Speed and New Releases

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Dormammu
Dormammu Posts: 3,531 Chairperson of the Boards
in MPQ General Discussion
I was just looking over the Namor announcement and noting his AP costs. Every time a new character is announced or released the AP costs of their abilities play a large role in determining if said character is 'good' or 'bad'. This is because speed rules the meta. This is not news. Speed has ruled the meta since launch when 3Magneto and Ragnarok were unstoppable forces of destruction. So looking at Namor, he seems 'bad' at first glance.

This has been an alarming trend among newer releases. Take Emma Frost, a classic example of this trend; a nifty concept for a character who is completely spoiled by the obscene cost of her powers. Why do we consider the last two 5-star releases, Kingpin and Cable, to be 'bottom tier'? High AP costs. Too slow. They simply can't compete against the meta; they have no chance. They don't have time to gather four (or more!) matches of a color before the freight train that is Grockitty runs them over. There's no time to set up while withstanding that onslaught.

The developers should have recognized this a long time ago. Any new character released with three expensive powers is considered immediate rubbish. No one wants them. No one will use them. A character should have at minimum one cheap(ish) power or an accelerating passive. Now, I'm not saying we should go back to the days of Magneto annihilating everyone for 2AP, but speed is critical in both modes of the game (PvP & PvE).

As players, we don't need more bench-warming obsolete relics that are only rostered because of essential nodes. We need the meta to expand, and the meta can expand. PvP doesn't have to be nothing but Thor/Okoye or Kitty/Grocket at the 5-star tier. It doesn't have to be nothing but Medusa, Grocket, and Gamora at the 4-star tier. Thanos doesn't have to be the only answer in PvE. We can have those things and something else.

But for that to happen, the developers need to start recognizing they have created a culture of speed. How fast can I do three clears in PvP before shielding? How fast can I do 40+ node clears in PvE so I can get top 10? How can I be faster-quicker-go-go-go?

Simply said, characters with three massive AP costs need to be a thing of the past.
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Comments

  • Straycat
    Straycat Posts: 963 Critical Contributor
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    They can't fix the speed meta tho. Speed isn't just about rewards in the meta, its part of every single match. The longer the match goes on, the more match damage you take and the more ap the enemy gets, the more likely you are going to lose.
    Maybe they are trying to fix it by having more death mechanics. It was just Phoenix for a while, but now there's Cap, Loki, and GEDoom.
    I don't think a 3 expensive power character is necessarily a bad thing if handled well. If a power is good enough we really only need the one, we can just ignore the others. Namor is kinda like Mordo or Sandman. Most people rate them very low, but then some defenders come out to say they use them a lot for their one good power. Problem is none of Namor's powers are that good.
  • Tony_Foot
    Tony_Foot Posts: 1,710 Chairperson of the Boards
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    They understand it, they have already said they are looking at halting it somehow. That’s probably why they are not adding to the problem and those characters might become more relevant once they sort out the thanos and co issues.

    but then you run into the problem of upsetting people who are used to 20 minute pve clears.
  • Phumade
    Phumade Posts: 2,477 Chairperson of the Boards
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    high cost is fine.  You just have to use accelerators.  Both Thor and Okoye have fairly expensive  powers but that's all mitigated by thor's 1/2 passive.  There are quite a few chars that shine with you pack them with the right accelerator partners.
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,115 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I agree with all of this......In the beginning, matches took longer, strategies were slower. People still made fast teams, but fast back then is slow now. The game has always rewarded fast play, but when you run out of health packs, you choose slower more resilient teams. There are several factors that have created the current fast environment:
    1) placement rewards drive the need for speed
    2) increased health packs to 10 allows "reckless" playing
    3) offensive passive powers, like Thanos, Grocket, Medusa, etc give players faster teams
    4) AP batteries, like Thor, allow faster play too.

    The only way to slow down the game is to remove everything mentioned above. You would have to gut and remake the entire game. So, there's no going back now. In order for new characters to be useful, they need to be either: fast in offense, very defensive, create winfinite combos or specialize in boss battles or waves. Everything else will sit the bench and be farmed for rewards. 
  • KGB
    KGB Posts: 2,937 Chairperson of the Boards
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    HoundofShadow said:
    Not every player plays for speed. The number of competitive players in PvE or even PvP are not more than top 50 on average, which is 5% per 1000 players. It doesn't make logical sense to design character based on just 5% of the playerbase. 

     Anyway, this was answered back in 2014:

    Q: 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.


    This might look dated, but looking at past few releases, it still seems to be pretty true.
    I understand this totally and I also believe you are right that only 5% are playing for speed.

    That said, the bigger problem is that they aren't even making these characters interesting if you are a player not playing for speed. New mechanics or unique combos are needed on these slower characters. The rebalance to Mr F is a classic illustration of this issue where his unique power (swapping tiles which at 4* level only he and Coulson have) was removed. I honestly think players would have been a lot less annoyed at the rebalance if the tile swap was left in place on the Blue power (even if the rest of it changed to it's new functionality).

    The other thing is that when they release dead-in-the-water characters like Emma or 5* Banner etc they don't address them in anything like a remotely timely manner. We recognize that Namor is way to cumbersome to be even in the upper half of 4* land but a few minor tweaks to give unique skills (letting player select where the trident hits even if part of it goes off the board so you can target enemy specials and letting player select which enemy AP pool to drain) would help him a lot. But waiting 1-2 years for this just makes him rot along with a bunch of other characters who could be improved with similar minor tweaks rather that major reworks.


    KGB
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2019
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    Hound,

    Sure, the speed game is most important for the to 5 or 10% of players.

    But it also matters for less competitive players for to pure volume.  Mpq rewards players for dozens of matches per day.  Faster matches mean more/better rewards per hour played even if you never place in the top 100.

    Sure, you might say  that there is more to mpq than rewards. But I sort of disagree; it's a roster building game and rewards = bigger/better roster.  It's as close to a sine qua non as any entertainment product can get.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2019
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    My opinion is that there are more than speed and rewards to MPQ. When I first started playing MPQ in late 2017, I was overwhelmed by the number of characters in the game. It took me a while to rationalize things. I  went through every single character ability in-game, categorize them and simply prioritize them for each tier, according to whom I like best. I'm aware that not every character is my cup of tea. My plan doesn't always work out and I have to champed some other 4* characters who are not in my priority list. I simply re-look at that character and adapt.

    As for character abilities, some players like tiles destruction, some like to watch their opponents get stunned, some like to watch their special tiles buffed up turn after turn  etc. There are different strategies catered to different group of players. Just because 5% or 10% of the players are speeding or bruteforcing through the game doesn't mean that every single character has to be catered to them, and designed with these players in mind.

    In any game, you have to cater to at least two group of players: competitive and non-competitive players. That explains the difference in rewards and whether that character is the new meta.


    As for MPQ is all about speed,  like what other posters said, how fast do you want a match to end? 10 seconds? 20 seconds? 3 turns?

    I se a lot of unhappy players commenting everytime there's a new event because the rewards aren't as good as CoT or maybe Palace of Power. They can't play MPQ without putting rewards on the top of the list. That's why they are usually unhappy. In their mind, every new event rewards must be as good as the event with the best rewards, if not better. 

    As for challenges, the last few times the devs came up with something challenging, we got tons of crying: Fight for Wakanda, Palace of Powers and Sinister 600.  


  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 9,618 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2019
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    Passives changed everything.

    We all know that passives rule the meta, when passives have requirements players will do whatever they can to influence things to take advantage (Half health Thor). What can be quicker than 0AP? Any character who doesn't have a passive needs to have lower AP costs to compensate or they are cast adrift. I have a 0/2/2 Kitty Pryde and she is fine but she can't be Gritty without that passive and thus I am not annoying people in SHIELD Sim.

    Personally I like using my roster and am not anywhere near the top of the scoreboards, so I'll use sub-optimal characters but that said I still see the value of a Rocket/Groot speed in PvE because it is  timesink regardless of scoreboards.
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,115 Chairperson of the Boards
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    marshall said:
    We just need different game modes where other factors are important:

    - Board shake (e.g. destroy X tiles in X time, match tile X for a Y number of times)
    - Damage avoidance (e.g. enemy spams damage after x rounds and you need a combo of healers, protect tiles or damage denying abilities)
    - No passives/special tiles (e.g. only active abilities can damage opponent)
    - Team Lockouts (e.g. you can only use a member of your team once per slice, no 5*s)
     - Balance of Power PvE (i.e. all characters operate at level 550, or 250)
    - Single or Two character matches (e.g. incentive to use perfect counter to a specific character or character combo)
    - Hoard Mode (e.g. character can only cause damage to opponents after round 10)
    - No Tanking (e.g. all characters share damage equally)

    We are already have Kaecilius and Apocalypse as good examples of this concept where conditions need to be met for victory.

    This is a great idea! It's been said before, but this comment is more developed. I would love an entire 3 day event where these factors are crucial to either beating enemies or getting rewards. We need more variety, more puzzles and less mindless speed battles. I'm caught in it too, I play the speed game because I want the rewards because I want to build my roster faster so that I can get better faster characters. The reward for competitive play is more competitive play, but at a higher level. 
  • wingX
    wingX Posts: 252 Mover and Shaker
    edited January 2019
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    They need to have ability to stop passive for at least 1 turn or at the start of the battle or something, will be interesting if that happen.
    For new character that come out on the future, I hope developer will design character ability that interact well with older/lower tiers characters so that those character can be useful. (e.g like 4* Spider-man that make Miles and Gwen become better).
  • Straycat
    Straycat Posts: 963 Critical Contributor
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    Vhailorx said:
    Straycat said:
    They can't fix the speed meta tho. Speed isn't just about rewards in the meta, its part of every single match. The longer the match goes on, the more match damage you take and the more ap the enemy gets, the more likely you are going to lose.
    Maybe they are trying to fix it by having more death mechanics. It was just Phoenix for a while, but now there's Cap, Loki, and GEDoom.
    I don't think a 3 expensive power character is necessarily a bad thing if handled well. If a power is good enough we really only need the one, we can just ignore the others. Namor is kinda like Mordo or Sandman. Most people rate them very low, but then some defenders come out to say they use them a lot for their one good power. Problem is none of Namor's powers are that good.

    I think this is missing the point in the same way that Demi is missing the point.

    Demi keeps trying to make characters with viable, longer-run designs intend to help them outlast the opposing team.  5* kingpin is a clear example of this.  His black defensive tile + his ap-drain abilities are clearly meant to help help him survive long enough for his green and blue damage abilities to add up.  They keep on trying to make this type of character, let's call them "slow and steady" characters, with mixed success (kingpin and wasp are very bad, Loki is meh, 4* cage is a great example of this design ethos working well in that tier). 

    But it just doesnt matter because of factors that have nothing to do with character design at all. Phoenix' green for was far and away the most efficient aoe power in the game when released, even with the self damage.  But no one cared because playing with the intent of resurrecting her to use that aoe would more or less make optimal pve grinding and 3 match shield hops impossible.  So everyone played her 3/5/5, ignored her green entirely, and dropped her for better 5*s as soon as they came out (which took a while actually, probably until BB).

    Adding more, better 'slow and steady' characters won't fix the problem. Character design cannot solve a problem with the game's scoring mechanics. 


    To be fair I didn't say that revives or passives that reward death are the right answer. But I disagree, I think good character design is the only answer. They can't change how our brains work, so we will basically always choose speed. But there are tons of examples of it working in the other tiers. A slower character can still be viable, if they are good enough.
    Richyyy said:
    You shouldn't have to make events interesting for yourself by using teams/characters that are below your best option just for the sake of it
    Yes, it is up to you to have fun. Make the game more puzzley for yourself. The win conditions are always the same, but the way to get there can be wildly different if you let it. If you're bored you have 2 options, play less or play less boring.

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