PVP Supports Suggestions to Developers

Waddles_Pines

Much to the chagrin of many people, it's painfully obvious from the update preview that supports are coming to PVP soon.  The developers spent so much time on it that they're going to make it part of the game.  I'm starting this thread to maybe give the developers some fruit for thought while they're implementing pvp supports and maybe some of our collective ideas might help.  Probably not, but I'm trying to be optimistic...

1)  More RISO.
2)  Make the support like TU's.  Have it set to a defined power level.  If it's not, it'll widen the gap of have and have-nots.  
3)  Figure out some way to have a quick summary of what the support does.  It would too long and too many different screens to figure out how powerful a support some enemy has and what it does.  Having an icon or whatever they're implementing in the next update isn't enough.  Most of us know the characters powers since we either use them or play against them, but try and ask anyone if they can tell you what a random support does...

I hate the thought of supports in PVP, but since it's going to happen, let's try and preemptively make it better.

Magic

What are these supports you are talking about?

Waddles_Pines

In the pre release notes they mentioned some changes that hint at supports being activated for pvp play.  Currently you see a small message in game that pvp supports are disabled.  Looks to be changing really soon. 

or was that supposed to be a sarcastic comment 

smkspy

Making supports more available to us in general would be the first step. We can't even get the most basic support token unless we pull it from a vault. Getting a one or two support isn't game breaking, sheez they should flow like we get 2 star characters considering they add little to overall gameplay at that level.

More riso would help also, I don't have a single support over a 3 level, but I don't have enough riso to even max level a 2 level support. What good are rinky dink ones that I do have if there isn't even riso to make them somewhat competitve with those that have level 4 or 5s?

broll

Waddles_Pines said:

Much to the chagrin of many people, it's painfully obvious from the update preview that supports are coming to PVP soon.  The developers spent so much time on it that they're going to make it part of the game.  

The fallacy of sunk costs.  Just admit they were a mistake and cut your losses.  Ask for more feedback in the development process before releasing something that no one wants/likes.

pheregas

broll said:

Waddles_Pines said:

Much to the chagrin of many people, it's painfully obvious from the update preview that supports are coming to PVP soon.  The developers spent so much time on it that they're going to make it part of the game.  

The fallacy of sunk costs.  Just admit they were a mistake and cut your losses.  Ask for more feedback in the development process before releasing something that no one wants/likes.

They had no problem cutting and running after Boss Rush.

Phumade

With all of these conditional supports, we really need a summary screen, so we can figure strongest power, match damage numbers etc...

There are lot more moving parts to building a team and we need an appropriate UI that lets us work with those parts.

whether you do this before every match,  or make some tab/mode that lets use try different combinations is your decision.

But we desperately need a better way to figure out what interacts with what, when building out team combos

Straycat

Supports need to show which character they are attached to, or if they are not attached to anyone. Also needs to be visible during a match.

Probably shouldn't have a 2 hour swap timer.

I don't see this change actually meaning pvp is coming, but I dunno. If they want us to care about supports, putting in pvp would help that. Definitely need more riso and more support tokens tho

Sim Mayor

broll said:

The fallacy of sunk costs.  Just admit they were a mistake and cut your losses.  Ask for more feedback in the development process before releasing something that no one wants/likes.

Not to beat a dead horse, but not all of us agree that Supports are a bad idea or "something that no one wants/likes." I think they have a lot of potential, but the roll-out is being botched horribly.

Straycat said:

Supports need to show which character they are attached to, or if they are not attached to anyone. Also needs to be visible during a match.

Probably shouldn't have a 2 hour swap timer.

I don't see this change actually meaning pvp is coming, but I dunno. If they want us to care about supports, putting in pvp would help that. Definitely need more riso and more support tokens tho

The 2 hour swap timer was explicitly put in because of PvP, back when the devs thought Supports had the potential to be the new meta. As it is, even if they're not going to be game-changing (and the jury is still out on the Infinity Stone supports), they're still not something you should be able to hot-swap between all of your most powerful characters. I'd much rather have someone making the choice to use a health pack if they want to keep a particular support in play.

Daiches

One request: 
Don't add any extra RNG beyond the actual board to PVP. Betting on percentages or getting wrecked by them, especially if they are so small as most supports, is not something that adds actual fun to a match. And worse yet a hop.

jackstar0

Something to slow down matches.

If they are active on defense, then forget it. PvP will be a major pain. IF they're only active on offense, then I imagine we'll see the "fast" supports jump into the Meta. Of course by fast I simply mean that they don't slow anything down like those that create new tiles/fortify/etc.

To put it another way: DO NOT WANT.

NotBAMF

If defensive teams are going to have supports, this is going to make PVP borderline unplayable.

ThaRoadWarrior

I wonder if leveled supports are going to factor into MMR when that day comes? No way to sell off a leveled support, so i hope not

babinro

NotBAMF said:

If defensive teams are going to have supports, this is going to make PVP borderline unplayable.

Completely agree.

Borderline unplayable goes to far but the random/percent chance nature of supports would make for a POOR player experience.  

It creates an environment that would be confusing for newer players...

Why did my opponent get an AP advantage against me?

Why are their supports triggering so often when mine don't?

And even when you understand the mechanics it just isn't fun to have layers upon layers of RNG added to the existing game. 

On a personal note I'm not even thrilled about the idea of having offensive only supports being a part of PvP.  I'd rather it only be a PvE thing but if it must become part of pvp then it must be kept exclusively on the offensive side.

Tony_Foot

I don’t want them, I’d be happy if they abandoned the whole idea but people have spent money chasing them. It would be tough to remove them now. Someone mentioned they had no problem removing boss rush but that didn’t cost me money. I stupidly bought the first supports offer and I imagine lots have carried on buying and chasing.

They could just chuck out a simple questionnaire asking the whole game what they think of the for pvp. I’m pretty confident the answer would be negative. Even if they are more readily available I don’t want to pvp with an extra layer of random.

But they are coming anyway, we better get used to it. The stats showed pvp is already pretty much a game mode people don’t want to play, may as well drive some more nails in the coffin.

Twysta

Well when you think about how they treated Infinity War the largest event in MCU history, they way they treat supports makes much more sense. 
They were suppose to be this big new exciting features...  Infinity what?

wymtime

If they want to add supports to PVP then just keep the 5X RISO and add a support token to progression for PVP and PVE.  Also increase the odds of getting a level 2+ support.  When I have been lucky enough to get a support token I usually get one I already have and a level 1 support so that means it is just RISO.

actualy rework supports so each support can go up to level 5 it is just how much RISO you dump into them.  Get 50 levels unlock level 2 100 levels unlock level 3 so on and so forth.  This way we are not trying to get a 4* or 5* support from RNG

PorkBelly

I think they are great for PVE.  But I think they should stay there.  PVP is too chaotic and speed based to add another set of variables to consider.  

Straycat

Sim Mayor said:

The 2 hour swap timer was explicitly put in because of PvP, back when the devs thought Supports had the potential to be the new meta. As it is, even if they're not going to be game-changing (and the jury is still out on the Infinity Stone supports), they're still not something you should be able to hot-swap between all of your most powerful characters. I'd much rather have someone making the choice to use a health pack if they want to keep a particular support in play.

I get why they wanted the timer, I just think it hurts more than helps, especially as it isn't in pvp yet. Its hard to get interested in supports when its impossible to experiment with them.

The other issue I have with them is that some are so specific. Even heroes vs villains is almost too much as there are so few villains. But then some can only attach to one character, and the bonus only applies to one variant? (Just checked the support details page, haven't tried it in game)

Again, these are just my issues with supports overall. I don't see them affecting my pvp play since I have made almost 0 progress in the support meta game. I imagine going against a strong support team would just feel confusing

Dartmaster01

Phumade said:

There are lot more moving parts to building a team and we need an appropriate UI that lets us work with those parts.


 

Completely agree with your over all comment but as a Steam player, it's painfully obvious that they don't care if players have an appropriate UI.

I'm ready for supports to be in pvp though. I've got Okoye champed with 3*RTF almost maxed. Bring it on!

Sim Mayor

Straycat said:

*SNIP*
The other issue I have with them is that some are so specific. Even heroes vs villains is almost too much as there are so few villains. But then some can only attach to one character, and the bonus only applies to one variant? (Just checked the support details page, haven't tried it in game)

Again, these are just my issues with supports overall. I don't see them affecting my pvp play since I have made almost 0 progress in the support meta game. I imagine going against a strong support team would just feel confusing

I completely agree with the super-specific ones. Web shooters? Spider sense? Those are terribly designed and implemented. And while I love that I can pair Wiccan and Hulkling up (if I ever get a Hulkling, anyway...), I would rather have had them both as playable characters with some sort of crossover ability like C4ge and Hobofist.

That being said, at least for the moment they're not going to drastically affect gameplay (again, Infinity Gems being the potential spoiler). There will be the occasional moment of "Where'd that strike tile come from?" or "Aargh! I thought he still only had 6 Red AP!" that will cost someone a fight, and we'll hear about it here much more than we will the moment where that happened in the player's favor, because we're human. But overall I think there's no reason to segregate them from PvP anymore.