Support Mechanics: How I Learned to Start Worrying, and Dread the % Symbol

Stax the Foyer

One common theme across every support is the prevalence of proc chance mechanics.  A percentage, increasing with level, for a good thing to happen.  I don't think this bodes well for the direction of the game.

At a very high level, the goal in nearly every single match is currently the same:  Win, and win fast.  Minimizing damage taken is also somewhat important, but it's not necessarily that big of a deal.  Healthpacks are prevalent and fairly inexpensive.  Speed matters more than anything.

This is also a game with a very high win percentage for the player.  You don't lose much.  Instead, you play a lot of matches to distinguish yourself from other players, many of which represent no actual danger to the player, and most of which represent minimal danger.  It's just speed and timing that really matter.

Increasing the amount of good things that can happen leans into that game design.  Over the course of a large number of matches, these proc chances smooth out, and increase your speed, and reduce the (already minimal danger).  This support design synergizes with the current structure of the game.

The character design in this game, Gambit aside, has been pretty fantastic.  Interesting mechanics that often times reward careful play, and that don't rely that much on proc chances.  Must more in the way of defined results in response to specific actions.  Unfortunately, these great character designs only rarely get a chance to breathe.

Boss events like Apocalypse are an exception to this, but we only get stuff like that once in a blue moon.  The rest is just a grind, with minimal variation.  Heroics shook that up a bit, too, but those are dead.

I'd been hopeful for a long time that eventually we'd get something else.  Even if it wasn't a complete revamp of the game, an occasional mode where we could really enjoy the various characters would have been great.  For years, I've been hoping for win conditions, or tough fights that gave good rewards, and that rewarded careful play.

Proc chance design throws that all out the window.  It's much harder to design tough fights, because with enough lucky procs, you'll be able to beat it.  Board drop RNG already made it tough to make tough fights with good rewards, but this adds another layer.  Instead, proc chance design tells me that they're doubling down on the "do a whole lot of low-risk fights, and do them fast" game design that I've been hoping they'd move away from.

I love the core match-3 gameplay, and I really love the character design in this game.  There's so much potential there for fun, and I hope we'll really get a chance to use those.  Seeing the new 5* essential nodes tided me over for a bit, but it's such a small sliver of the actual gameplay, and it's embedded within the pointlessly grindy PvE design.  But now, with all the effort that went into supports, and the nature of the benefits that they provide, my hope of those kind of changes is pretty much gone.  I still hope I'm wrong, but I'm less and less hopeful by the day.

Jarvind

I always thought it was great that there were no % chance abilities in MPQ. You always know exactly what you're getting for your AP - the only element of chance is random tile placement, usually.

Today I log in to see the Power Stone can give free powers when the character makes a match. Ugh.

jamesh

Jarvind said:

I always thought it was great that there were no % chance abilities in MPQ. You always know exactly what you're getting for your AP - the only element of chance is random tile placement, usually.

Today I log in to see the Power Stone can give free powers when the character makes a match. Ugh.

But it's okay because no one can obtain the Power Stone.  So it effectively converts to a 0% chance of firing a free power.

ThaRoadWarrior

Jarvind said:

I always thought it was great that there were no % chance abilities in MPQ. You always know exactly what you're getting for your AP - the only element of chance is random tile placement, usually.

Today I log in to see the Power Stone can give free powers when the character makes a match. Ugh.

War Machine has a % chance power on his red. Sure you get a countdown 100% of the time, but it’s effect is that there is a % chance incoming tiles will be attack tiles

ZeiramMR

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Jarvind said:

I always thought it was great that there were no % chance abilities in MPQ. You always know exactly what you're getting for your AP - the only element of chance is random tile placement, usually.

Today I log in to see the Power Stone can give free powers when the character makes a match. Ugh.

War Machine has a % chance power on his red. Sure you get a countdown 100% of the time, but it’s effect is that there is a % chance incoming tiles will be attack tiles

To be fair, there are quite a few things that have % powers but they aren't on the player side. Ultron Sentries, Apocalypse's Pestilence power, hazard tiles...

JHawkInc

Dabbling with Supports, I love them, I love the micromanaging and tweaking of a character, and I'm excited to get to the day when I could face a mirrored PVP team where both sides play differently because of different support loadouts.

But I only have enough Red ISO to mildly use one Support, and I'm always thrown off guard when a second one is doing something in a fight because I forget I've even equipped it.

It would probably work better with more total Supports, but I feel like this system would be better received if they'd just given people a Rank 2 Level 50 support (or even a Rank 3 level 50), one guaranteed to have a couple of perks, also guaranteed to be of a level that lets them see it in action. Something far enough along to have a noticeable effect (even if it isn't earth-shattering, something that makes you curious to see what the others can do, you know?)

Kevmcg

My issue with supports is the lack of Red ISO.  3 red ISO awards borders on insulting and causes me to question if they did their math on setting up the structure. In some cases, it seems they are off by a factor of 100. As obscene as it sounds, surely they meant 300 RISO, not 3.

The only support I use as a 5* player is a Level 40 Milano - the 4Groot synergy perk gets multiplied by strikes into damage just slightly above insignificant.

I know the theory is they are starting light and may ramp up, but it should be evident already that taking weeks of saving to move only 1 support, only a few levels is frustrating.

I was in the camp that expected game changing improvements. This looks like a lot of design work for minimum value to a 5* player.  Tweaking stats slightly is no where near as meaningful as "simple" character rebalances that allow us to use more of our roster (5* Hulk anyone).

ThaRoadWarrior

I have RISO paralysis myself - there's no way i'm going to dump the 6k I have into a starter support, particularly not after they just added so many new ones without materially increasing the availability of tokens to earn them, or RISO to level them. I equipped all the ones I had, and promptly forgot they existed. I haven't even looked at the effects of the new ones, since it's not like I could actively chase them anyway.

Dragon_Nexus

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I have RISO paralysis myself - there's no way i'm going to dump the 6k I have into a starter support, particularly not after they just added so many new ones without materially increasing the availability of tokens to earn them, or RISO to level them. I equipped all the ones I had, and promptly forgot they existed. I haven't even looked at the effects of the new ones, since it's not like I could actively chase them anyway.

It feels like they desperately needed to get this feature out before Infinity War hits cinemas. Shove it out the door, get people hyped on the new stuff....patch it so it's useful later.

RedLion

Dragon_Nexus said:

It feels like they desperately needed to get this feature out before Infinity War hits cinemas. Shove it out the door, get people hyped on the new stuff....patch it so it's useful later.

This! We are in the "Early Access" period for supports, or a "Soft Opening" if you will. The game already has many moving parts, adding this many more is something that should be done gently. Infinity War forced the timing on the devs (see infinity gems and black order supports as evidence). Fast, cheap, good...You can only pick two, and fast was already chosen for you. Our options right now are spend huge amounts to get "good" supports or spend nothing and have worthless supports. Either way, the evolution of the Support feature is inevitable (and that isn't to suppose it will end up being terrible or amazing).  

Straycat

So would it be better if all supports weren't % based? As a whole, supports will make your matches easier, which seems to be your issue.

Maybe eventually they do make debuff supports, that make matches harder for better rewards.

ZeroKarma

I personally loooove the idea of % odds for abilities using supports! It is the RNG dressing on the MPQ RNG salad. 

Given the exceptional rarity of the tokens AND the means to level them, I prefer to assume that supports don't exist at this point. I'm sure they will become more accessible and I'm sure that the design space will be used to make the game more interesting, but it they had better get on it or the big feature to freshen things up is going to do the exact opposite. 

Stax the Foyer

aesthetocyst said:

Stax the Foyer said:

Proc chance design throws that all out the window.

Uhhh ... what? I found that to be a headsnappin' non-sequitur. How did you reach this conclusion?

Stax the Foyer said:

 It's much harder to design tough fights, because with enough lucky procs, you'll be able to beat it.  Board drop RNG already made it tough to make tough fights with good rewards, but this adds another layer.  Instead, proc chance design tells me that they're doubling down on the "do a whole lot of low-risk fights, and do them fast" game design that I've been hoping they'd move away from.

No, it doesn't. It's the same effect RNG always has. Individual results, on a per player basis, on a per match basis, can and will be all over the place, just like token pulls are. But in the big picture overall, it's easy and straightforward to evaluate. Something that has a 50% chance of happening will in the big picture happen half the time, and is effectively worth something that has half the impact 100% of the time.

Sure, sometimes you'll have a freak occurrence, and every low %age perk will fire all at once and he player will have a good story to tell, just like cascades randomize match results now, to an extent.

But at least for now, supports are only in the offense's (read: the player's) favor, and thus avoiding the hatred player's have for cascades. Which everyone knows only benefit the defense (the AI), harhar.

________________

<snipped>

Maybe that's the problem. Serious players want a 'serious' game (about people in colored underwear ...). Not a silly button masher.

Sorry, I could have been more clear.  I'd love a mode where you fight a battle once, and are rewarded based on the difficulty of that fight.  Like a lot of other games, including the original Puzzle Quest.  Maybe we have the option to jump straight to the hardest clear from the get-go, something like that.

One issue with that is that it's hard to make a fight that's a reliable indicator of difficulty, because as we've seen with the Crash of the Titans, eventually you're gonna get a favorable enough board that you can punch way up with a lucky run of tiles.  If something's not reliably difficult, it's harder to gate good rewards behind fights.

The more proc chances and such you add, the more you increase the possibility of getting a lucky fight that lets you clear that tough node.  When you need to do 5 clears, and they're not really that tough, one lucky match isn't a big deal.  But imagine if there was a tough fight that rewarded a Legendary token?  Everyone would keep throwing themselves at it if there was even a chance they'd get it.

Now, we're flooded with proc chances, when it was barely a factor before.  I just think it's a disincentive to move the game in the direction we'd like to see, and a system that's tuned towards improving performance in the the "clear 50 PvE nodes a day" grind.  It feels like it cuts off a lot of design space, and it's the design space I hoped they'd head into.

It's always been more button mashy than serious, but the flashes of serious gaming have been what kept me going.  The trend is towards more button mashy lately, with Thanos and Gambit and now supports.  That's what I don't like to see.