Funbalancing - Mags & Spidey

NorthernPolarity

saints2death wrote:

Spidey is over powered because his blue skill cost 2AP. It's not going to be fixed by doing something to his webs or his protect tiles. Make the blue stun cost 6AP and he's fixed.

Make it cost 6AP and he'll be completely unplayable. The tricky part is nerfing him while making him still viable.

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

saints2death wrote:

Spidey is over powered because his blue skill cost 2AP. It's not going to be fixed by doing something to his webs or his protect tiles. Make the blue stun cost 6AP and he's fixed.

Make it cost 6AP and he'll be completely unplayable. The tricky part is nerfing him while making him still viable.

How exactly is he unplayable?

Unknown

I just don't see the point in nerfing these two. They are elite characters in the game and don't break the competitve balance of PvP in any discernable way. Not in the same way Rags did in allowing teams to win in 60 seconds or less.

We have more than enough 'meh' 3-star characters in this game (Daredevil, Psylocke, Loki) ... we don't need more.

saints2death wrote:

How exactly is he unplayable?

Who is going to spend 6AP on a one-turn stun? Use your brain. Even Modern Widow gives you better stun-capabiliy than that.

MaxCavalera

I think 4 at max might be enough that is same cost as venom's single stun plus you have the web tile boost.

Unknown

Toxicadam wrote:

I just don't see the point in nerfing these two. They are elite characters in the game and don't break the competitve balance of PvP in any discernable way. Not in the same way Rags did in allowing teams to win in 60 seconds or less.

We have more than enough 'meh' 3-star characters in this game (Daredevil, Psylocke, Loki) ... we don't need more.

Be honest, you use Spidey every match. That's why you don't want him balanced. It's not for the betterment of the game, it's the selfish desire to keep playing exactly how you've been playing.

Yes he's over powered in PVP. That's the reason why he is one of the most common players in tournaments.
He is severely over powered in PVE, which causes insane scaling on enemies to the point where you have to have a 5 blue spidey to beat. Guess what, not everyone uses blue spidey.

Unknown

Toxicadam wrote:

I just don't see the point in nerfing these two. They are elite characters in the game and don't break the competitve balance of PvP in any discernable way. Not in the same way Rags did in allowing teams to win in 60 seconds or less.

We have more than enough 'meh' 3-star characters in this game (Daredevil, Psylocke, Loki) ... we don't need more.

saints2death wrote:

How exactly is he unplayable?

Who is going to spend 6AP on a one-turn stun? Use your brain. Even Modern Widow gives you better stun-capabiliy than that.

Because the stun gets bets better each time you use it. If you keep the cost a 2 AP, then the balance should be Spidey can only stun one person at a time with a limit of 1 turn.

Unknown

I think making it a 6 ap, 5 turn stun would probably balance playability and cost. I'd combine it with lowering the cost of his heal, unless they want to keep the web tile mechanic. Alternately, they make it 6 ap, 5 turns, creates 2 web tiles, and keeps the interaction with his yellow. Something like:

Level 1 - 3 turn stun
Level 2 - Also creates one web tile
Level 3 - 4 turn stun
Level 4 - Creates 2 web tiles
Level 5 - 5 turn stun

farlus

Just spitballing here, but would a variable cost for the stun based on number of web tiles help at all? So a 1 turn stun would be 2 AP, a 5 turn stun would be 6 AP. I'm not versed enough to know how that relates to other character stuns (11 AP for damage + 4 turn stun for C. Storm, right? What about Widow?) But making stuns that last longer cost more seems natural.

I haven't played Spidey enough to know any better, so feel free to politely shoot me down if this isn't even near a proper solution.

NorthernPolarity

Toxicadam wrote:

I just don't see the point in nerfing these two. They are elite characters in the game and don't break the competitve balance of PvP in any discernable way. Not in the same way Rags did in allowing teams to win in 60 seconds or less.

We have more than enough 'meh' 3-star characters in this game (Daredevil, Psylocke, Loki) ... we don't need more.

I think having a character that completely trivializes games on offense with enough blue would probably count towards "breaking the balance of PvP". Having teams that are good on defense should be a viable strategy for PvP, but isn't right now due to spidey stun-locking everyone. He is also the reason why PvE nodes all scale to 230: the devs wouldn't scale to this extent if Spidey didn't exist.

Unknown

The problem with Spidey is that he can put out too many webs and his stuns last for too long. Both his yellow and purple skills are dependent on the number of webs, and both skills can be nerfed by just reducing the number of webs that can be put in play (blue skill). Otherwise his yellow and purple skills are fine.

So the focus of nerfing should be on the blue skill. There are two problems with the blue skill. First the cost is too low (2 AP). Second, the stuns last for too long (5 turns). This leads to the whole problem of perma-stunning the opposing team.

This can be solved by increasing the cost (for sure, since there should be no 2 AP skills in the game) and/or decreasing the duration of stuns (to 2 or 3 turns max).

Now, the way I see it, for sure they will increase the blue cost, since they are moving to having no skills below a 6 AP cost with few exceptions.

The question becomes......how can you have the blue skill cost 6 AP, but still be worthwhile? It can't just stun 1 hero and generate 1 web, that would make the skill worthless, and at the same time completely neuter the yellow and purple skills, because you would never generate enough webs to make them worthwhile.

My though is they could tie it in with something else, kind of like BP's yellow skill.....just as an example, for every 15 environmental points consumed, it generates a web and stuns the target for 1 turn, up to X turns/webs (5 might be OK at that point). That way you can generate more than 1 web, it makes the stun effective, and it also keeps the yellow and purple skills viable.

MaxCavalera

farlus wrote:

Just spitballing here, but would a variable cost for the stun based on number of web tiles help at all? So a 1 turn stun would be 2 AP, a 5 turn stun would be 6 AP. I'm not versed enough to know how that relates to other character stuns (11 AP for damage + 4 turn stun for C. Storm, right? What about Widow?) But making stuns that last longer cost more seems natural.

I haven't played Spidey enough to know any better, so feel free to politely shoot me down if this isn't even near a proper solution.

This seems interesting pretty much the inverse of how psylock works now.

Unknown

I like the idea of making his blue like Ares' green. It's a single target stun, and it absorbs all available blue to cast. Duration of stun is dependent on how much blue AP was consumed (6-8 AP to cast, 1 turn stun per 2AP consumed). This preserves his ability to buy considerable time when an opponent is preparing to launch a nuke, but takes the perpetual stun-lock out of the equation.

This would also effectively re-balance his heal as well, given that this would greatly reduce the number of web tiles on the board towards the end of a match. I do think he should get a boost to defense tile strength or some form of damage increase to compensate for these changes.

MaxCavalera

walkyourpath wrote:

I like the idea of making his blue like Ares' green. It's a single target stun, and it absorbs all available blue to cast. Duration of stun is dependent on how much blue AP was consumed (6-8 AP to cast, 1 turn stun per 2AP consumed). This preserves his ability to buy considerable time when an opponent is preparing to launch a nuke, but takes the perpetual stun-lock out of the equation.

This would also effectively re-balance his heal as well, given that this would greatly reduce the number of web tiles on the board towards the end of a match. I do think he should get a boost to defense tile strength or some form of damage increase to compensate for these changes.

If you went this route you could make it a suffocating stun doing x damage per turn stunned or 5% of max health making it better for big targets.

Unknown

MaxCavalera wrote:

walkyourpath wrote:

I like the idea of making his blue like Ares' green. It's a single target stun, and it absorbs all available blue to cast. Duration of stun is dependent on how much blue AP was consumed (6-8 AP to cast, 1 turn stun per 2AP consumed). This preserves his ability to buy considerable time when an opponent is preparing to launch a nuke, but takes the perpetual stun-lock out of the equation.

This would also effectively re-balance his heal as well, given that this would greatly reduce the number of web tiles on the board towards the end of a match. I do think he should get a boost to defense tile strength or some form of damage increase to compensate for these changes.

If you went the route you could make it a suffocating stun doing x damage per turn stunned.

I like it.

NorthernPolarity

walkyourpath wrote:

MaxCavalera wrote:

walkyourpath wrote:

I like the idea of making his blue like Ares' green. It's a single target stun, and it absorbs all available blue to cast. Duration of stun is dependent on how much blue AP was consumed (6-8 AP to cast, 1 turn stun per 2AP consumed). This preserves his ability to buy considerable time when an opponent is preparing to launch a nuke, but takes the perpetual stun-lock out of the equation.

This would also effectively re-balance his heal as well, given that this would greatly reduce the number of web tiles on the board towards the end of a match. I do think he should get a boost to defense tile strength or some form of damage increase to compensate for these changes.

If you went the route you could make it a suffocating stun doing x damage per turn stunned.

I like it.

+1.

Unknown

MaxCavalera wrote:

walkyourpath wrote:

I like the idea of making his blue like Ares' green. It's a single target stun, and it absorbs all available blue to cast. Duration of stun is dependent on how much blue AP was consumed (6-8 AP to cast, 1 turn stun per 2AP consumed). This preserves his ability to buy considerable time when an opponent is preparing to launch a nuke, but takes the perpetual stun-lock out of the equation.

This would also effectively re-balance his heal as well, given that this would greatly reduce the number of web tiles on the board towards the end of a match. I do think he should get a boost to defense tile strength or some form of damage increase to compensate for these changes.

If you went this route you could make it a suffocating stun doing x damage per turn stunned or 5% of max health making it better for big targets.

combine this with my earlier idea of making a blue an active+ passive and you likely just perfectly balanced spidey, (generate a web per blue match)
Since you'd still have the webs generated for the other two abilities to stay relevant as they arent the reason spidey needs a change.

Unknown

His purple is such a weak and uninteresting ability that it to just be outright reworked.

Unknown

bonerang wrote:

His purple is such a weak and uninteresting ability that it to just be outright reworked.

You are kidding right? His purple is really powerful. 3x 446 protect tiles at max?

akboyce

So I think one of the major problems with Spidey is a lack of levers. There are just so few numbers in his skills to tweak that balancing him is nearly impossible. His blue only has cost and stun duration. Each one of those has very little range. This is also why his level up effect is only reducing cost. Compare it to something like Punisher's green which has cost, upfront damage, blast size, strike tile strength, strike tile number. If Punisher's green is found to be too good or too weak they can make minor adjustments to any of those... while even a 1 point change in either lever of Spdiey's blue is a huge change. Therefore the first thing I think his skills need are simply more numbers so they can adjust them based on how he performs.

So here is a little something I came up with these goals in mind:
Reduce Spider-Man's power
Keep his role the same
Add more numbers for future balancing
Make it a choice on how to build him (No obvious best build)

I also believe there should be ally and enemy web tiles to reduce the Spider-Man V Spdier-Man issues.

Blue: Cost 3
Creates a 2 turn count down tile that creates an ally yellow web tile and stuns the target for turns equal to the number of ally web tiles.
Level 2: Countdown gains if this tile is destroyed stuns the target for one turn.
Level 3: Countdown reduced to 1
Level 4: Can select where to place countdown tile
Level 5: Creates 2 web tiles and stuns for half the web tiles rounded down.

Levers: Count down turns, stun length, cost, location of countdown, web tiles created, stun to web ratio, destroyed tile stun duration

Yellow: Cost 10?
Heals X + Y per ally web tile. Removes ally web tiles
Level 2: Increase X
Level 3: Increase Y
Level 4: Also counts ally purple protect tiles (does not remove protect tiles)
Level 5: Does not consume Ally Web Tiles (or consumes half based on power level)

Levers: X, Y, What it counts, cost, number of tiles consumed

Purple:
This one has enough levers as is. Cost, Base Power, Max number, Additional per Web Tile. These can be adjusted as needed.

Obviously the numbers and level order can be changed but the LEVERS are all there and could be adjusted which the current version lacks.

Unknown

akboyce wrote:

So I think one of the major problems with Spidey is a lack of levers. There are just so few numbers in his skills to tweak that balancing him is nearly impossible. His blue only has cost and stun duration. Each one of those has very little range. This is also why his level up effect is only reducing cost. Compare it to something like Punisher's green which has cost, upfront damage, blast size, strike tile strength, strike tile number. If Punisher's green is found to be too good or too weak they can make minor adjustments to any of those... while even a 1 point change in either lever of Spdiey's blue is a huge change. Therefore the first thing I think his skills need are simply more numbers so they can adjust them based on how he performs.

So here is a little something I came up with these goals in mind:
Reduce Spider-Man's power
Keep his role the same
Add more numbers for future balancing
Make it a choice on how to build him (No obvious best build)

I also believe there should be ally and enemy web tiles to reduce the Spider-Man V Spdier-Man issues.

Blue: Cost 3
Creates a 2 turn count down tile that creates an ally yellow web tile and stuns the target for turns equal to the number of ally web tiles.
Level 2: Countdown gains if this tile is destroyed stuns the target for one turn.
Level 3: Countdown reduced to 1
Level 4: Can select where to place countdown tile
Level 5: Creates 2 web tiles and stuns for half the web tiles rounded down.

Levers: Count down turns, stun length, cost, location of countdown, web tiles created, stun to web ratio, destroyed tile stun duration

Yellow: Cost 10?
Heals X + Y per ally web tile. Removes ally web tiles
Level 2: Increase X
Level 3: Increase Y
Level 4: Also counts ally purple protect tiles (does not remove protect tiles)
Level 5: Does not consume Ally Web Tiles (or consumes half based on power level)

Levers: X, Y, What it counts, cost, number of tiles consumed

Purple:
This one has enough levers as is. Cost, Base Power, Max number, Additional per Web Tile. These can be adjusted as needed.

Obviously the numbers and level order can be changed but the LEVERS are all there and could be adjusted which the current version lacks.

3 is way too cheap still. No skill should be less than 6 AP. It should always take at least two moves to fill the AP for a power. It's not the mechanism that needs to change, it's the cost.