Nerf Thor, Okoye, Bishop, and Rocket...

MegaBee

Warbringa

I think if you nerfed all of the characters you are talking about in addition to 5* Thanos, then yes that would be fair and would promote more different team combos.  However....you would also need to have the goal requirements fall drastically as you pointed out.  Many less battles needed for PvE and PvP due to the added time it would take to complete matches.  I think the devs would not adjust this dynamic properly.  I added 5* Thanos because if we are going to talk about game breaking characters, he is one.  He is the PvE meta....hands down.  

A_Wise_Man

Fix 5 star dilution and this is less of an issue.

Warbringa

shardwick said:

Rocket isn't a threat though. It's only when he's paired with someone like Kitty or Medusa that the fight gets more skippable and even then he's still not going to be the primary focus unless he's able to get off his green. Hell, Gamora is a bigger threat than him.

Rocket: 7 strike tiles, decent repeater, aoe nuke
Gamora: cheap stun, solid red attack, can instantly kill anyone

Would you rather take a fight against Vulture and Rocket or Vulture and Gamora? How about Vulture/Rocket or Vulture/Iceman?

You are looking at characters in a vacuum and missing the point.  On an individual character basis I agree with you, he isn't a great 4* by himself but that also isn't reality.  Look at many of the top 4* teams and many 5* teams (Gritty) in PvP today.  The key is Grocket is part of most of them.  So he is a threat because he makes all of these really efficient teams work, he is the key that is vital to their success all because of one power, probably the most effective power in the game if you look at it impact in all areas.  Bishop was a hard counter to Grocket teams and look at the chaos that has now ensued.  

Warbringa

A_Wise_Man said:

Fix 5 star dilution and this is less of an issue.

I agree 5* dilution does need a fix, not sure though it probably makes the OP point of a too small meta even worse as everyone would be running the exact same teams, Thorkoye and Bishop/Gritty galore as access to these characters grows.  Good for those of us who don't have the current meta, still probably bad for the balance of the game overall though.

Warbringa

OJSP said:

Warbringa said: 
Grocket ... is the tinykitty pin that is vital to there success all because of one power

I think the word is linchpin (or lynchpin).. I just found it amusing that the other word is deemed offensive according to the filter.

Yeah just saw that and changed it.  The results of poor grammar 

ThaRoadWarrior

OJSP said:

David tinykitty is a famous writer. Interesting..

That's about how I felt watching that final episode of Twin P3aks, that's for sure...

LLohm

I think my own suggestion for fixing 5* dilution is to release duo feeders per 5*. Then we can at least BH to champ them. 

ThaRoadWarrior

LLohm said:

I think my own suggestion for fixing 5* dilution is to release duo feeders per 5*. Then we can at least BH to champ them. 

You'll really only want to set one or the other as your solo BH, so I don't know that that is going to speed things up as quickly as you may think. But that could help with situations like I have with Cable where he has one of the worst possible distributions of 10 covers (1/4/5 - marginally better than 0/5/5, not as bad as 5/4/1) and the 280 cover x2 would be better than grinding 1 character all the way up to 340. Growing a single feeder twice over would take nearly as long as growing two feeders simultaneously, unless you happened to already have the other character at high levels.

Gold_Dragon

Smh

all youre gonna get is a new team “everyone” will flock to and whine about. You gonna nerf them too?

youre not solving your overall problem. You’re merely kicking the can down the road for about 2 days until another team shows up. 

Therealsmkspy

Nerf everyone by making all their match damage, power damage, and whatever else damage the same across the board for their own tier. 

Boom, even playing field <insert blue text>.

Daredevil217

Gold_Dragon said:

Smh

all youre gonna get is a new team “everyone” will flock to and whine about. You gonna nerf them too?

youre not solving your overall problem. You’re merely kicking the can down the road for about 2 days until another team shows up. 

Who would that team be?

Some characters will definitely be stronger and more desirable than others, but I can’t think of a team that is an entire tier stronger than all the rest like we currently have. 

HoundofShadow

I agree Thor need to be nerfed but Okoye is still fine because TU tile has a built-in disadvantage by having a lower % of drop rate. Also, she need to be in front. If not, her damage multiplier will decrease. 

I think R4G is not a big deal anymore. If they are dropping 7 fortified strike tiles at the start of the game, then I think a nerf is needed.

In other Marvel games, the devs at Marvel Contest of Champion is planning to do periodic balancing to their characters. A couple days ago, they informed that changes will be made to two of their characters.

Their process takes at least 3 months of reviewing character data and another 3 months of reviewing the changes. The process will take at least 6 months even if it's simply tweaking the numbers and not changing the ability.

What's more amusing are the responses from the players towards strong characters getting a nerf, another character getting a buff, and another getting no change. 

It reminds me of here. 

If you are interested, you can google

"Upcoming Cull Obsidian and Ebony Maw Balance Changes"

I expect similar responses if similar changes are made here. So, balancing is really not simple.

ThaRoadWarrior

It’s behind the paywall of the GDC Vault subscription, but Square recently presented their process for using genetic algorithms to balance games with excessive permutations of equipment on their character: https://www.gdcvault.com/browse/gdc-19/play/1026365

ThaRoadWarrior

It feels rare that we get a character who is fundamentally broken in a vacuum. Internal to themselves, most of the good characters actually have reasonable internal speed limitations and drawbacks. It’s generally the emergent interactions between characters that makes them difficult. It’s almost like all characters are tested in a Crash of the Titans-like node to see how they rank against other characters in their own tier rather than against the game at large. 

The characters that come out that are are truly broken almost always empower themselves or a team mate to do big moves an order of magnitude sooner than anyone else, in other words: free AP gain out of scale with the opponent. Gambit, Bishop were the ones I was around to see, and I’d wager Gladiathor is a borderline offender if not an actual one.

A_Wise_Man

ThaRoadWarrior said:

It feels rare that we get a character who is fundamentally broken in a vacuum. Internal to themselves, most of the good characters actually have reasonable internal speed limitations and drawbacks. It’s generally the emergent interactions between characters that makes them difficult. It’s almost like all characters are tested in a Crash of the Titans-like node to see how they rank against other characters in their own tier rather than against the game at large. 

The characters that come out that are are truly broken almost always empower themselves or a team mate to do big moves an order of magnitude sooner than anyone else, in other words: free AP gain out of scale with the opponent. Gambit, Bishop were the ones I was around to see, and I’d wager Gladiathor is a borderline offender if not an actual one.

Nobody noticed thor was broken when he came out, as we was immediately after Gambit in release order.  Also because he doesnt do on defense what he does on offense, so its different 

Xair

i have favorite i can place on any 4* or 5* chars. 

with regards to 5* i am not sure which is the best at the moment, and where should my favorite go... maybe kitty, maybe thor, maybe prof x, maybe okoye... all those maybes lead me to think that although there are some 5* stronger than others, there is no one char completely dominating the meta.
you start nerfing the one you think is strongest, and where does it stop? when it gets to char you have champed? 

with regards to 4* is there another candidate for king of the meta other than bishop?

bluewolf

Xair said:

i have favorite i can place on any 4* or 5* chars. 

with regards to 5* i am not sure which is the best at the moment, and where should my favorite go... maybe kitty, maybe thor, maybe prof x, maybe okoye... all those maybes lead me to think that although there are some 5* stronger than others, there is no one char completely dominating the meta.
you start nerfing the one you think is strongest, and where does it stop? when it gets to char you have champed? 

with regards to 4* is there another candidate for king of the meta other than bishop?

The 5* does have two metas at the moment - Thorkoye and Gritty (although Gritty is not truly a 5* team).  Prof X is a good addition to Thorkoye, less so for Gritty where making lots of match 4/5s will probably be taking out strike tiles.  But could work.

Who you favorite should be mostly driven by who is closest to being viable and/or who you've already got ready to go, or feeder-able, or whatever.  The 5* tier is incredibly slow to make progress in once someone is out of Latests.  And bonus heroes can be very, very rare.

BISHOP IS NOT THE 4* META.  I put that in caps because some people may think he is.  The name of the game is speedy clears, which is not What Bishop Does.

He is a stupidly OP character who is easy to trigger leading to your team being stunlocked - IF your team is doing big match dmg.  If you're playing in the 4 tier, chasing Bishop is not a very good idea unless your goal is taking on lots of Gritty teams and/or big 5* teams in PVP.  He is a defensive character who chews through health packs and if your main goal is doing better in PVE, Bishop should not be anyone's priority.

Bishop is used by 5* players to save on shields.  That's what makes him "meta".  And some 4* players who are very deep into the tier use him to play up in PVP.

ZootSax

HoundofShadow said:

So, balancing is really not simple.

I would hope no one thought otherwise. It would be incredibly difficult to get started and a lot of people probably wouldn’t like it, but that did seem to be where the thread was going...

bluewolf said:
BISHOP IS NOT THE 4* META.  I put that in caps because some people may think he is.  The name of the game is speedy clears, which is not What Bishop Does.

He is a stupidly OP character who is easy to trigger leading to your team being stunlocked - IF your team is doing big match dmg.  If you're playing in the 4 tier, chasing Bishop is not a very good idea unless your goal is taking on lots of Gritty teams and/or big 5* teams in PVP.  He is a defensive character who chews through health packs and if your main goal is doing better in PVE, Bishop should not be anyone's priority.

Bishop is used by 5* players to save on shields.  That's what makes him "meta".  And some 4* players who are very deep into the tier use him to play up in PVP.

This is well said and probably not understood by enough people.

Xair

META "meaning the Most Effective Tactic Available. It's basically what works in a game regardless of what you wish would work."
let's say i am a serious 5* player doing both scl9 in pve, all boss events, and playing competitive in pvp.
i gain almost the most amount of command points the game has to offer.
for the sake of argument i don't have bishop or any other top tier 5*.
should i put my 4* favorite on bishop or not?