MPQ Community Video - March - Character Updates

Colognoisseur

Demiurge_Will wrote:

I hope you'll give the changed Magneto some playtime before making a final decision about what you think of the change. He's involved in different combos than he used to be, but most of our testers feel that the change ends up making him a tiny bit stronger overall, outside of the loss of the infinite turn combo with Mystique.

Would these be the same testers who failed to realize what an overpowered character Iron Fist was before release?
Would these be the same testers who think the new Ragnarok is an improvement?
Would these be the same testers that thought rolling out team-ups without a delete button was a good idea?
Would these be the same testers who saw no need to add a cooldown timer to shields?

You might understand why I have little faith in the opinion of these testers when they can't get the obvious things right.

Unknown

frostCoH wrote:

DFiPL wrote:

So I just spent about a half hour on a post expressing my concerns with the changes to Magneto, and it either didn't post when I hit submit (twice, since a new post had appeared in the time I spent composing the post), or it got deleted. Whichever the case, let me try this again:

The changes to Magneto are going to hit mid-level players disproportionately hard, especially those who don't have Mystique in the first place. They're being made to suffer for Mystique being overpowered.

The changes take him from being squishy but useful for 2* players to having no particular appeal for 2* players. Iron Hammer takes far longer to power up, Magneto can't swiftly collect blues for 2* Storm's Wind Storm power, and the five random reds replacing two of the chosen blue conversions means that there is 5/61 chance that the use of Polarity Shift won't even spawn one critical tile, regardless of how friendly the board might have been when the power was unleashed, meaning Hawkeye's Speed Shot is being affected, also.

That's a total of three mid-level characters whose usefulness just took it in the shorts for mid-level players because Mystique needed a nerf.

I really wish you guys would reconsider that change.

They also refuse to answer or address my concerns about Iron Hammer getting a side NERF because you can't effectively use Reverse Polarity as a quick battery for it.

That's mainly because Iron Hammer is terrible. You should never ever use it. Magneto (Marvel Now)'s role has always ALWAYS been "feed blue to (insert blue user her)". Now it's changed to "feed blue and red to (insert blue and red user here)".

Unknown

Demiurge_Will wrote:

rixmith wrote:

I'm glad to hear that there is a desired power band for 4* characters to fit into. This begs the question whether X-Force fits into that band or not? Not to mention whether IW and Elektra are below that band?

X-Force is above the band (though not as far above as Thor (Goddess of Thunder) was) and Invisible Woman is below.

Elektra is a less clear-cut case. Her abilities don't have an opportunity to come into their own for advanced players in part because of the current speed of high-end Versus play. She becomes stronger with the changes to 4-star Thor, for example. Looking at win rates of teams that include her, she's doing well in survival missions. I'd like her to be used more often, but there are other balance issues that have bigger impacts.

No ETA on any changes that might result from these observations - we try not to announce changes until we can give you a timeline for them.

1. So, xforce, only 4* significantly better than a 3* is above the 4* band? Correct me if I'm wrong, that means, 4* band is just top of 3*, not a separate tier like the difference between the 2* and 3* tier.

2. I was nice. I deleted what I was going to say about not working on UP characters.

DFiPL

Demiurge_Will wrote:

DFiPL wrote:

So I just spent about a half hour on a post expressing my concerns with the changes to Magneto, and it either didn't post when I hit submit (twice, since a new post had appeared in the time I spent composing the post), or it got deleted. Whichever the case, let me try this again:

The changes to Magneto are going to hit mid-level players disproportionately hard, especially those who don't have Mystique in the first place. They're being made to suffer for Mystique being overpowered.

The changes take him from being squishy but useful for 2* players to having no particular appeal for 2* players. Iron Hammer takes far longer to power up, Magneto can't swiftly collect blues for 2* Storm's Wind Storm power, and the five random reds replacing two of the chosen blue conversions means that there is 5/61 chance that the use of Polarity Shift won't even spawn one critical tile, regardless of how friendly the board might have been when the power was unleashed, meaning Hawkeye's Speed Shot is being affected, also.

That's a total of three mid-level characters whose usefulness just took it in the shorts for mid-level players because Mystique needed a nerf.

I really wish you guys would reconsider that change.

Good to have you here, DFiPL, thanks for your feedback.

To clarify, the random Red tiles will never overwrite the Blue tiles you place. Getting a 5-match out of the ability at level 5 is very reliable.

I hope you'll give the changed Magneto some playtime before making a final decision about what you think of the change. He's involved in different combos than he used to be, but most of our testers feel that the change ends up making him a tiny bit stronger overall, outside of the loss of the infinite turn combo with Mystique.

Thanks for the response, Will. I think you misunderstood my issue with the random reds. I know they won't overwrite the tiles I place, but there's a 5/61 chance (the 61 refers to the tiles which don't get changed to blues) of those reds overwriting one or both of the blues off of which I am building that crit tile. A crude diagram:

UUUUU
XXOOO
UUUUU

The X's are pre-existing blues. The O's are the ones I am placing. The U's are whatever. The 39 tiles I didn't put in that little diagram are also U's. Those two X's are vulnerable, in whichever formation, to being overwritten by the reds PolShift is placing. The O's (the blues I am dropping) will be fine, but there is not quite a 10% chance that my intended crit tile won't happen. That, as I said in my earlier post, reduces 2* Hawkeye's usefulness when teamed with Magneto.

Seriously. Yeah, I'll give it a shot before I pass judgment, but I have strong concerns about the viability of three characters on my roster going forward, and one of my friends is even more pessimistic than I am. Magneto was previously a key part of my ability to pass *any* of the cover fights in Deadpool's Daily, and with this nerf, I just don't know if I'm going to be able to achieve those cover rewards any longer. As a mid-level player trying to improve my stable of 3* characters, I can't even tell you how much that hurts.

DFiPL

Lerysh wrote:

frostCoH wrote:

DFiPL wrote:

So I just spent about a half hour on a post expressing my concerns with the changes to Magneto, and it either didn't post when I hit submit (twice, since a new post had appeared in the time I spent composing the post), or it got deleted. Whichever the case, let me try this again:

The changes to Magneto are going to hit mid-level players disproportionately hard, especially those who don't have Mystique in the first place. They're being made to suffer for Mystique being overpowered.

The changes take him from being squishy but useful for 2* players to having no particular appeal for 2* players. Iron Hammer takes far longer to power up, Magneto can't swiftly collect blues for 2* Storm's Wind Storm power, and the five random reds replacing two of the chosen blue conversions means that there is 5/61 chance that the use of Polarity Shift won't even spawn one critical tile, regardless of how friendly the board might have been when the power was unleashed, meaning Hawkeye's Speed Shot is being affected, also.

That's a total of three mid-level characters whose usefulness just took it in the shorts for mid-level players because Mystique needed a nerf.

I really wish you guys would reconsider that change.

They also refuse to answer or address my concerns about Iron Hammer getting a side NERF because you can't effectively use Reverse Polarity as a quick battery for it.

That's mainly because Iron Hammer is terrible. You should never ever use it. Magneto (Marvel Now)'s role has always ALWAYS been "feed blue to (insert blue user her)". Now it's changed to "feed blue and red to (insert blue and red user here)".

Iron Hammer isn't much as an offensive power, but as a way to clear the board after 3* Magneto or Falcon drop a ton of protect tiles, or to clear countdown tiles which don't have like colored tiles anywhere close to them, it was useful. Now it's gone from a move with limited, but tangible, usefulness to a move which has none whatsoever. When blues are that much harder to acquire, why would you ever deploy Iron Hammer over Wind Storm or another blue-hungry move?

MarvelMan

Demiurge_Will wrote:

To clarify, the random Red tiles will never overwrite the Blue tiles you place. Getting a 5-match out of the ability at level 5 is very reliable.

But can they overwrite the other blue tiles you are trying to match with?

DFiPL

MarvelMan wrote:

Demiurge_Will wrote:

To clarify, the random Red tiles will never overwrite the Blue tiles you place. Getting a 5-match out of the ability at level 5 is very reliable.

But can they overwrite the other blue tiles you are trying to match with?

Much more succinct way of putting what I was trying to say. Thanks.

Demiurge_Will

morph3us wrote:

We appreciate that you've taken the time to address some of our concerns.

One follow up question, Will, if you're around, please? You spoke at length about the cost of powers that cause tile conversion, with regards to Mystique, and specifically about a tile conversion power curve. Would you be able to elaborate on where Iron Fist's black generation fits that tile conversion power curve?

I might not be understanding the question correctly - let me know if you were asking something different.

Iron Fist of K'un-Lun was, before the upcoming change, doing the amount of tile conversion we'd expect if it cost 7 AP and was on a character with Iron Fist's health. It wasn't in the right spot in either our old thinking about tile conversion or our new thinking.

When we re-evaluated the power of tile conversion, our curve didn't change much when we looked at abilities like Iron Fist of K'un-Lun that change one color to one other color at the scale that that ability does (our old math was off starting around 8 or 9 tiles converted). Our old thinking seems to have been pretty good in this case, but the original power of the ability didn't fit that thinking.

Unknown

MarvelMan wrote:

Demiurge_Will wrote:

To clarify, the random Red tiles will never overwrite the Blue tiles you place. Getting a 5-match out of the ability at level 5 is very reliable.

But can they overwrite the other blue tiles you are trying to match with?

Great point.

Demiurge_Will

DFiPL wrote:

MarvelMan wrote:

Demiurge_Will wrote:

To clarify, the random Red tiles will never overwrite the Blue tiles you place. Getting a 5-match out of the ability at level 5 is very reliable.

But can they overwrite the other blue tiles you are trying to match with?

Much more succinct way of putting what I was trying to say. Thanks.

No. Only basic Yellow, Green, Purple, Black, and Team-Up tiles have a chance of turning Red.

Unknown

I have one question TBH (the Elektra bit was an observation really but ty for the answer/clarification I guess...).

If I have EVERY 3* fully covered and levelled and I have an optimally covered and levelled Xforce (just to remove him from the equation) and 4Thor has already been nerfed.....

Which 4* do you think I could add to my roster, at full covers and levels, which will make a significant improvement to my roster, defining a significant improvement as increasing my PvE or PvP scores for the same effort, or reducing the number of shields I need to use, or at a push reducing the number of boosts I need to use?

To be clear... having all the 3*s doesn't mean i'll be using them all, some are good, some aren't, these 4*s need to be a noticeable upgrade over the best of the 3* heroes and not functional side-grades or simply something you consider more interesting/fun (since that is completely subjective... one man's fun is another man's keeping up with the Kardashians).

Please give as much justification to each as possible since most forumites would argue your list should be very short......

Unknown

Despite the edge to my question, it's always nice when demiurge_will visits and explains stuff.

Unknown

DFiPL wrote:

Iron Hammer isn't much as an offensive power, but as a way to clear the board after 3* Magneto or Falcon drop a ton of protect tiles, or to clear countdown tiles which don't have like colored tiles anywhere close to them, it was useful. Now it's gone from a move with limited, but tangible, usefulness to a move which has none whatsoever. When blues are that much harder to acquire, why would you ever deploy Iron Hammer over Wind Storm or another blue-hungry move?

No, it's gone from a move with limited, but tangible usefulness to a move with limited but tangible usefulness that is harder to charge. It didn't get shadow nerfed because it was already terrible. It's useful in exactly the same number of situations as before, except now you might not have the AP to use it.

Colognoisseur

bonfire01 wrote:

I have one question TBH (the Elektra bit was an observation really but ty for the answer/clarification I guess...).

If I have EVERY 3* fully covered and levelled and I have an optimally covered and levelled Xforce (just to remove him from the equation) and 4Thor has already been nerfed.....

Which 4* do you think I could add to my roster, at full covers and levels, which will make a significant improvement to my roster, defining a significant improvement as increasing my PvE or PvP scores for the same effort, or reducing the number of shields I need to use, or at a push reducing the number of boosts I need to use?

To be clear... having all the 3*s doesn't mean i'll be using them all, some are good, some aren't, these 4*s need to be a noticeable upgrade over the best of the 3* heroes and not functional side-grades or simply something you consider more interesting/fun (since that is completely subjective... one man's fun is another man's keeping up with the Kardashians).

Please give as much justification to each as possible since most forumites would argue your list should be very short......

And if you're actually in the mood to answer this how something which costs twice the HP and 2.5 times the iso should only be seen as a slight improvement.

Unknown

bonfire01 wrote:

I have one question TBH (the Elektra bit was an observation really but ty for the answer/clarification I guess...).

If I have EVERY 3* fully covered and levelled and I have an optimally covered and levelled Xforce (just to remove him from the equation) and 4Thor has already been nerfed.....

Which 4* do you think I could add to my roster, at full covers and levels, which will make a significant improvement to my roster, defining a significant improvement as increasing my PvE or PvP scores for the same effort, or reducing the number of shields I need to use, or at a push reducing the number of boosts I need to use?

To be clear... having all the 3*s doesn't mean i'll be using them all, some are good, some aren't, these 4*s need to be a noticeable upgrade over the best of the 3* heroes and not functional side-grades or simply something you consider more interesting/fun (since that is completely subjective... one man's fun is another man's keeping up with the Kardashians).

Please give as much justification to each as possible since most forumites would argue your list should be very short......

To further illustrate his point on apples to apples comparison, 3* patch is significantly better than 2* wolvie. Same for Thor. But when you look at 3* vs 4* not counting xforce, there is not the same delineation ads the three previous tiers.

Xforce would not be above the 4*band if the other 4*s are not UP on comparison to the distinction between the other tiers.

Edit yea, cold medicine wrote 3*patch twice I guess

frostCoH

Demiurge_Will wrote:

DFiPL wrote:

MarvelMan wrote:

Demiurge_Will wrote:

To clarify, the random Red tiles will never overwrite the Blue tiles you place. Getting a 5-match out of the ability at level 5 is very reliable.

But can they overwrite the other blue tiles you are trying to match with?

Much more succinct way of putting what I was trying to say. Thanks.

No. Only basic Yellow, Green, Purple, Black, and Team-Up tiles have a chance of turning Red.

Will Magneto be able to change TUT to blue, at will? Also what about Iron Hammer?

Unknown

The_Valeyard wrote:

bonfire01 wrote:

I have one question TBH (the Elektra bit was an observation really but ty for the answer/clarification I guess...).

If I have EVERY 3* fully covered and levelled and I have an optimally covered and levelled Xforce (just to remove him from the equation) and 4Thor has already been nerfed.....

Which 4* do you think I could add to my roster, at full covers and levels, which will make a significant improvement to my roster, defining a significant improvement as increasing my PvE or PvP scores for the same effort, or reducing the number of shields I need to use, or at a push reducing the number of boosts I need to use?

To be clear... having all the 3*s doesn't mean i'll be using them all, some are good, some aren't, these 4*s need to be a noticeable upgrade over the best of the 3* heroes and not functional side-grades or simply something you consider more interesting/fun (since that is completely subjective... one man's fun is another man's keeping up with the Kardashians).

Please give as much justification to each as possible since most forumites would argue your list should be very short......

To further illustrate his point on apples to apples comparison, 3* patch is significantly better than 3* patch. Same for Thor. But when you look at 3* vs 4* not counting xforce, there is not the same delineation ads the three previous tiers.

Xforce would not be above the 4*band if the other 4*s are not UP on comparison to the distinction between the other tiers.

Um... wat? 3* patch is better than 3* patch?

Unknown

Colognoisseur wrote:

And if you're actually in the mood to answer this how something which costs twice the HP and 2.5 times the iso should only be seen as a slight improvement.

And if something is only going to be a slight improvement and more than twice as expensive why is it bottlenecked into being quite so rare/difficult to get?

SnowcaTT

Demiurge_Will wrote:

When a character is underpowered, it limits their usefulness, slightly reducing the number of possible solutions to a problem. When a character is overpowered, it limits the usefulness of every other character, and they become the solution to every problem. We can intentionally keep a character below the power level of other characters, like we've done with Devil Dinosaur and Bag-Man, without having a negative impact on other characters.

I don't think a single person would be upset if D3 took time out of their schedule - by say, not releasing a character in a given two-week period - to instead fix characters that need fixing rather than releasing more characters, and further obsoleting those characters that do need fixes.

Unknown

SnowcaTT wrote:

Demiurge_Will wrote:

When a character is underpowered, it limits their usefulness, slightly reducing the number of possible solutions to a problem. When a character is overpowered, it limits the usefulness of every other character, and they become the solution to every problem. We can intentionally keep a character below the power level of other characters, like we've done with Devil Dinosaur and Bag-Man, without having a negative impact on other characters.

I don't think a single person would be upset if D3 took time out of their schedule - by say, not releasing a character in a given two-week period - to instead fix characters that need fixing rather than releasing more characters, and further obsoleting those characters that do need fixes.

I decided to be nice and not say this. Of course, my way would not have been as nicely worded as yours either way.

I decided not to say it because it's an unfair point. They have business plan they follow. Guessing it works since it doesn't change much. So even if demiurge_will wanted to, I'm not sure he could do this. Therefore, I did not think it was fair to throw that at his feet.

Also, this would take a lot longer than two weeks.