Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards) Character Rework (1/9/19)

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  • himatako
    himatako Posts: 269 Mover and Shaker
    TPF Alexis said:
    himatako said:
    TPF Alexis said:
    I notice that a lot of reactions seem to depend on luck. Specifically, on what Imaginaut is doing for people. For those who have been getting it to spit out Attack, Strike, or even Protect tiles, he comes across as improved. For those who've mostly been getting tons of locked or charged tiles, he comes across as nerfed. I'm sure there are some exceptions, but that trend seems to jump out at me.
    It isn't a coincidence that all the team that "work well" with him are the ones that either trying to maximize his blue damage or get as many chances as possible to get his yellow to fire free powers. Nothing about his Imaginaut at all.
    Most of the reactions from play experience that I had seen at that point were from his Crash, which pretty much was all about Imaginaut.
    Oh, I was actually agreeing with you there. I'm sorry it came off confusing! 
  • Anon
    Anon Posts: 1,455 Chairperson of the Boards
    I like the new Mr Fantastic thus far. He's quite a bit different than he used to be, but I'd hold off on considering it a nerf.

    His CotT used to give me headaches before. Even with him champed! But this time I completely destroyed Doom.

    I think in regards to this argument, we're arguing Utility vs Damage. Previous Reed was about utility, new Reed is about damage.
  • RickOShay
    RickOShay Posts: 452 Mover and Shaker
    edited January 2019
    himatako said:
    TPF Alexis said:
    I notice that a lot of reactions seem to depend on luck. Specifically, on what Imaginaut is doing for people. For those who have been getting it to spit out Attack, Strike, or even Protect tiles, he comes across as improved. For those who've mostly been getting tons of locked or charged tiles, he comes across as nerfed. I'm sure there are some exceptions, but that trend seems to jump out at me.
    It isn't a coincidence that all the team that "work well" with him are the ones that either trying to maximize his blue damage or get as many chances as possible to get his yellow to fire free powers. Nothing about his Imaginaut at all.

    I understand why people find his rework fun though. Direct damage is fun and satisfying when you set up the right condition for it. It's also a plus that his blue's damage has no maximum cap, so you can do insane damage with the right conditions. I admit I enjoy that too. And there are more characters that focus on creating many special tiles on the board at once. Kate Bishop and 3* Hawkeye's purple now work well with him and there's a reason to set them at 5 cover. Yondu's black is now useful. Nebula and Dazzler can help Mr. F and themselves ditch out heavy damage. 

    But my problem is, all those teams @RickOShay mentioned, Mr. F worked well with them before too. 

    ----snip ---

    I think I'm disappointed because I don't see him as a damage dealer, and his old version really makes the game feels like a puzzle game to me. The way you control the board, set the board up to satisfy some passive conditions, balancing between taking out enemy CD tiles or collecting the AP you need. Personally, I find this fighting style fits his character. 

    His new version turns him into a conditional damage dealer with two powers with a random effect. When I think of Reed, I don't think of someone who's unreliable and gives you a random result. The new powers are not terrible (except for his new black), but it doesn't fit the character. His old powers are something I'd like to see in the game. If this is really how Mr. F is going to be, then I wish they would create a character with a similar powers set as his previous version in the future. 

    Exactly! I agree with everything you stated, and in some cases he may actually have been a bit better previously. But so many here are not realizing that he realistically has even more team uses now (or completely missed his utility all along). 
    You seem to be one of the few that acknowledges that Mr. F was - and still is - a viable option on Many teams. The majority are complaining that their few specific teams operate differently than before, or that the Crash surprised them. If you play him well, you can get just as much damage from his blue now as you did with his previous version of Imaginaut. I'll trade less healing for more damage potential almost every time. More F4 synergy would have been great though admittedly. And losing his tile swap feels a bit like a gut punch, getting free powers /can/ make up for that quite often.

    Another team, and wow.
    Domino and Cloak & Dagger. Black adds up super fast and you should get multiple Imaginaut repeaters out quickly. Domino's board shake on red should help get blue matches lines up a bit. You'll have so many specials from the repeaters and C&D's attack tiles from the abundance of black. Rainbow team of actives. Bonus if the enemy team makes specials you can match to earn free abilities.

  • AardvarkPepper
    AardvarkPepper Posts: 239 Tile Toppler
    There's this whole thing where players that are touting the new 4* Fantastic are saying other players just don't understand.  I think we can stop that whole ad hominem thing right now.

    I'm sure that's not the intent.  But when the discussion becomes less and less about specific facts, and more and more about how "other people just don't understand" that's what it is.


    RickOShay said:

    Mr. F was - and still is - a viable option on Many teams. The majority are complaining that their few specific teams operate differently than before, or that the Crash surprised them. If you play him well, you can get just as much damage from his blue now as you did with his previous version of Imaginaut. I'll trade less healing for more damage potential almost every time. More F4 synergy would have been great though admittedly. And losing his tile swap feels a bit like a gut punch, getting free powers /can/ make up for that quite often.

    You're projecting your personal circumstances and preferences onto the new 4* Fantastic and the playerbase at large.  This doesn't take away from the validity of your personal views.  But projection doesn't invalidate others' concerns either.

    "Viable viable viable".  No.  Not viable.  Unless, as I wrote, you're heavily factoring in your personal circumstances and preferences.

    Just think on it objectively.  Really objectively.

    Before, you only needed friendly specials for yellow to heal, and when yellow healed it was on the order of over 1000 team healing.  Now it's a trivial amount of single target healing.  There's no comparison.

    Before, you only needed 7 AP to stun.  That's a couple matches and a 4-match destroying row/column to pick up the 7th AP, or a 3 and a 4-match.  8 AP is a lot harder to get.  And then, the old power swapped powers and made Protects.  So the old power could generate AP, destroy enemy specials, generate protects, and stun, all in the same relatively cheap power.  Now you need 8 AP, the stun is no better, and you conditionally do damage if there are friendly specials on the board.

    Before, you had a 7 AP chip damage power that benefited from friendly Strikes.  Now you have a 10 cost RNG power.  If you're using the RNG power to set yourself up for later, it's still demonstratively slow.

    Now, you have a yellow power that procs on fourth match of enemy special.  But it's slow.  If you use characters on your team that create enemy specials, that's terribly specific and doesn't necessarily synergize with Fantastic.  If you're using Fantastic as a counter - well again, that's quite specific.

    It is not *subjectively* that new Fantastic is less flexible.  He is *objectively* less flexible.

    As Anon wrote, old Fantastic was about utility.  New Fantastic about damage.  But it goes a little farther than that.

    ==

    It's not that a favorable view of new Fantastic is categorically invalid.  But think on it.  My conclusion is new 4* Fantastic only is "good" for players in championed boosted 4* / 5* land.  Which I mentioned before.  But a bit more on that -

    Dropping 3* Storm (say via teamup) into Fantastic's blue works out to 9 AP for the setup (which deals trivial damage) then 8 AP for the main power which does about 27K.  Which is nice.  But when do you need that much damage?

    . . . against boosted 4*s and 5*s right?  If you're going to drop multiple blues, then it makes even more sense.  It's slow, but where else are you going to find that sort of damage/AP in 4* land?

    Then too, if you want to proc yellow (regardless of whether you set up your team to generate enemy specials or you're using Fantastic as a counter), you want high damage.  It doesn't make so much sense to try to use that with non-boosted 4*s that are doing much less damage.  No, it makes sense to use it with championed boosted 4*s and championed 5*s.

    So then a player COULD argue that new Fantastic is "good in a lot more teams" because maybe you even take new Fantastic un-boosted against championed boosted 4*s and championed 5*s.

    And again, all the points previously made about how new Fantastic are generally not good compared to old Fantastic are less significant.  If you're talking championed boosted 4*s and championed 5*s territory, you're talking about damage that outpaces the old Fantastic's healing, and though the tile swap loss could be considered unfortunate, even then you're only talking about matching away a couple problematic tiles and generating relatively weak Protects, attached to a 7 AP cost that though better is still conditional and not enough to *reliably* prevent a chunk of damage.  And again, the old Fantastic's black chip damage was nice, but when you're talking about high numbers (champed boosted 4*s and champed 5*s again), well, a few thousand here and there isn't going to so much make a difference.

    ==

    "oo aardvark's coming around!"

    No.  I still don't like new 4* Fantastic.  For players that want a new 4* option to use, that are facing a champed boosted 4* / champed 5* meta, I can see there's some appeal.  But it's just so bad for everyone else.

    As I wrote, a lot of events / nodes end up with a player specifying two characters on a team, and having a third Essential fill it out.  So what happens for players at different tiers of play?  Considering duo specified with a third Essential -

    If you're in the 2*-3* / early 3*-4* transition (which happens almost immediately), 4* Fantastic damage synergizes with 3* Storm, sure.  But playing up to the point that 27K damage is a factor means your 3* dies, especially without healing.  Against noncharacter goons you still use 4* Rocket and Groot / 3* Doctor Strange.  Against Sentry bots you still use 4* Medusa.  In PvP, he just doesn't work, there isn't enough synergy and protection for other members on the team.

    If you're in the mid 3*- 4* transition, you still won't end up using 4* Fantastic much.  Sure, you occasionally have a boosted 4* so Fantastic's yellow procs decently, and you can use 3* Storm's teamup.  But as I wrote earlier, 4* Fantastic's not really a solution to enemy teams that put out quick damage and/or have multiple credible threat characters, he's just too slow.  He'll only be really useful when the stars align, so to speak.  For PvE again, 4* Fantastic just ends up being surplus to requirements because he's just a bit too slow.  If an enemy countdown hits and does 10,000 team damage or whatever, well - old Fantastic might stop that, but new Fantastic won't.

    It's only when you're later in the 4*-5* transition that new 4* Fantastic makes sense - when a player themselves have boosted 4*s that survive enemy attacks, with powers of their own that work better with Fantastic's yellow proc.

    But to my mind that's entirely besides the point.  If you have a broad roster of championed 4*s (so some of them will be boosted in any event) and a bunch of 5*s, you ALREADY had a lot of toys to play with.

    It's like - John has fifty two toys, and Bob has three toys.  So what do you do?  Naturally you take one of Bob's toys and give it to John.  Because reasons.

    I mean hey.  If you're on the design team, if the metrics say 4* Fantastic needs a rework, if the metrics say it's players with a load of championed 4*s and a few 5*s that are the major financial contributors to the game - why not throw them a bone?  Hey ho, new 4* Fantastic.  Even if I might make an analogy of taking poor Bob's few toys and giving them to rich John who already has a lot of toys, if that's how it is, why not?

    I mean really!  Players that put in a lot of time and money into the game SHOULD get nice things, shouldn't they?

    I think they should!  I mean, I think WE should!  Yeah!  B)

    And I could even say that maybe this wasn't a toy that Bob was using so much.  Because of metrics.  Yeah.

    BUT - all those points in favor aside -

    "ooo aardvark's coming around!"

    no . . . not quite.

    Though I think veterans and spenders should have nice things, I'd say not at the expense of the poorer players.  This particular character re-work, well, who's to say how things work out one way or another and the particulars, maybe it's a one-off thing.

    But if you have a lot of small decisions that form a pattern, at some point players have to look at the game and think - it's nice and fun as it goes, but how much is it about spending money, as opposed to playing smart?  How much of it is mechanics that support newer players to the game, and how much of is mechanics that require a load of money and/or real time to build?  Is a game that primarily rewards spending money and/or time what's wanted as the identity of MPQ, when there's so many other games out there?

    And just what have we had in this past year?  Where do I stand, on the record?

    1)  Saved covers is cool for vets and spenders.  But for players that were watching what they were doing already, it comes down to roster slots, and roster slots weren't affected.  So IMO saved covers is NEUTRAL.

    2)  No more customer service swaps with saved covers.  So now instead of what was it 300 or so Latest Legendary pulls, now you want something like 490 for a 99% chance of three fully covered 5*s?  No more CS swaps is NEGATIVE

    3)  Progression based wins in PvP.  Before if you wanted 4*s off PvP as a developing player, you had to manipulate your roster.  With progression based wins, though, you can cycle through opponents.  So POSITIVE.  (I mean yeah I could say developing rosters still have to grind an unholy number of wins and spend a crazy load of time compared to developed rosters that can punch to score-based rather than win-based progression wins but . . . a step in the right direction anyways)

    4)  MMR change.  I THINK I heard someplace that the odd 5* won't screw a player's MMR.  So if you're a 2*-3* player but have an odd 5* off a random pull but didn't sell the 5*, now your MMR won't be totally crazy.  Ish.  Though I'd still like changes to MMR (i.e. counting boosts!) I'd say POSITIVE.

    So on balance, I'd say even though I don't like the new Fantastic, on a whole, I'd say . . . eh.  You win some, you lose some.

    ==

    Spudgutter said:

    But the other part that is getting lost in the mix of better/worse is why?

    Brigby said:

    Unfortunately, at the moment I'm unaware as to how to separate the data based on a specific star tier, as opposed to individual characters, but I can certainly show the last six months of 2017 for Thing, Invisible Woman, and Mr. Fantastic.

    6/1/17 - 12/31/17
    • Thing - 2,924,119
    • Invisible Woman - 2,909,663
    • Mr. Fantastic - 1,882,239
    Now to be fair, I do want to give credit to those that mentioned the effect that event-featured characters have on usage rates, so please note that these are high-level values without any granular breakdowns involved. This is simply the information I have available at a given notice.

    Hope this helps!
    Hm let's see

    Let's take a 4*.  Unboosted, let's give him better damage/AP than 5* Thor.  Conditionally.  But even so.

    Hmmmmmm.

    LET'S SEE WHO'S POPULAR NOW!

    ooo reeed . . . ur so kewwwl

    I mean hey, I dunno if they reworked Fantastic for the metrics.  My guess is metrics had something to do with it though.


  • Jaedenkaal
    Jaedenkaal Posts: 3,357 Chairperson of the Boards
    sambrookjm said:
    TPF Alexis said:
    I notice that a lot of reactions seem to depend on luck. Specifically, on what Imaginaut is doing for people. For those who have been getting it to spit out Attack, Strike, or even Protect tiles, he comes across as improved. For those who've mostly been getting tons of locked or charged tiles, he comes across as nerfed. I'm sure there are some exceptions, but that trend seems to jump out at me.
    Ways to improve Imaginaut:
    • Tell you how strong the tiles were, how many got locked, or how much AP you generated in the ability description.
    • Locked tiles were limited to enemy specials.  If there aren't any on the board, don't choose this ability.
    • Charged tiles were either blue, yellow or black - colors that he has powers in. (Yeah, yellow wouldn't be overly useful, but at least it would be better than ones he doesn't have a use for and the match damage would be better.)
    • Do one of each of the "random abilities" each time the repeater ticks down. Create an attack tile, protect tile, strike tile, generate 1 AP *and* lock a tile.  Lessen the power of tiles you generate, but it would certainly help with your team out. Paired with a 3/5/5 Nico, this would get out of hand quickly.

    Locking your own special tiles seems ridiculous and counterproductive.  I didn't have that happen, fortunately.

    Dotproduct said:
    Yes, I did feel the pain of not having the original Imaginaut. I took a low champed Mr F into the CotT and I was able to launch the power twice. All it ended up in was about 30 locked tiles including my own strikes and attacks...

    I had Imaginaut at 5* but with this nerf is it recommended to change, maybe 5,4,4 instead of 5,3,5 to compensate for the less than impressive heals in yellow?
    Blue at 5 is still obvious. Without knowing what the difference between LVL 4 and 5 for Imaginaut, it's tough to tell.  The difference between 3 and 4 for his passive yellow isn't that great.  My Mr F is at LVL 292, and the difference from 3 to 4 on his yellow is 326 at LVL 3 to 469 at LVL 4.
    I agree with all of this. Having Imaginaut be random (with mostly situational effects) is A) not good, and B) hardly what you'd expect a device that Reed creates to do.  And again my personal grudge against abilities that do not state in their entirety, what they do in-game.

    I've left Imaginaut at 3 covers, mostly because its so hard to know how much it improves by. I've never actually fired it, except for free.
  • RickOShay
    RickOShay Posts: 452 Mover and Shaker
    edited January 2019
    Spudgutter said:
    RickOShay said:


    You are missing some of the point.  Sure, some are focusing on if he is better/worse, and is situationally subjective.  Tpf said it best, so i don't need to repeat it.

    But the other part that is getting lost in the mix of better/worse is why?

    Why take a mid tier character, that is situational and really only used with certain teams (and already with a power that *should* have synergy with F4) and remake him into a mid tier character that is situational and really only used with certain teams, none on which are F4, all in the name of re-branding F4?

    If they hadnt done that, we wouldnt even be arguing about better/worse.

    Why?  That was answered many pages ago.
    1. Low player usage (correct or not).
    2. A presumed unwanted interaction with a future unreleased character (or the unplanned advantage/synergy with Bishop, although dismissed). 
    3. Should many other characters have been updated first? Of course, yes.

    Simplified result of the update: 

    If Reed was one of your main 4* characters to play due to a growing 3* - 4* roster, this is most likely a nerf. 

    If Reed is one of 30+ 4* champs on your roster, this is likely a sideways update, to potentially a small upgrade for you. 

  • MarcusGraves
    MarcusGraves Posts: 495 Mover and Shaker
    I just realized, with the random tile locking on Black, since it doesn't specify enemy or friendly, doesn't this mean he could accidentally lock and shut off his own Imaginaut tile? chances are low I know, but couldn't this still happen?
  • Vold
    Vold Posts: 166 Tile Toppler
    I’m just sad for the no swapping tiles. It suits him.

    but other then that I like the effect changes, not sure about the AP cost. Doesn’t feel like it Effect much as my non champ Fantastic manage to beat Doom in the Titan clash. Eventually z...
  • sambrookjm
    sambrookjm Posts: 2,163 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2019
    Something else (bad) I just found out about his rework.  It looks like if the enemy you're trying to target can't be stunned (*cough* Galactus *cough*) then you cannot fire off Flexibility.  I had a fortified shield tile on the board, and was told that there would be no change in status if I fired off the power, so I couldn't use the team-up.  The 4K damage from Flexibility would have been enough to take Galactus out...which I would certainly consider a status change.

    Anyone else able to duplicate this?  Should I file a bug report, or is this the way it's supposed to work? Previously, I believe you could fire it off.  Even if the stun wasn't effective, you'd still get the Protect tiles and be able to swtich two tiles.

    Edit - Just tried again, and you need at least 4 tiles for the damage to be dealt.  So it's 0-3 just gives a stun, 4-7 gives X damage, 8-11 gives 2X damage...  Yeah, that's worse.
  • Vold
    Vold Posts: 166 Tile Toppler
    No wonder he killed the last enemy when I cast that... didn’t notice there was a dmg clause 
  • ammenell
    ammenell Posts: 817 Critical Contributor
    could have made a 2step power - deal damage first, after that apply stun when possible

    but that probably would have made him OP, or at the very least useable...
  • Jaedenkaal
    Jaedenkaal Posts: 3,357 Chairperson of the Boards
    sambrookjm said:
    Edit - Just tried again, and you need at least 4 tiles for the damage to be dealt.  So it's 0-3 just gives a stun, 4-7 gives X damage, 8-11 gives 2X damage...  Yeah, that's worse.
    Worse than... if he did damage from 0-4 tiles? I guess. It's never worked that way, though.
    It's better than letting you fire the power and then doing nothing.
  • sambrookjm
    sambrookjm Posts: 2,163 Chairperson of the Boards
    Jaedenkaal said:
    sambrookjm said:
    Edit - Just tried again, and you need at least 4 tiles for the damage to be dealt.  So it's 0-3 just gives a stun, 4-7 gives X damage, 8-11 gives 2X damage...  Yeah, that's worse.
    Worse than... if he did damage from 0-4 tiles? I guess. It's never worked that way, though.
    It's better than letting you fire the power and then doing nothing.
    Worse than not being able to switch tiles around; the protect tiles were generally secondary, and sometimes I wouldn't even end up with them.  I usually used the switching to set up at least one match-5, which would generally give AP to fire another ability (or at the very least damage with his Imaginaut).  If the fortified shield tile was the "critical" tile, it wouldn't be fortified and wouldn't tun into a shield; it would turn into a non-fortified critical tile, and vanish.  You need at least four friendly special tiles for it to deal some sort of damage now.

    He nukes with Carnage, but I'd say he has had his effectiveness lessened overall.
  • max5esq
    max5esq Posts: 58 Match Maker
    This is a personal opinion but I like him better since the rework, I do wish his black was better or cheaper but I really like the yellow and the Blue is great with the right teammates. I think matching opposing  teams tiles for a power reward makes me play the game in a different way then when I am playing with most other characters. For PVE I have been enjoying using him in some of the harder nodes with goons with captin marvel or dazzler or other tile spammers. He has becomes very teammate dependent though, but he was never used a ton before, I find myself usig him much more now.
  • steveha
    steveha Posts: 1 Just Dropped In
    I signed up for an account so I could post in this thread and express my disappointment at the changes.

    Using his old power set, I used to think a lot, and I liked that.  I used tile swapping to make matches to power other things; I used tile swapping with Imaginaut to increment its counter more than once per turn or set up a 4-match or 5-match; and basically I liked using him.

    "Flexibility" used to actually be very flexible.  You could use it for the stun, use it to help charge another power, use it to match away a tile that was causing you a problem... you could even use it for the stun but make a blue match to help charge it to use it again.  Sometimes I came up with something tricky and felt pleased with myself.  Now there is the stun, plus maybe some damage, so the only choice you have is the timing of when you fire the power.

    His new power set isn't very flexible and doesn't need much thinking.  He stuns and does damage and... random stuff?  Mr. Fantastic, the genius leader, does things at random?  Very disappointing.

    If he ever gets reworked again, please consider giving him powers that let the user make some choices.  Choose tiles to swap, choose a spot to place a repeater tile, choose a tile and its color affects what the power does.  Restore at least a little bit of thinking to his power set.

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