New Support: Hulkling (6/19/18)

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Comments

  • animaniactoo
    animaniactoo Posts: 486 Mover and Shaker
    Sm0keyJ0e said:
    mega ghost said:
    He looks good, and many of the supports are desirable, but looking at supports is like looking at any desirable luxury item 99.99% of us will never attain.

    If there are a few rich players out there willing to sink enough disposable income into getting a specific support to a usable level, versus say spend that money on a new top of the line computer or an exotic vacation, then I hope they are having fun!
    It's an odd dichotomy and I'd love to see the metrics, but most of the spenders I know want nothing to do with these things. They make virtually no difference in the game for 5* rosters. Some supports actually slow you down in PVE, so they are in fact UNdesirable.

    They seem catered toward smaller rosters--folks who likely aren't spending, which appears to be the only way to get these things (if someone actually wanted them).

    I dunno, I suspect at some point things will (have to) change. The devs seem to think they are extremely valuable while the playerbase is very meh over them.
    Mostly, I think, the devs have not sold the playerbase on supports because they wanted to be cautious about how much the game would change with supports in play and wanted to track that. They have been SO cautious that the results of using supports has, in general, been underwhelming for most. Paired with the red-iso starvation diet that means that nobody is getting to where it might make a big difference any time soon.

    If you're going to roll out a big new feature, you gotta do it in a way that will make it immediately obvious why it's desirable. Don't release a few base supports and a couple of tokens. Give every player a choice of one of 3 fully ranked, fully leveled supports and let them go hog wild playing with them. And then you gotta plan to move at a pace that means something (i.e. if the devs continue to allow supports to build at the glacial pace they are now while they evaluate, the game will be out of business by the time they start becoming actually useful). Evaluate along the way. But if you're not confident enough in what you're doing to release it that way, I think you're not ready to release it yet. Yes, it's harder to roll back if it turns into something you don't want - unless the playerbase does too. Yes, people are against nerfs in general. But you still gotta have enough confidence in what you're doing to be able to let it make a big splash instead of barely a ripple when you introduce it as a major feature.
  • Twysta
    Twysta Posts: 1,597 Chairperson of the Boards
    Yeah the way they've rolled out supports has been terrible.
    If they really want players to try them out and have a more positive vibe about them they need to either make them a lot more readily available so that people CAN actually use them, or possibly do a quick test run where everyone gets a bunch of supports all at max level for a limited period of time so that they can see the potential benefits they can bring.
    With the slow trickle that they're releasing supports, their limited availability and the ridiculous overvalued cost of even trying to get tokens;  have made them completely undesirable and as you can clearly see, no one even cares about them anymore.  
  • Philly484
    Philly484 Posts: 173 Tile Toppler
    Sigh so sad that he will not actually be a playable character. Makes me sad that supports are still being forced.
  • Tensuun
    Tensuun Posts: 99 Match Maker
    Twysta said:
    Yeah the way they've rolled out supports has been terrible.
    If they really want players to try them out and have a more positive vibe about them they need to either make them a lot more readily available so that people CAN actually use them, or possibly do a quick test run where everyone gets a bunch of supports all at max level for a limited period of time so that they can see the potential benefits they can bring.
    With the slow trickle that they're releasing supports, their limited availability and the ridiculous overvalued cost of even trying to get tokens;  have made them completely undesirable and as you can clearly see, no one even cares about them anymore.  
    Huh. For some reason, this made me imagine a "support loaner" node where your lead character (whoever they are) automatically has their Support temporarily changed to the Featured Support for the duration of the encounter. That could be a neat way to introduce the concept of high-level supports as a powerful game-changing feature, without actually handing out enough Red Iso-8 to put something that powerful in anyone's hands permanently.

    (For right now, I don't know which Supports I actually want to invest in; the highest I can level any Support right now is in the mid-50s, which promises to grant one of my characters +1% health or +0.5% match damage; the only one I've got that really seems like it's worth using is Element Guns, which only sometimes procs, and then sometimes chooses to grant Yellow, which no 4* GotG character uses.)
  • Jaedenkaal
    Jaedenkaal Posts: 3,357 Chairperson of the Boards
    Have to agree that it's disappointing to see potential PC characters as supports. Wong? Sure. (That's just my opinion, of course) Korg, sure. But main-line characters?

    Also agree that some of these new supports are being rolled out as seemingly mandatory upgrades for their "intended" character. Like, yeah, you could use Wiccan, but he won't work without his support.

    Yo dawg, we heard you like RNG...
  • Steve111
    Steve111 Posts: 160 Tile Toppler
    Personally I can’t see why supports are given priority over character rebalances & 4* feeders (both of which which really help the game have more meaning) other than an attempt to make profit from the paywall. There isn’t enough red iso around for them to matter. The only really desirable support, the infinity gems, go to about 0.0001% of the players. 
  • Tensuun
    Tensuun Posts: 99 Match Maker
    Steve111 said:
    Personally I can’t see why supports are given priority over character rebalances & 4* feeders (both of which which really help the game have more meaning) other than an attempt to make profit from the paywall. There isn’t enough red iso around for them to matter. The only really desirable support, the infinity gems, go to about 0.0001% of the players. 
    Part of what's disappointing about Supports is that it feels like such a missed opportunity. If Supports weren't so character-specific, they could add a new layer of meta and at minimum enhance character selection options in PVE. Or, being character-specific, they could function as a form of rebalance for characters who are significantly behind. Spidey isn't nearly as powerful as Gambit, of course, but it still seems silly that he has a specific Support built just for him (Web Shooters) given that he is fairly decent on his own.

    Meanwhile, a Support that makes Banner more powerful in some way — and only Banner — could've served as a (poor) replacement for an actual rebalance.
  • Jaedenkaal
    Jaedenkaal Posts: 3,357 Chairperson of the Boards
    Tensuun said:
    Steve111 said:
    Personally I can’t see why supports are given priority over character rebalances & 4* feeders (both of which which really help the game have more meaning) other than an attempt to make profit from the paywall. There isn’t enough red iso around for them to matter. The only really desirable support, the infinity gems, go to about 0.0001% of the players. 
    Part of what's disappointing about Supports is that it feels like such a missed opportunity. If Supports weren't so character-specific, they could add a new layer of meta and at minimum enhance character selection options in PVE. Or, being character-specific, they could function as a form of rebalance for characters who are significantly behind. Spidey isn't nearly as powerful as Gambit, of course, but it still seems silly that he has a specific Support built just for him (Web Shooters) given that he is fairly decent on his own.

    Meanwhile, a Support that makes Banner more powerful in some way — and only Banner — could've served as a (poor) replacement for an actual rebalance.
    Hah. Hey guys, we rebalanced 5* Banner... and there’s now a 15% chance that you can get this rebalance every time you buy a bunch of support requests? Oh, also, you’ll need to spend more Red ISO than you’ve ever actually seen in your life...
  • MirrorKnight
    MirrorKnight Posts: 92 Match Maker
    I really like supports, and would love to cultivate them with the same enthusiasm as I do my roster.
    But the fact that I can only rarely snag one from a vault, or I have to buy them, removes nearly all my interest.
    I have a sparse couple of supports and only find a new one in the rarest of occasions.

    If you want people to be excited about supports, it would really help if you added a way for people to get them with something resembling consistency.
  • gmtosca
    gmtosca Posts: 278 Mover and Shaker
    It's sad (also hilarious) that Teddy just gets to be a support.
  • Dragon_Nexus
    Dragon_Nexus Posts: 3,701 Chairperson of the Boards
    HoundofShadow said:
    I  heard that a lot of players don't like 7 day story events. I personally like 7 day story events.

    The odds of getting Hulkling is 1+3/(26+3)= 4/29 = 13.8% It's slightly lesser than the rate of pulling 5*.  It seems like they have stabilized the offerings for support now.  There's no change(except token and character cover) in the content of the vault and H4H offers. 

    I like the healing perks. Is it going to be true heal or temporary heal?
    7 day events sucked before they realised we were only getting half the rewards we would have if they'd run a 3-day and 4-day back to back.

    Once they doubled the rewards they became good. Except The Hulk. That event has always sucked.

    Prodigal Sun is one of my fave PvEs.
  • Spiritclaw
    Spiritclaw Posts: 397 Mover and Shaker
    How is Hulkling a support and not a character?
  • gmtosca
    gmtosca Posts: 278 Mover and Shaker
    Why are you still trying to make Supports happen?
  • Tensuun
    Tensuun Posts: 99 Match Maker
    Jaedenkaal said:

    Hah. Hey guys, we rebalanced 5* Banner... and there’s now a 15% chance that you can get this rebalance every time you buy a bunch of support requests? Oh, also, you’ll need to spend more Red ISO than you’ve ever actually seen in your life...
    I did say poor. :P
  • DanielleL
    DanielleL Posts: 119 Tile Toppler
    Spiritclaw said:
    How is Hulkling a support and not a character?
    Is it possible he could eventually be a support and a character? If not, that's disappointing. :(
  • Brigby
    Brigby ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 7,757 Site Admin
    DanielleL said:
    Spiritclaw said:
    How is Hulkling a support and not a character?
    Is it possible he could eventually be a support and a character? If not, that's disappointing. :(
    Don't worry. Being a Support doesn't mean that they're automatically excluded from ever being a character :)
  • Jaedenkaal
    Jaedenkaal Posts: 3,357 Chairperson of the Boards
    Brigby said:
    DanielleL said:
    Spiritclaw said:
    How is Hulkling a support and not a character?
    Is it possible he could eventually be a support and a character? If not, that's disappointing. :(
    Don't worry. Being a Support doesn't mean that they're automatically excluded from ever being a character :)
    Ok, but I'm sure you can understand how we might feel like the priority for becoming a character might drop drastically after being released as a support.

    "But guys, Hulkling IS in the game" /points at Support


  • Twysta
    Twysta Posts: 1,597 Chairperson of the Boards
    Brigby said:
    DanielleL said:
    Spiritclaw said:
    How is Hulkling a support and not a character?
    Is it possible he could eventually be a support and a character? If not, that's disappointing. :(
    Don't worry. Being a Support doesn't mean that they're automatically excluded from ever being a character :)
    Does that mean there's a chance than current characters have a chance at becoming supports?
    In fact I'd appreciate if I could attach my 1*'s to someone as a support.
    At least then they'd have something to do.
  • Tensuun
    Tensuun Posts: 99 Match Maker
    Twysta said:
    Brigby said:
    DanielleL said:
    Spiritclaw said:
    How is Hulkling a support and not a character?
    Is it possible he could eventually be a support and a character? If not, that's disappointing. :(
    Don't worry. Being a Support doesn't mean that they're automatically excluded from ever being a character :)
    Does that mean there's a chance than current characters have a chance at becoming supports?
    In fact I'd appreciate if I could attach my 1*'s to someone as a support.
    At least then they'd have something to do.
    It's not (necessarily) that existing character covers would be transferrable to a Support, just that characters who are already playable in-game aren't automatically ineligible to be represented as a new Support later.

    For example, if Supports had been around last year, they could've released a Support called Tony Stark (A.I. 3.0) that could be equipped by any Riri Williams character and gave its only useful bonus when equipped to Riri Williams (Ironheart). Although the Support would give an additional 1 damage per match to any character as long as it's Riri Williams, you would not be able to have Tony Stark equip it. According to a post earlier in this thread, though, you would be able to equip this to a Riri Williams character and then still send Riri into battle alongside a different iteration of Tony Stark.
  • DanielleL
    DanielleL Posts: 119 Tile Toppler
    Brigby said:
    DanielleL said:
    Spiritclaw said:
    How is Hulkling a support and not a character?
    Is it possible he could eventually be a support and a character? If not, that's disappointing. :(
    Don't worry. Being a Support doesn't mean that they're automatically excluded from ever being a character :)
    That's good to hear. Jaedenkaal has a point though and I hope they're wrong.

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