*Venom* Update

Phaserhawk

Sell Venom 4000?

Yes

David [Hi-Fi] Moore

Phaserhawk wrote:

So what you are saying now is sell 1* Venom because he is completely worthless now.

Gotta remain vague here due to unfinished work-in-progress - but I would not recommend selling 1-Stars, or any character, if it can be helped.

CNash

More fuel for the rumour mill...

SnowcaTT

This is just like the Mystique nerf when PX broke her.

Dev 1: "Wait, our new 4* character broke game balance!"
Dev 2: "Quick, nerf the old character!"
Dev 1: "But...shouldn't we just change our new 4*?"
Dev 2: "That mind power has to go to the next character! Nerf, Nerf now!"

Lee T

"David wrote:

Moore"]Hi everyone,

Here's word from Demiurge on a change going live today for 1-Star Venom:

Quote:
"Hey all,

We got some worrying feedback that with the inclusion of Miles Morales to the game, 1-Star Venom could start holding his own against 4-Star characters. Miles creates enough Web tiles that Venom's Devour, which instantly downs a character if there are enough Web tiles, could fire pretty regularly.

Changes have been made to avoid this problem. (Changes are in R90+, CL 321089) :
• Venom now deals 2,000 Damage instead of downing a character if there are enough Web tiles on the board from Character Levels 1 to 40
• At level 41 this damage will start to scale up
• The number of tiles required to deal this damage has increased from 6 to 8."

This is actually worrying.

I've been a gamer for longer than I care to count, be it RPG, video game, board game and more specifically collectible (or not) cardgame, I've played it all for years and been around gamer for years. As far as I'm concerned this should not happen.

Considering Mile Morales's abilities, Miles + Venom should be the very first thought any mildy adept gamer should have while reading them.

This leaves only two option :

Either playtesters aren't skilled enough, or they weren't heard or they didn't have the time to test it extensively, either way, playtesting failed on a basic combo involving a 1* character everybody played with or against countless times since the beginning of the game.

Or we are the playtesters.

Both those answers are very depressing.

fmftint

"David wrote:

Moore"]

Phaserhawk wrote:

So what you are saying now is sell 1* Venom because he is completely worthless now.

Gotta remain vague here due to unfinished work-in-progress - but I would not recommend selling 1-Stars, or any character, if it can be helped.

Seems to me you've changed your stance of you don't need to have every character rostered, how about adjusting cost of roster slots to accommodate

JVReal

So, you're nerfing the player on this, but helping the AI. The AI will have a super scaled attack that will likely 1 shot any of our characters anyway... whether he eats them or hits them... but the player is still only limited to level 40 (unless boosted) attack of 2000 points of damage.

fight4thedream

binarypillbug wrote:

TxMoose wrote:

I think it just looks suspicious that they blasted his uniqueness to prevent something that was never going happen anyway, other than via team-ups, which could have been addressed separately. running a 1* into pvp is suicide and devour would be pretty tough to pull off more than once in a 395 scaled node. turn the TU off and increase the tiles required and leave the ability alone. maybe I underestimate people's ability to get/keep 8 web tiles out and collect 12 black multiple times with a 1* on the team.

If it was never going to happen, then what's the problem? What exactly does this move make people suspicious of?

On a more serious note, if you had a strong enough tank, a good board and lady luck on your side, it was quite possible to pull off. It was a totally different way to play the game than the usual brute force method that is popular in high end PvP and PvE. It basically put the "puzzle" back in Marvel Puzzle Quest for me. It required a certain amount of finesse and strategy: you not only had to pay attention to your AP stock, but also board composition, AI tile priorities and timing. Even with all that, because of the random nature of 1* Spider-Man's Spectacular Strategy there was still an element of risk involved; you could accidentally clear some web tiles by setting off cascades or wiping a set of yellow tiles. You could easily spend 10-15 minutes trying to get the perfect board and I know for some players that's blasphemy but you were so focused that you didn't even notice the time. And once you finally got the perfect setup, it was like magic!

I understand the reason for the nerf with the introduction of Miles (would have appreciated a heads up about it though) but as others have mentioned it still would have required a bit of dancing around hoops, although admittedly I have feeling it would have been much easier to do with Miles. If anything, what this "update" establishes is that the devs are capable of modifying a character rather quickly which puts them in the awkward position of justifying why other characters that are arguably in need of a buff being ignored. And as Lee T has also pointed out, it also calls into question the rigour of their play testing.

Personally, I had fun with it while it lasted. I got to use my favorite character Spider-Man offensively and it was amusing that the weakest member of my team packed the greatest punch. Shout out to Moon Roach for coming up with his mighty challenge; otherwise, I probably never would have thought to try. This also will become another reason why I hate TUs since I suspect they didn't want Devour TUs being exploited. It really is unfortunate though, since it was a significantly different play style and they could have spun it off into an actual in-game feat challenge. Instead, they chose to take the easy way out. Ce'st la MPQ.

puppychow

fight4thedream wrote:

Personally, I had fun with it while it lasted. I got to use my favorite character Spider-Man offensively and it was amusing that the weakest member of my team packed the greatest punch. Shout out to Moon Roach for coming up with his mighty challenge; otherwise, I probably never would have thought to try. This also will become another reason why I hate TUs since I suspect they didn't want Devour TUs being exploited. It really is unfortunate though, since it was a significantly different play style and they could have spun it off into an actual in-game feat challenge. Instead, they chose to take the easy way out. Ce'st la MPQ.

Agreed. I had a lil' bit of fun using the devour ability last month. And now I see that the game developers had a knee jerk reaction and take it away. The better solution would have been to keep Venom as is, but disallow him to be sent as a TU, like Professor Xavier, etc.

thetimelord

This is annoying. When I got home, I spent an hour or so trying to get miles morales on my sandboxed account so that I could test his abilities with venom, but when I entered a battle with them, I found out that Venom's devour became useless against my opponents. I understand increasing the amount of web tiles for the effect, but to change the instant down to a weak 2000 dmg? That's just cruel. This would not have affected the gameplay at all in a negative way. In fact, it would have helped it, players in PvP would be able to try a new strategy and potentially be rewarded for it (its already a bit difficult to get enough AP for the abilities to create web tiles anyway), while people attacking for revenge get an easier battle against a 1*. All things considered, I think they should give venom his instant down back, it would make the gameplay a bit more fun for those who try it.

DFiPL

This was specifically called out in the interview for who would work with Miles...and you're just NOW going "...not sure if good idea"?

GrumpySmurf1002

Ludaa wrote:

"David wrote:

Moore"]
• Venom now deals 2,000 Damage instead of downing a character if there are enough Web tiles on the board from Character Levels 1 to 40
• At level 41 this damage will start to scale up
• The number of tiles required to deal this damage has increased from 6 to 8."

Oh for crying out loud just put up the preview already!

I know what you mean, but that's a reference to the overscaled PvE nonsense, not C. Modermort (mode that shall not be named)

zonatahunt

"David wrote:

Moore"]

Phaserhawk wrote:

So what you are saying now is sell 1* Venom because he is completely worthless now.

Gotta remain vague here due to unfinished work-in-progress - but I would not recommend selling 1-Stars, or any character, if it can be helped.

This is ridiculous! A year ago your company stated that having to choose who we keep and sell due to limited roster slots was a mechanic of the game. Now you're telling us to hold on to EVERYONE. If your "new" game mechanic will require ALL the game's characters then you shouldn't be asking almost $10 real-world money for every new roster slot! Do you want a happy player base? Hell, do you want a player base? At what point will you begin to understand that money grubbing is not the way to create a happy customer that will recommend your product via word of mouth? Personally, I stopped recommending this game about three months ago, and I seriously have nearly both feet out the door now.

Your company is unreal.

stochasticism

"David wrote:

Moore"]

Phaserhawk wrote:

So what you are saying now is sell 1* Venom because he is completely worthless now.

Gotta remain vague here due to unfinished work-in-progress - but I would not recommend selling 1-Stars, or any character, if it can be helped.

Oh please let me build a L395 Juggs of my own. I shall call him Champion Juggs for, um, no real reason.

David [Hi-Fi] Moore

zonatahunt wrote:

"David wrote:

Moore"]

Phaserhawk wrote:

So what you are saying now is sell 1* Venom because he is completely worthless now.

Gotta remain vague here due to unfinished work-in-progress - but I would not recommend selling 1-Stars, or any character, if it can be helped.

This is ridiculous! A year ago your company stated that having to choose who we keep and sell due to limited roster slots was a mechanic of the game. Now you're telling us to hold on to EVERYONE. If your "new" game mechanic will require ALL the game's characters then you shouldn't be asking almost $10 real-world money for every new roster slot! Do you want a happy player base? Hell, do you want a player base? At what point will you begin to understand that money grubbing is not the way to create a happy customer that will recommend your product via word of mouth? Personally, I stopped recommending this game about three months ago, and I seriously have nearly both feet out the door now.

Your company is unreal.

Nope. Never said all characters will be required. And something is specifically being worked on in order to help foster a happy player base. Here's a recent quote via MPQ's producer at Marvel.com : "I’m definitely looking forward to using some of the heroes I hadn’t used in a while in new ways and team ups!"

simonsez

"David wrote:

Moore"]

Phaserhawk wrote:

So what you are saying now is sell 1* Venom because he is completely worthless now.

Gotta remain vague here due to unfinished work-in-progress - but I would not recommend selling 1-Stars, or any character, if it can be helped.

It could be helped if roster slots didn't cost 1000 each. Who thinks hanging on to Yelena is worth 1k HP, raise your hand...

JVReal

"David wrote:

Moore"]

zonatahunt wrote:

"David wrote:

Moore"]

Phaserhawk wrote:

So what you are saying now is sell 1* Venom because he is completely worthless now.

Gotta remain vague here due to unfinished work-in-progress - but I would not recommend selling 1-Stars, or any character, if it can be helped.

This is ridiculous! A year ago your company stated that having to choose who we keep and sell due to limited roster slots was a mechanic of the game. Now you're telling us to hold on to EVERYONE. If your "new" game mechanic will require ALL the game's characters then you shouldn't be asking almost $10 real-world money for every new roster slot! Do you want a happy player base? Hell, do you want a player base? At what point will you begin to understand that money grubbing is not the way to create a happy customer that will recommend your product via word of mouth? Personally, I stopped recommending this game about three months ago, and I seriously have nearly both feet out the door now.

Your company is unreal.

Nope. Never said all characters will be required. And something is specifically being worked on in order to help foster a happy player base. Here's a recent quote via MPQ's producer at Marvel.com : "I’m definitely looking forward to using some of the heroes I hadn’t used in a while in new ways and team ups!"

In the past you guys said that having to decide who to keep and who to sell was part of the fun. Now you don't recommend selling any characters (no more fun?)... that sort of equates to keep them all. If that means don't sell the ones in your roster, then you have to buy slots at 1000 HP for the next character (of which there are 2 coming, 2K HP). If you meant don't sell ones in your queue, then hopefully you roll out the new stuff before the 10 days are up for the expiring covers in my queue.

The vague foreplay is chaffing us rather than turning us on.

whoami24601

"David wrote:

Moore"]

zonatahunt wrote:

"David wrote:

Moore"]

Phaserhawk wrote:

So what you are saying now is sell 1* Venom because he is completely worthless now.

Gotta remain vague here due to unfinished work-in-progress - but I would not recommend selling 1-Stars, or any character, if it can be helped.

This is ridiculous! A year ago your company stated that having to choose who we keep and sell due to limited roster slots was a mechanic of the game. Now you're telling us to hold on to EVERYONE. If your "new" game mechanic will require ALL the game's characters then you shouldn't be asking almost $10 real-world money for every new roster slot! Do you want a happy player base? Hell, do you want a player base? At what point will you begin to understand that money grubbing is not the way to create a happy customer that will recommend your product via word of mouth? Personally, I stopped recommending this game about three months ago, and I seriously have nearly both feet out the door now.

Your company is unreal.

Nope. Never said all characters will be required. And something is specifically being worked on in order to help foster a happy player base. Here's a recent quote via MPQ's producer at Marvel.com : "I’m definitely looking forward to using some of the heroes I hadn’t used in a while in new ways and team ups!"

At the risk of being rude, here's another recent quote via MPQ's producer at Marvel.com, coincidentally enough from the same interview. Emphasis is my own.

"Joe Fletcher: Peter, Miles, Eddie, and [Carnage] are all usable at the same time, but you’ll have to choose between Eddie Brock Venom and Mac Gargan Venom. The symbiote can only be with one host at a time. The Mac Gargan version will benefit greatly from the web tiles that Miles can produce, making his Devour instant kill become a real threat. But being a 1* character, he’s going to be pretty squishy out there with the guys and gals in the big leagues.

More on Marvel.com: http://marvel.com/news/video_games/2557 ... z3uhrINuOr"

JamesV

whoami24601 wrote:

At the risk of being rude, here's another recent quote via MPQ's producer at Marvel.com, coincidentally enough from the same interview. Emphasis is my own.

"Joe Fletcher: Peter, Miles, Eddie, and [Carnage] are all usable at the same time, but you’ll have to choose between Eddie Brock Venom and Mac Gargan Venom. The symbiote can only be with one host at a time. The Mac Gargan version will benefit greatly from the web tiles that Miles can produce, making his Devour instant kill become a real threat. But being a 1* character, he’s going to be pretty squishy out there with the guys and gals in the big leagues.

More on Marvel.com: http://marvel.com/news/video_games/2557 ... z3uhrINuOr"

Things like this end up putting Fletcher in an awkward spot. The promotional material talks about X, the game patches X to remove it before X can be used by anyone who read about it, which in turn gives the impression that there's a lack of communication/no clear communication involved in the game.

zonatahunt

"David wrote:

Moore"]

zonatahunt wrote:

"David wrote:

Moore"]

Phaserhawk wrote:

So what you are saying now is sell 1* Venom because he is completely worthless now.

Gotta remain vague here due to unfinished work-in-progress - but I would not recommend selling 1-Stars, or any character, if it can be helped.

This is ridiculous! A year ago your company stated that having to choose who we keep and sell due to limited roster slots was a mechanic of the game. Now you're telling us to hold on to EVERYONE. If your "new" game mechanic will require ALL the game's characters then you shouldn't be asking almost $10 real-world money for every new roster slot! Do you want a happy player base? Hell, do you want a player base? At what point will you begin to understand that money grubbing is not the way to create a happy customer that will recommend your product via word of mouth? Personally, I stopped recommending this game about three months ago, and I seriously have nearly both feet out the door now.

Your company is unreal.

Nope. Never said all characters will be required. And something is specifically being worked on in order to help foster a happy player base. Here's a recent quote via MPQ's producer at Marvel.com : "I’m definitely looking forward to using some of the heroes I hadn’t used in a while in new ways and team ups!"

Semantics, David. In your original statement that I quoted you on you don't recommend selling anyone. Whether your new mechanic requires us to roster every character, your initial statement suggests to hold on to everyone. So, once again, you're now suggesting we keep Yelena, Bag-man and all the other worthless characters even though it'll cost us $10 a piece to do so.

"Hey you....check out this sweet carrot we've dangled in front of you...a MILE away. Btw, let me pick your pocket for more money while you try to reach the carrot."

Once again, unreal.