What does character re-balancing mean to you?

HoundofShadow
HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
in MPQ General Discussion
Every new season, many forum posters look forward to seeing re-balancing of character(s). When there's none, they are usually disappointed or angry. 

Past histories have shown that players preferred buffing characters rather than nerfing them. The main argument is that those players who are affected by nerfing of their characters are not pleased that all the time, effort and resources, whether real or virtual currency, spent on the characters went down the drain. 

The questions are:

1) What does character re-balancing mean to you, especially for those in 4* or 5* land?

Does character re-balancing mean:

a) making minor updates to the characters' abilities that make them more effective? For example, increased damage, decrease ap needed, increase scope of effects etc.

b) major overhaul of characters' abilities?

c) turning a perceived bottom-feeder characters into a top 3 or top 5 characters? For example, 5* Hulk, 5* Dr Ock, Kraven, 4* Elektra, Winter Soldier, Sentry etc.

d) others?


2) Should character be re-balanced for the sake of re-balancing? If one character moved up a spot after re-balancing, another character must move down. 

3) How comfortable are you with your top character (s) getting nerfed?

4) How do you determine whether a character has been buffed or nerfed enough?

5) Does periodic character re-balancing helps players in this forum to feel better? To prove that devs are "listening" to them?

6) Potential Challenge: The top players are usually only interested in characters who can end a fight as fast as possible. Any support characters that do not increase significant damage or help them fire powers faster are usually perceived to be useless. Defensive characters are perceived to be useless because they slow down the fight. 

Is it possible to shift the mindset of top players to not focus on purely speed or power? 

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Comments

  • Jexman
    Jexman Posts: 165 Tile Toppler
    “Is it possible to shift the mindset of top players to not focus on purely speed or power?”

    No. In a game as madly repetitive and time-consuming as this one, speed relieves the tedium. It wasn’t always this tedious, but we can combat that by optimizing our play. Would that the devs would recognize that.
  • CharlieCroker
    CharlieCroker Posts: 254 Mover and Shaker
    It's not just about balancing characters, it's about having a balanced meta.  

    Rock/Paper/Scissors is the simplest example of this where there everything is both strong but also has a hard counter.  In MPQ this isn't the case, at least in 5* land, as the only reliable counter to Gambit is your own Gambit.  

    To be fair I can see Okoye shaking things up to some extent, but only time will tell on that front, and in 5* land there's still the problem that acquiring Okoye covers is reliant on the amount of pulls you have and RNG. 

    On a wider note, I don't expect the weaker characters to be buffed so they're top tier, but they should all be useable or at the very least have a niche.  But you can't say that for the likes of Banner and the one of the things that irks me the most is that sometimes these characters only need minor tweaks to make them slightly more viable.
  • roberts_2
    roberts_2 Posts: 126 Tile Toppler
    The game needs a full rebalancing of the MMR rather than a rebalancing of characters. I have 62/67 4 star characters promoted and in any form of pvp I am forced to use the 5 stars so why do I need those 4 stars if in the end the combats are limited to 5 stars against 5 stars.



  • CharlieCroker
    CharlieCroker Posts: 254 Mover and Shaker
    roberts_2 said:
    The game needs a full rebalancing of the MMR rather than a rebalancing of characters. I have 62/67 4 star characters promoted and in any form of pvp I am forced to use the 5 stars so why do I need those 4 stars if in the end the combats are limited to 5 stars against 5 stars.



    This isn't entirely true as you can use some 4* characters in PvP when boosted.  The trouble is you can generally only use one as you have to use Gambit.  Take him out of the equation and I'll happily use boosted 4*s and would be confident using some of them unboosted.

    The ones I've used personally are my 360+ Carol, Riri, Mordo & Coulson, but I've seen others use the likes of Rogue, Vulture, Cage, Peggy & Medusa.
  • roberts_2
    roberts_2 Posts: 126 Tile Toppler
    That are my usual pair matches:



    My Coulson is lv.313, Medusa lv.327, Vulture lv.311 (spidey promoted lv.450) and i can't win against these people without the 5*. My 4* are only collectibles right now.

    PD: my highghest 5* is Osborn lv.453, so, tell me more about :neutral:
  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,824 Chairperson of the Boards
    To the main point:  The game reward structure and performance measures require speed and power.  You can play the game at a relaxed pace and expect/accept lesser rewards, but to get top placement in PVE obviously requires clearing the fastest at the optimal times.  PVP is a little different, but to reach a top score means using shields between fast played matches (1-2, usually) and slower matches mean you're getting hit and losing points instead.

    Rebalancing characters in the current environment is more than just speed and power, however.  It can mean changing a mechanic that introduces a new team or just improving a character.  For 4* players, having more viable characters helps stave off boredom from week to week.

    Some newer players rightly question the value of rostering/leveling Vintage 4's because they are so rarely of use and many have been outclassed by newer 4's.  Your odds of getting a Vintage 4 is 0.78% from a pull (yes, Bonus Heroes help there).  Your use for that 4 in essentials is over a year apart from run to run; you will use a Classic 5 more often than a Vintage 4 as an essential.  Rebalancing a 4 to make them more relevant would help players and the developers by making characters more desirable.

    So if they rebalance, say, Sam Wilson, would he suddenly jump to the top of the tier?  Would he see a lot of use?  No, but people would have something new to try and play with, which is why people like rebalances.

    So should they keep working on rebalances?  Yes, it seems like you could plan for some, even on an infrequent basis, to keep player interest up.

    A final thought re: 3 &4* rebalancing is the fact that the System Reboot has become part the rollout.  Skipping that would invoke a lot of backlash.   So the work involved is not just updating the character(s), but building an event to run to allow players to earn covers.  Anyway, maybe some of the delay is the current expectation of extra content to play.

    If the developers expect Supports to replace the process of rebalancing, then they should state that clearly (communication) and begin to allow players to better chase the Supports they want for the characters they want to improve.

    One could argue that there is one rebalance that matters above all:  Gambit.  Vets are mostly in the 5 tier and either tired of using him or tired of not being able to play PVP because their crop of 5's can't compete.  Rebalancing him, probably, would be a mostly lateral move by the devs, since they seem invested in keeping him strong.  They have had plenty of feedback and time to change him, but haven't done so despite his ubiquity.  My current crop of Simulator retals has 3/5 with Gambit.  So I wonder, even if they rebalance Gambit, if older 5's would really become relevant, or if the meta has just passed them by, just like, say, Teen Jean in the 4 tier.
  • LifeofAgony
    LifeofAgony Posts: 690 Critical Contributor
    edited May 2018
    Re-balance to me means any kind of change to a character:  match damage, health pool, power cost, what powers do, what champ cover rewards toons give (like 3* gamora giving 4SL should be changed to G4mora).

    There are multitude of re-balances on the table.  Nothing has been done in 6 months apart from the new 4>5 feeders.  While that is a very welcome change, it doesn’t exactly take a lot of work since they average 1 update per season for those.  Apart from that, 2017 was the last time anything occurred in a game that has been out of balance for a long time.
  • Jexman
    Jexman Posts: 165 Tile Toppler
    I don't know what reason to think that there is more than an unpaid intern working on this game at this point. I understand their dilemma: they can't justify their claims that this game is going to be supported much longer (because that would be false), so they have stopped saying anything. I hope their revenues soon fall through the floor; that's the only thing that stands a chance of shaking them out of their complacency. RIP.
  • Gold_Dragon
    Gold_Dragon Posts: 101 Tile Toppler
    @HoundofShadow

    from what I’ve read here in the forums, most people want a re-balancing just to say something changed. They really don’t care what is “rebalanced” as long as a character changes. 
  • tiomono
    tiomono Posts: 1,654 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited May 2018
    LifeofAgony said:
    Re-balance to me means any kind of change to a character:  match damage, health pool, power cost, what powers do, what champ cover rewards toons give (like 3* gamora giving 4SL should be changed to G4mora).

    There are multitude of re-balances on the table.  Nothing has been done in 6 months apart from the new 4>5 feeders.  While that is a very welcome change, it doesn’t exactly take a lot of work since they average 1 update per season for those.  Apart from that, 2017 was the last time anything occurred in a game that has been out of balance for a long time.
    Technically false in regards to them doing nothing for 6 months. They tweaked gwenpool a few days ago lol. So your still spot on because I think her change was to address some exploit of some kind and was probably a very fringey fringe case.
  • sinnerjfl
    sinnerjfl Posts: 1,275 Chairperson of the Boards
    The rockett said:

    DR. S:  Why is he like a marshmallow with his health?  My level 462 Dr S is 39315.  Want to guess Okoye 450 base health?  59K.  Why?   


    Because of his passive yellow. Can you imagine chewing through a 60k Dr Strange and you can't fire powers...  (sure stuns exist, not many in the 5* tier and you still need to keep him perma-stunned). No thanks.
  • veny
    veny Posts: 834 Critical Contributor
    For me, rebalance is: Process that reflect game changes and make older characters able to compete with new ones of same rarity.
  • LifeofAgony
    LifeofAgony Posts: 690 Critical Contributor
    sinnerjfl said:
    The rockett said:

    DR. S:  Why is he like a marshmallow with his health?  My level 462 Dr S is 39315.  Want to guess Okoye 450 base health?  59K.  Why?   


    Because of his passive yellow. Can you imagine chewing through a 60k Dr Strange and you can't fire powers...  (sure stuns exist, not many in the 5* tier and you still need to keep him perma-stunned). No thanks.
    Bolt passive is just as bad if not worse and he has way more health.  That argument doesn’t hold water.
  • sinnerjfl
    sinnerjfl Posts: 1,275 Chairperson of the Boards
    You can use skills vs Bolt and you can also match the charged tiles for your own gain.

    Bolt's passive only triggers once a turn if the conditions are met, Strange triggers every time you use an ability no matter what.

    Its not the same. Strange with more health would make his passive incredibly strong because what can you do against him at that point?
  • Gold_Dragon
    Gold_Dragon Posts: 101 Tile Toppler
    Nothing says rebalancing like making a character more OP. 
  • Tee
    Tee Posts: 231 Tile Toppler
    Wasp is the best example of a character that was absolutely horrible reworked into a good character. She's not the toppest of tiers nor can she do all that well on her own, but the character is perfect in certain lineups and a good overall utility piece. When it comes to re-balancing, that's more or less what I want to see.

    For the already good characters, slight tweaks can go a long way into changing their overall power. Just be careful and don't over-commit like with Sentry.
  • jamesh
    jamesh Posts: 1,600 Chairperson of the Boards
    I wonder if they see character rebalancing as a lose-lose situation?  If they don't do it, we complain that there hasn't been any (and how much of that is due to the free covers they give out with System Reboot?).  When they do, odds are there will be complaints about the new version:
    • 3* Gambit going from game-breakingly good with certain builds to close to the bottom of the pile.  About the only time people really want to play him is in his versus tournament because it locks out his game-breakingly good 5* counterpart.
    • Kingpin: wasn't anywhere near top tier, and the rebalance made him slower and/or more reliant on partners to create countdowns.
    And when they do a decent rebalance (e.g. Mordo), people still bag the character based on memory of the old version.

    So if you're going to put in the effort to create a well balanced power set, why not apply it to a new character instead?  They need one of those every fortnight, and they probably bring in more revenue.
  • The rockett
    The rockett Posts: 2,016 Chairperson of the Boards
    Even updates to the 2/3/4* feeders in champ levels. Still have some 3* that both give the same 4*. 
    Example:
    Elektra and DD give Elektra 4* 
    Rags and Drake give X23
    Gamora and SL give SL 4*
    Colossus and Patch give XFW

    Not sure if I am missing any others. 
  • Talestummy
    Talestummy Posts: 66 Match Maker
    But but but ..... supports

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