***** Silver Surfer (Skyrider) *****

Orion

A better solution for Surfer is to have him start at level 100 and cost a very minimal amount (say 10 ISO) per level until level 200. That way you can bring him up to whatever level you want. If you have a capped 94 roster, then leave him at 100 until you're ready to move up.

IlDuderino

Orion wrote:

A better solution for Surfer is to have him start at level 100 and cost a very minimal amount (say 10 ISO) per level until level 200. That way you can bring him up to whatever level you want. If you have a capped 94 roster, then leave him at 100 until you're ready to move up.

Great idea but would have to come hand in hand with some better way to instantly level up to X level or it would be very painful in practice

Unknown

Polares wrote:

Unreallystic wrote:

My snip...
- Unreall

But what you propose in points 1 and 2 makes no sense. Imagine somebody that has a 2 roster (lvl 94) and has been extremely lucky and has pulled 2 or 3 SS covers with legendaries won in pve progression. You propose that SS should be an outlier or not considered at all for scaling purposes, but then this guy would be able to build a team for pvp with ss and another 2. And then he would destroy all other 2 teams. And it would be the same in pve, and with the extra advantage of doing it extremely fast.

SS and OML need to be considered for the scaling.

The solution is to make this covers not expire ever. This way you can have them without adding them to your roster (so you can't use them against other people in your stage), but then you would be able to field them when you got to a 3-4 level.

I'm perfectly fine with a 2* who's been lucky pulling a couple SS covers. IT means little to nothing, do YOU fear a single or double cover SS? Even a triple? IF you are 3* or higher, you should be able to eat it up as free points. He is NOTHING but a meat shield at that point. So for PvP its a meaningless impact. IF I skip a surfer team in PvP, its usually because the points aren't worth it, or the OTHER characters make it a tough fight. And for PvE? Well if they were pulling a legendary with their 2* roster, SS isn't going to change that.

Even going beyond that, what if they pulled 4 SS covers without transitioning to 3* land. Well they'd be throwing so much ISO into SS, that it would STILL be a 1 on 3 fight. Beyond 4 covers, the luck would have to be beyond stupid to not be going through at least 3* transition, and getting legendaries - that I can think of - you always tracks through collecting 3*s first, so their value would naturally increase anyway.

I stand by everyone should be allowed 'one' anomoly/outlier. It was painful during the reign of XFW - I had max covers, but didn't dare level him up past like 170, simply because the only person who could keep up was a preadjusted Sue Storm. It was crippling as I was still trying to get a solid 3* roster and yet had a character who could really help after Sentry got teabagged.

And so going back to PvP, this guy who got several covers for SS would defecate on other 2* rosters, yep, sure would, and then he'd get to like 400-500 pts in PvP and hit a wall Just.Like.Every.Other.Two.Star.Roster. All he does is function as a meatshield, and any half way competent 3* roster will chew through anything that person puts out, so will this person float to the top of 2*s, you sir are 100% right, but (!) if they got those legendaries, they most likely were at the top anyways and (2), the top of the 2*s is still the bottom of the 3*s.
- Unreall

LordXberk

Just wish a Red would provide a definitive post on this topic regardless of whether the answer is:

1) it's working as we expected (and prior posts about it not ruining scaling were wrong)

OR

2) we agree that it's messing up scaling and it's stupid to penalize players for rostering 5*, so we're going to fix the scaling issue.

I just had to roster OML today as he was due to expire. If we had an answer, we'd know whether it makes sense to dump a 5* or not. It would be terrible to sell a 5* and then have the devs change the way scaling works with the 5*. Not saying I'm selling my OML, but I won't know how my scaling is changed for a few events, I'm guessing. And, FWIW, I'm a late 3* / early 4* player. I'm hopeful that scaling won't be much different since I usually have at least 1 or 2 boosted 3* per event and the scaling difference between my 200-240 boosted 3*s and 255 OML isn't significant. But, who knows?

Unknown

You sound like where I am, though the anniversary helped tremndously with the 4* transition. I've just given up on caring about scaling. My XFW is over 200 (still won't max him due to reasons discussed with surfer), my Devil Dino is around 200, my XFDP is like 190ish, and everything else is 166ish. PvE is just not fun, so I gave up on it. Sure I'll do it sometimes, when I'm bored, but scaling took the fun out of it a long time ago. I'm like, what's the point of a 4* roster for PvE if they are just going to outscale my 3* roster? And the whole 'weekly buffs' - if my understanding is correct, raises it even more as I usually am playing with a 200+ roster.
- Unreall

DrLemniscate

At this point, you are better off limiting your roster to 94. It gives you a much wider range of characters to use, less health packs needed, and less ISO8 needed.

We need to see some benefit to rostering higher level characters, without punishing us with scaling, and without punishing other people in our bracket by being overtiered.

Jim_MatriX_cz

I can not find simple answer to my question:
"Is SS influencing the scaling or not?"
My SS is lvl 375 now and I have feeling that yes... but I thought that originaly was posted, that he will not influence scaling...

so what is the final answer?

thx Jim

LordXberk

Jim_MatriX_cz wrote:

I can not find simple answer to my question:
"Is SS influencing the scaling or not?"
My SS is lvl 375 now and I have feeling that yes... but I thought that originaly was posted, that he will not influence scaling...

so what is the final answer?

thx Jim

Cricket, cricket . . .

A tumbleweed blows across the barren landscape . . .

Echo . . . echo . . . echo . . .

IlDuderino

Jim_MatriX_cz wrote:

I can not find simple answer to my question:
"Is SS influencing the scaling or not?"
My SS is lvl 375 now and I have feeling that yes... but I thought that originaly was posted, that he will not influence scaling...

so what is the final answer?

thx Jim

Hi Jim, long time no speak - nice work on your Surfer!

I have read multiple posts from players saying it has had a big impact on their scaling but no-one official had acknowledged it - safe to assume it is a problem. Hopefully the new patch will address this

dkffiv

My sandbox with 3 maxed 5*s essential nodes start at 395. Before they were usually in the low 200s range. Seems like it's definitely affecting pve

shmoli

When does surfer become a factor? I am a 3>4 transitioning player with 2 useable fully cover 4*'s (4hor and XFW). When would you start using surfer over other 4*'s. How many covers?

OneLastGambit

Unreallystic wrote:

Polares wrote:

Unreallystic wrote:

My snip...
- Unreall

But what you propose in points 1 and 2 makes no sense. Imagine somebody that has a 2 roster (lvl 94) and has been extremely lucky and has pulled 2 or 3 SS covers with legendaries won in pve progression. You propose that SS should be an outlier or not considered at all for scaling purposes, but then this guy would be able to build a team for pvp with ss and another 2. And then he would destroy all other 2 teams. And it would be the same in pve, and with the extra advantage of doing it extremely fast.

SS and OML need to be considered for the scaling.

The solution is to make this covers not expire ever. This way you can have them without adding them to your roster (so you can't use them against other people in your stage), but then you would be able to field them when you got to a 3-4 level.

I'm perfectly fine with a 2* who's been lucky pulling a couple SS covers. IT means little to nothing, do YOU fear a single or double cover SS? Even a triple? IF you are 3* or higher, you should be able to eat it up as free points. He is NOTHING but a meat shield at that point. So for PvP its a meaningless impact. IF I skip a surfer team in PvP, its usually because the points aren't worth it, or the OTHER characters make it a tough fight. And for PvE? Well if they were pulling a legendary with their 2* roster, SS isn't going to change that.

Even going beyond that, what if they pulled 4 SS covers without transitioning to 3* land. Well they'd be throwing so much ISO into SS, that it would STILL be a 1 on 3 fight. Beyond 4 covers, the luck would have to be beyond stupid to not be going through at least 3* transition, and getting legendaries - that I can think of - you always tracks through collecting 3*s first, so their value would naturally increase anyway.

I stand by everyone should be allowed 'one' anomoly/outlier. It was painful during the reign of XFW - I had max covers, but didn't dare level him up past like 170, simply because the only person who could keep up was a preadjusted Sue Storm. It was crippling as I was still trying to get a solid 3* roster and yet had a character who could really help after Sentry got teabagged.

And so going back to PvP, this guy who got several covers for SS would defecate on other 2* rosters, yep, sure would, and then he'd get to like 400-500 pts in PvP and hit a wall Just.Like.Every.Other.Two.Star.Roster. All he does is function as a meatshield, and any half way competent 3* roster will chew through anything that person puts out, so will this person float to the top of 2*s, you sir are 100% right, but (!) if they got those legendaries, they most likely were at the top anyways and (2), the top of the 2*s is still the bottom of the 3*s.
- Unreall

This isn't even just restricted to 3* and above, Im a very early 3* transitioner and still use my 2* in PVP and I have beaten many surfers on my travels. Aside from high health he doesn't bother me at all even at 3 covers (though he is slightly more of a pain if he can heal) same goes for OML

Unknown

Doing the math on 5* ability progression and Surfer's black is by and far the biggest outlier in terms of ability usefulness vs covers. For 13 AP he recovers 6/9/12/16/20 based on the covers for the ability. The model of 5*s the devs presented to us was that 1 of each cover was supposed to open the door for a 5* hero. We are looking at the single 5* hero whose ability you actually don't want to have before having at LEAST 3 covers and isn't even that good until 4 or 5 covers. Squirrel Girl's green at 5 covers is arguably better than SS's black at 4 covers and that's on a 3* hero.

Most 5* hero abilities ramp up at around a 10-20% per cover increase in effectiveness, not counting other costs associated with using the power like destroying friendly tiles or self/team damage or being passive.

Surfer's black notably stinks at 1 cover (and also stinks at 2 or 3 covers, mind you) and then ramps up in effectiveness at 33-50% per cover from 1-4 and 25% going from 4 to 5. This doesn't follow the 5* model/philosophy at all.

What needs to happen is the following:

1) Surfer's black should have a separate damage component that increases per cover, either based on damage per tile destroyed or damage done when the countdown ends. This damage would increase at the typical 10-20% per cover rate of other 5* abilities.
2) Surfer's black needs to have a less variable AP return rate like 11-12-13-14-15
3) A combination of 1&2

Right now any of the 5* heroes offered to us are fun to play at 1/1/1 EXCEPT for Surfer whose black is the obvious stinker ability at low covers but is strong at high covers.

If the devs are going to push the original philosophy of 5*s that they presented to us then some kind of solution needs to be found regarding this ability.


//yes I have a Surfer and yes he has 1 black cover and no I'm not even going to put ISO into him until something is done.

notamutant

I agree his black is not that useful (even at 5 covers since usually the opponent is dead by the time you get that much AP), but you can't just look at its AP generation ability. It destroys a bunch of tiles, which can include strike/attack/protect tiles, which is useful, since you can place it. It also does damage for each tile destroyed. So add those two factors in, and the black is a bit better than you make it out to be. Still wouldn't use it because of high cost though or other characters being better like OML black.

Polares

Yeah I agree too, his black starts being useful at 4 covers. It is passable because 5s do so much match damage, but spending 13 black to get 12 AP from undetermined colors (you just can chose the colors you will get to a certain degree) is not very good.

But I think SS has more problems than just his black. I have 5 covers, so I can bring him to 330 level, and at that point he is far worse than most of the 4s (assuming 2 as max cover, so 2/2/1 or 1/2/2). Red does around 2000 for 7 AP, blue heals for 4000 and he has 18k life. The only thing he is really good at is match damage. OML powers scale far better than SS, specially if transformed. And I have the feeling that Phoenix will scale better too.

I think that both red and black should be changed. Red doesnt do enough damage or doesnt create enough charged tiles (I dont want the charged tiles but if he would create 5 I would understand doing just 7k damage - we are talking a 5, OML or Phoenix do more than 30k damage with comparable powers). Black needs to remove level 1 (so 2 is the new 1, 3 is the new 2, etc.) and add a new level 5 where he creates 2 black holes.

Phaserhawk

I am also confused on SS after the release of OML and Phoenix. The 5K health difference is nothing at those levels, but the amount of dmg the others can do compared to him is insane. His red is passible in 4* land as 1100 dmg per AP is really good, and I get the reason black is expensive, but it doesn't seem to do enough once it goes off. Blue needs a serious rework in terms of healing as there is almost no difference in level 3 to level 5 healing, only the charged tiles. Not that I'm calling for 5*'s to be more powerful, but I think a little more play testing was needed.

CrookedKnight

I think SS's thing is supposed to be that he has all his tricks from the word "go" and none of them have downsides beyond the potential for the other team to grab a charged tile. Jean can hit you with her red but it has major backlash if you try to pour it on, while green only opens up once she's died and returned. Meanwhile all of Logan's damage moves require 9 black and 12 yellow to unlock, and his red only gets its full damage even later in the fight, after he's significantly hurt. SS can just keep healing and Cosmic Ray'ing you forever.

Polares

CrookedKnight wrote:

I think SS's thing is supposed to be that he has all his tricks from the word "go" and none of them have downsides beyond the potential for the other team to grab a charged tile. Jean can hit you with her red but it has major backlash if you try to pour it on, while green only opens up once she's died and returned. Meanwhile all of Logan's damage moves require 9 black and 12 yellow to unlock, and his red only gets its full damage even later in the fight, after he's significantly hurt. SS can just keep healing and Cosmic Ray'ing you forever.

But the problem is that anything that he does is particularly powerful. Black is a fun ability but it needs to produce more AP for the cost it has. And red damage was ok in 4 land but it is really low in 5 land, it needs to do like 15k to be inline with the other 5s (and the other 5s do A LOT more damage but yes, Jean needs to die first and OML needs to transform, so this damage could be inline with those). And the best quality of blue is that it makes you unstunnable, but healing 15k (30% of his life) for 12 AP is not that good either.

Both blue and red create charged tiles, but that it is not specially interesting or good for you. Maybe Red should work like 4hor red and do more damage for every charged tile in the board...


In fact If I would have spend thousands of dollars in this char just to see that both the next 5s after him were arguably better I would be really angry... (It is great that I am not rich ... or is it?)

simonsez

Phaserhawk wrote:

I am also confused on SS after the release of OML and Phoenix. The 5K health difference is nothing at those levels, but the amount of dmg the others can do compared to him is insane.

So given that SS can beat the best 4*s single-handedly while barely taking damage, why isn't the discussion about how OML and Phoenix are ridiculously game-breaking?

Unknown

The difference, and my point, is that his black is not a FUNCTIONAL 5* ability at 1 cover. With blue he heals roughly the same chunk of hp he would, gradually increasing in overall percentage with covers. 1 cover of blue is 66% as effective at healing and 50% at charged tile creation as 5 covers. With red the same, but damage with 1 cover being 64% of max effectiveness on damage and again 50% at charged tile creation. Other 5* abilities have roughly the same growth, ignoring side costs of using abilities. Conversely, 1 cover of black is only 30% as effective as it would be at 5 covers. And its a 13 AP black ability in a world where 11-12-13 black AP would otherwise be very effective.

The argument of it being "damage" and ap generation doesn't really hold water either. Unless you're fielding a full 5* roster the tile destruction damage will vary greatly since you have no idea which tiles will randomly be destroyed. If only surfer's tiles get destroyed you're looking at average ~200 damage per tile at level 330 (100 for TU). A 270 4* is average ~75 damage so the disparity grows even further if you're fielding a lone surfer. It could be 1200 damage or it could be 450 damage for the 1 cover black. That costs 13 AP. That is also a countdown which means it can potentially be destroyed before doing anything.

Point is, the ability is short sighted and doesn't work at low covers while the abilities of the other 5*s are functional at even 1 cover.