Imbalance of colour combinations is getting worse

Pylgrim

So, I recently updated my Best Characters for each Two Colour Combination thread. It's always been well-known that there's a big disparity among colour combinations, some being extremely common, while others are exceedingly rare. Well, updating my thread made me realise that not only Demiurge has failed to address the disparity, it actually has become much worse in the past 6 months.

Here's Nonce's famous table of 2* and above characters grouped by complementing colour combinations (which I updated with the latest releases). You can clearly see which combinations are seeing very little love. (Fun fact, the "top 10" most popular combinations include almost 75% of the existing characters, while the "bottom 10" only have a bit more than 25%%):

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Let's take a look at a rarity breakdown:

2*

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3*

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4*

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2* and 4*s are understandably underpopulated, as they combined have as many characters as the 3* category. But look at the disparity just in the 3* category, which never will be solved as devs have stated that there will be no more 3*s. Nevertheless, that in itself is not that big of a problem, as you will always play with three characters so you don't need to try to complete your rainbow formation with only two characters. You just need each character, in average, to contribute two colours. But it is those two colour combinations where the disparity is more outrageous! (separated by rarity):

Unknown

We're at 23 4*s now which leaves 17 likely remaining spots. I got my list of most probable characters with their logical color profile below. If i didn't mention someone obvious I peg them for 5* (like Doctor Strange for example). Green Goblin and Nightcrawler in particular could potentially fill a rare color palette.

Angel ( / / )
Black Cat ( / / )
Cable ( / / )
Emma Frost ( / / )
Gambit ( / / )
Green Goblin ( / / )
Kitty Pryde ( / / )
Mandarin ( / / )
Moon Knight ( / / )
Namor ( / / )
Nightcrawler ( / / )
Red Skull ( / / )
Rogue ( / / )
Ronan ( / / )
Sabretooth ( / / )
Spider-Man ( / / )
Spider-Woman ( / / )

Malcrof

Pylgrim wrote:

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Your top list has the wrong colors for JG... and is pairing her with panther and hood?

But, agreed, i would love a rainbow partner for JG in 4* Land, but no red, back, yellow user!

binarypillbug

Malcrof wrote:

Your top list has the wrong colors for JG... and is pairing her with panther and hood?

That's Phoenix, not All New. Teen Jean is in the right place.

You're missing Mr. F and Cho, though.

GuntherBlobel

One of the things that I notice about the part where you start removing characters based on popularity is that you removed every power that isn't offensive in nature. That's a problem, because the yellow (white) theme is primarily defensive / healing. Interestingly, you removed from , but kept him in . I think it just goes to show how little players care for defense abilities.

I think the Devs need to take bigger risks with the Support character role. Healing and protect powers always seem so modest (high cost / low yield). Players don't get excited about protect tiles, so why be stingy with them?

is a good model for future support characters. Healing is so under-valued by players that it might as well cost 0 AP. Since that's effectively what does, she's actually very popular.

The Devs should bring in defensive powers that look like they are going to break the game, because almost certainly, they won't. Otherwise, that part of the color wheel will always seem under-represented.

What if protect tiles removed 2% Ability damage regardless of their strength? Would that break the game, or would it make people want FalCap?

Pylgrim

binarypillbug wrote:

Malcrof wrote:

Your top list has the wrong colors for JG... and is pairing her with panther and hood?

That's Phoenix, not All New. Teen Jean is in the right place.

You're missing Mr. F and Cho, though.

Whoa, TAH is not there because was unknown when I started working on this, but MF is a complete slip of mind. Goes to show how abysmally bad he is. Thanks for pointing it out.

GuntherBlobel wrote:

One of the things that I notice about the part where you start removing characters based on popularity is that you removed every power that isn't offensive in nature. That's a problem, because the yellow (white) theme is primarily defensive / healing. Interestingly, you removed from , but kept him in . I think it just goes to show how little players care for defense abilities.

I think the Devs need to take bigger risks with the Support character role. Healing and protect powers always seem so modest (high cost / low yield). Players don't get excited about protect tiles, so why be stingy with them?

is a good model for future support characters. Healing is so under-valued by players that it might as well cost 0 AP. Since that's effectively what does, she's actually very popular.

The Devs should bring in defensive powers that look like they are going to break the game, because almost certainly, they won't. Otherwise, that part of the color wheel will always seem under-represented.

What if protect tiles removed 2% Ability damage regardless of their strength? Would that break the game, or would it make people want FalCap?

Completely agree with you. MPQ is an offensive game. Proof is that winning defensively nets you negligible points. As you are racing to finish your opponent in hopefully less time than other opponents finish you, defensive abilities are merely a bump on the road that only slow things up. In the meantime, the opponent is collecting AP for abilities that when fired, will dwarf any defence or healing you obtained. Once, when all healing abilities were "true healing" it made sense to bring healers, as they slowed down the HP erosion on your guys as you climbed. Not so much anymore. As for protect tiles, I think that Captain Falcon is the best example of the failure of that kind of abilities: He is as pushed as I believe they can go, not only placing well over a thousand worth of damage protection and then, having the protect tiles aid in dealing damage. And yet, he's scorned by most players.

I agree that Kamala (or the Thing and Luke Cage) are good examples of good defensive abilities in that they are free. The best example, though, I think is OBW: Healing that does something else (and by something else I mean something really useful not just protect tiles as most do).

Moreover, I think there's lots of room in Yellow's philosophy of caring for others and teaming up to do interesting and powerful non-defensive abilities. Falcon, Luke Cage, Kingpin and Cyclops, Star Lord and Prof X are good examples.

Pongie

GuntherBlobel wrote:

One of the things that I notice about the part where you start removing characters based on popularity is that you removed every power that isn't offensive in nature. That's a problem, because the yellow (white) theme is primarily defensive / healing. Interestingly, you removed from , but kept him in . I think it just goes to show how little players care for defense abilities.

I think the Devs need to take bigger risks with the Support character role. Healing and protect powers always seem so modest (high cost / low yield). Players don't get excited about protect tiles, so why be stingy with them?

is a good model for future support characters. Healing is so under-valued by players that it might as well cost 0 AP. Since that's effectively what does, she's actually very popular.

The Devs should bring in defensive powers that look like they are going to break the game, because almost certainly, they won't. Otherwise, that part of the color wheel will always seem under-represented.

What if protect tiles removed 2% Ability damage regardless of their strength? Would that break the game, or would it make people want FalCap?

Now that we have Phoenix raising from the ashes, I would say there's an opportunity for another character to revive a (random or targeted) downed team member and use yellow for this ability.

edit: a quick search comes up with Sentry, Layla Miller, Cylcops (as Pheonix avatar) and Phil Coulson. Layla Miller is probably the best fit

Unknown

The color effects theme is a big problem, for sure. While Red and Green stay as primary damage-bound powers this is gonna keep happening.

I know its never gonna happen but "resetting" some character's colors, distributing them again and (kick the bucket sometimes, like making more damaging yellow and purple powers) would help immensely. Yeah it would screw some teams as they would have different colors but would obviously open many more combinations if done right.

Its a bit hard to think like this because we are alredy used to those characters colors but maybe try with baby steps, changing one color here and there? LCap ? Gamora ? Thing ?

Pylgrim

ShionSinX wrote:

The color effects theme is a big problem, for sure. While Red and Green stay as primary damage-bound powers this is gonna keep happening.

I know its never gonna happen but "resetting" some character's colors, distributing them again and (kick the bucket sometimes, like making more damaging yellow and purple powers) would help immensely. Yeah it would screw some teams as they would have different colors but would obviously open many more combinations if done right.

Its a bit hard to think like this because we are alredy used to those characters colors but maybe try with baby steps, changing one color here and there? LCap ? Gamora ? Thing ?

Note that colour-reshuffling has happened already, so I believe it's still a viable option. Take 3* Magneto: before they reworked him, he was Red-Blue-Purple, the only character only than Daredevil in that combination above 2* land, then he was moved to Yellow-Red-Blue:, the most common combination by far. He gained a defensive ability that makes sense in Yellow. However, his previous Purple Power (Magnetic Translocation) got renamed and moved to Blue! While I agree that the power makes more sense in Blue, not much would have been lost leaving it be Purple and he'll be our one Yellow-Red-Purple 3*.

There are several possible swaps that would make sense and could contribute towards combination parity. For example, I believe that both Blade and Iron Fist could have their Green abilities swapped to Yellow (check Battleplan, if you need proof), filling that gaping Yellow-Purple-Black hole while diminishing the bloating at the Green-Purple and Green-Black combinations and adding an active Yellow-Purple combination in 3* land.

Mawtful

ShionSinX wrote:

The color effects theme is a big problem, for sure. While Red and Green stay as primary damage-bound powers this is gonna keep happening.

Of all the bad game design in MPQ, it's assigning "deals damage" as a "trait" to only 1/3rd of the power colours which is probably the worst sin. I even started writing up a guide for "recolouring" all of the characters, which is probably still fairly accurate.

Melevorn

Thanks very much for the breakdown, Pylgrim!

I find it easier to use with just the 3 's and 4 's (no 2's or 5's), identified like so:

3 4 ---- 3
4 ---- 4 3
3 4 ---- 3
3 ---- 4 3
3 4 ---- 4 3
3 4 ---- 4 3
3 4 ---- 4 3
3 ---- 4 3
4 ---- 3
3 4 ---- 3


I don't know how you got your table to align so neatly and am happy to take suggestions!

Unknown

ShionSinX wrote:

The color effects theme is a big problem, for sure. While Red and Green stay as primary damage-bound powers this is gonna keep happening.

I know its never gonna happen but "resetting" some character's colors, distributing them again and (kick the bucket sometimes, like making more damaging yellow and purple powers) would help immensely. Yeah it would screw some teams as they would have different colors but would obviously open many more combinations if done right.

Its a bit hard to think like this because we are alredy used to those characters colors but maybe try with baby steps, changing one color here and there? LCap ? Gamora ? Thing ?

I believe that the colors are precisely fixed for people not put the team 100% offensive. Generally work like this:

red-attack (IMHB / GT / Lcap / Moon)
Green-attack and some special skill (JG / Patch / Thing)
Yellow-healing (Beast / KK / XFW)
blue- convert tiles and stun (IMHB / Beast / Doom / SW / ICE / CStorm / Lcap/GT/DD)
roxo- convert tiles (ICE / Elektra / X-23 / KK / MMag/DD)
black- attack and some special skill (XFW / IMHB / Elektra)

Hayek

On that note, would you guys help me fill these blanks? These are (so far as I know) what attributes each color is supposed to reflect according to posts I've seen:

- ???
- ???
- leadership
- intelligence
- deception
- ???

Tenaciousdecaf

If they're going to change characters colors for balancing, can they also change them to match the character's iconic color sets?

I would like to see purple for , red for , blue instead of green for 2* , just to name a few.

Unknown

Hayek wrote:

On that note, would you guys help me fill these blanks? These are (so far as I know) what attributes each color is supposed to reflect according to posts I've seen:

- ???
- ???
- leadership
- intelligence
- deception
- ???

the way i see it...

= offense
= elemental
= defense
= strategy
= maneuvers
= emotion

Marc_Spector

I believe the latter posts attempting to pigeonhole certain colors into certain power-themes are not only getting away from the OP's point, but, also have less relevance today [vs. closer to the game's launch]. The longer the game is out, every new character added to the game creates new exceptions to every [loose, theoretical] color rule.

Anyway;
Fantastic post, Pylgrim -- and your followup ones in this thread as well. I hadn't started paying attention to overused/underused color combinations until the 7th character released this year with a green/purple/[passive] combo. Moving forward, I really hope the devs take note of this and try and diversify color mixes more on future 4*s.

Pylgrim

Melevorn wrote:

I don't know how you got your table to align so neatly and am happy to take suggestions!

I just copied Nonce's formatting, he's the real genius! I'm not sure yours can be fixed. My tables use transparent icons that are exactly the same size as the character icons, but when you add smaller characters like the stars and numbers, it throws out the rows.

Enslaved wrote:

Hayek wrote:

On that note, would you guys help me fill these blanks? These are (so far as I know) what attributes each color is supposed to reflect according to posts I've seen:

- ???
- ???
- leadership
- intelligence
- deception
- ???

the way i see it...

= offense
= elemental
= defense
= strategy
= maneuvers
= emotion

I think that each colour encompasses philosophy at different layers:

= offense, fury, strength
= elemental, overwhelming power, growth
= defense, caring for others, teamwork
= strategy, science, mind powers
= maneuvers, trickery, thievery
= relentlessness, cruelty, vengeance

More obviously, they are associated with in-game effects:

= one-target damage... that's pretty much it.
= AoE damage, strike tile generation, board destruction
= healing, protect tile generation, interaction with TU tiles
= stun, locked tile generation, charged tile generation
= stealing AP and special tiles, placing additional tiles of a colour, traps
= attack tile generation, triggered passives, high impact effects for additional cost, stealing special tiles

Now part of the problem, I think, is that there's not a consistent use of philosophies and effects. For example, take Gamora's Bad Reputation: Philosophically it IS a Black ability; mechanically? Not so much. It should be Green or Yellow. So philosophy always trumps mechanics? Nope, take Mr Fantastic: Philosophically, Imaginaut should be his Blue ability, and Flexibility should be Purple. But because they made Flexibility mechanically accurate (it stuns) they had to use Black for Imaginaut, which barely makes sense. Purple, again, would have been better. (As an aside rant, if we actually think of the character's personality, I really see no reason why he should have a Yellow ability. Reed has always been the poster boy of the genius that cares about science and knowledge a tad more than he cares for people. He's definitely Purple-Blue-Black. Which, you know, would allow you to make the rainbow team of F4 characters that is currently not possible because lack of Purple. But I digress.)

Even though Mr. Fantastic is a modern example of a screw-up (in almost every possible regard,) older characters, from the times when they were just figuring stuff, are usually much worse. One of the best examples is Loki. He's basically a Mono-Purple character, philosophically speaking, but he has to have three colours assigned for game reasons. Even though it is really iconic, Illusions is his least Purple power. Both philosophically and mechanically that power should be Blue. Both Mischief and Trickery are Purple powers that could also be Black, but Mischief is, I'd say, slightly Purpler, so Trickery could remain Black. Green just makes no sense whatsoever. Or what's the deal with Thunder Strike and Twin Pistols being Yellow? Daken's Blue should be Red or Black, and his Purple should be Green...

Anyway, I could keep going on, but I'm not sure people would find all that interesting the opinions of one person about the colour make up of dozens of characters. The point is that a more coherent approach to powerset's colours would make easier ironing out the imbalances described in the OP.

Mawtful

Marc Spector wrote:

I believe the latter posts attempting to pigeonhole certain colors into certain power-themes are not only getting away from the OP's point, but, also have less relevance today [vs. closer to the game's launch]. The longer the game is out, every new character added to the game creates new exceptions to every [loose, theoretical] color rule.

I accept this view to a point, but disagree that additional characters necessitate exceptions to rules. I think there's a trap that's very easy to to fall into of thinking that colours need to be distinct and need to be wholly devoted to a theme summed up in a single word. That's the sort of thinking which ends up making exceptions. Instead each colour should have a whole list of traits, and as powers are designed they will begin to reveal themselves according to the colour chart. Here's a brief summary of how I redesigned the colours, and I'll provide a few examples of good existing characters and one or two recolours.

I identified that the difference between creating new tiles and converting existing tiles as a major gameplay mechanic. It's not quite important enough to be considered "core" to the game, but too important to assign to only one colour. Instead, I separated the colours into two groups, Generators and Convertors. This distinction became both mechanical and thematic as the colour traits were defined. Also, it may not be entirely clear, but I removed the damage/no-damage "restrictions" that the devs originally placed on certain colours; they've actually been quite good about trying to fix that themselves.

Colour Traits

:redflag: ”Power”
- Generator
- Targeted
- Conditional bonus effects

Red is often very specific, but with the potential for conditional bonus damage. Red is methodical, and abilities do tend more towards being slower but stronger.

”Untamed Wild”
- Generator
- Untargeted/Random
- Growth/Regeneration/Life Cycle

Green is the circle of life; it gives and takes in equal measure. Green is the best generator, it's the only colour which can generate AP from destroyed tiles.

”Mysteries & Mysticism”
- Converter
- Targeted
- Secrets/Energy

Blue is both revealing and inscrutable. I'll admit that Blue was the hardest colour to define, and even now it's almost defined as being undefined. It's the science and technology of people like Stark & Richards and the magic of Thor & Dr Strange; it's the way both of those can exist alongside each other.

”Teamwork & Leadership”
- Generator
- Untargeted
- Tactics/Strategy

Yellow is still mostly the “good” colour simply by virtue of heroes being more likely to work as a team. Villains can be leaders too, so Leadership is probably the better descriptor. Yellow abilities can require a little more thought than others, which is where the “tactics” trait comes into play. Yellow abilities usually support the rest of the team.

”Cunning”
- Convertor
- Targeted
- Theft/Manipulation

Purple abilities are sneaky and tricky. These abilities are all about stealing what they can and manipulating the playing field to the best advantage. Purple is very specific in what it does, and I think it limits the colour a little. However this may simply be the last holdover from the way colours were originally defined.

”Chaos”
- Convertor
- Untargeted
- Destruction/Decay/Win At Any Cost

Black is almost the reverse of green. It’s still often unpredictable, but this is chaos purely for the sake of carnage and destruction. The strongest black abilities will often come with an additional expense to the user, but no price is too big for an assured victory.

So these definitions are mostly based on existing powers which already display these traits. There’s a few abilities that are way out, mostly on older characters, and a few that I think should be tweaked with these definitions in mind.

Lastly, some additional notes on these that I think are worth mentioning:

I originally used “targeted” and “random” as traits for red and green to try and split up their attacks, but I think these traits can be applied to a lot of non-attack skills too. Making these traits generic also helped to consider different colours for some attacks. Purple is definitely targeted and Black is definitely Random. Yellow is not so much random as it is untargeted - it tends to be more wholly inclusive and team focused (eg. heal all) which left Blue to take the third targeted slot. I would have liked Blue to be equally random, to differentiate it a little from Red, but sometimes you work with what you got.

Both Twin Pistols and The Bigger They Are end the turn, which is actually quite a strategic play (although there’s really no room for much strategy outside of “frontload damage” in MPQ). It’s an interesting mechanic which probably should be applied to more abilities.

There’s a mechanical difference between creating tiles and converting tiles that isn’t totally obvious straight away during normal gameplay. In short, abilities which create tiles add them to the board - this means that they overwrite existing tiles. In contrast, convertor abilities are often slightly limited in what they can do. Yes, this will translate to buffs or nerfs for some abilities.

Character Discussion and Colour Correction

NOTE: There'll be some minor mechanical changes, but I'm only going to recolour characters here, not tune numbers or replace abilities. Some may still be weak or underpowered and need more than a fresh coat of paint. Unfortunately, you pretty much have to address every single character even if you only want to change the numbers for one of them. I could probably be convinced to give them all a once-over, but that's for another time.

Kingpin
Fisk is probably the character which really prompted me to start playing with colours. He absolutely nails the traits for his black and yellow abilties - and definitely shows that villains can use yellow too! His purple is a little tricky, since it’s actually a destroy + a generate rather than a conversion of ownership (theft). I think you could make an argument to change it from Purple to Green, but it does destroy a specific enemy colour (strongest) rather than being random, so it could be fine as it is.

Iron Fist
Personally, I'd want to change him to Black/Yellow/Green. His powers do fit those respective colours and they match his outfit, which doesn't happen as often as everyone seems to want. IFoKL becomes yellow, and generates Green tiles; this is the easiest change, since IFoKL isn't a sneaky/theify ability anyway. Exquisite Technique becomes Green and generates a Black attack tile; the regenerating tile is typical Green and the Black attack tile is destructive. Fang Strike becomes Black, and converts Yellow basic tiles into Strikes; it's not quite "win at any cost" like a lot of other Black abilities, but the tiles it converts are selected at random and putting the Strike tiles on a colour that you actively want to match is still a decent enough drawback for a power which already isn't overly strong.

Of all my colour changes, this is the one I'd love to see in game. Accelerating Green is still useful for a bunch of characters in the 3* tier, but it means he's no longer fueling Hulkbuster or Cyclops (meaning they have to go and actually be the tanks they were designed to be), and yellow is fairly uncontested (IMO), so it would create some vastly different teams (newIF + Falcon? Inspiring that attack tile from turn 2 with a colour that you actively want to get).

Patch
Patch is a little tricky to deal with, since he has two abilities which are a little at odds with each other. Let's get some of the obvious statements out of the way first. Healing Factor should be Green, not Yellow, and The Best There Is fits Red's conditional damage trait nicely, but there's a catch. TBTI actually presents a considerable drawback, which is a hallmark of a Black ability, in that it requires you to remove tiles with Wolverine's icon from the board in order to fire the ability. Patch also has Berserker Rage, which gives the opponent a whole stack of strong Strike Tiles, and I think it's a much better contender for a change to Black than TBTI. To keep things short and sweet: recolour Patch to Black/Red/Green.

Now Patch actually has a few new problems, and I did say that I wasn't going to change numbers, but I'm going to indulge myself and describe some generic mechanic changes to accompany the recolour.

Healing Factor should be changed to provide X health per Green tile. Average health per tile so that 9 tiles gives the same health as the ability does now. Healing will still be "guaranteed" - even at 3 or 4 covers - but will require you to babysit Green.
TBTI should be changed to deal some guaranteed damage. I think the easiest solution would be to deal a portion of damage up front and then additional damage if Wolverine's icon appears on more tiles than the other two team mates combined. I'd probably even suggest giving a slight damage reduction in raw numbers, but counting the bonus as a second attack, which allows Patch to double dip on Strike tiles with this ability.
I'm a little conflicted on where Berserker Rage's Strike tiles should end up. For now, I think I'm favouring friendly Strikes on Red and enemy Strikes on Green. This means that you'll be reducing your overall healing for a few turns if you match away the enemy strike tiles and you may have to sacrifice some of the friendly bonus damage in order to get Red for TBTI. I think both of those are fitting restrictions for a Black ability.

A lot of this was copy/pasted from a much bigger document that I was putting together. I've edited a little bit for the purposes of this post/thread, but let me know if something doesn't make sense.

Pylgrim

Mawtful wrote:

*snip*

This is very well though but I think a bit too extreme of a change to ever be considered. For example, moving healing to Green, while philosophically sound, seems like a huge modification across the board that will not necessarily make things better, gameplay-wise.

Anyway, I think now we're veering too far away from the original purpose of the thread and I'm to blame. Let's leave this thread for talking about the imbalance of colours and I'll make another one later to talk about the colour pie and how to make it more consistent.

Mawtful

Pylgrim wrote:

Mawtful wrote:

*snip*

This is very well though but I think a bit too extreme of a change to ever be considered. For example, moving healing to Green, while philosophically sound, seems like a huge modification across the board that will not necessarily make things better, gameplay-wise.

Anyway, I think now we're veering too far away from the original purpose of the thread and I'm to blame. Let's leave this thread for talking about the imbalance of colours and I'll make another one later to talk about the colour pie and how to make it more consistent.

I agree about that extreme statement. I don't think the changes I suggested there would ever get considered, let alone implemented - however I do think that they are actually pretty core to the idea of colour imbalance, especially since a unified "recoloured" roster would then show up where the gaps really are. I certainly didn't pick the best examples in terms of filling gaps, so here's a few more super quick examples.

Blade
Nightstalker becomes Purple (stealing). Enemies Closer becomes Red (conditional damage increase). The Thirst becomes Yellow (tactics/strategy: choosing to keep Red on the board). This Blade would then have a colour scheme which is currently shared only with Starlord (and could very well end up being unique for the 3* tier).

Hood
Twin Pistols becomes Black (end turn drawback). Dormammu's Aid becomes Purple (stealing). Intimidation becomes Yellow (teamwork). Again, this is colour scheme doesn't currently exist in the 3* tier, but more importantly, we get a mini-Kingpin. This helps create a really nice thematic flow and mechanical introduction/training between tiers (we should expect Crime Bosses to dish out damage, manipulate AP pools, and play around with countdowns), which is something I've talked about before.

GMadMan040

Thank you. Just thank you.

It is enormously refreshing to see some actual game theory and analysis discussion presented in these forums again. That's what made this place fantastic and it really feels like it has slipped away for awhile. Here's hoping this is the roaring comeback for this stuff.

Great post. Can't upvote enough.