Let's talk about match damage

zeeke

tl:dr - Match damage and health does not scale evenly, 4 stars needs to be buffed and 5 stars need a nerf.

I've looked into how health points (HP) and match damage scale from tier of power level. As a reference I've used Thor since we have that character represeted in tier 2-4. It does however look similar if you look at the different spiders (Spidy, Venom, Carnage) as well. I selected IM35 to represent the 1 stars since he is middle of the pack health wise.


Index 100 = LThor used as I would argue that the game is still in maxed 3 star land for the majority or the player base.

A you can see, levels and HP scale pretty evenly across the tiers, but not match damage for Goddess which only increase about 4% from the 3 star equivalent while HP is up about 70%.

When we add Silver Surfer to the mix it looks like this:

I'm not going to cry wolf over the 175% increase in health but a 615% increase of match damage?!

Below is a comparison how of how many tiles, not matches, but destroid tiles it takes to first kill themself and then to kill the next lower tier. As you can see it takes about 75 tiles for LThor to kill Thor, and Goddess has to match 124 tiles. Silver Surfer can take down Goddess with 29 tiles.


So an analysis without a solution is useless. In rough terms every star level up to 4 is about 70-75% more powerful. Keeping with this design philosophy I would like to see the following:

1: Increase match damage for 4s to around 135 for the strongest color
2: Decrease match damage for 5s to around 225 for the strongest color

This would even the playing field a bit but still make a fully leveled 5 really powerful.
z
Mod Edit: Moved to Theories and Statistics

Unknown

I'm not a statistician or anything, but I think it's fair to say in terms of health, the highest 3* is about 10,000, whilst the highest 4* (not incl. Dino) is close to 18,000. that's a 180% jump between a 3* and 4*.

In the cast of Surfer, his health is maxed at 47,000. A jump of 260% in terms of health from 4* to 5*. Overdone? maybe. This might still be plausible as a jump.

For match damage: 3* put out 79 damage per tile at max level, while 4* puts out 82 damage per tile at max level. that's a whopping 104% difference in match damage.

In the case of Surfer, he puts out 586 damage per tile, a not-so-insignificant 714% difference from a maxed 4* tile damage. <---- This is the broken part. Fix please.

Dauthi

If this math is correct, this is messed up. Cool it down a bit with the 5*s D3.

zeeke

Deadpoool, you have to subtract 1 when calculating your percentages.

I.e. The increase to 83 from 79 is 4%, not 104%.

Your points are still valid though

OneLastGambit

This was a very informative post, enjoyed it very much bravo OP. The point you raise is very valid, I don't have an issue with 4* but 5* match damage does need to decrease a little. The point D3 may make is that 5* are only really intended to battle other 5* characters and against them the match damage and Health are appropriate.

Phillipes

Very good analysis Zeeke!

You are right, 5* match damage needs to be lowered.

Lemminkäinen

OTOH I think that their match damage is super high on purpose due to the goal of them being usable at one cover.

babinro

Great post for starters.

I've always found it odd that match damage differs by tier to begin with. It seems to me this game would be improved a lot by having everyone deal a static amount of match damage so that the player always has control over colour tanking in teams. Granted this would mean match damage is capped at a measly 30 damage or so in order to make 1* tier relevant but that's fine by me.

Matches shouldn't be decided by default match damage. There's just not a lot of strategy to that. Instead, let the match be decided by skill, buffs and the like. Something that's oddly optional for the likes of Silver Surfer at this stage of the game.

It's very important to note that there is a 4* buff in the works as 5* tier develops. So this gap in power is only temporary. We have no idea how strong 4*'s will become relative to 5*'s so this issue might correct itself. There was no mention of a 3* buff so the problem will simply shift to 3* vs 4*

simonsez

zeeke wrote:

tl:dr - Match damage and health does not scale evenly, 4 stars needs to be buffed

Except you don't necessarily want your 4* tanking every color.

DaveR4470

Good analysis.

My first thought, though, is that 2-3-4*s are balanced not just on match damage, but on match damage + skill damage, discounted by the ease/difficulty of triggering the skill, and then chars are balanced within the * level based on that; i.e. the greater the match/skill damage factor, the less health for that char. Which is a whole 'nother discussion as to whether they are doing that well....

Malcrof

Moved this back to general discussion for a couple days for some visability, will move it back to the statistics forum on 10/09, we want these types of threads, but we also would love engagement in the new subforums, so lets hear what you have to say, then we can continue this and many other great threads in the new subforum.

philosorapt0r

simonsez wrote:

zeeke wrote:

tl:dr - Match damage and health does not scale evenly, 4 stars needs to be buffed

Except you don't necessarily want your 4* tanking every color.

This. Until most of the playerbase can run pure-4* teams, it's important to have match damage between 3* and 4* tier interleaved (so it's possible to have a boosted 3* tank for a 4*, etc.). Honestly, the fact that certain teams don't work when the wrong half of them is boosted, simply due to match damage ending up in suboptimal orders (see: people's complaints about boosted/high level Prof X making his team's strongest color his passive Blue, spoiling that same power's AP generation; or un-boosted Gamora or Captain Marvel not working when losing their colors to the featured character) is a flaw. The fact that Demiurge is making new characters with support/standard/tank in mind (to give them a better chance to tank/not tank as desired) is good. To fix the current setup, though, it would be nice if we could have a bit more control (if only the ability to de-power-up characters' match damage somehow).

For instance, if left/middle/right multiplied those characters' match damage by 75% / 100% / 125% (maybe less than 125% for 5*s), that would give some welcome flexibility for teams that care about who tanks/whose colors are strong.

Vhailorx

This is a perfectly fine analysis OP, but it is already known.

The devs have stated that the gap between 4*s and 5*s is intentional, and there ultimate plan is to buff 4*s once a critical mass of 5*s have been released. Presumably, they just want plenty of space to tinker with the 5* tier as it is being built (and they want to really incentivize people to buy those 40 packs too!). And as seen by the massive pre-release drop in Surfer's health and change to OML's red, the devs are definitely playing around with the power level of the 5*s.

Unknown

Not to mention there is the new "class" system being tested with 5 stars. I think that might have something to do with this, and part of the future changes with 4 stars may be them having that system mapped down to them.

Unknown

And then suddenly Ice changes OML match damage saying he's now on assault team and has over 600 on his main color.

It's a matter of time till it drops on other rarities and maybe we see better results.

zeeke

I think the match dmg numbers needs to be spread out as well. So maybe the 3d strongest for a 4 star is overtaken by the strongest color of a 3 star and so on. That way we can decide ego to place where

GMadMan040

It would make perfect sense that instead of solving the problem for only a few characters (5* tier) that there would be a change to many characters (4* tier). Because why not simply kick down the problem so the 3* tier suffers the differential instead of creating some solid balance in the game?

Because MPQ. Because MPQ.

And also, they're just following the model of American politics. "I learned it from you!"