Mr. F, Re-Balancing, & 'Nerfs'

Dormammu

Let me first state that my usage of Reed has been very little since transitioning towards 5-star play so his changes don't really affect me either way, but when I was a 4-star player he was a go-to of mine in PvE as well as the PvP Sim (along with Carnage and Medusa) - I played him heavily. That being said, it's been about a week now since Mr. Fantastic was re-balanced and I've decided what was done to him was indeed a nerf... yet not a nerf.

When it comes to balancing characters, the developers of MPQ completely baffle me. In every other (online) game I've ever played if a character/class needed to be balanced to prevent one character from being over/under-powered, adjustments are made to their existing abilities. Does a character/class do too much damage? Let's tweak it down a little. Does a character/class have a defensive power that isn't performing as well as others? Let's beef it up a little. In other words, the balancing comes from adjusting the numbers up or down - not giving them entirely new abilities.

But when D3 'balances' a character, more often than not they reformat the character entirely into something that doesn't even resemble the prior build. It's mind-boggling. That's why it's so hard to call what happened to Reed (and many other characters before him) a nerf. Technically, a 'nerf' would be a lessening his previous abilities, which didn't happen. D3 just gave him an entirely new set of abilities! And a lot of us were like... what? What was wrong with Reed?

To me, it's insulting to the player base to do what D3 Demi does. Imagine if an MMO developers did this - just throw away the entire build of a character/class and gave them a completely different build. Everyone who played and enjoyed that character/class would feel spit on, especially if they had invested money into the game.

I loved Reed's prior build. I remember purchasing some HP so I could buy out a vault that featured one of his covers so I could finish off my 12-cover Reed and speed him into action with Cardusa. It was glorious - I shot through the SHIELD Sim quickly with those three and had a lot of fun with it. If I was still in that phase of the game, I'd be really ANGRY right now. I'd be asking: why couldn't you leave Reed's build and simply tweak the numbers a bit? Why does he have to play like a completely different character? This is insane!

Why does Demi do this? Why do they 're-balance' their characters into unrecognizable versions of themselves? Do they not understand that this alienates players who love that character?

bigheroslix

I think it is subjective. I have seen lots of people who love the changes and use him to great effect. I very much feel they have made a niche character more playable and has synergy with a wider group of characters (but weirdly less with Ff4). 

Your point about people who built him with a purpose in mind stands. It must be really frustrating.

Borstock

The only way I would ever be insulted by something they did is if there was a true pay wall that I paid my way through and then that was taken away from me. A nerf, re-balance, or whatever we want to call what happened to Reed is not that, in my opinion. Even the OML nerf wasn't insulting to me, but I'll admit that was closer to one because some people did spend a lot of money to get him fully covered. 

The Reed changes just confuse me more than anything else.

Dormammu

I support what happened to OML. He was actually nerfed in the true sense of the word. It can (and has) been debated if he deserved it, but at least he wasn't rebuilt from the ground up.

ThaRoadWarrior

In the video about this FF stuff that's floating around, Casey makes it sound like Reed is now a serious killer - this has not been my experience of it so far, but admittedly mine is lvl 209. The only character that had a conceptual overhaul like this that really affected how I was playing was when Spid3r-Man lost the heal and got the big damage yellow. It took me awhile to adjust to that. I don't use him heavily now, wasn't really doing so before either, but I knew his deal well enough that I needed to re-train my game sense for him. I guess Mordo losing his AoE black and getting a big-damage single target black happened to me also, but it wasn't a huge deal in the end, since it was only shortly after I'd champed him.

To address the semantics in play here: what was done to Reed is a Re-Work. a Re-Balance would be moving numbers around to keep the character on par with similar characters. If a character is just not working at all, sure, go ahead and re-work them. Most of the characters in the game could benefit from a re-balance over time to make sure they're still viable or not OP generally.

bbigler

D3!Go is the distributor, Demiurge is the developer.  It seems like Demiurge makes decisions in a vacuum; ignoring the comments on this forum.......but it has been stated that they do listen to us.  Is that true?  We did get Dazzler & Spider-Ham; we did get new progression only PVEs; we did get saved covers; they limited enemy cascades; we got win-based option in PVP and the Gambit Nerf.  But other changes appear that they don't listen to us, such as: Supports and their very limited distribution, Costumes and their high price; Doc Ock's rebalance a year too late, Legendary token changes to full dilution, Rebalancing Mr. Fantastic, and a lot of new 5*s that miss the mark.  It seems to me that they run their diagnostic reports and a couple people make decisions based on that. 

I'm almost convinced that the people in charge of new character design don't actually play the game (or at least they don't play competitively).  They probably thought 5*Thor wasn't going to be meta-breaking because his passive kicks in at half-health.  Well, competitive players will find a way to exploit good powers. Maybe they thought Kitty's yellow passive would be good but not meta-breaking since it will take time for other 5*s to make specials.  Maybe they thought she wouldn't be used with the 4* tier?  Perhaps they thought Thanos' ally damage would deter people from using him constantly in PVE.  Perhaps all of our meta-breaking characters were by accident? 

What I'm trying to say is that Demiurge should think like a competitive player and give us a good variety of characters that are all usable in some way.  Most likely though, they won't realize a certain killer combo exists, release the character anyway, and then we have a new meta-breaking combo.  But it baffles me when they release a new character, act like they're great, but we all realize they're duds.........

"After a life lived in her parents' shadow, Hope Van Dyne takes up the mantle of the Wasp. Armed with a brilliant mind for science and a flying super-suit made to shrink her down to the size of a wasp, no challenge is too big for Hope to take on (or make tiny)!"

Dormammu

@bbigler - I believe they do listen to the forums, very much so. You cited many examples as evidence of that.

Straycat

This game can't really make those small tweaks that other games do. I mean, I guess they could, but it wouldn't work the same way as it does in other games.

Other games can generally fit each character into more of a defined role, and each action is (probably) more defined. Overwatch, each character has a primary attack, and their specials are on timed cooldowns. Fighting games each character has their moves, speeds, damage etc. Here, a well aimed cascade, or a random one, could set you up for multiple attacks. Since there are no real time action, small tweaks don't work the same.

For the most part they have been good about keeping what works and fixing what doesn't in their rebalances. And the changes they do make aren't that mind boggling to me. They are often a product of the recent trends. What's hot right now? Tile based conditions (Nebula, Dazzler, Prowler, etc) and repeaters that make tiles (Emma, Nebula, Panther, etc). When Mordo was done, ap based powers were hot, so thats how he got his new purple. Tho I personally enjoyed his previous version better

Jaedenkaal

Also worth mentioning that, for a very long time, it's been clear that Demi considers the original version of the character "on budget". By which I mean, it's been an extremely long time (Sam Wilson, maybe?) since a character redo was a complete upgrade. In basically all cases, there are tradeoffs. Sometimes the new "on budget" version lines up with what players like (Wasp). Sometimes, not so much (Kingpin).

AardvarkPepper

Dormammu said:

Why does Demi do this? Why do they 're-balance' their characters into unrecognizable versions of themselves? Do they not understand that this alienates players who love that character?

Personally I don't like the change to 4* Fantastic.  I commented to that effect at some length on the Character Discussion board, where the sticky post re: the 4* Fantastic rework redirects.

But when we get this question "why" and have phrases like "it's insulting" "mind-boggling" &c - . . . yeah.  I mean I'm against the change.  But that doesn't see why I couldn't see why, AT LEAST IN THEORY, these changes may have been made.

All the following is purely speculative.  But see if it makes sense.

1.  Let's assume reported use of Mister Fantastic was low.  For whatever reason, let's say that's what the metrics were.  (And Brigby commented to that effect in the aforementioned thread).

2.  Let's say that the old Mister Fantastic was niche usage.  To those that would comment "but no, not so much as he is now" - I'll get to that in a moment.

3.  What ARE the meta-defining 4*s?  What are the 4*s you want in the early 3*-4* transition?  What are the 4*s you want late in the 4*-5* transition?  This is the tricky point, and the point that I'd say most justifies the change.  (Not that I personally agree with it.)

3A:  Let's say you want 4* Medusa, 4* Rocket and Groot, then 4* Carnage early in the 3*-4* transition.  4* Rocket and Groot combines with 3* Doctor Strange to cut times in PvE SCL 7.  4* Medusa takes over 3* Hawkeye's job of punishing passives that generate specials in PvE SCL 7, and does a better job of it.  4* Carnage produces specials that feed Medusa (but which also are used with a load of other powers, ranging from 3* Bullseye purple to 3* Falcon yellow matches to . . . whatever.  My point being he's great with Medusa but also enough that he's worth bringing up as something of a priority when considering both Medusa and synergy with other characters in general that boost / punish friendly/enemy specials).

Then what?  Then let's say you want some other characters, so you go 4* Bishop, 4* Deadpool.  Other characters you're going to have because of daily rewards and/or feeders, so 4* Captain Marvel, 4* Agent Coulson.  Then too, there are other utility characters, let's say 4* Vulture, but also 4* Jean Grey, 4* Iceman, you could say 4* Cloak and Dagger, a few others.

But you see what I'm getting at.  Of these "priority" 4*s, old Mister Fantastic didn't really make the cut.  Sure he had health generation, but he wasn't a priority because Medusa's punishing / benefiting from specials was better.  Sure he had tile swaps, AP generation, and Prot tile generation off blue, and chip damage off black, but as good as those were, they weren't, on balance, a *priority*.  At best I think I'd say 4* Mister Fantastic was maybe middling in the middle tier of characters, really great at what he did, true, no doubt about it.  But THOUGH he was great at it, on BALANCE, EVEN those great powers STILL weren't enough to make him a favored character, that's what I'm getting at.

3B:  Now let's say you're later in the 4*-5* transition.  So let's say you have a broad roster of championed 4*s and perhaps some 13-cover 5*s even if they're not championed.  Now consider the changes to new 4* Fantastic.  The old defensive ability and chip damage were nice.  But when you're talking BOOSTED championed 4* characters, (and I make that distinction, BOOSTED championed 4*s) and championed 5*s, then what?  Then you just had this shortfall.  The thousand team heal, the thousand chip damage, not bad!  But when you're talking 30K hit points instead of 15K, old Fantastic's black chip didn't mean much, and when you're talking boosted champed 4* damage scale, 1000 team heal just isn't that great.  Or 1400 whatever it was.

SO what am I working towards?

What I'm saying is if you were early in the 3*-4* transition and knew what you were doing, you probably didn't build old 4* Fantastic.  So it old 4* Fantastic didn't matter.  If you were late in the 3*-4* transition and had an effective boosted roster in PvP, then old 4* Fantastic just didn't keep pace with the numbers.  So old 4* Fantastic STILL didn't matter.  So, though granted again, in theory AND in practice old 4* Fantastic COULD be good in the right niche situations, it was a pretty narrowly defined niche.  Theoretically.

So come to today.  Now we have new 4* Fantastic.  And is he better for players in the early 3*-4* transition?  No, certainly not.  He's less generally useful as a tactical tool, he doesn't stand on his own nearly as much, rather than having to rely on a single friendly tile generator, now he needs both enemies and friendlies to perform to best benefit, and he lost his chip black for a RNG whatever - all those things are things that make him far worse for most matchups FOR PLAYERS IN THE EARLY 3*-4* TRANSITION.  WHO WOULDN'T BUILD HIM ANYWAYS.  (Theoretically).

But for players in the later 4*-5* transition?  Well you drop a 9 AP TU from 3* Storm, then suddenly 4* Fantastic's blue is more cost efficient for damage/AP than 5* Thor!  And it has stun to boot.  Sure the 9 AP cost is expensive, but if you can fire blue 2-3 times, then . . . yeah.  And though that 24K damage is overkill against weaker opponents, again - IF your meta is championed boosted 4*s and championed 5*s, then you want that damage.  And again, if you're firing those yellow procs, it's kind of trash if you have a limited roster (as with players in the earlier 3*-4* transition) but if you have a load of boosted 4*s to choose from, there's more chance you have synergistic boosted picks that will benefit from the yellow 4th proc.

WOW!  A 4* POWER THAT BEATS A 5* POWER!  PASSIVE FIRING OF POWERS!  WOWOWOWW! (or maybe "yeh that's worth thinking about" at least)

So NOW (or so the argument MIGHT go theoretically), new 4* Fantastic is ACTUALLY USED by some players, rather than just collecting dust on a back shelf.

And there is nothing insulting or mind-boggling in any of that fairly rational line of thought - provided you make certain assumptions on behalf of the developers..

==

My objection stems from - players with deep benches already had enough toys.  Why give them another?  Mind also what I wrote that old Fantastic had better general utility, meaning the players with deep benches got another toy; the players without deep benches had a toy taken away.  Even though I might follow the rationale (theoretically), I don't like it.  Mind who knows why they actually did it, not that I would know.

MarcusGraves

bbigler said:

I'm almost convinced that the people in charge of new character design don't actually play the game (or at least they don't play competitively).    

This

Dormammu said:

@bbigler - I believe they do listen to the forums, very much so. You cited many examples as evidence of that.

And this are 2 VERY important things.

I am pretty positive that the balance team simply does not actually play the game or by some miracle they're really bad at it. This game really is not rocket science, if you're experienced at it (who the designers/balancers of all people should 100% be) you can look at a character's set of powers and see why they would be slow, ineffective or not function cohesively, there's examples of them simply not understanding this either.

Why is Emma bad? Her powers are slow as all hell for their low impact, her actual balance of even being able to function teeters on keeping her very fragile randomly placed repeater tiles on the board while the thing that's supposed to help protect them is too expensive at 11 black. How to fix? really easy, actually doesn't even need a rework. Purple from 10 to 8 AP, black from 11 to 9 AP and give 25% match damage resist at all ranks in diamond form(drop the 325% boost to 300% if you must), and let yellow be a tile we can place where we want on yellows. Done, easy, doesn't even take 5 hours to come up with a fix like this yet the character still sucks as hard as a black hole. 

Why is 4* Black Panther actually really powerful (in my opinion at least) yet no one actually ever uses him? Well that would be because the ENTIRE character's ability to function is tied to his very, very important yellow power that he has no way of protecting, not blowing up the turn after he uses it. How to fix? easy, rank 5 of the ability fortifies the tile. Not a hard fix, still hasn't happened.

These are the same people that thought giving 5* Gambit free AP destroy with his black on his first rebalance was supposed to be a nerf, that in of itself says a lot.

As for them listening to forums, listening and actually understanding what to do with that information does matter. We tell them we need supports to be more accessible, watch them just add support tokens as top placement rewards instead of them being in progression rewards.

Yepyep

Dormammu said:

...
When it comes to balancing characters, the developers of MPQ completely baffle me. In every other (online) game I've ever played if a character/class needed to be balanced to prevent one character from being over/under-powered, adjustments are made to their existing abilities. Does a character/class do too much damage? Let's tweak it down a little. Does a character/class have a defensive power that isn't performing as well as others? Let's beef it up a little. In other words, the balancing comes from adjusting the numbers up or down - not giving them entirely new abilities.

But when D3 'balances' a character, more often than not they reformat the character entirely into something that doesn't even resemble the prior build. It's mind-boggling. That's why it's so hard to call what happened to Reed (and many other characters before him) a nerf. Technically, a 'nerf' would be a lessening his previous abilities, which didn't happen. D3 just gave him an entirely new set of abilities! And a lot of us were like... what? What was wrong with Reed?

To me, it's insulting to the player base to do what D3 Demi does. Imagine if an MMO developers did this - just throw away the entire build of a character/class and gave them a completely different build. Everyone who played and enjoyed that character/class would feel spit on, especially if they had invested money into the game.
...
Why does Demi do this? Why do they 're-balance' their characters into unrecognizable versions of themselves? Do they not understand that this alienates players who love that character?

Dormammu said:

I support what happened to OML. He was actually nerfed in the true sense of the word. It can (and has) been debated if he deserved it, but at least he wasn't rebuilt from the ground up.

This is a really important insight and the most accurate description of the real problem with the change to Mr. F., in my opinion. 

It's pretty difficult to come up with analogous situations and the best I could come up with is a politician who switches parties after you vote for them. My representative in my (U.S.A.) states senate is a guy named Simcha Felder. Nominally, he is a democrat and his district is historically democratic and liberal. Yet when he was elected in 2012, he immediately joined the majority Republican conference -- for the sake of power and influence -- and has been rated one of the state senate's most conservative members. This is most definitely not the representation I voted for... Thereafter, he continued to caucus with Republicans, providing the vote needed to make them the majority in at least one year. The in 2019 when Democrats won a majority, Felder tried to join their conference! (His offer, just a new power grab, was declined.)

It's a form of bait and switch. It feels like fraud or unlawful conversion, whether legal or not. Mr. F. is a new character with an old face. Without question, he is not the same character I put time, effort, and treasure into collecting and then champing a couple of months ago.

Yepyep

Jaedenkaal said:

Also worth mentioning that, for a very long time, it's been clear that Demi considers the original version of the character "on budget". By which I mean, it's been an extremely long time (Sam Wilson, maybe?) since a character redo was a complete upgrade. In basically all cases, there are tradeoffs. Sometimes the new "on budget" version lines up with what players like (Wasp). Sometimes, not so much (Kingpin).

This brings to mind something I wrote in another related thread. If you'll forgive my quoting myself re the relevant point:

As for the nerf vs. buff question, there's a good argument to be made that, stun notwithstanding, board manipulation is the premier power in the game. I think taking that power away, by itself, makes this a nerf. But not a major nerf because there was never that much in Reed to nerf. Which brings me to the question everyone is asking: why him? I agree completely that Thing is much more in need of a re-work but I don't think anyone here predicts that a Thing re-work will be a nerf -- and, as a general matter, there might be well-founded institutional concern that buffs are likelier to have unintended, detrimental consequences than nerfs are likely to have.

(My full post is here: Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards) Character Rework (1/9/19))

HoundofShadow

The only thing true are:

1) whatever the devs do, they can never satisfy every single player. One group of players will be happy, and the other groups unhappy.  If you were in their shoes, what would you do? Do nothing?

2) Many still think that their opinions represents the majority of the MPQ players; therefore, the devs don't listen to the players or they don't understand how 5* players play if their suggestions have not been implemented. The devs addressed something about speed many years ago. So, I doubt it's a case of not understanding 5* gameplay, but they simply aren't going the route of every or majority of new releases have to be stronger or better than previous characters.

Here it is:

At the top of the leaderboards, Versus is geared towards playing fast (to avoid being hit while unshielded) rather than playing creatively with diverse rosters. The 'fastest' teams dominate. Are you comfortable with this element of the game?

A: Yes and no: In any multiplayer game, high-end competition is going to be a somewhat different game than what most people are playing. There are fewer viable strategies and they’re typically a little less expressive and creative. We’re comfortable with the fact that some of the characters we release won’t find a role in that environment and are just there to be fun and interesting for folks that are less focused on being at the top. We do want the top of the leaderboards to be an interesting place to be, and intend to continue shaking things up with new characters and balance changes when we see a single team composition dominating. But speed will probably always be more important at the top than it is for most players.

TPF Alexis

Straycat said:

This game can't really make those small tweaks that other games do. I mean, I guess they could, but it wouldn't work the same way as it does in other games.

Other games can generally fit each character into more of a defined role, and each action is (probably) more defined. Overwatch, each character has a primary attack, and their specials are on timed cooldowns. Fighting games each character has their moves, speeds, damage etc. Here, a well aimed cascade, or a random one, could set you up for multiple attacks. Since there are no real time action, small tweaks don't work the same.

There are still tons of tweaks that can be made. Adjust AP costs. Adjust damage dealt. Adjust Character Health. Adjust Match Damage (almost exclusively a 5* thing so far, but there's no real reason for it to remain so). Adjust the strength of special tiles that are created. Add or remove Fortification for tiles that are created. Shift how a power improves with different numbers of covers so there are decent builds other than 5/5/5. All kinds of ways to adjust abilities without completely rewriting them.

jamesh

One thing to keep in mind is that this game has been running for 5 years and the character design philosophy has changed over that time.  So these rebalancing opportunities are as much about modernising the old characters.

Over the years they've also introduced many new effects that can be used by powers that make the game seem more interesting.  So the old characters that rely on a smaller set of effects can seem boring or utilitarian.  Simply tweaking AP costs or damage numbers doesn't change that.  The Mr. F rebalance seems to be an example of this type of modernisation, where they made use of the "fire a free power" effect that was didn't exist prior to Mockingbird, together with an accumulator introduced for Valkyrie (although in this case accumulating matched special tiles rather than damage).

Kolence

HoundofShadow said:

The only thing true are:

1) whatever the devs do, they can never satisfy every single player. One group of players will be happy, and the other groups unhappy.  If you were in their shoes, what would you do? Do nothing?

2) Many still think that their opinions represents the majority of the MPQ players; therefore, the devs don't listen to the players or they don't understand how 5* players play if their suggestions have not been implemented. The devs addressed something about speed many years ago. So, I doubt it's a case of not understanding 5* gameplay, but they simply aren't going the route of every or majority of new releases have to be stronger or better than previous characters.

Here it is:

At the top of the leaderboards, Versus is geared towards playing fast (to avoid being hit while unshielded) rather than playing creatively with diverse rosters. The 'fastest' teams dominate. Are you comfortable with this element of the game?

A: Yes and no: In any multiplayer game, high-end competition is going to be a somewhat different game than what most people are playing. There are fewer viable strategies and they’re typically a little less expressive and creative. We’re comfortable with the fact that some of the characters we release won’t find a role in that environment and are just there to be fun and interesting for folks that are less focused on being at the top. We do want the top of the leaderboards to be an interesting place to be, and intend to continue shaking things up with new characters and balance changes when we see a single team composition dominating. But speed will probably always be more important at the top than it is for most players.

1) Of course they shouldn't do nothing. They should do better though. Just look at the example of first Gambit rework. Within a day, if not hours, people were pointing out here on the forum how horrible it would be to play against his AP drain without a mirror match. 

2) There's a difference between new releases being stronger than previous ones and new releases being able at all to compete in their tier. I have seen a couple rosters with Wasp as the only 5* champ character, and I'd hate to be in those players' shoes...

Straycat said:

This game can't really make those small tweaks that other games do. I mean, I guess they could, but it wouldn't work the same way as it does in other games.

Other games can generally fit each character into more of a defined role, and each action is (probably) more defined. Overwatch, each character has a primary attack, and their specials are on timed cooldowns. Fighting games each character has their moves, speeds, damage etc. Here, a well aimed cascade, or a random one, could set you up for multiple attacks. Since there are no real time action, small tweaks don't work the same.

For the most part they have been good about keeping what works and fixing what doesn't in their rebalances. And the changes they do make aren't that mind boggling to me. They are often a product of the recent trends. What's hot right now? Tile based conditions (Nebula, Dazzler, Prowler, etc) and repeaters that make tiles (Emma, Nebula, Panther, etc). When Mordo was done, ap based powers were hot, so thats how he got his new purple. Tho I personally enjoyed his previous version better

It's turn based and we're gathering AP or otherwise trying to manipulate the board to trigger passive powers. There must be room for small tweaks that affect the speed of all that even if a random lucky (or unlucky) board can skew it sometimes.

In fact, when I try a less strong team that could still have nice synergies (or so I imagine in my head) and bring it against one of the top teams, I'll usually struggle to execute the scenario exactly as I would've wanted. The AI will seem to "get lucky" matches much more than I do and I'm likely to lose a character or the oportunity to fire his move for best effect just before being ready to do it, etc. And if I get an early favorable cascade (nothing too crazy), it can all go smoothly. Conversly, when I bring a top team, I might even lose one of the characters, sometimes quite early, and still be able to win in the end. More often than not.


Well anyway... In case of Mr F, he was one of the characters with a unique power (Flexibility, the blue one) in the whole game. Only 2 other characters (well, technically 3 if you count Bag-Man) that can swap two tiles, and Reed was the most versatile one with simultaneous stun, adding protect tiles and fortified tiles.

And if the swapping was one of the reasons for the change for possible interactions with other powers, there were ways to change it just a little, instead of turning it into another big damage move. There are quite enough of those in the game already.

For instance, if it was changed to something like "select two basic tiles, change their color making sure it doesn't match any neighbouring tiles, then create protect tiles on them and fortify them". That would ensure it can't chain into other powers except by setting up a match-5 (very rare in this case), while still leaving the rest of the utility it had. And it could still be a puzzly move with enough time or desire to study the board a little, before making a move. For me, that would be an example of a "minor" change or a tweak even if no damage numbers are directly involved...

Why the devs don't do it? What do I know. Maybe it's about time available, or what pays better. For Mr F particularly, I feel like it was a combination of Marvel FF4 celebration and devs wishing to try an idea about making Reed better. I like to believe the characters are their toys too, after all. Though part of their job is to also make players enjoy playing with said toys.

DAZ0273

For what it's worth (and this is a year and a bit old) here is a link to a re-tell of a Discord Q&A with Demiurge Patch following the 4* Ghost Rider rebalance. It references as Jaedenkaal said above "budget" when considering what to change and what you can "spend" on doing so. Whether that just means the "budget" was ripped up for Mr. F I dunno.

http://mpqtips.com/2017/08/23/mpq-characters-rebalanced/

Straycat

TPF Alexis said:

There are still tons of tweaks that can be made. Adjust AP costs. Adjust damage dealt. Adjust Character Health. Adjust Match Damage (almost exclusively a 5* thing so far, but there's no real reason for it to remain so). Adjust the strength of special tiles that are created. Add or remove Fortification for tiles that are created. Shift how a power improves with different numbers of covers so there are decent builds other than 5/5/5. All kinds of ways to adjust abilities without completely rewriting them.

Still tho, those aren't minor tweaks. Look at Mr Fantastic, 7 ap stun to 8. 1 ap, yet it makes a world of difference. I think about 5* Loki. If his repeater was 2 turns instead of 3, that would be a huge change.

Adding fortification or increasing specials would be stealth nerfs/buffs to characters that create or utilize fortified tiles or that steal specials.

AP/ countdown turns are big changes, conversely damage numbers are small changes.  The same reason why the "ignore protect tiles" power is largely unnoticed. Its rare to set up a nuke or AOE and KO them by a small margin. A character is good or bad mostly on their kit/ team synergy vs raw ouput, IMO.

Yepyep

Straycat said:

TPF Alexis said:

There are still tons of tweaks that can be made. Adjust AP costs. Adjust damage dealt. Adjust Character Health. Adjust Match Damage (almost exclusively a 5* thing so far, but there's no real reason for it to remain so). Adjust the strength of special tiles that are created. Add or remove Fortification for tiles that are created. Shift how a power improves with different numbers of covers so there are decent builds other than 5/5/5. All kinds of ways to adjust abilities without completely rewriting them.

Still tho, those aren't minor tweaks. Look at Mr Fantastic, 7 ap stun to 8. 1 ap, yet it makes a world of difference. I think about 5* Loki. If his repeater was 2 turns instead of 3, that would be a huge change.

Adding fortification or increasing specials would be stealth nerfs/buffs to characters that create or utilize fortified tiles or that steal specials.

AP/ countdown turns are big changes, conversely damage numbers are small changes.  The same reason why the "ignore protect tiles" power is largely unnoticed. Its rare to set up a nuke or AOE and KO them by a small margin. A character is good or bad mostly on their kit/ team synergy vs raw ouput, IMO.

This is an argument for investing in careful, structured testing planned by engineers and executed by veteran players. 

ThaRoadWarrior

Straycat said:

AP/ countdown turns are big changes, conversely damage numbers are small changes.   

those changes have implications to how effective that character is in the speed-based meta (in fact both of those are specifically sub-knobs being turned to adjust the larger knob labeled "turns to efficacy:), but they are still balance tweaks vs a total discard and re-think of the entire concept of a character and how you play them.