1 star equality: Why and how it needs to happen

Unknown

Currently, there is a disparity in the 1 star rank, in that certain characters have 2 powers, and some have 3. This on the surface would not be an issue, as the 1 star game is relatively short, and people will begin transitioning from it during the prologue. However, there are multiple reasons this should be addressed:

First, with weekly boosts, this does become a problem, as 2 characters will overperform while boosted due to having a higher level cap, due to the higher cover count.

Second, certain characters lend themselves to playstyles different than others, and would be more likely to retain usefulness past the initial stage, or at least enjoyment while playing. I bumped into this myself with Hawkeye Classic. He's easily my favorite 1 star, but I eventually ditched him because he doesn't have Jugg's HP or 3 abilities to be a higher level when boosted.

Third, a majority of the 1 star characters are "Iconic" versions of their selves. Anyone looking for a Scar-Jo Black Widow after seeing the movies are going to identify with Modern Black Widow more than her other 2 version, Hawkeye classic is what pops into mind for most people when mentioning that character, and Venom and Juggernaut are easily in their most recognizable forms.

This will seem like a minor issue to the majority of the forum userbase, because most of us have left the 1 stars behind at this point, but as someone just recently having stopped using them, I felt like this was something worth discussing.

Further, a lot of the possible third power choices could be already copied from other versions of the characters.

IE: Hawkeye could gain 2 star Hawkeye's electric arrow, Black Widow could either get a version of one of GSBW's powers, or the Espionage Passive. Venom could get a passive similar to Spider-Sense on 3 Star Spidey, because of the 1 star characters, the only one that generates Protect Tiles is Iron Man.

This mainly leaves one huge problem, and one minor one.

First the big problem: Juggernaut. He's easily more powerful than any other 1 star, due to a massive HP advantage, plus 2 fairly cheap powers. Personally? I'd bring his HP down while playable to normal levels, then give him a Black passive that boosts his max hp total, per covers invested.

The NPC version could remain as is, or could also be adapted to this, depending on what suits difficulty needs.

The Minor Problem? Yelena Belova: The character is literally garbage tier, and it's not really a secret to anyone. However, there's an unspoken rule about comic fans: If a character has ever appeared in print, they have at least one fan. I literally know that one fan for Yelena. So to be fair, she's gotta be upgraded too, the problem being, she's had almost no appearances outside of her own series.

Two possible solutions: 1: just give her a Black Widow power from OBW or GSBW that Modern BW isn't using already. 2: This one's a bit more complicated, but it does use one of her abilities from the comics. Make her third ability "Super Adaptoid" and have her use a colossus style mechanic to use someone from the opposing team's powers against them, at the cost of hefty self-damage.

With the 1 star playing field leveled, this would not only be a good experience for newer players trying to earn rewards but having to rely on the weekly boosts to 1 star characters, but also may encourage older players to rebuild them to see if anyone can top the Juggernaut.

As a final note, while doing such a 1 star revamp, I'd make one other suggestion, for 2 reasons. Add a 1 star Spider-Man. First, he's a marvel flagship character, he shows up in the 1 star recruit screen even, and he would also be possible low hanging fruit. 2nd, there's currently 2 "featured" 1 star characters a week, but 7 total. This makes it 8 total, so you can have things pair off nicely. I'd just recommend making a copy of Bag-Man, or even use Bag-Man, and just have his newer version have 1 star attributes/caps, but the game really needs a 1 star spidey to snag in newer players.

Heartburn

no revamp for 1*.
1) newbie bracket plus some 2 events off season that use them
2) you don't stay in that phase very long
3) 2 powered heroes let you cover them fast and are stronger in the short term, just long enough to get you out of the phase
4) some 1*used in higher level play are already annoying enough with out an additional power, Juggs/ venom
5) not enough focus on the 1* tier to warrant changing them so much

Unknown

Yet another "nerf 1*" tier thread. *yawn*

Everything in prologue has been finely ironed out, and there're no problems with the 1* tier, beyond people looking for something where it doesn't exist.

Juggernaut and MBW are one-trick ponies designed to help starting players progress before they develop more diverse rosters to deal with a wider variety of situations. This is not a problem.

In terms of Yelena, I wouldn't mind seeing a higher tier version of her that doesn't suck as bad, but I don't see any compelling reason to change the 1* version.

All these "nerf 1*" threads strike me as people coming up with solutions and looking for problems to apply them to.

Unknown

At what part in anyway did I ever suggest "Nerfing" 1 Stars? I was suggesting bringing the lower leveled ones up to par with Iron man and Storm.

Vhailorx

The return on investment just isn't there for 1*s. 1* land just doesn't last long enough. How would this change make sense for demiurge?

I don't see this happening any time soon.

Buret0

Considering Juggs and Venom are the scariest 1*s, your entire thesis fails.

I would take a boosted 150 Jugg 1* over a boosted 200 Iron Man 1* any day of the week.

Unknown

Vhailorx wrote:

The return on investment just isn't there for 1*s. 1* land just doesn't last long enough. How would this change make sense for demiurge?

I don't see this happening any time soon.

Because the 1* experience is still the opening experience for new players. Having certain characters have 3 abilities and higher level caps than other 2 ability characters gives the impression that the game is out of balance, or biased towards certain characters.

Now, we can argue if that's the case at higher levels or not, but this is a customer facing discrepancy that gives a false impression of how characters work, in that some characters are worth having 3 abilities, and higher caps, than others.

Adding Spidey as a 1 star is just a no brainer, IMO, but maybe that's because I'd played twice casually since launch through the first prologue part, realized how hard it would be to get spidey, and quit, because I was only playing from my tablet. Now that I have a phone that runs it, Im more often killing time with it, so the lack of Spidey isn't bothering me... as much.

Unknown

Oh, so this is a civil rights issue?

Unknown

Buret0 wrote:

Considering Juggs and Venom are the scariest 1*s, your entire thesis fails.

I would take a boosted 150 Jugg 1* over a boosted 200 Iron Man 1* any day of the week.

I actually addressed the Juggs issue by saying his HP needs to be brought down and instead be added as a passive ability for players. His NPC version could be changed or not.

Venom isn't really that scary, but maybe he's just better at levels 100+, Im not quite at that point. And this post isn't about their NPC versions or how scary they are at 200 or 100+. It's about presenting a balanced face for the 1 star players starting out, and making sure they aren't penalized for selecting some characters over others during the transition due to weekly boosting.

simonsez

Haetron wrote:

And this post isn't about their NPC versions

It is, because the "NPC" versions are the same as the players' versions, and that's never going to change.

xellessanova

Haetron wrote:

Vhailorx wrote:

The return on investment just isn't there for 1*s. 1* land just doesn't last long enough. How would this change make sense for demiurge?

Because the 1* experience is still the opening experience for new players. Having certain characters have 3 abilities and higher level caps than other 2 ability characters gives the impression that the game is out of balance, or biased towards certain characters.

Now, we can argue if that's the case at higher levels or not, but this is a customer facing discrepancy that gives a false impression of how characters work, in that some characters are worth having 3 abilities, and higher caps, than others.

1* Characters that have only 2 abilities and level caps are like training wheels for starting players. This is by design.

Yelena and Bagman are also a hint at the setup to come, which is that by having characters that are clearly NOT GOOD compared to other characters, it trains starting players to make calls about relative quality, roster slots and keeping the right characters given a limited resource.

Would this be a better game if all characters were more balanced? Maybe. But with the way D3 set up charges for roster slots, it's an actual boon for players to be able to discard trash tier characters in 1* land.

Unknown

There is no need to fiddle with the 1* tier because the 1* to 2* transition now a days is faster than ever. Shield Sim, prologue rewards, event/heroic tokens for PvE subs, and cover rewards on PvP nodes basically means you will never ever lack for 1* covers and 2* covers are pretty plentiful.

There is no reason to change the 1* tier in any way. Except maybe by getting rid of Yelena entirely. Make her villian only like Gorgon for all I care, but no one should ever actually roster her.

Unknown

xellessanova wrote:

1* Characters that have only 2 abilities and level caps are like training wheels for starting players. This is by design.

Yelena and Bagman are also a hint at the setup to come, which is that by having characters that are clearly NOT GOOD compared to other characters, it trains starting players to make calls about relative quality, roster slots and keeping the right characters given a limited resource.

Would this be a better game if all characters were more balanced? Maybe. But with the way D3 set up charges for roster slots, it's an actual boon for players to be able to discard trash tier characters in 1* land.

The game needs to come out and say that then, because as someone that leveled Hawkeye to 40, realized he had a lower level cap than iron man, and was less "potent" than Juggs (plus more concerning, the lockout on DDP when they use 2 Star hawkeye) I was sad to have to pitch him, first for Storm due to higher level cap, then realizing just how badly Jugss is out of whack and keeping him instead.

My main concern with this post was for newer and future players, because these were all concerns I had 2 months ago when I first started, and the new player experience isn't perfect and could still use polish.

morph3us

Lerysh wrote:

There is no reason to change the 1* tier in any way. Except maybe by getting rid of Yelena entirely. Make her villian only like Gorgon for all I care, but no one should ever actually roster her.

I remember a comment from Will a month or so ago, where he stated that Yelena was deliberately designed to be terrible because she's calibrated to be a prologue enemy when you're first starting to play the game, and they didn't want the difficulty to be too hard. Hence, a revamp for her isn't on the cards. From that, I guess she is effectively a villain only.

Here we are, found it:

Demiurge_Will wrote:

Arctic_One wrote:

AP steal attacks do not steal team-up AP, why? This is not some conspiracy theory but just a curiosity.

They were balanced around stealing from just 6 colors, and most of them are quite strong as is. In most cases, we'd have to take something else away or make them cost more.

Psylocke's Bewilder could safely change to affect Team-Up AP, but it's not clear that would make the power more interesting/fun/useful. When considered just as a playable character, Yelena's Lethal Recon would have headroom to affect Team-Up AP, but Yelena's balanced as an enemy for early-stage players and we don't want to make her stronger for that reason.

[There are no current plans to weaken or strengthen any of the existing AP steal powers, just to be 100% clear.]

I guess he didn't say "terrible", that was my interpretation!

Various38

Haetron, I get what you are saying and I believe that the balance of 1* characters isn't a bad thing. The point that others are making, is that it isn't warranted any time soon. It's low, maybe even hanging off the bottom, of the priority list. I think Yelena could be a good character, yes I said it. She just doesn't pack the punch needed to make her good. There is a use for every character in the game, and I have probably tried to use every use in all of my matches. All of that just depends on what you need from the match. I even use Moonstone regularly because of her red power (I liked her black better the other way). If she is maxed and hits her red with a good stacked board, she can clear out most enemies in that one shot and still have AP for another if you stacked right. Juggernaught is just a monster no matter how you look at it. I don't know about adding Spiderman to the 1* mix though. I can't even imagine what variation they would use to make him viable as 1*. Anyway, in review; 1* land needs a balance tweak, not all characters are completely unplayable, and critical tiles have been a blessing for me in many situations.

lukewin

Haetron wrote:

The game needs to come out and say that then, because as someone that leveled Hawkeye to 40, realized he had a lower level cap than iron man, and was less "potent" than Juggs (plus more concerning, the lockout on DDP when they use 2 Star hawkeye) I was sad to have to pitch him, first for Storm due to higher level cap, then realizing just how badly Jugss is out of whack and keeping him instead.

If you're sad that you had to pitch him, get ready for a lot more disappointment in the game. Check out the Rookie Mistakes link in my sig. There are plenty of other things that people have done, that they regret, or makes them sad. Out of all the issues that the game has, I would consider this issue to be trivial. I had multiple 1* characters that I maxed and pitched, and at the time, it seemed like a big deal, sunk cost fallacy, but I don't even think about that now. I had a maxed Hawkeye, IM35, Juggernaut, MBW, and Storm. I ditched all of them. I just rebuilt a maxed Juggernaut, b/c I have stockpiled a decent chunk of HP and can afford to have a maxed Juggernaut and a cover maxed lvl 1 Juggernaut for teamups. This will make the 1* node go a lot quicker in DPD b/c of Juggernaut.

I agree with the poster that mentioned buffing any of these 1*s makes it rougher on us, in PVE. For that reason, I'd prefer that they stay as is, or get nerfed even.

Who says that the game has to be played optimally from the beginning? You make mistakes, and you adapt. If the game had to be developed so that everyone played one way/linear progression, it wouldn't be as fun to me. I enjoy collecting the covers I need, respec-ing them to how I'd like them, and leveling them to my style of play. I'd like to dictate my style of play, within the confines of how the game is structured. Would I like to change some aspects of how the game is structured? Sure. But since I can't control that, I will control what I can control.

Unknown

I was going to read and post in this thread.....why is everyone so angry about 1* tho

Unknown

1* characters are designed to quickly introduce you to the game and introduce you to 2* and 3* characters. They're not designed to be perfectly balanced. They're only ever featured in prologue and that's how they're intended to be used. Yelena is a villain who you face when you barely have any covered 1*'s to begin with. Buffing her would make the game much harder for new players. Similarly, nerfing any of the other 1*'s would make the new game much harder.

The game is balanced around 3* play, because this is where they make the most money. If you're complaining about how the 1* tier is balanced, you should just quit now. There are 7 - 1*s, 13 - 2*s, 40 - 3*s, and 11 - 4*'s.

The game only gets harder from here on out, not easier. 1-2* used to be tough, but it's now quite easily manageable if you know what you're doing. They've replaced bagman rewards in prologue with 2* characters you can actually use, and they've made it easier to earn 2*'s from PvP matches. I think your complaints are completely off-base, and your proposed solutions would make the game much harder for any new players who have even a basic idea what they're doing.

http://marvelpuzzlequest.wikia.com/wiki ... Characters

TLCstormz

lol at people over exaggerating.

Anyways, there are TONS of players that don't post here (I.E. casual players) who have most of the 1*s and Bagman fully covered, plus 2*s, 3*s, and 4*s. And I'm not ever talking about veterans with expendable income, I'm talking about middle of the pack people or even transitioners.

It IS NOT clear that these characters suck and you should DELIBERATELY get rid of then ASAP. That part could definitely be spelled out in the game a whole lot clearer.

Unknown

As seen with the reduction in 2* drops, it's still intended that you go through a quick 1* transition.

Increasing the # of covers in the 1* range would be counter productive, as it would make it harder to cover any one character. I think some people are overvaluing the difference between level 40 and 50, mainly because *Black Widow's, *Hawkeye's, and Yelena's abilities aren't heavy damaging abilities, but supporting abilities.

Lots of people keep the **** characters because of the emotional tie, not because they'd actually be used in game once they're past the 1* phase. They're like trophies.

Unknown

It's not just the difference between level 40 and level 50 though. When these characters get level boosted for weekly events, the level gap continues through there as well.

And the entire argument that Black Widow and Hawkeye are support characters, and not meant to be fully leveled, is actually proving my point that this presents a false expectation for the future game, as no one else is given less abilities and lower level caps as a "Support" character.

While the issue of the npc versions being the same as the playable versions we get was something I thought was easily averted by having npc variants, if that's not the case, it would definitely cause an issue.

I don't get how giving all the 1 stars equal level caps and extra abilities is going to make transitioning out of 1 star territory more difficult, however, as the only thing remotely resembling a nerf I suggested was Juggernaut's HP bonus being made a passive. But hey, I also didn't think suggesting changes to the 1 star game was such a volatile issue. I was merely making recommendations as someone that just finished the process last month and still had the issues in mind that I encountered during that process.