Changes Coming In Season XIII

IamTheBiggs

Okay, I am initially bummed at the token point-level getting moved up. I suppose we shall have to see how the other items factor in.

Edit: Okay, I realized that I'm an idiot. Please disregard...

CrookedKnight

Look again - there's a second token at 650 and a THIRD at 900.

ZeiramMR

I see this change in Tokens AFTER I opened my surplus (saved in hopes of more Kamala covers). But looks like it was after the change went into effect.

Still 19 Heroic/Event tokens and 97 Standards became THREE rare characters.

fmftint

One thing i don't see, boosted characters. Are we going back to only featured is boosted or a group of boosted characters? How much will the boost be?

ZeiramMR

Rare gripe from me aside, this seems like a good set of changes, and thanks for introducing them at the start of a season and not mid-season. We'll see how good/bad/neutral the matchmaking changes are soon enough.

Unknown

fmftint wrote:

One thing i don't see, boosted characters. Are we going back to only featured is boosted or a group of boosted characters? How much will the boost be?

They will run few events on old basics to compare data, boosts should be lower anyway (only featured char may stay at 290 lvl).

M1Lance

After having it up to here with the Thoress nerf and (still) completely broken PVE I was about to quit... but you pulled me back in with these changes. Damn you D3 (but nicely done).

Unknown

Glad I saved my 10 pack and event tokens. I'll wait for the patch and hope for it to rain 3s

Der_Lex

Alchemist4 wrote:

Glad I saved my 10 pack and event tokens. I'll wait for the patch and hope for it to rain 3s

The update's already live, so go nuts.

Unknown

whitecat31 wrote:

I also mentioned Invisible Woman. So if you can be kind enough to maybe RE-RE-RElease her to make her balanced, instead of worse than every three star but Beast and Doc Octopus, that might be nice. Poor Octavius, even bag lady is better than her. Can anybody blame Otto for leaving his body to become Spiderman? Oh and on that note. Can we make Spiderman Amazing again?

Unknown

Der_Lex wrote:

Alchemist4 wrote:

Glad I saved my 10 pack and event tokens. I'll wait for the patch and hope for it to rain 3s

The update's already live, so go nuts.

Are you sure? thought it was going to be an update. ...I haven't got a download notification like I usually do

Der_Lex

Alchemist4 wrote:

Der_Lex wrote:

Alchemist4 wrote:

Glad I saved my 10 pack and event tokens. I'll wait for the patch and hope for it to rain 3s

The update's already live, so go nuts.

Are you sure? thought it was going to be an update. ...I haven't got a download notification like I usually do

It's not a full patch, it's an in-game update (ie: the kind that makes MPQ reload if you had it open) on D3's end, because it affects token drop rates. You can check by taking a look at the drop rates in the in-game store.

udonomefoo

Alchemist4 wrote:

Der_Lex wrote:

Alchemist4 wrote:

Glad I saved my 10 pack and event tokens. I'll wait for the patch and hope for it to rain 3s

The update's already live, so go nuts.

Are you sure? thought it was going to be an update. ...I haven't got a download notification like I usually do

I can't say for sure it's live, but there are frequently things they change on their side that don't require you to do an update. Token pull percentages would def be one of those things.

dkffiv

Demiurge_Will wrote:

[*]The maximum number of times that +AP boosts can be stacked changes from 3 to 2. We still think that there’s interesting gameplay that comes from +AP boosts, and don’t want to get rid of them, but we’ve come to the conclusion that it’s impossible to balance characters in such a way that they’re fairly matched both when players start with 6 AP in a color and when they don’t.

Boost Stacking Change
The Team-Up +AP boost, all-color +AP boost, and 2-color +AP boosts used to be stackable up to 3 times. They can now be stacked up to 2 times.

We’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not possible to balance the game for cases where people are using as much +AP as was available before and cases when they’re not. We still think that +AP boosts are an interesting piece of the game, and we want to keep them available, just reduce their maximum power.

For some of the most highly competitive players, this will have an effect on the speed of matches in Versus. We’re keeping an eye on how this affects Versus scores and, as with all changes that could have an effect on Versus scores, we’ll adjust progression rewards if that proves necessary.

Its so god damn unbelievable how out of touch you guys are. Who in their right mind would claim its difficult to balance around starting with 6 AP? The only time I ever use all boosts is when speed is absolutely critical and I expect to have an extremely unfair advantage. That advantage isn't even an absolute, I've lost even while starting with 6 AP due to the AI getting 5 match after 5 match cascades. The game isn't meant to be balanced around starting with 3 AP. You are spending resources to gain an advantage over the AI who already has a massive advantage. Any damage you take is permanent whereas the AI doesn't care. You are paying to increase the odds that you can kill off their guy before he can spend his AP.

In a vacuum the AP boost nerf would be fine for PvP except the whole reason you boost is for speed and to save health kits. If we didn't get punished so severely for other players randomly hitting us and our characters came out of battles with full life AP boosts wouldn't be needed at all. We need to end matches as quickly as possible and thus shield as quickly as possible so we don't lose our standing. We want to alpha strike and the end match before the opponent gets off abilities because it takes hours for health to regenerate. The problem isn't boosts, the problem is the system.

For PvE you need to control scaling and either get rid of the Hood or allow us to use mirror matches against him. The reason we boost in PvE is because if Ares or Jugg gets an ability off before we can control him or down him we usually end up losing. I took severe damage in a PvE node post nerf because I was 1 black short for Surgical Strike and a black match never came. That delayed me long enough that Magneto got enough blue from his feeder goon and downed a character. With the stupid **** feeder fights you give us a time table on how many turns we can survive before we eat a Sniper Rifle / Mag Trans / Twin Pistol and you just potentially delayed us by several turns with this nerf. According to your own statements you believe +4 AP is fine but +3 is not, this makes no sense.

Unknown

You guys are right. I see that 3s went up to .9%. I think it was .6 before.

Unknown

dkffiv wrote:

With the stupid **** feeder fights you give us a time table on how many turns we can survive before we eat a Sniper Rifle / Mag Trans / Twin Pistol and you just potentially delayed us by several turns with this nerf. According to your own statements you believe +4 AP is fine but +3 is not, this makes no sense.

I think they've been doing a good job with Gauntlet because I don't see feeder fights there that are absurd. Usually the ones that provide the useful AP isn't on the last bracket and things in the last bracket usually don't feed into something immediately dangerous. Since the Gauntlet is presumably designed with lessons learned from the past it seems like they are aware that feeder fights are stupid. However they really need to retire the old feeder fights and if that's somehow too much work I don't think anyone will really lament the fact that we're never seeing TaT again over some newer content. There are certain combination that just won't work even with low scaling unless the scaling is so low to be trivial, like the aforementioned Mangeto + blue pump. Ares + any free AP is also borderline impossible, or at least winning in this case is completely at the mercy of the AI as you hope they'd stupidly use the wrong abilities instead of just one shot you with the free AP.

Unknown

+4 AP is fine, but +6 is not. +3 is still doable, just bring a rainbow boost if you are so worried.

Goons should stop generating AP all together tho. Just stop, it's ridiculous to have villians farming off their goon AP to hit abilities. As mentioned, it's basically a clock on the match. Kill this guy in 5 moves or you will be getting Twin Pistols to the face for 10,000 damage. Not cool. Instead, lets make all goons into that sniper goon who's power costs 0 AP. All goon powers get to cost 0 AP now, and either bump the CD by 2 turns or just make them not cast anything until turn 3, or just flood the board with CDs if you want them to be slightly more dangerous. And no more goon AP.

dkffiv

Phantron wrote:

I think they've been doing a good job with Gauntlet because I don't see feeder fights there that are absurd. Usually the ones that provide the useful AP isn't on the last bracket and things in the last bracket usually don't feed into something immediately dangerous. Since the Gauntlet is presumably designed with lessons learned from the past it seems like they are aware that feeder fights are stupid. However they really need to retire the old feeder fights and if that's somehow too much work I don't think anyone will really lament the fact that we're never seeing TaT again over some newer content. There are certain combination that just won't work even with low scaling unless the scaling is so low to be trivial, like the aforementioned Mangeto + blue pump. Ares + any free AP is also borderline impossible, or at least winning in this case is completely at the mercy of the AI as you hope they'd stupidly use the wrong abilities instead of just one shot you with the free AP.

Prodigal Sun and Deadpool both feature GSBW with green feeders. R&G had Hood/Mystique/Doom with feeders.

Gauntlet I don't care about feeder fights. I only have to beat them once and I have 4 or 5 days usually to try any team I want. I've cleared the last 2 gauntlets with no boosts because I don't care if I wipe, I can try again later. Competitive PvEs you don't have the luxury of chalking up a loss.

simonsez

dkffiv wrote:

According to your own statements you believe +4 AP is fine but +3 is not, this makes no sense.

Your entire post echoes my feelings on this.

But I'm afraid the above DOES make sense in a way. They're basically saying, "You guys who like to use +3 boosts can continue to do so, but now you'll have to pay for the 3rd one"

I know there's a vocal contingent around here that will start complaining, "Stop saying everything is a cash grab!!", but let's get real. These guys are in business. And there's no other reasonable interpretation that explains the contradiction dk pointed out above, other than this is going to force people to either buy boosts or buy health packs in order to continue to play as much as they used to.

Unknown

Lerysh wrote:

+4 AP is fine, but +6 is not. +3 is still doable, just bring a rainbow boost if you are so worried.

Goons should stop generating AP all together tho. Just stop, it's ridiculous to have villians farming off their goon AP to hit abilities. As mentioned, it's basically a clock on the match. Kill this guy in 5 moves or you will be getting Twin Pistols to the face for 10,000 damage. Not cool. Instead, lets make all goons into that sniper goon who's power costs 0 AP. All goon powers get to cost 0 AP now, and either bump the CD by 2 turns or just make them not cast anything until turn 3, or just flood the board with CDs if you want them to be slightly more dangerous. And no more goon AP.

Your idea is pretty good, but it'd break Blade/BW. That being said I'd rather see this than nothing.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Goons should only power themselves, unless they're a LITERAL AP battery enemy that does nothing but power up others.