Changes Coming In Season XIII

Unknown

I would weigh in with.... great job Devs!!! Honestly guys Awesome changes!!! Now would you please reconsider only nerfing the boosts when it pertains to PvP structure? What is the harm in boosting 3 AP when you're battling the computer? Not to mention DDP wave 4 still sucks for some of us as do most of the tough feeder nodes in PVE.

Unknown

raisinbman wrote:

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.

It wouldn't break them so much as unintentionally nerf them, and OBW is still good wtih her blue, you can just freely ignore purple vs Goons. I've thought about having goon AP vs not goon AP so goons only power themselves, but I think the easiest way is to just have all goon powers cost 0 and remove goon AP generation entirely.

While we are changing the boost system, can we have the number of purchased boosts for ISO boost be bumped to 10 for 400 iso? Especially now that it's 2 max, an even number would be really nice.

dkffiv

A suggestion I made a while ago was have it so that goons generate / cost Team Up AP. It would accelerate the AI's only TU usage but after that it would be used accordingly.

wymtime

Lots of positive changes with the higher 3* drop rate. I will also thank will for getting the 4* award in the alliance to be top 100 in PVE alliance, but I have to ask Will what else are you looking to do to help the 3-4* transition. Hitting 1000 points in PVP or spending money can't be the final answer. There are a lot of 4* in the game witch is good, but it should not take a year for a FTP player to max out a 4* character. If you can hit 1000 points in PVP and you don't buy the covers and you don't place number 1 you will win 1 Kingpin cover a month. That does not seem like a good system to me.

Since I hate complaining without giving options how about this for PVP 4* rewards.
First make more 4* featured.
2nd right before they are featured here is the reward structure.
1-5 3 covers
6-10 2 covers
1-50 1 cover
51-100 a 3* cover
It will be back to old school PVP but would give 4* more of a place in the game and make it possible to transition without spending a bunch of $$$

Unknown

If they make goon abilities cost no AP then you'd have to rebalance stuff like Meteor Hammer versus Strength in Numbers. Meteor Hammer does significantly more damage but it actually takes some time before the goons can generate enough AP to do it. If they get to place CDs for free you'd just have an early Flamethrower/Rocket/Meteor Hammer ruin your day.

dider152

I don't think I really like any of these changes. The progression rewards switcharoo sounds nice, but it also seems that by messing with the algorithm you had in the background that matchmaking will be more difficult. So yay, you put reaching progression rewards within reach. Boo, you made it harder to get there. I also don't see anything positive about the change from +3 to +2. Sounds like a trivial change, but it actually makes it harder to get the AP you need, especially with the more difficult matches where the other team are so overpowered and get a lot of cascades (in both PvP and PvE).

I hope you actually start making good changes that help everyone. Like in PvE, for example, making it so that you get all node rewards before getting the '**** you, here's your 20' ****. Changes like that actually help everyone and actually need to be made

simonsez

Lerysh wrote:

I've thought about having goon AP vs not goon AP so goons only power themselves, but I think the easiest way is to just have all goon powers cost 0 and remove goon AP generation entirely.

No, the easiest way would be to just not pair them with other characters that use the AP colors they generate. Wouldn't be that hard to do.

Unknown

If these matching making changes work the way I think they're going to work, this might be the end of me with this game. I'm not really sure why people are worried about the wall. I started this game quite a while after a lot of people, so when I had my 2 star roster I hit the 3 star wall at about 400 points, I advanced and moved on, then I hit the 4 star wall at about 600/700, I advanced and moved on. I felt like I had earned my right to have an easy path at the start of the climb as I had spent so long being the whipping boy.
Now if matchmaking is 'like for like', what was the point of progression? If I had of stayed on level 94 characters the outcome is still the same as if I had 4 star and where is the incentive for new players to transition? Will every pvp now be a dull grind of xforce/Thor after 70 points?
I'll give it a few pvp's before I make a decision, but I think I might be off.

simonsez

The other thing I don't get is, the last time they wanted to change matchmaking, it was done as an off-season test, and was an unmitigated disaster. And now we have a change that appears to be far more substantial than those attempted tweaks, and it's just going to be full-steam ahead. Based on history, why would anyone be greeting this news with blind optimism?

fmftint

With all these positive changes, when are you going to do something about the terrible rewards in the Shield Sim?

Unknown

the change which makes cover rewards less "random" by giving kamala green and prof x blue is one i like. thanks!

daveomite

Demiurge_Will wrote:

whitecat31 wrote:

In the past when you have made a character too powerful in the boost environment that character was nerfed.

Thanks for the thoughtful post, whitecat.

I think the characters that you mention were overpowered in a boost-free environment as well.

Will - did you ever actually play with Sentry - even maxed Sentry/Hood combo - at high levels? I mean, when you absolutely had to get into and out of a match in 2 minutes or less? If so, was that really possible for you unboosted as you suggest it would be?

Same goes for any team out there presently. Can you go into a match verses a 3x maxed team (and to make it easier for you, only the featured would be boosted for you) - so let's say it's a Daken PvP, and the opponent/AI has maxed Daken/XF/Fist plus a cMag TU. Are you honestly saying that you can break shield, go into that match with NO boosts - with ANY 3 characters, win said match, be out, and be re-shielded in under 3 minutes? OR, if it makes it even easier, let's say the featured is a maxed Hood paired with a maxed XF and ProfX. Still can knock out all three in under 3 minutes and re-shield before getting drilled by snipers?

Esheris

I didn't see any changes to the new PvP matchmaking, unless that part wasn't in game yet. My max levels are around lvl 85 and I ran into a few 270 Xforces and other very high levels.

It happened really quick as well. I was going for the 300 point Heroic Token and got to less than 200 before those popped up.

puppychow

dkffiv wrote:

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.

It seems to me D3 doesn't want players to engage in speedy matches. They want scores to come down even further than when cool downs were introduced to shields, by stretching out matches and hoping that players are forced to buy heal packs to continue pushing. If D3 truly doesn't want players to have an "unfair" advantage in pvp against defenses, then the simplest thing to do is to eliminate boosting altogether. Of course, that would cut a nice source of revenue as players do spend money to buy boosts. To me the purpose of reducing maximum boosts from 6 to 4 colors is to make the players' teams take more damage during the matches and be forced to buy heal packs.

reckless442

puppychow wrote:

dkffiv wrote:

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.

It seems to me D3 doesn't want players to engage in speedy matches. They want scores to come down even further than when cool downs were introduced to shields, by stretching out matches and hoping that players are forced to buy heal packs to continue pushing. If D3 truly doesn't want players to have an "unfair" advantage in pvp against defenses, then the simplest thing to do is to eliminate boosting altogether. Of course, that would cut a nice source of revenue as players do spend money to buy boosts. To me the purpose of reducing maximum boosts from 6 to 4 colors is to make the players' teams take more damage during the matches and be forced to buy heal packs.

It also will keep overall scores down. Longer matches mean people below you have more chances to hit a higher-scoring players while unshielded. True, their matches may be longer as well, but one or two fast matches and the player at the top is down 70+ points. Lower boosts also increases the chance of a loss and when you are struggling for targets worth 20 points or more, it is very likely that players will lose more points than before. It makes you wonder why anyone would climb early in an event. It's more likely that we will see what we are seeing in BOP -- a lot of players unshielded in the 500 range, but fewer players pushing high and providing targets for the masses.

TheGunslingerr

Interesting changes. I don't like boost reduction though. Boosts are supposed to cause imbalance, thus the reason for purchasing through ISO or HP. For a quite a few powers, 2 means you will still have to match at least times.

OzarkBoatswain

Good riddance to the hidden matchmaking variable. It was a bad idea from day 1.

KrazyKeylime

not liking the boosting change destroys the effectiveness of shield hopping, getting above 700pts. Which leads to, nothing done again about how many people hitting you at a time and for how much they hit you for. reduce both for best results.

nice try but no on the 3* draw rates but you still don't seem to grasp the concept thaT random cost less then specific when buying characters. here is the fix: make a button for 300HP( that is how much it should cost but your pricing is so screwed up you need to charge 900HP. Besides,we don't want it to endlessly generate you revenue now do we?) get a random 3* there fixed. why is this so hard for you?

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

If they make goon abilities cost no AP then you'd have to rebalance stuff like Meteor Hammer versus Strength in Numbers. Meteor Hammer does significantly more damage but it actually takes some time before the goons can generate enough AP to do it. If they get to place CDs for free you'd just have an early Flamethrower/Rocket/Meteor Hammer ruin your day.

True, some (most) abilities would have to be rebalanced, but I think the game would come out the other end better for the work. A lot of it could be done in just extending the CDs by 1-2 turns to simulate the "AP collection" time. Hell just extend them based on cost. Abilities that cost 2, +1 turns, 3 +2 turns. 4 +3 turns. Done.

simonsez wrote:

Lerysh wrote:

I've thought about having goon AP vs not goon AP so goons only power themselves, but I think the easiest way is to just have all goon powers cost 0 and remove goon AP generation entirely.

No, the easiest way would be to just not pair them with other characters that use the AP colors they generate. Wouldn't be that hard to do.

Maybe, but that would require editing basically every existing event, and then carefully planning future events, and then never changing a cover color (Curse you Skrull C.Mags!). For all that work you could also just make a system where goons and villains side by side isn't broken, and doesn't limit your event creation ability.

Azoic

I thought there used to be an event token at 300 pts, too. So did you take that away?? Honestly, the 500 point progression error you had with HT green awhile back is where the 3* should be. A dveloped 2* team can reach 500. I have only gotten over 600 in special events and an event that surprisingly kept matching me against lvl60s. So unless he matchmaking seriously stops matching the 2* teams against 3*, then a 2* will still be unable to hit that progression. Hard to transition when all you are given is another 2*.


Otherwise, glad to see the other changes. I agree 4* will need a bump, too, esp since not part of a monthly DDQ or something, and we're gettng more 4s. Would still like roster slots addressed, since 1600 hp/month at your release rate is silly...and only gets worse