Upcoming Character Change to Wolverine (Old Man Logan)

Brigby

Hi Everyone,

There is going to be an upcoming character change to Wolverine (Old Man Logan). Here to talk about it some more is the Lead Designer from Demiurge:

Demiurge Lead Designer wrote:

As you recall, we’ve been focusing on character updates that increase the power of those characters, and monitoring how well that’s impacted team diversity and the competitive experience. Over time, we’ve seen that 4-star character positive rebalances have significantly improved those characters’ usability and ability to win battles. However, the same has not been true of improvements to 5-stars such as Silver Surfer (Skyrider) and Steve Rogers (First Avengers), due in largest part to the ubiquity and strength of Wolverine (Old Man Logan).

Old Man Logan, as one of our first 5-stars and one of our first characters with multiple sets of powers, is stronger and significantly more useful than most other options for one’s team, even when he’s at low covers. Over 10% of all battles won include an Old Man Logan on the player’s team. This is higher than the win or play rate of any other character in the game even when those characters are Powered-Up. We believe that his ubiquity and power is reducing options for team composition - Old Man Logan is significantly better even than other 5-stars at low covers, and he’s pushing out otherwise viable 4-star and 5-star options because he warrants a permanent place on the team.

To that end, Old Man Logan will be our first major rebalance to decrease power since the start of our regular season rebalances. We hope that this change to Old Man Logan will be sufficient and that we can return to the rebalances that increase power we’ve been doing. We’ll continue to monitor how the metagame and team composition evolves - if you have feedback on character rebalances, such as this one, please let us know!

We will be finalizing and posting more specific details about these changes tomorrow in anticipation of the upcoming Power Season.

Edit: Link to fmftint's locked, earlier discussion for reference: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=62948

bowla33

Where's the actual changes?

Brigby

bowla33 wrote:

Where's the actual changes?

I just updated the post. The development team is finalizing all the details, and we'll be posting the upcoming changes tomorrow.

OneLastGambit

The question Brigby...is...whatchanges?


This really needs communicating quickly. I would also suggest that if a nerf is incoming that people be allowed to cash in their (soon to be much less useful) OML - not for hp. Not for CP. Not for tokens. They should get an equal number of covers of another selected 5* character instead.

EDIT: My suggestion on OML exchange is actually probably the only way you won't poke the bear on this nerf it will also solve the issue of OML being overused if we can all trade in our OML for a different hero instead. I'd be more than happy to trade my 10 OML covers now for someone else

fmftint

Please merge the other thread so everyone doesn't have to double post 3 pages

LFChikarason

Not as overpowered as people think, but not gonna cry for the falling sky just yet.

It's not like OML is so broken the devs thought people were cheating/hacking the game people were winning matches so quickly with him...

broll

Here's what I think happened. A month or two ago someone from another company said to D3 "You guys couldn't possible get a negative customer satisfaction score" They replied back "Hold my beer".

fmftint

Brigby wrote:

bowla33 wrote:

Where's the actual changes?

I just updated the post. The development team is finalizing all the details, and we'll be posting the upcoming changes tomorrow.

Finalizing changes that are due to go live in 2 days...





Should leave plenty of time for testing

TheWerebison

I'm so sorry the forum change is coming now, Brigby. You're gonna get a lot of @Brigby about this.

The post is dressed up in very pretty language, but your users are not stupid. There is one reason and one reason only why a nerf is inbound: true heal. Wolverine is by no means the most powerful 5*. Not even close, especially as designers have been working overtime on developing new ways to use characters that have come out with awesome results.

BUT because of his heal, and the fact that many people use him in Story Mode to reduce health pack usage, and against seed teams in PvP for the same reason, he is going to be nerfed.

I sincerely hope that it is only his yellow that is being retouched, because anything else is too much. Don't reduce his other abilities, they are merely okay. Don't reduce match damage to make him not tank as much, that would be ridiculous, and you would see him never used again, most likely.

I'm not gonna protest and say "don't do it", because we all know that minds have been made up on this issue. I'm just saying, be reasonable about it.

bobby_2613

Brigby wrote:

Hi Everyone,

There is going to be an upcoming character change to Wolverine (Old Man Logan). Here to talk about it some more is the Lead Designer from Demiurge:

Demiurge Lead Designer wrote:

As you recall, we’ve been focusing on character updates that increase the power of those characters, and monitoring how well that’s impacted team diversity and the competitive experience. Over time, we’ve seen that 4-star character positive rebalances have significantly improved those characters’ usability and ability to win battles. However, the same has not been true of improvements to 5-stars such as Silver Surfer (Skyrider) and Steve Rogers (First Avengers), due in largest part to the ubiquity and strength of Wolverine (Old Man Logan).

Old Man Logan, as one of our first 5-stars and one of our first characters with multiple sets of powers, is stronger and significantly more useful than most other options for one’s team, even when he’s at low covers. Over 10% of all battles won include an Old Man Logan on the player’s team. This is higher than the win or play rate of any other character in the game even when those characters are Powered-Up. We believe that his ubiquity and power is reducing options for team composition - Old Man Logan is significantly better even than other 5-stars at low covers, and he’s pushing out otherwise viable 4-star and 5-star options because he warrants a permanent place on the team.

To that end, Old Man Logan will be our first major rebalance to decrease power since the start of our regular season rebalances. We hope that this change to Old Man Logan will be sufficient and that we can return to the rebalances that increase power we’ve been doing. We’ll continue to monitor how the metagame and team composition evolves - if you have feedback on character rebalances, such as this one, please let us know!

We will be finalizing and posting more specific details about these changes tomorrow in anticipation of the upcoming Power Season.

Wow.... What a bad timing... Vaulting, now nerfing OML when he's the only 5* some have.... You really know how to make your customers happy...

CrookedKnight

I'll repeat from the "unofficial" post -- the problem with OML is not that he's overpowered overall, it's that he has the best true heal in the game (even at one cover) and little else that's noteworthy in comparison with other 5* characters. This makes him practically immortal on offense with a 4* team or below, but fodder on defense or in the "real" 5* tier, where each team has two well-covered and leveled 5* characters. A proper rebalance would make Die Hard less of a crutch at low levels, while beefing up his damage so he can actually hold his own in the tier he's (supposedly) designed for.

FWIW, OML is my highest-level character but I almost never use him anymore now that I've hit a critical mass of 4* champions -- I have more success, and use fewer health packs, ending matches quickly with champed/boosted 4* characters than grinding them out with OML's match damage. He makes a really good partner for Wasp, though!

veny

He is not overpowered omg, he just save tons of heals (but i understand you dont like it).
He was also one of the first 5*s so people have many of his cards (for me it is 5* with most covers).
Truth is, i mostly win even before i get enough APs to unlock his actives lol.

Oh and yesterday 5* Hulk kicked **** of my OML (while dying and reviving again again - speaking about OMLs regen, its even worse to have Hulk against) like nothing so i doubt he is so overpowered he needs to be nerfed.

fmftint

Is he going to lose his health penalty to compensate for lost/reduced healing?

Stax the Foyer

Nerfing the most popular 5* character in the game is a risky move.

Nerfing a top tier character before you've addressed 5* dupes and dilution, and before you've addressed PvE scaling, is pants-on-head crazy.

On the bright side, I learned that you guys have Casual Tuesday, because I know what everyone's wearing today:

VForVictory

I'd tread very carefully retooling oml. A lot of lack of diversity in use of 5*s is due to lack of options. I have two champed 5*s and since my mmr says all I see are champed 5*s in pvp I have little choice but to use the two I have. If it becomes painful to win with those two then I'm not going to keep playing. Many other people are in this exact situation.

San Narciso

I'm going to do my best to keep my cool and not get booted from this forum, but this is the tinykittyest thing I've heard. Half my alliance was convinced it was an April Fool's joke.

I'm sure we all agree OML is the best original 5* because this is true. He's also been around the longer than any of the new awesome 5*. This is why people have him and why people use him. As D3 intended, it took me what felt like forever to finally have him covered (as a non-buyer). I've been using him as a champed 5* for maybe a little over a month now (finally), and you're going to strip at least part of him from me. OML is surely strong on offense, but he's terrible on defense. This means he is a balanced character already. I don't believe the reasoning for the nerf to be sufficient. I think D3 needs to be honest. Anyone who plays the game would agree that OML is not overpowered. Just a great character, which should be allowed. Also, one of the best designed by D3, and they can't even appreciate their own work.

Unless you're going to nerf his healing because you don't like how people don't spend as much on health packs, this doesn't make any sense. There is a good list of latest 5*s that are much better than OML. Black Bolt for example. I can beat OML all day long, but I have to be careful with Black Bolt. And I would LOVE to have him covered, and if I did, I probably wouldn't use OML all that much.

Here's another way you're tinykittying guys like me... I just finished securing my team for the season. Filling the holes with recruits, and everything else and all the work it took to put into it. Guys on my team (and maybe even me) who have invested much time, energy, money into OML are all talking about quitting. If this goes through, I'm going to be hustling to fill holes in my roster right as the season starts.

What is going on here isn't right and needs to be stopped in my opinion. Perhaps I care too much about this game or perhaps I just see an infuriating injustice that I'm sure a large number of players agree with me on.

Screw your heads on straight. Everytime the game seems to be actually working properly, y'all try to find a way to break it.

Is this the beginning of the end for MPQ? I bet it is for many vets who can't afford to chase the latest, better toons than OML. Players like me.

Buret0

To be fair, OML is the only tank in the game and the only automatic strike tile generator. His ability to create automatic strike tiles means that every match and every attack ends the game faster. Strike tiles are the reason cascades of doom exist. Strike tiles turn AoE damage into a nuke. He tanks for some of the best strike tile boosters in 4* land, such as Carol and Wasp.

He's also so prevalent because of how long he's been around. His usage ends games faster and without wasting health packs. This nerf is going to hurt.

Dormammu

Customer Service: "Our players are really upset about vaulting. You should see all the forum threads about it."

Publisher: "We need a distraction, get them to think about something else."

Developer: "I suppose we could nerf OML."

Customer Service: "I don't think that's a very good idea, the player base will..."

Publisher: "Will it get them off our backs about vaulting?"

Developer: "Almost certainly"

Customer Service: "But..."

Publisher: "Do it."

djpt05

Anyone else appreciate that it's happening during the Power season?

OneLastGambit

VForVictory wrote:

I'd tread very carefully retooling oml. A lot of lack of diversity in use of 5*s is due to lack of options. I have two champed 5*s and since my mmr says all I see are champed 5*s in pvp I have little choice but to use the two I have. If it becomes painful to win with those two then I'm not going to keep playing. Many other people are in this exact situation.

The good news is that once the nerf hits OML will have 'special' sale rate where you'll get a bit of iso and HP extra so you can sell him and drop your MMR and scaling at the same time. D3 always looking out for you

veny

Buret0 wrote:

To be fair, OML is the only tank in the game and the only automatic strike tile generator. His ability to create automatic strike tiles means that every match and every attack ends the game faster. Strike tiles are the reason cascades of doom exist. Strike tiles turn AoE damage into a nuke. He tanks for some of the best strike tile boosters in 4* land, such as Carol and Wasp.

He's also so prevalent because of how long he's been around. His usage ends games faster and without wasting health packs. This nerf is going to hurt.

And what? There are tons of champs who steal or steal+convert or even deal damage for each special tile (Medusa *cough*).
Yes, he is great tank but he has only one active skill (active ones he unlocks are powerful but disables regen).

With 5* Hawkeye there are far stronger combos (Peggy, Loki, Wasp etc.)