Boosted characters make pvp boring

VizMantis

I think the goal of the weekly boosted character was to ensure variety. Rather than everyone using the same strong team week after week, players are encouraged to use whoever is boosted. The problem is, the boosts are so potent that using anyone BUT the boosted characters is a fools errand. As a result, every week you end up fighting an endless stream of featured character + the two boosted 4*s that are oldest/best.

For instance, in the pvp this week, my 4cyc/x23 team hasn't found a single match worth a reasonable amount of points that wasn't another 4cyc/x23 team (or murderous 5*s). And this is at the 400 point level, not like I'm scratching the stratosphere here. Meanwhile, sans-boosts, there's a ton of variety of opponents in the simulator.

Could it be that there's enough variety in the 3 and 4* tier at this point that boosts, at least to the extreme they're implemented now, are no longer necessary? Or maybe the goal is to have everyone (I'm a 4* player) enjoy a similar lack of variety that the 5* players reportedly experience?

cyineedsn

no weekly boost might mean its rulk and peggy week, all week, every week forever more

fnedude

What SCL are you playing? (8 I assume)

I just spend about 1hr getting 800pts in Fight and Flight with my CHamped 4*Cyc+X23+gift Carol.

Maybe switch up SCL

I skipped any other Cyc+X23 combos and only rarely saw any 5* teams. Of course I joined at <2hrs remaining on event, so I knew I wasn't going to get 900+ pts.

VizMantis

Perhaps, that's surely why the boosted characters exist in the first place. I certainly remember the hell of endless xfw/tgt matches. But I feel like that was due to a lack of enough variety in sufficiently strong 4*s at the time.

That's why I brought up the simulator, in which I do not see an endless stream of peggy/rulk teams (although admittedly, that's what I defend with). There's a very nice variety of 4* teams there, and no boosts means they're all on semi-equal footing. If possible, a similar experience in the regular pvp would be ideal.

VizMantis

I'm playing SCL8, so nowhere upwards to go. Skipping 4cyc/x23 matches has, in my slice, mostly yielded sub-30 pt matches or matches with lvl 350+ 5*s. Perhaps the key is to late climb, but that aspect of pvp has always irked me as well.

This experience isn't unique to this pvp either. I've noticed it happening for a while.

PS - As a case study, I'm currently at 600 pts, rank 50 with 3.5 hrs to go. I just skipped 5 times and all 5 opponents were 4cyc/x23. None were worth more than 35 pts. I grant that this is probably a more competitive pvp than usual with the new char, but the lack of variety is astounding.

cyineedsn

Changing CL level wont change the matches you find or what they are worth, changing what slice you play in and how much time is left in the event would have a bigger impact

Also, shield sim with 3 weeks left in the season isnt a great indicator of anything because people will just experiment or use all offense teams to farm iso and save health packs

VizMantis

cyineedsn wrote:

Also, shield sim with 3 weeks left in the season isnt a great indicator of anything because people will just experiment or use all offense teams to farm iso and save health packs

Agreed, although I recall decent variety as I was hitting 2k last season, with 4 days to go. But yes, you can't directly compare a 3-week long, 2k pt event with a 3-day, 1.?k event. Just saying, that's the kind of variety that I'd like to see, that boosts seem to stymy.

cletus1985

Does this come with a 5* nerf as well? If not it would be a terrible idea. People boasting 2 or more champed 5*'s already see 4*'s as cupcake matches, and if you take away their boosts there is no way to compete with a double 5* team. It would just further divide scores and the time it takes to actually get a 5* would increase for those who don't already have them.

VizMantis

Frankly, I don't find boosted 4*s to be particularly competitive with 5*s as-is. Taking away boosts certainly wouldn't help, but I'm not sure life would be all that different one way or the other. OP 5*s are a whole other problem.

On the other hand, perhaps without boosts, the existing MMR would be less likely to put us up against 5* teams before we hit the top of the stack?

Magic

The problem you are seeing is simply a result of people playing the game.

They play, get covers and ISO and eventually champion good 4*. And since the 5* tier is so exclusive (it is - I am a daily player, I have all 12 rostered and none of them covered or useful for anything but the trivial nodes) they focus on 4*. So now there are many, many players with championed multiple 4* and they, rightfully, start from the top of the usefulness list. Therefore Cyclops and X23 are good candidates to be championed. In a week that two of them are boosted it's obvious that you are going to see more of them. Same goes for Hulkubster, Jean, Iceman, RHulk, Thoress weeks. They are all over the place.

Still - this is good. Give a chance against 5* team (maybe not championed 5* team but I don't see them) and makes it fights with underleveled equivalents much easier. Makes PvE easier as well. No issue there.

I would not expand the number like D3 did just recently. As this means there are more fights against pair of boosted characters. Still - would not remove the boost for sure.

OneLastGambit

I actually agree with the OP removing boosts would encourage more variety I think.

Equally though the point regarding 5* is also valid. Separate PvP into tiers then you can remove boosts without creating an issue.

The alternate approach is to boost half the 4* tier for the first half of season and boost the second half for the second half of season. That way there will be plenty of variety

Polares

Don't worry, soon you might get to 5 land and then you will always be required to use the same two chars forever

Now, this is a debate we have had in the past, and it doesn't have an easy solution. If you don't have buffs, people will always use the best chars possible, a bit like in sim, so most of the time, teams composed of Iceman/Peggy/Rhulk/Cyclops or a combination of those. And then you would see EVERY week the same 4/5 chars. Buffs makes it a bit tedious, but at least ensures that every week you fight different teams.

Devs have also added new chars to the rotation, is it now 5 or 6 buffed 4s every week? So the number is getting bigger.

The underlying problem is that not all chars are created 'equally' and some are much better than others, specially for PvP (in PvE I think there is more room for using different chars). This is no Street Fighter or Overwatch where all chars are balanced continuously so none is better than the others.

smoq84

Maybe the solution is somewhere in between...

Maybe the boost should remain but it should be limited to the max champion level.
So for example 270lvl 4* would be boosted to 370lvl, but 300lvl would be also boosted to 370lvl (max champ level = boost limitation).
In that case high level non-boosted champions could be used instead of boosted characters more often (the difference between the levels would be smaller). And under-leveled characters will be boosted the same way as are now.

So someone who has all characters near max champion level, could choose any of them because of very small level difference between them (which seems fair because why player with such advanced roster should be forced to use any particular character?).
But players with not maxed characters could still take advantage from boost and try those who are still under-leveled.

Piro_plock

smoq84 wrote:

Maybe the solution is somewhere in between...

Maybe the boost should remain but it should be limited to the max champion level.
So for example 270lvl 4* would be boosted to 370lvl, but 300lvl would be also boosted to 370lvl (max champ level = boost limitation).
In that case high level non-boosted champions could be used instead of boosted characters more often (the difference between the levels would be smaller). And under-leveled characters will be boosted the same way as are now.

So someone who has all characters near max champion level, could choose any of them because of very small level difference between them (which seems fair because why player with such advanced roster should be forced to use any particular character?).
But players with not maxed characters could still take advantage from boost and try those who are still under-leveled.

There is one tiny problem with your idea: people who have 4* at (almost) max-champ level have multiple 5* champions. That would make champion 4* good only for reward farming, because they wouldn't stand a chance against 5*. Instead of being able to pick and choose, they would end up never using any of them.

IMO weekly boosts are one of the most positive changes which happened to PVP ever, breaking the ubiquity of top meta teams (Sentry/Hood, XFW/4*Thor, Fistbuster, Jeanbuster). Of course the strongest teams were still there, but you could usually beat the with the flavor-of-the-week boosted chars... but then came a mega-OP 5* tier and everything has gone south. Then we got championing and a rebalance that gave 4* waaay more power when boosted and made 3* completely irrelevant (no more taking down two 270s with your boosted 3*). On the other hand, high level 4* champs CAN beat even champed 5* teams when boosted - especially top tier heavy hitters like Iceman, Peggy, Punisher, Thoress, IMHB, Rulk, Moon Knight, Kate Bishop... At level 400+ they do have abilities hitting harder than any lvl450 5*. With a bit of strategy/boosts/teamups, you can beat those juicy OML/Phx teams... provided your MMR allows you to queue them, heh.

VizMantis

I guess I didn't realize the point of the extreme 4* boosting in this day and age was to allow them to compete with the 5*s.

That seems like trying to fix 1 mistake (OP 5*s) with another (boosting 4*s to the point where nothing else is viable). But I guess if that's how the problem is to be solved, then I'd agree with some previous comments that we should just boost way more characters at a time. That way we'd at least hopefully see more variety in pvp, people with limited rosters are less likely to be left in the dust on a particular week, and 5*s remain potentially defeatable. The move from 4 to 5 was a baby step in the right direction, now just crank that dial up another 10 or 15 characters!

mohio

I'm 99% sure I made essentially the same point as the OP early on after boosted characters were being tested, but before they were a 100% weekly thing. After thinking about it a while and reading through the thread then I came to the conclusion that in sum it's better for the game, because even though all 3 PvPs that week end up feeling like essentially the same event, at least there's variety from one week to another. Before the weekly boosts were there, it was an endless sea of fistbuster or jeanbuster every single event unless it was IM's event and you couldn't run him. Obviously those wouldn't be the team of choice anymore, but quickly the "best teams" would be figured out by the majority of people and that's all you would see in every event. It's certainly not ideal, but I'll take the weekly boost system over the old no boost system (or everything boosted so 5* don't have it too easy?) to at least get some variety in there.

Quebbster

VizMantis wrote:

I guess I didn't realize the point of the extreme 4* boosting in this day and age was to allow them to compete with the 5*s.

That seems like trying to fix 1 mistake (OP 5*s) with another (boosting 4*s to the point where nothing else is viable). But I guess if that's how the problem is to be solved, then I'd agree with some previous comments that we should just boost way more characters at a time. That way we'd at least hopefully see more variety in pvp, people with limited rosters are less likely to be left in the dust on a particular week, and 5*s remain potentially defeatable. The move from 4 to 5 was a baby step in the right direction, now just crank that dial up another 10 or 15 characters!

Weekly boosts predate 5* by quite a bit. I Believe it was introduced to help 3* rosters compete against the overpowered 4* characters of the day...

Dormammu

Quebbster wrote:

VizMantis wrote:

I guess I didn't realize the point of the extreme 4* boosting in this day and age was to allow them to compete with the 5*s.

That seems like trying to fix 1 mistake (OP 5*s) with another (boosting 4*s to the point where nothing else is viable). But I guess if that's how the problem is to be solved, then I'd agree with some previous comments that we should just boost way more characters at a time. That way we'd at least hopefully see more variety in pvp, people with limited rosters are less likely to be left in the dust on a particular week, and 5*s remain potentially defeatable. The move from 4 to 5 was a baby step in the right direction, now just crank that dial up another 10 or 15 characters!

Weekly boosts predate 5* by quite a bit. I Believe it was introduced to help 3* rosters compete against the overpowered 4* characters of the day...

Buffs go back to the first year of the game. When they were introduced it was so loaner characters in the pvp events were usable and it allowed players to try out newer characters. It also served to motivate players into trying different teams, as everyone just used Spider-Man/OBW combos all the time. Thirdly, it maintained the viability of two-stars against three-stars (who were the top tier).

GrumpySmurf1002

I think at least part of the reason there's more variety in Sim than PvP, beyond the boosts, is simply there are more viable 3-character combinations than 2-character combinations.

Even if you see the OML-PHX combo everywhere in Sim, the 3rd at least varies, be it another 5*, or RHulk, Peggy, Iceman, Starlord whoever. The offseason events also have more variety, despite the boosts, because of the freedom to pick a 3rd character. Yes, they too can devolve into IM40-Peggy, or IM40-OBW, or whatever the strongest combo is, but there's more than enough freedom when you can bring that 3rd character as a support.

When you have a 3* featured, especially a low tier one that really doesn't serve a purpose at all, then it's even more important to bring the strongest 2-man group you can find, and so there's less room to be clever.

Quebbster

I managed to find the announcement from when the weekly boost system was launched back in March 2015 (when the game was around 1½ years old). You can read it here. The more things change, the more they stay the same...
Incidentally, this announcement was made about a week after the announcement that 4* Thor would be downgraded. I don't know if the X-force Wolverine adjustment happened Before or after this.

Dormammu

Quebbster wrote:

I managed to find the announcement from when the weekly boost system was launched back in March 2015 (when the game was around 1½ years old). You can read it here. The more things change, the more they stay the same...
Incidentally, this announcement was made about a week after the announcement that 4* Thor would be downgraded. I don't know if the X-force Wolverine adjustment happened Before or after this.

They did buffs long before that, but it was random and event specific.