The game is evolving too slowly

Nonce Equitaur 2

I've stuck the game out for a long time, and have an impressive roster -- but the game has been getting increasingly dull and samey. Every fight is against virtually the same team. The devs have classified a large block of characters as junk characters and rarely give them any buffs or incentives.

No new 'common' characters have been introduced since the start, while "rare" characters trickle out at about one per month.

Many characters are in need of buffs, yet even two months after announcing that characters will get buffs, nothing has happened.

I feel like I could skip the game for a month and miss virtually nothing.

To fix this, the devs need to start making tweaks a lot more often. Small buffs, and small nerfs, with a caveat that they will be reversed if the change winds up being to great. Magneto is a great character where most commentators agree that many different changes can be made to him that won't break him. I and others have suggested changes for Spiderman, Loki, and the other characters -- the Character Discussion area is rife with great ideas. Here's a list of possible buffs.

19/__/14/__/12/__ - 6996 - 4 -- Invisible Woman (Classic) -- Using Force Bubbles also shields team for 1 turn.
__/12/__/11/15/__ - 5075 - 3 -- Black Widow (Grey Suit) -- Let Deceptive Tactics convert environment tiles.
__/_7/_7/11/__/__ - 5800 - 3 -- Daredevil (Man Without Fear) -- Red/Blue, at level 4 -- If enemy countdown tiles exist, lowest value is disarmed as trap is set.
14/13/20/__/__/__ - 7250 - 3 -- Iron Man (Model 40) -- Reduce lvl 4&5 Recharge AP costs by 1&2.
__/_6/__/__/10/__ - 7111 - 3 -- Ragnarok (Dark Avengers) -- Reduce AP costs to 5&9.
14/__/PA/__/__/_9 - 4350 - 3 -- The Hood (Classic) -- Add some health. Intimidation -- also destroys (lvl) random environment tiles.
__/14/__/__/10/PA - 9788 - 3 -- The Hulk (Indestructible) -- Increase healing rate. Lower AP cost for Red Smash by 1AP.
__/_8/__/__/_8/_7 - 5800 - 3 -- The Punisher (Dark Reign) -- Judgement -- let Punisher pick the 3x3 block.
10/10/__/__/_5/__ - 5340 - 2 -- Ares (Dark Avengers) -- Rampage "if Ares is below xx% of max health" -- increase each by 10%.
__/__/__/PA/__/16 - 2190 - 2 -- Bullseye (Dark Avengers) -- Decrease Murderous Aim to 16AP.
19/11/12/__/__/__ - 4450 - 2 -- Captain America (Modern) -- Drop AP cost of Sentinel of Liberty to Yellow 15 AP, increase defense strength, and allow targeting of any tile.
__/__/__/PA/__/PA - 2920 - 2 -- Daken -- Passive -- Revel in Chaos. Gain 1AP in PGB when either team destroys 20 tiles. (more gain for less tiles at higher levels)
__/10/10/PA/__/__ - 2670 - 2 -- Hawkeye (Modern) -- Allow placement of countdown tiles, on any tile. He should have the best aim.
__/_8/_6/__/_9/__ - 3560 - 2 -- Magneto (Marvel NOW!) -- Iron: Allow blue to be picked. Polarity: Allow any tiles to be picked. Magnetic: allow red to be picked.
__/11/__/_5/__/17 - 4450 - 2 -- Moonstone (Dark Avengers) -- Drop Control Shift cost to 15AP
_7/__/_9/13/__/__ - 3560 - 2 -- Spider-Man (Bag-Man) -- Halve all AP costs. Add healing to Snarky Remark.
PA/__/11/__/12/__ - 2670 - 2 -- Storm (Classic) -- Increase her health.
12/_8/__/__/14/__ - 5340 - 2 -- Thor (Marvel NOW!) -- Call the Storm: add "Adds 3 red tiles."
PA/12/__/__/_6/__ - 3560 - 2 -- Wolverine (Astonishing X-Men) -- Increase health. Increase healing rate outside of combat.

But it feels like almost nothing is being done. It's just gathering more and more inertia at this point. I'd like to see the pace of changes increase, to at least one or two minor adjustments per week. I'd like to see some sign that the devs are looking at good ideas that the players have mentioned.

Unknown

I agree to semi-frequent small tweaks and balance adjustments. 1000000000% better than releasing lazy characters

But I guess balancing the heroes doesn't make them enough $ - you can tell because they released a list of intended balance changes like 3? months ago but now it's on the backburner indefinitely

Unknown

I would like to see more 'common' characters, as well. I would like to see buffs/ nerfs happen at a faster pace, but I'm not sure all of the characters listed in the original post actually need a buff. I certainly don't think Punisher needs buffing, nor Thor, and while some of the two power characters might be fun with a third, I play against Daken regularly, so he must pull his weight.

I don't want to pick apart the individual suggestions because I think the gist of what you're saying is right. A little more pace to some of the nerfs/ buffs would be great. And it would be okay with me if we saw multiple small changes to a character via 'tweaking'. It's hard to get everything perfect on the first try, sometimes even the second or third. I don't think most players would mind being a vast playtest pool, assuming that we are talking about small tweaks, rather than massive changes. When Patch released he was bugged, and when his powers were set properly later, was there a vast outcry about it? "You took my purple strike tiles!" People would accept it.

Unknown

gobstopper wrote:

I agree to semi-frequent small tweaks and balance adjustments. 1000000000% better than releasing lazy characters

But I guess balancing the heroes doesn't make them enough $ - you can tell because they released a list of intended balance changes like 3? months ago but now it's on the backburner indefinitely

It got out on back burner because of the outrage of how the buffs were implemented last time. I have a feeling the rest of the buffs / nerfs to that list are gonna probably be released on the same day when little to nothing is taking place. Or all the alliance stuff took precedence? I don't know but I hope we get word of what's happening soon. Tired of waiting with no type of timeline what so ever. Even if all that can be given is a very rough estimate.

Unknown

Psykopathic wrote:

gobstopper wrote:

I agree to semi-frequent small tweaks and balance adjustments. 1000000000% better than releasing lazy characters

But I guess balancing the heroes doesn't make them enough $ - you can tell because they released a list of intended balance changes like 3? months ago but now it's on the backburner indefinitely

It got out on back burner because of the outrage of how the buffs were implemented last time. I have a feeling the rest of the buffs / nerfs to that list are gonna probably be released on the same day when little to nothing is taking place. Or all the alliance stuff took precedence? I don't know but I hope we get word of what's happening soon. Tired of waiting with no type of timeline what so ever. Even if all that can be given is a very rough estimate.

Outrage at buffs? I don't think this ever happened. People were angry at the unannounced Rag nerf, and they had the right to be, especially those that dropped $ in the 11th hour. I didn't particularly sense forum-wide outrage at Thor/Wolvie nerfs, because I felt Devs did their part in giving people a heads up and most complaints weren't that warranted so I tuned them out.

Maybe Devs took to heart the complaints about all their nerfs being so heavy-handed, but what I believe the OP is saying is that you can make small tweaks to obviously underused/underpowered/overused/overpowered chars and have a fluid meta rather than have half the conversations on the forum constantly revolve around how useless certain characters are or how Spider-Man breaks PvE.

Unknown

Psykopathic wrote:

gobstopper wrote:

I agree to semi-frequent small tweaks and balance adjustments. 1000000000% better than releasing lazy characters

But I guess balancing the heroes doesn't make them enough $ - you can tell because they released a list of intended balance changes like 3? months ago but now it's on the backburner indefinitely

It got out on back burner because of the outrage of how the buffs were implemented last time. I have a feeling the rest of the buffs / nerfs to that list are gonna probably be released on the same day when little to nothing is taking place. Or all the alliance stuff took precedence? I don't know but I hope we get word of what's happening soon. Tired of waiting with no type of timeline what so ever. Even if all that can be given is a very rough estimate.

I don't think anyone had an issue with any buffs that have occurred...just nerfs. No reason to not have an xforce.buff out by now unless they are waiting to release it as a shot of vodka to go with the bullet wound go spidey/mag. I just assume they have been busy elsewhere; nerfs make them LESS money, not more, as it disincentivizes getting those nerfed characters. Also he's, I I wpuldnt be surprised if the alliance stuff ended up taking precedences as it probably was just a "oh we should do that" during a brainstorming session and now has turned into the entirety of the adjustments over the last 2 weeks or so. Adding a stupid team aspect makes them more money and makes ppl feel forced to keep playing thier game makes them more money than nerfing and buffing a few characters.

Nonce Equitaur 2

dlaw008 wrote:

When Patch released he was bugged, and when his powers were set properly later, was there a vast outcry about it? "You took my purple strike tiles!" People would accept it.

IceIX proactively mentioned he was bugged as soon as he came out. So it was a "Enjoy him in this state while you can" sort of thing.

If Bagman was made awesome for a week... instant self-healing after each battle, and all powers costing 1 AP ... but just for the week, that would be interesting.

Unknown

Was a typo. I was referring to the riot that broke out after thorverine nerf mid TaT.

Unknown

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

dlaw008 wrote:

When Patch released he was bugged, and when his powers were set properly later, was there a vast outcry about it? "You took my purple strike tiles!" People would accept it.

IceIX proactively mentioned he was bugged as soon as he came out. So it was a "Enjoy him in this state while you can" sort of thing.

If Bagman was made awesome for a week... instant self-healing after each battle, and all powers costing 1 AP ... but just for the week, that would be interesting.

That would be one of the funniest things they ever did. Can you imagine people sinking a bunch of iso into their previously forgotten Bagman? Seeing your opponent's team containing 141 Punisher, 141 Hulk, 85 Bagman?

Unknown

Psykopathic wrote:

Was a typo. I was referring to the riot that broke out after thorverine nerf mid TaT.

About the "notice" they gave about Thor/Wolvie nerf; sure they threw a "funbalancing" pop up in the game to alert us, but it was up for about 2 weeks, leaving everyone wondering each day when it was finally going to drop. Then, BOOM! I drops when 4 events were going on at the same time, including an Avengers Elite tournament in which you had to pay HP to join.

I personally never complained about any nerfs; just about better communication and the timing.

Unknown

Due to the time it takes to invest in new characters, most balancing wouldn't really accomplish useful other than simply rearranging some numbers to give the semblance of doing something. I mean you're talking about a population that has a significant portion that apparently doesn't think Black Panther or Thor 3* is/was overpowered so with that in mind they're pretty much wasting time with any small tweaks because most people would have no idea why it even matters, even if every tweak was correct, and they can easily be wrong.

I'm not convinced there's anybody that actually knows enough about the game, dev or players or otherwise, to make any sweeping changes to the game on the more marginal characters. I'd prefer a solution that simply adjusts character as a matter of usage rate (most overused character gets negative 30 levels, for example). It wouldn't work well with abilities that don't depend on numbers (level 15 Spiderman with 5 blue can still stun forever) but it should catch most of the simple cases.

Unknown

Phantron speaks reason.

Also, I mean a huge customer base of this game has got to be the players who don't have time to play all that much and instead drop cash as needed. You're really going to tell the devs to update the game so often that these players have to relearn their characters on a weekly basis when they can't play that much in the first place? Sure, that won't alienate a major source of cash. I got news for you, this game is for those people, and they're funding it for the rest of us who play every chance we get.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Due to the time it takes to invest in new characters, most balancing wouldn't really accomplish useful other than simply rearranging some numbers to give the semblance of doing something. I mean you're talking about a population that has a significant portion that apparently doesn't think Black Panther or Thor 3* is/was overpowered so with that in mind they're pretty much wasting time with any small tweaks because most people would have no idea why it even matters, even if every tweak was correct, and they can easily be wrong.

That's the point of small changes. If you make a mistake it's easy to rectify.

I'm not convinced there's anybody that actually knows enough about the game, dev or players or otherwise, to make any sweeping changes to the game on the more marginal characters. I'd prefer a solution that simply adjusts character as a matter of usage rate (most overused character gets negative 30 levels, for example). It wouldn't work well with abilities that don't depend on numbers (level 15 Spiderman with 5 blue can still stun forever) but it should catch most of the simple cases.

I don't think anyone in this thread is proposing sweeping changes.

Re: Viorala
Why would small changes force you to relearn characters? Don't fear change, fear stagnation and complacency

Unknown

Small changes are just work for the appearance of work. If I say instead of generating 3X102 strike tiles for Punisher it should be 3X97 tiles, you'd have a hard time arguing that I'm wrong. Punisher is clearly one of the top tier characters so he should be weaker and 97 is obviously less than 102. It makes me look like I'm very smart but honestly any number I picked from about 92 to 101 would've been perfectly fine. It doesn't really solve any underlying issue (lowering strike tile damage by 5 isn't going to balance him either) but it gives the illusion that I know what I'm talking about.

If you want something for the illusion of change I can come up with a hundred such changes right away. But they don't really do anything beyond providing an illusion. The characters who are way overpowered requires a drastic reduction in power, and likewise a character like Bagman requires a drastic increase in power. There's also no way a fairly average character like say, IM40, is ever going to come close to the power of Magneto with a few small changes. He's not even going to come close to The Punisher's level of power with a few small tweaks. The fact that you can pretty much just do pick 3 out of (Patch/Magneto/Spiderman/Punisher/Hulk) from 3* and that describes about 90% of the high end teams prior to BP/Thor 3* shows that the balance is rather messed up. They either should totally change everything, or not at all. Doing some fake small changes while Magneto still takes an extra 20 turns isn't doing anything except for a feel-good story.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Small changes are just work for the appearance of work. If I say instead of generating 3X102 strike tiles for Punisher it should be 3X97 tiles, you'd have a hard time arguing that I'm wrong. Punisher is clearly one of the top tier characters so he should be weaker and 97 is obviously less than 102. It makes me look like I'm very smart but honestly any number I picked from about 92 to 101 would've been perfectly fine. It doesn't really solve any underlying issue (lowering strike tile damage by 5 isn't going to balance him either) but it gives the illusion that I know what I'm talking about.

If you want something for the illusion of change I can come up with a hundred such changes right away. But they don't really do anything beyond providing an illusion. The characters who are way overpowered requires a drastic reduction in power, and likewise a character like Bagman requires a drastic increase in power. There's also no way a fairly average character like say, IM40, is ever going to come close to the power of Magneto with a few small changes. He's not even going to come close to The Punisher's level of power with a few small tweaks. The fact that you can pretty much just do pick 3 out of (Patch/Magneto/Spiderman/Punisher/Hulk) from 3* and that describes about 90% of the high end teams prior to BP/Thor 3* shows that the balance is rather messed up. They either should totally change everything, or not at all. Doing some fake small changes while Magneto still takes an extra 20 turns isn't doing anything except for a feel-good story.

You contradict yourself again by basing your reasoning on how the changes "feel" rather than data. Taking your Punisher strike tile example, if it causes usage to go down a desired percentage than we can say it was a successful tweak, if in fact Punisher is overused by that percentage. If it doesn't, then maybe you need to tweak more. It's not "fake" or "feel good" when the analytics exist.

Judging by half your posts you are fixated on this perceived power gap between the top tier and everyone else. Why not suggest a solution instead of posting the same "X character is completely OP" in every other thread?

Unknown

True but if they had three different plans they were working out for the eventual Mags funbalance they could have a 3 day Mags tournament where the point is they will change him up every 24 hours and see how various changes work out before making the final change.

Nonce Equitaur 2

With some minor buffs, some of the other characters will be made more viable.

I have about 15 different teams I can field against any AI opponent for a reliable win. There are also a few characters that are almost always useless dead weight. Ideally, all the characters should be viable in a team of some sort. If a few of the marginal characters were made slightly better, then that might make them usable. Some players would at least dust them off.

Anything that could change the variety of teams seen in PvP would be an improvement. The devs have used supernerfs to try to fix this, but they should try some small buffs to see what happens. They should at least try something.

Unknown

I don't make many suggestions because:

1. Even if they're right half of the people will cry about it.
2. There's no reason to believe I am always right.
3. I don't get paid for fixing this game's problems. If I do, I'd be more inclined to think of good solutions.

In the 3* game it's pretty much pick 3 out of (Punisher/Patch/Magneto/Spiderman), and I suspect Punisher is only there because Magneto is hard to get. There's nothing more to say beyond 'some characters are ridiculously OP', and the this unholy 4 domination of 3* is only recently changed by 2 characters that look suspiciously close to a P2W cashgrab.

The whole small changes one at a time is a copout. It makes the rather insane assumption that your existing balance was any good to begin with. I see this in virtually all games. Even if it's something where you push one button and the other guy dies for being on the wrong end of the balance you'll always hear about how they need to approach balance slowly because hitting one button to kill your opponent might not be totally unfair. I mean just look at how long pre nerf Ragnarok lasted in his original incarnation. And if the game is at a point only small changes are needed you can just have a usage adjustment, but right now it takes a lot more than that unless certain characters are permanently figthting at minus 50 levels.

Unknown

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

With some minor buffs, some of the other characters will be made more viable.

I have about 15 different teams I can field against any AI opponent for a reliable win. There are also a few characters that are almost always useless dead weight. Ideally, all the characters should be viable in a team of some sort. If a few of the marginal characters were made slightly better, then that might make them usable. Some players would at least dust them off.

Anything that could change the variety of teams seen in PvP would be an improvement. The devs have used supernerfs to try to fix this, but they should try some small buffs to see what happens. They should at least try something.

Reasonable changes to reasonable characters doesn't solve anything. Invisible Woman's changes are reasonable. How many Invisible Woman have you seen after she was buffed?

Reasonable improvements to characters never matters as long as there are characters who are unreasonably powerful.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Due to the time it takes to invest in new characters, most balancing wouldn't really accomplish useful other than simply rearranging some numbers to give the semblance of doing something. I mean you're talking about a population that has a significant portion that apparently doesn't think Black Panther or Thor 3* is/was overpowered so with that in mind they're pretty much wasting time with any small tweaks because most people would have no idea why it even matters, even if every tweak was correct, and they can easily be wrong.

I'm not convinced there's anybody that actually knows enough about the game, dev or players or otherwise, to make any sweeping changes to the game on the more marginal characters. I'd prefer a solution that simply adjusts character as a matter of usage rate (most overused character gets negative 30 levels, for example). It wouldn't work well with abilities that don't depend on numbers (level 15 Spiderman with 5 blue can still stun forever) but it should catch most of the simple cases.

High usage doesn't necessarily mean something is wrong with a character. Perfect fit for rainbow with other well liked characters, high hp, a fun ability, or even just a really well liked character lead to high usage rates. Sometimes the issue also lies with the team composition (patches being used due to spidey) or due to a plethora of covers being thrown into the game (patches/punisher).

Low usage rate I think does do a good job of showing who should be buffed, with 4**** a hard to gauge possible outlier due to the small pool of characters and the difficulty in obtaining enough covers to make them viable (if they were good..which atm they are not).

The devs Do know how to buff nerf characters...all it takes is setting a point value range for the amount of damage stun etc you want per an ap, an ability to hp ratio, and then sticking to it mostly. Actually DOING that seems to be the issue, because creating characters that are nicely balanced and don't push the envelope leads to a game where ppl feel its okay to stick with thier 3 month old characters...which is bad for business. Players themselves are inherently biased, which is why I do agree I wouldn't let a player make sweeping changes to the game, especially one that wants everything nerfed. Also, pure perfect balance isn't always the same thing as "fun." Magneto is fun to use (you should instantly know that, even if I have a good idea on a mag change, I am forever bias and grains of salt should be consumed). Seeing the big damage and actively using blue to succeed is fun. Red could change and he would be just as fun, but messing with the others too much and he just becomes a number. Magneto certainly isn't in line with most of the other characters, but the question in the end is whether or not that is bad for the game or not. Rag was certainly bad for the game, tholverine was probably bad for the game, and panther doing 4k to 3 players for 12 ap was a bit too high given the other 3*** abilities. After that its much murkier. Spidey hurts the defensive aspect of the game and makes pve based somewhat on having spidey or a VERY good team. Magneto needs his red changed as 2 ap moves make strike tiles too strong. Etc etc blah blah blah.

If they worked from the ground up with an ap:damage/effect:hp ratio in mind the game would be much more balanced, but
To get there at this point would require a lot of work to do something that doesn't effect thier income in a positive manner most likely. If they are throwing lazy x characters at us, clearly "time" is not on thier side anyhow.

Also, there are more than 4 in the 3*** game. Hulk for defensive reasons, psylocke is basically the same thing as punisher, gsbw is okay enough to use on the right team, you mentioned bp and lazy thor already, hood....way more useful 3*** than not useful ones.

Finally, Balance is ALWAYS about small tweeks. 1 ap, +1 to frame data, 5% damage reduction per a bullet, small increase to cast time...they all are inching towards a better balance. It's also far less abusive to the customer to slowly nudge something multiple times than to cut damage in half, realize it wasn't right and then add 40%, realize that is wrong and increase the cost by x...etc etc. Less abuse = papier customers. Maybe you won't be happy with smaller tweeks, but I can guarantee you are the minority on that one (compared to large sweeping change). The bigger issue is that these small tweeks should be weekly or so, and instead its been months without word on even a possible first set of tweeks.

Unknown

That's my issue with Phantron's position. He is against small tweaks because they are "illusionary" but he is also against sweeping changes because "no one knows anything, not even devs". So basically what we are left with is whining about character balance every chance we get, then throwing our hands up in the air when people ask you for fixes