which was about the perceived power level of the Polarity Shift / Wind Storm combo and the impact of changing 2* Magneto on the 2* metagame, rather than about switching ability colours).

DaveR4470

woopie wrote:

You know what's no fun to play? 395 Juggs nodes. Or 395 Hood + yellow feeding goon nodes. But you just nerfed all of the teams that could reliably slow them down. I guess we'll just have to wait until we get creamed in PVE after PVE until the scaling goes back down. That sounds like a blast.

If scaling works properly (and oh boy is that a question unto itself....), you aren't going to be facing level 395 teams post-nerf, because you won't have an overpowered team that rolls over level 325 teams in a few rounds, and therefore you won't get scaled up to 395. In theory.