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

mags1587

SnowcaTT wrote:

I -do- have a problem that if the decision has been made that 4*'s shouldn't be more powerful than 3*'s, why do they cost twice as much to buy covers for, and (is it four times as much?) so much more to level with ISO. Not to mention why they are so, so incredibly rare to find in packs or obtain through normal play. If they aren't going to be "great", why are they hard to get and level?

I completely agree with this. I hope now that the devs have settled (or seem to have settled) on their desired power level for 4*s, they revisit the cost (in both effort and HP/ISO) to obtain and level these characters, because as it stands I don't see that any of them are really worth it right now.

rednailz

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

Jimilinho wrote:

I don't think it matters, without a decnt green he's not really playable, you can rework his black but he's nothing more than a trophy character now

This is false. His sustainability + still lethal black are plenty to keep him in upper tiers.

I will wait and see the exact numbers on what his black will be doing, but as it looks to me right now I'd rather have BP's black or Cage's black (both 3*s). IMO 3* skills should't be better tjthan 4* skills. For his green? I will wait and see but 3* Thor and KK green are looking to be much, much better. I'd even nearly say HT's green is better than xforce's possibly. That thing can tick for 1500 damage a turn ez.

I'll have to actually try it out, but right now it looks to me like KK is almost much better than XF on deffense. ..since AI doesn't know how to use SS or recovery.

Unknown

Jimilinho wrote:

I don't think it matters, without a decnt green he's not really playable, you can rework his black but he's nothing more than a trophy character now

Zero chance they will change anything based on my poll just curious which way the players would have preferred the pendulum swing on this one specific power, if you had to choose between utility or lethality but not both, which do you value more?

OnesOwnGrief

Can I down vote you for being able to articulate all that in a coherent manner? Honestly, those thoughts mirror my own and for a game with any sort of competitive play can, and should, be happening for as long as the game is officially supported. MMOs go through this, fighting game go through this, shooters go through it too.

This game was definitely in a bad place when it started with all the 2 AP skills and such. I'm glad the developers have continued to support the game this long and have tried in some fashion to address some of the concerns brought up on this forum.

Unknown

I think a more acceptable nerf to XF would have been just to lower his green by 1k less dmg, instead of 2k..
And SS I would take the extra dmg in the new SS and make it still drain the enemy ap, but you dont gain ap. This will still make it work as both as offensive and defensive move.

greengiant33

Agree and right it was not there at first.

Unknown

If you don't think 4* characters should be much stronger than 3* characters, then the nerf is fine. Probably right in line with where it should be. The issue is that the in-game pricing is not commensurate with the idea that they shouldn't be much stronger than 3* characters. They are far rarer and more precious than 3* characters. So setting their power levels so low feels kind of unjustified.

Also, the fact that the game is currently centered around 3* play is fine...but that's just the current state of the game. There was a point in this game when the vast majority of all events centered on 2* characters. There was a Bullseye vs. Hawkeye tournament, for Pete's sake, and one of the fastest available strategies was to let someone smack your loaned Hawkeye in the face and then Raging Tempest them to death with CStorm. The game has changed a lot just in the last year and some change, and it has a lot of additional room to grow. There's no reason that a more mature version of this game couldn't sustain play based on a 4* meta, or even (gasp!) multiple tiers of competition for people with different sorts of rosters and progression needs. If the game is ever going to grow, though, it needs somewhere else to go...and if all of the characters are approximately equal in terms of power, there's really just no incentive to move from one tier to the next.

So, is the nerf in line with what the developers are doing right now? Yes, absolutely. Does what the developers are doing right now line up with what players like myself (and probably a lot of the vets) would like to see in the game? Absolutely not. I could care less about losing a top-tier character. I lost Spider-man, I lost old-style Cmags (though he's still perfectly viable these days), I'm sure I'll lose other characters in the future. What really hurts here is the loss of a 4* meta; now that TGT and X-Force are no longer particularly impressive, there's just nothing left up there to which to aspire.

Unknown

A Surgical Strike that does no damage for AP is just a black to not black conversion power, and that is a terrible terrible power for the same reason Squirrel Girl's green is kinda terrible, converts green to not green. / / are attack colors, using their AP for supports is usually always sub optimal.

It's kinda like Twin Pistols. I like the new Twin Pistols better than the old, although converting 15 yellow into 18 non yellow had it's advantages, 6k damage is probably better. Even tho draining their highest AP color and gaining maybe 9 AP in it has it's advantages, I'd rather have 6k damage.

Although I would not be upset if SS did 728 damage a tile and still drained their AP.

Unknown

Trying to not get so riled up by the changes it does make some sense for them to swing harder than strictly necessary with the nerf bat. He is in the same spot in progression that bagman is for 2*s. The 4* easiest to get early covers for (and oldest so more people have him compared to any of the newer characters) and bagman is the first 2* many people see. But as they exist right now they are polar opposites.

Knowing nothing about the game, bagman is the first step into 2* land. But from a game design point of view his role is to get players to start moving from 1*s to 2*s but then earn, superior 2*s on down the line.

X-force arguably should be the stepping stone into 4* land. Not the king of 4* land. He should be the "easiest to get" 4* and be powered accordingly. It didn't much matter when there was only 3 choices, but the game has simply evolved past that and they (somewhat ironically) are bringing a sense of progression back to 4*s. You can start with x-force but post nerf there will simply be better options to strive for and work towards.

GrumpySmurf1002

rednailz wrote:

I will wait and see the exact numbers on what his black will be doing, but as it looks to me right now I'd rather have BP's black or Cage's black (both 3*s).

Talking strictly the black powers (not overall character balance):

BP does 11124 for 12, XF matches that with at least 14 tiles of a color, which is pretty rare. So it becomes similar to the old XForce Green vs Thor Green. Situationally, Thor is better because of the AoE. In this case, XF is situationally better because of the single target. But yes, I'd say BP moves into best black territory again.

Not sure about the comparison to Cage. Cage does 5384 (12AP) + 1 stun, 448.7 per AP. XForce matches the damage at 6.31 tiles. Average board is 9, so I'd say edge is still very much XForce compared to Cage.

Cyclops is the one I think of for single target black nuke, which is 13 black (conditional) for 8171, 628.5 per AP. XForce needs a hair under 9 tiles (8.85) to equal that match efficiency. Again, pretty standard.

The problem XForce runs into is repeatability. Multiple characters with the same strongest color will weaken him as the match goes on, whereas obviously other characters don't have that condition. I don't think that's a negative persay, it just makes him a bit more situational, which is better than 100% usage all day every day, which is what he amounts to now.

IMO 3* skills should't be better tjthan 4* skills. For his green? I will wait and see but 3* Thor and KK green are looking to be much, much better. I'd even nearly say HT's green is better than xforce's possibly. That thing can tick for 1500 damage a turn ez.

I'll have to actually try it out, but right now it looks to me like KK is almost much better than XF on deffense. ..since AI doesn't know how to use SS or recovery.

There's no real comparison to Thor/KK now, they're both clearly superior XForce Green. As far as defense, that's another part of the reason I'm leaning at least 4/5/4 for XForce now. No, AI doesn't use Recovery well, but it still casts it, and having to choose between taking 2400 damage or letting XForce get another 6000+ health back isn't a fun choice.

Colognoisseur

I don't have a problem with them making 4* a small improvement over 3*.
The problem is asking for the huge increase in iso and hp to receive only a small improvement.
It looks like they are going to reduce the cost in a few weeks and I am waiting to see if the cost of 4*'s comes more in line with the power increase.
If it does than it will give us as players an indication of the direction they want the game to go.
Work towards a solid foundation of 3*'s and then decide on a few 4*'s by which character you like or to fill a need.
As with everything lately I am just going to wait and see what happens.

Unknown

Really want to learn more about the iso changes, haven't spent a drop since they made the first announcement, and will wait and see.

Unknown

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

rednailz wrote:

IMO 3* skills should't be better tjthan 4* skills. For his green? I will wait and see but 3* Thor and KK green are looking to be much, much better. I'd even nearly say HT's green is better than xforce's possibly. That thing can tick for 1500 damage a turn ez.

I'll have to actually try it out, but right now it looks to me like KK is almost much better than XF on deffense. ..since AI doesn't know how to use SS or recovery.

There's no real comparison to Thor/KK now, they're both clearly superior XForce Green. As far as defense, that's another part of the reason I'm leaning at least 4/5/4 for XForce now. No, AI doesn't use Recovery well, but it still casts it, and having to choose between taking 2400 damage or letting XForce get another 6000+ health back isn't a fun choice.

This isn't a matter of 3* vs 4* skills, it's a matter of AoE vs Single Target, which both have their uses and basically the second you drop down to 2 targets your AoE becomes completely devalued.

XFs new Green is best compared to Groot's green right now, and it loses that comparison I feel. At base efficiency for Groot he does ~240 damage per AP (at 10 green) plus cascade and XF is averaging 249 plus cascade. XF's cascade is slightly better but not by enough to justify the closeness. And Groot's efficiency goes up with more green. If he has 12 green (the most common) he destroys 15 tiles (same as XF) and goes up to 277 damage per AP. If he has 20 green he destroys 18 tiles and does 333 damage per AP. And this is on a self regenerating tank.

XF deserves to be at 400 damage per AP average case plus cascade minimum. Increasing the base damage by 1200 accomplishes this OR you could remove the base damage entirely, and go with a "15 tiles destroyed for X per tile" which seems to have a better balance ability anyway since non variable tile destruction damage. 15 tiles at 210 per tile would be good.

Edit: Or as an alternate solution, increase XFs health to Thor's level. 17,262 under the new HP guidelines. Then XF becomes the 4* tanky bullet sponge and his green damage is fine. 3/5/5 becomes the norm and he becomes a major PITA to play against, and a health pack saver to play with.

Phaserhawk

What's funny is that X-Force actually does more damage if you chain his skills together with the nerf.

Essentially he is perma--stole a color you can't use status and guess what, you still used him.

The key to success with new X-Force, is to use yellow as a damage source

3/5/5 actually does more damage if you use it that way.

Old

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X-Force + SS (9 tiles)=8769 dmg

New

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X-Force + SS(9 tiles)=8404 dmg

Unknown

I've said it elsewhere, the lack of AP drain on SS is the real undoing of XF. It's not offense, its sustained offense that is no lost.

Very few characters have true healing, with the long countdown on recovery, the high match percentage it gets since the board is usually cleared of black/green first, make it a sucktastic true heal move. What kept him safe was SS. It would prevent the big bad 'health pack needing' attack from hitting XF..so he mostly got match dmg, which was usually paltry enough for recovery to be of use.

So now, I'd equate XF to Sentry, a character realy strong for 2 maybe 3 fights before needing a health pack.
- Unreall

Unknown

The main issues at hand don't seem to be the strenght of 4*s.

It's the cost for the strength, and the degree of the nerf.

Frankly put, I'm going back to Patch/3hor now. I'm picking my 3 star wolverine over my 4* because bluntly put he is more effective. He can sustain himself better with his heal, and his dmg ooutput overall will be better. That is a problem. You should never pick a 3* over a 4* of the same type of character.

Ironically, the solution to the issue is right there. With 4*s more so than 3* and 2*, covers matter more than the level. Just redistribute the gains during leveling to be more front loaded. My lvl 170ish XF was good enough to beat lvl 270 XF, as mine had all the same covers, just less health and dmg. Adjust the scale such that those numbers are higher early on so thqat you don't feel the need to max a 4 star.
- Unreall

GothicKratos

I had made another post, but after seeing something else somewhere else, I'm just going to sit on it, because hopefully it won't be important anymore, but simply, I disagree with your assertion that the reputation system is there for a Facebook-esque "Like"/"Dislike" functionality, or it wouldn't have the additional functionality to hide posts.

Unknown

GothicKratos wrote:

Jamie Madrox wrote:

Actually you're wrong. The reputation system is designed to work EXACTLY like the Facebook like system, only better because you can dislike something. Upvotes are for posts that you like or agree with. Downvotes are for posts that you dislike or don't agree with.

To be frank, I'd like a link to where you found that information, because I've never read that anywhere.

Could you also kindly explain why posts are hidden at -5 rep, if downvotes are intended to be for 'disagreements of opinion'? Are we hiding the unpopular opinions under the rug? Is that the stance we wanna take? Hiding people's opinions? It's bad enough pivotal informational announcements are being hidden, but people just trying to talk? Yeah, some community...

Well there is certainly nothing written anywhere in the forum rules to contradict Jamie in any way shape or form. That's why i've always considered it a matter of opinion how ppl use down votes (and up votes).

What I don't get is this sudden suggestion by ppl on the forum that downvotes are some rampant problem. I've had 11 down votes from over 600 posts including PLENTY of disagreements with ppl, some fairly heated. People don't tend to just downvote stuff they don't agree with. There are plenty of ppl disagreeing at the moment in threads without a load of downvotes (or often any).

ON THE OTHER HAND... people who's idea of an opinion is to open with some form of mild insult.... generally calling a whole load of ppl whiners/ragers or saying something like "I just don't understand all the needless complaining" to basically marginalise other ppl's views etc. etc. THEN they start claiming loads of things as facts with ZERO attempt to justify their claim.... well those ppl tend to get downvoted. It is not (in my experience) the fact they have a different opinion, it's the way they decide to express it.

Of those 2 the most likely way to get downvoted is just claiming things as facts with no justification. IMO that's a perfectly reasonable reason to downvote someone (although I also feel you should type something to explain why you downvoted whereas not so needed for an upvote. Only my opinion on the matter though).

Bottom line.... as far as I can tell, as long as I don't break any of the forum rules re: getting around the language filter/abuse/whatever in the little text box I can do what I want with my upvotes and downvotes.... which fits what Jamie said.

EDIT: oh and hiding downvoted comments is a pretty common internet thing... just go look at reddit. Comparing something to reddit does make me think it might be inherently wrong though.....

Vladdy

Should I sell my X-Force when the increased selling value is kicking in?

Sadly, I have enjoyed him for only about 2 weeks now.
Even more sadly, I bought the last 4 covers to max him (TEN THOUSAND HERO POINTS).
A bit less sadly, I took him to level 270 (iso is none of my "too-much" business).

I could use the iso to level up some 3*. But... Who and why?
I could use the hp to buy... Wait... Nevermind...

I want to be happy and not thrice sad (counting the number of times I used to word above).

Unknown

I'll say no because I suspect that once they have finished making 4*s barely better than 3*s they will then start to buff them in PvE and feature them in the PvP rotations.

IMO selling characters is rarely a great plan because the sale price is insultingly low.