*Venom* Update

Mawtful

GothicKratos wrote:

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.

Devour is still a 12 AP ability on a 1 star character. In order to wombocombo with Miles, you'd need 7 Purple AP to cast Hide & Seek (remember this becomes Surprise! so it cannot be double cast quickly) plus 8 Yellow AP to cast Power & Responsibility plus 12 Black AP for Devour. You need 27 AP each time you want to eat someone whole. Both Miles' abilities generate 3 web tiles at rank 3, so you can't lose a single web tile or it won't work. Jacking the web tile requirement up to 8 would mean that you almost have to have Miles' abilities at Rank 4 (to generate 4 web tiles each) to even consider attempting. Now Venom has a staggering 2640 HP, which means he can withstand 5 turns of Iron Fist's attack tile if he takes no other damage - lets hope you've got someone else covering Black for Venom because he really can't afford to finish out front. But we're not taking out 3*'s with Devour, Venom is a Big Game hunter and it's 5* Season! Ok, so Phoenix has the weakest match damage of the 3 5*'s, and her Red only hits for 428 per tile. This means that Venom can actually take 2 turns of match damage from Phoenix (2.06 turns will kill him), as long as she matches Red both times. And they're only match 3. And there's no cascade. And there's no attack tiles on the board.

Ok, so it's nearly impossible to execute this combo once, let alone 3 times, but it is still possible.
Yep, correct, it is still possible. But even in Simulator (where you can bring a 3rd wheel to cover black for Venom), you've handicapped yourself so much that you'll be haemorrhaging points like it's going out of style. Never mind the fact that the AI will not play your team correctly.

So I'm struggling, I really am, to see where the original Devour was going to become this great new scourge of MPQ. Who was going to exploit this combo into a neverending shower of Legendary Tokens? I imagine a few people would probably give this a spin against the stand alone Galactus/Ultron boss nodes if they run those events again; who gets hurt then? Maybe a few extra players hit progression rewards, or provide enough extra damage to help their alliance to the next round. Bean counters aren't going to like that, not one bit, no sir.
There's another possibility though; there was never a problem with Devour. As far as I can tell; a bunch of people said the sky was falling, Demiurge believed them, and set about fixing it. But their solution was basically to chop down every Acorn tree. I don't know, this metaphor got way out of hand ~really~ quickly.

Anyway, I'm going to double down on my hot take. I still believe that the decision to nerf Venom and subsequent relay of information ("some players got scared so we changed it") presents a lack of understanding of game design by Demiurge. It's a bit of a two-edged sword; either they don't believe the combo is OP (as I do) but back-flipped immediately instead of defending their choice OR it took until the preview notes hit the forum for anyone to even realise that there was a combo. I'm not sure which is better.

AaronTheLuigi

Chiming in with my two cents...

A: If the developers felt Venom (Dark Avengers) downing five-star characters was problematic, I understand. Would it suck for Devour to lose a situational insta-kill thanks to the arrival of Miles? Yes. Is this tweak justified? Debatable. That being said, the issue now switches focus from Miles + Venom to Venom on his own. The cost, and default damage values, of Devour remain unchanged, but the double whammy on his bonus effect (increase of Web tiles needed AND flat, moderate damage to replace the insta-kill) is beyond ludicrous. Any value Venom had to an early-player has been shot in the leg. He now exists only to stun with his purple, and if you're not running Storm, use black for damage that has a lower damage-per-AP ratio than Repulsor Blast. Venom is also the least efficient Web tile generator even at 4 covers on Symbiote Snare (not counting Bag-Man) and not even Spider-Man can safely generate 6 Web Tiles, much less 8. In a cruel twist of irony the only feasible way Venom's triggering the bonus at this point is WITH Miles.

B: To comfort earlier sentiments in this thread about how the fixed Venom will work as an over-scaled enemy... don't fear. There was no way an AI Venom was ever triggering the Devour bonus without the player running Classic/Original Spider-Man beforehand, and he certainly won't at this point (I suspect not even Miles will feasibly help the AI on its mission to trigger the bonus.) You're still going to deal with his 7 Purple for a free turn plus the over-scaled default damage on his black and his high health, but that is nothing new. In fact, the double whammy also means his once unlikely to fire bonus effect is next-to-guaranteed to never fire under the AI, and in the event it would you'd only take a huge hit rather than an instant down (or the huge hit would down your character anyways, so no real change).

Phumade

Chrono_Tata wrote:

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.

...

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.

True! I never had any intention to roster Venom, but its so dismaying to have to grasp at straws to figure out the developers intent. I've had to hoard close to 500 tokens because of this rumored "champion" thing, and when its all said and done, I'm sure we will be disappointed by:

a. How the feature actually works
b. How badly the associated communications are handled.

Ultimately, if they are gonna treat us like mushrooms and keep us in the dark, while shoveling manure over our heads, then they better come up with home run ideas.

And if you don't think that is possible, let me tell you about a company called "Apple"

Dayv

Chrono_Tata wrote:

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?

There's an inherent limiting factor to the Deadpool Points though. It takes several days to earn enough points to fire a full-bore Whale Cannon. Sure, you can save them up and use them repeatedly in an ultra-hard event like the final levels of The Gauntlet, but it's not a sustainable strategy for day-to-day use.

GothicKratos

Mawtful wrote:

GothicKratos wrote:

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.

Devour is still a 12 AP ability on a 1 star character. In order to wombocombo with Miles, you'd need 7 Purple AP to cast Hide & Seek (remember this becomes Surprise! so it cannot be double cast quickly) plus 8 Yellow AP to cast Power & Responsibility plus 12 Black AP for Devour. You need 27 AP each time you want to eat someone whole. Both Miles' abilities generate 3 web tiles at rank 3, so you can't lose a single web tile or it won't work. Jacking the web tile requirement up to 8 would mean that you almost have to have Miles' abilities at Rank 4 (to generate 4 web tiles each) to even consider attempting. Now Venom has a staggering 2640 HP, which means he can withstand 5 turns of Iron Fist's attack tile if he takes no other damage - lets hope you've got someone else covering Black for Venom because he really can't afford to finish out front. But we're not taking out 3*'s with Devour, Venom is a Big Game hunter and it's 5* Season! Ok, so Phoenix has the weakest match damage of the 3 5*'s, and her Red only hits for 428 per tile. This means that Venom can actually take 2 turns of match damage from Phoenix (2.06 turns will kill him), as long as she matches Red both times. And they're only match 3. And there's no cascade. And there's no attack tiles on the board.

It's not about being able to do it every single game without fail. You're way off in right field with the absolutes. The fact you can do it at all is obnoxious. 1* Venom shouldn't be able to OHKO 4* Hulkbuster no matter what the situation or obstacles you have. It just shouldn't exist.

You're also neglecting that you don't need to take Venom into the fight because of teamups. You can run Miles in a perfectly viable composition and bring a Venom Team-Up and still Devour someone for practically nothing if the scenario presents itself. You could do that with Peter too, but Peter is complete trash and still practically running no one.

Linkster79

"David wrote:

Moore"]

JVReal wrote:

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.

Are we to be held precisely to any recommendation ever made in the distant past regardless of changes made to the game in recent times or coming up in the pipe? A game that never changes or attempts to improve can stagnate.

That said, my recommendation wasn't really meant as foreplay, but more as a helpful suggestion for something players might want to keep in mind for future plans. The price of roster slots doesn't necessarily factor in.

I guess it may be better to not say anything at all. It has been noted.

As community manager it is your job to remain professional ànd not throw your toys out of the pram when you get riled. If you are unable to do this then yes maybe it would be best to say nothing at all, after all that does seem to be the norm when "things go awry" such as during Galactus, anniversary and pretty much all events that the servers can't cope with. After the numerous PR fiascos that there has been recently this seems to be just standard operating procedure.

As has already been stated IceIX eluded to being excited about pairing Venom with Miles Morales, seems he knew about web tile interaction, anyone who has been playing for more than a month could see how the 2 characters could interact with each other. To claim that your internal play testers (who should be familiar with the game) did not pick this up is laughable and best. To think you can "fun balance" one character and yet leave Iron Man, Elektra and Star Lord as utter garbage for so long is utterly unbelievable.

This post will most likely be heavily modified by staff members, and rightly so but it is how I feel and wanted to post it. Please go ahead and I shall take whatever punishment you feel is due.

Mawtful

GothicKratos wrote:

It's not about being able to do it every single game without fail. You're way off in right field with the absolutes. The fact you can do it at all is obnoxious. 1* Venom shouldn't be able to OHKO 4* Hulkbuster no matter what the situation or obstacles you have. It just shouldn't exist.

Can I use 2* Stormneto against Hulkbuster? With the right team I could keep him stun-locked and take him out without too much worry. I know this because I get that team in my retaliations all the time.

What's the limit? Are only 4*'s allowed to KO 4*'s? Is it because it's a guaranteed OHKO? With 27 AP, Hulkbuster can OHKO any 4* or lower. Silver Surfer can do it with only 14 AP. If Devour could not be sent as a team up would your objection still stand? If you honestly believe that a 1* should never be allowed to OHKO a 5* then you should just go ahead and apply for a design position at Demiurge.

JamesV

I find it a bummer when unique abilities are stripped away to just be replaced with MOAR DAMAGE.

I think not making him a team up and having him destroy all web tiles would have honestly been a fine fix.

firethorne

Mawtful wrote:

So I'm struggling, I really am, to see where the original Devour was going to become this great new scourge of MPQ. Who was going to exploit this combo into a neverending shower of Legendary Tokens? I imagine a few people would probably give this a spin against the stand alone Galactus/Ultron boss nodes if they run those events again; who gets hurt then? Maybe a few extra players hit progression rewards, or provide enough extra damage to help their alliance to the next round. Bean counters aren't going to like that, not one bit, no sir.

While this was probably an overreaction, I do see two scenarios where it could be a problem. First, team ups. Bringing a one star character to a fight is insanity, but bringing a 1* teamup can be oddly effective. Just look though some top alliances, and you'll no doubt see a few with 0/5 Black Widows, only for the purpose of team up sharing.

The other obvious problem is the one we've complained about long before Miles was part of the equation. PvE opponent variety isn't a thing in this game. You've been fighting Venom from day one, and they know you'll be fighting him until the servers shut down. They don't want to make one of the new shiny characters they want you to whale a suicide machine against one of the most used PvE foes.

Chrono_Tata

DayvBang wrote:

Chrono_Tata wrote:

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?

There's an inherent limiting factor to the Deadpool Points though. It takes several days to earn enough points to fire a full-bore Whale Cannon. Sure, you can save them up and use them repeatedly in an ultra-hard event like the final levels of The Gauntlet, but it's not a sustainable strategy for day-to-day use.

As Mawtful already mentioned, the actual set up for Devour is extremely expensive and require a lot of luck to not get your web tiles matched away during the set up. Super whales take out entire teams only with 14AP. Venom requires 12AP to even cast Devour just to hit 1 character, not even to mention the AP you need to gather the web tiles. Yes, technically you could do it all the time, but the set up is so complicated that I highly doubt it will be used on a regular basis. Even the current Sentry can take out entire teams using less AP (World Rupture + some strong strike tiles generator), but obviously it's so risky and complicated that no one in their right mind would use it regularly.

And if they are worried its TU will be abused, they can just stop Devour from being sent out as TUs, which wouldn't be an elegant solution, but probably better than the incoming nerf to Venom.

GothicKratos

Mawtful wrote:

GothicKratos wrote:

It's not about being able to do it every single game without fail. You're way off in right field with the absolutes. The fact you can do it at all is obnoxious. 1* Venom shouldn't be able to OHKO 4* Hulkbuster no matter what the situation or obstacles you have. It just shouldn't exist.

Can I use 2* Stormneto against Hulkbuster? With the right team I could keep him stun-locked and take him out without too much worry. I know this because I get that team in my retaliations all the time.

And if they were worth the points, you'd smack them back so fast it's not even funny because that's an easy win. They're going to bleed points if they keep that team up. Miles in the mix means that you can field a normal 3* team (that of course has Miles in it) and bring a Team-Up for a potential free kill. There's a gigantic difference.

Mawtful wrote:

What's the limit? Are only 4*'s allowed to KO 4*'s? Is it because it's a guaranteed OHKO? With 27 AP, Hulkbuster can OHKO any 4* or lower. Silver Surfer can do it with only 14 AP. If Devour could not be sent as a team up would your objection still stand? If you honestly believe that a 1* should never be allowed to OHKO a 5* then you should just go ahead and apply for a design position at Demiurge.

Get off the high horse. No, a 1* should absolutely never be able to OHKO anything close to a 5*. 1*s are tutorial characters. 2*s should have a fighting chance versus 3*s. 3*s should have a fighting chance versus 4*s. 4*s should have a fighting chance versus 5*s. 1*s should be able to breach all of that and OHKO 5*s. That's why there is tiers.

Yes, there are some cheese that transcend this somewhat, but they come with sizable drawbacks. Good luck keeping up Stormneto or Winfinite up in PvP without bleeding points faster than you earn them. Whales, similarly comes with a gigantic limitation in the form of Deadpool Points - you can do it what...twice a week? Whoo!

Chrono_Tata

GothicKratos wrote:

Get off the high horse. No, a 1* should absolutely never be able to OHKO anything close to a 5*. 1*s are tutorial characters. 2*s should have a fighting chance versus 3*s. 3*s should have a fighting chance versus 4*s. 4*s should have a fighting chance versus 5*s. 1*s should be able to breach all of that and OHKO 5*s. That's why there is tiers.

Except it's not just Venom OHKOing a 5-star character. It's a 4-star/1-star (Miles/Venom) team, and possibly other supporting characters/TU to even make the strategy of collecting such a large amount of AP viable. Obviously if someone takes in a team composed of 1 and 2-star characters and get OHKO against 4 and 5-star teams, that would be broken, but we're talking about requiring a 4-star character in the team, so I honestly am not seeing a problem with this.

M C K

{Darkness. It is the middle of 2015. A spotlight shines on a solitary barstool in the middle of an otherwise pitch black scene. MCK walks out and sits on the stool, having just learned of the nerfs to X-Force Wolverine and 4Thor.}

MCK: "Whatever happens next, don't you DARE touch my 1* Venom!"

{Fades to black}

TxMoose

GothicKratos wrote:

And if they were worth the points, you'd smack them back so fast it's not even funny because that's an easy win. They're going to bleed points if they keep that team up. Miles in the mix means that you can field a normal 3* team (that of course has Miles in it) and bring a Team-Up for a potential free kill. There's a gigantic difference.

pretty sure I've read the entire thread and I can't find anyone endorsing/promoting keeping the old devour ability version available as a team-up. stop using that argument when it counters a position that nobody is taking - it would have been very easy to just disallow it as a team-up. increasing the web tile cost, removing the web tiles, and turning the team-ups off would have kept the fun side of the quirky character intact. and if you actually have to bring him onto your team, it would be fun to do, like the competition that was held, but not game breaking.

simonsez

GothicKratos wrote:

Miles in the mix means that you can field a normal 3* team (that of course has Miles in it) and bring a Team-Up for a potential free kill.

Yeah, a "free" kill that costs 26 AP.

Disingenuous semantics aside, since when shouldn't 26 AP be enough to down a character?

Malcrof

simonsez wrote:

GothicKratos wrote:

Miles in the mix means that you can field a normal 3* team (that of course has Miles in it) and bring a Team-Up for a potential free kill.

Yeah, a "free" kill that costs 26 AP.

Disingenuous semantics aside, since when shouldn't 26 AP be enough to down a character?

Even galactus needed a little more

Dayv

simonsez wrote:

GothicKratos wrote:

Miles in the mix means that you can field a normal 3* team (that of course has Miles in it) and bring a Team-Up for a potential free kill.

Yeah, a "free" kill that costs 26 AP.

Disingenuous semantics aside, since when shouldn't 26 AP be enough to down a character?

That makes it sound like you're talking about 26 AP of one color. It's far easier to line up a few skills of different colors than it is to get 26 AP in a single pool.

I'm not saying this nerf was strictly necessary, but I just can't work up much frustration over it.

OneLastGambit

Was anybody actually going to use Venom anyway? Even with that ability I would still not have bothered. It was cool when people did it as a challenge but nobodies permanent strategy is going to be to trigger devour in every match.

squirrel1120

I'm glad I devoured my 5* and full health Juggernaughts in the last Balance of Power I guess. It was the only time he ever came out.

GrumpySmurf1002

OneLastGambit wrote:

Was anybody actually going to use Venom anyway? Even with that ability I would still not have bothered. It was cool when people did it as a challenge but nobodies permanent strategy is going to be to trigger devour in every match.

Assuming you would use Miles, there'd be little reason not to bring Venom TUs with you. You wouldn't focus on it, but if you stumbled into the AP, it'd be nice to have that in the back pocket.

No different really than the large quantity of 0/5 MBW builds out there, specifically for TUs.