Soul Gem Season Updates *Updated (12/13/17)

Hoser

I get that gambat needed nerfed....but to completely destroy the 3* version is a little much!  He is useless now!  

And then you basically boost the 5* version?

FAIL

GrimSkald

Huh.  I don't think that's going to be enough to keep Gambit from dominating the game, but I guess we'll see.  I must say, I'm glad to see they're being cautious with the nerf in general, even if I think this is over-cautious and in the end won't prove to be enough.  It is easier to tweak down than to tweak up, really...

leoperez90

I can't believe they killed 3* gambit such a good character and a fav to alot of us and now useless.

Anon

aesthetocyst said:

I'm telling ya they got it backwards.

Apply the 3* change to the 5* and vice-versa. 

It would then be perfect.

I can only hope this is a mistake. How do you gut the 3* version but give the 5* version a slap on the wrist? It's preposterous.

VizMantis

I’ve been playing with a 5/3/5 3* Gambit and he seemed like he was just a higher tier 3*.  He paired well with a few 4*s (c4rol, bl4de most notably), but never made a particularly strong team.  I felt like all they needed to do to fix him was make Black always prevent other Red/Purple powers to solve the gambattery nonsense.  This seems like huge overkill and he’s unlikely to find a place on any of my teams anymore.

LifeofAgony

It’s not a mistake given that we actually got a comment from a dev on the “thought” behind this.

i can applaud them fixing the 3* gimmick build, but the 5* somehow became stronger.  Literally you start game, you make red match 3, AI turn, you’re down to 1 AP and he’s gained 4.  How is that not still irrevocably game breaking as it’s unconditional?  

thedarkphoenix

LifeofAgony said:

It’s not a mistake given that we actually got a comment from a dev on the “thought” behind this.

i can applaud them fixing the 3* gimmick build, but the 5* somehow became stronger.  Literally you start game, you make red match 3, AI turn, you’re down to 1 AP and he’s gained 4.  How is that not still irrevocably game breaking as it’s unconditional?  

He has 4 that he can do what with? Unless there is a black bolt on either team or something creating a charged. After the next two turns he’s going to hit you with a move that does about 1k damage and in another 4 turns (provided the AI doesn’t match red) for big damage.

no one else can use the red or purple. I’m not seeing anything game breaking.

You want to make sure he doesn’t drain the color you need body it or another color if it’s that important  from the jump.

LifeofAgony

It’s not a question of that first hit;  he now is zapping 2 AP per turn whilst adding 4 / 6ap swing per turn.  And the purple still can overwrite EVERY type of tile and regardless of that low damage on hit one, it’s still generating additional ap along with potentially leading to a cascade.  

He was already broken and somehow, he was made stronger.  This isn’t a fix or nerf in any appreciable way.

#GambitStillBroken

Toughwolf13

Oh man, all they needed to do was stopping allies from firing red and purple powers even when 3* gambit has no 

covers in those colours, and not completely kill the character! As for the 5* version, I think it’ll still be a bummer, but 

time will tell.

 

Even though I will not benefit from it, I really welcome the maximum shield rank limit for each clearance level, the 

only strange thing is: Why did they stop at CL6? I mean, the guy is level 68, easily a top 5 in CL6, gain a level and

suddenly is competing against players level 125+ in CL7 and getting much worse rewards for a top 100? I’m sorry,

but that’s nonsense. The very reason for someone to change CLs is being able to get better rewards and not 

simply start to get pounded day in, day out.

 

Come on D3, stop putting go-carts to race F1 cars in the same track, that can’t be good for the game in the long

 run.

 

Thanks for CL9 in PVP, that’s a very good and long waited change.

cybercloud03

Why would you add a min/max for SCL in PvE?
I have an scl of 81. If I want to earn more CP, I’ll play in the level 6 scenario. If I want to earn a specific 4 Star, I’ll play in the level 7. Forcing players to play in a specific level is going to make earning characters that much harder. And if you don’t build a roster a specific way, you are eventually going to level yourself to a point where you can’t play anymore. Please rethink the min/max on levels, or at least adjust the rewards system to give players more of a choice on what heroes they will be earning/ or how much cp you’ll be getting.

D4Ni13

Well, to be fair, the community was against nerfing characters, so it's fair to say that 5* Gambit was changed and not nerfed ? 

After reading Archangel's powers I must say that he will directly counter 5* Gambit, and this might be the reason he wasn't nerfed as hard as some would want. Archangel would be able to block at least one of red or purple with his Aerial Superiority (if not both - the 3 * version is able to create 2 tiles at 3 covers in the preview, so maybe the 5* would as well), and would completely shot down generation of AP if the ability does what its description say it does. 

LifeofAgony

D4Ni13 said:

Well, to be fair, the community was against nerfing characters, so it's fair to say that 5* Gambit was changed and not nerfed ? 

After reading Archangel's powers I must say that he will directly counter 5* Gambit, and this might be the reason he wasn't nerfed as hard as some would want. Archangel would be able to block at least one of red or purple with his Aerial Superiority (if not both - the 3 * version is able to create 2 tiles at 3 covers in the preview, so maybe the 5* would as well), and would completely shot down generation of AP if the ability does what its description say it does. 

Where to begin?

Theres a 20+ page thread about asking for a nerf that is overwhelmingly in support of a nerf, and the fact the thread was never locked or devolving into the usual forum dreck should tell you that most seemed very interested in seeing a nerf happen.

As for 5* angel;  he’s a vulture counter by design, as the devs stated in the marvel article.

it’s terrific he can block ap gain in a specific color but there’s 3 problems:  1.  Gambit is now destroying 2 ap per turn so it’s going to be that much tougher to fire said “counter”. 2.  If you block purple, it doesn’t prevent a purple power from being fired so if gambit has the AP to fire purple, that tile is GONE first enemy turn, and if not, you’re still gonna get pummeled by Red.  3.  If you block red, please see point 2 about his purple powers.  

Angel looks cool, but he’s NOT even remotely in the ballpark of a counter and his power set is immediately diminished  by overlord Gambit.

professorplum9

While I understand why some may disagree with the 5* nerf/buff, I for one appreciate the approach they are taking here. In the past, the nerf bat has swung far too heavy and really taken a lot of the enjoyment out of particular characters (may be the case with 3* Gambit here). I like to see the tactic of not just taking away from a character, but trying to enhance in other ways. While I still remember bemoaning the change to 2* Magneto when they halved the number of blue tiles you could make I found myself enjoying the fact that he made red and I could use that power more often.

Given the amount of time and resources it takes to cover and level a 5* I'd rather see them take a cautious approach to tweaking the character than risk potentially gutting it.

I still think the best approach is creating characters that can counter each other. I understand that again this might be more problematic in the 5* tier because again the rate it takes to cover and level might mean that rostering/covering/leveling an effective counter may be months away, but still I'd rather have that than constantly be looking over my shoulder wondering if the character I'm sinking all my LT/CP/ISO into one day is going to be gutted the next.

It seems that Gambit has always been his own best counter. I don't believe this has changed. This way it might be possible to counter him now without eating a ton of damage.

Variety is the spice of life. Trying to make sure all characters of a certain tier have comparable powers and are equally viable seems a bridge too far. Developing synergies between characters and rotating boosts seems like a good way to encourage varied game play. We've seen with the recent introduction of the "god boost" to new release 5* or the essential 5* in PVE a good way to promote the use of certain characters that might otherwise sit on a shelf. Perhaps now that the 5* tier has grown it might be worthwhile to consider rotating boosts of this magnitude in PVP beyond just the newest release. To me these promote roster diversity and roster depth as well as variety and might present an alternative solution to character overuse.

So while this 5* tweak may not be the answer I appreciate a more cautious approach to nerfing as well as considering other factors/methods to encourage varied gameplay besides buffing/nerfing.

D4Ni13

OJSP said:

D4Ni13 said:

After reading Archangel's powers I must say that he will directly counter 5* Gambit, and this might be the reason he wasn't nerfed as hard as some would want. Archangel would be able to block at least one of red or purple with his Aerial Superiority (if not both - the 3 * version is able to create 2 tiles at 3 covers in the preview, so maybe the 5* would as well), and would completely shot down generation of AP if the ability does what its description say it does. 

And how many turns will we need to get 7 black AP? Even with a predominantly black board, if we manage to match exclusively black in all our initial turns, we will get 7 AP of a particular colour on turn 4 with simple match-3s. By then, the other team would already have 28 AP and we are stuck with 1 black AP and random ones from cascades, if any.

You're right. This has more effects that I first thought. That AP destruction has no place there. It should just be the gain of 2 red and 2 purple, and that way Archangel would be a true counter, and Gambit would be more balanced... 

Il galvanico

aesthetocyst said:

I'm telling ya they got it backwards.

Apply the 3* change to the 5* and vice-versa. 

It would then be perfect.

As i read the changes, i thought the same thing. It could be a mistake and maybe they inverted classic from modern...

LifeofAgony

It’s not a mistake, they specifically mention the 005 3* build as being unintended.  Nothing happened by accident on this one, it’s just making a bad problem worse.

talleman

Im fine with the change of 3* Gambits Stacked Deck to become an active power that creates charge tiles but to ad team damage is just stupid.

D4Ni13

OJSP said:

Like some people already mentioned either here or in another thread, this change actually makes Gambit more troublesome to fight against, unless we have our own Gambit.

If we don’t use Gambit to fight another one with 5 covers for Stacked Deck, the most common scenario with the current version is at the end of the first turn, we get 3AP from a simple match and the opponent would get 9AP (3 from match-3 + 3 red + 3 purple). With the new version, Gambit would get 7AP, but by the time it’s our turn, we’d only have 1AP.

Assuming his team matches other colours than red or purple, by the time Gambit have his red power ready from his self generated AP on turn 4, his teammates could already hit us with most of their active powers (the most expensive cost in the 5* tier is 14AP). Their team would’ve obtained at least 28 AP, while we could be potentially struggling with 1AP of 4 different colours (or a combination of a total of 4-7AP in 2 or 3 different colours). In reality there will be match-4/5s and/or cascades, but that is also true for the other team.

If there’s Black Bolt paired with him, we’d probably already taken at least 1 hit from Energy Channeling. So, before we could actually start a match properly, we’re already severely disadvantaged and even more so as the match goes on.

@CaseyMalone could you please clarify if the scenario above, written by @OJSP, was taken into account when the changes were implemented ? Because it seems to me that 5* Gambit would be a lot more powerful than before with the enemy AP destruction every turn. 

Starfury

OJSP said:

D4Ni13 said:

After reading Archangel's powers I must say that he will directly counter 5* Gambit, and this might be the reason he wasn't nerfed as hard as some would want. Archangel would be able to block at least one of red or purple with his Aerial Superiority (if not both - the 3 * version is able to create 2 tiles at 3 covers in the preview, so maybe the 5* would as well), and would completely shot down generation of AP if the ability does what its description say it does. 

And how many turns will we need to get 7 black AP? Even with a predominantly black board, if we manage to match exclusively black in all our initial turns, we will get 7 AP of a particular colour on turn 4 with simple match-3s. By then, the other team would already have 28 AP and we are stuck with 1 black AP and random ones from cascades, if any.

It's actually the beginning of turn 8 (assuming an income of 3 black ap per turn)

I can already see the next Simulator PVE: 5* Gambit / Rogue / Wasp

LifeofAgony

Thanks everyone for receiving this update with an open mind. I won't be able to monitor this thread and reply to questions directly going forward, but your feedback will for sure make it back to the rest of the development team quickly - your feedback was instrumental in this change, so we want to make sure we got it right. 

Thanks so much,

Casey Malone
Game Designer

Not gonna get any more answers out of Mr. Malone.  He was sent to throw the grenade into the room and then shut and lock the door behind him.

i woildnt come back to the forum either having confirmed the fears that they actually boosted 5* gambit by giving him an an additional passive on top of his existing broken power set.