Character Rebalance Plan

bpcontra

OML can be nuetralized by Ant-Man pretty easily. Both his health regen and his attack tiles can all be nuetralized quickly and efficiently. Maybe at the top tier using Ant-Man as a support character isnt viable die to health, but on multiple occasions I have taken out OML with him and went on to win with a much weaker team.

The focus should be on making characters more usable.

Squirrel Girl - make her green 10 instead of 13 and she becomes extremely useful.

Gamora - Buff her red a little and make her yellow damage higher so that more Gamora tiles are on the board for her black.

Captain Marvel - Increase her black damage and the enemy tile she creates

Quicksilver - Reduce the cost of his abilities by 1 and reduce the number of locked tiles needed to activate his powers by 1

The list goes on but i think the point of this change is not to think "ok how do I bring a character down to everyones level"....we have to think about how to make every character feel powerful and usable in their own way

Quebbster

simonsez wrote:

OneLastGambit wrote:

Firstly d3 gave no clue as to how they will change things but let's take the most recent example (and therefore the most valid) of character changes....I think we can all agree that every character they changed (vision, im40, qs) are all better.

Those were buffs. When was the last time anyone cheered for a nerf? Trust me, no one's going to cheer these either...

Classic Magneto's rework was more of a lateral move, and it was quite well received - he was still powerful after the redesign, but not quite as powerful as he'd been Before.

jobob

Again, it's a fine idea... I just hope D3 uses caution.

I might even say start in the 3* area for the first season, just to see how it goes... I think starting in a "finished" tier is going to be easier than incomplete ones. First, usage is going to be skewed tremendously by release date. This is also true with player perception and feedback on a character- we barely have any legitimate feedback on how champ Natty and Boltagon play. There are still people who don't think Nova and Maxie are up there with JG and 4Clops.

This issue is exacerbated by (an admittedly fantastic feature) the Champion system... which really strings out the leveling process. So even if you do fully cover and champ a new 4*, you aren't going to necessarily use them over an older champ. For example, it's very tough for me to accurately compare my lvl 275 Spider-Woman to my lvl 370 XFW (though the fact that I almost never use a freakin' 370 XFW should speak volumes about how much of a re-work that character needs... and, not to reopen a can of worms, it says something about OML as well).

Another reason to use caution in an unfinished tier is the reality of "Power Creep." Nerfing a character in an unfinished tier to bring them in line with other characters can leave them underpowered down the road.


ALSO, If I may humbly suggest: Once you get this train rolling, and the data is coming in... Announce in the offseason who the data says to nerf/buff during the NEXT offseason. Give players a full season to plan for it. Obviously, the first season, you will be looking at the bottom #1 - 5 (or whatever). But give us a heads up on who are currently also #6 - 10 on that list.

jobob

One other thought... on a (semi) related note... I really like the boosted characters and the way they rotate. It's a great way to bring characters that aren't always useful into the spotlight for a little while. I hope that doesn't go away. In fact, the full-blown 3* nerf to boosted characters should be scaled back (or possibly eliminated altogether).

Hopefully D3 will use the boosted data to help this process... if a character isn't being used even when boosted, it's a sure sign that they need a re-work.

Polares

fmftint wrote:

There's a problem with nerfing based on usage, especially in the 5☆ tier, they are hard to convert and expensive to level. Once you get pot committed to one, unless you're a whale, that's it. Because of the way the game is designed, scaling and mmr, your best character, is the most used. When you've dumped+400k iso into a character, yeah, you're going to use it. This is a system you designed and now you want to penalize us for doing the best we can with what we have?

You want people to use the rest of the tier? Give us the coverrs and resources to do so

This.

'A lot' of people has maxed or near maxed SS but they don't use him because he is very bad in 5 land. Then the next character most people have covered is OML, he is the oldest good 5 char. Then PH. If I had a champed Spidey, GG or IM (and also BB and BW) I would use them all the time, but I can't because I don't have them maxed and I need a year or almost a year to champ them!!!

We have never EVER needed so much time to champ a character than with 5s. Imagine a year of play obliterated because the one 5 you managed to champ is nerfed. If one of those is nerfed, this is going to be a disaster.


But we really don't know if any 5 is going to be affected, we need the list of affected chars so this speculation can end. Please Devs, who will be buffed/nerfed?

an1979

OML - nerfed

Because people playing him don't buy Health Packs.

Taco tokens were nerfed so more people plaing PvP for top placement can't rely on them and must buy HP.

OML is the last thing standing in the road to increased revenue.

Polares

an1979 wrote:

OML - nerfed

Because people playing him don't buy Health Packs.

Taco tokens were nerfed so more people plaing PvP for top placement can't rely on them and must buy HP.

OML is the last thing standing in the road to increased revenue.

OML don't being nerfed is the only thing that keeps revenue coming, because if he is nerfed A LOT of people might consider stop playing

Dragon_Nexus

Bah, I knew it. Right before I champion Ice Man he's going to get nerfed.
I'm forever getting the best characters right after they get made into *not* the best characters ¬¬

Forever chasing the meta =P

bpcontra

3* Bullseye's black firing when ANYONE from your team kills someone would be a useful change for him that would immediately make him more useful.

nwman

Here are my thoughts on any 5* nerfs.

Don't. Just buff other 5*s. A lot of people have ss and he sucks. Make him stronger and get diversity. Or offer the oldest 5 star covers as progression (hope to see in 8-10 clearance) so people can use other characters.

I have a lvl 500 oml, and if oml gets nerfed I imagine I will easily crush most everyone with my other champed 5s. Oh, and in crazy scaling pve he gets killed often enough. But it's boring and i rarely play, hope these clearance levels add something.

Bss already exists and completely shuts down oml. If you nerf his healing, you know the one thing wolverine does very well, then you might as well get rid of him.

If you don't believe me, take your oml, and transform without saving up ap. Watch how useless he is, especially vs bss, or even gg, im, bolt, hell even banner.

hesjingixen

I just wanted to add my voice to the chorus saying "Please buff the weak folks more than nerfing the strong folks". I'd much rather see the slackers brought up to the power level of the "current meta" than see folks in the "current meta" pounded into paste.

In addition, from a Customer Service point of view, almost no one ever complains when you buff that guy they never use, but people kavetch up a storm when you nerf their favorite shinies.

ngoni

The lack of 5* diversity is an indicator of how broken the RNG 5* progression 'system' is. It is NOT an indicator of OML/PNX being overpowered. When it takes a year for 'normal' players to build a 5* don't be surprised when that becomes their go-to team.

And put me on team #BuffNotNerf.

ronin_san

It's always been that characters who are no longer making the dev money + extremely common usage in high scoring PvP sessions = nerf bait.

Example:
Thorverine in 2* land....
Thorverine in 4* land....
3* Mags and Spidey in 3* Land....
Sentry in 3* land....

Devs. It's just business doesn't fly. Buff instead of nerf.

What you should be targetting is a Buff on characters no-one's using, EG 5* Cap, 4* Cho, 3* Punisher, Psylocke, Drax, 5* Widow, Surfer, Star-Lord, Devil Dino, or XFW.


Yes. XFW. Let people choose their targets with his green. Even 3* characters like GSBW and Hood get to choose where they hit, and he's a 4*!!!! Bump him to 13K health, let me choose where his (centers, no ability tile selection), and he's relevant again.

wymtime

ngoni wrote:

The lack of 5* diversity is an indicator of how broken the RNG 5* progression 'system' is. It is NOT an indicator of OML/PNX being overpowered. When it takes a year for 'normal' players to build a 5* don't be surprised when that becomes their go-to team.

And put me on team #BuffNotNerf.

Amen to this.
I use OML because I was able to get so many covers of him and my other 5* are not covered enough to use in PVP. In the 5* tier on paper I think green goblin and black blot are much stronger 5*. The issue is combined I have 4 covers of them. I also really want more BSSM covers as I feel he is a really good 5*. I have my 9th cover of him in daily resupply this week but when will I get covers 10-13 will be anyone's guess.

I can't use what I don't have

JackTenrec

I don't know if character rebalance just means tweaking numbers or actually making changes to mechanics. Some characters just don't get used because their powers are useless except in certain situations (e.g. Daredevil Radar Sense, 3* Bullseye Lethal Improvisation), whereas characters like Iron Fist and 3* Cyclops are always useful. Since the name of the game is stomping on the enemy, characters with damage powers are almost always more useful than specialists.

Psylocke's Bewilder is a perfect example of a powerful power that is almost never useful, because either a) the enemy's largest AP pool is the color it's not using b) the enemy's largest AP pool is a color you're not using or c) the countdown tile is almost immediately going to get matched anyway. Short of making it incredibly cheap to use (think She-Hulk's Furious Charge), no amount of number tweaking is going to make it useful. But imagine if you got to place specific countdown tiles to steal specific colors of the enemy team's AP. Now you've got something that I think people would both dump covers into and actually use.

Obviously, new powers are going to take a lot more effort than number shuffling, but I'm guessing that's the only way to make some of the less used characters actually usable.

carrion_pigeons

One of the advantages of a regular update schedule is that you can afford to make small adjustments that might not get the job done, but will get people experimenting with the character again. For example, reducing the cost of Doc Oct ' s Armed and Dangerous by 1 AP probably isn't enough to bring him into the meta, but it has enough potential that people will try it and talk about it and give lots of useful data for a more directed change later. I would love to see lots of conservative changes like that before seeing major redesigns.

That said there are some characters that have just overstayed their welcome in the meta. OML for example should be nerfed to the point where he's a useful tank in PvE but just not a competitor in pvp. Once people have learned not to use him he can slowly be brought back into relevance. That should 100% be the first change you make. All the people saying "yeah but I spent money on him" just need to realize that they got plenty of an advantage from their whaling and that spending money once should not equal a permanent advantage over the field.

Bowgentle

carrion pigeons wrote:

One of the advantages of a regular update schedule is that you can afford to make small adjustments that might not get the job done, but will get people experimenting with the character again. For example, reducing the cost of Doc Oct ' s Armed and Dangerous by 1 AP probably isn't enough to bring him into the meta, but it has enough potential that people will try it and talk about it and give lots of useful data for a more directed change later. I would love to see lots of conservative changes like that before seeing major redesigns.

That said there are some characters that have just overstayed their welcome in the meta. OML for example should be nerfed to the point where he's a useful tank in PvE but just not a competitor in pvp. Once people have learned not to use him he can slowly be brought back into relevance. That should 100% be the first change you make. All the people saying "yeah but I spent money on him" just need to realize that they got plenty of an advantage from their whaling and that spending money once should not equal a permanent advantage over the field.

They have never done incremental changes in the last 3 years.

They either completely rework, or just nerf the char into oblivion.

This is where the 1000+ day vets are coming from, this is why we are afraid that chars will not just be taken down a little, but nerfed to the trash tier.

Or they do incremental stuff that nobody notices, like Baglady and Craptain.

MojoWild

I visualize Negan walking with his nerf bat in front of all the characters reciting eenie meenie miny moe... And we have to wait until Monday to find it who gets it

fmftint

carrion pigeons wrote:

That said there are some characters that have just overstayed their welcome in the meta. OML for example should be nerfed to the point where he's a useful tank in PvE but just not a competitor in pvp. Once people have learned not to use him he can slowly be brought back into relevance. That should 100% be the first change you make. All the people saying "yeah but I spent money on him" just need to realize that they got plenty of an advantage from their whaling and that spending money once should not equal a permanent advantage over the field.

And who do non whales replace him with? A unleveled 10 cover SS? Do you have 400k iso to make that swap? No, you're still going to use your 390-430 OML. The whales diversify (they already do) nothing changes for the rest of us.

They say they want diversity, but the game design promotes maximizing your limited resources

BraneDedDev

The problem isn't character strength, otherwise these alleged over powered characters wouldnt ever be fought or won against. Players using them would never shield and could iso farm pvp the entire event without retaliation. This is not the case. Lower roster players complaining that they cannot beat them need to better their roster like the rest of us, better roster players see below.

The problem is that you release characters so quickly without an adequate way to cover them in a timely matter. There is also no rock/paper/scissor mechanic that would allow for diversity. Its all about low cost, high damage, can it stun, can it generate ap, can it change the board and cascade, are there strike tiles. Players are forced to use their strongest group, the same group for umpteen units of time because they don't get covers for anything else. Rare draws with impossible rates and a system guaranteed to give you 10 of cover you already have at 5 long before a single cover that sits at 0-4. Shall we dive into battle with an 0/0/5 new release for fun diversity? No because pve scaling isn't based of who you play with, pvp they'd be useless other than easy points for everyone that finds you, should you manage to win. Nobody uses the new characters because your system makes it impossible to. I want to use Peggy, MK, Wasp. I'd settle for older ones but none of them are covered!

Nerfing only angers paying customers. Nerfing doesnt balance anything, the strongest team simply changes... Did you forget what happened when XFW and Thoress were nerfed?

You also seem to forget that the whales are a small fraction of your paying player base. Nobody else is maxing a new character day 1 (likely not day 365 either). Maybe they'll leave after the nerfs.

Make under used/under powered characters stronger and receive a positive response that strengthens the game... put the nerf bat in the garbage for crying out loud.