Funbalancing - Mags & Spidey

SunCrusher

By the time any of us lower leveled players get to the point of being able to build even semi-usable versions of these 'OP' versions of these characters (does anyone remember how painful it is to try and use these characters when you have a grand total of three covers max for them and with zero duplicates?), they're going to be like a bunch of house cats - neturered, spayed, and fat and absolutely uninterested in doing anything.

I don't see a point of nerfing because my characters are barely usable as they are and it's going to take a while to build them stronger. This is because I am newish and not happy hardcore player and therefore not seeing/encountering the OPness being talked about and I know this. Heck, I don't even own a Spider-Man!

I know that in the hardcore group where such OPness is seen pretty much everywhere, there is a point and a concern and I understand and see that.

As a newer player who isn't spending sleepless nights and a lot of money to grind my way up high (I buy slots for my rosters), I find myself more and more discouraged from wanting to build better characters because with the way it is going, it's like finally playing with someone's leftover iPhone... 3G when everyone else - who tossed their 3Gs to the latecomers - is now on an iPhone 5.

There might as well be a warning attached to every usable higher level character in the game that says:

WARNING: WILL BE NERFED WITHIN A FEW MONTHS OF BEING RELEASED TO THE HARDCORE PLAYERS AND PLAYERS WHO CAN'T CATCH UP WILL GET THE NERFED VERSION.

Thanos

Ever since i got my spidey to 5 blue i couldn't imagine playing without him. Recently I finally got my c.mags playable at 5/4/2 level 77 and he is a lot of fun. I now only use spidey every couple matches to heal. Going to try and get mag's final two purple covers in the next lightning rounds. I really wish they'd ,at the very least, announce what they have in mind for these two. Have over 200k iso saved and would love to put into mags. On another note, getting really tired of being afraid to put iso into a character for fear of it being neutered. To me that's just bad business.

Unknown

seriously...if Spidey don't stun, what good is he??? He is a 3 star not 1 star. Come on guys.

over_clocked

I only use Spidey occasionally with Venom to devour 10k and healthier dudes, because I don't have ultra damaging types that can take those out quickly enough. Otherwise I rely on oBW's AP steal and infinite loops by mStorm or Thor and strike tile damage provided by Punisher, Panther, Daken, Wolverine, etc.
Spidey 1) doesn't steal AP; 2) doesn't have any board-altering or clearing skills; 3) doesn't offer anything offensive. He can't win a game by himself, unless you have nothing else to do but play stunlock 24/7. Venom combo is super fun, but not always possible or even productive. Sometimes when running Venom/Spidey against buff opponents I realize that I'd have killed the enemy twice already with simple strike damage rather than with the tedious devour routine.
Spidey is also great when you have to face Ares and two minions that feed him 2 green AP every turn, for example. There's no way you can steal all of that and even if you target minions first, Ares is bound to fire some leftover green. Besides OHKO, stunning is the only option, either with Spidey, cStorm or anybody else capable. lvl 230 Juggernaut is also cheapass and extremely dangerous and Spider-Man fittingly can neutralize the danger.

2SunCrusher: I know exactly how you feel because older players had the opportunity to play with unnerfed Loki (!); classic Storm who used to feed red passively and was considered OP; 2 red AP Ragnarok spam; all the Thorverine glory (I didn't have those two maxed out when funbalance happened, but I had to redo Thor anyway). But newer players have access to newer characters, too, who are also strong, e.g. Punisher, Panther, Psylocke, Ares. We often joke about cash grab types of characters, but we're still playing and competing for these new characters. I know that I enjoy all of my characters who I have more than 3 covers for, a lot (except Daredevil, but it's not his fault). Even Moonstone and Cap have their moments and can be useful (I don't keep my Bagmen and Yelenas though). More counters to Spider-Man and other 'OP' characters (Magneto, I dunno, who else? Panther?) and we'd be super fine. I'm all for diversity and previous 'OP' characters finding hard opposition in new characters or combos, not just by being nerfed to oblivion.

Unknown

I would combine some idea pitched in before me, here is my version for 5 blue:

- Consumes up to 8 AP
- Stuns target for 1 turn / 2 AP
- Create 1 web tile / 2 AP consumed

I am capping it at 8, because I dont like the idea of 5+ turn stuns.
Also, web tiles are only used for healing this way.

Thoughts?

Unknown

magickdonut wrote:

Why is everyone so fixated on nerfs? Icex has stated that they are trying to stay away from nerfs (as it causes players who invested iso into a nerfed character a lot of distress). He said that instead the focus will be to buff underused characters to make them viable for play. If you were to take away spideys stunlocking, what else is he good for? Low hp, and very low damage output - the character would be broken. The point of funbalancing now should be to make other characters playable.

This.

Again and again people are demanding these nerfs -- why?? It doesn't make offense impossible like Rags did. It's not causing everyone to use the exact same characters like Thorverine did. I just sounds like complaining from people who don't want to make the effort to improve.

For full disclosure, I have a 141 Mags and a ~110 Spidey. I use Mags often because he is a great character. Overpowered? Yeah, no arguments there. However, he causes me far less alarm on offense than OBW -- better nerf her too! While we're at it, let's get rid of Hulk's black power -- that makes battles hard too. Challenges suck.

And Spidey? I stopped leveling him because frankly, he's not very good. On defense, he does **** damage and is paper thin. His heals require a ton of blue and yellow to be effective and his stun is easily mitigated through deprivation and quick elimination. On offense, stun-locking is a weak, slow, and unreliable mechanic employed when people are trying to play above their levels. I pull him in occasionally to heal the group, but when I do so there is always the fear that I'm exposing myself -- putting him on your team is a like placing a bulls eye on your squad. Using him as a crutch to win against teams above your level is only going to backfire. You limit your skills, expose your defense, double your play time, and raise your MMR to make yourself a juicy target to higher level teams.

Regardless, the benefits provided by these characters are for the player and don't have any significant impact on the AI. If you are seeing Spiderman in every fight, or if your teams are getting defeated by him, build a better roster and level up your heroes. Upset because players are able to heal their teams and play longer and your can't? You have the same access to his covers as everyone else does. Magneto chaining combos? Better play will prevent that.

Demiurge is doing a fantastic job offering more and more options for us. Try focusing on leveraging these opportunities rather than trying to lower the bar to meet your needs.

(This rant has been brought to you by our sponsors, frustration and irritation. It is not directed at the OP or any particular player)

Unknown

Jachdo wrote:

Again and again people are demanding these nerfs -- why?? It doesn't make offense impossible like Rags did. It's not causing everyone to use the exact same characters like Thorverine did. I just sounds like complaining from people who don't want to make the effort to improve.

Because of community scaling. Many people have said the only way they're able to get through some of the PVE nodes is through having Spidey stunlock everyone. When they beat the missions, the missions get harder for everyone else, and for a lot of us, they get functionally impossible if we don't have a stunlock-capable Spider-Man.

Unknown

Ben Grimm wrote:

Because of community scaling. Many people have said the only way they're able to get through some of the PVE nodes is through having Spidey stunlock everyone. When they beat the missions, the missions get harder for everyone else, and for a lot of us, they get functionally impossible if we don't have a stunlock-capable Spider-Man.

Yep, some hope that if 2AP spidey was not available the 230 missions were going back to the box (having just one final such thing like in the past).

Unknown

Jachdo wrote:

Again and again people are demanding these nerfs -- why?? It doesn't make offense impossible like Rags did. It's not causing everyone to use the exact same characters like Thorverine did. I just sounds like complaining from people who don't want to make the effort to improve.

Because he makes the game completely trivial and boring. Stunlocking 3 guys is moderately difficult, stunlocking 2 is fairly easy, and stunlocking 1 is trivial at best. So the strategy for every encounter is blitz the glass cannon down and stunlock for the rest of the match and heal whatever small amount of damage you actually took. Every fight is the same. You feel powerful for a while but then it just becomes a chore.

Despite having a level 100 5 blue spidey with the iso to max him, I don't use him anymore because he bores me to tears. The game will open up quite a bit on options and encounters if Spidey is gone. Just like the best offensive team was always Rag/X, if an encounter is absolutely incredibly difficult, it would almost 100% of the time be wrong to not bring Spidey.

Unknown

There is no question that both of these Heroes are exceptionally powered. The question is, how does downgrading these abilities positively effect the community?

You could make the argument that stunlocking is abused in PvP to propel players beyond their normal limits, but that is shaky at best. Stunlocking takes too long, and Spidey's stats are a liability to top competitors. I've also heard, "People are beating my teams that shouldn't be able to!" -- a completely flawed and ridiculous argument. If they beat you without cheating, then they most certainly 'should have' beaten you. This can really be applied to any character that either A) has a powerful ability or the complaining player does not possess. Also, if it makes the game trivial and boring (which I totally agree with), shouldn't the player have the right to bore themselves into a target swapping coma?

Even if these arguments were valid, does the fallout and frustration caused to the player base justify it? Some people have spent real money on these characters. Many people have invested a LOT of time in them. ..and the people who rely on Spidey's stunlock -- is it fair to take it away if that's how they want to play? It's not really hurting anyone. I don't see the benefit outweighing the harm.

Just to be clear, I'm not raging over nerfs. I'm fortunate enough to have plenty of options, so it wouldn't effect me as much as it would a lot of other players. What ticks me off is the perpetual reinforcement of "repairing" the game with beat sticks and chainsaws. We need to focus on the core issues and promote improvement the game through the addition of content, rather than the removal and neutering of it.

Unknown

Jachdo wrote:

You could make the argument that stunlocking is abused in PvP to propel players beyond their normal limits, but that is shaky at best. Stunlocking takes too long, and Spidey's stats are a liability to top competitors. I've also heard, "People are beating my teams that shouldn't be able to!" -- a completely flawed and ridiculous argument.

Yep. Note that most of that was stated before the boosts nerf. You could start with 6 blue stockpiled without noticing and that is good for lot of stun. For today pvp it must be way less of a problem. And I guess the nerf in topic is delayed so far due to this.

Probably the whole thing could be handled by a "temporary" hotfix that adds 1 AP to costs of Spidey blue and mags blue and red until something more sensible is found. And it would work out for ages, both reducing power a lot but leave quite much of it too and not changing essence.

Unknown

Jachdo wrote:

There is no question that both of these Heroes are exceptionally powered. The question is, how does downgrading these abilities positively effect the community?

You could make the argument that stunlocking is abused in PvP to propel players beyond their normal limits, but that is shaky at best. Stunlocking takes too long, and Spidey's stats are a liability to top competitors. I've also heard, "People are beating my teams that shouldn't be able to!" -- a completely flawed and ridiculous argument. If they beat you without cheating, then they most certainly 'should have' beaten you. This can really be applied to any character that either A) has a powerful ability or the complaining player does not possess. Also, if it makes the game trivial and boring (which I totally agree with), shouldn't the player have the right to bore themselves into a target swapping coma?

Even if these arguments were valid, does the fallout and frustration caused to the player base justify it? Some people have spent real money on these characters. Many people have invested a LOT of time in them. ..and the people who rely on Spidey's stunlock -- is it fair to take it away if that's how they want to play? It's not really hurting anyone. I don't see the benefit outweighing the harm.

Just to be clear, I'm not raging over nerfs. I'm fortunate enough to have plenty of options, so it wouldn't effect me as much as it would a lot of other players. What ticks me off is the perpetual reinforcement of "repairing" the game with beat sticks and chainsaws. We need to focus on the core issues and promote improvement the game through the addition of content, rather than the removal and neutering of it.

Perfectly said, thank you.

Unknown

Jachdo wrote:

There is no question that both of these Heroes are exceptionally powered. The question is, how does downgrading these abilities positively effect the community?

You could make the argument that stunlocking is abused in PvP to propel players beyond their normal limits, but that is shaky at best. Stunlocking takes too long, and Spidey's stats are a liability to top competitors. I've also heard, "People are beating my teams that shouldn't be able to!" -- a completely flawed and ridiculous argument. If they beat you without cheating, then they most certainly 'should have' beaten you. This can really be applied to any character that either A) has a powerful ability or the complaining player does not possess. Also, if it makes the game trivial and boring (which I totally agree with), shouldn't the player have the right to bore themselves into a target swapping coma?

Even if these arguments were valid, does the fallout and frustration caused to the player base justify it? Some people have spent real money on these characters. Many people have invested a LOT of time in them. ..and the people who rely on Spidey's stunlock -- is it fair to take it away if that's how they want to play? It's not really hurting anyone. I don't see the benefit outweighing the harm.

Just to be clear, I'm not raging over nerfs. I'm fortunate enough to have plenty of options, so it wouldn't effect me as much as it would a lot of other players. What ticks me off is the perpetual reinforcement of "repairing" the game with beat sticks and chainsaws. We need to focus on the core issues and promote improvement the game through the addition of content, rather than the removal and neutering of it.

Very good points. You actually swayed my opinion.

mags1587

Jachdo wrote:

You could make the argument that stunlocking is abused in PvP to propel players beyond their normal limits, but that is shaky at best. Stunlocking takes too long, and Spidey's stats are a liability to top competitors. I've also heard, "People are beating my teams that shouldn't be able to!" -- a completely flawed and ridiculous argument. If they beat you without cheating, then they most certainly 'should have' beaten you. This can really be applied to any character that either A) has a powerful ability or the complaining player does not possess. Also, if it makes the game trivial and boring (which I totally agree with), shouldn't the player have the right to bore themselves into a target swapping coma?

Even if these arguments were valid, does the fallout and frustration caused to the player base justify it? Some people have spent real money on these characters. Many people have invested a LOT of time in them. ..and the people who rely on Spidey's stunlock -- is it fair to take it away if that's how they want to play? It's not really hurting anyone. I don't see the benefit outweighing the harm.

Yes, this, thank you. I use Spider-man all the time; he's a staple on my teams. And I want to say that for me, it's not a matter of relying on stunlock to beat teams. I have a pretty robust roster and the teams I play I could still beat with someone other than Spider-man on the team. Even when I'm using him, half the time I don't even use his stun except to heal up at the end of the match. His stun is at too low of a cost right now, and it needs balancing, but I'm a little bothered by the posts that seem to imply that stun should be taken out of the game entirely.

The thing is that I use Spider-man because I like playing this game with characters that give me a little more control over the board, whether it be through stun or targeted tile destruction/placement. Stun is useful to keep a countdown tile from going off or to keep an opposing player from getting off a massive attack, but I also like using stun to set up moves. I like being able to see on the board a series of matches that will result in me getting a critical tile and I like being able to set that up without the AI's interference -- or to prevent the AI from making that critical tile match. That's just my preference.

Nonce Equitaur 2

I was just looking at the two Hood PvP events.

Out of 6 possible teams, 5 of them had Spiderman. I went and fought against the Hood, Patch, Magneto team.

I don't mind fighting against Spidey teams. It's very easy with cMags -- erase blue from the board. It's easy with Spidey -- let the opponent spidey shoot first. But there is a dullness to them, especially when Spidey is on most of the available teams to fight against.

A possible fix for any PvP match would compile the (3 most used characters) in each bracket within 20 minutes after a match starts. If a character is required, he would not be on this list. The (3 most used characters) would dynamically change as the match progresses. The server could also keep tabs on (20 least used characters). When the match is halfway done, adjust the Buff crystals and add a new Nerf crystal which can drop health and damage by 20% or 50%.

1. No skip tax penalty against teams with (3 most used characters). If a character is required, he would not be on this list.
2. No bonus ISO for teams containing (3 most used characters).
3. Bonus ISO for teams built from (20 least used characters).
4. If any of the (3 most used characters) have Buff crystals, they will be downgraded. If not, then they get Nerf crystals, green instead of red.
5. The (10 least used characters) get buffs.
6. If you bought a shield for a (3 most used characters) team, and they all get nerf crystals, then your shield drops with a refund.

The above would greatly increase the variety seen in PvP, without changing the characters.

Unknown

Let’s go to an extreme situation where the devs make this fight against Galactus. Galactus has 100,000 HP and has an ability that costs 1 of any AP and that ability instantly kills your entire team.
Is this encounter beatable? Yes
Is this encounter beatable w/o Spider-man? No
If you don’t see how that restricts design space and limits what devs can do for a challenging encounter and how it pigeonholes you into specific rosters, that’s fine but we have very different design philosophies.

I think Spidey does far more damage in PVE than PVP but I think he clearly warps both environments.

I’m kind of curious as to the length of time people have played that want spidey nerfed vs left alone. I used to want spidey left alone but the more I played the game, the more it was clear to me something needed to be done. FWIW, I’ve been playing since the first week of the game’s release and have spent hundreds of hours with almost every character fully covered (missing Psylocke, BP, DD, and four total 4* covers)

Unknown

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

I was just looking at the two Hood PvP events.

Out of 6 possible teams, 5 of them had Spiderman. I went and fought against the Hood, Patch, Magneto team.

I don't mind fighting against Spidey teams. It's very easy with cMags -- erase blue from the board. It's easy with Spidey -- let the opponent spidey shoot first. But there is a dullness to them, especially when Spidey is on most of the available teams to fight against.

A possible fix for any PvP match would compile the (3 most used characters) in each bracket within 20 minutes after a match starts. If a character is required, he would not be on this list. The (3 most used characters) would dynamically change as the match progresses. The server could also keep tabs on (20 least used characters). When the match is halfway done, adjust the Buff crystals and add a new Nerf crystal which can drop health and damage by 20% or 50%.

1. No skip tax penalty against teams with (3 most used characters). If a character is required, he would not be on this list.
2. No bonus ISO for teams containing (3 most used characters).
3. Bonus ISO for teams built from (20 least used characters).
4. If any of the (3 most used characters) have Buff crystals, they will be downgraded. If not, then they get Nerf crystals, green instead of red.
5. The (10 least used characters) get buffs.
6. If you bought a shield for a (3 most used characters) team, and they all get nerf crystals, then your shield drops with a refund.

The above would greatly increase the variety seen in PvP, without changing the characters.

All that would do is make characters like Spiderman or OBW permanently nerfed. You also have problems with characters who are rarely used because they are rare, like Magneto, not because they're weak.

Unknown

entropic01 wrote:

Let’s go to an extreme situation where the devs make this fight against Galactus. Galactus has 100,000 HP and has an ability that costs 1 of any AP and that ability instantly kills your entire team.
Is this encounter beatable? Yes
Is this encounter beatable w/o Spider-man? No
If you don’t see how that restricts design space and limits what devs can do for a challenging encounter and how it pigeonholes you into specific rosters, that’s fine but we have very different design philosophies.

I think Spidey does far more damage in PVE than PVP but I think he clearly warps both environments.

I’m kind of curious as to the length of time people have played that want spidey nerfed vs left alone. I used to want spidey left alone but the more I played the game, the more it was clear to me something needed to be done. FWIW, I’ve been playing since the first week of the game’s release and have spent hundreds of hours with almost every character fully covered (missing Psylocke, BP, DD, and four total 4* covers)

I always thought Spiderman should've been nerfed when I didn't even have him, and that didn't change when I have him max covered (though I certainly use him all the time). He's a bigger problem in PvE than PvP for the reasons you stated. At least in PvP you sometimes are better by going for speed, though ultimately speed loses its advantage when everyone with a Spiderman can beat your team 99% of the time. Speed maters for the the attack then shield strategy, but I don't think that should be considered part of the balance.

Unknown

Spider-Man's webs don't last forever. In the comics, they dissolve after about an hour or so (otherwise New York would be quite a mess!). Give his web-tiles a counter so they 'dissolve' away after a short time, leaving the original yellow tile in place.

Unknown

entropic01 wrote:

Let’s go to an extreme situation where the devs make this fight against Galactus. Galactus has 100,000 HP and has an ability that costs 1 of any AP and that ability instantly kills your entire team.
Is this encounter beatable? Yes
Is this encounter beatable w/o Spider-man? No
If you don’t see how that restricts design space and limits what devs can do for a challenging encounter and how it pigeonholes you into specific rosters, that’s fine but we have very different design philosophies.

I think Spidey does far more damage in PVE than PVP but I think he clearly warps both environments.

I’m kind of curious as to the length of time people have played that want spidey nerfed vs left alone. I used to want spidey left alone but the more I played the game, the more it was clear to me something needed to be done. FWIW, I’ve been playing since the first week of the game’s release and have spent hundreds of hours with almost every character fully covered (missing Psylocke, BP, DD, and four total 4* covers)

This