A new outlook on MPQ and it's positive.

Unknown

atomzed wrote:

Truthfully, i think it is very difficult for D3 to sieve through the posts and make sense of it. As an outsider, i will not know what the forummites wants me to do. Should i nerf before release, soon after release, or very late after release? I can't tell.

Luckily the devs are not outsiders. Well I hope at least...
I think you already had a lot of answers to your question (shortly : Prof X no real outrage but it outlines the lack of thinking and testing involved in new characters, IF: the issue comes from the timing and finally 4thor: the heavy nerfing of a 4* king of the hill is no small matter). Let me sum up the real itch here: respect and communication.

There seems to be an utter and total lack of respect for us players and it's linked to the way the dev communicate with us. Communicate being quite a big word, knowing that for a huge majority of players the only communication they ever see is done via some splash screen ingame which seems to be written directly by the marketing department. If I remember correctly, there was a time (was it after the Thorverine debacle?) that the dev promised to keep us in touch with what nerfs where in the pipeline. A bit like we know who's going to be vaulted or not. What happened to that ?
How can the dev not understand that modifying the second best character, one specifically designed to necessitate an crazy amount of time and/or money (pretty much the same thing in the grand scheme of things) will elicit a bad vibe ?
How can they not see that altering radically a 4* is a total different matter from altering a 1, 2 or 3* and wil be reacted differently to ?
How come there seem to be absolutely zero sense of direction ? The most recent example being the quite funny explanation about the nerf of the blue Thor for which they suddenly realized after six month that this power could interfere with characters that are still not existing.
Why is there so much nerfs and so little buffs or swapping of powers ?
Are the 4* nothing else than trophies now, glorified 3* costing three time more for almost no advantage ?

I could continue pile up question after question for pages, but the bottom line is quite clear: except when cornered (the free alliance debacle which turned out perfectly ok in the end) D3 won't show the players a fraction of the respect anyone in the sale business would display to even the worse of their clients. The devs actually behave like MPQ was a traditional game with a classical business model where we would all have bought this game for 40 bucks. But that's not how it works at all, and given their business model is based and a constant stream of in-game purchase, you would expect they would try to pamper as much as possible their player base. You would expect wrong, as it seems that any compensation, any gift to players seems akin to sacrificing their firstborn.

To re-use an image I've read somewhere around here, I feel like a camel and the nerf of 4Thor like a new straw (more like a whole roof joist) on my back, which suddenly hurts like crazy. The 7 Thor covers and the 3 IF covers I very recently bought might be for something in this feeling, for sure.
So yes I'm angry, but no I'm not hysteric, and my ire is the fruit of a substantiated reasoning. I dunno if I will stop to play outright or not, but I feel totally vaccinated against the desire of spending any more money in this game, or "support them" as they themselves write in the little message displayed when you buy something. Respect is a two way street, and it seems it just has been closed indefinitely for some major roadwork.

GuntherBlobel wrote:

The next time feel the impulse to buy 10K HP, I suggest you read the MPQ EULA to sober yourself up. It works for me.
"We can manage, regulate, control, modify or eliminate virtual currency and/or virtual goods, including the price thereof, at our discretion, and will have no liability to you or any third party for any of such actions."
http://www.d3p.us/EULA/MarvelPuzzleQuest/

Just a small word to say EULA don't have the same binding power than contracts. They can be (and some already have been) deemed abusive and hence null and void by courts of law. Besides, as ark123 said, they are more last resorts precautions than guidelines for behavior.

GuntherBlobel wrote:

Are you telling me that if you made a Venn diagram of people who bought Sentry covers and 4* Thor covers that there'd be no overlap? I suspect the opposite.

I would say that equating Sentry to Thor 4* is comparing apple and oranges. Sure, they were both the king of the hill (or rather part of the team that was) of their time. But maxing a Sentry was almost trivial compared to the work involved in maxing a 4Thor.

Unknown

Demiurge_Miles wrote:

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.

Spider man is still fun, Sentry is still fun but most importantly Moonstone is still fun.

atomzed

Grosnours wrote:

Let me sum up the real itch here: respect and communication.

Let me try to understand this 2 words better.

In "respect", I suppose you mean that "as a customer, I bought the character so you better respect my rights and not change it!".

In "communication", I suppose you mean that they should inform us the changes in the pipelines both buffs and nerfs. And through different medium.

With regards to respect, I think you really meant customer rights. My expectations of customers rights in an online game is different from that of a product I purchased. I always view it from a lease model, that I pay a fee to "use" the character, and that in no way did I ever "owe" the character. This is akin to me paying a subscription fee (one time fee), but the exact content will change with the content provider.

Such kind of outrage at a change is not unique to MPQ, as it happens in all online games. To me, this is because there's a mismatch of expectations of customer rights.

Some may argue that the company should not ever change the character.... Frankly speaking, this is not possible. In online games, especially for mobile games, there's a need to release new 'content' (in D3 case, they rightly or wrongly choose to focus on releasing new characters) on a regular basis. Because of the regular release, it is impossible to catch all possible combos. Hence there is a need to constantly tweak things. Even big studios like Diablo and Street fighters have to constantly make the tweaks to the characters. This is the benefit of online games, which they can change things quickly.... But the flipside is also that the players have to constantly adjust to the game.

For communication, there was a period of time which they inform the forummites that they will buff or nerf certain characters. The most famous example I can think of is Cmag. Cmag 2 AP move was known to be very abusive, and people know that he will be nerf. And it also took more than 6 months for the nerf to go through... A similar time frame with Thor. During that 6 months, D3 receive a lot of flak of not delivering to their promise and not nerfing cmag, of blatantly lying that they will nerf... I guess the lessons they learnt (rightly or wrongly) is that they will announce things whenever it is ready, rather than saying it too early.

There are a lot of good things and a lot of bad things about D3 decisions. And as you said, if you don't like the game, and are upset about the dev, the best thing you can do is to leave the game. I assume that there are some metrics for them to know about their 'attrition'.

In the mean time, if you are still playing the game, my advice is 'buyers beware'. It is very common, in fact it's essential for online games to change things for balance.

GuntherBlobel

Grosnours wrote:

GuntherBlobel wrote:

Are you telling me that if you made a Venn diagram of people who bought Sentry covers and 4* Thor covers that there'd be no overlap? I suspect the opposite.

I would say that equating Sentry to Thor 4* is comparing apple and oranges. Sure, they were both the king of the hill (or rather part of the team that was) of their time. But maxing a Sentry was almost trivial compared to the work involved in maxing a 4Thor.

More like comparing a medium sized apple to big apple, really. They aren't qualitatively different are they? Some people just wanted to believe that 4*s were too big to be nerfed when they dropped that kind of cash. It's the kind of wishful thinking that justifies irrational decisions. We all do it: it's basic human psychology.

But more on human psychology: Freemium games exploit behavioral psychology to increase impulse buys and to transition players from a skill-based game to a money-based game. Fine, the game industry is trying to trick us into buying more virtual goods. I just wish it ended there.

But I come to this forum and see that people have so completely bought into their rationalizations that they then advise others to "invest" in the "good deal" that amounts to 2500 HP covers. It's nonsense. HP has 0 resale value once purchased (read the EULA), and thus, any net HP is also worth nothing. 2500 HP is only a good deal because "Tokens cost even more." I'm sorry to be so harsh, but this Forum often substitutes for an addiction therapy group. The problem is that the addicts are using addict reasoning to talk about the gaming, which only benefits the gaming industry.

I am really sorry to be such as ****, but I feel like some tough love is in order. Demiurge equates $$$ spent with "fun." If you buy 4* covers, then you are telling them that you would have even more fun if you could buy some more.

Unknown

I have a different take on the outlook of MPQ and to me it's not positive. After about 1 year of game play, I have most 3* heroes at 13 covers (I have 28 out of 35 3* heroes at 13 covers). If 4* heroes aren't any more powerful than 3* heroes, just harder to get and level, then what is the progression or end game?

I have fury at level 200 at 544. The rating thread says he is the #4 hero overall. Lthor was the only 3* rated above him in that rating thread. I still take luke cage or lthor or loki or hood or iron fist into most battles over fury. In fact the only 166 hero I use less than fury is sentry (out of BP, daken, loki, luke, sentry, hood, thor, patch). Maybe this would change if I leveled him to 270 or got that last blue cover.

If 4* heroes are supposed to be balanced against 3* heroes, then my assertion is that the game has no carrot, no endgame, no progression. This makes me question grinding the hunt to get prof x covers - is it meaningless; for all the time spent to get a high placement? This makes me question - is playing this game hardcore meaningless?

I was spending all of my HP gained in buying goddess covers, but with the nerf, what's the point.

In my opinion balance caters to casuals. Casuals don't pay the bills.

Pylgrim

Lerysh wrote:

You are comparing the wrong abillities. Rags cast twice in a row (12 ) generates 8 blue tiles compared to Thunderstrikes 9 green tiles. Rags at 5 covers adds 6 green AP to the board compared to Thor's Mjolnir's Might adding 3 tiles. These powers aren't awful on their face.

Rags is totally awful tho for all the reasons you stated. Costs too much, needs to cost like 10.

Uh? You're one comparing the abilities wrong. Both red abilities feed into the secondary colour (yellow or blue) and that one feeds into green which costs 14. Yes, the chain of Red into Blue for rags is much easier than Red into Yellow of Thor, but Blue into green is abysmally inferior than Yellow into Green, correspondingly.

Unknown

atomzed wrote:

Let me try to understand this 2 words better.

In "respect", I suppose you mean that "as a customer, I bought the character so you better respect my rights and not change it!".

In "communication", I suppose you mean that they should inform us the changes in the pipelines both buffs and nerfs. And through different medium.

With regards to respect, I think you really meant customer rights. My expectations of customers rights in an online game is different from that of a product I purchased. I always view it from a lease model, that I pay a fee to "use" the character, and that in no way did I ever "owe" the character. This is akin to me paying a subscription fee (one time fee), but the exact content will change with the content provider.

Such kind of outrage at a change is not unique to MPQ, as it happens in all online games. To me, this is because there's a mismatch of expectations of customer rights.

Some may argue that the company should not ever change the character.... Frankly speaking, this is not possible. In online games, especially for mobile games, there's a need to release new 'content' (in D3 case, they rightly or wrongly choose to focus on releasing new characters) on a regular basis. Because of the regular release, it is impossible to catch all possible combos. Hence there is a need to constantly tweak things. Even big studios like Diablo and Street fighters have to constantly make the tweaks to the characters. This is the benefit of online games, which they can change things quickly.... But the flipside is also that the players have to constantly adjust to the game.

For communication, there was a period of time which they inform the forummites that they will buff or nerf certain characters. The most famous example I can think of is Cmag. Cmag 2 AP move was known to be very abusive, and people know that he will be nerf. And it also took more than 6 months for the nerf to go through... A similar time frame with Thor. During that 6 months, D3 receive a lot of flak of not delivering to their promise and not nerfing cmag, of blatantly lying that they will nerf... I guess the lessons they learnt (rightly or wrongly) is that they will announce things whenever it is ready, rather than saying it too early.

There are a lot of good things and a lot of bad things about D3 decisions. And as you said, if you don't like the game, and are upset about the dev, the best thing you can do is to leave the game. I assume that there are some metrics for them to know about their 'attrition'.

In the mean time, if you are still playing the game, my advice is 'buyers beware'. It is very common, in fact it's essential for online games to change things for balance.

I must confess that MPQ is my first F2P mobile game. I've been an avid gamer for decades, but it was my first venture into this genre. I would qualify your outlook on things as cynical. It's not a criticism, mind, but it looks to me you have integrated the fact that online mobile games based on F2P are on their little island of reality.

My job is actually to conceive video games. Not commercial ones but educational ones, or serious games as we call them. And I'm quite astonished to see that one of the population that needs the most convincing to see that games (in general and video games in particular) can be used for educational purposes is... gamers ! They have so integrated the belief that their hobby/passion is special that they refuse to consider it could be seen as a tool for another purpose. In the same fashion, online games or F2P games or Internet in general for that matter are nothing special either. All the laws, especially commercial laws still apply. I'm European, and the European commission sets a particularly strong focus on defending the rights of the customers.
In that light, I really think nothing at all is ok with the way things are done in MPQ from a customers' right point of view.

Worse, if I take the dev or editor point of view (which I often do given my line of work), everything makes even less sense. There's an article in another thread on how a tiny fraction of the players' population (the whales) make for a huge amount of the revenues in games like MPQ. And yet nothing is done to cater to this category of clients, endangering the very existence of the game itself. Really, I can't wrap my head around this.

GuntherBlobel wrote:

More like comparing a medium sized apple to big apple, really. They aren't qualitatively different are they? Some people just wanted to believe that 4*s were too big to be nerfed when they dropped that kind of cash. It's the kind of wishful thinking that justifies irrational decisions. We all do it: it's basic human psychology.

But more on human psychology: Freemium games exploit behavioral psychology to increase impulse buys and to transition players from a skill-based game to a money-based game. Fine, the game industry is trying to trick us into buying more virtual goods. I just wish it ended there.

But I come to this forum and see that people have so completely bought into their rationalizations that they then advise others to "invest" in the "good deal" that is amounts to 2500 HP covers. It's nonsense. HP has 0 resale value once purchased (read the EULA), and thus, any net HP is also worth nothing. 2500 HP is only a good deal because "Tokens cost even more." I'm sorry to be so harsh, but this Forum often substitutes for an addiction therapy group. The problem is that the addicts are using addict reasoning to talk about the gaming, which only benefits the gaming industry.

I am really sorry to be such as ****, but I feel like some tough love is in order. Demiurge equates $$$ spent with "fun." If you buy 4* covers, then you are telling them that you would have even more fun if you could buy some more.

You're not an ****, you merely have a divergent opinion and you express it well. Conversations held in this thread are very civil and quite interesting I must say.
Let me explain how I see HP and hence the action of buying HP in this game: it brings you a certain amount of power to your roster. How you exactly convert this power in game terms (slots, covers, shields, etc...) is entirely up to you as the very concept of "power" is pretty relative, but there is an undeniable difference in means of actions between a player with 10 000 HP and one with 0. You could say seeing things this way is also a rationalization, but I would argue this one is at least grounded into some truth.

Severely harming Sentry is depriving people who have him of a certain amount of power, but nerfing 4Thor is depriving players of a much much bigger amount of it. And as much as you could consider that the loss incurred with the Sentry nerf is within the boundaries of reason, risk of the trade and so forth, the ones you get with the 4Thor nerf are an entire different matter altogether.
What baffles me the most is that the dev didn't see it coming or didn't take the measure of this. They purposely made the 4* into a whole different category cost-wise and still seem to fail to see the problems when treating them like the others star categories.

atomzed

Grosnours wrote:

I must confess that MPQ is my first F2P mobile game. I've been an avid gamer for decades, but it was my first venture into this genre. I would qualify your outlook on things as cynical. It's not a criticism, mind, but it looks to me you have integrated the fact that online mobile games based on F2P are on their little island of reality.

Cynical? Hmm, that doesn't sound right! I mean, if I'm cynical I will probably be joining the people in complaining about D3!

Some would say that I have bought in to the stupid freemium business model, and that we should demand better things!

I agree that the freemium business model needs to be improved. The general observation is that the typical freemium is 1) new releases will be definitely better than the older ones and 2) a lot of information are kept hidden (e.g. No percentage given.) Go look at games like Rage of Bahamut and you find that you need to constantly pump in money to be competitive.

This are two things which MPQ has buckled the trend. The new characters do not make the old characters obsolete (though the power creep is beginning to show). Cover rates are openly displayed, which is entirely different from most freemium games (though it also boggles my mind why people still buy the packs...)

There are other things that D3 has done that shows me that they are genuinely interested in creating a balance game. This gives me some confidence that they are in it for a long time, instead of just earning money in the short run. If they really want to squeeze every penny in the shortest possible time, they would continue to release OP characters, and should not fix IF and Xavier at all.

GuntherBlobel

Grosnours wrote:

My job is actually to conceive video games. Not commercial ones but educational ones, or serious games as we call them.

I hope you are taking notes while playing MPQ! Of course you don't, because you'd never risk producing even one student who is good at math, but grows to hate math because they felt tricked into obsessively solving math problems. I hope you make fun "serious games!"

Grosnours wrote:

I must confess that MPQ is my first F2P mobile game. I've been an avid gamer for decades, but it was my first venture into this genre. I would qualify your outlook on things as cynical. It's not a criticism, mind, but it looks to me you have integrated the fact that online mobile games based on F2P are on their little island of reality.

I think we're more alike than you may realize; I've been wrestling with MPQ ethics for over a year now. Like you, I strongly reacted against the idea that these practices was "ok" in any world. I've come down a bit from that stance to recognize that games (even without all the behavioral psychology trickery), are frankly, addictive. I don't think F2P games are in their own little island of reality; I think they operate exactly like other addictive products that we accept as a society (like gambling and alcohol). Even with something as silly as a match-3 video game, both the Developers and the Players need to learn to act responsibly, because it's very easy to abuse anything addictive. And unfortunately, there will still remain a group of people who suffer nonetheless, because they simply can't manage their addiction.

You see, the Devs would have have no issues perfecting their own game if some people weren't so addicted to winning and so willing to pay large sums for even small advantages. On the other hand, the Devs give the player that power to abuse in the first place.

If I were Demiurge_Al (or whoever makes these business model decisions), I'd change MPQ to be less addictive and eliminate HP purchases that repeatedly cause these ethical dilemmas. I'd start by getting rid of Ability Upgrades altogether. But then again, I might also run HP sales into the ground... ending developer jobs and shutting down game servers for good. Everyone might lose if I had things my way.

What I'm trying to say is: there's much more to this than cynicism.

EDIT: This is my last post on this thread. I think I've said everything I want to say here. Well, just one more thing. I agree with Phaser that the Devs, particularly the design team, have their interests in the right place. But some of these issues are bigger than them. And even if they agree with what we think and say when we complain, they may be contractually obliged to keep silent. I get that now. Thanks, Phaser!

Unknown

GuntherBlobel wrote:

I hope you are taking notes while playing MPQ! Of course you don't, because you'd never risk producing a student who is good at math, but grows to hate math because they felt tricked into obsessively solving math problems.

Given most of them end up hating math anyways, I should maybe follow your suggestion !

Grosnours wrote:

Like you, I strongly reacted against the idea that these practices was "ok" in any world. I've come down a bit from that stance to recognize that games (even without all the behavioral psychology trickery), are frankly, addictive. Even with something as silly as a video game, both the Developers and the Players need to learn to act responsibly, because it's very easy to abuse anything addictive. And like with other addictive products (that we accept as a society, like gambling and alcohol), there will still remain a group of people who suffer, because they simply can't manage their addiction.

Agreed.

Grosnours wrote:

You see, the Devs would have no problem perfecting their own game if some people weren't so addicted to winning and so willing to pay large sums for even small advantages.

There I really can't agree. If the devs are constrained in anyway by the players it's entirely their fault, a byproduct of their work. They created the game from A to Z. Oh sure, they are working under many constraints. But the fact that they might be locked up with us in a horror park doesn't absolve them one bit as they designed it.
MPQ is a expertly using all the known tricks to keep the player addicted. If the devs really really wanted to veer away from this logic they should have mass produced non-competitive content. You might tell me "hey, they can't, they are submitted to all kind of pressure to keep things the way they are!". Fair enough, but you can't ask me to change my position. Even if all the devs were working in a sweatshop under duress and chained to their desk, what they produce would still be wrong.
So in the interest of precision we should maybe say "the editor" instead of "the devs", maybe. But it doesn't change much from the player's point of view.

Grosnours wrote:

If I were Demiurge_Al (or whoever makes these business model decisions), I'd change MPQ to be less addictive and eliminate HP purchases that cause these ethical dilemmas. I'd start by getting rid of Ability Upgrades altogether. But then again, I might also run HP sales into the ground... ending developer jobs and shutting down game servers for good. Everyone might lose if I had things my way.

If I were them, I'd cater to my moneymaker.

atomzed wrote:

This are two things which MPQ has buckled the trend. The new characters do not make the old characters obsolete (though the power creep is beginning to show). Cover rates are openly displayed, which is entirely different from most freemium games (though it also boggles my mind why people still buy the packs...)

The cover packs thing is a simple exploitation of the fact that humans are very very bad with statistics on an instinctive level, to a point where they'll frequently act against their very own interest as their perception is skewed.
I'm very ready to admit MPQ is way less awful than some others games, but it doesn't mean they're great either.

atomzed wrote:

There are other things that D3 has done that shows me that they are genuinely interested in creating a balance game. This gives me some confidence that they are in it for a long time, instead of just earning money in the short run. If they really want to squeeze every penny in the shortest possible time, they would continue to release OP characters, and should not fix IF and Xavier at all.

I agree, I really think that the balancing decision comes from very good intentions. The devs really want to create, in an iterative fashion, the best possible game.
But the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
All the balancing is not done in a vacuum, some factors (like the level of rarity of the considered character) have to be taken into account. The idea of nerfing 4Thor now because future characters will have powers with charged tiles is solid in theory, but in practice its horribly wrong as you're sacrificing today for a possible distant tomorrow.

simonsez

jotaguro wrote:

If 4* heroes aren't any more powerful than 3* heroes, just harder to get and level, then what is the progression or end game?

Can we all please, please make this the top question for the next Q&A?

atomzed

Grosnours wrote:

If I were them, I'd cater to my moneymaker.

That is the funny thing about MPQ. They are not catering to the money makers. The money makers are the whales who spend money to be hyper competitive. By right they should cater to them exclusively, and that would mean to develop new characters that are more and more OP. They haven't done that.

If they did what you said, I would have leave the game much earlier.

Grosnours wrote:

The cover packs thing is a simple exploitation of the fact that humans are very very bad with statistics on an instinctive level, to a point where they'll frequently act against their very own interest as their perception is skewed.
I'm very ready to admit MPQ is way less awful than some others games, but it doesn't mean they're great either.

well, if they want to exploit it all the way, they shouldn't have announce the drop rates. Do you know the usual tactics for freemium games? They will advertise "triple the drop rates for ultra rare!" to entice people to buy the packs... And when people dig further (through gathering stats or digging source codes), they will find that the triple rate packs are at 0.03%. If they have announced their drop rates, I am sure their sales would have dropped.

Grosnours wrote:

I agree, I really think that the balancing decision comes from very good intentions. The devs really want to create, in an iterative fashion, the best possible game.
But the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
All the balancing is not done in a vacuum, some factors (like the level of rarity of the considered character) have to be taken into account. The idea of nerfing 4Thor now because future characters will have powers with charged tiles is solid in theory, but in practice its horribly wrong as you're sacrificing today for a possible distant tomorrow.

There are many different ways to balance a game. The "regular patches" is the way used by most online games. In TCG, they balance it by "ban lists" or "block rotation" or introducing "limited format". If you don't want to balance through "regular patches", then you would have to balance with other means. And I don't see inherent problems with "ban lists", "block rotations" and "limited formats". Nothing is perfect.

Since you are a game designer, do you want to share how you would balance MPQ?

kensterr

kthunder wrote:

Demiurge_Miles wrote:

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.

Spider man is still fun, Sentry is still fun but most importantly Moonstone is still fun.

Certainly her funbags look fun.

Unknown

atomzed wrote:

Do you know the usual tactics for freemium games? They will advertise "triple the drop rates for ultra rare!" to entice people to buy the packs... And when people dig further (through gathering stats or digging source codes), they will find that the triple rate packs are at 0.03%. If they have announced their drop rates, I am sure their sales would have dropped.

I'm not entirely sure of that.
As you said yourself in MPQ everything is revealed immediately with a drop rate table available to anyone. If you look at the drop rate they are incredibly low too. Remember when they introduced the pack that was sporting IF at a super-duper low rate during the very event where you could win him ? I would be very curious to see the figures, but I have a hunch that it wasn't lower than usual, on the contrary.

Grosnours wrote:

Since you are a game designer, do you want to share how you would balance MPQ?

A tall order and quite a trap !
In truth I guess it wouldn't be far from the way the devs are actually doing their work, even though I would absolutely refrain from what I call double nerfs like the one Mystique just had as nerfing only one stat is more than enough most of the time.
I guess I would also prioritize buffs to nerf, the danger here being power creep.
But again, it's not the heart of the issue, it's more about communication and respect. Let's imagine the entirely hypothetical situation where I'm a dev and I believe the 4Thor as we know it nerf is necessary. I see it's a first in the game (no lead 4* was nerfed before) with a very mixed history of success in the area of nerfing top heroes. What to do, what to do ?
Well communicate well in advance that nerfs are in the pipe (or better, call it re-balance, players are clever enough to understand if it's a nerf or a buff) and when it hits propose some compensations. It doesn't need to be high, it's a symbolic recognition that the nerf is hurting some players. So you could imagine something raging from a 1000 Iso for anyone even having a single cover of Thor, to reimbursing half of the cost of the covers if they were bought recently (and maybe a quarter or even less if bought further in the past).
Again, the specific are unimportant, what matters is expressing things in advance and recognition of the predicament the players might be, in other terms: communication and respect.

Unknown

simonsez wrote:

jotaguro wrote:

If 4* heroes aren't any more powerful than 3* heroes, just harder to get and level, then what is the progression or end game?

Can we all please, please make this the top question for the next Q&A?

They already answered this question, back in November or something. The answer was "There is no end game".

DrNitroman

Lerysh wrote:

simonsez wrote:

jotaguro wrote:

If 4* heroes aren't any more powerful than 3* heroes, just harder to get and level, then what is the progression or end game?

Can we all please, please make this the top question for the next Q&A?

They already answered this question, back in November or something. The answer was "There is no end game".

"How much stronger than 3* do you think 4* should be?" remains a pertinent question for next Q&A imho. If not to address the end game question, it's still a good way to discuss about balance and sense of progression in the game.

Because the sense of progression is one of the first things that makes MPQ addictive I currently spend iso and HP trying to level 4*. Even after this nerf and even if other nerfs are coming... I just want to progress toward 4* because I already have a good 3* roster

Spoit

DaveR4470 wrote:

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.

Yeah that worked out swimmingly afte the spidermags nerfs

atomzed

Grosnours wrote:

A tall order and quite a trap !

No trap! I find that it's easier to understand the perspective of the other side when you check with what they like to do is given the authority.

Grosnours wrote:

In truth I guess it wouldn't be far from the way the devs are actually doing their work, even though I would absolutely refrain from what I call double nerfs like the one Mystique just had as nerfing only one stat is more than enough most of the time.
I guess I would also prioritize buffs to nerf, the danger here being power creep.
But again, it's not the heart of the issue, it's more about communication and respect. Let's imagine the entirely hypothetical situation where I'm a dev and I believe the 4Thor as we know it nerf is necessary. I see it's a first in the game (no lead 4* was nerfed before) with a very mixed history of success in the area of nerfing top heroes. What to do, what to do ?
Well communicate well in advance that nerfs are in the pipe (or better, call it re-balance, players are clever enough to understand if it's a nerf or a buff) and when it hits propose some compensations. It doesn't need to be high, it's a symbolic recognition that the nerf is hurting some players. So you could imagine something raging from a 1000 Iso for anyone even having a single cover of Thor, to reimbursing half of the cost of the covers if they were bought recently (and maybe a quarter or even less if bought further in the past).
Again, the specific are unimportant, what matters is expressing things in advance and recognition of the predicament the players might be, in other terms: communication and respect.

So to summarise you would 1) communicate in advance that re-balancing is in the pipeline for the character and 2) give good compensation for those who bought the characters.

For (1), D3 has done this before where they reveal that certain characters will be rebalanced. Notably, Cmag and spidey and to some extent sentry were noted to need rebalance. In cmag case, they highlighted the rebalance 6 months in advance.... But the uproar when it happens remained essentially similar to GT. People claiming that their roster has been busted, they can't play the game anymore and they will quit. So does comms help? Definitely to some extent, but I think the uproar will be no less.

As for (2), well they are currently compensating people. But people are unhappy with the amount of compensation, which is understandable.

You say that the specifics are unimportant, but I respectfully disagree. The specifics are important, because they are doing the things which you have suggested... But clearly it's not enough to placate the masses (if it is ever possible).

Anyway, this should be my last post on this topic, but I enjoyed the levelled headed conversations I had with you.

KrazyKeylime

Phaserhawk wrote:

But Phaser it's 12K for 19AP that's only 630 per AP that's not terrible she's a 4*, your right, but its not really a true 19AP. 19AP implies 6.3 matches. This was more like 2-3 matches due to charged tiles and boosts, which if 3 per match is really 12K for 9 AP which is more like 1333 dmg per AP, that's a bit high.
Phaser

sorry they pulled some **** on phaser in any of the other calculations did they take boosts, destruction of charge tiles into loss of damage for that matter, to get that 1333 damge per ap that they got to get there. other wise xforce boosted is 9.5K damage for 2 and 5 giving that 1357 damage per ap which seams to be on target with 4 thor. these guys don't know what the heck they are doing...

TLCstormz

I wish that more of you were STILL in 2* land and could see how big of a deal Mags' nerf is for us.....

Storm lost her best teammate.
As did Hawkeye.

And of course Mysti, too.

*sigh