*** The Hood (Classic) ***

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.

Here's a meaningful percentage - 96%:
Yes, I'm cool with not gaining AP AND ending the turn - 4%
Yes for covers 1-4, no for cover 5 (variable, cover 5 always keeps the turn) - 30%
No, it should never end the turn because it creates a new board which is unfavourable for the user - 17%
One of the two needs to go: either the no-AP-gain part or the end-the-turn part - 49%

Maybe forum goers aren't representative of your total population, but maybe there's something to what people (the player experts) on here are saying?

Unknown

I think that collecting AP is too powerful, and the level of damage it does would be too powerful on Hood without a big drawback

If I were king, I would have liked to see something like "15 AP: destroy two 3x3 blocks at random, gain AP, does not end turn" or "9 AP: for each color with more than 11 tiles of that color on the board, destroy a random tile of that color and do a few pinpricks of damage for each tile destroyed [gets rid of "excess" tiles for a slight chance for dropped in tiles to turn on more colors for DA]"

Unknown

jralbino 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.

Here's a meaningful percentage - 96%:
Yes, I'm cool with not gaining AP AND ending the turn - 4%
Yes for covers 1-4, no for cover 5 (variable, cover 5 always keeps the turn) - 30%
No, it should never end the turn because it creates a new board which is unfavourable for the user - 17%
One of the two needs to go: either the no-AP-gain part or the end-the-turn part - 49%

Maybe forum goers aren't representative of your total population, but maybe there's something to what people (the player experts) on here are saying?

The "player experts" on here are complaining because it has a poor damage ratio compared to the total damage of Call the Storm

The "player experts" would be happier if it gained AP, dealt 10,000 damage, and didn't end the turn

Unknown

gamar wrote:

jralbino wrote:

Demiurge_Will wrote:

KevinMark wrote:

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.

Here's a meaningful percentage - 96%:
Yes, I'm cool with not gaining AP AND ending the turn - 4%
Yes for covers 1-4, no for cover 5 (variable, cover 5 always keeps the turn) - 30%
No, it should never end the turn because it creates a new board which is unfavourable for the user - 17%
One of the two needs to go: either the no-AP-gain part or the end-the-turn part - 49%

Maybe forum goers aren't representative of your total population, but maybe there's something to what people (the player experts) on here are saying?

The "player experts" on here are complaining because it has a poor damage ratio compared to the total damage of Call the Storm

The "player experts" would be happier if it gained AP, dealt 10,000 damage, and didn't end the turn

The experts that thought sentry was horrible when he was first introduced? The ones who said anniversary tokens in lr instead of everyone getting two free tokens was a rip off? Or the experts who say every change will ruin the game before they give it a chance ? You'll have to be more specific.

Unknown

I'm not sure why having Hood tank for one turn is such a big deal. Is it really? Wouldn't it have been the same with the previous skill except at 5 covers? And honestly if the skill sucks comparatively, why wouldn't you use some other ability instead? No one forces you to waste your yellow AP on a skill you don't want to use.

Forum goers as a whole rarely form a consensus, but when we do it's usually right. I really don't see the consensus here other than the nerf probably went a little too far. Unfortunately, that one poll doesn't have the right options to accurately describe the sentiment of forum goers.

Unknown

So far as playtesters go, it's pretty much something where nobody has any idea what they're talking about and history tends to side with the official ones as being the least likely to screw up. That doesn't mean they can't have epic failures, but it's going to be less often than if you trusted the forum or independent experts. In fact a lot of the most boneheaded moves in balance in general tends to be made by a dev who think he is an independent expert and turned out he was not and you absolutely have no idea whether your unpaid independent experts are any good at all.

I think the best way to balance stuff is by statistics. If 80% of the people play Thor wins 55% of the time that means Thor is a character people enjoy playing. If 80% of the people play Sentry and wins 99% of the time that means Sentry is probably overpowered. There's no point to actually ask people for feedback because the guys with Sentry will just lie about how Sentry takes skill or that it's their favorite character from Marvel lore, and that'd be the exact response you get from the Thor guys in this hypothetical scenario, and if you knew which side is lying you never needed to ask them for feedback in the first place. I'd think a simple examination of win rate of teams with The Hood versus team without The Hood and vice versa should be able to settle this issue.

Unknown

gamar wrote:

jralbino wrote:

Here's a meaningful percentage - 96%:
Yes, I'm cool with not gaining AP AND ending the turn - 4%
Yes for covers 1-4, no for cover 5 (variable, cover 5 always keeps the turn) - 30%
No, it should never end the turn because it creates a new board which is unfavourable for the user - 17%
One of the two needs to go: either the no-AP-gain part or the end-the-turn part - 49%

Maybe forum goers aren't representative of your total population, but maybe there's something to what people (the player experts) on here are saying?

The "player experts" on here are complaining because it has a poor damage ratio compared to the total damage of Call the Storm

The "player experts" would be happier if it gained AP, dealt 10,000 damage, and didn't end the turn

Way to make stuff up. Let's start with the fact that RIGHT there, in the quote YOU quoted, it says 49% are fine with one or the other. That shows a pretty reasonable attitude to me. Never mind the fact that the majority of people are taking issue with the end turn, not the damage ratio. SOME are yes, but they are vastly outnumbered by those that are willing to accept a change to accommodate for the charged tile issue, but feel the end turn thing was unnecessarily tacked on. I would REALLY hate to go through the exercise, but if you want to go the route of selectively choosing damage ratio quotes in the thread to make your point, I'm sure I can more than match you with quotes from people that are just wanting removal of this end turn business.

Unknown

stephen43084 wrote:

The experts that thought sentry was horrible when he was first introduced? The ones who said anniversary tokens in lr instead of everyone getting two free tokens was a rip off? Or the experts who say every change will ruin the game before they give it a chance ? You'll have to be more specific.

Well if there's one thing we know, it's that the forums experts are really really good at analyzing Hood

someguy wrote:

Has anybody found any good use for this guy? I have all 3 colors now, but I really don't see any reason to develop him.

It seems like 5/3/5 is pretty much the only way to go with his skills. Blue seems kinda useless.

Shamusyeah wrote:

I disagree with your build. I think 5/5/3 is the way to go.
Blue may not be insane, but it can net you free ap, and cost it from your opponent, that is always useful.

And of course, Phantron finds the ONE CHARACTER who doesn't need to be nerfed

Phantron wrote:

The Hood's blue really makes it hard for you to do the AP boost blitz. If you didn't unload all your APs immediately, you most likely end up helping the other team (which I learned the hard way). He has a real lack of HPs though, so I think it's fairly well-balanced. If you don't take him seriously he can definitely mess you up, but because he's easily killed it's hard to see him being some kind of powerhouse character.

(To be fair Phantron was pretty close to spot on, and spotted his power earlier than most, but I just couldn't resist with "it's hard to see him being some kind of powerhouse character" )

Unknown

jralbino wrote:

gamar wrote:

jralbino wrote:

Here's a meaningful percentage - 96%:
Yes, I'm cool with not gaining AP AND ending the turn - 4%
Yes for covers 1-4, no for cover 5 (variable, cover 5 always keeps the turn) - 30%
No, it should never end the turn because it creates a new board which is unfavourable for the user - 17%
One of the two needs to go: either the no-AP-gain part or the end-the-turn part - 49%

Maybe forum goers aren't representative of your total population, but maybe there's something to what people (the player experts) on here are saying?

The "player experts" on here are complaining because it has a poor damage ratio compared to the total damage of Call the Storm

The "player experts" would be happier if it gained AP, dealt 10,000 damage, and didn't end the turn

Way to make stuff up. Let's start with the fact that RIGHT there, in the quote YOU quoted, it says 49% are fine with one or the other. That shows a pretty reasonable attitude to me. Never mind the fact that the majority of people are taking issue with the end turn, not the damage ratio. SOME are yes, but they are vastly outnumbered by those that are willing to accept a change to accommodate for the charged tile issue, but feel the end turn thing was unnecessarily tacked on. I would REALLY hate to go through the exercise, but if you want to go the route of selectively choosing damage ratio quotes in the thread to make your point, I'm sure I can more than match you with quotes from people that are just wanting removal of this end turn business.

Yes, a lot of people think the "end of turn" was "unnecessarily tacked on" BECAUSE they seriously underestimate how good that damage ratio is on a character like hood. That doesn't exactly debunk my point

Unknown

gamar wrote:

And of course, Phantron finds the ONE CHARACTER who doesn't need to be nerfed

Phantron wrote:

The Hood's blue really makes it hard for you to do the AP boost blitz. If you didn't unload all your APs immediately, you most likely end up helping the other team (which I learned the hard way). He has a real lack of HPs though, so I think it's fairly well-balanced. If you don't take him seriously he can definitely mess you up, but because he's easily killed it's hard to see him being some kind of powerhouse character.

(To be fair Phantron was pretty close to spot on, and spotted his power earlier than most, but I just couldn't resist with "it's hard to see him being some kind of powerhouse character" )

I'm pretty sure that comment was made when Feral Claws cost 3 green AP and AP+3 all boosts only cost iso and there was also pre nerf Magneto and pre nerf Spiderman. It wasn't too hard to deal with The Hood when you can usually kill him by turn 4 or at least stun him forever.

Though I think Sentry summed up balance pretty well in Prodigal Sun: "I can see why they don't trust me. I don't even trust myself."

Unknown

gamar wrote:

jralbino wrote:

gamar wrote:

jralbino wrote:

Here's a meaningful percentage - 96%:
Yes, I'm cool with not gaining AP AND ending the turn - 4%
Yes for covers 1-4, no for cover 5 (variable, cover 5 always keeps the turn) - 30%
No, it should never end the turn because it creates a new board which is unfavourable for the user - 17%
One of the two needs to go: either the no-AP-gain part or the end-the-turn part - 49%

Maybe forum goers aren't representative of your total population, but maybe there's something to what people (the player experts) on here are saying?

The "player experts" on here are complaining because it has a poor damage ratio compared to the total damage of Call the Storm

The "player experts" would be happier if it gained AP, dealt 10,000 damage, and didn't end the turn

Way to make stuff up. Let's start with the fact that RIGHT there, in the quote YOU quoted, it says 49% are fine with one or the other. That shows a pretty reasonable attitude to me. Never mind the fact that the majority of people are taking issue with the end turn, not the damage ratio. SOME are yes, but they are vastly outnumbered by those that are willing to accept a change to accommodate for the charged tile issue, but feel the end turn thing was unnecessarily tacked on. I would REALLY hate to go through the exercise, but if you want to go the route of selectively choosing damage ratio quotes in the thread to make your point, I'm sure I can more than match you with quotes from people that are just wanting removal of this end turn business.

Yes, a lot of people think the "end of turn" was "unnecessarily tacked on" BECAUSE they seriously underestimate how good that damage ratio is on a character like hood. That doesn't exactly debunk my point

You ascribe a lot of thoughts to people that they don't actually write in their posts.

Demiurge_Will

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

When? [was the interaction between Hood & Charged tiles discovered.]

Just because a peek behind the curtain might be interesting to some folks:

I've got an email with a concern about the interaction from the 9th. The posts on the forums, along with data from the lightning rounds, were useful in confirming that players would notice and estimating how widespread the impact might be - they helped to bump things up in priority. It still wasn't as on fire as other things, since it would be a while before 4* Thor was widely playable.

It took us a while to be confident that the problem was with Twin Pistols. At first we thought the problem was with Charged tiles, or how 4* Thor were using them, and we tried tackling things that way for a while. We'd known for a while that on paper, and in longer matches, Twin Pistols was generating too much AP, but because of its high cost and low use in high-end play, it wasn't a priority to retune it.

After we settled on that direction, there were a number of rounds of paper design, balancing, and testing before we arrived at the change you see here. It wasn't long between when we arrived at the final numbers and when they were posted here.

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

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.

It's not practical to post to the forums about all the issues we're thinking about or working on. In addition to the amount of time it would take to do that, we'd drive you up the wall if we told you everything that's in our backlog that we're deferring to work on other things, or every dumb idea we have that we eventually realize is dumb, or every cool idea that we have to set aside due to production constraints. Also, because this is the internet, everything we talk about is received as a promise by some people. So we usually only post to the forums when we have a change ready to go that we're reasonably confident in.

Like, in this case, it would have been "We're thinking of nerfing 4* Thor!" "We're going to change the way Charged tiles work!" "No, actually, Thor looks okay! We're looking at all abilities that destroy tiles and generate AP!" "Actually, Twin Pistols is much worse than the others - we think the others will create neat synergy with Charged tiles, but don't think they'll be so dominant that we're positive they need to change right now!" "Sorry, but we need to stop working on this for a while to create a new [redacted]!" "We're going to get rid of the fact that TP ends the turn across the board!" "Actually, we're not - without it, it's too weak at levels 1 and 2, and if we bump up the damage at low levels to compensate, the upgrade curve isn't satisfying!" "We're going to raise Hood's health to compensate!" "Oops, no, that makes him too strong!" [cut several additional steps]

That would be fascinating to some folks, but it would be frustrating to others, take more bandwidth than we have, and result in a bunch of 1* reviews that say that we promised a new [redacted] three months before it was available.

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

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."

Very sorry that it came across as disparaging! Didn't mean it that way. We get super useful information from the forums, including invaluable information on how the balance is playing out for you, all the time, and very, very often changes do work that way (forum folks point out a broken thing -> we check it out -> yep, it's totally broken -> we attempt to fix it). Just wanted to tell you the actual history of how this particular change came about because 1) folks might find it interesting and 2) so nobody on the forums gets the pitchfork and torch treatment (other than me, that's part of my job description .

Please keep the thoughts and criticism coming, it's greatly appreciated.

Unknown

jralbino wrote:

You ascribe a lot of thoughts to people that they don't actually write in their posts.

It's what you posted

jralbino wrote:

Let's start with the fact that RIGHT there, in the quote YOU quoted, it says 49% are fine with one or the other. That shows a pretty reasonable attitude to me. Never mind the fact that the majority of people are taking issue with the end turn, not the damage ratio.

In other words, the things you think are "reasonable" are:
1) Twin Pistols gains AP, does 5.7k damage, and ends the turn
or
2) Twin Pistols gains no AP, does 5.7k damage, and does not end the turn

The second of which is... the view I ascribed to the critics:

gamar wrote:

Yes, a lot of people think the "end of turn" was "unnecessarily tacked on" BECAUSE they seriously underestimate how good that damage ratio is on a character like hood.

I think both of those options, which you describe as "reasonable," are way too powerful. I think you underestimate how good they are. Based on what you actually, clearly said in your post.

Nonce Equitaur 2

Demiurge_Will wrote:

I've got an email with a concern about the interaction from the 9th.

That's all good stuff. Would have been better to earlier say "We noticed a possible problem before posting her full stats. We watched to forums to see if players would spot it. They did, so we bumped up the priority."

turul

So when does magneto2* purple will be nerfed because of 4thor?

Dayv

turul wrote:

So when does magneto2* purple will be nerfed because of 4thor?

All characters will be nerfed to ensure 4* Thor reigns supreme.

ALL CHARACTERS.

Unknown

stephen43084 wrote:

gobstopper wrote:

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. 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.

I'm confused. You say the most devoted players should never be playtesters, but then the next sentence is a counterargument to your own statement.

I have never played a game with player-based beta-testing where the players asked to beta test were not asked to meet some sort of requirements (eg past experience, current playtime, relative level). Obviously, beta-testing should involve a diversity of perspectives to avoid any changes being out of touch with portions of the playerbase. I wasn't suggesting that forumites should be the ONLY playtesters. My point was simply that on issues of balance, I trust the playerbase more than the devs, who probably don't have enough time to sufficiently test changes.

Unknown

turul wrote:

So when does magneto2* purple will be nerfed because of 4thor?

NOOOO!!! Leave 2* character powers alone!

Seriously, (even though it's probably overpowered because it's a 2*), it's so much fun to play with. You would hear the anguish of many a transitioner as their MNMags and CStorm combo was ruined, and they could no longer rank in PVE or PVP. I love the strategy that was taken away when CMags got nerfed; don't you take away MNMags too!

The abilities where we can place tiles are far and few between.

Unknown

gobstopper wrote:

Demiurge_Will wrote:

*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.

I'm confused. You say the most devoted players should never be playtesters, but then the next sentence is a counterargument to your own statement.

I have never played a game with player-based beta-testing where the players asked to beta test were not asked to meet some sort of requirements (eg past experience, current playtime, relative level). Obviously, beta-testing should involve a diversity of perspectives to avoid any changes being out of touch with portions of the playerbase. I wasn't suggesting that forumites should be the ONLY playtesters. My point was simply that on issues of balance, I trust the playerbase more than the devs, who probably don't have enough time to sufficiently test changes.

Several points that he could be thinking of: Perhaps he's worried about players finding an exploit and then not sharing it with people, much like in early MMORPGs. Most forumites invest too heavily emotionally into the game, complaining when their favorite characters are nerfed, even if it is a proper balance. Many of the people who would actually spend time on the forum can be radicalized into mob mentality, causing other issues. Few people on the forum relate to the problems new players face, and many take for granted the ability to constantly get the next character that comes out, instead complaining about only getting 3 covers instead of 4. This forum really isn't representative of the player base as a whole.

Unknown

Well if we can't avoid it ending the turn is there anyway for the devs to increase his health so when the enemy team hits him after TP he isn't as squishy.