Now we have the worst 4*

Sm0keyJ0e

The team compositions are almost always terrible. The opponents matched against for these essentials are also almost always terrible. Seems like no thought is put into this whatsoever, and then you get a forum post like this where everyone thinks the toon is terrible (and he may well be). But in the last sub once the enemies started spamming special tiles, you could at least see his potential. Pairing him with someone like Patch that gives enemy specials or other spammy enemies would have been a better option if they want to push this character as someone we need in our arsenal.

Momo988

This is the one situation where having Venom Bomb as the launch event would have been perfect. 

Borstock

Orion said:

Borstock said:

Yeah, he's horrendous. Not convinced they will rush to buff a villain. I feel like they care less about them. Then again, they did rework Carnage, Kingpin, Mordo.... So what do I know?

The reworks on Kingpin and Carnage made them much much worse. Sure they fixed Carnage a season later, but Kingpin is a shell of his former self.

The point was mainly that they got work. Someone sat down and got paid to make changes to him. I just get the general impression that villain characters aren't a huge priority for the devs. But there's evidence that contradicts my point, so its subjective whether I'm right or just have the wrong impression.

But as to Kingpin... I disagree that he's much worse. The way I use him, he's actually buffed. His black power also does team damage now. This is not particularly useful to the player, but can be useful to an AI designed to make the player use health packs. A lot of players like going into fights with characters at full health. His being able to hit everyone might do less damage overall, but might get players to buy health packs because they don't like going into the next fight with characters who are already beat up.

Polares

He is soooooo lame. His numbers are 3 based. He needs to be buffed A LOT (except the passive I guess).

I have not been able to beat the initial node of SpiderGwen with my two cover level 74 Kraven. It is the first time I can't beat the first node. Also, who thought it was a good paring put him against Spider chars?!?!? It might make sense thematically but obviously gameplay wise it doesn't! (Lets put someone with two very cheap powers and a stun! And someone that does not produce any special tile affected by him! Yey!) 

I agree, he is the worst 4. 

bluewolf

Somehow, it seems appropriate that the 60th 4* character is this bad.  For some reason 60 seems like enough to me.  I know the train needs to keep rolling and revenue generated, but I dunno....300 days between crashes.  3 months between buffs.  6 months (about) between essential runs (Latests get more runs, so Vintages get less, so that varies a bit.  Mockingbird's last essential was in September.)   The 4* tier is so massive and just....enough?  Do we really need more?

It just seems like they are stretching to find new character ideas (not new characters, just new ways to make them work/not work).  I feel like the mechanics of this game and the ability to keep them fresh are getting stretched thinner and thinner, even in the new age of team-focused abilities.

Like, the idea of a CD that destroys AP on both teams and deals damage for it is unique, but is it exciting to use?  No.  A trap tile that steals AP, deals damage when matched and changes tile covers is unique, but also not exciting.

Maybe a lot of the best ideas have been done within the game mechanics structure and we are seeing the limits of trying to do something different.

Is Kraven the very worst?  I dunno, I might decide to use him over Flaptain in some instances.  The real question is whether he will get buffed before his next essential run in 3 months.

Ruinate

Borstock said:

Orion said:

Borstock said:

Yeah, he's horrendous. Not convinced they will rush to buff a villain. I feel like they care less about them. Then again, they did rework Carnage, Kingpin, Mordo.... So what do I know?

The reworks on Kingpin and Carnage made them much much worse. Sure they fixed Carnage a season later, but Kingpin is a shell of his former self.

The point was mainly that they got work. Someone sat down and got paid to make changes to him. I just get the general impression that villain characters aren't a huge priority for the devs. But there's evidence that contradicts my point, so its subjective whether I'm right or just have the wrong impression.

But as to Kingpin... I disagree that he's much worse. The way I use him, he's actually buffed. His black power also does team damage now. This is not particularly useful to the player, but can be useful to an AI designed to make the player use health packs. A lot of players like going into fights with characters at full health. His being able to hit everyone might do less damage overall, but might get players to buy health packs because they don't like going into the next fight with characters who are already beat up.

Well how do you use him then?  You mean trading 3 cds for an aoe black?  The way he is meant to be played?  Because that's a bad trade.  His black is nothing no health packs needed not sure why it even matters.  His new black isn't going to make people skip him.  

STERLING21JJ

Polares said:

He is soooooo lame. His numbers are 3 based. He needs to be buffed A LOT (except the passive I guess).

I have not been able to beat the initial node of SpiderGwen with my two cover level 74 Kraven. It is the first time I can't beat the first node. Also, who thought it was a good paring put him against Spider chars?!?!? It might make sense thematically but obviously gameplay wise it doesn't! (Lets put someone with two very cheap powers and a stun! And someone that does not produce any special tile affected by him! Yey!) 

I agree, he is the worst 4. 

I quote you but honestly everyone pretty much falls in my remark.....IT'S KRAVEN!!!! hes a junk character in the comics why does everyone expect him to be a amazing match 3 character.  I don't get it.  A new character that is terrible move on and dont worry about building him. 

Dragon_Nexus

STERLING21JJ said:

I quote you but honestly everyone pretty much falls in my remark.....IT'S KRAVEN!!!! hes a junk character in the comics why does everyone expect him to be a amazing match 3 character.  I don't get it.  A new character that is terrible move on and dont worry about building him. 

Because he's a 4*.
Being a 4* should give some measure of usability. They need to be punchier than a 3*, especially with how slowly you can end up building them up when they finally release. Especially if you're still building a 4* roster.

We can have silly fun characters in 4* that are still usable, like Gwenpool or Howard the Duck. Even the silly Lockjaw is more useful and usable at this point.

Borstock

Ruinate said:

Borstock said:

Orion said:

Borstock said:

Yeah, he's horrendous. Not convinced they will rush to buff a villain. I feel like they care less about them. Then again, they did rework Carnage, Kingpin, Mordo.... So what do I know?

The reworks on Kingpin and Carnage made them much much worse. Sure they fixed Carnage a season later, but Kingpin is a shell of his former self.

The point was mainly that they got work. Someone sat down and got paid to make changes to him. I just get the general impression that villain characters aren't a huge priority for the devs. But there's evidence that contradicts my point, so its subjective whether I'm right or just have the wrong impression.

But as to Kingpin... I disagree that he's much worse. The way I use him, he's actually buffed. His black power also does team damage now. This is not particularly useful to the player, but can be useful to an AI designed to make the player use health packs. A lot of players like going into fights with characters at full health. His being able to hit everyone might do less damage overall, but might get players to buy health packs because they don't like going into the next fight with characters who are already beat up.

Well how do you use him then?  You mean trading 3 cds for an aoe black?  The way he is meant to be played?  Because that's a bad trade.  His black is nothing no health packs needed not sure why it even matters.  His new black isn't going to make people skip him.  

I use him to create CDs and steal AP. I have his black at 3.  And an SCL 9 KP AoE black does, off the top of my head, around 6-7k each. I think thats what he did to me in this last PvE. That's plenty of DMG to a 4* team to get someone to think about using packs for the next clear.

[Deleted User]

Daredevil217 said:

Dapptastic said:

Back to your comments tho--I can't think of a worse 4* considered in an individual context.  Even invisible woman is better.

Could make arguments for Lockjaw, Kingpin, Devil Dino, and Meh Hulk I'd imagine.  I've never played Sandman so maybe him.  Maybe Falcap and Elektra?  I don't know until I have him champed but he's definitely in this bottom tier of characters though.

As an aside, I'm interested that people are to split on Nico. 

lockjaw is really good actually.  charging tiles and dealing a fair amount of damage when opponents match *ANY* of your special tiles.  He's got the equivalent of that symbiote with the "bark & bite" passive but it works with countdown tiles too, in favor of the player.  Plus when his charge tiles are in the enemies strongest colors, he deals damage just like blackbolt, so it stacks nicely with him and if you got some decent strike tiles on the board, you can hit them 3 times a turn with the match damage, if there is any attack tiles, and then lockjaw's passive.


If you are in 5* land then this is all just an academic exercise tho.

I think both Nico & Kraven's weakness is this--that the one thing that really sets them apart is really diluted to even be effective in the current trend on the tile-battlefield.  Their buffs/debuffs have such a nickle-and-dime effect that by the time it could really have any significance--battle is prolly already over.  That's my prediction really since I don't have either champed to really say one way or the other once they are maturely developed.

I'd side with you on some of those--drax too.  Most of them are at least mediocre tho, in that those guys can at least win on their own--where with Kraven/Nico, I'm not sure they can.  I get some characters are support units but everybody should have at least one ability that is offensive in a considerable way, provided the inevitability their team is wiped and they are sole survivors--there should still be a chance for victory on behalf of the player.

I think that's what really puts them into the "sucky" character category.  And that's why the community, represented by this small sample of discussion participants are not attracted to them, if I had to hazard a guess.

America Chavez, is I think an exception to that policy, given how awesome her ability set is.

[Deleted User]

bluewolf said:

Somehow, it seems appropriate that the 60th 4* character is this bad.  For some reason 60 seems like enough to me.  I know the train needs to keep rolling and revenue generated, but I dunno....300 days between crashes.  3 months between buffs.  6 months (about) between essential runs (Latests get more runs, so Vintages get less, so that varies a bit.  Mockingbird's last essential was in September.)   The 4* tier is so massive and just....enough?  Do we really need more?

It just seems like they are stretching to find new character ideas (not new characters, just new ways to make them work/not work).  I feel like the mechanics of this game and the ability to keep them fresh are getting stretched thinner and thinner, even in the new age of team-focused abilities.

Like, the idea of a CD that destroys AP on both teams and deals damage for it is unique, but is it exciting to use?  No.  A trap tile that steals AP, deals damage when matched and changes tile covers is unique, but also not exciting.

Maybe a lot of the best ideas have been done within the game mechanics structure and we are seeing the limits of trying to do something different.

Is Kraven the very worst?  I dunno, I might decide to use him over Flaptain in some instances.  The real question is whether he will get buffed before his next essential run in 3 months.

time to start running simultaneous PvE-events!!  I wouldn't mind buying up healthpacks if it meant more resources for development.

I have questioned what the limit is--at what point do you keep generating characters at the expense of keeping others on the shelves?

They could maintain this current trend but not sacrifice benching characters for extended periods if they added more story events and somehow modified the frequency of recurrence or shifted their practices and started running simultaneous events.

Maybe a boss event (not necessarily oriented toward releasing a 5*) running side-by-side with the current pool of PvE events is in order, in a persistent fashion.  This seems like such a no-duh idea since with the 8-hr refresh periods, people who are constantly on the edge of their seats to play will have something to do between PvE/PvP, as the current model works.

I just realized the other day (that heroics have been relegated away) and these PvE events are starting to feel like groundhog day in a really bad way.  The few heroics that were at least added a much-needed level of variety to Story play.

more nodes in the current PvE framework would be nice, they could literally just copy the code from other, existing events.  That would inject some life.

I think another thing that should be in order is a 4*-essential node in the DDQ just like for the 3*-essential, rewarding a cover for said 4*, considering there are more 4*s than 3*s--I have to wonder why this isn't already in-place.

I love this game but one thing is for sure--there is a definite boiling point on the horizon with character inflation.  The worst thing about this is with age--this game becomes increasingly and disproportionately difficult for any new players.  Like, I have been playing since year 2 but with a 20-month break in that time frame.  When I came back about a year ago--it was almost exasperating seeing how many characters are out there to get and the ways I had to get them were very prohibitive (barring investing copious amounts of coin).  This will eventually ward off new players, I think.  And another point of justification for why a 4*-essential node in DDQ is needed, it's another avenue for roster development in this oversaturated market of characters.


There is still innovation in the game tho, I noticed they are starting to port over unique enemy abilities for the recent characters--i.e.  the sentry bots share that mechanic with America Chavez for how they passively generate special tiles, predictably we can look forward to somebody who makes a passive match (passively, unlike 4* rocket & groot) in the future like the other sentry ability; lockjaw shares the symbiote "bark & bite," so I expect that we can look forward to covers with more of the as-yet unique enemy abilities.  The Hand ninja smoke that drops some attack tiles when downed would be a very interesting deterrent and factor to consider if a character has that on an opponent team, because if (like Phoenix's downed passive) the attack tiles are strong enough--that then becomes a motivator to focus on other characters first, or even reverse the logic and drop strong attack tiles when their teammates are down thus shifting a player's attack priority.

Daredevil217

Dapptastic said:

Daredevil217 said:

Dapptastic said:

Back to your comments tho--I can't think of a worse 4* considered in an individual context.  Even invisible woman is better.

Could make arguments for Lockjaw, Kingpin, Devil Dino, and Meh Hulk I'd imagine.  I've never played Sandman so maybe him.  Maybe Falcap and Elektra?  I don't know until I have him champed but he's definitely in this bottom tier of characters though.

As an aside, I'm interested that people are to split on Nico. 

lockjaw is really good actually.  charging tiles and dealing a fair amount of damage when opponents match *ANY* of your special tiles.  He's got the equivalent of that symbiote with the "bark & bite" passive but it works with countdown tiles too, in favor of the player.  Plus when his charge tiles are in the enemies strongest colors, he deals damage just like blackbolt, so it stacks nicely with him and if you got some decent strike tiles on the board, you can hit them 3 times a turn with the match damage, if there is any attack tiles, and then lockjaw's passive.


If you are in 5* land then this is all just an academic exercise tho.

I think both Nico & Kraven's weakness is this--that the one thing that really sets them apart is really diluted to even be effective in the current trend on the tile-battlefield.  Their buffs/debuffs have such a nickle-and-dime effect that by the time it could really have any significance--battle is prolly already over.  That's my prediction really since I don't have either champed to really say one way or the other once they are maturely developed.

I'd side with you on some of those--drax too.  Most of them are at least mediocre tho, in that those guys can at least win on their own--where with Kraven/Nico, I'm not sure they can.  I get some characters are support units but everybody should have at least one ability that is offensive in a considerable way, provided the inevitability their team is wiped and they are sole survivors--there should still be a chance for victory on behalf of the player.

I think that's what really puts them into the "sucky" character category.  And that's why the community, represented by this small sample of discussion participants are not attracted to them, if I had to hazard a guess.

America Chavez, is I think an exception to that policy, given how awesome her ability set is.

I have a power ranking of the 50 champed 4s I own, and I change it around the more I play with characters both boosted and unboosted and get better feels for them.  I think I'm higher on Fury than most, but lower on Punisher and Deadpool as examples. 

Lockjaw I'll have to play around more with.  Had a lot of success with him and Carndusa, but thought he was just meat-shielding.  Had no idea he was dealing passive damage as well.  Hmm.

I strongly disagree with the everyone must have offense statement.  I think about Widow and Loki as great examples of very very good support characters who are upper-tier characters at their respective star levels.  Even with low health they are still rock stars.  If this game were one-on-one I'd agree, but since you get a team of three characters I am more than okay with some characters being pure support.  Those are some of the best characters, fit on many teams, and their strengths usually make up for their weaknesses/lack of offense.  If they are left as the sole survivor, that's when you collect that team up AP, lol.

As for Nico, I do have her champed.  Been toying with her on different teams.  I like her but yeah it's hard to see her immediate impact on the battle field as she's a 1,000 cuts kind of girl.  Played her on a rainbow team with Moon Knight and Nova and that was fun.  Still want to try her with Carndusa as she gives a nice blue outlet.  Yes her buffs are minimal, but the more tiles you have, the better it is, as she buffs everything, not just a select number like everyone else who buffs.  She also does it continuously and passively.  All of those factors should not be slept on!

Tiger_Wong

3* Hawkeye 3/5/5 or 5/3/5
4* Venom (Eddie Brock) 5/3/5
Kraven 2/1/2

PVE but this works undercovered, so I believe it’ll be way easier champed/with more covers

HoundofShadow

I think a couple of tweaks might make him better.

I think his black is okay.

Instead of taking accounts of only attack, strike or protect tiles to activate his passive, make it read as 4 to 6 special tiles instead. So, countdown, invisibility or other special tiles would be included as well.

As for his trap tile, it could become a fortified trap tile since he is a hunter. I think there's no fortified trap tile in the game? It could be something new. If it is matched away, the current effects will trigger and then it will change location.  If destroyed, it will behave like any other normal tiles.

Qubort

LifeofAgony said:

This does also dispell a lot of those “power creep” arguments that people enjoy making regarding a certain x-man in the 5* tier.  Nico AA and Kraven are unimpressive even by non-Cajun standards.  But hey, it does give them some toons to buff once they get back to rebalancing toons.

Yes, power creep is fake news. Not because it's gradually happens in all games over years, but because you don't like 3  recent characters. How convenient you skipped over America Chavez release to attempt to make a point.

Daredevil217

HoundofShadow said:

I think a couple of tweaks might make him better.

I think his black is okay.

Instead of taking accounts of only attack, strike or protect tiles to activate his passive, make it read as 4 to 6 special tiles instead. So, countdown, invisibility or other special tiles would be included as well.

As for his trap tile, it could become a fortified trap tile since he is a hunter. I think there's no fortified trap tile in the game? It could be something new. If it is matched away, the current effects will trigger and then it will change location.  If destroyed, it will behave like any other normal tiles.

The point of a trap tile is not being able to see it. Fortifying it would give away its location. 

LifeofAgony

Qubort said:

LifeofAgony said:

This does also dispell a lot of those “power creep” arguments that people enjoy making regarding a certain x-man in the 5* tier.  Nico AA and Kraven are unimpressive even by non-Cajun standards.  But hey, it does give them some toons to buff once they get back to rebalancing toons.

Yes, power creep is fake news. Not because it's gradually happens in all games over years, but because you don't like 3  recent characters. How convenient you skipped over America Chavez release to attempt to make a point.

Who said fake news.  I didn’t skip over AC, she is an excellent release.  But my point is that for those making the argument that gambit is just “the new meta” and just a natural evolution of power creep is not being realistic.  Since gambit has been released, 1 toon out of 5 has been on par with releases previous to their release (AC).  Both versions of Angel are subpar, Nico and Kraven are niche 4* at best who are not as strong as many or the releases before them, Nightcrawler and MEHulk are also uninspired.   

In the gambit age, AC and Rogue are the only releases that have been above average, while the numbers seem to more support that Gambit being so far overpowered was not a sign of things to come, but a game-breaking release.

If we were really into an overall power creep stage all of these releases would be gradually getting stronger and stronger, not having to be compared to tiers lower than them for equivalents.  Nico and Kraven are 3* releases in 4* clothes.  Archangel is a 4* masquerading in the 5* tier (his main power is to counter a power not used in 5* land).

Power creep isn’t what’s happening in mpq.  It’s terrible design, and when done wrong, should be pointed out.

Kraven sucks.