'Boosted' Characters Rebalancing Post-Champions

TheRealJRad

Glad I checked the forums before I spent money today.

The Viceroy Returns

Bowgentle wrote:

Nope, level 290 Juggs still has 24k Health and hits for 7350 per headbutt.
I WISH they would reign that in.

Yep. Right now in the Hulk PVE, my final node he's Level 290, and his Headbutt does 7350 damage. He does do 3675 to himself, but he also has 24360 Health...
Good thing I have a 4 3 3 Level 335 OML to throw in front of that or else I'd be struggling.
I feel for everyone that has to try and deal with stupid high PVE scaling without OML's healing or Winfinite (which can't be used this go around of character boosts because Prof X is boosted, making Blue the strongest color).

grunzadin

The changes make sense -- a 240 3* shouldn't be per se more powerful than a 240 4*.

What I think needs to happen now is reconsidering how much of a boost 2* and 3* characters should get. Perhaps weekly boosts should be on par with featured character boosts (so that a newly champed 3* is closer to 300 than 250).

JVReal

Nerf the curve after the level 270 for 3*, if the concern is "when boosted" they are overpowered... then nerf it at the point that they become overpowered.

I don't want my champed 3* nerfed when he's not boosted.

CaptainFrugal

The Viceroy Returns wrote:

Bowgentle wrote:

Nope, level 290 Juggs still has 24k Health and hits for 7350 per headbutt.
I WISH they would reign that in.

Yep. Right now in the Hulk PVE, my final node he's Level 290, and his Headbutt does 7350 damage. He does do 3675 to himself, but he also has 24360 Health...
Good thing I have a 4 3 3 Level 335 OML to throw in front of that or else I'd be struggling.
I feel for everyone that has to try and deal with stupid high PVE scaling without OML's healing or Winfinite (which can't be used this go around of character boosts because Prof X is boosted, making Blue the strongest color).

Yes it sucks, I can't beat that node. I even had a decent drop and still lost.

CaptainFreaky

grunzadin wrote:

The changes make sense -- a 240 3* shouldn't be per se more powerful than a 240 4*.

What I think needs to happen now is reconsidering how much of a boost 2* and 3* characters should get. Perhaps weekly boosts should be on par with featured character boosts (so that a newly champed 3* is closer to 300 than 250).

I have to disagree. My boosted level 240 3* characters were not more powerful than they typical 4* teams I faced in PVP preR91 (before 3* boost nerf). They were competitive, but no way were they more powerful. The top tier 4* (what you see in PVP) generally has more health and greater power/flexibility than the boost of the week 3* characters (which is a roster limited by who is boosted that week). A level 240 4* team can be used every PVP (since you don't need boosts to compete) and is more powerful than almost any 3* team you can throw at them.

Can I win with a boosted 3* team against a 4* team? Certainly not as reliably as before and not without massive hits above 700 score in PVP. So, basically, Demiurge got us to invest huge sums of ISO into champing 3* characters WITHOUT telling us the downside of DRAMATICALLY REDUCING the power of 3* above level 166. That is pretty damn shady in my book. I will give them the benefit of the doubt that there was "miscommunication" internally during the Champion roll-out, but I have to believe that someone could have said something in the intervening 7 weeks....

All I know is that had I known how badly boosted 3* was nerfed, I would have done things very differently in the week after Champions released - namely bought more covers with HP before that feature expired and put all my ISO into 4* characters instead of Championing 3*'s.

madok

So is a non-championed 3* at 166 nerfed as well when boosted or is it only for championed characters?

Linkster79

"David wrote:

Moore"]We can confirm that this change was intended. New scaling for “boosted/buffed” 1, 2 and 3-Star characters was introduced to ensure that 4 and 5-Star Heroes were stronger than 1, 2 and 3-Star Heroes at the same level.

May I ask at what point in the last 3 weeks were you made aware that this was an intended change? I ask as we have been asking for confirmation if it was intentional and have until now been ignored.

"David wrote:

Moore"]

We greatly appreciate your feedback on how the updates have affected your gameplay experience. While there are no current changes planned, we are definitely open to making adjustments in the future.

If you would like to list specific instances (in the General forum thread) where you believe this change has impacted your game experience negatively, we'd like to know. From there we can begin to assess the info and can make any needed changes based on your feedback. Your help would be appreciated and immensely beneficial to us.

Thank you!

There have been at least 3 threads already made that has oodles of examples of feedback, please may yourself or a moderator link to which one you would like us to post in so we know which one either yourself D3 Go! or Demiurge is most likely to read?

Thank for your (somewhat delayed) communication regarding this issue.

JVReal

madok wrote:

So is a non-championed 3* at 166 nerfed as well when boosted or is it only for championed characters?

To my knowledge, up to 166 stayed the same. ANY increase past 166 whether it's Championing or Weekly Boosted (or Weakly Boosted?) or Both, is nerfed.

madok

aesthetocyst wrote:

JVReal wrote:

Any character at a given level, no matter how they got to that level, is the same.

A 3* rostered at level 166 is the the same as an underleveled 3* buffed to 166.

A 3* championed to level 180 is the same as an underleveled 3* buffed to level 180.

Etc, ad nauseum.

Thus, whenever you see a character at a given level, they are the same.

A level 3 rose is a level 3 rose is a level 3 rose ....

If anyone can document any exceptions to this please do so!

My thought is related to your documented S curve. Did they write the nerf code that says hey when someone at 167 gets buffed, they will be nerfed according to the new rules because they broke a certain level threshold where the damage comes back down. But if a character at 166 doesn't break that threshold to get the nerfed logic code, it would be funny.

I would totally laugh my **** off if that was true and they actually coded it so that would make us want to level up our characters to max level BUT not champion them. That would truly be the most amazing code ever.

chamber44

aesthetocyst wrote:

JVReal wrote:

madok wrote:

So is a non-championed 3* at 166 nerfed as well when boosted or is it only for championed characters?

To my knowledge, up to 166 stayed the same. ANY increase past 166 whether it's Championing or Weekly Boosted (or Weakly Boosted?) or Both, is nerfed.

Any character at a given level, no matter how they got to that level, is the same.

A 3* rostered at level 166 is the the same as an underleveled 3* buffed to 166.

A 3* championed to level 180 is the same as an underleveled 3* buffed to level 180.

Etc, ad nauseum.

Thus, whenever you see a character at a given level, they are the same.

A level 3 rose is a level 3 rose is a level 3 rose ....

If anyone can document any exceptions to this please do so!

well, covers will also dictate this too, so a 5/5/3 166 should be stronger than a 3/3/3 buffed to 166, yes?

Konman

This is just another kick in the teeth to anyone transitioning to any higher tier. DDQ was made more difficult recently, limiting 2* and 3* transition. The transition to 4* has always been piss poor to non-existent. And getting 5*s is totally random, unless you whale the supposedly un-whaleable. And now, the opportunity to increase the effectiveness, the power of your maxed out characters through Championing, was effectively a lie.

The only consistent way to get a 4* you want, is to reach 1000 in PVP, and you've just made that nigh impossible for the players that actually need to reach 1000. Brilliant.

Buret0

Reinforces my decision to sell off a bunch of my 3*s for ISO.

Before the nerf, there were some times when I would bring a 3* into battle with my 4*s. Generally, the boosted 3* were a target to kill first because they were glass cannons. Boosted Cyclops was doing a ton of damage, but he also had about 12 or 13K health when he was max boosted.

If the problem was that 4*s were weaker at the same level, the answer wasn't to make the 3*s weaker. A boosted character SHOULD feel strong. A boosted 3* should feel as powerful as an unboosted 4* of the same level. Just make them glass cannons. Maybe give them some 1,000 damage per AP abilities (like Full Blast was when boosted), just don't give them 14K to 18K health like a 270 4*. 4*s were still better than 3*s, but it made some team compositions possible with a mixed team of 4*s and boosted 3*s. Now the only 3*s you can bring are battery types.

You force us to use a boosted 3* in every event. Nerfing them only makes the other two that much more important, which makes it essential that you have the flavour of the week 4* and/or some great 5*.

There was a nice progression between 3* and 4* before, but a huge gap between 4*s and 5*s. Now there is a huge gap between 3*s and 4*, while boosted 4*s can now keep up with 5*s (in the same way 3*s used to keep up with 4*s).

Now, even the boosted 3* teams that I come across in PvP are a cakewalk to destroy. Is this change good for me? Totally. Is this change good for the game? No way. Unnerf the 3*s.

ClydeFrog76

And so my transition to 4* becomes even harder.

Why do you keep treating me like a ginger stepchild, devs? Why?

optimus2861

Xenoberyll wrote:

mpqr7 wrote:

Very funny, so they gave us more power and then took away more power. Not really sure what the point of it all is! I guess championing really is more about the prizes you win....

actually it's about making people buy 40packs and considering the amount of max champed 3s, i think it was pretty successful.

And the amount of champion 4* and even champion 5* amongst the mega-whales.

I genuinely think that was the real reason for the champion system: keep the mega-whales buying loads & loads of 40 packs, even, and especially, after they had their 13-cover 5* characters completed. If there was nothing left for the mega-whales to buy after they had their 450 Surfers & Logans & Phoenixes, well, that was it. Even Demiurge isn't (yet) so blatantly money-hungry that they'll only release new 5* characters from here on out (I give it 6 months or so). So they devised a system that suddenly made the mega-whales require up to 4000 additional 3* covers and, what is it, another 2000 4* covers? That's a couple of hundred 40-packs for each mega-whale in the game, which ought to keep the lights on for a few more months.

And of course, in P2W games like this, the mere freebies and low-cashers can't be permitted to actually win against the whales, so the entire 3* tier and below got whacked with a giant nerf bat. Pay big or get lost is the message now.

I still don't think this game will make it to 3 years. It's approaching "squeeze every last dime" mode. Ah well. Maybe I'll actually reach 9 or 10 covers for just 1 4* by then.

TheOncomingStorm

Funniest thing about the situation. 5*s broke the game. Instead of fixing the the real problem, they are breaking everything else, making the problem worse.

I know nothing (or less) about game design. However, it seems almost logical that if the game broke when a certain feature was introduced, the best solution is one that addresses that specific feature, not ignores it.

P.S. Players have reported for months the 5* system, from tokens to match damage, is broken. Then again, these are players who actually play with and against these characters. Obviously, their first hand knowledge and experience is less valuable than theoretical design.

Dragon_Nexus

For me, what is truely agonising about this, is this is coming off the back of the developer's "Quality of life" changes.

We've seen some really nice stuff lately. Quicksilver got rebalanced into something much better. Iron Man Model 40 went from one of the worst 3*s to one of the best. Vision's getting an update soon, too. They're rebalancing the old 3*s that needed revitalising. They brought in Championing, something that gave me purpose once my 3* roster was finished and it was fun. More ways to earn CP! The removal of 20 ISO rewards! SO MUCH good stuff happening all at once. Quality of life had been improving, for sure.

And then this? Doesn't this just feel like this way-too-late announcement just undoes everything?

It just feels so surprisingly out of touch with the comminuty and the way we play. As someone else pointed out, the primary rewards in PvE and PvP are 3* and have been 3* since the game launched. The plateux of power for many is building up the 3* roster. 4* is the next step and after all of the advances to help people along to that step by adding a cover at 1000 points, suddenly we can't reach it because we're not powerful enough.

It used to be a group of non-max-level 3*s were an easy target. Not level 240? You're mine! Now it feels like a 3* team of any level is a target. It's like me taking my roster and seeing a 2* team worth 45 points. Obviously they're going to get stomped on.

I just cannot understand how demiurge could be so blind and so cackhanded with this change. There doesn't seem to have been any kind of thought to it either, just a flat 30% drop in damage across the board. It's such a blunt instrument to a problem they manufactured themselves.

Pylgrim

I'm positive this thread holds the record for red-name sticky thread quickest to be un-stickied, ever. So not only took a month of begging for the issue to be acknowledged, it's also now quickly being swept under the rug. Wouldn't be surprised if it gets moved to the suggestions sub-forum next.

I don't think we need any more confirmation than this that the devs know that this change rightly outrages a significant percentage of the playerbase.

theshadeofopal

Give us increased character sell rates for 1-3*s for a few weeks or at least a "levels higher 40/94/166 maybe smaller in game then they appear" for a while. Or just ya know, ask some people before you initiate a sizable meta change.

Druss

What I don't understand is why a Lv 266 3* shouldn't be a bit stronger than a Lv 270 4*?

After all, to get the Lv 266 3* you need to have collected 113 covers for the character - hardly a 10 minute job!

As stated by others this change primarily disadvantages the 3-4* transitioners, the one group that was probably struggling the most anyway.

This change has made me give up on PvP for good - I do have some maxed 4*'s (older, weaker ones) but am faced with better maxed 4*'s straight after the seeds & now the significant part of my roster (3*'s) are now useless.

On a separate note, asking for our opinions when we have been consistently ignored for 7 weeks did make me chuckle.