Weekly Character buff -Poll

atomzed

I don't remember a poll being done for the weekly buffs. Just like to hear people's opinion about it.

Personally I love the buffs. While the pvp gets more difficult since you fight more buffed characters, I get to see more variety of opp, and can also choose different teams combi for use.

What do you think?

Edit: added an undecided button. Only 5 people voted so I figured better to change now (lose 5 votes only rather than later)

fmftint

More variety? You see the best 2 out of every week's group from start to finish

atomzed

fmftint wrote:

More variety? You see the best 2 out of every week's group from start to finish

Really? I don't see a best 2.

For example this week, you can argue that IF and Xforce and IF and BP are equally great team. But as max IF are less common, i see a lot more Bp Xforce team.

At the highest level, I see some more IMHB and IF. But I can also argue that IMHB and Xforce may be a better team than IF - IMHB.

And this is just for the buffed characters. If you take into consideration non buff characters, such as perennial favourites like Hood and Loki, there's *a lot*more variety within each pvp. I am running xf and GT this pvp,because I find that the color coverage is better than Xforce- BP.

What best teams are you seeing this pvp?

fmftint

IF/Xforce or IF/BP as far as i can skip

Unknown

Obviously there is always a best 2 because even if all characters are exactly as powerful as any other then you'd still see the most commonly available 2 as the 'best 2' due to availability. BP is likely still better than X Force unless you're playing against someone with either only one dangerous threat or you have to fight someone where you need to play defensively (X Force is more of a defensive move now, and IF's green at 5 is easily better as a straight up damage move). Of course you might not have IF green at level 5, or the featured character could be Vision which renders Battleplan useless so you'd want X Force instead. Well, Hulkbuster + IF is probably easily the best choice but there's an availabilty issue with that team. SW + IF is certainly a very interesting team that might be even better if you have no active black because you can just spam IFoKL instead (unlikely AI actually saves enough for 14 purple which is what you want anyway).

Unknown

Is there an undecided button? Once I have 10-15 166 three stars, I'm sure it will be more fun.

Thanks,

James

atomzed

Phantron wrote:

Obviously there is always a best 2 because even if all characters are exactly as powerful as any other then you'd still see the most commonly available 2 as the 'best 2' due to availability.

I agree with this.

When I said "no best 2", I meant that the most common characters are determine more by availability, rather than them being "strongest 2".

At my level, I could handle the buffed characters... Which may be why I enjoy the rotating buff now.

Unknown

atomzed wrote:

Phantron wrote:

Obviously there is always a best 2 because even if all characters are exactly as powerful as any other then you'd still see the most commonly available 2 as the 'best 2' due to availability.

I agree with this.

When I said "no best 2", I meant that the most common characters are determine more by availability, rather than them being "strongest 2".

At my level, I could handle the buffed characters... Which may be why I enjoy the rotating buff now.

What I mean is that there are always 2 characters who are best in some way, even if they're all exactly the same. And if they're not the same even if one character is just 1% better people will eventually figure it out. But if the best character is only 1% better that means you can rotate your characters or use them for different matchup purposes. Last week I ran Punisher + Blade on most fights, but switched to Blade + Magneto when She-Hulk was featured for a more defensive setup (here defense means no other green power so the AI will spam Furious Charges on D). I don't know if that was a more effective team than the straight up power combo of Punisher + Blade but it's certainly something different. It is certainly not a great team to attack but I was also only attacked 3 times in the whole event, and maybe that's worth it for some people to slog through some really boring matches with this team when you missed hitting the threshold for The Thirst.

dr tinykittylove

It's fun now since so far they've been buffing all the top tier 3*s - kamala, cyclops, blade, cmags, bp, fist. Just wait till they decide next week's superstars are Ock/Spidey/Sentry/Quicksilver... who will you pick??

Chrono_Tata

Yeah, I think it's fun if it's the week where "fun" characters are being buffed, but not so much when the buffed roster isn't great. Mixed results really. I appreciate that they are trying to give the game more variety on the PvP front, although I wish they would tackle the problem at its root by balancing the characters properly.

Unknown

I think it's made PVP less bad, though PVP still has a long way to go before I'd call it anything remotely related to fun. I'm varying up my teams much more, and not just seeing the same team over and over. Admittedly, I've got a roster essentially custom-made for this.

Cymmina

For me, I like that I can use some of my underleveled characters who are stuck until I can get more covers. I've only taken my 3* characters to 94, so I still see plenty of maxed 2*s mixed in with mid-leveled powered up 3*s. It's nice being able to use them as more than just fodder for trivial PvE nodes (especially since the "trivial" PvP matches evaporated in the last matchmaking adjustment).

For me, it feels like I can get more matches in before I need to start using health packs because I have more options available to play with.

evil panda

It really sucks. For one reason only - with the huge increases in PVP difficulty through MMR, it's another nail in the coffin to someone who wants to hit progressions and compete in the top tier. And I say this as someone who has always had a max version of the top characters to be buffed each week.

If it was the only change made to pvp, I likely would have a more favorable reaction to it, as it does give you an incentive to try different combinations of characters. But as it stands, it's a net negative for me. Sure, I have a stronger pvp team. But so do more of my opponents, and the attrition on my roster is exponentially higher as I try to climb.

SnowcaTT

Ben Grimm wrote:

I think it's made PVP less bad, though PVP still has a long way to go before I'd call it anything remotely related to fun. I'm varying up my teams much more, and not just seeing the same team over and over. Admittedly, I've got a roster essentially custom-made for this.

This. One of my choices is undecided, because there are the bad parts still there. Having tons of huge buffed characters is a bummer for length of matches, and how often you can run them. I can't run PVP two or three times anymore, must come back again and again since roster is almost always dead.

But also a plus, with my even leveling I usually have a couple of the best characters to run pretty high, and can throw up a 200+ roster almost every time, letting me somewhat compete with the 4*'s. Should I be able to? That's another question I suppose.

Matchup diversity....not so much. Last week it was all CMag/Blade, this week it is all XF/IF/BP in some combination. Sure there are a few others, but not many. However, I know that next month I won't be seeing that: unlike when I expected to see XF/HT for months on end.

puppychow

Phantron wrote:

BP is likely still better than X Force unless you're playing against someone with either only one dangerous threat or you have to fight someone where you need to play defensively (X Force is more of a defensive move now, and IF's green at 5 is easily better as a straight up damage move).

I agree that if/xf is more of a defensive combo compared to if/bp. First, obviously a 350 xf has a ton more health and that in turn forces the would-be attacker to decide if a long match is worth the risk of getting snipped. A less obvious reason is that bp's yellow increases the passive dmg of if green per turn. And the passive dmg quickly adds up unless the defense has protect tiles on the board.

wymtime

I have a lot of 3* at 166 so I keep using different buffed characters. Last week was Pun or Blade with Cmags. This week will be IF with BP. The buffs are making me use different characters who I would have probably just let sit there in the past. These buffs are making more 3* viable each week, but are also creating a separation of haves and have nots. If you don't have a lot of the buff characters fully covered or leveled you might really struggle in PVP that week.
Also at the end of PVP this week certain characters with a health buff become more of a pain like IF. When he has less health he is still tough becuase his attack tile whittles you down while his purple spams black for BP. Definatly taking damage against IF.
For me I give it a thumbs up, but I also see the other side and how weekly buffs can completly take someone out of solid PVP scores for the week.

stowaway

I voted "undecided." I've been lucky so far with the boosted characters, and currently have a higher season average than I've ever had before. But I'm sure there's a week coming where I'll not have any of them above nine covers, and will be back to just using LThor + Loki or Hood every PvP. And that week I'll be unhappy with the system.

rixmith

I went with undecided as I have some mixed feelings about it. My thoughts:

There is less team diversity in the short term (i.e. during a given week) but significant more diversity over the long haul. Used to be that once I reached 600 points it was X-Force/Thor as far as the eye could see. For every event. Now at least the common teams will change on a weekly basis. So, overall, I consider that a boost to diversity.

It gives a reason to play with characters that I don't normally use. It had been ages since I used Punisher during PvP until he was buffed last week.

It rewards investing in a deep roster. If you are a long time player and have lots of maxed 3*'s you'll be good every week. If you put all your investment into getting a couple of characters to a high level at the expense of all your other characters, you'll only do well once in a while. Overall I think that rewarding the long term players who have invested in all those expensive roster slots is good.

It certainly is a health pack suck. If you have the buffed characters you pretty much have to use them every match. The second you try to pull a non-buffed 166 in, you become a prime target. And you are probably fighting other buffed characters, so after two or three matches, chances are you need health packs.

I like the fact that it is now much harder to simply start the event a couple hours before it ends and snipe your way to the top. I always felt that was a huge downside to PvP, and now it is very hard to do that.

As far as I can tell the score distribution is now pretty much the same as it was pre-buffs. It might be different people now, but the high scores seem normal, I'm scoring about the same as I was, and placing around the same places. So overall that's a wash as far as I can tell.

So I think that it has helped some players (those with deep rosters and those who play PvP events over multiple days) and hurt some players (those who did well with just a couple powerful characters and those who jumped in at the end of PvPs). Overall rewarding long time players who have invested in deep rosters (disclaimer: I'm one of those types of players) is probably good for the long term health of the game.

SnowcaTT

rixmith wrote:

It certainly is a health pack suck. If you have the buffed characters you pretty much have to use them every match. The second you try to pull a non-buffed 166 in, you become a prime target. And you are probably fighting other buffed characters, so after two or three matches, chances are you need health packs.

This is one of the worst parts of the game lately. The part about not playing "best" team has kind of always been the case - I never wanted to Hulk bomb against to many teams before, they'd retaliate against that fast (not best) team if they had time.

But previously, the best team wasn't -always- full of characters that are also buffed for the PVE. Now it is very difficult (I feel impossible) to finish very well in both events at once. The high scaling PVE + high leveled PVP makes those very few characters you need lose life very quickly, for sure.

Xenoberyll

There's very little variation among the top, Iron Fist coupled with either Xforce, Black Panther or Hulkbusters. If you don't have at least one of the buffed characters maxed you can forget about competing for 1k for the week. I absolutely hate it.

Arondite

You picked a bad week to run this poll because people are gonna be sour right now over fighting boosted XForces.

Overall, though, it's definitely been a very fun change to the system and overall very refreshing, IMO.