Gambit and OML

Twysta

ROY84 said:

They made 3* gambit almost as useless as sentry. I understood they had to nerf him but they didn't have to make him completely useless. They overkilled gambit to satisfy some salty SOBs. 

No.  That's just how they "balance" characters.
They seldom ever tweak in small increments. 
Instead they prefer to COMPLETELY rework characters to try balance them; even when all they have to do is maybe tweak a few numbers - increase or decrease AP by 1, change damage (this is far more time efficient and productive imo).
Most games when the nerf or buff characters tweak them ever so slightly and complete reworks are only applied to old characters that have long fallen out of favor, although in this game they just rework everyone they think is too strong.
I'm pretty sure the community would be far less hostile if they just tweaked characters that need changing a little bit over time.  

eg. CHARACTER A - TOO STRONG 
fix 1 - reduce damage a little
they can then see how this plays in the wild...

then if he is still too strong
fix 2 - increase AP on ability by 1 or reduce damage a little more (NOT BOTH)

But here, they're like - LETS CHANGE ALL 3 ABILITIES - REDUCE DAMAGE + INCREASE AP COST.
Uhm... okay? 

ThaRoadWarrior

My guess is that there are a bunch of unclaimed powersets that are sitting around someplace that have been pre-approved and are just waiting for a character to get assigned to, designed in a fiction vacuum. Rather than iterate and adjust, it might be relatively easier to just replace powers altogether using ones from whatever that list is than to go through the exercise of playtesting balance tweaks etc. But that's just speculation. 

HoundofShadow

I'm sure the devs have quite shared quite a number of their criteria on balancing characters. It's unfortunate that the focus was on making fun of the term "expert players". There were easily more than 10 factors that they use.

As for returning OML and Gambit back to their good old days, what is a fair trade or what would the veterans as a whole, not individually,  give up to get them back? Is it fair to players who sold off their Gambits and OMLs?

DAZ0273

It is good to see that the Devs are back in their office after the Holiday break...

Vhailorx

ThaRoadWarrior said:

My guess is that there are a bunch of unclaimed powersets that are sitting around someplace that have been pre-approved and are just waiting for a character to get assigned to, designed in a fiction vacuum. Rather than iterate and adjust, it might be relatively easier to just replace powers altogether using ones from whatever that list is than to go through the exercise of playtesting balance tweaks etc. But that's just speculation. 

I doubt there are completed, ready-to-go powersets just lying around waiting for a character.  That seems inefficient.  But I would believe the dev teams have partially developed powers lying around to mix and match and fit together for wheneever they get character instructions from marvel.  And I would also guess that individual developers have some notes/thoughts on potential powers for favorite/anticipated powers. 

bluewolf

Vhailorx said:

ThaRoadWarrior said:

My guess is that there are a bunch of unclaimed powersets that are sitting around someplace that have been pre-approved and are just waiting for a character to get assigned to, designed in a fiction vacuum. Rather than iterate and adjust, it might be relatively easier to just replace powers altogether using ones from whatever that list is than to go through the exercise of playtesting balance tweaks etc. But that's just speculation. 

I doubt there are completed, ready-to-go powersets just lying around waiting for a character.  That seems inefficient.  But I would believe the dev teams have partially developed powers lying around to mix and match and fit together for wheneever they get character instructions from marvel.  And I would also guess that individual developers have some notes/thoughts on potential powers for favorite/anticipated powers. 

My belief is that there is a combination of things, where they have ideas for fun powers but they are also trying to make the character feel like it all fits together.

There have also been times when designers wanted to do something that the game/tech didn't support.  So I think there are bits and pieces.

I also feel like a lot of stuff the game does now is just mix and match existing effects for new characters, or tweak something  so it makes protects instead of strikes or whatever.  It feels like they've sort of reached a limit on what they can do but there are enough variables that they can technically create new powers.

ThaRoadWarrior

I disagree that it's inefficient, in fact I'd argue it's quite the contrary. But it depends on how characters are actually decided. It sometimes seems like powersets align comfortably with the characters they belong to (Gladiator Thor, Old Man Logan, Domino), but just as often characters come out with powers that are fun but completely unaligned with the fictional abilities (5* DareDevil's true heal, Okoye's whole deal) of the property. Having to quickly design, code, test, and art up a character in response to IP holder mandates that could change at the drop of a hat due to comic launches or trans-media promotions is very stressful. 

Whereas having a bunch of abstracted out powersets ready to go, proven to be fun (or at least functional) that all align with some kind of pre-defined metrics (the "budgets" we hear about sometimes) that then get assigned to whoever they are told needs to come out actually future-proofs the content furnace quite nicely. It keeps your designers busy even on otherwise design-light sprints, and gives you a lot of flexibility. I don't really believe that the character creation process starts with the core concept of the IP every time, or even most times. I kind of think that's what happened to 5* Carnage actually.

HoundofShadow

If you look at Demiurge website, you will see old posts of how they come up with different abilities. They also explained their reasons for doing certain things and the goals they want to achieve 

Unfortunately, posts like those are for niche audience and your average players are not interested in that. I guess that's why they stop doing that. Even the recent blog posts about new characters' abilities get so few comments. 

This link could be interesting or enlightening for some:

https://www.demiurgestudios.com/blog/category/design

Vhailorx

We might be talking past each other, road warrior.  By 'ready to go' I mean tested and validated for release.  It doesn't make sense to me to do that on a powerset that they don't plan to release in the near future.  But as I said before, I think it is almost certain that demi has partially completed powersets lying around (either discarded powers from earlier character designs, or incomplete ideas that haven't yet found the right character or gotten approval from Marvel).

ThaRoadWarrior

No, I hear you, I just disagree that they are designing powers just enough, just in time. i think they are "greyboxing" the movesets well in advance and then doing the fictional gymnastics required to assign them to whatever character is getting pushed out next. At any rate it's not super crucial whichever way they're doing it. It's just my pet theory.

MegaBee

DAZ0273 said:

It is good to see that the Devs are back in their office after the Holiday break...

They're probably over on Discord.

jamesh

I'd also like to note that not all the character redesigns have been bad. Two that particularly stick out are Mordo and Riri.

For Mordo, his damage figures for his black and blue were increased and the purple turned into a fairly unique power that punishes enemies with passive powers (i.e. the more AP the enemy collects in colours it can't spend, the more powerful Mordo's purple becomes).

For Riri, her original blue never seemed to work particularly effectively, and if the enemy created special tiles in one colour then they'd often get unlocked fairly quickly.  After the revamp, she got a new red power that could vary between single and multi-target damage, and a new blue power that fueled the red.

I wouldn't complain if we got more redesigns like that.

IceyOne

HoundofShadow said:

I'm sure the devs have quite shared quite a number of their criteria on balancing characters. It's unfortunate that the focus was on making fun of the term "expert players". There were easily more than 10 factors that they use.

As for returning OML and Gambit back to their good old days, what is a fair trade or what would the veterans as a whole, not individually,  give up to get them back? Is it fair to players who sold off their Gambits and OMLs?

Selling off your Gambit and OML was a choice you were given if you felt dissatisfied at the time. 

Vhailorx

jamesh said:

I'd also like to note that not all the character redesigns have been bad. Two that particularly stick out are Mordo and Riri.

For Mordo, his damage figures for his black and blue were increased and the purple turned into a fairly unique power that punishes enemies with passive powers (i.e. the more AP the enemy collects in colours it can't spend, the more powerful Mordo's purple becomes).

For Riri, her original blue never seemed to work particularly effectively, and if the enemy created special tiles in one colour then they'd often get unlocked fairly quickly.  After the revamp, she got a new red power that could vary between single and multi-target damage, and a new blue power that fueled the red.

I wouldn't complain if we got more redesigns like that.

RIri, 3* mags, and IM40 were all successful reworks.  IM40 is arguably too strong, but riri is my #1 best rework.  She is very good, unique in her tier, but not at all op. 

Mordo was more treading water.  His blue stayed the same, his purple got better.  His black got a higher floor, but also a lower ceiling.  And his health was significantly reduced.  It was a lot of change to make him not a whole lot better.  It wasn't as bad as the second Mr. f "buff" or the kingpin "buff" or the first carnage rework. I also wouldn't call it a master stroke.

ThaRoadWarrior

Mordo originally had conditional AOE on his black, and that went down to single-target, big damage. Your mileage may vary on a change like that, but it's very different than just a numbers tweak.

I'd say 3* Spider-Man's yellow changing from burst heal to fairly large damage was a better change as well.

T_REZ5000

jamesh said:

I'd also like to note that not all the character redesigns have been bad. Two that particularly stick out are Mordo and Riri.

For Mordo, his damage figures for his black and blue were increased and the purple turned into a fairly unique power that punishes enemies with passive powers (i.e. the more AP the enemy collects in colours it can't spend, the more powerful Mordo's purple becomes).

For Riri, her original blue never seemed to work particularly effectively, and if the enemy created special tiles in one colour then they'd often get unlocked fairly quickly.  After the revamp, she got a new red power that could vary between single and multi-target damage, and a new blue power that fueled the red.

I wouldn't complain if we got more redesigns like that.

I thought they did a good job with 3* magneto as well.  His red used to cost 2 ap and break 3 random tiles while his blue let you change any 2 tiles to blue for 5ap which led to almost infinite turns.  D3 was able to give him a new power set which fixed all the old problems while still being a solid 3*.

I wish the people who made that decision had also done XFW and Gambit.  I quit playing for about a year after each of those disastrous nerfs.