Character Rebalance Plan

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  • tiomono
    tiomono Posts: 1,654 Chairperson of the Boards
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    udonomefoo wrote:
    "David wrote:
    Moore"]Some ubiquitous, strong characters dominate competitive play - we want to reduce the power of those characters just enough so that other characters of the same rarity can compete with them for a spot. We also want to increase the power of underpowered characters - the ones sitting on the bench, fun and interesting but not powerful enough to compete - to give them another shot at competitive play.

    I'm all about more balance, but please take care with power reductions. If you're only looking at how they play vs the same rarity then players who are in transitions will suffer.

    It might help transitioners more than hurt. Currently everyone wants oml and they hate ss. But if all rng gives you is ss you are one sad puppy.

    But if more characters across all rarities are closer in power level you feel better sinking iso into whatever rng gives you.
  • snlf25
    snlf25 Posts: 947 Critical Contributor
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    I'm assuming that what they are going to do to OML will look a lot like that South Park episode about Indiana Jones 4. So I guess the question is do I sell all my 5*s to reduce the scaling I will in no way shape or form still be able to cope with or do I quit? I'm guessing I will come out of this pretty feeble without my old boy.
  • kirk justice
    kirk justice Posts: 60 Match Maker
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    There's been some really great quality of life changes recently. From increased ISO in daily supplies, to SHIELD Levels and Clearance, and now to much needed character rebalances. As others have said, buffs generally tend to be more fun than nerfs, but it's understandable that some characters will most likely need to receive a nerf. Hopefully, no character is nerfed so badly that they become the new Cho. That would just be a nightmare and leave people feeling as though they wasted ISO or even money on someone that is now useless. Keep up the good work devs! Excited to see what your vision for this game is going forward.
    P.S. Please for the love of god buff 3* Spider-Man. I want a good Peter Parker so badly that won't take me years to get covers for (looking at you 5* BSS).
  • DapperChewie
    DapperChewie Posts: 399 Mover and Shaker
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    PorkBelly wrote:
    This sucks.

    After the Classic Magneto debacle, I almost bailed. My roster only had two maxed 3*s at that point.

    The time and cash I've spent since then chasing legendary tokens and CP to maintain any level of competition in PvP will be unrecoverable.

    If they buff a bunch of 5*s to make that tier competitive, that's fine.

    If they nerf OML in the same way they did Classic Magneto & X-Force Wolverine, it will be an easy decision to uninstall MPQ.

    To be fair, CMags pre-nerf was STUPID powerful, with really cheap powers you could just spam all day.

    When it gets to the point where there are a few select characters that are required if you want to stay competitive, those characters should be looked at to see why. I think the nerf to XFW was too severe, especially in hindsight now that there are characters more powerful than he was pre-nerf.

    They do need to be careful not to make the Hulkbusters and Icemen completely useless, however.

    And on the other hand, I'm really looking forward to the new, useful Star Lord, Devil Dino, Chulk, Captain Falcon, and Invisible Woman. Maybe while they're at it, they can fix those under performing 3s like Sentry, Vision, and Psylocke.
  • veny
    veny Posts: 834 Critical Contributor
    edited September 2016
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    I reccomed some of those:
    - Make nodes in PvE stars related - 2*s and 3*s are becoming useless - why use them in PvE when you can most the most powerful hero you want.
    - Daily chain of missions with 1*, 2* and 3* required characters - reward? Some ISO, maybe tokens. Reason? Same as above.
    - Championing for 1*s character - Why not? They are completely useless. Let low level players farm XPs on them a bit.
  • TheVulture
    TheVulture Posts: 419 Mover and Shaker
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    From a 3* playing perspective, this seems like fun news - the 3* tier has been static for so long now, there must be metrics (or at least an easy consensus) on which characters no one is willingly playing.

    100% Second Kirk Justice's call for Spider-man to be reworked! Can't be a bone of contention that a character with no offense and weak support = benchwarmer personified.
  • CrookedKnight
    CrookedKnight Posts: 2,579 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I hope we're looking at 5* Cap and Surfer boosts, since Murphy's Law has dictated that those are the two most covered 5*s I have.
  • TazFTW
    TazFTW Posts: 695 Critical Contributor
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    Will moved on?
  • tiomono
    tiomono Posts: 1,654 Chairperson of the Boards
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    From the ashes rises a new threat to ares. He swings into battle with a bag on his head and decimates the 2* tier.

    Snarky remarks and webbed shenanigans for all.
  • Dartmaster01
    Dartmaster01 Posts: 634 Critical Contributor
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    And to think I was just about to get my wallet out and buy a stark salary. F-that now, good job guys.

    But I'll try to be optimistic and think maybe you you'll bring back a couple of 4Thor's charged tiles or fix x-force's green. Hell, you could even get crazy make IW playable for once.
  • spghttihead
    spghttihead Posts: 74 Match Maker
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    Please make IW playable. Her mechanics are kind of fun but that green is way to costly for such little damage.
  • GurlBYE
    GurlBYE Posts: 1,218 Chairperson of the Boards
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    There's a lot of fixing i expect to see before nerfing tbh.

    3 and 4 star tiers are too bloated with unfortunate decisions.

    Even 5 is getting some.
  • jobob
    jobob Posts: 680 Critical Contributor
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    Please please PLEASE be very judicious about which characters to nerf. I sincerely hope you spend more time buffing weaker characters than nerfing the strong ones.

    Remember that a champed 4 or 5* represents a pretty major investment from your customers, either in time, money, or both. Hard decisions had to be made, and were done with some expectations about how that character would fit into their roster. Grossly OP characters are one thing... But someone being a little stronger isn't necessarily terrible. ESPECIALLY when the top of the 4* and 5* tiers are pretty well balanced. I don't think there is a single character or two in those tiers that is far enough ahead of the rest of the top tier to merit a rework. The 5* tier in particular, outside of 2-3 toward the bottom, is particularly well balanced. The top 8-10 4* are also very well balanced, with all of them being very strong, but not OP.

    Raise the weak up, don't beat the strong down.
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
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    jobob wrote:
    Please please PLEASE be very judicious about which characters to nerf. I sincerely hope you spend more time buffing weaker characters than nerfing the strong ones.

    Remember that a champed 4 or 5* represents a pretty major investment from your customers, either in time, money, or both. Hard decisions had to be made, and were done with some expectations about how that character would fit into their roster. Grossly OP characters are one thing... But someone being a little stronger isn't necessarily terrible. ESPECIALLY when the top of the 4* and 5* tiers are pretty well balanced. I don't think there is a single character or two in those tiers that is far enough ahead of the rest of the top tier to merit a rework. The 5* tier in particular, outside of 2-3 toward the bottom, is particularly well balanced. The top 8-10 4* are also very well balanced, with all of them being very strong, but not OP.

    Raise the weak up, don't beat the strong down.

    Very much this!

    And to repeat: please remember that a big reason that lots of people use imhb/jg/iceman/oml is because they were some of the earliest very good characters in their tiers. Imhb is not better than Peggy. But my 5/5/3 imhb @ 286 is a hell of a lot better than my 2/1/4 Peggy. Similarly, I spent almost 200 stockpiled tacos mining my 12th and 13th iceman covers out of few vaults. Its not because iceman is better than rulk per se. It's because rng gave me 11 iceman covers, but only 6 for rulk. Will I get my tacos back of i choose to sell a nerfed iceman? Obviously not. But then I have also lost the opportunity cost of using them to finish some other strong 4* instead.

    Fixing characters that are broken like 2ap Winfinite rangarok is one thing. But please don't punish your players for making rational choices about deploying resources that the game limits very aggressivley (like tacos and iso).
  • Blahahah
    Blahahah Posts: 738 Critical Contributor
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    jobob wrote:
    Please please PLEASE be very judicious about which characters to nerf. I sincerely hope you spend more time buffing weaker characters than nerfing the strong ones.

    Remember that a champed 4 or 5* represents a pretty major investment from your customers, either in time, money, or both. Hard decisions had to be made, and were done with some expectations about how that character would fit into their roster. Grossly OP characters are one thing... But someone being a little stronger isn't necessarily terrible. ESPECIALLY when the top of the 4* and 5* tiers are pretty well balanced. I don't think there is a single character or two in those tiers that is far enough ahead of the rest of the top tier to merit a rework. The 5* tier in particular, outside of 2-3 toward the bottom, is particularly well balanced. The top 8-10 4* are also very well balanced, with all of them being very strong, but not OP.

    Raise the weak up, don't beat the strong down.

    I think the issue is this misconception that they are going to annihilate OML or something.

    They are going to retune him to bring him in line with other 5* characters, most of which are decently strong. I think it can be agreed that someone like say Iron Man is a good middle-of-the-road 5*. They'll just bring OML from "only character that matters" to "Still strong and preferable, but not the end-all member". Probably they'll take away some of his sustain, and maybe tone down his strike tiles. They might buff his transformation though to compensate.

    I doubt they'll pull a XFW and completely gib him.
  • DFiPL
    DFiPL Posts: 2,405 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Blahahah wrote:
    jobob wrote:
    Please please PLEASE be very judicious about which characters to nerf. I sincerely hope you spend more time buffing weaker characters than nerfing the strong ones.

    Remember that a champed 4 or 5* represents a pretty major investment from your customers, either in time, money, or both. Hard decisions had to be made, and were done with some expectations about how that character would fit into their roster. Grossly OP characters are one thing... But someone being a little stronger isn't necessarily terrible. ESPECIALLY when the top of the 4* and 5* tiers are pretty well balanced. I don't think there is a single character or two in those tiers that is far enough ahead of the rest of the top tier to merit a rework. The 5* tier in particular, outside of 2-3 toward the bottom, is particularly well balanced. The top 8-10 4* are also very well balanced, with all of them being very strong, but not OP.

    Raise the weak up, don't beat the strong down.

    I think the issue is this misconception that they are going to annihilate OML or something.

    They are going to retune him to bring him in line with other 5* characters, most of which are decently strong. I think it can be agreed that someone like say Iron Man is a good middle-of-the-road 5*. They'll just bring OML from "only character that matters" to "Still strong and preferable, but not the end-all member". Probably they'll take away some of his sustain, and maybe tone down his strike tiles. They might buff his transformation though to compensate.

    I doubt they'll pull a XFW and completely gib him.

    See, you say that, but this is a community where every 4* sucks if they can't end a match in 20 seconds in PVP. If anything happens to OML, the overreaction is going to be strong.
  • jobob
    jobob Posts: 680 Critical Contributor
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    Blahahah wrote:
    jobob wrote:
    Please please PLEASE be very judicious about which characters to nerf. I sincerely hope you spend more time buffing weaker characters than nerfing the strong ones.

    Remember that a champed 4 or 5* represents a pretty major investment from your customers, either in time, money, or both. Hard decisions had to be made, and were done with some expectations about how that character would fit into their roster. Grossly OP characters are one thing... But someone being a little stronger isn't necessarily terrible. ESPECIALLY when the top of the 4* and 5* tiers are pretty well balanced. I don't think there is a single character or two in those tiers that is far enough ahead of the rest of the top tier to merit a rework. The 5* tier in particular, outside of 2-3 toward the bottom, is particularly well balanced. The top 8-10 4* are also very well balanced, with all of them being very strong, but not OP.

    Raise the weak up, don't beat the strong down.

    I think the issue is this misconception that they are going to annihilate OML or something.

    They are going to retune him to bring him in line with other 5* characters, most of which are decently strong. I think it can be agreed that someone like say Iron Man is a good middle-of-the-road 5*. They'll just bring OML from "only character that matters" to "Still strong and preferable, but not the end-all member". Probably they'll take away some of his sustain, and maybe tone down his strike tiles. They might buff his transformation though to compensate.

    I doubt they'll pull a XFW and completely gib him.
    See... This is exactly my point though. WHO says OML isn't in line with the other 5*, or the "only character that matters?" I have talked to a lot of people with 5+ champed 5* and none of them say that. He is not even the best 5*! He's the best meat shield, and the best FIRST 5* to get, but once you get the rest of them, he fades in and fills a role just like the rest. He isn't as useful as "middle-of-the-road" Iron Man.

    I've got all 10 5* champed. OML is who I would take if I could only have 1, because of his versatility, but he sits the bench behind Phoenix, BSS, GG, 5IM, and Bolt (and maybe behind Banner once I get more levels on him).

    Point being, OML is the best first 5* to have, and is good for easy-med PVE node grinding... That's his role, and he does it very well. He's not the best 5*. And if you weaken him (maybe by even a little bit), he may drop to the bottom tier.


    Craptain sucks. Buff him bug time, give SS a little buff, make Natty's powers a bit cheaper, and buff Hulks red/green match damage... And BAM. You have an incredibly balanced 5* tier.
  • Blahahah
    Blahahah Posts: 738 Critical Contributor
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    jobob wrote:
    Blahahah wrote:
    jobob wrote:
    Please please PLEASE be very judicious about which characters to nerf. I sincerely hope you spend more time buffing weaker characters than nerfing the strong ones.

    Remember that a champed 4 or 5* represents a pretty major investment from your customers, either in time, money, or both. Hard decisions had to be made, and were done with some expectations about how that character would fit into their roster. Grossly OP characters are one thing... But someone being a little stronger isn't necessarily terrible. ESPECIALLY when the top of the 4* and 5* tiers are pretty well balanced. I don't think there is a single character or two in those tiers that is far enough ahead of the rest of the top tier to merit a rework. The 5* tier in particular, outside of 2-3 toward the bottom, is particularly well balanced. The top 8-10 4* are also very well balanced, with all of them being very strong, but not OP.

    Raise the weak up, don't beat the strong down.

    I think the issue is this misconception that they are going to annihilate OML or something.

    They are going to retune him to bring him in line with other 5* characters, most of which are decently strong. I think it can be agreed that someone like say Iron Man is a good middle-of-the-road 5*. They'll just bring OML from "only character that matters" to "Still strong and preferable, but not the end-all member". Probably they'll take away some of his sustain, and maybe tone down his strike tiles. They might buff his transformation though to compensate.

    I doubt they'll pull a XFW and completely gib him.
    See... This is exactly my point though. WHO says OML isn't in line with the other 5*, or the "only character that matters?" I have talked to a lot of people with 5+ champed 5* and none of them say that. He is not even the best 5*! He's the best meat shield, and the best FIRST 5* to get, but once you get the rest of them, he fades in and fills a role just like the rest. He isn't as useful as "middle-of-the-road" Iron Man.

    I've got all 10 5* champed. OML is who I would take if I could only have 1, because of his versatility, but he sits the bench behind Phoenix, BSS, GG, 5IM, and Bolt (and maybe behind Banner once I get more levels on him).

    Point being, OML is the best first 5* to have, and is good for easy-med PVE node grinding... That's his role, and he does it very well. He's not the best 5*. And if you weaken him (maybe by even a little bit), he may drop to the bottom tier.


    Craptain sucks. Buff him bug time, give SS a little buff, make Natty's powers a bit cheaper, and buff Hulks red/green match damage... And BAM. You have an incredibly balanced 5* tier.
    The entire counter argument is the fact that you said out of all of the 5*s, you'd take him if you had to take one. It shouldn't be so easy to choose him over someone else unless he was by and large the best 5*. Maybe not the "most powerful", but the best often isn't the strongest. 3* iron man, for example.

    Also for you who has all 5*s champed, yeah maybe OML is weaksauce to you (despite the fact that he exists on every team that isn't GG and BSS), but to literally everyone else who isn't in that top 0.01% of people, he is overwhelmingly and far and beyond better than literally any other character. I should never get to the point where I have to struggle to find reasons not to use a character every chance I get. That's a sign that a character is imbalanced, and if the goal is to make the game more open-ended to team compositions, then OML would be the first to get a toning down.

    Lets be honest, unless they outright remove his healing and strike tiles, he is never going to be bottom tier. His design won't allow it.
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Blahah:

    OML is not better than the other 5*s. He was the first very good 5* released, so relatively more people focused on collecting him. And he also undermines the healing mechanic in the game (and this is a game yhats all about grinding, so that is very valuable). But it seems pretty clear that oml is not significantly better tha, some other very strong 5*s (There are posts all over the boards and on line arguing variously that bss, gg, phoenix, im46, and BB are better than oml). He is just more common because of age and grinding utility.

    Perception does not equal reality. OML is not on every 5* team. There are just very few 5* players who have newer 5*s at a comparable level. I suspect that the ones that do use non-oml teams pretty often. The fact that he is seen most often doesn't mean that he is the best.

    And if collecting characters that are available and then using them make characters overpowered, then we should all just wait until each tier has 10 or 20 characters before we start collecting covers.
  • firethorne
    firethorne Posts: 1,505 Chairperson of the Boards
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    fmftint wrote:
    Nerfing OML/Phoenix won't magically change the 5☆ gamescape, 5☆s are inherently hard to cover and ridiculously expensive to level.

    Excellent point. I have 3 goblins, 2 caps, 1 IM, 1 Black Bolt, 0 Hulk or Spiderman. As the 5* and 4* pools grow, the chances to cover character diminish ever further. The first ones will obviously be better represented, because they had time being the only ones in the pool. Regardless of nerfs or boosts, you can't convince someone to more frequently use characters they can't obtain.