**** Wolverine (X-Force) **** [PRE 2015-04]

Unknown

fickle wrote:

I was browsing the various *outrage* threads in /general and a lot of people there are mentioning an upcoming X-Force nerf. Is this true? Or are people just overreacting?

The thought process is:

Two characters own the game. You can compete with the very best players in the entire game with just Xforce and 4hor. You don’t need the featured character to be anything and you don’t need any back up characters to sub in at any time.

This basically makes every other character relatively pointless.

A lot of people justified their strength by saying “they’re 4 stars, they’re supposed to be vastly strong than 3 stars.”

Then Star lord, Elektra and Xavier came out…and were terrible.

And then Luke Cage, Iron Fist and Cyclops came out, who were superior to every 4 star except for Thor and Xforce.

That’s when people started to doubt if D3 really had any idea how to balance a game. It would have been understandable if the 4 stars released were nearly as strong as Xforce and Thor, or stronger.

But they clearly weren’t; and what’s worse, 3 3 stars were released that left the most recent 4 stars in the dust.

But people stuck to their guns “Thor and Wolverine are fine. They’re 4 stars. They are supposed to be strong. The other 4 stars are the problem. D3 just needs to buff IW, Fury, Elektra, Star Lord and Xavier up to the point at which they can compete with Xforce and Thor. Then we’ll have a perfectly balanced game.”

Then the hammer dropped on Thor.
This made it infinitely clear that Xforce and Thor were obviously not the power level that D3 expected 4 stars to be. So by nerfing Thor, they are essentially saying Xforce is next.

Because you’d have to be pretty insane to have two characters dominating the game, and say “Hey, let’s nerf one so the other will take the game over completely.”

If the people at D3 have brains and know what logic is, which I can only assume they do on both counts, then there is no way Xforce is not being nerfed.

mags1587

I disagree with the idea that X-Force is that overpowered and needs a nerf. He's powerful, yes, but overpowered? No, not in my opinion.

I see an overpowered character (or an overpowered combination of characters) as someone who you can take into any match and win easily, no matter who else you bring along. 4* Thor fit this definition; she could pretty much take down any team on her own once she got blue going. Even level 395 teams in PvE. X-Force, not so much.

I think he dominates in PvP because he's fast, especially with boosts, and speed is key there. In PvE, speed doesn't matter as much and there are plenty of PvE enemies where I look at my roster and think - what's the best team for this? And a lot of times, X-Force is not the guy. A lot of times, one of the boosted 3* characters is the guy, or my trusty PvE team of LCap, Hood, and a tank (usually Hulk).

When I was facing high-level PvE nodes and just wanted to win quickly and didn't want to think about the match too much, I took Goddess Thor to the match and knew she was going to kill everyone unless the board really screwed me. Or I took mnMags and Mystique and never let the enemy have a turn (though I used this less often). X-Force is a great character and he is powerful, but he's not an automatic win on those kind of nodes, not like the other characters who were nerfed, so I don't think he's overpowered.

mags1587

I'm still not convinced that X-Force is overpowered and needs a nerf. He's powerful, yes, but he's not an instant win like GT or the mnMags/Mystique combo. Or is the argument more that he's too widely used in PvP and needs a rework so that there is more variety in PvP? I've seen elements of both in the conversation. And I don't see that changing individual characters will ever really bring more variety to PvP. There's always going to be a fastest team.

The bottom line is that I don't want the devs to rework X-Force because if he is overpowered, he's only slightly overpowered, and I don't have a lot of faith in the devs' ability to do small tweaks to characters. My fear is that they'll knock him back down to his original power level and then he'll be completely unplayable again.

Unknown

mags1587 wrote:

The bottom line is that I don't want the devs to rework X-Force because if he is overpowered, he's only slightly overpowered, and I don't have a lot of faith in the devs' ability to do small tweaks to characters. My fear is that they'll knock him back down to his original power level and then he'll be completely unplayable again.

I strongly agree here. I seriously hope XF will not get from the nerf bat because we've all seen how drastic Demiurge can be with their nerfs: usually they overdo it. All they really need to do is maybe teeny-weeny tweak Surgical Strike and that's it. But knowing the devs they'd change green color to red (and nerf it), heavily nerf his black and last, just for the heck of it, nerf also yellow (because why not? XF's done anyway).

Nay, let it be. Slightly buff weaker 4* characters instead so they become viable choices. You'd think there was more revenue to be gained if multiple rare desirable 4*s existed. After 4thor nerf there is only X-Force and we all can agree that's not good.

Unknown

mags1587 wrote:

I disagree with the idea that X-Force is that overpowered and needs a nerf. He's powerful, yes, but overpowered? No, not in my opinion.

I see an overpowered character (or an overpowered combination of characters) as someone who you can take into any match and win easily, no matter who else you bring along. 4* Thor fit this definition; she could pretty much take down any team on her own once she got blue going. Even level 395 teams in PvE. X-Force, not so much.

I think he dominates in PvP because he's fast, especially with boosts, and speed is key there. In PvE, speed doesn't matter as much and there are plenty of PvE enemies where I look at my roster and think - what's the best team for this? And a lot of times, X-Force is not the guy. A lot of times, one of the boosted 3* characters is the guy, or my trusty PvE team of LCap, Hood, and a tank (usually Hulk).

When I was facing high-level PvE nodes and just wanted to win quickly and didn't want to think about the match too much, I took Goddess Thor to the match and knew she was going to kill everyone unless the board really screwed me. Or I took mnMags and Mystique and never let the enemy have a turn (though I used this less often). X-Force is a great character and he is powerful, but he's not an automatic win on those kind of nodes, not like the other characters who were nerfed, so I don't think he's overpowered.

D3 has proven time and time again that they balance the game around PVP.

Xforce's utility in PVE probably has no factor in their decision of whether to nerf him or not.

famousfoxking

onimus wrote:

D3 has proven time and time again that they balance the game around PVP.

Xforce's utility in PVE probably has no factor in their decision of whether to nerf him or not.

The CMags nerf was entirely about PVE. The MNM/MQ nerf is entirely about PVE. Infinite turn strategies are waaaaaaaaaay too slow to be a factor in PVP. The Spider-man nerf was entirely about PVE. Whether or not they care about XForce specifically in PVE, I can't say, but they definitely balance around PVE as well as PVP.

Edit: Before you yell at me, NP has already pointed out that I'm wrong about CMags. I would still argue that his change was 50/50 about PVE/PVE, but "entirely" is entirely inaccurate in that case.

Unknown

famousfoxking wrote:

onimus wrote:

D3 has proven time and time again that they balance the game around PVP.

Xforce's utility in PVE probably has no factor in their decision of whether to nerf him or not.

The CMags nerf was entirely about PVE. The MNM/MQ nerf is entirely about PVE. Infinite turn strategies are waaaaaaaaaay too slow to be a factor in PVP. The Spider-man nerf was entirely about PVE. Whether or not they care about XForce specifically in PVE, I can't say, but they definitely balance around PVE as well as PVP.

Are we playing the same game?

famousfoxking

kthunder wrote:

famousfoxking wrote:

onimus wrote:

D3 has proven time and time again that they balance the game around PVP.

Xforce's utility in PVE probably has no factor in their decision of whether to nerf him or not.

The CMags nerf was entirely about PVE. The MNM/MQ nerf is entirely about PVE. Infinite turn strategies are waaaaaaaaaay too slow to be a factor in PVP. The Spider-man nerf was entirely about PVE. Whether or not they care about XForce specifically in PVE, I can't say, but they definitely balance around PVE as well as PVP.

Are we playing the same game?

I don't know, are you hitting 1000 in PVP using MNM/MQ?

NorthernPolarity

kthunder wrote:

famousfoxking wrote:

onimus wrote:

D3 has proven time and time again that they balance the game around PVP.

Xforce's utility in PVE probably has no factor in their decision of whether to nerf him or not.

The CMags nerf was entirely about PVE. The MNM/MQ nerf is entirely about PVE. Infinite turn strategies are waaaaaaaaaay too slow to be a factor in PVP. The Spider-man nerf was entirely about PVE. Whether or not they care about XForce specifically in PVE, I can't say, but they definitely balance around PVE as well as PVP.

Are we playing the same game?

C. Mags comment is completely offbase since Patchneto dominated the PVP meta, but the comments regarding Spider-man / Winfinite are fair. Spidey fell out of favor pre-nerf in PvP because he was so much slower than Patchneto. He was a guaranteed loss on the retal if you attacked a Spidey team, but they were so much slower that you didn't really care.

Unknown

famousfoxking wrote:

kthunder wrote:

famousfoxking wrote:

onimus wrote:

D3 has proven time and time again that they balance the game around PVP.

Xforce's utility in PVE probably has no factor in their decision of whether to nerf him or not.

The CMags nerf was entirely about PVE. The MNM/MQ nerf is entirely about PVE. Infinite turn strategies are waaaaaaaaaay too slow to be a factor in PVP. The Spider-man nerf was entirely about PVE. Whether or not they care about XForce specifically in PVE, I can't say, but they definitely balance around PVE as well as PVP.

Are we playing the same game?

I don't know, are you hitting 1000 in PVP using MNM/MQ?

Our alliance mate reached past 1100 with MNM/MQ so yes

*He played the whole XI season with that combo and averaged 910 points. His ID is Nomar396.

famousfoxking

NorthernPolarity wrote:

C. Mags comment is completely offbase since Patchneto dominated the PVP meta, but the comments regarding Spider-man / Winfinite are fair. Spidey fell out of favor pre-nerf in PvP because he was so much slower than Patchneto. He was a guaranteed loss on the retal if you attacked a Spidey team, but they were so much slower that you didn't really care.

Yeah, that's fair. "Entirely" isn't right for the Cmags change. I was focused on CMags old blue, and wasn't taking into account his old red. For that reason, I'd suggest that CMags change was 50/50 PVE/PVP.

famousfoxking

kthunder wrote:

Our alliance mate reached past 1100 with MNM/MQ so yes

*He played the whole XI season with that combo and averaged 910 points. His ID is Nomar396.

How much is he spending on shields? Because I can't imagine being in the black on points after around 500 with that combo. I would expect to lose waaaaaaaay more than I earned in the time it took me to win a match relying on infinite-turning it.

Unknown

The most delicate way would be to not touch XF, and boost other 4*s to match. They are off to a great start by kneecapping the only other 4* that could keep up with him.

Buffs to existing 4*s makes way more sense than nerfing XF. I thought the devs were making a statement that 4* characters were going to matter and be akin to 3* characters vs 2* characters, i.e. able to roflstomp a 3* team with any given 4* team. This doesn't seem to be the case now that they've released a few other 4*s. Star Lord is ALMOST good but not quite with the CDs, and every one else is .... meh. To fix the 4* problem you level everyone else UP, not XF down.

Unknown

Basically, the way I see it is everyone who wants him to be nerfed or re-buffed are the sore losers who don't have him and/or hate going against him. Plain and simple, X-Force Wolverine is a badass. He's more badass than his X-Men team days, he's more lethal, more to the point. The damage he inflicts in this game is appropriate for his character. Nothing needs to be nerfed or re-buffed about his abilities. Stop crying.

ballingbees

Having to rework a character more than 1 time reflects very, very badly on the designing team. Will you still trust your car manufacturer if your car gets recalled twice?

Having to rework a character at all already exposes the lack of adequate play testing on the developer's part. To require a rework after a rework? So far I think only Ragnarok has the distinction of being balanced twice. Susan might be next. (What? She was already buffed once before?) Yes, seriously.

Maybe it is the pace of new characters such that the developing team simply does not have time to catch up with their testing. If so, then why the heck are you pushing so many new characters out so fast? Beast, Colossus, Oct were pushed during that crazy period last year, and where do they end up now?

Trisul

I actually really like the 3* tier, and I kind of wish that all the 4*s were changed to 3*s so that 1) you don't need to spend an exorbitant amount of iso leveling them up, and 2) the awful 4* reward structure gets thrown out the window.

Reworking a character does indeed reflect poorly on the design team. This whole character balance fiasco exposes that. However, that doesn't mean you don't fix things if they need to be fixed.

thbrown81

I can't take any talk about nerfing XForce seriously when my 553 still loses PVP matches to 2*Storm and OBW.

Trisul

thbrown81 wrote:

I can't take any talk about nerfing XForce seriously when my 553 still loses PVP matches to 2*Storm and OBW.

Oh right, that clearly means X-Force sucks.

SnowcaTT

From the Video discussion thread:

Demiurge_Will wrote:

rixmith wrote:

I'm glad to hear that there is a desired power band for 4* characters to fit into. This begs the question whether X-Force fits into that band or not? Not to mention whether IW and Elektra are below that band?

X-Force is above the band (though not as far above as Thor (Goddess of Thunder) was) and Invisible Woman is below.

Elektra is a less clear-cut case. Her abilities don't have an opportunity to come into their own for advanced players in part because of the current speed of high-end Versus play. She becomes stronger with the changes to 4-star Thor, for example. Looking at win rates of teams that include her, she's doing well in survival missions. I'd like her to be used more often, but there are other balance issues that have bigger impacts.

No ETA on any changes that might result from these observations - we try not to announce changes until we can give you a timeline for them.

So X-force likely will be getting a "detune", but not as much as Thor. Perhaps only removing AP steal from surgical strike?

Unknown

SnowcaTT wrote:

From the Video discussion thread:

So X-force likely will be getting a "detune", but not as much as Thor. Perhaps only removing AP steal from surgical strike?

4Thor got hit hard... I mean REALLY hard. There is an awful lot of room between what was done to her and simply removing AP steal from SS. She lost 1/3 of her damage and almost all of her AP acceleration.... so 20% damage and remove AP gain (say that cascades = enough AP acceleration) is not beyond the realms of expectation.

In my experience of Demiurge's rebalances.... take the most extreme thing any forumite suggests THEN make it worse and that's what you'll get....

Xforce is almost certainly getting bent over just like Rags, Spidey, Sentry etc.