Upcoming Test: Powered-Up Characters in Versus

Ducky

PvP just became PvE-lite.

If this change sticks, I probably won't be around much longer. My play time this season is already drastically lower than ever before.

Stale game is getting stale.

Unknown

Throwing in my 2 cents (I tend to lurk, but found this PvP change to be interesting)

Things I liked:
- Other boosted characters.
I felt I actually had a chance to fight against other strong teams, and that 'my' team could fight the others on defence. I felt I had an improved chance to get to the 4* progression reward. (I don't have any fully covered 4* characters). These boosted characters also equalized having to fight the usual 4* Thor + X-Force combo. It also forced diversity in the higher ranks, as I saw a decent mix of combos as opposed to just seeing 1-2 dominant teams.
- Felt time invested in leveling other characters was justified. Given the variety, I actually had some leeway to experiment with other teams instead of relying on certain combos to do the job. As long as I had the leveled boosted characters, fighting other teams became a manner of figuring out the 'best' method to take them on. I felt the time spent to level every character to be worth something.

Things I found could be tweaked:
- Reduce the level boost of the 'side' characters. While I was running Patch + Hood, I found the levels they were boosted was too substantial (at least in the 3* department).
- The current form of the 'boosted' characters made other combos feel obsolete. While the option to choose from various 'boosted' combos was great (Yay Patch/Hood/Torch!) and felt like my investment into those characters worthwhile, non-boosted characters feel nearly obsolete. If I tried to seriously attempt for 1k with a non-boosted team, I know I would be destroyed relatively quickly, or take a noticeably longer amount of time to finish a match and do another (which tends to be a scary thing for jumps).
- 4* felt like cannon fodder
This may be due to my fortunate luck (mostly ran into x-force/thor combos, avoided anything professor X, killed anything as fast as I could), but 4* characters didn't feel as threatening if I had all 3 characters boosted. 4* characters should always feel like a worthwhile investment, but I didn't get that impression from the Torch event.
- Boosted levels seemed way too powerful
Coming from a 3* roster user slowly transitioning to 4*, 3* side characters at their boosted levels felt way too strong. This may be due to the fact that these characters haven't factored in being scaled to this extent, so some abilities end up being too powerful/weak relative to their cost.

Some opinions:
- Reduce the level increase of the non-required 3* 'boosted' characters. They should receive a noticeable increase in power, but the option to use other teams should still remain a viable option (rather than an eventual requirement to place high).
- Take another look at the character rosters and how their abilities scale with extra levels. While nice to have, the power to cost ratio gets screwy the higher the level boost goes. Example: As much as I love the 9.7k damage hood yellow ability, I know that's something he shouldn't have if other 3* don't share the benefit across the board. Patch's Green becomes a mini-nuke when boosted.

Keep at it! I'm liking where it is going, but it does need tweaks to account for the drastic changes in power levels. (I'm also all for giving 1*/2* characters the temporary boosts so they can match with the common 3* rosters, at least for a match)

dr tinykittylove

Having played through the Torch pvp to 1k, I had a few thoughts.

The boost levels need to be tweaked. The old 50% boost to 3*s capped at 249 felt just right - the new buffs to 280(?) felt excessive and trivialised matches against even maxed 4*s.

Not sure about the boost levels for 1-2*s, but they could probably be shifted down slightly as well considering scaling issues.

4*s need a bigger boost to at least the old +50%. I was hoping to take out my underlevelled but mostly covered Fury (unbuffed 155) for a test run, but with the pitiful whatever it was he got (to 180-something? Seriously?!) it didn't seem worth the bother even pitting him against a 170 Ares.

My position is as a permanent transitioner with a pretty deep 3* roster that will pretty much benefit most from the boosts as is - there are very few characters that I do not have covered and at a moderate level (beast, ock, squirrel). This trivialises the game. It is boring and pointless.

For the 4*s, I've played against pre-nerfed, buffed 405 4Thor and have absolutely no problem with maxed 4*s continuing to get buffed to 405. Or cap it at 395 like pve, whatever.

Considering as unbuffed 166 3*s already eat maxed 4*s for lunch on a regular basis, I don't see the point of suppressing them relative to other tiers or the vets might as well just sell off their 4*s for iso to level their 3*s.

Pylgrim

Phantron wrote:

I feel that the generic 3* boost versus featured is too close (290 vs 280). If we're keeping the generic boost as is then the featured character should be boosted to level 332 (double), and 4*s should be boosted to level 432 (60% more levels). Just make sure X Force is never selected even though that'd still be more balanced than the system before since X Force gains relatively little damage from those 60% more levels. This should put the featured solidly as always the strongest guys outside of gross imbalances (e.g. nothing's ever going to help Beast to become awesome). Not sure if the 4* are appropriately powerful at level 432 but at least they'd look intimidating and that's as good as anything else in this game.

Yeah, I don't know if it's because the "essential" character is scaled to go up to higher levels, but then forcefully truncated at 290 but my 290 Daken (unbuffed:166) cannot tank Purple for my 203 Loki (unbuffed: 125) even though he normally can, with ease when they're not buffed. Is this a glitch?

Unknown

Daken is Black/Purple/Blue (despite his covers), Loki is (despite his covers) Purple/Black/Green. Loki levels purple faster than Daken.

daveomite

Just my 2 cents:

A: Changes to shields that introduced CD's

Plus

B: The introduction to multiple time shards.

Plus

C: This new "boosted test" they decided to pull in season.

These three things combined, have destroyed this game for many. A+B already equaled uneven shards/brackets to where in one shard, you're surrounded with 30-40 point targets constantly, and other shards where you're stuck with 3-5 point targets at point levels 700+. In those shards, yes, you are always a target with big huge neon lights blinking around you as you could literally be the ONLY high point target in the entire shard, BUT, you still had a chance to survive attacks because you had a beefy team.

However, after now adding C into that mix, and given a "dead/slow shard" type situation, not only are you a "hot target" as soon as you unshield, with everything so boosted or underboosted, you have little to no protection, regardless what team you're running.

The one thing I was told when the shield CD situation came about was "shield hopping was unfun". And that by implementing them, it would "reduce high scores". That alliances that chatted and coordinated on chat systems like LINE was "bad for the game" as it was an "unfair advantage".

Key words there: "coordination" and "bad"

The problem is, all of this, has just raised the level of coordination some alliances/players either do, or have to do, in order to compete and stay relevant in season, etc. That means, retreats, retreats, and more retreats in order to get an alliance member to an insurmountable point total faster than you can bat an eye. Both Reckless and I watched this very thing happen in our own brackets earlier, as we were both near the top around 500-600 points, got offline to do things, only to come back less than 2 hours later and see the leader of our respective brackets at/over or near 1.1k and shielded. I noticed it first, then Reck did later. 2 separate brackets, both in shard 5.

Yet, once we began climbing, targets were maybe 3-5 points near 700 for me, and around 20 points for her near 600. If I climbed higher, I'd be hit back down near 600, each time. So, I might be able to finally find a 20 point target, after skipping over 30-40 times... but during that one match, lose over 150.

About these new "boosted characters"... they basically make a majority of your entire roster irrelevant now. In some cases before, you might use a particular character in a support role, now, using said character, if unboosted, really weakens you and makes you a prime target.

My point is: for those players out there with a more developed, evolved roster, this ties the hands of those players in many respects. If you don't spend a wealth of ISO and HP, or if you're not in one of the "big bc's", you lose 99.9% of the time.

I personally cannot see how all of these changes help anyone. I can't see how it could help transitioning players. I don't see how it could really help beginners. And I certainly can't see how it would help vets in the game. Everyday, it's like watching as yet another vet gets so frustrated that they quit the game, give up, sell their account, or just vanish. It's hard to keep players motivated as it is, and to constantly have more and more changes piled on top of that is just making one heaping mess for a lot of situations.

In closing, I realize this is more than just "2 cents", but take it as you see fit. Given my love of comics, Marvel and match games... that's what brought me to this game. The friends I made while playing it are what kept me here. With fewer and fewer friends sticking around, there is just the reality of what I loved about this game dying a slow, painful death.

*typed on my phone, please forgive any misspellings, etc

Unknown

Regarding harder for 3* transitioners -> I'd say it's harder for those players who only focused on one or two teams and so rely on them harder. It's definitely easier for people who've accumulated a wider roster. Seems to reward the longer term players.

Pylgrim

Lerysh wrote:

Daken is Black/Purple/Blue (despite his covers), Loki is (despite his covers) Purple/Black/Green. Loki levels purple faster than Daken.

Yeah, but not to justify such gap. A 166 Daken can tank purple for an up to 144 Loki. That's only 22 levels of difference. Moreover, I noticed that Daken colour strengths at 290 are just +2 to Loki's colour stregnths (in their corresponding colours). That cannot be right.

Unknown

This new format is brutal. Sure its fun now cuz I got the proper maxed cards. Not so much when I don't.

U essentially neutered 4* unless u happen to be on a good week. Hell. Thora week is going to all around suck. I spent good money to get xf wolv to max. Only to be a middle pack card now.

Please put back to old way. I appreciate u trying to imroive gameplay. But this is not it. I had good people that had to leave my alli cuz they could no longer compete.

I get it is to force people to spend on iso. But they already are. This doesn't help.

Unknown

daveomite wrote:

These three things combined, have destroyed this game for many. A+B already equaled uneven shards/brackets to where in one shard, you're surrounded with 30-40 point targets constantly, and other shards where you're stuck with 3-5 point targets at point levels 700+. In those shards, yes, you are always a target with big huge neon lights blinking around you as you could literally be the ONLY high point target in the entire shard, BUT, you still had a chance to survive attacks because you had a beefy team.

However, after now adding C into that mix, and given a "dead/slow shard" type situation, not only are you a "hot target" as soon as you unshield, with everything so boosted or underboosted, you have little to no protection, regardless what team you're running.

This.

In Fatal Attraction, I'm in slice 1 around a score of 900 looking to hop two fights to ~ 950. I cycle through about twenty-five or more nodes worth 3 points to find a node worth 22-25 points. I unshield finish two fights in 5 minutes and 13 seconds (which arguable is shorter than some single fights) and come out of the second fight with a -35 point snipe. Slice 1 tends to be extremely dry when at high scores, but slice 1 and 3 are the only slices convenient (end between 8pm and midnight) for Japan. And you're a big bullseye the second you unshield (I keep a stopwatch).

As least in the old days before shield countdowns (and before Xor), I could shield hop every 3 hours and hit a prog award within a single day's effort (say 16 hour's).

Add in shield cooldowns but also Xor: the climb was manageable because you could start your climb from about 720 points. It'd still take 8-16 hours sometimes going overnight given the shield countdown timers, but you'd get a defensive win now and then and had a few more mins before snipes came.

Now with this new format it looks like my climb is further elongated. By the end, I suspect I'll have used 1, 24 hour shield, 2, 8's and ,2 3's. And I'll regret bothering going for the 1k prog. Not because of the HP (though that is a bummer) but mostly because the time involved in coordinating a climb (18-36 hours). I've reduced recently to only going for key 1k prog cover.

I'm not even sure the format is the problem... it's that some of these times slices are super dry of nodes with substantial points. Cycling through dozens of 3 points nodes is ridiculous. But the confluence of changes daveomite mentioned isn't making it any easier either. I spend more time coming online every 15 mins and cycling through 3 point nodes searching for a decent fight, than I do fighting battles (where the safety window is < 6 minutes)

dkffiv

camichan wrote:

daveomite wrote:

These three things combined, have destroyed this game for many. A+B already equaled uneven shards/brackets to where in one shard, you're surrounded with 30-40 point targets constantly, and other shards where you're stuck with 3-5 point targets at point levels 700+. In those shards, yes, you are always a target with big huge neon lights blinking around you as you could literally be the ONLY high point target in the entire shard, BUT, you still had a chance to survive attacks because you had a beefy team.

However, after now adding C into that mix, and given a "dead/slow shard" type situation, not only are you a "hot target" as soon as you unshield, with everything so boosted or underboosted, you have little to no protection, regardless what team you're running.

This.

In Fatal Attraction, I'm in slice 1 around a score of 900 looking to hop two fights to ~ 950. I cycle through about twenty-five or more nodes worth 3 points to find a node worth 22-25 points. I unshield finish two fights in 5 minutes and 13 seconds (which arguable is shorter than some single fights) and come out of the second fight with a -35 point snipe. Slice 1 tends to be extremely dry when at high scores, but slice 1 and 3 are the only slices convenient (end between 8pm and midnight) for Japan. And you're a big bullseye the second you unshield (I keep a stopwatch).

As least in the old days before shield countdowns (and before Xor), I could shield hop every 3 hours and hit a prog award within a single day's effort (say 16 hour's).

Add in shield cooldowns but also Xor: the climb was manageable because you could start your climb from about 720 points. It'd still take 8-16 hours sometimes going overnight given the shield countdown timers, but you'd get a defensive win now and then and had a few more mins before snipes came.

Now with this new format it looks like my climb is further elongated. By the end, I suspect I'll have used 1, 24 hour shield, 2, 8's and ,2 3's. And I'll regret bothering going for the 1k prog. Not because of the HP (though that is a bummer) but mostly because the time involved in coordinating a climb (18-36 hours). I've reduced recently to only going for key 1k prog cover.

I'm not even sure the format is the problem... it's that some of these times slices are super dry of nodes with substantial points. Cycling through dozens of 3 points nodes is ridiculous. But the confluence of changes daveomite mentioned isn't making it any easier either. I spend more time coming online every 15 mins and cycling through 3 point nodes searching for a decent fight, than I do fighting battles (where the safety window is < 6 minutes)

According to NorthernPolarity you're wrong and because everyone's matches are longer you shouldn't notice any difference in your shield hopping pattern.

esoxnepa

esoxnepa wrote:

I'm about half way through the Human Torch event. I am enjoying the experiment, but so far I am feeling there are some drawbacks.

1. By Buffing the characters a full rarity tier, I feel like I have no reason to play my non-buffed characters.
a. I think you should keep buffing the featured character the 175%, and but the non-featured 2 and 3*s by 150%, and the 1*s by the 200%.
2. I feel like the lower tiers, 1 and 2 star, need more buffed character options. Like 3-1* and 4-2*.

I'll come back after I complete this event, but these are my first thoughts.

After completing the first event, I do like the variety from seeing all X-force - 4 Thor for the week. With the weekly rotation of boosted characters, I think I will like it. I am also a collector, so I am continually growing my 3* roster, so I should have 1-2 of the boosted characters each week.

I do feel like the boosts should go to lesser played characters, and not the top tier. This week buffed what I consider the top tier 3*s. So that felt very empowering. I know there probably isn't time to test other character buff combinations before a decision has to be made, but I'd love to see a week where characters like Psylocke, Falcon, Gamora, Captain Marvel, characters that are "mid-tier" 3*s to see how that plays out. To see if I, and others, will play a buffed Gamora over an unbuffed 3* Thor, or not.

The event also made clear that I really hate the shield bugs that are out there. With high level PvP being all about speed, the latency in buying shields, and finding the shield server is unavailable for even 1 minute SUCKS! I was going to make a push to 1000, but having the server reject my attempt to buy my shield for 2 minutes cost me 75 points. I know I could have made those up, but the disgust I felt from needing to race quickly to get in a match before the sniper teams hit me, and then having your servers fail, well, that just angers me.

I know you can't set up a Real-Time, low latency, 100% uptime system, since that is too expensive, but you need to modify PvP in some way to compensate for these hick-ups. Otherwise, what you will see is people that have invested more time and energy into the high level PvP get more and more frustrated as networks lag or servers crash disrupting play, and they will enter customer support tickets and cost your time and money to retain them as customers.

Unknown

I'm hoping that they change the powered-up character cycles more frequently. A week (1/3 of a season) seems like an eternity in game time. You already have a ton of people complaining about it and it's only been 4 days.

AE_Fios

Seems like the most common complaints are a combination of the powered up characters are too strong/essentially this nerfs the 4* characters as a whole and there is no longer any reason to invest in them.

Maybe drop the 3 and 4 star powered up characters a bit. 280 is extreme for 3 stars and I don't even want to imagine a boosted X-Force. This will still level the playing field and cause some variation in teams while not alienating the 4* players who already struggle to compete in PVE.

GrumpySmurf1002

One refreshing difference in HotShot was seeing defensive wins late in the event. With Xor, there's no such thing.

I obviously got attacked a bunch after my final shield, and most were just protecting points, but getting +31 total in the last few hours of the event was kinda fun to see. Maybe I just got lucky this time, but if that's a trend, I'll gladly take it.

Unknown

For me and most of my alliances the pvp changes were greatly enjoyed and a welcome change. Two of my three 166 characters are hood and patch and my torch is 140 so I greatly benifited from the boosted characters. I have a fairly diverse roster so I feel I would be able to maintain the higher score I was able to put up. I also enjoyed seeing some diversity in my opponents. I get the complaints from the 4* people their efforts, time, and or money was trivialized to a great degree. But I still feel that this was a step in the right direction. And I applaud you guys for actively trying to improve the game. Making everyone happy is an impossibility and there have been hits and a few misses but I appreciate the effort.

Unknown

The top of PvP has never been about actually playing the game and all the boosted character does is the equivalent of giving out X Force to a lot of people (since boosted Patch/Thor is more than a match for X Force). People seem to be really shocked to find that it was indeed only their X Force that kept PvP 'enjoyable', whatever that means, even though it was only enjoyable because you got to ran over people and build your fun off their expense. Now the guys you're used to oppressing can run you over and thus all the complaining.

Unknown

I do think the game needs to do something about how a small difference in overall strength is irrelevent in the PvP system which encourages you to not play. Suppose there's a game where I have 55% chance to beat you, and thus you have 45% chance to beat me. If we just keep on play each other, it doesn't matter if the game is Starcraft 2, DOTA 2, Street Fighter, or whatever. If the game ranks us and we played enough games, eventually the game will come to the conclusion that I am a better player than you. So if I truly think I'm better than my opponents in some game it's advantageous for me to keep playing the game because my skill will be recognized (and if I'm wrong, that's my own problem). But this isn't true in MPQ. Suppose I have 100% chance to you and you have 90% chance to beat me. We'll assume that we're able to get sandboxed so no one else can hit us and we strictly rotate on a basis of I attack you followed by you attack me. Initially we have this:

90% of the time, we both win our games and there will be no net change in score.
10% of the time, you should lose and this puts me ahead by 50 points (you lose 25, I gain 25).

So far so good, but what happens after the game you lose? From an ELO calculator I found on the web, it says the next game you will get 28 points for being 50 points behind (and I lose 28) points, and on the reverse I will gain 22 points for winning if I'm 50 points ahead. Therefore, at this point, after we play one game apiece and assuming we both won it, you will gain 6 points on me. Well, it turns out you're expected to win 90% of the time, so in the 9 games you're expected to win out of 10 you'd make up 54 points and bring the score back to a tie again. Yes there are some simplifications in this scenario but the point is that even if there are only 2 players in MPQ and I am undisputedly better than the other guy, it's not clear if I'll ever have a steady state of a higher score than the only other player in MPQ. So if I can't even come out ahead by playing in this incredibly idealized scenario compared to how MPQ is actually played, why should anyone attempt to stay ahead in ranking via playing? This is a persistent problem in MPQ which is why you'll see that the top PvP playing stuff always involved discussion of stuff that has nothing to do with playing the game, and the massive boosts now just lets a lot more people to join the excitement of not playing the game because it's impossible to get ahead by playing.

Unknown

IMO this was the worst thing to ever happen to pvp. Worse than the "F U" matchmaking test. An entire week of Balance of Power. Thanks for making sure all my work on my roster means diddly squat.

Unknown

daibar wrote:

I'm hoping that they change the powered-up character cycles more frequently. A week (1/3 of a season) seems like an eternity in game time. You already have a ton of people complaining about it and it's only been 4 days.

If they based changes on how long it takes a ton of people to complain about them they'd have to cycle features every negative 6 days