I (might) hate character variants because... [poll]

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  • Jaedenkaal
    Jaedenkaal Posts: 3,357 Chairperson of the Boards
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    It sounds like the real answer is:

    "I (might) hate character variants because the character I want to be in the game isn't in the game yet, and if they release a variant (definition pending) of an existing character then they are not, by (the pending) definition, releasing the character I want to be able to use."
  • Jaedenkaal
    Jaedenkaal Posts: 3,357 Chairperson of the Boards
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    And not to mention when they do release your favourite character and get it "wrong" icon_e_wink.gif
  • Jaedenkaal
    Jaedenkaal Posts: 3,357 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Don't be ridiculous. When has anyone (never mind anyone on the internet) limited themselves to blaming only the actual guilty parties.

    I agree the ability to load your own art assets (for your own client only) would be super cool. Could lead to some pretty neat "show off your character art" contests.
    On defense he'll just look and act like generic Super Skrull.

    This part is weird for me though. For technical reasons I get it but it makes no sense why as the attacker I would know that one of the opposing team is a super skrull, every time one of them really is a super skrull icon_e_wink.gif
  • Jaedenkaal
    Jaedenkaal Posts: 3,357 Chairperson of the Boards
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    aesthetocyst wrote:
    This dev/pub has shown no interest in one of the most lucrative means of driving microtransactions (selling skins), so ain't no way they're going to want to 'traffic' in user-created art for free

    I've always wondered about that. I'd buy a Bag-Man sans bag skin in a heartbeat. I guess that cuts into the number of "variants" they could make icon_lol.gificon_e_biggrin.gificon_e_smile.gificon_e_surprised.gificon_e_sad.gif
    (This on-topic content brought to you by Jaed and Aes)

    I didn't mean contests for getting your art into the game. I just meant contests for showing off cool stuff. Like Diablo pumpkin carving or whatever.
  • Calnexin
    Calnexin Posts: 1,078 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I am not a fan of the "lazy" variants. I don't mind if they have the same character with different powers - the wolverine line being a prime example of that. All of them play differently and fill a different niche. I don't like the recent Strange and Thanos (plus Thor, Daken, Torch, etc), where the only difference is the max level you can get them to. That's two roster slots for the exact same thing, provided you have the capacity to cover them.
  • Jaedenkaal
    Jaedenkaal Posts: 3,357 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Calnexin wrote:
    I am not a fan of the "lazy" variants. I don't mind if they have the same character with different powers - the wolverine line being a prime example of that. All of them play differently and fill a different niche. I don't like the recent Strange and Thanos (plus Thor, Daken, Torch, etc), where the only difference is the max level you can get them to. That's two roster slots for the exact same thing, provided you have the capacity to cover them.
    In those recent cases, though, you could argue that you didn't "miss out" on a new character because they released two Doctor Stranges or two Thanos at the same time. That's more of an accessibility thing, so that they can make a 5* Doctor Strange and newer players can still actually experience him in a meaningful way without having to open a lot of legendary tokens that they otherwise wouldn't (and shouldn't, depending on who you ask).

    I believe I read an official post somewhere about the old "lazy" designs (Thor, Cap, etc...) that were done as part of an experiment to test releasing new characters with the same powers to save on development time; that practice was rather unpopular (although I think I heard that 3 star.png Thor was pretty good icon_e_wink.gif ) and they haven't done it in quite a long time (and they've removed the special gold status that those characters had). If they were releasing 5 star.png versions of older 4 star.png characters with basically identical powers, I would be with you all the way
  • GrimSkald
    GrimSkald Posts: 2,535 Chairperson of the Boards
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    To be fair, we haven't gotten a "lazy" character in quite some time - they've been pretty good about varying it up.

    What was the last lazy character - Mohawk Storm or 2* Torch? As a history lesson - 2* Torch came after 3*. Also, 2* Daken didn't have "Chemical Reaction" until well after 3* Daken debuted, they decided to change both characters a fair bit a few months later.
  • metallion
    metallion Posts: 276 Mover and Shaker
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    GrimSkald wrote:
    To be fair, we haven't gotten a "lazy" character in quite some time - they've been pretty good about varying it up.

    What was the last lazy character - Mohawk Storm or 2* Torch? As a history lesson - 2* Torch came after 3*. Also, 2* Daken didn't have "Chemical Reaction" until well after 3* Daken debuted, they decided to change both characters a fair bit a few months later.

    I call Strange and Thanos lazy characters as the 3* and 5* versions both have the exact same skill sets, so the last lazy character just came half a month ago.

    To be fair to the devs they've been doing a good job creating new artwork for all the new variants (except Strange and Thanos) , I think the last one that was a direct reskin was Cyclops back in 2015? That's all the credit I can give them though, as I can't get myself invested enough in any of the variants to care about them or their skillsets. Heck, the only reason I even do their release PVEs is just so that I don't get myself locked out of any nodes in future PVEs that I actually want to do.
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,111 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Character variants are good for the meta game, because it limits how many of a certain type of character you can have on a team (to limit overly powerful combos). For example, most self healing characters are Wolverine, if these character powers were all in different characters, then you could have an entire team of self healers - Imagine having OML and Patch on the same team. Or having both deadpools on the same team. I'm not saying it would be unfair, but I understand why they keep certain powers within a character set.
  • Dormammu
    Dormammu Posts: 3,531 Chairperson of the Boards
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    bbigler wrote:
    Character variants are good for the meta game, because it limits how many of a certain type of character you can have on a team (to limit overly powerful combos). For example, most self healing characters are Wolverine, if these character powers were all in different characters, then you could have an entire team of self healers - Imagine having OML and Patch on the same team. Or having both deadpools on the same team. I'm not saying it would be unfair, but I understand why they keep certain powers within a character set.
    You can field a team of unique self-healers now. Patch/Daken/Deadpool for example, so I fail to see how variants control that. Not that I'm against variants, but the developers can present many powers in a variety of ways if that's actually a concern.

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