Controversial: No character should be able to heal teammates

Unknown

Here is my semi regular 'before I go to bed' post. It's actually something I've been thinking about for a while. I'll preface this by pointing out I abuse OBW (85) and Spiderman (70) as much as the next man so I'd suffer.

The developers need to pick between:
At least half of the characters need to be able to heal (or thereabouts, the point is, more) or;
No characters should be able to heal

Now I'm not talking about cheeky self heals that are part of a character gimmick, like Daken and Wolverines regen, I'm ok with that because it's localised to them and their character (read: health pool) is somewhat balanced around it. The problem is we have two characters who are able to heal the team and not just a little, or a cumulatively large amount - they heal enough to negate health packs.

This means that these particular characters (although I know there are other factors in play with Spiderman) are almost required for success. Anyone with a high level OBW or high level Spiderman has a better chance to succeed in the game by a difference factor that is greater than any other single character. It speeds up your overall play by a huge amount, even if you sacrifice some flat out big damage number capability. Furthermore, it has made these two characters every bit as ubiquitous as Thorverine was. There are few teams out there not carrying an OBW or Spiderman because not to do so is madness. It's a safe bet that those who don't, those brave, unfortunate souls, are using some PvE level to heal in between fights which cannot be an intended mechanic. It's bloody dull for a start.

Personally I don't mind health packs. I think they act as a universal leveller in the game, they reward having a varied roster (by not needing them) and they are a somewhat obvious purchase point for the publisher. If that's the model that Demiurge want to commit too though, then either no character should heal the team or a hell of a lot more characters should heal the team because at the minute it is getting rather tedious.

Bacon Pants

I would like to shoot this post down with Black Widow's Sniper Rifle. No healing means I either have to spend more on health packs when needed....or wait the hours when my characters are downed. I enjoy playing alot, and the healing aids in my style of play. I would think that others are the same, and without healing I wouldn't be playing anywhere close to as much as I do now.

kensterr

I think it is good as it is right now, and will be better with a third healer character.

Almost all RPG games have the cleric/druid/magic caster character with the ability to heal, why not for MPQ? I find OBW's healing useful as I do not have Spidey blue to help me stunlock. It's all a matter of using proper characters for your own strategy.

Unknown

Solution!

Take away every character, nobody has any stars, We'll all be

SHEILD OPERATIVES,
We obtain 1 yellow, 1 green, and 1 purple each turn

Skills:
Moral Boost Countdown Timer
Intimidate Countdown Timer
Pistol Countdown Timer

The AI randomly selects two heros to battle with us. The only thing we do is toss out countdown timers and wait for them to activiate.

Unknown

Made this comment in a few threads recently but yes. The game promotes and rewards grinding. It is also limited by health packs and heal over time mechanics. There are only two healers, once you gain access to these healers you can play almost indefinitely, which makes them required. Healing is the single worst offender for diverse rosters.

What would change the game dynamics significantly would be to remove health packs and have your team healed automatically after each fight. Skipping would not be a problem nearly as much, most people skip to avoid fights you cannot win or hope to win without taking heavy losses. Don't mention skipping for retaliation / points win/loss that's a wash. But the game can become a different beast.

A different thing that could happen is keep health packs, but they only revive downed characters, name them revives or whatever. Damaged characters are healed after the fight. This would add some liability in losing characters during a match and allow some limitations on play if that is a desired game mechanic.

I know a couple people like the damage stays mechanic, I do not think I am one of them.

At the bare minimum they need to change (heal 1 health every second) to like (heal 1-3% health every second) or something along those lines. Ares is down + the time to regen, that's basically 8 hours. If you play on your phone you can health pack that when it regenerates. Steam players need to be at their computer to do that.

Unknown

There should be healers as there should be tanks as there should be support etc etc. You can almost make a case for all of those being OP in some way. What the devs must remember is that if its not fun to play then people wont pay to play. If the game consisted of very long,slow battles that require 3 health packs a match then its gonna get boring fast. I ( my opinion) want a fast paced game that i can play and play and play if i so choose to put the time in without having to spend lots of money to do so. Im happy to spend on hp for shields or roster slots etc, but you shouldnt make the whole game pay to play.

Unknown

IF THIS WERE MICKEY MOUSE CLUBHOUSE, WE'D ALL BE FIRST PLACE!

Unknown

Bugpop wrote:

Solution!

Take away every character, nobody has any stars, We'll all be

SHEILD OPERATIVES,
We obtain 1 yellow, 1 green, and 1 purple each turn

Skills:
Moral Boost Countdown Timer
Intimidate Countdown Timer
Pistol Countdown Timer

The AI randomly selects two heros to battle with us. The only thing we do is toss out countdown timers and wait for them to activiate.

^This, this is exactly what I said. he can read between the lines can this fella.

I'm not saying healing isn't useful (as long as you have that particular character and those particular powers levelled) I'm saying it's far too useful to be bestowed upon just two characters. Why not have the Holy Trinity indeed, but commit to it. At the moment you have 1 roster slot in many fights because you have your given character and you have your healing character (assuming you have it at all). Yey game design!

So the solution might be to make the next character a 3 or 2* healer, which will take around a month to get into mass circulation. It still doesn't solve the 'required character' slot. You kind of need to see past how you benefit from the mechanic and see it as part of the game and at the moment, in it's current implementation it promotes a poor gameplay style. I'm not saying it isn't enjoyable...who doesn't love 'haha I've just reset the match after the 8th turn because I was lucky enough to have repeated drops of a particular card' but it either needs to be spread around or reworked.

The alternative is to either significantly handicap yourself by not using one of these characters (assuming you have them) or wasting your time gaming the mechanic in a pointless PvE event. It's not good.

Zidius

SOLUTION!

get a healing character yourself

and

JOIN THE COOL KIDS CLUB!

Unknown

In all seriousness, I think it would be cool to have a Shield Agent fill a position in the lineup, give free AP, and throw down heal timers.

Unknown

Zidius wrote:

SOLUTION!

get a healing character yourself

and

JOIN THE COOL KIDS CLUB!

Have em both and abuse the hell out of it. I do whatever helps me win matches easier but it doesn't mean I think its good for the game.

My problem isnt with healing as a concept either. If they announced that every character without a third skill was getting a healing skill tomorrow I'd be grand with it. Ill always support the decision that promotes choice and variety and at the minute anti gravity and web bandages are a heavy blow to both

Unknown

You don't really need a healer for regular gameplay though: There are entire sets of fights where a healer provides zero value. However, the way the game is set up, if you don't have a downed character, you can just go to your favorite late prologue mission and heal up safely, getting 20 iso out of it.

It's a pretty silly thing, but without knowing how much money comes from health packs and how much comes from anything else, it's hard to say if it's worth fixing from the developer's perspective. Maybe the money made by having people be more invested in the game would provide more money than what they get from healthpack purchases, maybe not.

Nonce Equitaur 2

I've said many times that the current healing times are too long.

Currently, it takes a high-level Hulk over 8 hours to heal. A low-level Hawkeye will heal in minutes. This defies even comic book reality.

Above a certain level, character healing is so bad that the healthpacks are the only option if you want to use a character multiple times. If the max healing time for any character was an hour, and the max healing time for regenerators (Daken, Wolverine) was 20 minutes, the the healers (Spiderman, OBW) would be less mandatory than they are now. Anyone still wanting to churn through a lot of battles quickly would need to rely on healthpacks/healers, but more casual players wouldn't need them.

With natural healing fixed, Spiderman/OBW would stop dominating the game.

Moral

Health packs do what healing abilities don't:

Bring the dead back to life!

(Really need a zombie face)

Unknown

Moral wrote:

Health packs do what healing abilities don't:

Bring the dead back to life!

(Really need a zombie face)

We really need Marvel Zombies.

Unknown

It is a very tricky one to weigh.

Money gained from HP is a factor.
So is player retention from the damage healed over time mechanic. I am sure there is more than a handful of people who never gave the game a chance because of it. Some may quit if you auto healed after every fight. People are fickle.
Users may look towards spending resources on other things like packs or covers who knows which may increase or decrease profits, who knows.

I think the main thing is right now the developers are in the mind set that they want to present a game experience, and they tell us how they want it to be. The new pve constant scaling is proof of that. They take feedback up to a certain point, but they want scaling so they are forcing scaling. Despite a lot of topics saying how much better the Hulk/Hunt events were, how 1* teams keep winning brackets, even that one thread on a 1* player complaining he keeps on winning too many 3* covers and has no idea to progress. They want health packs in the game, and seeing by the patch preview notes on some minor/irrelevant health regen adjustments, proves that its in for the long haul at the moment.

Unknown

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

I've said many times that the current healing times are too long.

Currently, it takes a high-level Hulk over 8 hours to heal. A low-level Hawkeye will heal in minutes. This defies even comic book reality.

Above a certain level, character healing is so bad that the healthpacks are the only option if you want to use a character multiple times. If the max healing time for any character was an hour, and the max healing time for regenerators (Daken, Wolverine) was 20 minutes, the the healers (Spiderman, OBW) would be less mandatory than they are now. Anyone still wanting to churn through a lot of battles quickly would need to rely on healthpacks/healers, but more casual players wouldn't need them.

With natural healing fixed, Spiderman/OBW would stop dominating the game.

Ever try to heal Hulk with Spider Man after Magnetic Translocation?

Because Spider Man is so OP, he can heal 2k damage with no hands

Unknown

I hope the devs ignore this topic. It's probably the stupidest thing i have heard in a while.

Unknown

Unity wrote:

I hope the devs ignore this topic. It's probably the stupidest thing i have heard in a while.

It seems the intent of the OP is to spark discussion. You merely left a comment. DISCUSS!

Unknown

Bugpop wrote:

Unity wrote:

I hope the devs ignore this topic. It's probably the stupidest thing i have heard in a while.

It seems the intent of the OP is to spark discussion. You merely left a comment. DISCUSS!

Indeed, why just call the topic stupid. Lets call out some personal insults too, just as constructive as my/this post

Moral

Bugpop wrote:

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

I've said many times that the current healing times are too long.

Currently, it takes a high-level Hulk over 8 hours to heal. A low-level Hawkeye will heal in minutes. This defies even comic book reality.

Above a certain level, character healing is so bad that the healthpacks are the only option if you want to use a character multiple times. If the max healing time for any character was an hour, and the max healing time for regenerators (Daken, Wolverine) was 20 minutes, the the healers (Spiderman, OBW) would be less mandatory than they are now. Anyone still wanting to churn through a lot of battles quickly would need to rely on healthpacks/healers, but more casual players wouldn't need them.

With natural healing fixed, Spiderman/OBW would stop dominating the game.

Ever try to heal Hulk with Spider Man after Magnetic Translocation?

Because Spider Man is so OP, he can heal 2k damage with no hands

He can heal the Hulk to full with 18 blue and 18 yellow.

How broken is that?