*** The Hood (Classic) ***

Unknown

KevinMark wrote:

jralbino wrote:

KevinMark wrote:

I've been trying to use TP a lot recently and I don't recall seeing cascades. Only on Muscle+Hood PvE node and that's because Hood was able to use it more than 3 times in a game thanks to yellow generators.

Being objective, you're probably aiming to maximize AP generation on the colors you need though, not setting up cascades.

That's also correct. Either that or destroying immediately dangerous enemy special tiles. This will still be correct after the nerf, so there is no reason to defend "ending the turn" with the notion that it causes cascades. Not to mention leaving Hood in the front when ending the turn with a freshly shook up board.

Not defending anything. I don't like the change. I don't think it's catastrophic, but I don't support it. You just made a statement that you haven't seen cascades resulting from using the current TP. I'm making the statement that most likely, no one is trying to use it that way.

simonsez

Demiurge_Will wrote:

It comes down to people who played the version of the ability we went with having more fun.

May I suggest that you recruit some new playtesters, if the ones you have now think that losing board control is fun?

Raekwen

There isn't an option for "I never use this so I couldn't care less."

Spoit

Phaserhawk wrote:

I think it ends the turn because you just laid down 5k damage and created a massive cascade that results in lots of AP still. Remember just the 18 tiles you destroy from Twin Pistols doesn' t get you the AP not the cascading results. So if charged tiles are the thing of the future, and I really do thing we will be getting more character that charge, (none until 4* Thor fully released) a resulting cascade with charged tiles on the board could still lead to degenerative things. Furthermore well placed pistols can net you the AP you want, think about how much AP you generate from a good Polazring Force from C.Mags? If I was close on some skills that usually puts me over the edge to just go off, I think that is why it ends turn. It's how you balance the Hood without really fixing him. Make him exposed to damage and reduce some of this AP generation.

You might be able to line up one or two match 3s with it for yourself, but the way it ends the turn, that pretty much means the AI gets a free board shuffle

Unknown

15 AP is probably much easier to get now that you can get charged yellow AP tiles. I'm guessing the play testers probably play more pve style than pvp?

The amount of board shuffle created by Twin Pistols seems way overstated.

Unknown

The board shuffle created by Twin Pistols is generally a lot less than X Force or Surgical Strike even though both destroys less tiles. That said this is also why ends the turn is not really that big of a deal anyway because most of the time nothing interesting happens after a Twin Pistols. In theory if you have a lot of time you can try to Twin Pistols into another match 5 or whatever but I'm guessing you'd either do this on the upper most row (star marks the spot to shoot):





for basically no chance of creating anything interesting or you use it to take out some special tile that must be taken out.

Dayv

Demiurge_Will wrote:

You could balance Twin Pistols' level 5 by ending the turn and doing as much damage as it's going to do under the redesign, or by not ending the turn at level 5 and having it do less damage. We playtested both versions, and making TP continue to end the turn at level 5 was easier to understand, the added damage led to more exciting moments, and the turn ending kept it feeling different from other abilities.

The turn-ending sure does make it different. It puts it in the list of skills I will avoid using.

I'd rather the 5th cover did the same damage as 4 covers, but stopped ending the turn. I never used Hood's yellow until I had it at five covers, and now I'll just stop using it again.

Dayv

Phantron wrote:

you're still not going to run a team without The Hood as long as Dormammu's Aid is the way it is.

I run a lot of no-Hoodteams, and I see a lot of no-Hood teams. With Hood's yellow nerf, I'm likely to run him even less.

Dormammu's Aid is a great skill, but it's not as essential to team composition as you make it sound.

Unknown

Demiurge_Will wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

1. Twin Pistols was never the problem with Hood, it was Dormammu's Aid. How does nerfing Twin Pistols do anything to the Hood's main strength and reason why you bring him on teams in the first place?

We hope it doesn't do much to that. We didn't make these changes to change who The Hood is and what he feels like, or to fundamentally change the reasons why you might want him on your team. We didn't even set out to make a major change to where The Hood sits in players' character rankings. We wanted to get ahead of an overpowered interaction with 4* Thor and, generally, make Twin Pistols safer.

The AP generation ability of Twin Pistols was significantly overpowered before, even before Charged tiles. Because of its higher cost, that didn't matter to top-tier players, given how few turns their games take. Keep in mind that not everyone we're balancing the game for is playing the same way you are - even if you weren't using the ability before because of its expense, others, playing longer matches, were. I've thought a change like this was appropriate for a while, but it hasn't risen to the top of the pile before because it doesn't affect top players much until they & their opponents start using 4* Thor - giving mid-level players overpowered abilities isn't as serious as something that affects highly competitive play.

(We found the combo with 4* Thor in playtesting, so you don't need to feel bad about talking about it on the forums.)

NorthernPolarity wrote:

In return for this increased damage capability, The Hood also had to lose the Level 5 reward of not ending his turn on usage.

This doesn't make any sense. Level 5 Pistols does what, 5.7k damage? This for 15 AP = 380 AP / dmg, which while is respectable given that it can cause cascades and destroy CD tiles, hardly justifies ending the turn to use the ability. Whales by comparison does 857 AP / dmg, and I don't see that ability ending the turn. Hell, even fireball does more damage / AP, and I don't see that ability ending the turn either. Ending the turn makes sense when the ability is insanely strong or leads to AP generation loops: the new pistols does neither, so I feel like this nerf is very poorly reasoned and explained: some more dev insight as to why they chose to tack on this clause would be much appreciated.

You could balance Twin Pistols' level 5 by ending the turn and doing as much damage as it's going to do under the redesign, or by not ending the turn at level 5 and having it do less damage. We playtested both versions, and making TP continue to end the turn at level 5 was easier to understand, the added damage led to more exciting moments, and the turn ending kept it feeling different from other abilities. It comes down to people who played the version of the ability we went with having more fun.

Twin Pistols does a couple things Whales can't: it's single-target instead of affecting the whole enemy team, and it destroys tiles of your choice. Not saying you should necessarily value Twin Pistols as highly as Whales - just saying the damage-per-AP comparison doesn't tell the whole story.

Hope that's helpful insight into the way we're thinking about things!

No offense... Lol.... But y'all don't have the best record when it comes to play testing;). (Beast, doc ock, etc.). I could be wrong (probably am wrong), but I'm pretty sure most mpq players would prefer less damage without ending the turn. Primarily, BC hood has low health. I would venture to say the play testers did not take sustained play into account when evaluating the fun factor.

Speaking of fun, I've loved the buffs and changes up to last week. Keep up the outstanding work!

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

The board shuffle created by Twin Pistols is generally a lot less than X Force or Surgical Strike even though both destroys less tiles. That said this is also why ends the turn is not really that big of a deal anyway because most of the time nothing interesting happens after a Twin Pistols. In theory if you have a lot of time you can try to Twin Pistols into another match 5 or whatever but I'm guessing you'd either do this on the upper most row (star marks the spot to shoot):





for basically no chance of creating anything interesting or you use it to take out some special tile that must be taken out.

Please stop your (quasi) crusade to get xforce nerfed. He's a 4*. He's supposed to be op compared to 3*, as 3* to 2* and so forth.

Unknown

Demiurge_Will wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

1. Twin Pistols was never the problem with Hood, it was Dormammu's Aid. How does nerfing Twin Pistols do anything to the Hood's main strength and reason why you bring him on teams in the first place?

We hope it doesn't do much to that. We didn't make these changes to change who The Hood is and what he feels like, or to fundamentally change the reasons why you might want him on your team. We didn't even set out to make a major change to where The Hood sits in players' character rankings. We wanted to get ahead of an overpowered interaction with 4* Thor and, generally, make Twin Pistols safer.

The AP generation ability of Twin Pistols was significantly overpowered before, even before Charged tiles. Because of its higher cost, that didn't matter to top-tier players, given how few turns their games take. Keep in mind that not everyone we're balancing the game for is playing the same way you are - even if you weren't using the ability before because of its expense, others, playing longer matches, were. I've thought a change like this was appropriate for a while, but it hasn't risen to the top of the pile before because it doesn't affect top players much until they & their opponents start using 4* Thor - giving mid-level players overpowered abilities isn't as serious as something that affects highly competitive play.

(We found the combo with 4* Thor in playtesting, so you don't need to feel bad about talking about it on the forums.)

NorthernPolarity wrote:

In return for this increased damage capability, The Hood also had to lose the Level 5 reward of not ending his turn on usage.

This doesn't make any sense. Level 5 Pistols does what, 5.7k damage? This for 15 AP = 380 AP / dmg, which while is respectable given that it can cause cascades and destroy CD tiles, hardly justifies ending the turn to use the ability. Whales by comparison does 857 AP / dmg, and I don't see that ability ending the turn. Hell, even fireball does more damage / AP, and I don't see that ability ending the turn either. Ending the turn makes sense when the ability is insanely strong or leads to AP generation loops: the new pistols does neither, so I feel like this nerf is very poorly reasoned and explained: some more dev insight as to why they chose to tack on this clause would be much appreciated.

You could balance Twin Pistols' level 5 by ending the turn and doing as much damage as it's going to do under the redesign, or by not ending the turn at level 5 and having it do less damage. We playtested both versions, and making TP continue to end the turn at level 5 was easier to understand, the added damage led to more exciting moments, and the turn ending kept it feeling different from other abilities. It comes down to people who played the version of the ability we went with having more fun.

Twin Pistols does a couple things Whales can't: it's single-target instead of affecting the whole enemy team, and it destroys tiles of your choice. Not saying you should necessarily value Twin Pistols as highly as Whales - just saying the damage-per-AP comparison doesn't tell the whole story.

Hope that's helpful insight into the way we're thinking about things!

The big problem with Hood Yellow ending the turn is that hood has the smallest health pool of any 3* and 4* character. This ability makes him tank now which is a major major drawback. It really should not end the turn as it's certainly not so powerful that it make it a problem. And if that's the case, cut the damage output back to mearly 90% of what it does. Torch does 2 4kish damage attacks and cascade potential for less than hoods yellow. And torch also has 2 other fantastic damage abilities. Clearly Hood's primary purpose is his blue but changing his yellow to end the turn forces him as a tank. - bad bad bad! Damage isn't a lot more than similar cheaper abilities. Cascade potential isn't all that great - granted destroying tiles has some utility. Maybe hoods yellow should cost 12 now? maybe it should do 4k damage and not end the turn?

Maybe Thorina's charged tiles should only give triple return when tiles are matched, not when they're destroyed??

Nonce Equitaur 2

Demiurge_Will wrote:

The AP generation ability of Twin Pistols was significantly overpowered before, even before Charged tiles. Because of its higher cost, that didn't matter to top-tier players, given how few turns their games take. Keep in mind that not everyone we're balancing the game for is playing the same way you are - even if you weren't using the ability before because of its expense, others, playing longer matches, were. I've thought a change like this was appropriate for a while, but it hasn't risen to the top of the pile before because it doesn't affect top players much until they & their opponents start using 4* Thor - giving mid-level players overpowered abilities isn't as serious as something that affects highly competitive play.

(We found the combo with 4* Thor in playtesting, so you don't need to feel bad about talking about it on the forums.)

When?

If the combo was discovered in playtesting before 16 October, then the change to Hood has been known for more than a month. Dev awareness of the broken combo should have been posted earlier.

If the combo was discovered in playtesting after 16 October, then the developers aren't following major events on the forum.

Why are you disparaging the "talking" on the MPQ forum? I would have expected something more like "After seeing the concern raised about Hood/4hor, we playtested it and verified there was a problem."

But that's not what you said, so I ask ...

When?

Nellobee

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

When?

If the combo was discovered in playtesting before 16 October, then the change to Hood has been known for more than a month. Dev awareness of the broken combo should have been posted earlier.

If the combo was discovered in playtesting after 16 October, then the developers aren't following major events on the forum.

Why are you disparaging the "talking" on the MPQ forum? I would have expected something more like "After seeing the concern raised about Hood/4hor, we playtested it and verified there was a problem."

But that's not what you said, so I ask ...

When?

Eesh, there is no cause to play Gotcha with the devs. Point is, the combination was noticed and is being fixed before deployment.

They probably noticed it and hadn't decided what to do about it.

turul

Demiurge_Will wrote:

We wanted to get ahead of an overpowered interaction with 4* Thor and, generally, make Twin Pistols safer.

Hope you will reset Hoods ability change when you funbalancing 4*Thor, after realising you cant destroy 10 more characters.

Demiurge_Will

KevinMark wrote:

Demiurge_Will wrote:

We playtested both versions, and making TP continue to end the turn at level 5 was easier to understand, the added damage led to more exciting moments, and the turn ending kept it feeling different from other abilities. It comes down to people who played the version of the ability we went with having more fun.

I don't quite get what is meant by the bold part. Getting the 5th cover of any 3* character ability you like is a great milestone. It's an achievement. I think it would be pretty shortsighted to think that people don't read what the 5th cover does before they are upgrading/respeccing. I'm sorry but I also don't buy the rest of the explanation.

You'd think people would read the 5th cover description, wouldn't you? But time and time again, playtesting shows that anything that's in text, a meaningful percentage of people miss. It's not what I think or predict should be the case (my instinct is usually that people will read more than they prove to do), but it's what I observe, in every game I work on. Sometimes it's worth changing up how things work anyway - like we decided to in the previous version of the ability, and like we do with many other abilities in the game - but the additional confusion is a piece of the puzzle.

Unknown

LoreNYC wrote:

The big problem with Hood Yellow ending the turn is that hood has the smallest health pool of any 3* and 4* character. This ability makes him tank now which is a major major drawback.

Well, that's kind of the point. I don't like the ability as is, but Hood is not a striker, and "he has a striker-class ability, but in return his squishy little body is made vulnerable to counterattack" makes a kind of sense

Unknown

Demiurge_Will wrote:

KevinMark wrote:

Demiurge_Will wrote:

We playtested both versions, and making TP continue to end the turn at level 5 was easier to understand, the added damage led to more exciting moments, and the turn ending kept it feeling different from other abilities. It comes down to people who played the version of the ability we went with having more fun.

I don't quite get what is meant by the bold part. Getting the 5th cover of any 3* character ability you like is a great milestone. It's an achievement. I think it would be pretty shortsighted to think that people don't read what the 5th cover does before they are upgrading/respeccing. I'm sorry but I also don't buy the rest of the explanation.

You'd think people would read the 5th cover description, wouldn't you? But time and time again, playtesting shows that anything that's in text, a meaningful percentage of people miss. It's not what I think or predict should be the case (my instinct is usually that people will read more than they prove to do), but it's what I observe, in every game I work on. Sometimes it's worth changing up how things work anyway - like we decided to in the previous version of the ability, and like we do with many other abilities in the game - but the additional confusion is a piece of the puzzle.

Who are these playtesters? Your employees? Forgive me for being blunt, but past performance has shown that the quality of your playtesting is questionable at best (various 2AP abilities, massive heavy-handed changes, TU without delete option, Beast blue, Sentry, MMR, etc).

At this point, it seems prudent to trust the judgment of your hardcore playerbase (forumgoers) over your "playtesters." No offense, you guys just don't seem to play your own game enough.

Lystrata

Generally agree with the general consensus. Removing AP gain, and ending the turn, is overkill. Or overnerf, if you like. Can understand one or the other... but otherwise, I can't see the point of using this until you're at the end of a match.

Which is a bit absurd.

Nonce Equitaur 2

Demiurge_Will wrote:

You'd think people would read the 5th cover description, wouldn't you? But time and time again, playtesting shows that anything that's in text, a meaningful percentage of people miss.

Q&A after a person has done casual playtesting for a hour will have vastly different results than Q&A on a person that has played the game every day for a year.

It's hard to get 5 covers for a 3* ability. It takes either a high time commitment or a money investment to get there. Are you suggesting that people aren't bothering to read what these powers do? That the average gamer doesn't care about what a best build might be?

You could concretely prove that ... For Hood, Hulk, Thor, Cap, BP, and so on, for those characters that players have 13 covers for, just release percentage numbers for each of the 6 builds for each character. If each of the builds is at about 17%, then you're right! You'll have proved you that your statement above is correct. You could easily prove yourself correct now. That is, unless you're completely wrong. In that case, the data will not support your supposition.

Unknown

gobstopper wrote:

Demiurge_Will wrote:

KevinMark wrote:

Demiurge_Will wrote:

We playtested both versions, and making TP continue to end the turn at level 5 was easier to understand, the added damage led to more exciting moments, and the turn ending kept it feeling different from other abilities. It comes down to people who played the version of the ability we went with having more fun.

I don't quite get what is meant by the bold part. Getting the 5th cover of any 3* character ability you like is a great milestone. It's an achievement. I think it would be pretty shortsighted to think that people don't read what the 5th cover does before they are upgrading/respeccing. I'm sorry but I also don't buy the rest of the explanation.

You'd think people would read the 5th cover description, wouldn't you? But time and time again, playtesting shows that anything that's in text, a meaningful percentage of people miss. It's not what I think or predict should be the case (my instinct is usually that people will read more than they prove to do), but it's what I observe, in every game I work on. Sometimes it's worth changing up how things work anyway - like we decided to in the previous version of the ability, and like we do with many other abilities in the game - but the additional confusion is a piece of the puzzle.

Who are these playtesters? Your employees? Forgive me for being blunt, but past performance has shown that the quality of your playtesting is questionable at best (various 2AP abilities, massive heavy-handed changes, TU without delete option, Beast blue, Sentry, MMR, etc).

At this point, it seems prudent to trust the judgment of your hardcore playerbase (forumgoers) over your "playtesters." No offense, you guys just don't seem to play your own game enough.

*sigh* I agree with a lot of what you said with one key (well more than one, im just too lazy to address the others). But forumites are the last people who should be play testers. Most players don't get on the forum or have the understanding some of us do. At least they tend to listen to our feedback, their schedule is just backlogged, it takes a while most of the time to address it.