Rebalance plan - my thoughs about origine of game unbalance

veny

Well, after playing some game very similar to MPQ i realized there is something that really destroys a ballace.
And yes, the problem is: Power of heroes.

The game itself provides variety of heroes from the most useless ones (1*s) to the most powerful ones (4*s and 5*s). Whole progression works this way: Get character, use it to get better one, repeat. Plus there are missions requiring specific characters to be owned and/or maxed. Whole problem is, once you get Character B, character A is useless (except for PvE/DDQ/PvP where you need it for missions) mainly thanks to stuff like machmaking and PvE scalling.

How to fix it? Well, if you really want the game balanced, you should do something that works in DDQ pretty well - Nodes requiring specific quality covers.

You can make easy mission but people will bring 5*s (naturally, once you have them you barely use something else). Make missions for up to 2* only.

Same with PvP - Make PvPs for up to 2*s, 3*s, 4*s, 5*s and without limitations so people can choose... just like DDQ works. Why should i test my luck with 2* roster againt some lucker with OML - yes, matchmaking works this way. Recently i was fighting Rulk with 40K HP (sure my roster didnt have a single maxed 4*).

Other option is sending covers to mission: Most of us have 80+ covers and guess what? We use like 20% of them.
Simple idea: You have a SHELD Base - rooms are unocking as you progress trough shield ranks. You send you teams to missions, they will return with loot - great way how to use weak characters - they wont be weak anymore - this feture would treat them according to their level.
Great way how to make all characters somehow useful. Also great combination with SHIELD rank system and great way how to invest in your strategy (upgrading base, buying slots for HP - people may spend money there too).

Dormammu

While it's true that once you are well established into a (star-level) tier, the prior tier becomes less useful. But it's not like this happens overnight. The one-star tier is a fast one, but there's not a ton of choices there anyway; it's the trainer tier. But most players spend quite a bit of time at each next tier, and mostly battle players around the same tier. The higher the tier you go, the longer you spend there - we're talking years for free-to-play players, starting at the three-star level. Spending that much time in a tier, you'd like to have some balance while you're there.

The whole GOAL is to move on to the next dangling carrot. Without that, the developers don't have a business model. That doesn't mean you abandon all your other characters who are weaker. They still have uses. I use my 1 & 2 star characters all the time in PVE to defeat the early, weaker enemies, so my tougher characters don't take a bunch of ticky-tack damage and can stay healthy, allowing me to play longer before using health packs.

DDQ and event boosts have done plenty to keep my 2-stars in daily rotation. Hell, I just rode my boosted 2* Thor through the entire first set of Gauntlet missions, and I'm well into the 3-star tier and working on my 4-star transition.

And to be honest, I spent months with Ares, OBW, and that lot. I've moved on. That's ok. They gave me great joy for a long time. Let them ride the bench now.

Suddenreal

So, your suggestion isn't to balance at all, but just make everything necessary? Yeah, that's completely missing the point. Your talk about progression proves this. Yes, of course you'll stop using 1* characters once you have a team of 2*, just like you'll stop using that team when you have enough 3* that are high enough level. The point is that you should be able to use any of the current rarity you have instead of a select few. Covers like Chulk and Mister Fantastic are considered vendor trash by most people, and considering they are both 4*, that would indicate that's a problem. Also, nodes that require specific quality covers doesn't work in DDQ pretty well, it's the game mode, it's the only way it works. The reason why it "works" this way is because you get a specific reward, just like how it works in story events (if you don't have the required characters, you miss out on points).

The whole point of balancing is to make sure every character can be put in three tiers (there will always be better and worse characters) instead of the five or six tiers there are now, and to make sure that the tiers aren't too far apart or you'll shift back to five or six tiers. That way you can use any character you can get your hands on. Characters that are good at all time will be tier one (Iron Man mark 40), characters that are good on their own will be tier two (Blade) and characters that are great in certain situations will be tier three (Falcon). The whole point of balancing is that players come up with combinations on their own that work, and if they don't have the right characters, they can substitute with other characters and still have a chance.

What you're suggesting is forcing a character on someone, even if there aren't any good combinations for them. And just because everyone will then use that character doesn't mean it's balanced. It just means they HAVE to use it. Just because someone has to type reports at work every day doesn't mean he likes to type reports. It just means it's their job and they have to do it. And that's the whole point of this rebalance, so that people do not HAVE to use certain characters each time, but that they can switch it up and still have a chance to win as much as with their previous team.