Is Rebalancing (Nerfing) Stronger Characters Necessary?

Punisher5784

I finally had the chance to listen to the March 2017 Community Video that was attached to the Bonus Hero Post. One alarming thing they mentioned was rebalancing the stronger characters (aka nerf). It has been more six months since they first alluded to this approach back in September when the initial character rebalance plan was communicated. All of the players raised their voice that less-used characters should be buffed in an effort to prevent nerfing the often-used characters. Has this worked? I believe it has.

Overall, the characters rebalances have been tremendous! My thoughts of each rebalanced character are hidden behind the spoiler button:

Silver Surfer: I’m not in 5* land so I have no comment but he definitely looks better now but I still don’t see him much in PVP. Score: B

Chulk: He went from ‘Never Used’ to ‘Often Used’. They fixed his weird ability setup and he is much more useful. I use him quite often, especially when he’s boosted. I also see him quite a bit PVP, whereas before he was never seen. Score: B+

Devil Dino: His abilities were slightly tweaked. Not better, but not worse (depending who you speak to). At least his red and green do something different, and his purple deals damage. Overall, probably one of the weaker rebalances but he’s also a limited character. Score: C-

Star-Lord: Probably the best rebalance they ever did. He went from ‘Never Used’ to ‘Always Used’. He is a CD and AP gathering monster. He is consistently used in PVP and PVE from a majority of the players. Score: A+

Invisible Woman: While SL’s rebalance was great, IW’s is the one I am most impressed with. Why? Because this was their 3rd or 4th attempt at fixing her. I played against her in PVP, watched her one-shot me with Green (an ability that used to do nothing!), and I immediately champed her! Sometimes I see her in PVP but you definitely see her when she’s boosted. Score: A

Miles Morales: I do not have mine covered enough to make an opinion. He had more of a small tweak than a rebalance and it did not make much difference in his playability. However, now that Gwenpool was also recently tweaked, we may see more of him used with her. Overall, a small tweak is better than nothing. Score: C

5* Steve Rogers: I do not have mine covered enough to make an opinion but his rebalance looks good. Many players have expressed that there is no longer a 5* “trash” tier now that he’s much better. His numbers look good and I see him PVP sometimes, more than Silver Surfer. Score: A

Mr. Fantastic: The character every player was waiting to see rebalanced and it was not as fantastic as we hoped. All of his powers received slight tweaks but he lost his true heal. However, many players have expressed that he’s much better. So while he’s no longer 4* ‘trash’, he’s still low tier but at least useable now. Score: B

3* Falcon: The one (and hopefully not only) 3* to receive a rebalance. This was quite a surprise because no one had Falcon listed on their 3* rebalance requests (where is Spidey?!) but he definitely becomes less usable as you progress past 3* land, especially now that many characters buff special tiles. He is definitely better with his Purple being cheaper with the same strength protect tiles, and AOE damage. His PVP is also much better now that his Redwing doesn’t overwrite over Redwing CD tiles. Score: B+

Spider-Gwen: Unlike Miles, her small tweak has made a big difference in her playability. No one would argue that her Yellow was the worst ability in 4* land, if not the entire game. Now it’s cheaper, better and actually heals Gwen! The past few days I have been hearing how Spidergwen is destroying their teams in PVP! Meanwhile, her red and purple didn’t even change! Sometimes these small tweaks is what's needed for players to actually start using them! Score: A

Wasp: Wow is all I can say. She received a Star-Lord level rebalance. She went from ‘Never Used’ to ‘I need to champ her!’ All of her ability received a very nice boost. Mine is fully covered but still at level 40 (until I get Iso) and she is still extremely useful! It also helps that she has a friend in Captain Marvel! Now everyone is using her in PVP. Score: A+

There are still also many 4* (e.g. Elektra, Fury, Venom) and 3* (e.g. Spidey, Punisher, Pyslocke) that could use a boost so we can start actually using them!

The point of discussing each rebalance is to show that their plan is working. Personally I use these newly rebalanced characters more often than the other characters. They opened up a ton of different team combinations and I don't rely on the other ‘often-used’ characters as much as I used to. Are some characters still strongest than others? Sure. Is a nerf really necessary? No. Perhaps if the devs don’t over-nerf the character to near unplayable status (e.g. Sentry, Mystique) it could be okay. However, all of us fear the over-nerfs such as X-Force Wolverine. His playability was clearly affected from his over-nerf and power creep has made him one of the weakest 4*'s in the game. No one wants to see this ever again.

At this point, with over hundreds of characters in the game, most of which are now vaulted, the devs should not be nerfing anyone (except Juggernaut in PVE!). Let's not forget that the reason we consistently use many of the 'stronger characters' is because the scaling and matchmaking are still a huge issue. In PVE, the difficulty can be dreadful to the point that it takes hours to complete all the nodes due to the enemies' high health, while PVP requires you to complete matches as quickly as possible to avoid the extremely frustrating defense loss, where points lost are higher than the actual match points you just won. Find a way to finally fix this and you will see more players stop relying on the same characters and start using a variety of characters. Also, many players are still upset with vaulting and all of these consistent bugs with each new update (patch), nerfing characters so soon would be a very bad things for this game.

I don't know when the devs plan to start the rebalance (nerf) on stronger characters but now is the time to speak up before they drop it on us like Bonus Heroes. What are your thoughts? Have you started to use the rebalanced characters more? Should the devs continue to rebalance the weak characters, while continuing to add strong new characters (e.g. Coulsin, Carol, Medusa)? Or should the devs look into nerfing some of the ‘stronger’ characters? I added a poll to this discussion.

xidragonxi

The only way the community should tolerate a nerf of any kind is if the devs allow us a refund on any resources spent while championing a nerfed character. If they nerf Teen Jean, for example, we should be able to un-level her from whatever she is at now back to level 70, and receive the full value in ISO and champ levels that we applied to her. It is completely unacceptable to allow the players to spend resources on a character and then make that character worse, and only offer a slightly better sell-rate.

Andre_Leca_89

This is something I've been thinking about myself the focus should be on characters that don't get used by us that have terrible abilities I don't have to say who they are because the developer's know already we've done the survey and Poll's.

Just don't nerf characters that we like and use cause then they will not get playing time if it is a terrible nerf that is all I got to say on this matter.

Kishida

Punisher5784 wrote:

Let's not forget that the reason we consistently use many of the 'stronger characters' is because the scaling and matchmaking are still a huge issue. In PVE, the difficulty can be dreadful to the point that it takes hours to complete all the nodes due to the enemies high health, while PVP requires you to complete matches as quickly as possible to avoid the extremely frustrating defense loss where points lost are higher than the actual match points you just won. Find a way to finally fix this and you will see more players stop relying one the same characters and start using a variety of characters.

Amen. Whatever justification gets wheeled out, ^this^ is fundamentally what needs to be acknowledged.

snlf25

No. Stop using the n word. There is nothing in this game that needs to be done when it comes to balancing that can't be done with buffs. Nerfs happen when uncreative minds admit they've run out of ideas and accept failure, something that should never be acceptable.

Magic

I'm afraid that the nerf bat will be a solution to the vaulting.

New players are mopped with the Rhulks and Icemans of the world because they have to use Riri or Agent Venom from the active packs? Castrate Rhulk and Iceman. New players will rejoice! Also whales, who are in the 5* land, will have the minimal threat from the 4* land taken away. So two key elements to make the bottom line would be happy.

The only unhappy people - the couple of hundred veterans on the forum. See how they ignored us in the vaulting discussion and you will have a blueprint of what will happen after the nerf hits the "beloved" top tier 4*.

Buffing the existing 12 is probably out of the question. They would have to admit to bad design every time they need to buff a new hero to match power level of the top10.

Team_Jacob

Magic wrote:

Buffing the existing 12 is probably out of the question. They would have to admit to bad design every time they need to buff a new hero to match power level of the top10.

They buffed spiderqwen and Wasp, pretty well actually.

I wish they'd make XFWV great again, though.

Dragon_Nexus

I can understand if a character appears fundamentally broken, like the maths was wrong and suddenly a character is hitting way, WAY above what they were designed to.
But on the whole I can't think of any characters are are powerful to the point of being over powered. You could maybe make the argument that Peggy is perhaps one of these, but honestly she feels powerful enough to highlight other characters that need bringing up to her level, rather than dragging her down to theirs.

Nerfs shouldn't be something we see regularly in this game, I feel. There's no OML in 4* and below land, so there's no single character that needs taking down a peg.

But there are plenty who are pretty weak, even when buffed, who could do with a leg up. That should always be the focus. Especially if it's a new character that you expect people will want.

WelcomeDeath

Strongly disagree. 1* venom needs to be nerfed at least 5 more times. Ideally, id like to see a 1* venom with a level cap of 5, a max health pool of 90, and an inability to swap tiles or generate AP. Leave his simbiote snare and cap it at 3 covers for 27 AP to put out a single web tile. This needs to happen yesterday!

Magic

Team_Jacob wrote:

Magic wrote:

Buffing the existing 12 is probably out of the question. They would have to admit to bad design every time they need to buff a new hero to match power level of the top10.

They buffed spiderqwen and Wasp, pretty well actually.

I wish they'd make XFWV great again, though.

Agreed - they have buffed Wasp well. Spidergwen is not in the packs so that is a separate matter. They needed to buff Wasp to have more "Top" heroes in the latest packs. And they need to keep pushing the power creep with the new releases to make sure all the latest remain relevant. If they keep doing it people will start to forget about Rhulk or Iceman or Jean (it's already happening Captain Marvel is crazy good). I guess the next thing we will see in the 4* realm is new king of AOE damage. You have read it first here

apmonte

Characters that are perceived to be overpowered, really aren't. Take a character like Iceman (I have him championed). No question that in the right hands he can be a monster (particularly when powered up). Most people have him covered at 5/5/3. It takes 12 green to kick off his AOE, and the damage is highly dependent on the number of blue tiles on the board. His blue provides a nice stun for 6 AP, but it takes 6 additional blue to punch a snowman before the timer runs out or gets matched. What really makes him such a powerful character is that he has great synergy with a number of characters like IM40 and Cho Hulk. What happens to his value if you change his green to yellow? Add to that, he's simply not that dangerous an opponent when controlled by the AI.

jgomes32

In 4* land i can see Iceman and Peggy getting nefs. Personally i wouldn't change Peggy (maybe blue damage), Iceman i do think it's a little overpowered. Honorable mention to Medusa.

Dragon_Nexus

apmonte wrote:

Characters that are perceived to be overpowered, really aren't. Take a character like Iceman (I have him championed). No question that in the right hands he can be a monster (particularly when powered up). Most people have him covered at 5/5/3. It takes 12 green to kick off his AOE, and the damage is highly dependent on the number of blue tiles on the board. His blue provides a nice stun for 6 AP, but it takes 6 additional blue to punch a snowman before the timer runs out or gets matched. What really makes him such a powerful character is that he has great synergy with a number of characters like IM40 and Cho Hulk. What happens to his value if you change his green to yellow? Add to that, he's simply not that dangerous an opponent when controlled by the AI.

Jeez, I thought I was missing a trick.
I'd continuously heard about how monsterous and powerful Iceman is but...I always feel underwhelmed by him.
Even in PvE when he's boosted I found it sometimes took two AoEs to get the job done. Compared to Red Hulk he just didn't hit as hard as I felt he ought to.

He does have an awesome stun and nuke, though. I found his stun in PvP to be the biggest threat, since he often just gets it without you realising and he always manages to stun the wrong person on your team, slowing you down tremendously.

firethorne

apmonte wrote:

Characters that are perceived to be overpowered, really aren't. Take a character like Iceman (I have him championed). No question that in the right hands he can be a monster (particularly when powered up). Most people have him covered at 5/5/3. It takes 12 green to kick off his AOE, and the damage is highly dependent on the number of blue tiles on the board. His blue provides a nice stun for 6 AP, but it takes 6 additional blue to punch a snowman before the timer runs out or gets matched. What really makes him such a powerful character is that he has great synergy with a number of characters like IM40 and Cho Hulk. What happens to his value if you change his green to yellow? Add to that, he's simply not that dangerous an opponent when controlled by the AI.

Adding to this, I think there is a huge degree of economics involved. I use Iceman a lot. Do I have characters that may be better? I wouldn't doubt it. But, I need millions of iso before I figure out which ones those are, which characters synergize well. People stick to what they know, because experimentation is prohibitively expensive. And since experimentation is prohibitively expensive, people heavily trend toward the well established "good" options.

Despite the dev's claims that they want more variety in the characters the players use, the system they've built is simply not conducive to doing that due to cost.

astrp3

xidragonxi wrote:

The only way the community should tolerate a nerf of any kind is if the devs allow us a refund on any resources spent while championing a nerfed character. If they nerf Teen Jean, for example, we should be able to un-level her from whatever she is at now back to level 70, and receive the full value in ISO and champ levels that we applied to her. It is completely unacceptable to allow the players to spend resources on a character and then make that character worse, and only offer a slightly better sell-rate.

One issue I see with giving you back 100% of the ISO you spent is that it could cost D3/Demiurge revenue and could be exploited - at least if there was no expiration date or they gave you a long time to cash in or let you do it more than once.

If you had, say, three fully-covered characters that had been nerfed, but were still useable, and only had one of them champed, as long as you only wanted to use one at a time, you could just unlevel one and level another before every fight and avoid having to level up the other two. a r

I don't think this is a very big issue (since you probably don't want to use nerfed characters, would only be able to use one at a time, etc.) but my guess is that IF they refunded ISO, it would be something less than 100% of what you spent or they'd only let you do it one time.

If they let you do it more than once, they'd have to have a way to keep you from getting the rewards and experience again when you re-leveled a character - else you could just take one nerfed character that is max champed and another that isn't and just unlevel one and max champ the other over and over again and get infinite rewards. Even if you could only get a refund once per character, you could exploit this to a lesser degree (by unlevelling a max champed character and max championing others you would never have max champed otherwise just to get the rewards).

Yes, there are solutions to these issues (limited time, limiting it to once per character, not giving you rewards/XP the second time around etc.) but that could make leveling up characters a lot more complicated, code wise.

Warbringa

I don't think the devs past approach to nerfs have been great ideas due to the track record of the devs over-nerfing characters as discussed by OP. I would be ok with small nerfs such as simply increasing slightly AP costs of certain characters who are clearly OP in their tier or current passive abilities slightly modified. For example, if Iceman's blue was raised 1 to 2 AP or Peggy's passive yellow increases AP costs only 1-2 AP etc the characters would still be really good but not quite as stand out, ie a correct way to level a playing field. Minor damage modifications would also be acceptable to me. Small re-works would be acceptable but trying to completely redo powers has been a total dud in almost every situation when the intent is to nerf a character. You will always have certain characters preferred to others but everyone knows there are just certain characters pretty far above the rest of the tier and I wouldn't mind it being less obvious which one those are.

KGB

Every Buff to one character is in reality a Nerf to every other character.

This was best illustrated when they gave a health boost to a lot of characters a while back in certain tiers. That health boost in effect nerfed all characters that didn't get the boost.

So what D3 is doing with the buffing of characters in the 4* tier is slightly nerfing all other 4* characters. Given enough time and enough buffs those characters who once defined the meta will be left behind until they themselves require buffs. It's an arm race.

KGB

astrp3

Andre MPQ wrote:

This is something I've been thinking about myself the focus should be on characters that don't get used by us that have terrible abilities I don't have to say who they are because the developer's know already we've done the survey and Polls.

I don't know if they look at forum polls or not. From what they've said in interviews, it seems they mostly look at a character's winning percentage and how often it's used and nerf it if they feel it's being overused. I don't like it when they do, but I can see where it might make sense sometimes - e.g. if a character was so overpowered that almost all the top finishers were using it and players didn't feel the need to invest in newer characters - but I don't know if any character has ever been that overpowered. I wasn't around back when Sentry bombing was a thing, so I don't know if anyone felt that he was being overused.

Pants1000

There are times when a nerf is a good idea, but I don't think there are any current characters that are too overpowered. You could make a case for 3* Thanos, 3* Strange, or Peggy, but I wouldn't.

I believe the latest 12 are stronger overall than the old characters. Please stop with the "Iceman and Rulk vs. Riri and Agent Venom" arguments. Peggy, Carol, Medusa, Wasp, and Coulson will have no problem taking out any 4* team.

Chrono_Tata

In theory I have nothing against nerfs, but considering 90% of the nerfs this game has seen in the past I wouldn't trust the devs within 10 feet of a nerf bat.

westnyy2

No more nerfs!

There is enough things that need improving and I don't feel there are any characters truly overpowered. There are certainly characters that when boosted are better than others, nut none grossly overpowered.

Typically when we hear nerf, OML is the first brought up. In my view, OML is not overpowered. He does very little damage until he transforms or at least gets his strikes out. Many characters do more damage. He is simply used the most. He is used the most for his true healing which enables you to conserve health packs as you climb PVP or grind in PVE. \

Rather than nerf the true heal, change the health pack system. I don't pretend to know the number of health packs that are purchased with hero points and what kind of revenue it generates. Based on the play styles of my alliance, there seems to be very little purchases of additional health packs. A solution could be to only need health packs for downed players. The remaining survivors of any given match can start the next match with full health. I believe this would allow for more diverse teams that would be seen in the PVP mode. Some could see this as a nerf to any character with true heal but I don't believe it completely is. Sometimes you simply need a meat shield.