Season of Regression

Stax the Foyer

In a game which is all about gradual progression, it's not a good feeling to look back at the end of the season and feel worse off than you were at the beginning of the season.

To be clear, this isn't a complaint about the PvP buffs making me less competitive. I have a deep enough roster of 166 characters that I'll be able to field a very competitive team for almost all PvPs if the buff structure remains in place. I don't really try for 1st place, so there were only a few events this season where the ranking rewards were even usable for me. The changes won't hurt my ability to finish high in the rankings when I try to do so, and even if they did, it wouldn't make much of a difference.

The early part of this season was some of the most fun I've had in MPQ. We worked together and helped alliance members get progression awards, so that they could build their powerful 4* characters and make progress. My roster was seeing the benefit of the ISO from the Deadpool Dailies, and I was enjoying the fun new characters (IF, Cyclops, Cage) which saw a lot of play, even though I had a maxed XForce and 4*Thor.

Then the 4*Thor nerf news cast a pall over the remainder of the season. It's hardly the first time a powerful character has been nerfed, but the time investment in building a maxed 4*Thor is much greater than the time investment in building a maxed Sentry or CMags or any other 3* character. That time investment, combined with the scale of the nerf, were really disheartening. The progress that we thought we'd been making in helping alliance members build their 4*Thors felt wasted, and the effort involved in helping them build any other 4*s doesn't seem like it's going to pay off.

After that, the PvP changes in the last week of the season changed the feel of PvP. In a game in which the player has a very high win percentage against the AI, increasing the length of matches by boosting characters and injecting additional health points into each match increases the risk of a bad outcome for the player. With shield cooldowns in place, every shield hop matters, and defensive losses and losses to the AI sting more. The risk/reward of staying out too long on a hop was always a balancing game, but the risk of a net-negative hop is greater now, and after a few of those, PvP gets much less fun.

Now, at the end of the season, I've got a maxed 4*Thor which has been significantly nerfed, and a maxed XForce which feels like it's next on the chopping block. I've got overscaled nodes in PvE, and a 4*Thor that can't chew through buffed Ares like she used to be able to. Playing PvP feels like playing a slot machine, as there's an increased risk of finding yourself two steps back after trying to take a step forward, and the collaborative play of helping alliance members get progression awards doesn't seem like a good use of time.

Overall, it feels like I'm playing a different game than I was a few weeks ago, and that's not a good feeling.

Unknown

Funny - my outlook is exactly the opposite. Roster has improved dramatically in the last month (thanks mostly to DDQ), Top 5 finishes in PVP are the norm rather than the exception, and the new characters, particularly Cyclops and Luke Cage, are fun to play and add variety to PVP and PVE.

Still waiting on that Sentry buff, though.

windfallstar

shade_tree wrote:

Funny - my outlook is exactly the opposite. Roster has improved dramatically in the last month (thanks mostly to DDQ), Top 5 finishes in PVP are the norm rather than the exception, and the new characters, particularly Cyclops and Luke Cage, are fun to play and add variety to PVP and PVE.

Still waiting on that Sentry buff, though.

'

Yup, I have similar feelings. I'm at a point where I don't feel pressured to try and develop characters since the rest of my roster is relatively powerful enough to compete now. Also it feels like GT was possibly a bit of a crutch with the sheer amount of damage and utility that she provided, not to mention the absurd amount of health she had in that one PVP. I never want to face that again.

Stax the Foyer

shade_tree wrote:

Funny - my outlook is exactly the opposite. Roster has improved dramatically in the last month (thanks mostly to DDQ), Top 5 finishes in PVP are the norm rather than the exception, and the new characters, particularly Cyclops and Luke Cage, are fun to play and add variety to PVP and PVE.

Still waiting on that Sentry buff, though.

I don't think I disagree with you as much as you think I do. I love DDQ, and I love the new characters that they've come out with recently. Like I said, earlier this month I was having a blast.

It's the double whammy of the 4*Thor nerf and the PvP change, and the statements about those changes, that make the game feel different. If these changes stick around, the goalposts will have been moved quite a bit. I'll be able to finish T5 just as well now as I used to be able to, I just don't know if it'll be as fun or worth it.

dkffiv

shade_tree wrote:

Funny - my outlook is exactly the opposite. Roster has improved dramatically in the last month (thanks mostly to DDQ), Top 5 finishes in PVP are the norm rather than the exception, and the new characters, particularly Cyclops and Luke Cage, are fun to play and add variety to PVP and PVE.

Still waiting on that Sentry buff, though.

Unless you are coordinating shield hops (and remember that outside of game communication is not encouraged) top 5 finishes should be the exception and not the norm with these new changes. Barring "exploitation" of the system you are putting more people on even footing and with the games taking longer its more dumb luck than anything if you are going to gain or lose points on a hop depending on how many people snipe you.

Colognoisseur

Stax I feel your pain but the recent changes are a mixed bag for me. Some are good, the extra buffed characters for PvP; Bagnarok is bad. They definitely bombarded us with a lot over the last two weeks and I need a few weeks before I know what I believe.

Ludaa

Feeling the same way, Stax. Chased the same carrot for 400+ days. Now they've gone and switched it out for a potato (obviously worse!), and put me a little further back into the herd. Without the gleam of progression in my eye it becomes harder to press on.

I really wish there was something else to do in this game besides fight for covers and the to level them. Achievements, boss battles, skins, alliance strongholds, just something!

Edit: I clearly got ripped off when alliance banner sigs were handed out!

westnyy2

I couldn't agree more with the original post. It seems all this effort I put into my roster and this game was for naught right now. I even threw all my saved ISO into the good professor to bring him to 229 and I can safely say that he didn't scare a single soul out there. From Ares, to Patch, Loki, Hood etc. they all took a crack at him with XF. My roster is deep enough to compete no matter who is buffed but it isn't fun right now. I like this game and I want to play but I seemed to have lost all motivation this last week and a half.

The nerfs didn't help but I've been through that before. There needs to be a wall. I know people like to complain about the 166 wall or now the 270 wall but there should be a goal people are striving for. My recent goal was to continue to develop my 4 stars. I have XF, 4hor and PX at 229. I wanted to bring them higher and develop the other ones still sitting at 70. Why would I now? I'm probably better off finishing the remaining 3 stars since the scaling dictates that as the better investment.

It's a great game and I hope I can catch that spark again. It's the perfect time for a break between seasons.

Colognoisseur

I think it is this lack of progression where the devs have a blind spot. They don't get how important it is to have something cool to strive for. If there aren't cool things to play for it all eventually seems pointless.
If they aren't going to give us overpowered characters then they need to give something else to the very best players to achieve.
I keep saying this but it is because the devs don't play the game at that level that they don't understand this.
They design the game to their average roster and their average ability at the game.
How I wish they'd just talk to their mods before implementing their next "fun" idea. They just might save themselves from themselves.

Stax the Foyer

Colognoisseur wrote:

Stax I feel your pain but the recent changes are a mixed bag for me. Some are good, the extra buffed characters for PvP; Bagnarok is bad. They definitely bombarded us with a lot over the last two weeks and I need a few weeks before I know what I believe.

Yeah, there's a lot to take in. It's not the idea of extra buffed characters that bothers me. I enjoy playing different team compositions, and I want to love the idea of more buffed characters.

It's the secondary effects that came about as part of that buff, due to increased match length and volatility. It's hard to say how much of that is due to the scale of the buff, or to the popularity of the buffed characters, so they might be able to rein in those secondary effects. I hope they do, but based on their recent comments about 4* and 3* power, longer (and marginally riskier) matches seem unavoidable.

reckless442

Stax,

You've summarized most of my views. Everything they have done to PVP in the past few months (I'm including shield cooldowns) has diminished my enjoyment of the game. Most of the top scorers in my alliance, including me, are quitting. D3 has long shown that it doesn't care about long-term players, so it seems like they have finally achieved their goal of pushing many of us out the door.

To people who say that the changes are good because they discourage outside communication and make top-5 less achievable, I highly disagree. Outside communication (or inside communication if the chat mechanism actually worked) is essential to maintain a stable player base. Loyalty to an alliance and the friendships built in multi-alliance chats keep people playing and add a dimension to the game that the Devs should be embracing. Making top-5 random increases player frustration, which will not help retention. Yesterday in SSim, I had multiple hops that lost points or netted me less than 20 points due to being hit during the hop. I finally shielded out with nearly 12 hours to go, winding up 6th in my bracket by 134 points. In prior seasons, I would have been neck-and-neck with the other players and would have played to the last minute, using multiple shields in one- or two-match hops. Yesterday had none of that excitement and adrenaline rush that I used to experience when seasons ended.

Unknown

dkffiv wrote:

Unless you are coordinating shield hops (and remember that outside of game communication is not encouraged) top 5 finishes should be the exception and not the norm with these new changes. Barring "exploitation" of the system you are putting more people on even footing and with the games taking longer its more dumb luck than anything if you are going to gain or lose points on a hop depending on how many people snipe you.

I don't use shields or alliance coordination, just carefully-timed late-starts where 550-600 points is good enough for Top 5. Adding extra buffed characters has no negative impact, and a weaker Thora is a plus, so the changes are helping on the whole.

Ludaa

shade_tree wrote:

I don't use shields or alliance coordination, just carefully-timed late-starts where 550-600 points is good enough for Top 5. Adding extra buffed characters has no negative impact, and a weaker Thora is a plus, so the changes are helping on the whole.

Your'e saying the recent changes benefit a niche style of "bracket gamble" gameplay. I wonder why a lot of us are disappointed then...

Not knocking you, I've played that way too whenever I felt burnt out. It can work very well sometimes.

Unknown

It happens to all of us, i think their latest decisions didnt have many fans
The nerf to 4Thor, the Boosted 3*, the nerf (buff) to Bagnarok, at best chance they left the forum community at 50-50, supporting that and against that (in some cases not so generous)

The problem is that they devaluated the 4* concept, it wasn't just an overpowered symbol, it was an endgame to strive for
In the last 10 pvp I got 1000 time after time
and the complain is not being unable to reach that, the complain is that you keep questioning yourself "why to bother now?", I barely played last events since the changes

There's not much to do without a real everlasting goal to keep you pushing for more rewards, there's no mood to push for a reward if it sucks and if its also out a hand (blue rags cover, any 4* cover now )

The scary thing here is that they dont have a clue what they are doing, we started the Season with the concept of having an increased flow of 4* which would open a new gap, and we're ending it with nerfs to them and 3* that pack more punch than the average 4*, and worse, the comments that X-Force is actually above the 4* concept they have

There's not a clear goal to the game anymore after that

Unknown

reckless442 wrote:

Stax,

You've summarized most of my views. Everything they have done to PVP in the past few months (I'm including shield cooldowns) has diminished my enjoyment of the game. Most of the top scorers in my alliance, including me, are quitting. D3 has long shown that it doesn't care about long-term players, so it seems like they have finally achieved their goal of pushing many of us out the door.

To people who say that the changes are good because they discourage outside communication and make top-5 less achievable, I highly disagree. Outside communication (or inside communication if the chat mechanism actually worked) is essential to maintain a stable player base. Loyalty to an alliance and the friendships built in multi-alliance chats keep people playing and add a dimension to the game that the Devs should be embracing. Making top-5 random increases player frustration, which will not help retention. Yesterday in SSim, I had multiple hops that lost points or netted me less than 20 points due to being hit during the hop. I finally shielded out with nearly 12 hours to go, winding up 6th in my bracket by 134 points. In prior seasons, I would have been neck-and-neck with the other players and would have played to the last minute, using multiple shields in one- or two-match hops. Yesterday had none of that excitement and adrenaline rush that I used to experience when seasons ended.

Agreed with this, that's why im leaving the game for good and so is quite a few people from my alliance, this is Eddu ( former misfitrightin, x-men and raider) signing off.

Unknown

shade_tree wrote:

dkffiv wrote:

Unless you are coordinating shield hops (and remember that outside of game communication is not encouraged) top 5 finishes should be the exception and not the norm with these new changes. Barring "exploitation" of the system you are putting more people on even footing and with the games taking longer its more dumb luck than anything if you are going to gain or lose points on a hop depending on how many people snipe you.

I don't use shields or alliance coordination, just carefully-timed late-starts where 550-600 points is good enough for Top 5. Adding extra buffed characters has no negative impact, and a weaker Thora is a plus, so the changes are helping on the whole.

It's important that you include your roster progression as a disclaimer, because if you are firmly in 3*-4* land it is next to impossible to consistently jump into fresh brackets late. This is known as sharding and if you have not encountered it yet, then congrats to your good fortune. Enjoy it while you still can, but realize that your experience is largely different from most forum veterans.

dkffiv

shade_tree wrote:

dkffiv wrote:

Unless you are coordinating shield hops (and remember that outside of game communication is not encouraged) top 5 finishes should be the exception and not the norm with these new changes. Barring "exploitation" of the system you are putting more people on even footing and with the games taking longer its more dumb luck than anything if you are going to gain or lose points on a hop depending on how many people snipe you.

I don't use shields or alliance coordination, just carefully-timed late-starts where 550-600 points is good enough for Top 5. Adding extra buffed characters has no negative impact, and a weaker Thora is a plus, so the changes are helping on the whole.

I think that's more of an artifact of poor event structure rather than a reliable play style. There have been numerous suggestions to make rewards % based in incomplete brackets (for instance if the bracket is only 20% full, first place is the only one who gets three covers, 50% means top 3 etc).

Scoring highly seems like its going to cost more and more hp. There's a much greater chance of losing points during a hop and if you wind up with a negative hop not only did you throw away HP, you also used up one of your fixed number of shields. This leads to frustration and people quitting the game. A lot of people in the 3* transition land are already under a lot of pressure to hit a minimum score to keep their position in a top 100 alliance or risk being kicked out which will only lead to more burn out.

This super boosting stuff is ****. For over a year they've had evidence from PvE that out of control scaling affects the game negatively as characters were designed with a certain set of parameters in mind. The Hood is expected to die to match damage + a mid cost ability, Thor is supposed to have just enough HP to be killed before he has enough AP to get off his instant win combo. I would much rather have use of only a fixed number of characters (like heroics) or have certain characters locked out (maybe 5-10 per event) than buffing certain ones massively. For Black Vortex they could buff the current buff list by 25% and lock out Professor X, Cyclops (and whoever else fits. I haven't been keeping up with the comics but there have to be others that make sense). This type of event could be put in the rotation, every PvP doesn't have to follow this format.

GothicKratos

I understand OP's view point, and it makes total sense, but I just wanna play Devil's Advocate for a second, because I think it's important to consider both sides of the fence when you're talking about something;

Colognoisseur wrote:

They design the game to their average roster and their average ability at the game.

Fiscally speaking, isn't that the best way to go about it? To cater to the average player. I think a lot of people forget this is a mobile game and it's catering to mobile game players. The top percentile of the player pool is automatically the minority, and to think that you'll be pandered to is probably a little naive? Now, I'm not saying that your complaints are invalid, I am however saying that you're probably thinking a bit above the box.

What I would ask is this - if playing "competitively" (or whatever mindset you're currently you're currently playing in) isn't quite paying off the way you want to, then logically speaking, wouldn't it be time to find a new way to play?

To be honest with ya, I basically only play Daily Deadpool on any regularity. I rarely even to the whole joining PvP in the last hour thing anymore...and PvE, yeah, I only do new character PvEs and even then it's a rarity. This works for me. I don't not like MPQ, but there are simply other things that I enjoy more than require my time. Examples being playing League of Legends with my friends or watching movies/stand-up on Netflix with my girlfriend - when I'm playing League with my buddies I'm on Skype chit chatting with them, being social and the likes, and I value that a lot more than a time sink on my phone/laptop.

It's easy to think "you know, this doesn't feel fun anymore, they need to change something" - I've been there, done that on multiple games - but maybe we need to start looking inwards and thinking maybe we're not playing this game right for us.

simonsez

GothicKratos wrote:

I understand OP's view point, and it makes total sense, but I just wanna play Devil's Advocate for a second, because I think it's important to consider both sides of the fence when you're talking about something;

Colognoisseur wrote:

They design the game to their average roster and their average ability at the game.

Fiscally speaking, isn't that the best way to go about it? To cater to the average player.

Except that's not how I read Colog's comment. Sounds to me like he's implying the dev's only dabble at the game, and have no sense of what the average play experience is like. Maybe he IS implying that the devs are average players, but my take is that they're too busy working on it to have the time or desire to actually play it much.

Colognoisseur

GothicKratos wrote:

I understand OP's view point, and it makes total sense, but I just wanna play Devil's Advocate for a second, because I think it's important to consider both sides of the fence when you're talking about something;

Colognoisseur wrote:

They design the game to their average roster and their average ability at the game.

Fiscally speaking, isn't that the best way to go about it? To cater to the average player. I think a lot of people forget this is a mobile game and it's catering to mobile game players. The top percentile of the player pool is automatically the minority, and to think that you'll be pandered to is probably a little naive? Now, I'm not saying that your complaints are invalid, I am however saying that you're probably thinking a bit above the box.

What I would ask is this - if playing "competitively" (or whatever mindset you're currently you're currently playing in) isn't quite paying off the way you want to, then logically speaking, wouldn't it be time to find a new way to play?

To be honest with ya, I basically only play Daily Deadpool on any regularity. I rarely even to the whole joining PvP in the last hour thing anymore...and PvE, yeah, I only do new character PvEs and even then it's a rarity. This works for me. I don't not like MPQ, but there are simply other things that I enjoy more than require my time. Examples being playing League of Legends with my friends or watching movies/stand-up on Netflix with my girlfriend - when I'm playing League with my buddies I'm on Skype chit chatting with them, being social and the likes, and I value that a lot more than a time sink on my phone/laptop.

It's easy to think "you know, this doesn't feel fun anymore, they need to change something" - I've been there, done that on multiple games - but maybe we need to start looking inwards and thinking maybe we're not playing this game right for us.

But it again comes down to progression. If you design a game to cater to the large group in the middle who then all form a large zombie herd there, cannibalizing each other you will still have problems retaining players in the long run. I also believe if you constantly design to that demographic it becomes diminishing returns. If there is no sense of progression, to something better, then it feels pointless.
Here is where it applies to the better players and GK you've played a lot of games I am guessing. Early part of any new game is just figuring it out. The second part is what does it take to be competitive. The third part is deciding on an upper level goal you think is attainable with your play style. How do you know that goal? That is where the upper tier players come in. They define what to play for. They define the value in what to play for. They define where to concentrate your time and in-game resources because they figure it out. Games which have succeeded long-term have always made sure that very top percentage is playing for something they think is cool. Even if D3 just had a tourney where they gave out a crown which went next to your name I think they would see people at the top end work for that. They already spend resources to get an ephemeral score that lasts the length of time a leaderboard remains visible. None of this is game breaking none of this is unbalancing. If a new player shows up and they want to know what makes a good player great and they see Jamie Madrox with a crown next to his name and they find out he is the "King of MPQ" they now know what the upper limit looks like.
Right now the 4*'s feel like a waste of time because we are pouring nearly triple the resources in for something much less in return. All ready you are seeing posts saying it is not worth it to spend resources on a 4*. That is not progression and it will eventually start eroding the game from both the bottom and the top until all that is left is that zombie herd in the middle you've designed for slowly feeding on itself and inevitably getting smaller.

Colognoisseur

simonsez wrote:

GothicKratos wrote:

I understand OP's view point, and it makes total sense, but I just wanna play Devil's Advocate for a second, because I think it's important to consider both sides of the fence when you're talking about something;

Colognoisseur wrote:

They design the game to their average roster and their average ability at the game.

Fiscally speaking, isn't that the best way to go about it? To cater to the average player.

Except that's not how I read Colog's comment. Sounds to me like he's implying the dev's only dabble at the game, and have no sense of what the average play experience is like. Maybe he IS implying that the devs are average players, but my take is that they're too busy working on it to have the time or desire to actually play it much.

Simon you do have it right. I am saying that the devs do not understand much of what we experience in the game because they have no frame of reference. This is why simple progression things like avatars, skins, and alt covers are foreign to them. They think that doesn't sound like "fun". Making them endure having their characters "funbalanced" that is "fun". Except it is not when there is no end goal. By devaluing 4* with the concurrent nerfs and buffs of 3* for PvP they are running a risk of just having people give up because they believe their effort is worthless. It again comes down to the fact they don't have to decide to throw away multiple covers for iso so they can keep leveling Goddess because she is a great character and if it is your goal to compete for the top of the leader board you need her. It comes down to the fact that they are slowly but surely making sure every top tier player feels like their efforts are futile because they'll just change things for the worse for them. If they had to spend all their time and/or money to make their rosters and choose which characters to keep and which ones to sell as if it was real then they might have a clue.
But of course they can't and they shouldn't this is their job. Nobody asks you to go home and do your job for "fun" in your spare time.
Which is why I keep asking them pick some upper tier players and get some feedback from them and use it to improve the game overall.
Of course they remain resistant to that idea too.