*Venom* Update

GuntherBlobel

"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."

I already posted once, but I also wanted point out that any new player (in the 1* - 3* phase) is going to look at Venom and think: "8 webs? Impossible and, btw, what's the point?" What new player (you know, someone who actually plays this character) is going to ever achieve this? Why would they bother? Why even have it as a possibility?

You all just sucked out a little bit of fun out of the early game and I'm not even sure why. No one has Miles yet. It'll take most people a year to earn him... How do you know that players would abuse (or even play) Venom/Miles? (Can someone direct me to the thread with all the "worrying feedback?" Is it as long as this thread?) I'm confused... and annoyed...

Without Miles, getting 8 web tiles on the board is nearly impossible. Instead, Demiurge could have capped the bonus damage at like 2X and made it easier, like at 3 web tiles so that a 1* player would actually get to trigger this conditional. This "fix" looks pretty thoughtless to me, just as the Miles "problem" does.

All this does is harken back to the dark, "fun balance" days of old. I'm not impressed.

But wait, there's more! I'm now told by Hi-Fi not to dump Venom or any other character I no longer enjoy playing, because there's an upcoming feature that requires me to have as many characters as possible on my Roster, whether I enjoy playing them or not. I hope this new mode is fun, because right now, it sounds as cynically designed as 4* DDQ. So... uh... I might pass on that.

I know I'm getting way ahead of myself here, but consider me skeptical about the motivations behind anything built by Demiurge. It's very hard to get excited about hyped-up new things when Demiurge feels so strongly that new things should ruin the old things.

Keep it fun Demiurge. Please?

_RiO_

Cypr3ss wrote:

I think it also confirms that they never wanted venom to have the (potentially) awesome power his black could have been.

Ofcourse they do want Venom to have that awesome power.
Just ... not in your hands:

"David wrote:

Moore"]At level 41 this damage will start to scale up

Wait for the next Gauntlet or Heroic, where we'll get to enjoy 'all-star spider' rounds of 3* Spidey and 4* Miles feeding 1* Venom for a 5000+ damage ability that doesn't incorporate self-damage. It'll be like Juggernaut feeder rounds, but worse.

puppychow

The venom nerf episode is a nerf by fiat, w/o any feedback or consideration from the player base, whether it's the newbie 1* guys or the veterans. It is certainly an unwelcome change in the way the game dev does business. With the EP gone now, I can only assume even more such changes are in store.

Why nuke insta kill? It's obviously to protect the value of 450s. If super whales see that their 450 defenses can be easily overcome w/ a lousy 1* character, it reduces the incentive for them to carry more 450 characters on their rosters. Remember kids---follow the money trail, and you'll understand why the decisions are made.

simonsez

puppychow wrote:

The venom nerf episode is a nerf by fiat, w/o any feedback or consideration from the player base, whether it's the newbie 1* guys or the veterans. It is certainly an unwelcome change in the way the game dev does business.

Wait, what??? When did any nerf ever take our feedback into consideration?

Dragon_Nexus

_RiO_ wrote:

Wait for the next Gauntlet or Heroic, where we'll get to enjoy 'all-star spider' rounds of 3* Spidey and 4* Miles feeding 1* Venom for a 5000+ damage ability that doesn't incorporate self-damage. It'll be like Juggernaut feeder rounds, but worse.

That's optimistic. I'd have assumed 1* Spidey. Criticals ahoy!!

Killinstinct

With the old spidey 3*, you could get 6 web tiles for 12 blue, no one was using venom with him for the insta kill, why would they now

Chrono_Tata

Man, it's a good thing that there isn't, like, a 3-star character in this game that can take out entire teams of 4 or 5 star characters all in one go by following some certain specific conditions. I mean, that would entirely break the game and should be immediately nerfed, right?

_RiO_

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

_RiO_ wrote:

Wait for the next Gauntlet or Heroic, where we'll get to enjoy 'all-star spider' rounds of 3* Spidey and 4* Miles feeding 1* Venom for a 5000+ damage ability that doesn't incorporate self-damage. It'll be like Juggernaut feeder rounds, but worse.

That's optimistic. I'd have assumed 1* Spidey. Criticals ahoy!!

You make an excellent, and sadly terrifyingly prophetic, point.

Killinstinct wrote:

With the old spidey 3*, you could get 6 web tiles for 12 blue, no one was using venom with him for the insta kill, why would they now

Around the time of the old 3* Spidey, the massive health-pool and counter-offensive threat of a 5* did not exist. Old 3* Spidey could keep enemies stunlocked for long stretches and several other 3* characters at the time allowed for downright broken combinations that would rather quickly decimate enemy health. 1* Venom was always an option that was on the table, but he was simply never considered because there were better options around: less squishy and with the necessary (broken) damage output to bust down high-level enemies without having to resort to insta-kill.

Eddiemon

I don't really understand the drama. I found Venom's ability to be a fun diversion, but not worth enough to me to spend 1000 HP on a roster slot. And while he may be able to down a 5* 'cheaply', he isn't even a speedbump in a PvP retaliation, or when you appear as a target to someone else. SO it's only real valuable use would be gimmicking fights like Ultron or Galactus, and is that really devestating enough to justify this thread being the way it is?

The ability was a limiting factor on increasing the spider family. More specifically it was a limiting factor on web tiles. That wasn't an issue back in the day when you had only Spidey and Venom, but if the game is ever to have Superior Spidey, Silk, Spider Gwen, Spidey 2099 and so on with web synergies then it couldn't remain as it was.

Having every ability scaling based on only adding one webtile per ability also gets broken quickly if you have 3 characters adding webtiles. Miles 'Surprise' adding 2500 per webtile instead of 500 breaks very quickly with two other tile creators. As it is I suspect his Power and Responsibility will be too much if they add another multiple webtile generator.

No they didn't ask you or consult with you. If you're going to be this irrational about it then there is no point in consulting with you. People argued that sentrybombing was completely OK and not game breaking. People have argued that cheating is fine and it's the dev's fault that an exploit existed and that they had no ethical obligation not to cheat. We are, as a community, not worth consulting about anything. Just look at how many posts in this thread complain about it being because 'they want money' or 'they aim to destroy fun'. Like that's clearly more logical than 'they want to add more spider family and this ability limits that'.

Cypr3ss

Eddiemon wrote:

I don't really understand the drama.

Maybe you should have read more than the last page of the thread then.

Regards,
Cypr3ss.

Eddiemon

Cypr3ss wrote:

Eddiemon wrote:

I don't really understand the drama.

Maybe you should have read more than the last page of the thread then.

Regards,
Cypr3ss.

No I read all the rants about change and people not being allowed to make mistakes. I even read an irrational rant that this somehow proves they do zero testing, and that was on page 3.

Nobody spent money on venom (I hope) and even the whales would wait until next event when they have a less unreasonable percentage shot at Miles covers. So the actual harm to anyone is minimal. If it were a month after release and you've dropped 200 bucks on him then go to town with the complaints.

But for fixing their mistake before it caused harm? This is all warranted for that?

kaelad

I'm with you Eddiemon. Seems like they are correcting a problem before it gets out of control. I can only imagine the complaints the other direction, that 1* Venom is OP because Miles can throw out so many webs.

Chrono_Tata

The problem isn't so much specifically that Venom is getting nerfed, it's the completely shoddy and ham-fisted way that he's being nerfed.

Yes, I agree that games do evolve and something that may have been relatively balanced a year ago may not be anymore with introduction of new mechanics. However, instead of anticipating this (as some people has already pointed out, it's not something that's hard to anticipate), the devs clearly only realised this at the very last minute and threw together a duct tape solution. Instead of actually spending some effort to refresh and balance Venom in order to make him work with the new mechanic, they throw an extremely lazy double-nerf on top of an already mediocre character and destroyed the only thing that made him even remotely interesting.

And this isn't the first time something like this happened too. For example, the Magnetique winfinite was nerfed by double-nerfing Mystique's blue, which was already mediocre as it was to the point of being next to useless. So it's not even about Venom specifically being nerfed, and I'm sure most vets don't even have him rostered, but the problem with the kind of thinking that goes into the development of this game. To us, it shows a complete lack of understanding and/or passion on the part of the devs in their own game.

Cypr3ss

Eddiemon wrote:

I even read an irrational rant that this somehow proves they do zero testing, and that was on page 3.

Do I need to explain to you what irrational means?

Chrono_Tata wrote:

To us, it shows a complete lack of understanding and/or passion on the part of the devs in their own game.

Pretty much this, but its good that the apologists are about, otherwise there'd be no one with anything good to say about the product.

Regards,
Cypr3ss.

emaker27

Eddiemon wrote:

I don't really understand the drama. I found Venom's ability to be a fun diversion, but not worth enough to me to spend 1000 HP on a roster slot. And while he may be able to down a 5* 'cheaply', he isn't even a speedbump in a PvP retaliation, or when you appear as a target to someone else. SO it's only real valuable use would be gimmicking fights like Ultron or Galactus, and is that really devestating enough to justify this thread being the way it is?

The drama is mostly due to them removing what some players found to be fun. As you acknowledge, Venom wasn't game breaking if left as he was. So players are upset because the company removed a fun puzzle aspect of their game because of fear instead of actual evidence.

GothicKratos

Look, Venom would have been unhealthy with Mile around. I think it's pretty hard to argue that. No matter how many obstacles you have to run through, a 1* shouldn't be able to OHKO a 5*. That's an unreasonable circumstance.

Yes, you could do this with 3* Spider-Man already, but where the heck are you doing it? PvE? Who cares. PvP? Good luck not getting eaten alive with Venom and Peter on your team, go for it! It wasn't a big deal to exist because it was practically unusable. With Miles around, you can use a reasonably strong character that is independently strong with Venom and the featured, and have a lot less of a hard time.

So, okay, we have this silly 1* Venom, that's been out what two years now? Do we let this guy that gets practically no play at all continue to exist as is, or do we change a stupid 1* a little so we can put out new and interesting champions that use Web Tiles too? My vote is nerf the dumb 1* and give me Miles.

Furthermore, maybe with this change in place, maybe we can see a reasonable retune to 3* Peter Parker, since now he can vomit Web Tiles without having to worry about Vemon obnoxiousness.

I agree, it's poor form to talk about the combination of Miles and Venom in the interview, but this is the epitome of hyperbolic.

Raffoon

In PVP, the fact that you're putting out a 1* with your team would paint a giant target on your back. Good luck not getting hit with any team that includes 1* Venom.

In PVE, this is just a weaker version of Whales, Whales, Whales.

The only issue I can see is team-ups. So, just remove it from being an available team-up, instead?

wuweird

GothicKratos wrote:

this is the epitome of hyperbolic.

The issue is not Venom so much as this being yet another example of an existing character being suddenly nerfed because a new shiny was put into play without any apparent forethought to the consequences. Dismissing as hyperbole the genuine concerns people have with the seeming lack of understanding of the game those designing new characters appear to have doesn't help anyone. What I believe many of us want is a guarantee that this won't happen to our own favorite teams. When these nerfs repeatedly happen because a new character breaks basic mechanics in blatantly obvious ways, we're left wondering why we would bother investing time and/or money in any character if the preference is always to screw over existing rosters in the perpetual chase for new whales.

A more obvious solution would have been to bump Venom up to 3-colour status and tweak accordingly at that time. That would have at least indicated a systemic awareness of their own game that appears to be sadly lacking.

tl;dr The problem isn't Venom, it's the approach to design of which this nerf is symptomatic.

GothicKratos

wuweird wrote:

GothicKratos wrote:

this is the epitome of hyperbolic.

What I believe many of us want is a guarantee that this won't happen to our own favorite teams.

There isn't one. That's part of the nature of these types of things. Any game with competitive aspects is going to be circumstanced to balancing. Call of Duty has it, League of Legends has it, World of Warcraft has it; Hell final Fantasy: Record Keeper has balancing and it's entirely PvE.

wuweird

GothicKratos wrote:

There isn't one. That's part of the nature of these types of things. Any game with competitive aspects is going to be circumstanced to balancing.

There's a huge world of difference between tweaking as imbalances become obvious over time and breaking existing teams because of lack of forethought or care in introducing new characters/mechanics.