Boost changes with Update 25 Fabruary 2014

Unknown

Waggon wrote:

Yeah they cost twice as much in iso now. 120iso for a +3/+3 AP boost. Can't wait to get the +20iso rewards after using one of those!

Considering they just raised them from 100 ISO to 200 ISO a few weeks ago, they are essentially 4 times as expensive as they were a month ago!

So, cash grab, or discouragement from using? If it's the latter just remove them from the game. Yes, I know it's optional, but the amount of stuff they want you to pay for to be more competitive, without grinding for months is getting ridiculous, especially since they keep upping the costs on some of it. Pay for boosts! Pay for health packs! Pay for character slots! Pay for HP! Pay for ISO! Or... Have fun with your 230 level opponents.

Unknown

Nemek wrote:

AsianInvasion wrote:

Why are you using boosts?

All you're doing is stunting your development.

You're much better off using that iso to level up your characters.

The only time I use them is the last frantic hours of an elite tourney or when I have maxed out at 10 count. Then I'll use three to open up space for a drop.

People wonder why their MMR is all out of whack? It's because you're punching above your weight class while juiced on boosts.

Yeah, they're just shifting boosts to be more of a 'special occasion' rather than the norm, which I'm fairly fine with.

And I understand frustration for players transitioning from 2star to 3star teams (the middle class suffers greatly as noobs rack up pve rewards playing vs glorified seed teams and the veteran elite pummel anything and everyone in their path across all competitions) I'm sure the tempatation to boost your way to a higher placement is significant. But trust me, as someone who used to abuse boosts (especially in 200 iso boost all days) I would give anything to get all that iso back now as I futiley try to level up my 3 stars.

MarvelMan

nicholasjohnconger wrote:

The devs changed the ONLY thing that wasn't broken, the boosts; and leave EVERYTHING else that os broken.

Boosts kind of were broken: they are massively overused.

As AsianInvasion says, you should be putting that ISO into leveling chars (at least til you have a number of 141s).

I only have an issue in that this was the second time they have increased the cost of boosts. First they changed +3 all to HP (that ticked me off as I dont think that boosts should be HP, just make it 500 ISO!) and double the rest, and now they are cutting what you get for 200 ISO by ~45% (18AP down to 10AP).

Unknown

Nemek wrote:

AsianInvasion wrote:

Why are you using boosts?

All you're doing is stunting your development.

You're much better off using that iso to level up your characters.

The only time I use them is the last frantic hours of an elite tourney or when I have maxed out at 10 count. Then I'll use three to open up space for a drop.

People wonder why their MMR is all out of whack? It's because you're punching above your weight class while juiced on boosts.

Yeah, they're just shifting boosts to be more of a 'special occasion' rather than the norm, which I'm fairly fine with.

Agreed on both fronts. The skip tax/victory bonus in PvP implementation also works towards eliminating ways for players to punch above their weight class on a consistent basis.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

AsianInvasion wrote:

Why are you using boosts?

All you're doing is stunting your development.

You're much better off using that iso to level up your characters.

The only time I use them is the last frantic hours of an elite tourney or when I have maxed out at 10 count. Then I'll use three to open up space for a drop.

People wonder why their MMR is all out of whack? It's because you're punching above your weight class while juiced on boosts.

I remember there was this commercial where an old Shaq was telling about his grandkids how back in his days they didn't have the moving basketball rim because after taking some sports drink, everyone become super awesome at basketball so they needed to invent the moving basketball rim to counter the effect of the said drink. It's the same issue here. If you don't want to be fighting guys way out of your league, don't take the super drugs that makes the game think you're that good. You can't just continue to take your drugs and win and then complain it's too hard. From the game's point of view you're still winning so it must assume your current opponents in PvE/PvP just aren't challenging enough. The game can't just assume you're supposed to suck when you still win all your games.

I admit, these days when I am using boost it's not just to punch above my weight, but often also as a safety net. Yeah, I can probably win without boost, but it will be slower and I will get hurt more or possibly even dead from a lucky enemy cascade, and often a single +3 color boost is what saves me from it. Simply put, the reason people try so hard to win is because the punishment for losing is so severe. If they accelerate the healing or make Health Packs much more common, I think I can deal with the discouragement of boosting yourself.

That being said, I'm sure a month from now people will settle with the new boost, only to start complaining about R49...

Unknown

Wait, so I'm supposed to lose all the time to make the game more playable? That's a great game design! Sorry, I play games for fun and to enjoy them, not to be beaten to a bloody pulp. Last I checked, this game isn't supposed to be Super Meat Boy, or Trials, or N+. There are plenty of games out there for the masochists.

Get rid of the damn scaling that punishes you for winning. I don't mind losing now and then, but I shouldn't have to lose constantly to make this game playable. ESPECIALLY when I have to wait hours to get my damn characters back. You want me to take on harder challenges and lose more often? Fine. Heal my characters after every battle.

I've never played a game that punishes you more and more for winning.

user311

MarvelMan wrote:

As AsianInvasion says, you should be putting that ISO into leveling chars

I agree with this. I was guilty of wasting my ISO on boosts until about a month ago when the prices changed. Then I changed how I play and now only use them against 200+ PVE.

MarvelMan

@folnevar

Scaling is necessary or it would just be a grind fest. They just need to find the happy middle ground that (fun)balances scaling and grinding. Not there yet, but they are working on it. Much less grindy than Hunt but recent events (current included) are too focused on scaling and make it a clock watching game for renewed health packs.

akboyce

folnevar wrote:

Wait, so I'm supposed to lose all the time to make the game more playable? That's a great game design! Sorry, I play games for fun and to enjoy them, not to be beaten to a bloody pulp. Last I checked, this game isn't supposed to be Super Meat Boy, or Trials, or N+. There are plenty of games out there for the masochists.

Get rid of the damn scaling that punishes you for winning. I don't mind losing now and then, but I shouldn't have to lose constantly to make this game playable. ESPECIALLY when I have to wait hours to get my damn characters back. You want me to take on harder challenges and lose more often? Fine. Heal my characters after every battle.

I've never played a game that punishes you more and more for winning.

Actually any system that is using a match making rating is supposed to have you lose. You are where you are supposed to be when you have a 50/50 record. This works great in games where every game is an even fight but when losing means you have to wait hours before trying again it all starts to fall apart.

Simply put the MMR system is supposed to make you lose half your games but with the lose penalty losing half your games means LONG periods of inability to play at all. IF they want to use MMR for PVP then they can not have as severe penalties for losing.

EDIT:
Now this is not talking about PVE. I will agree the scaling and balance there is way off.

Unknown

Here's hoping they intended to halve the price of boosts back to 100 ISO per batch, and simply 'overlooked' that change before pushing the update. If they truly didn't intend to change the price of boosts, then this should be entirely uncontroversial, and implemented ASAP.

Unknown

Well looks like I'm going to treat my retired boosts the same way I do with Mega Elixers in Final Fantasy, hoard them and never use them.

Unknown

The scaling on Devil Dino + Bagman mission was fine. It was also the only mission that got easier, because it was actually hard. This implies all the other 230X3 missions weren't really that hard as people clearly aren't really losing to them (at least not ofte enough) because Spiderman makes the world go round.

And sure you can say a lot of these missions are only beatable because of Spiderman, but there are a lot of people out there with Spiderman, so as a measure of community scaling, there's nothing wrong with assuming players ought to have Spiderman.

Unknown

Riker87 wrote:

Well looks like I'm going to treat my retired boosts the same way I do with Mega Elixers in Final Fantasy, hoard them and never use them.

So, so true...

radiopy

Also, I can hold more than ten and I'm getting them more often after battles.

Unknown

Wait... You can buy boosts? Is this unlocked in the prologue or did i skip it.

Unknown

radiopy wrote:

Also, I can hold more than ten and I'm getting them more often after battles.

They raised the max cap? Nice didn't see that mentioned anywhere.

reckless442

folnevar wrote:

Wait, so I'm supposed to lose all the time to make the game more playable? That's a great game design! Sorry, I play games for fun and to enjoy them, not to be beaten to a bloody pulp. Last I checked, this game isn't supposed to be Super Meat Boy, or Trials, or N+. There are plenty of games out there for the masochists.

Get rid of the damn scaling that punishes you for winning. I don't mind losing now and then, but I shouldn't have to lose constantly to make this game playable. ESPECIALLY when I have to wait hours to get my damn characters back. You want me to take on harder challenges and lose more often? Fine. Heal my characters after every battle.

I've never played a game that punishes you more and more for winning.

Thank you. And to do change the boosts in the middle of a major PVP event so that I can't restock with the boosts I was using to fight the all lvl 141 opponents I consistently get matched against as a reward for winning AND make it so that I constantly lose 10 ISO while I try to find battles that actually make it worth my while to break shields since 99% of the pairings I get offered are worth 15 points or less and are nothing more than invitations to lose points to those opponents in far greater amounts than I have any chance of winning.

Making it even more confusing, I decided to try to tank in the Psylocke event and was just awarded some of the retired boosts -- the stockpile boost for my win with the tank team. How can I win a "retired" boost?

radiopy

I assumed the raised the cap. I have 22 critical boosts right now.