[Edited] About the in-game characters and variants

Histamiel

First, I would like to thank the devs for this game that helps me keep in touch with Marvel characters. I grew up reading West Coast Avengers, Spidey, FF4 and X-Men. But stop reading for a long time, because there was no way to get any Marvel publications in my home country since the 2000.
Now the game has a roster of 110+ characters. But in my humble opinion, I think they should introduce more new characters and not variant of already in-game characters. The overall Marvel roster is deep enough to have more variety in game. I used to play Marvel: Avengers Alliance. On their final days, they had more than 152 unique characters. This game made me discover teams like the Runaways and a lot of characters of the spiderverse.
I know some characters can be difficult to implement in this game due to their too specific powerset. Some characters could be an nice addition to the game. I would like to see the introduction of characters like:
: Franklin Richards, Legion, Beyonder, Emma Frost, Mandarin.
: Monica Rimbeau, Angela, Nico Minoru, Forge, super Skrull, Cable, Bishop, Yellow Jacket, Jocasta, Hank Pym, Mysterio, Kraven the Hunter, Crystal, Jessica Jones, Karolina Dean.
: Nightcrawler, Captain Britain, Union Jack, Thundra, Volstagg, Fandral, Hogun, Longshot, Angel, Namorita, Dazzler, Enchantress, Wonderman, Stature, Rhino, Rick Jones.
: Jubilee, Kitty Pryde, Sunfire, Agent 13, Molly Hayes.
: Doorman, Big Bertha.
The list could go on and on.
I would really like to see some of those characters in game.

Edit : add a few others characters who are not Fox related. And also some characters.

Mitchjewitz

First, take out all the x-men because FOX. Then make suggestions.

Bloody_Marvel

I was looking at the characters released in the past year, and very few variants were among them.

Variants in bold (and I've been harsh). That's a whole bunch of new/original characters.

2016 saw:
Nova (Sam Alexander) - January
Spider-Man (Back in Black) - January
Spider-Gwen (Gwen Stacy) - February
Green Goblin (Norman Osborn) - February
Steve Rogers (First Avenger) - March
Iron Man (Mark XLVI) - March
Quake (Daisy Johnson) - March
The Punisher (MAX) - March
Howard The Duck (Howard, A Duck) - April
Drax (The Destroyer) - April
Winter Soldier (Bucky Barnes) - April
War Machine (James Rhodes) - May
Kate Bishop (Hawkeye) - June
Moon Knight (Marc Spector) - June
Peggy Carter (Captain America) - June
The Hulk (Bruce Banner) - July
Wasp (Janet Van Dyne) - July
Black Bolt (Inhuman King) - August
Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) - August
Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff) - September
Luke Cage (Power Man) - September
Gwenpool (Gwen Poole) - October
Blade (Modern) - October
Doctor Strange (Stephen Strange) - November
Doctor Strange (Sorcerer Supreme) - November
Venom (Agent Venom) - November
Medusa (Inhuman Queen) - December
Thanos (Modern) - December
Thanos (The Mad Titan) - December

Chrono_Tata

Bloody Marvel wrote:

I was looking at the characters released in the past year, and very few variants were among them.

Variants in bold (and I've been harsh). That's a whole bunch of new/original characters.

2016 saw:
Nova (Sam Alexander) - January
Spider-Man (Back in Black) - January
Spider-Gwen (Gwen Stacy) - February
Green Goblin (Norman Osborn) - February
Steve Rogers (First Avenger) - March
Iron Man (Mark XLVI) - March
Quake (Daisy Johnson) - March
The Punisher (MAX) - March
Howard The Duck (Howard, A Duck) - April
Drax (The Destroyer) - April
Winter Soldier (Bucky Barnes) - April
War Machine (James Rhodes) - May
Kate Bishop (Hawkeye) - June
Moon Knight (Marc Spector) - June
Peggy Carter (Captain America) - June
The Hulk (Bruce Banner) - July
Wasp (Janet Van Dyne) - July
Black Bolt (Inhuman King) - August
Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) - August
Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff) - September
Luke Cage (Power Man) - September
Gwenpool (Gwen Poole) - October
Blade (Modern) - October
Doctor Strange (Stephen Strange) - November
Doctor Strange (Sorcerer Supreme) - November
Venom (Agent Venom) - November
Medusa (Inhuman Queen) - December
Thanos (Modern) - December
Thanos (The Mad Titan) - December

I don't think 13 variants out of 29 characters (44.8%) is "very little"? That's almost half. Even discounting Strange and Thanos by only counting 1 each as a variant, that's still 11/29 = 37.9% so over one-third of released characters are variants. There are a lot of new characters for sure but given the wealth of Marvel characters they can use that could be releasing a lot more characters that haven't been in the game yet.

Twysta

I'm aboard the less variants train.

Bloody_Marvel

Chrono_Tata wrote:

I don't think 13 variants out of 29 characters (44.8%) is "very little"? That's almost half. Even discounting Strange and Thanos by only counting 1 each as a variant, that's still 11/29 = 37.9% so over one-third of released characters are variants. There are a lot of new characters for sure but given the wealth of Marvel characters they can use that could be releasing a lot more characters that haven't been in the game yet.

You could also discount the 5* IM and Cap, since they were released for the Civil War tie-in/event, and that justifies their releases in my opinion.
Agent Venom is arguably a different character than Eddie Brock, even though both use the symbiote.

So that's 8.

And you could argue that both versions of Doctor Strange and Thanos are each a single release, so that's 6 out of 27 releases. 6 variants in a year is a small number in my book.

Only when you look at earlier years you'll see a lot of variants. Especially Wolverine and Spidey are over represented and the old "Gold" (Daken/Rogers/Storm/Thor) characters were lazy, but the only way to fix that now is take them out of the game.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for more variety, but in my opinion the past year was an excellent year when it comes to unique character releases.

JamieMadrox

Problem with new characters is that Demiurge has to secure the rights to use those characters. Most characters are not wholly owned (or even partially owned) by Marvel. Securing rights from even Marvel can be expensive, but when you include third parties it can become too much money to make it worthwhile.

Let's take me for example. I mean Jamie Madrox.

Multiple Man was created by Len Wein (writer), Chris Claremont (scriptor). and John Buscema (artist). All three of those creators, plus Marvel could hold the rights to the character. To use the character, all three or four of those rights holders would have to sign off and be paid. They can each set their price individually so it can easily become more expensive than what it's worth.

So from a business and game longevity standpoint it's easier to create variants for characters that they already hold the rights to than it is new characters that could bankrupt the game.

pheregas

Jamie Madrox wrote:

Problem with new characters is that Demiurge has to secure the rights to use those characters. Most characters are not wholly owned (or even partially owned) by Marvel. Securing rights from even Marvel can be expensive, but when you include third parties it can become too much money to make it worthwhile.

Let's take me for example. I mean Jamie Madrox.

Multiple Man was created by Len Wein (writer), Chris Claremont (scriptor). and John Buscema (artist). All three of those creators, plus Marvel could hold the rights to the character. To use the character, all three or four of those rights holders would have to sign off and be paid. They can each set their price individually so it can easily become more expensive than what it's worth.

So from a business and game longevity standpoint it's easier to create variants for characters that they already hold the rights to than it is new characters that could bankrupt the game.

So if I paraphrase this correctly, new characters are costly, which means they should stop releasing new characters and focus on new storylines, tweaking existing characters, and features as it will be, ultimately, cheaper?

Pope Belligerent

Jamie Madrox wrote:

Problem with new characters is that Demiurge has to secure the rights to use those characters. Most characters are not wholly owned (or even partially owned) by Marvel. Securing rights from even Marvel can be expensive, but when you include third parties it can become too much money to make it worthwhile.

Let's take me for example. I mean Jamie Madrox.

Multiple Man was created by Len Wein (writer), Chris Claremont (scriptor). and John Buscema (artist). All three of those creators, plus Marvel could hold the rights to the character. To use the character, all three or four of those rights holders would have to sign off and be paid. They can each set their price individually so it can easily become more expensive than what it's worth.

So from a business and game longevity standpoint it's easier to create variants for characters that they already hold the rights to than it is new characters that could bankrupt the game.

The creators are EXTREMELY unlikely to hold any rights to the characters they created. This has been a matter of contention for Marvel (and all major comics publishers) since the beginning of the medium. It is true, however, that Marvel sold the movie rights to several of their properties (X-Men, FF, Spider-Man, etc.) to other studios in the 90s, though it's hard to say how that effects the use of those characters in video games. For instance, though everyone says MPQ won't ever be getting any more X-Men characters, there are already 23 X-Men characters in the game, all of which were released after Marvel sold the movie rights to Fox (which happened in 1993) and even after the rumors started circulating that Marvel was trying to kill the X-Men due to the movie rights (BTW, clearly not true since they have been the focus of a HUGE ongoing crossover with the Inhumans and will re-launch this spring with at least seven new X-Men-related titles).

Straycat

I am not sure where games factors in to Marvel's business plan. I know Disney is getting out of video game development and will only license out its IP, starting with Marvel vs Capcom Infinite and Spiderman. In general everything is based around the movies, movies drives comics sales, and merchandise. They likely aren't relying on games to market the movies or comics, and even if a character is getting their own comic series that doesn't guarantee they will show up in game. Captain america has 20 million likes on facebook, agents of shield has 6 mil, MPQ has 100k. Comic sales are minuscule by comparison.

Overall I am satisfied with the variants introduced in the last year. Carol Danvers has become an important comic character and movie character. She is said to be the strongest mcu character and with the power creep in MPQ she could use a 4* version. Aside from the new Guardians of the Galaxy crew, there aren't a ton of mcu characters not represented so get ready for 4* Defenders I guess.
I do think there are good characters getting left out because of the licensing issues, but that's how Marvel has been for a while now.

broll

Personally I don't mind the variant's that much. However there are a few things I do mind:
1. Don't make the variant's move sets identical or nearly identical (2* Cap / 3* Cap).
2. No more than one per teir. I had assumed they wouldn't do this, but Agent Venom being a 4* (when there is no 5*, 3*, or 2* Venom's btw).
3. Make them truly a variant. Meaning they should vary in some way. There is little difference between 2*, 3*, and 5* cap as far as who's in the suit and the suit, same with 1* and 3* Spiderman. Good variants: Hulkbuster Ironman, Peggy Carter and Falcap, Back in Black Spider-man, etc.

Dormammu

Jamie Madrox wrote:

Problem with new characters is that Demiurge has to secure the rights to use those characters. Most characters are not wholly owned (or even partially owned) by Marvel. Securing rights from even Marvel can be expensive, but when you include third parties it can become too much money to make it worthwhile.

Let's take me for example. I mean Jamie Madrox.

Multiple Man was created by Len Wein (writer), Chris Claremont (scriptor). and John Buscema (artist). All three of those creators, plus Marvel could hold the rights to the character. To use the character, all three or four of those rights holders would have to sign off and be paid. They can each set their price individually so it can easily become more expensive than what it's worth.

So from a business and game longevity standpoint it's easier to create variants for characters that they already hold the rights to than it is new characters that could bankrupt the game.

There isn't a single writer/artist who holds any portion of the rights to any Marvel character(s). (This is why the IMAGE brand exists, look it up - it's an interesting tale.) If anyone creates a character in a Marvel book, Marvel owns that character. (There are a few exceptions like Star Wars and Conan the Barbarian, but these are cases where Marvel licensed the comic rights to other existing properties.) So, Rob Liefield created Deadpool, but he doesn't get a cent for any profits from that character.

As for the FOX/Sony deals, they own the movie rights and that's it. For example, if Marvel wants to make a movie about Multiple Man, they can't - he falls under the mutant umbrella of FOX's licensing deal for the X-Men (he actually showed up in X3). This is why MPQ has movie variants of characters from Marvel films (like Civil War IM & Cap) but you'll never see a Mystique variant that looks like Jennifer Lawrence. MPQ could have all the Multiple Man variants they wanted, but none of them could be the movie version.

Jaedenkaal

aesthetocyst wrote:

Bloody Marvel wrote:

I was looking at the characters released in the past year, and very few variants were among them.

Variants in bold (and I've been harsh). That's a whole bunch of new/original characters.

2016 saw:
Nova (Sam Alexander) - January
Spider-Man (Back in Black) - January
Spider-Gwen (Gwen Stacy) - February
Green Goblin (Norman Osborn) - February
Steve Rogers (First Avenger) - March
Iron Man (Mark XLVI) - March
Quake (Daisy Johnson) - March
The Punisher (MAX) - March
Howard The Duck (Howard, A Duck) - April
Drax (The Destroyer) - April
Winter Soldier (Bucky Barnes) - April
War Machine (James Rhodes) - May
Kate Bishop (Hawkeye) - June
Moon Knight (Marc Spector) - June
Peggy Carter (Captain America) - June
The Hulk (Bruce Banner) - July
Wasp (Janet Van Dyne) - July
Black Bolt (Inhuman King) - August
Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) - August
Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff) - September
Luke Cage (Power Man) - September
Gwenpool (Gwen Poole) - October
Blade (Modern) - October
Doctor Strange (Stephen Strange) - November
Doctor Strange (Sorcerer Supreme) - November
Venom (Agent Venom) - November
Medusa (Inhuman Queen) - December
Thanos (Modern) - December
Thanos (The Mad Titan) - December

You missed a few. FIFY. See italicized.

Being "harsh" would ding Wasp as an Ant-Man variant. I let it slide.

Uh... Wouldn't that also make Robin a Bat-Man variant? Would Giant Man and Ant Man be variants just because they're the same guy, even though they (could) have radically different powers? I think we're being pretty lose with our definition of variant. No wonder they've released so many.

broll

Jaedenkaal wrote:

Uh... Wouldn't that also make Robin a Bat-Man variant?

No.

Jaedenkaal wrote:

Would Giant Man and Ant Man be variants just because they're the same guy, even though they (could) have radically different powers?

Yes.

I would say that Spider-Gwen is a variant because she received her powers in the same manner Peter Parker did in an alternate universe. Same as the Peggy Carter Captain America variant.

I would argue that Gwenpool is a little more sketchy on if she's a variant or not. I'm inclined to say she is for two reasons:
1. Name and costume clearly imply an intentional copy catting.
2. While arguably not a super power both share the power of 4th wall breaks (though for different reasons).

Dormammu

A character is only a variant if you can't pair him/her with the same basic character.

5* Cap is a variant of Captain America.

4* Flaptain is a variant of Falcon.

Peggy is not a variant.

Gwenpool is not a variant.

Wasp is not a variant.

Spider-Gwen is not a variant.

Miles Morales is not a variant.

Straycat

Well Ms Marvel (Kamala Khan) has the same name as Ms Marvel (Carol Danvers) but I wouldn't consider them variants for this game. To me, if they have their own name, origin and backstory they are different. Spider-gwen is a variant of Gwen stacy, not Spider man. Same with Peggy Carter as both were non powered characters that got powers in an alternate universe. Miles started as a Spiderman variant but he and Peter exist in the same universe now, so they are different too. And they should have named him Agent Venom (Flash Thompson) to differentiate them.
Should Thanos be considered a Darkseid variant, Antman and the atom, quicksilver and flash, Deadpool and Deathstroke? They might start as a copy but they become their own thing.

PorkBelly

Given that we got a Luke Cage 4*, I'd guess that sometime in mid-March, we'll probably get a 4* Iron Fist as well.

Omega Red

Looks like this is the appropiate place for me to say I really want a 4* Black widow.

smkspy

Bloody Marvel wrote:

Chrono_Tata wrote:

I don't think 13 variants out of 29 characters (44.8%) is "very little"? That's almost half. Even discounting Strange and Thanos by only counting 1 each as a variant, that's still 11/29 = 37.9% so over one-third of released characters are variants. There are a lot of new characters for sure but given the wealth of Marvel characters they can use that could be releasing a lot more characters that haven't been in the game yet.

You could also discount the 5* IM and Cap, since they were released for the Civil War tie-in/event, and that justifies their releases in my opinion.
Agent Venom is arguably a different character than Eddie Brock, even though both use the symbiote.

So that's 8.

And you could argue that both versions of Doctor Strange and Thanos are each a single release, so that's 6 out of 27 releases. 6 variants in a year is a small number in my book.

Only when you look at earlier years you'll see a lot of variants. Especially Wolverine and Spidey are over represented and the old "Gold" (Daken/Rogers/Storm/Thor) characters were lazy, but the only way to fix that now is take them out of the game.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for more variety, but in my opinion the past year was an excellent year when it comes to unique character releases.

If it quacks like a duck, then it must be Howard the duck. You can spin those characters all you want to justify them, but they're still variants no matter how making asterisks you try to put by their names.

And I think it's pretty fair to say variants are also same base character with original concept applied. When perception is reality, just looking at character selection, symbiote venom is 3 choices wide, spiderman power characters is infinitely deep, and as are the thor/hulk/iron man/captain america selections.

Jaedenkaal

aesthetocyst wrote:

Hmm ... one uses Pym particles to change size and ... the other ... umm .... ahh .... uses Pym particles to change size. As you say, radically different.

No I mean, in-game powers. The design doesn't have to be anywhere near the same. And if the art assets are new (which they've been leaning towards lately. The last re-touched animation I recall is... bullseye's green? 4clops?) the fact that they're the same guy doesn't give them a shortcut in creation at all (except possible licensing I guess). And our Ant-Man is Scott Lang, and they could easily do Giant-Man with Hank Pym, so they're not even the same guy in the same suit.

Sure, they're from the same part of the universe, and use similar technology. Would Stick be a Daredevil variant? Could we have an Odin without cries of "another Thor variant!"?

Dormammu

aesthetocyst wrote:

Dormammu wrote:

A character is only a variant if you can't pair him/her with the same basic character.

What? Variants are only variants if the devs say they are variants? Well that's that then. Nothing to discuss. Why all the geek dander up in the air?

No.

var·i·ant (noun) a form or version of something that differs in some respect from other forms of the same thing or from a standard.

The Wasp is a different person, with different powers, than Ant-Man. Is any version of Ant-Man named Janet Van Dyne? Can Ant-Man sprout wings and fly? Can Ant-Man shoot stunning bolts? A variant is THE SAME PERSON in a different costume. A variant is not a completely different character.

A Hank-Pym Ant-Man would be a variant of a Hank Pym Yellowjacket. A Hank Pym Giant-Man is not a variant of a Scott Lang Ant-Man. Black suit Peter Parker is a variant of red suit Peter Parker, but Venom (in the same black suit) is not a variant of Spider-Man. Equally, Gwen Stacy, or Miles Morales, are different people with different powers in different circumstances.

Similarities do not equal a variant. Your definition is flawed.