Patch Notes - 5/9 -- Daken changes

over_clocked

You have never encountered lvl 100+ Daken** in PvE, have you?

Edit: and yes it's often (almost always) about cashflow, doesn't mean we as players always agree, but it's MPQ Fact #1. 3*s are bread and butter of this game and no 2* is allowed to be on par with them (oBW is a 2,5* in terms of power but she's too squishy, she's even squishier than the Hood). And no, a lvl 69 character is not really supposed to be on par with level 85 characters.

Unknown

locked wrote:

You have never encountered lvl 100+ Daken** in PvE, have you?

Edit: and yes it's often (almost always) about cashflow, doesn't mean we as players always agree, but it's MPQ Fact #1. 3*s are bread and butter of this game and no 2* is allowed to be on par with them (oBW is a 2,5* in terms of power but she's too squishy, she's even squishier than the Hood). And no, a lvl 69 character is not really supposed to be on par with level 85 characters.

On the contrary, I have encountered level 200+ dakens, and still had no problem with him. The only time I had any issue with him was when he got paired with bullseye at high levels, but that's a small annoyance at best. Using loki just makes that particular pairing a breeze. So he never was something to worry about as compared to say a level 230 rags, juggie, ares, or moonstone, whose abilities are ridiculously dangerous in comparison to a passive that can easily be manageable like dakens.

I'm not one to fault them for wanting to increase cashflow. That's the point of business and capitalism. I get that. However, forcing the consumer to essentially buy into is not an advisable way of doing it. You leave a sour taste behind, and inevitably a loss of buyer base.

Unknown

Level 200 Daken is still manageable but try level 395. I skipped every node with Daken in it at the end of The Hunt and I had no problem grinding all the other nodes with level 395 enemies.

There's just nothing fun about playing a character that can often drop a 4 digit match 3 after the first turn.

One way to think about how he is overpowered in PvE is that suppose he is comparable to an average level 85 2* at 69, that means his levels are roughly 25% higher. At level 200 that's really level 250, and at level 400 he's really level 500.

I'm not sure why people always mention "Daken and Bullseye'. If anything pairing up with Bullseye greatly weakens Daken because he's got one less person to consume AP on his team. Daken absolutely does not need the protect tiles due to his regen at high levels. Bullseye at level 395 is still very easy. Any team that has a chance at defeating a level 395 has ways to destroy the protect tiles. Magneto can overwrite them. Captain America can throw his shield over them. The Hood can use Twin Pistols. Spiderman can stun and then match the protect tiles away. Thor can usually clear the entire board with 2 Thunder Strikes (and you definitely will need that kind of AP to defeat a 395 team). OBW is the only character I can think of that might be involved in a fight against 395s that absolutely can't get rid of Bullseye's protection tiles, but any of the crucial pieces to beat a 395 team can easily take out the protect tiles.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Level 200 Daken is still manageable but try level 395. I skipped every node with Daken in it at the end of The Hunt and I had no problem grinding all the other nodes with level 395 enemies.

There's just nothing fun about playing a character that can often drop a 4 digit match 3 after the first turn.

One way to think about how he is overpowered in PvE is that suppose he is comparable to an average level 85 2* at 69, that means his levels are roughly 25% higher. At level 200 that's really level 250, and at level 400 he's really level 500.

I'm not sure why people always mention "Daken and Bullseye'. If anything pairing up with Bullseye greatly weakens Daken because he's got one less person to consume AP on his team. Daken absolutely does not need the protect tiles due to his regen at high levels. Bullseye at level 395 is still very easy. Any team that has a chance at defeating a level 395 has ways to destroy the protect tiles. Magneto can overwrite them. Captain America can throw his shield over them. The Hood can use Twin Pistols. Spiderman can stun and then match the protect tiles away. Thor can usually clear the entire board with 2 Thunder Strikes (and you definitely will need that kind of AP to defeat a 395 team). OBW is the only character I can think of that might be involved in a fight against 395s that absolutely can't get rid of Bullseye's protection tiles, but any of the crucial pieces to beat a 395 team can easily take out the protect tiles.

He was never really comparable to a level 85 anyways though. For 69 he was good, which gave a good viable option for a 3rd pick. Incidently, using two 85's with Daken, I.e. obw and thor, would cancel out his match strength, invariably meaning that they would end up being better than him to begin with, not to mention being able to utilize stocked ap. All he did was create strike tiles, so he brought something good to the table for being only 69. Not saying he was comparable, but he did offer another great option as a character to be used. With this change, going from 70+ extra damage to only 48? That was way too harsh. That's a 30% reduction in the ability.

As for the current scaling ceiling, using the same logic with bullseye tiles, it can be done for daken as well. It's a common pairing brought up because damage is easily mitigated via your own shielding, eliminating the strike tiles themselves, or healing whereas with Bullseye at high levels, you have even less options of dealing with defense tiles in comparison. True, that is one less person that can use gathered ap, but there is not much difference whether they can or cannot when your matches themselves are only doing one damage even after one shield is out.

Of course, the consideration has to be taken into account that if you are scaled that high to begin with, it's believed that you can take on that challenge anyways, since you have done exceedingly well to boot.

T_REZ5000

I was concerned 3* daken was going to be ridiculously OP and was going to almost be a mandatory character to do well in pvp.

Thanks for reigning him into an acceptable level of power.

Edit: whoops, I thought the listed max level power was for 3* daken. So i guess the jury is still out on him.

Unknown

I purposely tanked Doctors Orders to get my fifth Purple Daken instead of 2 Falcon Covers, and they nerf him a few days later. Unbelievable.

Konman

locked wrote:

PvE Daken scaled too well (2*s scale better than 3*s) and caused a lot of player complaints. More than that, devs probably realized that a scaled 2* Daken would be more powerful than a normal 3* Daken, and this is a nonbo. What would you rather choose: an extremely annoying PvP/outright dangerous PvE opponent (2* Daken) and an even more dangerous 3* variant (lazy versions are more powerful than their 2* counterparts), or a nerfed 2* Daken and a powerful, but not too powerful 3* Daken?

The likelihood of me ever having a usable set of LazyDaken covers is pretty slim the way the game is going, so I personally would most definitely prefer the previous ** Daken. "Outright Dangerous" PvE Daken would be no where near the issue he his if scaling would be fixed. D3 fixed a symptom and not the underlying condition.

over_clocked

Konman wrote:

The likelihood of me ever having a usable set of LazyDaken covers is pretty slim the way the game is going, so I personally would most definitely prefer the previous ** Daken. "Outright Dangerous" PvE Daken would be no where near the issue he his if scaling would be fixed. D3 fixed a symptom and not the underlying condition.

Oh, you will eventually have every character in the game, don't you worry. A player outgrows Daken** sooner than mStorm, anyway.
Devs are talking about impending Spidey and cMagneto funbalance, so hopefully scaling will stop being ridiculous.

Konman

locked wrote:

Konman wrote:

The likelihood of me ever having a usable set of LazyDaken covers is pretty slim the way the game is going, so I personally would most definitely prefer the previous ** Daken. "Outright Dangerous" PvE Daken would be no where near the issue he his if scaling would be fixed. D3 fixed a symptom and not the underlying condition.

Oh, you will eventually have every character in the game, don't you worry. A player outgrows Daken** sooner than mStorm, anyway.
Devs are talking about impending Spidey and cMagneto funbalance, so hopefully scaling will stop being ridiculous.

Eventually will never get here for most of my three star characters. I have sold more three stars than I have fully leveled three stars. I saw a Doom or a Loki or a Hood, sitting there uselessly with one cover for weeks. I've been trying to cover Hulk since his first event, and still have a ways to go, with a 5/1/2 cover set.

And the Spidey, cMags nerfs have been threatened/promised for quite awhile now, and who do they nerf instead, Daken. So I am dubious as to when/if the official list of nerfing will happen anytime soon.

Unknown

Agreed. I kept Spidey at 85 for months in anticipation of a promised nerf that may never show up. They keep promising it and I keep believing, though.

There's a timeless absurdist play in there somewhere.

Unknown

This still strikes me as exactly the wrong nerf. All that was needed to fix Daken was to change "whenever either team" to "whenever your team*. Nerfing his strike tile damage makes him a complete waste of space if you have a maxed wolvie.

Unknown

I think the daken nerf is an interesting compromise. but I think it makes him a way less viable character in a player's hands in order to make a boosted version of him not as deadly.

Daken is among the weaker of the 2*s. the only other characters that are worse than him are bag man, hawkeye, and bullseye. The change made him even worse.

If you are end game and have some decent 3*s, boosted daken is not a problem until he gets to the upper 300s, but I totally remember being pummeled by daken and bullseye during my 2*-3* transition. It was a super hard fight and it incredibly sucked on PvEs where daken and bullseye are spammed in every other node. In that context daken (and maybe bullseye) could be nerfed a little. but why not just reduce their skill strength or change the rate their powers scale at boosted levels instead of making him a lot less usable as a 2* character.

the 2*s could use a strong character that plays like daken. right now Ares, Thor, and OBW are used way too much. We need something that upsets their balance.

Unknown

davecazz wrote:

I think the daken nerf is an interesting compromise. but I think it makes him a way less viable character in a player's hands in order to make a boosted version of him not as deadly.

Daken is among the weaker of the 2*s. the only other characters that are worse than him are bag man, hawkeye, and bullseye. The change made him even worse.

If you are end game and have some decent 3*s, boosted daken is not a problem until he gets to the upper 300s, but I totally remember being pummeled by daken and bullseye during my 2*-3* transition. It was a super hard fight and it incredibly sucked on PvEs where daken and bullseye are spammed in every other node. In that context daken (and maybe bullseye) could be nerfed a little. but why not just reduce their skill strength or change the rate their powers scale at boosted levels instead of making him a lot less usable as a 2* character.

the 2*s could use a strong character that plays like daken. right now Ares, Thor, and OBW are used way too much. We need something that upsets their balance.

Personally, I feel that having a hard limit on how many strike tiles can be on board would have been the more appropriate nerf, if the reason stated is the truth. This still gives the strength tiles weight in the hands of the player and limits the ai "running away" with strike tile generation.

Adjusting how 1* and 2* scale beyond their limit would also work as well. IMO, Juggie should get the change as well, since 6 ap pretty much equals a downed character in the upper range of levels, regardless of the self mutilation drawback.

The unfortunate thing here is that when they make a change like this to affect ai scaling, it hurts the player even worse, which should have been taken into account here.

Unknown

Skyedyne wrote:

davecazz wrote:

I think the daken nerf is an interesting compromise. but I think it makes him a way less viable character in a player's hands in order to make a boosted version of him not as deadly.

Daken is among the weaker of the 2*s. the only other characters that are worse than him are bag man, hawkeye, and bullseye. The change made him even worse.

If you are end game and have some decent 3*s, boosted daken is not a problem until he gets to the upper 300s, but I totally remember being pummeled by daken and bullseye during my 2*-3* transition. It was a super hard fight and it incredibly sucked on PvEs where daken and bullseye are spammed in every other node. In that context daken (and maybe bullseye) could be nerfed a little. but why not just reduce their skill strength or change the rate their powers scale at boosted levels instead of making him a lot less usable as a 2* character.

the 2*s could use a strong character that plays like daken. right now Ares, Thor, and OBW are used way too much. We need something that upsets their balance.

Personally, I feel that having a hard limit on how many strike tiles can be on board would have been the more appropriate nerf, if the reason stated is the truth. This still gives the strength tiles weight in the hands of the player and limits the ai "running away" with strike tile generation.

Adjusting how 1* and 2* scale beyond their limit would also work as well. IMO, Juggie should get the change as well, since 6 ap pretty much equals a downed character in the upper range of levels, regardless of the self mutilation drawback.

The unfortunate thing here is that when they make a change like this to affect ai scaling, it hurts the player even worse, which should have been taken into account here.

yea, none of the characters scale well at all. which make sense since they were not designed to go to level 400. I think we would be better off to make sure the character levels don't get super out of hand. ie, above 200 but just give them smarter AI at those levels.

The challenge should be in having to outplay the AI, not fearing that the dumb AI will get a lucky cascade and kill you with an out of balance power.

The AI could run as-is for 90% of the game but for higher difficulty PvE nodes the AI could add a couple more matching tools. like being aware of passive vs active powers. being able to make a 5 or more match. being aware of the player's powers and trying to starve them. being consistent with which power they want to use (if the AI has thor and makes a yellow match, they should keep trying to build on yellow instead of going for purple for daken on the next turn).

Each one of these additional rules could be added to make up for the extra levels that are currently added to PVE nodes to make them a challenge.

I think this would also make people less reliant on stun blocking in order to win.

Unknown

OhLookItsRaab wrote:

I purposely tanked Doctors Orders to get my fifth Purple Daken instead of 2 Falcon Covers, and they nerf him a few days later. Unbelievable.

...That's a joke, right? Purple Daken has been a PVP progression reward for half of the last month's tourneys, not to mention you can max him from Prologue rewards alone.

Unknown

Balls. Daken was my most used character. I was gonna replace him with gold Daken eventually, but it'll prolly take months before they hand out 5 copies of him. Thor and BP still haven't had 5 copies yet.

I think the change is pretty fair but kinda unnecessary. Daken's alternative is obw. I don't think people want even more obws out there.

I suppose you could say it benefits pve, but the reason he's terrible in pve is because of scaling. Pvp he's pretty balanced because of the lvl 69 cap.

Unknown

...Well, ****.

I kind of bank on Daken in PvP so take this with a grain of salt, but... what the heck, guys? "This character is OP at level 400, so lets nerf him at level 69". Um, guys, Daken is not a great 2*. Oh, he's solid, he has some pretty nasty combinations, and can hold his own, but he's not top tier. I'd say he's around C.Storm, MNMag, and Moonstone. Sure, he's cheap. That's what makes him so popular - he's a quick, easy character for newer players to start on. It's something to kickstart the 1*->2* transition. Think he's busted in PvE? Then fix the scaling above that point. Because the problem is pretty clearly not "Level 69 Daken in players' hands are broken". And for this to happen before nerfing any of the real top tier 3*s that just ruin the game (oh, you think it's unfun to play against a level 400 Daken? I spent a game where I literally didn't get a fourth turn in the Simulator against a level 150 Spidey!)... Ugh. PvE has problems, but "level 400 Daken is obscene" is a symptom, not the problem itself.

Unknown

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

...Well, tinykitty.

I kind of bank on Daken in PvP so take this with a grain of salt, but... what the heck, guys? "This character is OP at level 400, so lets nerf him at level 69". Um, guys, Daken is not a great 2*. Oh, he's solid, he has some pretty nasty combinations, and can hold his own, but he's not top tier. I'd say he's around C.Storm, MNMag, and Moonstone. Sure, he's cheap. That's what makes him so popular - he's a quick, easy character for newer players to start on. It's something to kickstart the 1*->2* transition. Think he's busted in PvE? Then fix the scaling above that point. Because the problem is pretty clearly not "Level 69 Daken in players' hands are broken". And for this to happen before nerfing any of the real top tier 3*s that just ruin the game (oh, you think it's unfun to play against a level 400 Daken? I spent a game where I literally didn't get a fourth turn in the Simulator against a level 150 Spidey!)... Ugh. PvE has problems, but "level 400 Daken is obscene" is a symptom, not the problem itself.

Absolutely this.

Level 69 Daken was not broken in any way. If he was overpowered at level 400 (as I would imagine any character to be) then dont have him or anyone at level 400!!!

I do not have opponents at the ridiculous levels some people do but i have the utmost sympathy for those that do and the fact that it is blatantly done merely to squeeze money out of the player base just does not sit right with me at all. I can understand that with opponents at that level you would be forced to use boosts to win and then buy health packs after a few matches to heal. All money in the company's pocket at the expense of the fun.

Linkster79

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

...Well, tinykitty.

I kind of bank on Daken in PvP so take this with a grain of salt, but... what the heck, guys? "This character is OP at level 400, so lets nerf him at level 69". Um, guys, Daken is not a great 2*. Oh, he's solid, he has some pretty nasty combinations, and can hold his own, but he's not top tier. I'd say he's around C.Storm, MNMag, and Moonstone. Sure, he's cheap. That's what makes him so popular - he's a quick, easy character for newer players to start on. It's something to kickstart the 1*->2* transition. Think he's busted in PvE? Then fix the scaling above that point. Because the problem is pretty clearly not "Level 69 Daken in players' hands are broken". And for this to happen before nerfing any of the real top tier 3*s that just ruin the game (oh, you think it's unfun to play against a level 400 Daken? I spent a game where I literally didn't get a fourth turn in the Simulator against a level 150 Spidey!)... Ugh. PvE has problems, but "level 400 Daken is obscene" is a symptom, not the problem itself.

+1 From me.

With a ruddy great long list of "funbalancing" to do Daken gets messed about with? Outside of crazy scalin PvE who had any issues going against a L69 Daken? He already has a built in nerf of not being fully levelled. If his strike tiles are way over powered at level 400 then dont allow him to be at level 400.

Unknown

Another Kick in the nutz for the lower lvl people here playing, first Storm now Daken, what a joke!