Patch Notes - 5/21

IceIX

With Season One of Versus having ended and Season Two having begun, today is the day for Spider-Man (Classic) to get his long awaited changes. As previously listed here, his abilities are being modified to better bring the character into line with the power levels of other characters in the game. The changes are the same as in that post, but are reposted here for ease of viewing.

Gameplay

- Randomized available Environments on pins for Versus Events. (Each pin will use the same environment for the duration of the event, but the environments will vary from event to event.) - Comic Slots have been reworked from Slots 8-24. Costs are unchanged, but these Slots have been grouped together for group purchases. The intent is to allow users to save for these Comic Slots while making the purchase of these bundles feel more impactful instead of piecemeal. The way this works is that if a user is about to push into one of these bundles, they will see a bundle instead of an individual purchase at that point. So a user at 8 slots will see a bundle for purchase when they want to go from 10 to 11 slots, but since they are already in the 8 slot bracket, they will buy individually until then. New groupings:

5th slot: 50 HP 6: 50 7: 100 8+9+10 slots purchased as a group: 400 HP 11+12+13: 500 14+15+16: 600 17+18: 500 19+20: 500 21+22: 600 23+24: 600 25 and beyond: as before

Characters

Spider-Man (Classic) Old Ability:

Web Bandages - Yellow 13 AP
Spider-Man makes make-shift slings of webbing for his friends. Removes all Web tiles, and all allies heal 118 health for every Web tile removed (minimum 118, maximum 1892).
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Costs 1 AP less. Level 3: Costs 1 AP less. Level 4: Costs 1 AP less. Level 5: Costs 1 AP less.

Max Level: Heals 741HP per web tile (up to 11864HP)

Updated Ability:

Web Bandages - Yellow 12 AP
Spider-Man webs makeshift slings, healing his team for 142. If 3 or more Web tiles exist he converts them to bandages, healing his team for an additional 149.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Increases base healing to 199. Level 3: Increases base healing to 256. Level 4: Increases base healing to 312. Level 5: Increases base healing to 369. Max level 141 5/5: Heals for 2314 with an additional 934 with 3 Web tiles.[/u] Level 85 5/5: 1534 base healing + 619 with Web tiles = 2153 max healing Compare to Black Widow (Original) max level - 1228 healing

This ability went through the most changes in design. It went from a numbers tweaked version of its old self, which was either underpowered or overpowered solely based on how well it worked with All Tied Up. To remedy this, it went to an easier to balance self heal that threw out group heals if enough Web tiles on the board. This worked better but didn't feel very Spider-Man-like. In order for it to feel good enough to use, it had to be so powerful in the heal that Spider-Man felt more like Phoenix, rising from the ashes. Eventually, it morphed into the current form.

In this form, the ability is still somewhat of a high cost, so it's not a simple matter to throw out healing. This enables players to go into an AP denial mode against an opponent using Spider-Man and prevent them from easily healing the team. At the same time, it benefits from using All Tied Up without full on requiring the ability to be used multiple times in order to be useful. This allows players to feel like the ability is useful on its own without completely tying it to another ability that with its own changes makes it not a 100% relied upon source of power.

Older Ability:

All Tied Up - Blue 6 AP
Spider-Man wraps up the target in webbing, adding a new Yellow Web tile to the board and then stunning the enemy for 1 turn for each Web tile on the board (to a maximum of 5 turns).
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Costs 1 AP less. Level 3: Costs 1 AP less. Level 4: Costs 1 AP less. Level 5: Costs 1 AP less.

Updated Ability:

All Tied Up - Blue 5 AP
Spider-Man slings webs, stunning the enemy for 1 turn. He then adds a Yellow Web tile to the board.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: +1 turn of stun if 3 Web tiles exist Level 3: +1 turn of stun if 2 Web tiles exist Level 4: +1 turn of stun if 1 Web tile exists Level 5: +1 or +2 turns of stun when 1 or 2 Web tiles exist

This change is less extreme than the one to Web Bandages, but still serves to bring this ability into line with the other Stuns in the game. The ability remains low cost and able to quickly ramp up in effectiveness given the increasing number of Web tiles on the board. This encourages players to constantly use the power instead of hoarding it for a burst as it is often used at current. Each level of the ability now greatly adds to its utility, making Level 5 highly valuable in increasing the effectiveness of the ability. At that level, a three turn Stun and the low cost enables Spider-Man to keep up a perma-stun on the opponent with enough matches available, someone feeding Blue AP, or a cache of available Blue AP. So it's still a possibly powerful ability in the hands of a player/team that is geared to take advantage of it. However, unlike previously it does not allow Spider-Man to lock down an enemy for each and every Blue match that is made, often deciding the battle's course with a single Blue match.

Older Ability:

Spider-Sense - Purple Passive
(PASSIVE) Spider-Man's senses tingle and he moves to protect his team. If there aren't any friendly Purple Protect tiles, he creates one when his team matches Purple tiles. New Protect tile Strength is based on the number of Web tiles in play.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Creates up to 2 Purple Protect tiles. Level 3: Increases base Protect Strength by 25% Level 4: Creates up to 3 Purple Protect tiles. Level 5: Increases base Protect Strength by 25%

Max Level: Damage reduced by 66 per Protect tile with 0 Web tiles on board (up to 446 per Protect tile with 5 Web tiles on board).

Updated Ability:

Spider-Sense - Purple Passive
(PASSIVE) Spider-Man's senses tingle and he moves to protect his team. If there aren't any friendly Purple Protect tiles, he creates one when his team matches Purple tiles. New Protect tile Strength is based on the number of Web tiles in play.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Creates up to 3 Purple Protect tiles. Level 3: Increases base Protect Strength by 25% Level 4: Creates up to 4 Purple Protect tiles. Level 5: Increases base Protect Strength by 25%

Max Level 141 5/5: 20/54/115/210 Protect tiles depending on Web tiles on board.

This ability was untouched in form but the numbers were rebalanced a bit. The max number of Web tiles needed for this skill was reduced from 5 to 3 with the lower end of the Protect tile strengths being brought down as well. This makes the ability one that you want to start triggering Web tiles for immediately instead of just working with what you get, as the higher end Protect tiles can make a real difference. However, the top end for the old ability was a bit too high, allowing Spider-Man to make Protect tiles that rivaled the highest cost Protect oriented abilities, much less a Passive.