Will We Ever Get A Patch Focused On Balancing?

MarcusGraves

The one major issue I will always have with this game is how long it takes the balancing team to roll out any "good" changes to a character to the point where I really do wonder if they just trash can any thoughts on improving a certain character to make them feel less clunky. To elaborate a little more on this, there are a number of characters that still have costs or mechanics that are downright pathetic and dumb or just require slight number tweaks.

It really does make me frustrated and to clarify I'm not talking about making some of these characters top tier with changes but really to make them feel less painful when we are required to use them since we really are almost required to hang onto just about every 3/4* we get to have access to the possibility of more rewards through events/DPD.

I want to make a list of the specific characters I'm talking about with suggested changes but then I fear a mod will shuffle this into the suggestion forums to let it sit there and slowly die like a person shot in the stomach.

====BIG EDIT AHEAD, THANK YOU MODS FOR GIVING ME PERMISSION TO LET THIS SIT HERE FOR AWHILE===

This is gunna be long post, I put some humor in to try and keep readers engaged to a degree, but for the record I am very, very serious about my concern of what is going on with character balancing as it is right now.

Sticking to 3*'s because they still are the meat of the game at 40 total characters and as far as I can tell they're done releasing 3*s for awhile so now would be the best time to work on them.

-Black Widow (Grey Suit):

Pistol: This is and has never been a 12-14 cost ability because nobody takes it past rank 3, nobody will ever max this ability because of how superior green/purple is, there is no reason for this ability's cost to go up when you rank it, what is going on here with this ancient power?

Should have a cost of at least 10 at all ranks, nothing else to change.

-DareDevil:

This is a really small tweak but bring Radar Sense down to 9 cost, you can't fool us, this isn't a 10 cost ability. Bullseye funny enough has the better version of this ability with less needed tiles, friendly can be used and does more damage for less cost

-Doctor Octopus:

This guy is probably has THE best character potential of any 3* to be a highly desirable roster addition but because of the awkward spread of his bonuses on power rank up and the overpricing of his abilities he really is a sub par choice even when he's supposedly filling his niche. I believe he would start to be welcomed with more open arms if he was given the Beast treatment of becoming a fast character.

-Make Manipulation 8 cost; yeah I said it, its a really niche and overpriced version of Loki's illusion's with possible bonus damage, it needs to be cheaper since you have to be really lucky to get the special tile bonus damage unless the board is flooded with them, outside of this its just a board shuffle.

-Let Insult to Injury make the 2nd attack tile at rank 3 but keep it the same damage (rank 3 max level: 2 strength 61 attack tiles)

-Lower Armed and Dangerous' cost to 9 and make it so rank 5 lets it buff the strength of 2 friendly special tiles instead of 1. This ability has little effects all over the place and average team damage which is actually fun and fine however the cost is a serve hindrance to it actually being considered a good power. Anyone that wants to argue the suggested lowered cost of this I will direct them to KK's Embiggened Bash and that will be the end of that discussion.

-Gamora:

Gamora feels like she's suffering like many other characters of someone that wants to be a fast character with her effects but can't be because of costs.

-Skull Cracker: Lower cost to 11, raise the damage to somewhere around 1500
-Bad Reputation: Lower cost to 9

-Hulk: Smash is trash, needs a rework, no thoughts on what currently but this ability is hot garbage is all aspects.

-Iron...Man...40: The king of all neglected characters, there have been so many good ideas to change this guy over the years that I can't BELIEVE nothing has been done for this poor poor 3*, a complete rework is needed.

-Mystique:

Put Infiltration back to 9 cost and 10 tiles converted, you guys need to stop with these stupid heavy handed nerfs you do or else the community may end up bringing a heavy hand on you in the form of a fist. Wasn't just changing 2* mag's Polarity shift enough to stop this infinite loop combo, did you really also have to nerf an already average character as well?

-Psylocke: Bewilder needs a rework, depending on the rework more judgement on this character probably won't be needed....bewilder is so bad though.

-Punisher:

Poor Frank not only has he had his family taken from him but also his pride since his being a victim of power creep.

-Molotov Cocktail: this move should just be reworked as the CD timer effect is really just too slow and just plain weak. Thinking keep the team damage the same and after the team damage is dealt have it spread a certain number of attack tiles to yellow and red tiles (fire, get it?). This allows the obvious combo of judgement into molotov to be much more potent by allowing him to double dip on the strike tiles by the end of the same turn, making him a bigger threat and not having to babysit a REALLy junky CD tile that dies all the time.

-Judgement: just add a 4th 122 strike tile and things should be good.

-Retribution: Still waiting on that % health indicator for us, otherwise we're all still keeping a calculator nearby when playing.

-Quicksilver: ...I dunno what to do with this guy, all I know is that he need an IV drip of buffs stat.

-Ragnarok:

Rag feels so close to being desirable that he's sitting there waiting to change his relationship status from "its complicated" to "in a relationship since..."

-Godlike Power:Godlike power? hardly, and team self damage? go away please. I hate using her as an example over and over but KK's embiggened Bash is a really good example of a baseline of what we should be looking at in terms of a higher cost team damage power and this move does not measure up anywhere near. Yes I know Call The Storm on Thor is a thing but if you look at the numbers, while CtS has higher front load damage on the front target E. Bash actually yields more overall damage for less cost with also no drawbacks to it.

-CTS total damage for 14 cost: 9036

-E. Bash total damage for 12 cost: 10170

-Godlike Power for 14 cost plus team self damage of 1305 total (BTW this number goes up if he's boosted, since the team self damage scales with level obviously): 6828 with a slight +dmg because of the column blow up for front target but I don't have an average for it, either way lags way behind.

Lower Godlike Power's cost to 12, ditch the team self damage and put it back to blowing up the 2 middle columns of the board as this was actually a surprisingly good effect and trust me I used it a lot and I felt the difference after the change of how bad it was not to having it, being able to blow up the center of the board is a better effect than most people think

-Lightning Rod: Make the Base charge tile amount 2 and rank 3 makes it 3 charged tiles with rank 5 obviously giving 4.

Hang in there, you're adults, you can make it to the end of this.

-Sentry:

Needs less emphasis on him psychotically turning around and murdering his teammate, sentry doesn't really go bananas like that unless he's in void mode

-World Rupture: bring the cost down to 9, keep the 3 turn timers

-Sacrifice: I'd take a thick piece of cardboard, write the word Battleplan on it and anytime someone says what i'm about to say shouldn't happen I'd beat them over the head with it.

For 8 yellow and 1724 PRECIOUS HP we get ONE strength 571 yellow strike tile at max that could easily die at any time like a person playing Russian Roulette. Black Panther pays 9 yellow for 3 yellow strike tiles totaling strength 525 which really isn't that much behind and even being able to get a total strength of 780 if he has 12 TU AP saved up THAT HE DOESN'T HAVE TO SPEND. What is going on here? this has to be one of the most lopsided powers in the entire game, possibly done out of spite towards the character.

Get rid of the massive self damage because sentry already does enough damage to himself, let alone his whole team and just rename the ability to something more fitting.

-Spiderman: Needs help in some form, I want the new 1*s purple effect to be his yellow but i've been told that would be too OP, either way he could use a little help.

-Vision: I feel like if his red was just lowered to 8 or 9 cost people with vision in their rosters would suddenly come flying out of the woodwork because this just does not feel like a 10 cost power, also let us aim the solar beam part of the power, makes no sense that we can't.

fight4thedream

I believe this to be a worthwhile topic for discussion. OP, I will ask my fellow mods to allow your topic to stand in the General Discussion forum for as long as it is an active and constructive discussion. Once the flame of constructive discourse has expired, I will move it to the suggestions forum and notify you of its passing. So for all who wish to partake in the debate, do not fear, speak what is on your mind without restraint! (just remember to keep it on topic and follow the code of the forum)

Thus spake the blue wonder, fight4thdream!

MarcusGraves

Then I will follow up with a list for the original post in the morning since right now I need sleep and I was gunna let this topic "cook" while I slept.

Linkster79

Still waiting for Spiderman to become "amazing" and have a reason to not regret putting 3 yellow covers onto Iron Man model 40. To me what with Marvels focus on the cinematic universe are flagship characters. Icons if you will and as thus should be treated accordingly. Spidey used to be great but got a little too "fun balanced" for his stunlock abilities, a little tweak and he could be worth the roster slot. IM 40 has long been a joke with powers that cost too much AP, take too long to be useable and generally hinder the player more than help. Coupled with the power creep that is now dominant in the game and there is another that really isn't worth rostering.

It really does feel that the development team has long since given up on the older characters that the fans may actually want to use in favour of pumping out bigger, stronger, faster characters.

xequalsy

My thoughts are that I would definitely prefer one character tweak per each (or every two) new character release. That still only comes down to one/two tweaks per month as a target, which sounds pretty reasonable. The issue for the past few months is that dev focus as far as I can see has been on these new 4*s, the upcoming anniversary and preparing the game environment for the new 5*s. I don't expect to see any character balancing until a month or two after the anniversary, but I do think it should become a priority for dev focus.

As for the actual characters in need of a tweak, I can't speak for all of these from experience, since I've not bothered levelling most of them much since they aren't fun to play but my thoughts are:

1* (nothing too important, but these could be cool small tweaks):

:blackwidow: It's a bit odd that you probably don't want to go 5/5 for her from a design point of view, since I think most new people would end up speccing her 5/5. It's not too big a deal as she's a support character anyway, so it's not too big a deal what her health pool is in 1* land. A possible solution would be to give her a third power, but I also like how some 1*s only have 2 powers as it fits with them being the very start of gameplay.

Fun, but squishy support character. Has no damaging skills though, it just feels like no one would want to use him over IM40 for example. Even another supporting skill would be welcome I think here, since the most use he has is taking care of CD tiles that you can't match away in the prologue.

I'm totally okay with these villains staying as they are - we currently fight them too often in scaled up PvE for them to be buffed/changed too much and still be fun. In a possible future with less Dark Avengers PvEs, and sufficient other PvEs with different opponents, it could be cool to see yelena especially to get a third (non-damaging) power since not even in 1* land do people want to roster her. Venom actually has a fun (though small) niche in the game with his and web tiles, especially with the new 1* Spidey. The best "fix" for Venom I think would be to potentially release another 4* Spiderman related character who also has web tiles. Juggs is pretty good as he is already, being able to level up to 50 would make him a bit too strong (not even considering how good his third power might be).

I feel the other 1*s are in a good place.

2* (mostly pretty good, but the obvious):

:spiderman: Poor Bag-Man has been in a terrible place for a long time. His purple makes no sense, it's a key part I think of his kit - his yellow for example (fairly average in isolation as a way to deal with annoying CDs) needs web tiles, but the only way he has of making web tiles is an overcosted purple power. Why does the purple get so much more expensive at level 5? It's already mostly useless at 13AP, but no-one would ever want to pay 18AP to be able to swap two pairs of tiles. I feel it would be cooler either as something like Dino with a lower AP cost (three match sounds reasonable, so 9-11AP) as a way to generate web tiles. Or go even further and allow him to swap (maybe only basic tiles) for a really low AP cost like 5-6AP. His is just flat out worse than OBW blue in most cases - the only edge case is when the CD tile is something like Colossus Yellow where having the ability to select specific CDs might be more desirable. It either needs to affect up to more CD tiles, or be cheaper. is silly as well, why does it have to cost 2AP more each time? Right now it's debatable whether the power gets better as you put more covers into it.

Will edit with thoughts on 3*/4*s in a bit.

EDIT:

3*:

:vision: Have heard complaints about him during his last featured PvP. Imo, as long as they don't change his interaction with attack tiles whilst he is in the centre, he has a solid niche. The only real problem is people often don't want to level his yellow, but that's more an issue with the AI currently. His low cost and also work pretty well with KK for example.

Fairly uninspiring when not boosted. Like his PvP showed, his low cost abilities are annoying (they will almost always go off a few times), but never fatal. I feel his especially has the issue of being too weak if not boosted and fairly average if boosted. The issue is that now with a mainly 4* meta, you probably aren't using 3*s unless they are boosted, so buffing his black would maybe make his black when boosted too strong. His is also pretty average unboosted. Think he's mostly a case of being left behind by power creep, since his black and green are both a lot worse since people have much more health now. Could use a small buff, maybe like a bit more damage on black or adding a bit more damage per tile destroyed with green.

Tons of good suggestions in his character thread. His is the biggest offender I think, not that useful in a time with KK passive healing with , needs web tiles etc... His is also a bit weak, it's okay in survival nodes but is otherwise boring. Needs to make web tiles if you already have the max amount of tiles I think.

He's not in a terrible place (just not on top anymore ), but could use some un-nerfs. For example, either making green cheaper or go back to having the CD tiles be 2 turn. I don't see a lot of him around, but when he's boosted you can see one or two, which is a good sign. With higher health everywhere anyway, he probably wouldn't even be that much faster than other pairings, especially since they also already nerfed boosts into +2 only.

Charged tiles aren't that strong and his green is a bit boring. Compared to KK or LT, it's only identity is destroying a column (more a callback to his old versions if anything) and self damage. It's would be a lot better if it still destroyed the middle two columns, allowing for cascades.

Others:
Need tweaks.

4*:

There are the obvious - , and maybe LThor. Most of them only really need small tweak tbh, like Elektra being not pointless to use on an empty board unless you had 14AP and the red trap tile not existing on a red tile. XFW needs a tiny bit of power back on etc...

nwman

Perfect time for the discussion. Go in the gauntlet and play some teams. Which were too easy to beat?

Now which teams do you want to have more frustration fighting against? Balance accordingly.

Dayv

fight4thedream wrote:

I believe this to be a worthwhile topic for discussion. OP, I will ask my fellow mods to allow your topic to stand in the General Discussion forum for as long as it is an active and constructive discussion. Once the flame of constructive discourse has expired, I will move it to the suggestions forum and notify you of its passing. So for all who wish to partake in the debate, do not fear, speak what is on your mind without restraint! (just remember to keep it on topic and follow the code of the forum)

Thus spake the blue wonder, fight4thdream!

Way to help perpetuate the "nobody reads Suggestions and Feedback" myth, dude.

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻—┻

snlf25

DayvBang wrote:

fight4thedream wrote:

I believe this to be a worthwhile topic for discussion. OP, I will ask my fellow mods to allow your topic to stand in the General Discussion forum for as long as it is an active and constructive discussion. Once the flame of constructive discourse has expired, I will move it to the suggestions forum and notify you of its passing. So for all who wish to partake in the debate, do not fear, speak what is on your mind without restraint! (just remember to keep it on topic and follow the code of the forum)

Thus spake the blue wonder, fight4thdream!

Way to help perpetuate the "nobody reads Suggestions and Feedback" myth, dude.

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻—┻

Way to help keep kayfabe alive, dude. The Suggestions and Feedback board is still real to me, dammit!

Unknown

They don't balance. Not even when they said they would.

IM40 remains unfixed even though he was their prime example of needing a fix.

They release counter characters.

They release newer versions of characters.

It's the LoL model.

They did recently say something about 4* buffs but I don't remember anything about 3*

mgallop

Super easy buff to two of the worst abilities. For web bandages and medical marvel: health boost to teammates, true heal the character. Thought?

fight4thedream

DayvBang wrote:

Way to help perpetuate the "nobody reads Suggestions and Feedback" myth, dude.

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻—┻

lol Dayv i know you (and a handful of other awesome forumites) read the Suggestions and Feedback forum.

But i think you are missing something very important here. The OP has clearly stated he does not feel comfortable discussing his ideas in full out of fear that his post will be moved to a less popular part of the forum.

Now I am not here to debate proper protocol. You, me and the OP know where suggestion posts go. However, I am here to ask that we as mods consider exercising prudence. The General Forum exists to discuss a variety of game related topics which I argue should include well thought out constructive posts which will in all likelihood include suggestions.

If members start gimping their posts like the OP has done in order to avoid their topic being moved, then I think we have a problem.

I believe as mods we have two major responsibilities:

1. To ensure that members feel comfortable expressing their ideas and views openly
2. General upkeep and maintenance

I don't believe there is any harm in allowing this topic to be discussed here and then later moving it to Suggestions and Feedback once it has run its course. Sure, it increases our work load and yes, you might ask what is the purpose of the Suggestions and Feedback thread but I have taken responsibility for it and will make sure it gets where it needs to go when the time is right.

I think it's important to allow people some breathing room to say what they want and communicate with others especially when their suggestions are not intended for devs' eyes only but rather to be discussed openly with other players. I also would prefer the General Discussion area to have a variety of hot (game related) topics rather than just a sea of complaints with the occasional Stax the Foyer iceberg.

Anyway, I don't want to derail this topic any further so if this a matter of difference in philosophical modding approach, why don't we continue this discussion in HQ?

OP, sorry for the topic derail. Please carry on!(=ﾟ-ﾟ)ﾉ

simonsez

I would first like a dev to explain exactly what their notion of "balance" is now. I thought I had a pretty good handle on what they wanted the game to be, with the rotating buffs, and a pretty good assortment of good 4*s now. But after spending months getting to the point where 1 or 2 characters no longer dominate the game, the introduction of 5*s gets us right back to where we started. Sentry bombing was unforeseen, and they neutered him with a dull knife. I can't imagine how they didn't see XF/GT dominance coming, but that was dealt with nearly as harshly. So why are the devs intentionally sending us back to a point where 1 or 2 characters will be ubiquitous?

Unknown

Not sure if this is useful to anyone.

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=32546

It's list of the 3 star characters with their launch date, and when they were last altered per the patch notes. Of main note, Iron Man is by far the oldest character with no changes, and it shows in his mechanics. There's simply nothing he does that someone else doesn't do better. I was surprised how old Cyclops was as a new player, and they apparently hit a sweet spot with him, because he's probably one of the best 3 stars.

Personally, I think 3Iron Man needs an update using the "Deadpool Whale Code" where he has a basic version of his R/B powers without AP drain, and then a "Fire All Weapons BUTTON" where he does the AP drain on other colors, but has added effects/damage. Not instant kill mind you, just something on activation that asks "drain ap for MORE POWER?".

But yeah, hopefully that list is helpful. I put some work into it.

STOPTHIS

What if they made 3* Iron Man a gold character? His 1* version bumped up to 3*. The 2 to 3* bump did wonders for Steve Rogers.

I have no idea what to do with 3* Spider-Man. He needs some kind of attack. I kind of want him to become something similar to the new 1* Spidey. I also think Bagman should be changed to Mile Morales.

Unknown

STOPTHIS wrote:

What if they made 3* Iron Man a gold character? His 1* version bumped up to 3*. The 2 to 3* bump did wonders for Steve Rogers.

I have no idea what to do with 3* Spider-Man. He needs some kind of attack. I kind of want him to become something similar to the new 1* Spidey. I also think Bagman should be changed to Mile Morales.

1*Im sucks when scaled up

1*spidey just needs to replace 3*spidey, anyone a hacker?

MarcusGraves

Original post has been edited, please read guys.

Haetron wrote:

Not sure if this is useful to anyone.

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=32546

I used it

Lee T

Haetron wrote:

I was surprised how old Cyclops was as a new player, and they apparently hit a sweet spot with him, because he's probably one of the best 3 stars.

Cyclops was introduced less than a year ago, there's an error here.

Unknown

Lee T wrote:

Haetron wrote:

I was surprised how old Cyclops was as a new player, and they apparently hit a sweet spot with him, because he's probably one of the best 3 stars.

Cyclops was introduced less than a year ago, there's an error here.

I knew something was wrong on the list. I have no idea when the 14 got put over the 15.

Corrected!

mindsuckr

raisinbman wrote:

They did recently say something about 4* buffs but I don't remember anything about 3*

I thought I remembered them saying they are focusing on the upcoming anniversary right now, and will not be looking at any real balancing until that's over.

Eddiemon

Linkster79 wrote:

Still waiting for Spiderman to become "amazing"

He is in his niche. Against the Ultron bots he renders their attacks futile, and he's great vs the Hand with their low damage high frequency attacks. In any battle with waves when paired with Falcon he can render most waves completely ineffectual.

Spidey/Ock/Falcon has been my go to for anything Ultron related and it's exceptional for a team with two apparently useless characters.

MarcusGraves

mindsuckr wrote:

raisinbman wrote:

They did recently say something about 4* buffs but I don't remember anything about 3*

I thought I remembered them saying they are focusing on the upcoming anniversary right now, and will not be looking at any real balancing until that's over.

that's a really concerning statement if true since balancing usually should be a top priority next to bug fixing and not something that gets pushed aside to a later date.

I can't really imagine how hard it is to throw together an anniversary event since they could just do what they did last year (may or may not award devil dino again). Can't really see it as something that takes until the 10th of October (date anniversary was held last year) to get done and have stuff like balancing done inbetween.

Eddiemon wrote:

Linkster79 wrote:

Still waiting for Spiderman to become "amazing"

He is in his niche. Against the Ultron bots he renders their attacks futile, and he's great vs the Hand with their low damage high frequency attacks. In any battle with waves when paired with Falcon he can render most waves completely ineffectual.

Spidey/Ock/Falcon has been my go to for anything Ultron related and it's exceptional for a team with two apparently useless characters.

just to chime in pertaining to DO and spidey, I don't consider them useless, its more what irritates me with doc ock is how clunky and overpriced his design is and how it really is truly holding him back more than it should be and can easily be changed with my suggestions and spider-man's yellow is really kinda lame unless they add a second effect to it on top of the healing.