To Devs - Marvel puzzle quest or Marvel vs. kitty ?

tiomono

Kolence said:

I'm not convinced. In that video, Gritty side was down to 3 strike tiles after 3 moves. That was a relatively lucky board, albeit, the attacker brought SWitch along, presumably for her cascade potential, which paid off nicely that time.

Anyway, I agree with Polares about what makes a team OP. I've seen a player with 15+ champed 5-stars (including the best ones) climb and float in the Avengers pvp recently with something like 420 Kitty and Rocket and Bishop champed. Both of them were not boosted in that event too. That player finished the event in top 10, CL 9.  

Bishop is super broken, against 5-star players. If the solution for a 5-star roster to fight a Bishop team in pvp is using your 4-stars instead of 5-stars, something is wrong, because the rest of how the game works, will punish you for it.

Kitty isn't broken at all, without instant strike tiles from the get go. Sure, with special tile spammers, she'd still be very good, but nowhere near as punishing as with Rocket currently. Her purple can also be a bit of a problem against some older 5-stars, but I guess that's power creep so it's ok...

All Rocket needs to have changed is start the match with 0 strike tiles (or at least under 4 or better yet 3, for Kitty + X-Men) and make 7-9 by turn 4 and then make no more. So pve would require more time? That's more of a separate issue to me, but even so, it would be 2 or 3 more moves per match. And considering many rosters take more time between consecutive matches out of actual fight, I don't see it as bad. To me, the mind numbing repetitiveness of pve is a much bigger problem.

Again the video was not to claim a counter to gritty. But to show a fast team that hits above its weight. If a team can bring a 3* to a 5* fight, win, and that be considered ok. Then a team with a 4* that can beat 5* teams reliably should be ok too. I use gritty alot, and it is possible to wipe with them. They are not an auto win and are very health pack hungry.

jp1

It seems pretty cut and dry here.

Do you have Kitty/Rocket/Bishop? 

Yes - You are against the nerf unless you also have Okoye/Thor. 

No - You are pro nerf as long as it doesn’t hit your roster and choice team. Okoye/Thor don’t need a nerf because....reasons.?.?.

Of course I’m making a huge generalization there that won’t cover everyone. You can absolutely smell the sour grapes though. What do those smell like again?

Boy, I don’t envy the Demiurge team for this game if they have to address all this at their meetings. No wonder we can’t get all the other new stuff we want. I would hesitate to put out anything good/useful as well when this is the feedback they get.

Kolence

Well, I disagree. The key word is "reliably". It matters how reliable the team is. Also matters if the team you used opens you to attacks on defense. And speaking of health packs and defense, it matters who is spending more health packs, Gritty team on offense or other teams attacking Gritty on defense.

Gritty teams and especially with Bishop are obviously doing well, as they can be found at higher scores in brackets. So, either players are attacking them and enough of them wipe on offense, or many just skip and leave them alone (not willing to risk spending health packs), altogether. ( Or both. )

The other option also has the negative consequnce that those players who have skipped Gritty or Bishop will need to find other different teams to hit even more instead, or don't play at all, after a point.

tiomono

jp1 said:

It seems pretty cut and dry here.

Do you have Kitty/Rocket/Bishop? 

Yes - You are against the nerf unless you also have Okoye/Thor. 

No - You are pro nerf as long as it doesn’t hit your roster and choice team. Okoye/Thor don’t need a nerf because....reasons.?.?.

Of course I’m making a huge generalization there that won’t cover everyone. You can absolutely smell the sour grapes though. What do those smell like again?

Boy, I don’t envy the Demiurge team for this game if they have to address all this at their meetings. No wonder we can’t get all the other new stuff we want. I would hesitate to put out anything good/useful as well when this is the feedback they get.

Like I said, I do have gritty. I just think there are better options than nerfing. Counterplay is key. Can a team be reliably countered by another strategy? For gritty, yes there is a rock solid counter in one character because he nueters grocket, black suit spidey. Another option in 5* land is thorkoye. They produce enough board shake and heal to shrug off gritty. If you are a 4* player facing gritty teams (even with bishop) you also have several options as have been mentioned here and in other threads.

For 5* teams it gets much dicier with bishop in the mix. But that is a whole other issue from gritty. In the majority of versus events you will only see gritty because you only get to pick 2 characters to go with the featured.

I feel sorry for this horse because it's getting beat way beyond death. They are a strong duo, very strong. But they are not the only very strong combo. And they can be reliably beaten by a variety of teams. And beaten by some teams with a bit of luck.

I feel if anything, grocket needs tweaked. 7 free tiles at turn 0 is what makes kitty an issue.

jp1

@tiomono - Yes, I agree with almost all of that. Except the part about tweaking Grocket.

My post was meant for a select few who clearly do not have Kitty/Rocket and see them as a free ticket to the top of PVP. Since I too have them, wipe all the time, take defensive losses all the time (from varied opponents), and never even place top 20 in PVP despite how hard I play, I know this to be false. I can only assume that if someone thinks the combo is so OP that they need a nerfing, they just haven’t had the experience of using them, and thus don’t have them.

Im not raining supreme in Simulator either with Kitty(461)/Rocket(300)/Bishop(280). The reason for that is not because they aren’t a very strong team...it’s because Bishop costs me a ton of health packs. So many in fact that placement is not possible unless I was to purchase HP for every event.

Clearly from reading posts in this thread, some people get it and present a level argument (a couple even with mentions of tweaks and possible nerfs) and some don’t, those that don’t have obviously not been using these teams consistently because they wouldn’t be presented as cartoonishly OP like they have been.

KGB

jp1 said:

It seems pretty cut and dry here.

Do you have Kitty/Rocket/Bishop? 

Yes - You are against the nerf unless you also have Okoye/Thor. 

No - You are pro nerf as long as it doesn’t hit your roster and choice team. Okoye/Thor don’t need a nerf because....reasons.?.?.

Of course I’m making a huge generalization there that won’t cover everyone. You can absolutely smell the sour grapes though. What do those smell like again?

Boy, I don’t envy the Demiurge team for this game if they have to address all this at their meetings. No wonder we can’t get all the other new stuff we want. I would hesitate to put out anything good/useful as well when this is the feedback they get.

I'd say it's much more narrow than this. It's more like:

1) Are you a 5* transition player with a handful of 5* champs that doesn't include BSSM/Thorkoye *AND* you play PvP.
2) Everyone else.

#1 wants a nerf of Gritty
#2 isn't affected by Gritty / doesn't care.

The % of MPQ players in category #1 is probably <5%, maybe as low as 1-2%. It seems unlikely Demiurge will do anything other than let time pass and newer 5* releases move the meta. If they do anything it would be most likely they'd change Kitty because changing her affects the fewest number of players.

KGB

P.S. Note, Bishop is something else entirely as most here have noted.

JSP869

Kitty doesn't really need a nerf because she's only strong with R4G, and only ridiculously strong with R4G & Bishop. I'd rather not take them on if there's easier targets, but I can still reliably beat them.

Tho & Okoye don't need nerfing either, because that's the team I run and I get clobbered all the time because it's even easier to beat than Gritty.

R4G's "Welcome to the Team" is what makes Gritty painful, and you could fix that, so he'd still be useful but not so horrifically OP straight out of the gate. In an earlier post I suggested a repeater tile that spawns Strikes, but players don't like repeaters. So, what about making it a passive akin to Carnage's Alien Instincts?

Welcome to the Team
(Passive) At the start of the turn, convert one basic tile into a Strike tile of strength 276 (at level 270) for each non-downed member of the Guardian of the Galaxy on the team.  If 7 (at Rank 5) or more friendly Strike tiles are in play, conversion is suspended.

Run R4G with Kitty, or Kitty & and Bishop, and he'll only spawn 1 Strike tile per turn. This simple change to R4G means you would not need to nerf Kitty because she would not be buffing R4G's Strikes up the wahoo until at least Turn 4, and that's only if none of the Strikes get matched away during the first 3 turns.

The beauty of a change like this is it's both a nerf and a buff.
How the feth is this a buff??? I hear you say.
Simple. Welcome to the Team currently creates 7 Strike tiles at the start of the match, then does nothing for the remainder of the match. If those Strike tiles get matched away, that's it, they're gone.

With this change, Welcome to the Team would be constantly adding Strike tiles to the board for the entire match, just as long as there are 6 or fewer friendly Strike tiles on the board at the start of your turn. You have 7 Strikes on the board, one gets matched away, at the start of your next turn R4G adds another Strike tile. Or two Strikes if you pair him with a Guardian. Or three Strikes if you pair him with two Guardians.

This change would mean that if you were to run R4G with Gamora & Star-Lord, by the start of your third turn...well...fourth turn (we know the Player's "start of the turn" passives never resolve at the start of the Player's first turn. Sigh.) you could have up to nine friendly Strike tiles on the board.

And all without nerfing Kitty.

Spudgutter

The problem with the call for *any* nerf is that the majority of the time, they do not go as planned (by us, the players).  I cannot recall a well reasoned nerf, that was generated and suggested by player(s).  If someone with a better memory than mine wants to chime in, please do so.

So, the reality is to everyone calling for a "slight" nerf, sorry, get over it.  It won't happen.  Either you accept that they are the way the are, or they will get beaten bloody and useless by the nerf bat.  Spending any time and energy trying to come up with a solution that is gentle enough to fix the problem while keeping us is happy is, frankly, futile.

You are either on the team that accepts they way they are, or on the team that doesn't and wants them changed to everyone's detriment.

Neuromancer

Spud is correct, it's better to hope for a new character that will introduce a balance. I'd rather the devs pressed on with a fix that included added content rather than mulling over spilled milk.

Taganov

Neuromancer said:

Spud is correct, it's better to hope for a new character that will introduce a balance. I'd rather the devs pressed on with a fix that included added content rather than mulling over spilled milk.

100% with this approach. I've been around long enough to remember the Ragnarok, Sentry, WeaponX, Logan and Gambit nerfs. You guys remember those? Nerfs are a scorched earth approach, no one was happy, and I can't remember the last time any of those characters were relevant. I would MUCH rather devs concentrate on characters that counter or buck the meta. Maybe also a rebalance for the latest 5* parade of banality that has been CM, Rescue, Fatpin, etc.

helix72

I have a champed Grocket, and a barely usable 1/1/1 Kitty. For me and I suspect a higher percentage of the MPQ player base, nerfing Grocket would affect a lot more people than nerfing Kitty.

Here are two ideas:

1) Give her "the Gambit": at the start of turn, if one does not exist, Kitty makes a fortified 3-turn CD tile that strengthens all friendly Strike, Attack, or Protect tiles on the board when it expires. Slows her down but removes the "must have 4" restriction.

2) For 8 Yellow Kitty becomes invisible. While invisible, increase the strength of 1 random friendly special tile by (insert number here) each turn.

I realize those of you who love Gritty will think these are both bad ideas...

jp1

helix72 said:

I have a champed Grocket, and a barely usable 1/1/1 Kitty. For me and I suspect a higher percentage of the MPQ player base, nerfing Grocket would affect a lot more people than nerfing Kitty.

Here are two ideas:

1) Give her "the Gambit": at the start of turn, if one does not exist, Kitty makes a fortified 3-turn CD tile that strengthens all friendly Strike, Attack, or Protect tiles on the board when it expires. Slows her down but removes the "must have 4" restriction.

2) For 8 Yellow Kitty becomes invisible. While invisible, increase the strength of 1 random friendly special tile by (insert number here) each turn.

I realize those of you who love Gritty will think these are both bad ideas...

That’s a nerf sledgehammer. We don’t need more 3 turn CDs in 5 star land, they have proven weak and unreliable.

Generally, there isn’t any way to “nerf” Kitty without completely reworking her to make her more useful without Rockets attack tiles. We all know that will result in a useless character.

I almost never see anyone with Okoye/Thor champs running Kitty teams, that should say all that needs to be said about the current meta.

Sidenote:
4 Thanos, Meh Hulk, Dazzler, BSSM, GE Doom (to some extent), Hela (to some extent), 5 Thanos, 5 DD, and Thorkoye are all relevant in combating Kitty/Rocket. That’s just a small selection of teams I’ve had beat me in PVP more than once. I think some folks are just ignoring the solutions to combat this team as it is.

tiomono

helix72 said:

I have a champed Grocket, and a barely usable 1/1/1 Kitty. For me and I suspect a higher percentage of the MPQ player base, nerfing Grocket would affect a lot more people than nerfing Kitty.

Here are two ideas:

1) Give her "the Gambit": at the start of turn, if one does not exist, Kitty makes a fortified 3-turn CD tile that strengthens all friendly Strike, Attack, or Protect tiles on the board when it expires. Slows her down but removes the "must have 4" restriction.

2) For 8 Yellow Kitty becomes invisible. While invisible, increase the strength of 1 random friendly special tile by (insert number here) each turn.

I realize those of you who love Gritty will think these are both bad ideas...

They are bad ideas because kitty on her own currently needs to spend 8 yellow, 6 red, and eat power damage before there are enough specials on the board for her to buff. You are taking away her protects to give her invisible. And kitty vs kitty would just be nonstop damage train as her purple overwrites that 3 turn countdown. Not a good fix at all.

Let that marinate..... Think on it a bit longer..... good? Kitty alone is not a problem or even particularly strong. She needs a team. She is only a major threat because of grocket. But even as a major threat there are a variety of teams that can defeat gritty with ease. And nobody will hesitate to attack kitty without grocket present. That is pretty telling that kitty is not the bigger issue in this duo.

ZootSax

tiomono said:
And nobody will hesitate to attack kitty without grocket present. That is pretty telling that kitty is not the bigger issue in this duo.

This is worth highlighting.  I was defeating Lv 360-400 Kitty (even fully covered) + non-Grocket teams using Lv 266 3* Cap, IM40 and Kamala in the PVP simulator without much difficulty...and I have NEVER claimed to be a very good player on this forum.   

Obviously in the right circumstances Kitty teams can get completely out of hand, but the same is true for Ghost, Nico, Riri and many others who literally no one calls for a nerf of even though they are all quite strong in their own right.

tiomono

jp1 said:

helix72 said:

I have a champed Grocket, and a barely usable 1/1/1 Kitty. For me and I suspect a higher percentage of the MPQ player base, nerfing Grocket would affect a lot more people than nerfing Kitty.

Here are two ideas:

1) Give her "the Gambit": at the start of turn, if one does not exist, Kitty makes a fortified 3-turn CD tile that strengthens all friendly Strike, Attack, or Protect tiles on the board when it expires. Slows her down but removes the "must have 4" restriction.

2) For 8 Yellow Kitty becomes invisible. While invisible, increase the strength of 1 random friendly special tile by (insert number here) each turn.

I realize those of you who love Gritty will think these are both bad ideas...

That’s a nerf sledgehammer. We don’t need more 3 turn CDs in 5 star land, they have proven weak and unreliable.

Generally, there isn’t any way to “nerf” Kitty without completely reworking her to make her more useful without Rockets attack tiles. We all know that will result in a useless character.

I almost never see anyone with Okoye/Thor champs running Kitty teams, that should say all that needs to be said about the current meta.

Sidenote:
4 Thanos, Meh Hulk, Dazzler, BSSM, GE Doom (to some extent), Hela (to some extent), 5 Thanos, 5 DD, and Thorkoye are all relevant in combating Kitty/Rocket. That’s just a small selection of teams I’ve had beat me in PVP more than once. I think some folks are just ignoring the solutions to combat this team as it is.

I don't think they are ignoring solutions so much as not liking how many health packs they need to continually beat gritty teams. But gritty teams are also health pack munchers on themselves. It's a glass canon strategy that often falls apart if you get a bad board.

Projectus2501

Will sabertooth help against this?

tiomono

Yes he will. Alot. His loaner was slowing gritty down effectively. So a champed one that does boardshake and damage on every matched strike will be very good.

DAZ0273

With Sabretooth and Thanos I think it is fair to say the Devs have supplied s 4* solution to the 4* problem of R4G in PvP.

jp1

Now the Meta is back Thorkoye exclusively and we can all rest peacefully at night. 

Super happy they they went with the solution of an awesome 4* rather than using a nerf. So much better!

bluewolf

Just because there's an effective Gritty counter (maybe two) doesn't eliminate them from the meta completely.

Normal (not-Sabretooth) pvp will still see plenty of Gritty teams out.  Running Sabretooth and Okoye as an anti-gritty team is not going to be that scary on defense, either.  That is probably the best team, I think.

Sabretooth is another Rock to Gritty's scissors and is good for the game overall (other than entering the game as our 84th 4* character, but that's a different issue).  Better bonus him!