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

bigheroslix

Just used him against carnage. Fired 4 random powers on yellow passive. Very effective

Waddles_Pines

BumpoTheClown said:

DAZ0273 said:

Oh drat. I forgot about Maggott...

First 0* character, to be quickly followed by Aunt May and Willie Lumpkin.

Totally OT, but seeing Aunt May mentioned... how tinykitty is it that I just saw an article where it looks like they decided to give her cancer now... sheesh... sorry, had to vent... now back to questioning Mr. F redesign ... 

Brigby

Freelancer said:

Brigby 
Are the 'System Reboot' events no longer going to be run for reworked characters? It's been a while since the last 4* rework, so hopefully the devs just forgot.

All I'm aware of is that there isn't a System Reboot planned for Mr. Fantastic's rework, although I'm uncertain if it will be run for future character reworks.

StevO-J said:

I dunno if someone asked already, but Brigby, could you possibly shed some light on the reasoning behind this rework of Mr.F? No need for great details, just if it has something to do with an upcoming release? Or an attempt to increase his viability in some form?

It's just that I think, like most people on here, that choosing him over various other (even FF) characters seems... odd so to say.

So I did some digging through the data, and it would turn out that Mr. Fantastic is actually the least used character out of all the Fantastic Four characters, as opposed to The Thing.

Here are the number of battles starting from 1/1/2015 where a player's team contained one of those characters:

• Human Torch (Classic) - 78,800,406 [Not surprised. He's a 3-Star]
• Invisible Woman - 24,271,009
• The Thing - 20,507,288
• Mr. Fantastic - 11,359,957

Based on these values, I would speculate that his historically low popularity was part of the reason why the team chose to do a rebalance for him, as opposed to The Thing.

whitecat31

Malcrof said:

Mr Fantastic + Carnage = fast pve clears now

Have you met my friend Thanos?

Warbringa

Yeah I don't like this rework.  Does anyone think Mr.F was one of the worst 4*? I can think a of a ton more that need reworks first as he had his uses.  I think his black power is clearly worse as I found his old black power to actually be pretty decent.  The new power costs more, is much more random and the old power was actually pretty easy to keep going for quite a while with the right team.  The blue power is actually worse imo.  The damage added is for a 4* is worse than the board manipulation + protection tile it would generate and the lower AP cost.  The yellow power is probably better, but only due to the idea of the random power firing.  In balance though, I think the worse blue/black outweighs the increase in yellow.  The loss of the Fantastic 4 synergy too bad, even though it didn't come up too much.  Plus he was a great go to character against Kaecilius. 

Dormammu

Brigby said:

Here are the number of battles starting from 1/1/2015 where a player's team contained one of those characters:

• Human Torch (Classic) - 78,800,406 [Not surprised. He's a 3-Star]
• Invisible Woman - 24,271,009
• The Thing - 20,507,288
• Mr. Fantastic - 11,359,957

That doesn't surprise me, since Mr. Fantastic wasn't released until almost a year after 1/1/15 and it would have taken some additional time after that for many players to have him fully built. Plus, the Thing does have one thing going for him in that he is the perfect hard counter for Grocket - the 4-star tier's most common rascal - so he has seen wide use in the Sim.

HoundofShadow

That's some interesting statistics:

Using 1/1/2015 as start date and 10/1/2019 as end date

Note: estimated figures

Invisible Woman (1/1/2015) -1105 days - average no. of battles per day = 21,964

The Thing (26/6/2015) - 939 days  - average no. of battles per day = 21,839

Mr Fantastic (19/8/2015) - 875 days -  average no. of battles per day = 12,982

Even though IW has a 5 months lead over the Thing, their usages are pretty close.

optimus2861

Thing, Reed and Medusa used to be my best counter against Grocket & Medusa. Reed's cheap blue generating medium strength protect tiles, his burst healing combined with Medusa's, and his green AP generation so Thing could clobber away. No good for defense of course but it was as close to a sure win against Grocket as you can get in the 4* space. 

But this Reed? No way. Healing is way too weak, no green generation, and no protect tiles either. 

I think this is a nerf, and it has the effect of putting both he and Thing on my "never use" bench. 

RickOShay

Dormammu said:

Brigby said:

Here are the number of battles starting from 1/1/2015 where a player's team contained one of those characters:

• Human Torch (Classic) - 78,800,406 [Not surprised. He's a 3-Star]
• Invisible Woman - 24,271,009
• The Thing - 20,507,288
• Mr. Fantastic - 11,359,957

That doesn't surprise me, since Mr. Fantastic wasn't released until almost a year after 1/1/15 and it would have taken some additional time after that for many players to have him fully built. Plus, the Thing does have one thing going for him in that he is the perfect hard counter for Grocket - the 4-star tier's most common rascal - so he has seen wide use in the Sim.

A better usage stat would be taken from the point of Mr. F's last rebalance forward, not from 2015, if possible. 

I will greatly miss his old blue, it was helpful to use defensively in battle, and was an excellent TU to request. 

Curious about his yellow, it should be fun to make a goal of earning abilities fired for free. I don't think he needed this rebalance but I too could easily see an exploited combo of an upcoming character or affiliation effect.


*** So, since Brigby can look up usage stats, care to share with us the 'least used character' totals in the 4* tier of those who have been released for a fair amount of time?  ***
 

Thanos

Dormammu said:

Brigby said:

Here are the number of battles starting from 1/1/2015 where a player's team contained one of those characters:

• Human Torch (Classic) - 78,800,406 [Not surprised. He's a 3-Star]
• Invisible Woman - 24,271,009
• The Thing - 20,507,288
• Mr. Fantastic - 11,359,957

That doesn't surprise me, since Mr. Fantastic wasn't released until almost a year after 1/1/15 and it would have taken some additional time after that for many players to have him fully built. Plus, the Thing does have one thing going for him in that he is the perfect hard counter for Grocket - the 4-star tier's most common rascal - so he has seen wide use in the Sim.

Not to mention Mr. F was reworked some time after.

Jaedenkaal

I think my biggest complaint here is that Imaginaut doesn't actually tell you what it does, in game. Not sure you're going to see an increase in usage for a character if players can't actually tell what he does, or how the ability improves, from in the game.

Yepyep

marshall said:

...
His black seems much worse since it's random. It was a great power before that made him a powerhouse solo. Isn't he supposed to be a strategist/inventor? How is that represented by a random power? These random powers do useless things most of the time: burst heal when you are mopping up the last enemy or weak tiles that don't help you turn around a match.
...

For me, this was by far my strongest initial reaction. Sure, it's a game not a comic, but this really cheapens Reed's authenticity. Sometimes these things matter...

Waddles_Pines

Jaedenkaal said:

I think my biggest complaint here is that Imaginaut doesn't actually tell you what it does, in game. Not sure you're going to see an increase in usage for a character if players can't actually tell what he does, or how the ability improves, from in the game.

Agreed.  It's the same type of issue I have with characters like Green Goblin; I shouldn't have to look up in the forums about what their powers do at what power level.

Also, I saw your other post questioning the locked tiles.  That and the charged tiles really don't make much sense to me on Imaginaut.  Why not change it to "force bubbles"?  For all intents and purposes they are the same, except in this case it adds some interaction with IW if you want it.  
<edit: you mentioned this in another post... this thread is too long hahaha>

I think this is one of those parallel rebuilds.  If they kept the costs the same I'd be inclined to call it a boost, but with the increased costs it just feels like taking a step sideways instead of forward.  At least it wasn't backwards like KP's "upgrade"....

Waddles_Pines

Yepyep said:

marshall said:

...
His black seems much worse since it's random. It was a great power before that made him a powerhouse solo. Isn't he supposed to be a strategist/inventor? How is that represented by a random power? These random powers do useless things most of the time: burst heal when you are mopping up the last enemy or weak tiles that don't help you turn around a match.
...

For me, this was by far my strongest initial reaction. Sure, it's a game not a comic, but this really cheapens Reed's authenticity. Sometimes these things matter...

Yeah, make it like Goblin's.  You get to select the color/effect of it....

Spudgutter

Dormammu said:

Brigby said:

Here are the number of battles starting from 1/1/2015 where a player's team contained one of those characters:

• Human Torch (Classic) - 78,800,406 [Not surprised. He's a 3-Star]
• Invisible Woman - 24,271,009
• The Thing - 20,507,288
• Mr. Fantastic - 11,359,957

That doesn't surprise me, since Mr. Fantastic wasn't released until almost a year after 1/1/15 and it would have taken some additional time after that for many players to have him fully built. Plus, the Thing does have one thing going for him in that he is the perfect hard counter for Grocket - the 4-star tier's most common rascal - so he has seen wide use in the Sim.

So, they are using metrics for different rarities, across different lengths of time available in the token pool, while also not regarding a fixes to two different characters?  

I want to go back to assuming they threw a dart at a dartboard to pick who to fix, that makes more sense at this point 

Brigby

Spudgutter said:

Dormammu said:

Brigby said:

Here are the number of battles starting from 1/1/2015 where a player's team contained one of those characters:

• Human Torch (Classic) - 78,800,406 [Not surprised. He's a 3-Star]
• Invisible Woman - 24,271,009
• The Thing - 20,507,288
• Mr. Fantastic - 11,359,957

That doesn't surprise me, since Mr. Fantastic wasn't released until almost a year after 1/1/15 and it would have taken some additional time after that for many players to have him fully built. Plus, the Thing does have one thing going for him in that he is the perfect hard counter for Grocket - the 4-star tier's most common rascal - so he has seen wide use in the Sim.

So, they are using metrics for different rarities, across different lengths of time available in the token pool, while also not regarding a fixes to two different characters?  

I want to go back to assuming they threw a dart at a dartboard to pick who to fix, that makes more sense at this point 

That's not necessarily the data they specifically used. Those numbers were data I personally pulled from our database. True, I could've been more precise in the time-frame comparisons though.

As for adding Human Torch in there, his data was technically irrelevant, since he is a 3-Star, and would clearly have a higher usage rate. I just wanted to round out the entire Fantastic Four quartet, hence my tacked-on comment. 

ThaRoadWarrior

That's the problem with data with no context I guess. If you re-run those numbers from the point of his release, and then cross-checked it against how often each character was featured in an event (basically how often players chose to use a chracter rather than how often they were required to use a character), it would tell you a different story.

Spudgutter

Brigby said:

Spudgutter said:

Dormammu said:

Brigby said:

Here are the number of battles starting from 1/1/2015 where a player's team contained one of those characters:

• Human Torch (Classic) - 78,800,406 [Not surprised. He's a 3-Star]
• Invisible Woman - 24,271,009
• The Thing - 20,507,288
• Mr. Fantastic - 11,359,957

That doesn't surprise me, since Mr. Fantastic wasn't released until almost a year after 1/1/15 and it would have taken some additional time after that for many players to have him fully built. Plus, the Thing does have one thing going for him in that he is the perfect hard counter for Grocket - the 4-star tier's most common rascal - so he has seen wide use in the Sim.

So, they are using metrics for different rarities, across different lengths of time available in the token pool, while also not regarding a fixes to two different characters?  

I want to go back to assuming they threw a dart at a dartboard to pick who to fix, that makes more sense at this point 

That's not necessarily the data they specifically used. Those numbers were data I personally pulled from our database. True, I could've been more precise in the time-frame comparisons though.

As for adding Human Torch in there, his data was technically irrelevant, since he is a 3-Star, and would clearly have a higher usage rate. I just wanted to round out the entire Fantastic Four quartet, hence my tacked-on comment. 

Thanks for the response and initial info.  Any peek behind the curtain is appreciated.  Any chance for a smaller, more (assumedly) better time frame?  Like the last six months of 2017?  

And maybe even include the entire 4* tier?

I have no problems with rebalances, and can understand some may see each as positive or negative, as evidenced in this thread.  But what i, and others, would really love to see, is maybe an explanation.  

Pr0spect0r

Then again to be fair it's not his job as community manager to dig through those numbers and analyze them completely for our use.

Brigby

Spudgutter said:

Thanks for the response and initial info.  Any peek behind the curtain is appreciated.  Any chance for a smaller, more (assumedly) better time frame?  Like the last six months of 2017?  

And maybe even include the entire 4* tier?

I have no problems with rebalances, and can understand some may see each as positive or negative, as evidenced in this thread.  But what i, and others, would really love to see, is maybe an explanation.  

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!

Pr0spect0r said:

Then again to be fair it's not his job as community manager to dig through those numbers and analyze them completely for our use.

That's true, but if I have the capability to provide some clarity, then I'm certainly not opposed to gathering some quick data for everyone.