"True" Healing

Malcrof

_RiO_ wrote:

Jamie Madrox wrote:

tinykitty Thanos

You are now imagining a Muppet-baby version of Thanos...

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/ori ... ariant.jpg


can anyone resize that, the forum won't let me post the actual image

SnowcaTT

Ben Grimm wrote:

I think the best questions to ask about true healing:
1. Did it improve the game?
2. Did it set out to accomplish its stated goal of increasing roster diversity?
3. Do people like the change?

On those grounds, I think it failed.

I must know nothing either, I think it terribly failed at #2 and #3, and #1 it was a 50/50 thing (depended on if you liked playing when you wanted vs. hated prologue healing).

This was the change that convinced me anything the players use for their benefit will be taken away from them. I swore to not pay again on something like page one or two of that thread, and I have not. Oh how 4hor tempted me! But then I was once again reminded of the first sentence in this paragraph.

I haven't looked at my profile in awhile, this was my "most active in" thread for most of my history. Probably finally being replaced by DDQ, almost a year later.

Unknown

PVP was actually pretty terrible before the healing change, looking back on it. Being able to heal seemed so cool at the time, but no one seems to remember how horribly grindy it was when almost every single team was using OBW to heal non-stop. No downtime for healing meant no one ever had to stop playing so it was just constant attacks, which needed you to also be constantly attacking to be able to keep up. Compared to how it is now, you had to play for way longer stretches to end up with much less points.

Buret0

sinnerjfl wrote:

Boommike wrote:

Thanks for your answer Ben!
Do you happen to know where I can find an explanation from the devs when this change was implemented? I'd like to hear their take on why they changed things.

TLDR version: It didnt match up with their "vision" of the game (whatever that is) and they didn't like that we could go into the prologue and heal up instead of buying health packs like good little costumers.

I'm not sure it really changed anything overall but I don't miss prologue healing, it was pretty boring. It forced us into building more diverse rosters so that when characters are downed, we do have backups. It also made true healers (Daken,Wolverine (any version), R&G) very important characters for sustained play.

I for sure still go there to heal with Daken and Wolvie.

Unknown

Boommike wrote:

To the mighty Jamie Madrox: that's not my intention. Although after seeing the original, I can't blame you for that fear. My intention is not to bring all of that back to the surface again, but to see how things have changed. (see below)

Ben: You were one of many (read: seemingly millions) that opposed the change. What I appreciate was that your voice was not just one of hatred, but seeking of clarity. You said several times that the game would see it's doom because of this change. And I'm sure that many players left because of it. But even in this thread, you can see the support of this change.
I've been an active listener on the forums for a few months and have seen loads of backlash for more recent changes. To the point where forumites are pushing for positivity rather forcefully. But I haven't really seen anyone bring up this change in light of the recent "terrible things D3 has done, without regard for its players". Does this not just give further weight to the "This Too Shall Pass" mantra?

On a lighter note, can this give us hope? Changes that are initially seen as bad and are met with immediate backlash may work out alright in the end? Or maybe even improve the game?

Let's not kid ourselves here. The game perseveres IN SPITE of changes like true healing, NOT because of them. They could have implemented true healing, and many other negatively-perceived changes, in much better ways, and actually improved the game.

Yes, the game did not die from true healing. However, that isn't because of how great or positive it was, but because this is a match-3 game (that by its nature has fun and addicting gameplay) that is backed by Marvel (which has a large, growing, devoted fanbase).

I really have to applaud the devs because they really have set up a genius system. When a player first discovers the game, it is incredibly fun. There are so many cool characters, so many things to do, 4 sets of rewards on all nodes, you get cool crystals just for completing a battle! By the time this player realizes that MPQ's design philosophy and (lack of) long-term goals are no different from your typical freemium model, he or she is already in too deep. Despite the devs' best efforts to push loyal players away, the power of Marvel, alliance-built friendships, and the sunk cost fallacy keep the game going.

Buret0

Ben Grimm wrote:

I think the best questions to ask about true healing:
1. Did it improve the game?
2. Did it set out to accomplish its stated goal of increasing roster diversity?
3. Do people like the change?

On those grounds, I think it failed.

Well, if by roster diversity you mean having two fully covered versions of the same character...

I totally agree that allowing people to retreat to the prologue to heal defeats the purpose of the in-game regeneration timers and health packs. Essentially, it meant that you could full heal anyone to full health, so long as they weren't deceased.

As much as I would have abused the system to heal my main three characters over and over without ever needing to touch a health pack, I agree that it wasn't in keeping with their vision for the game.

However, with massive specific character boosts, I find that the game has regressed a bit. I've got a Scarlet Witch at 3/5/4 and level 153. My next highest is SG at level 127. Yes, with the changes to the ISO costs, I have a lot of level 94 to 120 3*s (based on covers and quality mostly). However, with the significant boosts available only to a few of my roster, I'm not using the full range of my characters at all. If my level 220 Scarlet Witch, level 115 Colossus, and level 150 2* Storm aren't ready to fight, I'm not going to throw my B squad in to a PvP battle in their place. I'm not going to go from a well rainbowed average level of 161 to a poorly rainbowed team with an average level of 94 (120+94+70 default one cover colossus).

Unfortunately, they choose the same characters to give the PvP boost to as they choose to boost in PvE. That means that I'm pretty much limited to doing a couple of the RC nodes and a few trivial nodes or be vastly outgunned and leveled with no health packs left.

At that point, I have the choice of (1) buying health packs, (2) using a weak team, (3) playing uncompetitive PvE, (4) playing the SHIELD simulator, or (5) playing a different game.

TBH, a lot of the time I just put my phone away and go do something else. This led to me not getting a vision cover and then not really giving a hoot about not getting a vision cover.

The weekly boosted players means that I'm using a more diversified roster, but it also means that I'm not able to easily substitute in a new team and expect not to get destroyed on defence.

Contrast that with the Shield Simulator, where no one gets boosted, so I'm more able to use a diverse roster, which means that the ISO change to cost and the lack of true healing aren't a major punishment and actually accomplish the goals of removing true healing.

Unknown

Ben Grimm wrote:

I think the best questions to ask about true healing:
1. Did it improve the game?
2. Did it set out to accomplish its stated goal of increasing roster diversity?
3. Do people like the change?

On those grounds, I think it failed.

I am going to be wishy-washy.

1. Yes - I was running oBW-Ares to 800 points and top25s with no shields, thanks to victory lap healing - that shouldn't happen.
No - 2star rosters have to seriously punch above their weight class to make progress. Without victory lap healing, it became a dark couple of months for me (Thankfully, I was almost there with a couple of 3stars)

2. No - This change was almost a year ago and we didn't get diversity until the last 30 days.
Yes - one part down the path to diversity. Without this change and the nerfs to any characters used by the top end (Mags, Sentry, Hood, 4Thor, XF) and the multi-boosting each week, we would not have diversity today.

3. No - at that time, this crippled my progress and almost drove me out of the game. But I got a couple of lucky token draws for characters I had 8 or 9 covers for and suddenly, I was transitioning.
Yes - Long term, I think it was positive for the game and with the advent of DP Daily, there is still a reasonable path to transition

pchuan11

Malcrof wrote:

_RiO_ wrote:

Jamie Madrox wrote:

tinykitty Thanos

You are now imagining a Muppet-baby version of Thanos...

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/ori ... ariant.jpg


can anyone resize that, the forum won't let me post the actual image

hex706f726368

Jamie Madrox wrote:

I swear to tinykitty Thanos that if this (d)evolves in to another True Healing debate I will smite this thread like an angry god.

good luck with that

hydra wrote:

if a head is cut off, two more will take its place

atomzed

Ben Grimm wrote:

I think the best questions to ask about true healing:
1. Did it improve the game?
2. Did it set out to accomplish its stated goal of increasing roster diversity?
3. Do people like the change?

On those grounds, I think it failed.

1) yes,it did improve the game. At that point in time, OBW was pretty much essential. She steals, she heals and healing was so good that you have to bring in a healer. During the era of True Healing I was playing OBW (over another max 3*) and I found myself intentionally dragging games so that I can heal before killing the final enemy. That was not fun.

2) No it didn't. It has the effect of lowering the importance of OBW, but it also render any character with temp healing to be useless. Spidey yellow sucks (when he was already hit with a nerf). Shehulk was one of them who was released after temp healing was introduced and she was **** then (now she's ok). The meta didnt really improve.

3. Yes I like the change. I still do and I believe the game is better for it.

Unknown

Wow were the riots really worse than the X-Force nerfs? I thought that was already pretty unbearable with the player-base being very heavily divided on opinions. I was still in prologue during the True Healing nerf so I gotta read that thread.

This is an idea the devs can do, reverse all the nerfs that were ever made or at least some of the really popular/unpopular ones for a single day. For example, April Fools or Christmas will be fun. Of course on the technical side, I'm sure it'll be challenging but it could give the newer players a chance to experience the previous versions of the CMags, Spidey, X-Force, Sentry and true healing. Just a thought.

Pylgrim

sinnerjfl wrote:

Boommike wrote:

Thanks for your answer Ben!
Do you happen to know where I can find an explanation from the devs when this change was implemented? I'd like to hear their take on why they changed things.

TLDR version: It didnt match up with their "vision" of the game (whatever that is) and they didn't like that we could go into the prologue and heal up instead of buying health packs like good little costumers.

Er, they clearly stated that this vision of theirs for the game and the reasons true healing was removed were as bolded:

sinnerjfl wrote:

I'm not sure it really changed anything overall but I don't miss prologue healing, it was pretty boring. It forced us into building more diverse rosters so that when characters are downed, we do have backups. It also made true healers (Daken,Wolverine (any version), R&G) very important characters for sustained play.

So, big success, I guess!

Unknown

dathremar wrote:

Wow were the riots really worse than the X-Force nerfs? I thought that was already pretty unbearable with the player-base being very heavily divided on opinions. I was still in prologue during the True Healing nerf so I gotta read that thread.

This is an idea the devs can do, reverse all the nerfs that were ever made or at least some of the really popular/unpopular ones for a single day. For example, April Fools or Christmas will be fun. Of course on the technical side, I'm sure it'll be challenging but it could give the newer players a chance to experience the previous versions of the CMags, Spidey, X-Force, Sentry and true healing. Just a thought.

OMG. That would create such panic & havoc! (The day after...lol)
I say let's do it.

morph3us

I'm going to call it a qualified success. The removal of true healing for team-mates certainly means that it's not obligatory to bring OBW, Spidey, or Beast (although he came out post True Healing) for every match (or every couple of matches). It also has increased the value of the Wolverines, Dakens, and Grocket in terms of their role in terms of sustainability in PvP climbs (if such a thing exists anymore), where previously bringing along OBW/Spidey would have sufficed.

Where True Healing has failed is in the value of the burst healers. Temporary burst healing doesn't have a strong influence on the game, enough so that Spidey and Beast are essentially irrelevant players (particularly given the weakness of their other powers). It only partially works in OBW's case because of the strength of the remaining of her abilities, plus the fact that AGD has a dual role in ticking up CD tiles. Likewise, it works in Kamala Khan's instance because it costs nothing to burst heal with her.

It's always better to spend AP to drop your opponent quickly to minimise damage taken (or minimise damage via a free passive, like Cage's protect tile), than to spend that AP burst healing up. The only instance that burst healing potentially plays a role is in overscaled nodes, where you need to soak the damage because you can't output sufficient damage quickly enough, and even in that instance, Grocket's probably a better choice.

SnowcaTT

dathremar wrote:

Wow were the riots really worse than the X-Force nerfs? I thought that was already pretty unbearable with the player-base being very heavily divided on opinions. I was still in prologue during the True Healing nerf so I gotta read that thread.

The thing with X-force is you had to get the 4* covers by earning them or buying them - so his nerf effected lots of players, but (mostly) long-time high-level players.

I was only just getting into 3* at the time, and was always in top 100 as a 2* player thanks to OBW. She was run by lots of 3* teams - once the level shift came along, you never saw 2*'s run with even transition 3* rosters until the recent buffs (essentially partially reversing the level shift).

At the time the 4*'s were pretty terrible, so they nerfed the best 2* character that many of the 3* folks were also using - a much higher percentage of the player base felt the change.

Unknown

Ben Grimm wrote:

I think the best questions to ask about true healing:
1. Did it improve the game?
2. Did it set out to accomplish its stated goal of increasing roster diversity?
3. Do people like the change?

On those grounds, I think it failed.

Well, I was going to post a lengthy comment, but this change is so patently obvious, I just ended up frustrated and couldn't bring myself to post the result. Instead I'll just offer this:

1.) For someone without 10+ covered and leveled 3* & 4* characters? NO.
2.) The way an extraction eases the pain of a toothache? Sure. Yes.
3.) Again, as a 2* - 3* transitioner whose 2*s regularly get wiped out in "trivial & easy-scaled" PvE nodes? Uhm, nooope.

I would frankly argue that ending true healing did nothing to increase anyone's enjoyment, but it did make health pack purchases more appealing to those willing to purchase them. Take PvP for example. Instead of skill level and roster strength, a player is now as likely to be fighting someone's willingness to spend money as they are either skill level or "roster diversity."

As for PvE? Sure. I can tell you that I would get LOTS more enjoyment out of PvE and "scaling" if I didn't have to wait (up to SIX hours) for my dead heroes to heal. At least I'd have an option other than buying health. In the past, when people could grind 20 ISO nodes for that sweet, sweet true heal, they'd have to want to, and then take the time and effort to do so. More power to 'em. There would have been times I would (back-to-back PvE subs) and times I wouldn't (work, family time, sleep). The only thing that's changed is many of those same driven people can now purchase the same health... oh wait.

DBC

Unknown

Too late Jamie.

It has (d)evolved!

Phillipes

Ben Grimm wrote:
I think the best questions to ask about true healing:
1. Did it improve the game?
2. Did it set out to accomplish its stated goal of increasing roster diversity?
3. Do people like the change?

On those grounds, I think it failed.

Completely agree with Ben.

Developers are constantly making changes against players, only to suck more money from them.

Changes in last year (good things):
Good changes
1, Time slices (but this should have been here from beginning).

2, Lowering ISO cost (again, this should have been here from beginning, but cost is still high btw).

3, Lowering treshold from 1300 to 1000 points in PVP. (But then health boost change came, making this point invalid.)

Bad changes (bad things):
1, True healing.

2, Releasing characters too fast.

3, Nerfs after character is released, not testing new characters before releasing. And when you do, atleast admit you made mistake, apologize, and then allow people to have complete refund (= to level other character), no this theft you are making now. Allow people to re-cover nerfed characted for free.

4, New PVE starts right after old PVE ends.

5, Health boosts. PVE is bad. It was always bad. Really bad concept. But we got used to it. PVP was bad too, but it was playable. I couldnt believe that you can make something worse than PVE. And then health boost came, and you did it. PVP is much worse than PVE now. It is actually the worst part of the game. Games last 5 - 8 minutes. Every game costs 1, sometimes 2 healtpacks. Every maybe 4th game is lost. PVP climb is slow and tedious, it lasts couple of hours. And roster diversity there? No way. Still only one option for team composition, as always.

6, Ignoring PVE scaling - punishing players for developing their roster and punishing them for being placed well in previous PVE is devious. I have never ever seen such a bad concept in any game in my whole life.

7, New characters are for nothing. Rosted diversity is illusion. Players need characters only because of that 1 featured in PVP and 2*, 3*, 4* for essencials in PVE (Btw this change, with considering 1000+ HP for roster slots, is simply evil.) Poor guys who play PVE and dont have any 2* because of roster slots.

8, 4* transtion. (Is there even any?) Scoring 1000 points was hard, but it could be done. With one shield. But there is no income for you. You made it again - with health boost change, even 800 is almost impossible. It is possible only with massive boosting from alliance mates (but I suppose you dont know what Im talking abaout) and massive mulitple shielding.

I didnt put DDQ anywhere, becuase it is only new content.

GothicKratos

Sorry Jamie.

Ben Grimm wrote:

I think the best questions to ask about true healing:
1. Did it improve the game?
2. Did it set out to accomplish its stated goal of increasing roster diversity?
3. Do people like the change?

On those grounds, I think it failed.

1.) Yes, absolutely, the removal of the mandatory Prologue/"Victory Lane" healing was a positive change for PvP and PvE. If you wanted to have good placement, especially in PvE, you had to Prologue Heal. That's complete garbage from any standpoint. It's not good on a game theory standpoint, it's not good from a player's standpoint, and that's not good from a mechanical standpoint. Yeah, it had some positives attached to it, such as allowing 2* players to more easily punch above their weight class and it allowed a lot of players to play a lot of MPQ, but the positives seem to outweigh the negatives here imo. Just think of trying to play PvP/PvE now...you'd never stop playing. You would pretty much literally have to play non-stop to garner any time of decent placement because the top Alliances of the game would just cannibalize the top placements. Burnout would be a thousand times worse.

2.) Yes, absolutely. Did 3* players stop using oBW? Almost immediately. I don't know how this is ever arguable.

3.) Like any change; yes and no.

Some very good points have been brought up in this thread though, especially those about how overvalued temporary healing is (as far as balancing is concerned). oBW is still amazing because her heal isn't just a heal, so it's not dead in the water most of the match and/or a situational power. If you're going to give a character temporary healing they should either; have an alternative "objective" for that ability so that it's not situational or their other two abilities need to be 'Grade-A' so that they are good enough to run and not depend on that ability to be useful.

SnowcaTT

Jamie Madrox wrote:

I swear to tinykitty Thanos that if this (d)evolves in to another True Healing debate I will smite this thread like an angry god.

Ah, to remember past times....