Upcoming Patch Preview - R49 Discussion

IceIX

Reposted from News for discussion purposes.

This Patch is relatively small this time around, focusing on deepening Alliance functionality. As always, some other changes may sneak in before it launches.

Alliances

- S.H.I.E.L.D. has opened new available options for the Commander of any Alliance. - Commanders may now increase the number of players in the Alliance via Hero Points - Commanders may make Alliances Public or Private - If it is private, Commanders may accept or deny applicants - Depending on the Event, Alliance leaderboards will be available for S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents to peruse. These leaderboards will enable Alliance members to view their or other members' progress in a given event in a much more straightforward manner. These leaderboards and associated points may also be used for rankings that compare Alliances to other Alliances on certain Events or Tournaments.

UI

- As Iso-8 research continues, the ability to measure how much more powerful certain strains of Iso-8 make subjects has become more granular. As a result, Agents are now able to view the effective level of any Iso-8 powered up characters in an Event where they are more powerful. This does not result in a change in balance for those characters, it is simply a more straightforward way of viewing their assets' available skills. - S.H.I.E.L.D. code hackers have fixed an issue where Agents downloading an update would sometimes have download percentages fluctuate randomly

Unknown

Thanks for the heads up IceIX. Looks to be a ho-hum patch from a player perspective but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Unknown

Still need some Spidey funbalancing. It's ridiculous that it's been going on this long.

Unknown

saints2death wrote:

Still need some Spidey funbalancing. It's ridiculous that it's been going on this long.

The balancing usually comes from a data update, not a build update.

IceIX

Ghast wrote:

The balancing usually comes from a data update, not a build update.

Pretty much this. As long as it's not new tech we can push it through a data update. We'd of course let everyone know what that balancing would be ahead of time, but it likely wouldn't be large patch fodder.

Unknown

I'm kind of thrilled to be getting the effective level thing; I've sometimes had a fairly steep learning curve trying to figure out the best combination of boosted characters for an event. It took me a while in this one, for example, to figure out that my 53rd level Black Panther was significantly better than my 75th level Punisher.

IceIX

Vector Mangler wrote:

Thanks for the heads up IceIX. Looks to be a ho-hum patch from a player perspective but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

For the most part, yeah. R50 has some stuff on the more fun/interesting side planned for it. R49 has a bunch of setup code for those features but they're not in yet. My favorite out of this patch is the Effective Level on Iso-8 Powered characters. Being able to easily see that Black Widow (Original) is X level instead of figuring out buff percentages makes things much nicer for character selection.

KaioShinDE

Still no changes on level scaling with level 150 enemies for 2* teams or all level 230 enemies for people just starting to level 3*s I see...

Unknown

Being able to see the event rankings of alliance members seems fun too

IceIX

KaioShinDE wrote:

Still no changes on level scaling with level 150 enemies for 2* teams or all level 230 enemies for people just starting to level 3*s I see...

Also would have nothing to do with a client patch.

mags1587

Is there any update on when Google+ cloud saving might be added back into the app? I know it was removed because it wasn't quite working yet. Was just curious.

Unknown

I normally hate hijacking these threads with unrelated questions Ice, but here it goes anyway - I assume the devs are aware of people hoarding ISO and waiting off doing anything with Spiderman and Magneto. Is it something being actively worked on, or is the current focus on the P50 features you mentioned above?

IceIX

mags1587 wrote:

Is there any update on when Google+ cloud saving might be added back into the app? I know it was removed because it wasn't quite working yet. Was just curious.

May make it into R49, not sure. The tech is already in place there, so it'd be a day zero data patch on top of it. The idea is to have it working but it's not in the notes because it's not 100%.

NorthernPolarity

Hey IceIX, any comments regarding the changes in the PvP reward structure and why they were implemented? I'm worried about the 2* cover changes: It seems like handing out 1 2* cover as opposed to 3 would make it a lot harder for newer players to transition into 2* characters and result in less overall roster growth.

IceIX

abuelo wrote:

I normally hate hijacking these threads with unrelated questions Ice, but here it goes anyway - I assume the devs are aware of people hoarding ISO and waiting off doing anything with Spiderman and Magneto. Is it something being actively worked on, or is the current focus on the P50 features you mentioned above?

Their changes would have nothing to do with R50, or at least, not with the direct release of it. No news on the "funbalancing" front for timing, but it'll be a bit still.

Unknown

Can we get an idea of the price to increase roster size?

HailMary

IceIX wrote:

- As Iso-8 research continues, the ability to measure how much more powerful certain strains of Iso-8 make subjects has become more granular. As a result, Agents are now able to view the effective level of any Iso-8 powered up characters in an Event where they are more powerful. This does not result in a change in balance for those characters, it is simply a more straightforward way of viewing their assets' available skills.

I don't really understand what this means. Are you saying that the UI will now display the effective level of buffed characters? I don't know the lore behind buffing, so the Iso-8 talk is throwing me off a bit.

Two more questions:
1. I like the new Alliance features, but do you know when we can expect in-game Alliance chat?
2. I second Polarity's question: Is the single-2*-cover-only reward structure for PvP here to stay? If so, what's the reasoning behind that change?

Thanks!

IceIX

HailMary wrote:

IceIX wrote:

- As Iso-8 research continues, the ability to measure how much more powerful certain strains of Iso-8 make subjects has become more granular. As a result, Agents are now able to view the effective level of any Iso-8 powered up characters in an Event where they are more powerful. This does not result in a change in balance for those characters, it is simply a more straightforward way of viewing their assets' available skills.

I don't really understand what this means. Are you saying that the UI will now display the effective level of buffed characters? I don't know the lore behind buffing, so the Iso-8 talk is throwing me off a bit.

Two more questions:
1. I like the new Alliance features, but do you know when we can expect in-game Alliance chat?
2. I second Polarity's question: Is the single-2*-cover-only reward structure for PvP here to stay? If so, what's the reasoning behind that change?

Thanks!

Internally, powered up characters are essentially having their effective level raised by a certain percent then rounded resulting in their higher effective level. What you see right now is their current effective level with better damage/color strengths that are what that character should have if they were that higher level. The patch will simply display that level as opposed to you having to just kind of eyeball things.

Chat - Not R49. The hooks are there but there are some issues that will very likely prevent it from going Live then. Whether that'll be fixed before R50 goes into submission? Hard to say for sure. 'Soon' is about all I can say there.
PVP Reward Structure - I don't have a comment myself. I'll check in with the designer who usually runs rewards and see what's up there.

IceIX

ihearthawthats wrote:

Can we get an idea of the price to increase roster size?

It's a scaling cost much like Cover Slots. *Currently* it starts at 600 a slot, but that could change before Live. That cost should give you an idea of what we're thinking for pricing, but as always, we'll react as we see the user-base use the features. As well, if we implement resource pooling (it's not a for sure thing, quite a few tech details there), that could change things up too.

Unknown

With no way to gift HP points between players it's rather grim on the Alliance Commander that it costs HP to increase the roster size, especially so much.

Unknown

abuelo wrote:

With no way to gift HP points between players it's rather grim on the Alliance Commander that it costs HP to increase the roster size, especially so much.

If it wasn't like this, you could just start new accounts, join the alliance, donate your meagre starting HP, and then leave.

Then repeat.

Basically, not cool, and abusable.