Feedback Wanted: Character Balance

skittledaddy

Some characters could use super soldier serum

Tony_Foot said:

skittledaddy said:

Don't nerf ANYONE. Not a single one.
Buff up the plethora of weak/useless chars, instead. Some simply need match-damage or AP balance, others need a complete overhaul. Build the overhauled chars to serve as counters to the metas. There would be so many chars to choose from, you'll strike counter-gold somewhere (hopefully MANY somewheres).
The forums have so many good ideas on how. Find those posts, or ask for help - no shame in that.

Agree but then how do you then allow players to get these characters going forwards who don’t already have them all champed? In a game that’s already reduced resources and will have a latest 5* as well, how do you cater for that.

Myself id like them to stop releasing, rework and make them a latest release again, but I know they are not suddenly listening, this has been on page of this forum for years. This is about increasing pressure and selling shards while reducing resources. 

All of a sudden “hey guys what do you feel about reworks”

This has been discussed to death on here, on discord to the point I can’t read the place anymore because it’s like a broken record and now it’s being offered up as an idea.

The question really is how do you do 5* in particular and feed them back into the game without having people having a mass of characters spread thin. Shards are too slow unless you spend a heap of cash.

Valid points. All of them.

I'm talking both 4*s (ultra-diluted) and 5*s (diluted, hard to obtain); they both have barriers to easily obtain. If designed correctly (big IF, there) chars don't need to be champed to be effective. They should just be enhanced when they are. You could argue some metas could be countered by buffed chars that don't even have all three covers, but that might be pushing it.

How do players obtain them? I don't profess to have this answer, but it starts with the devs acknowledging how difficult it truly is and being willing to do something about it.

Overhaul that ridiculous shard store to be more viable/affordable? Add the (often requested) "Ancient" Legendary token at 15CP, perhaps with increased odds of pulling newly buffed chars? Add a 4* reward to our daily DDQ? Heck, even adding that rebalance event (can't remember what it was called; SHIELD something, no doubt) each time they are buffed is a start.

If devs make chars people actually desire, players will find a way, with (preferred) or without the devs' help. If the devs give us new/easier ways to do so, it might actually increase engagement (and, dare I say, spending).

DyingLegend

Some characters could use super soldier serum

Buff under used characters and give them the ability to counter play some of the stronger characters.

Also some characters abilities need more synergy in there own kit. For instance. Archangel causes damage when an enemy is airborne, yet only a handful of characters go airborne or can send enemies airborne. What gives? AA should be able to send enemies airborne. In fact he should do it passively after a certain condition is met.

Wasp's kit is useless. She needs a major overhaul 

Banner is trash. I thought the 2003 movie was the worst thing to happen to the Hulk, this game proves that statement inaccurate

Gritty team needs to die. I'm tired of seeing that team. The easiest way to nerf that team without actually nerfing anyone, reduce the number of grockets strike tiles but keep them the same damage values. EASY ( and if you are worried that it will be easier to match them away, have him fortify them per guardian of the galaxy on the team or hero)

Gladiator Thor - How about instead of a board shuffle and ap gain, he only has a board shuffle. 

Worthy Cap : change his CD tiles to 2 turns or 3 turns - Give us the chance to get rid of them or him.

Bishop : Why is he still running around as a 4 star with 5 star powers? Make it so he cannot gain AP on match damage only on ability cast. Give him more damage reduction on match damage when he jumps in front or instead of gaining 5 blue, he gains 2 blue, 2 yellow or something.


Also can we buff the drop rates of 5 Stars?

Jexy

Some characters could use super soldier serum

I agree with the "buff old 5*s" crowd. Especially Phoenix and Silver Surfer. I'm not sure that just upping their match damage is enough. My 456 GR hits hard on matches but is still not a very effective character.

Cap Worthy is super boring to fight, please change that one. I don't mind Bishop as much because I can counter him with Bishop. And it goes quickly. Cap Worthy puts me & my phone to sleep. Bad character. And I have him champed, so it's not sour grapes.

tiomono

Some characters could use a dusting of nerf powder

ThaRoadWarrior said:

tiomono said:

Circuit breaker is a countdown not a repeater.

Check again

Te he he. My bad. I think I was confusing her red with purple. I'm gonna go hide now. Until I see another good opening to gripe about bishop.

The Viceroy Returns

Some characters could use super soldier serum

Just standardizing 5-Star Match Damage and Hit Points in some way would go a long way to making older 5-Stars more usable.

For example, by my tracking, out of the 39 some 5-Star characters that have been released, there are over 20 different Hit Point upgrade tracks., almost every single one has a different Match Damage progression, with the highest ones being the most recent releases.
By comparison, the 4-Star tier only has about 13 Hit Point tracks, but realistically only about 4 or 5 as most haven't been used in last 2+ years of releases, and they all share the exact same Match Damage track.

This would help with the power creep that has left more than half of them in the dust.
This was especially noticeable with 5-Star banner Hulk being required for the current PVE.  Easily the worst 5-Star (for more reasons than this), and his terrible Hit Points and Match Damage certainly doesn't help his cause.

Warbringa

Some characters could use super soldier serum

I will be honest, boost under powered characters.  The history of nerfs in this game is awful.  Everytime the devs have nerfed a character (the first Gambit "nerf" is the exception of course, while the second Gambit nerf is an example of the rule) you just kill the character, making them way below average. 

Are there characters that need adjustments to change problematic skills?  Yes, Bishop and Worthy are examples because of the out sized impact they have on the 5* tier, they are completely fine in the 4* tier.  Simply raising their damage  is a 5* solution but then makes them completely useless in the 4* tier, thereby making the characters not able to function any longer.   

Gritty is a ridiculous combo because it does so many things and is so fast. I actually put more blame on Grocket as I feel Kitty herself is good but not overpowered.  You have made so many characters to address Grocket and/or Gritty, that we got Bishop and Worthy.  So in a sense, perhaps Grocket is the real issue since he sped up the meta across the board so much, all characters you make are measured against that  in some way.  

Marc_Spector

Some characters could use super soldier serum

@IceIX , Thank you for initiating this thread and soliciting constructive feedback. 

Day 2000+ player here with every 5* rostered at various stages of development, and every 4* champed but the few newest ones at any given moment. Longtime forum lurker, but infrequent poster for the past few years (despite playing daily)

A few thoughts:

BISHOP:

An idea I had this morning: Rather than having Bishop be an irritating wall from the start of battle, why not have his blue AP-gen ramp up over time via damage received to just him or the team? The coding exists to track how much damage a character has done over time (see: Ghost Rider’s black.) Can that be modified to track how much total damage a whole team has done (and/or, taken) over time?

Then we could have something like:

     “For every 1000 damage done by the enemy to your team, Bishop generates 1 blue AP”. 

This would prevent the problem of a first move triggering Bishop’s passive so heavily (as it reacts now), making him more of a ticking time bomb building up that absorbed energy over time. Start of battle matches? Not a problem. Attacking his team with a powerful 10,000 dmg move? Prepare to eat a major stun next round (unless able to stun the enemy Bishop first). This would add an element of strategy … and, dare I say, an element of PUZZLING?… to Bishop fights.

5* MATCH DAMAGE:

I’ve been trying to find this on the forum but can’t — Has it ever been officially explained why 5*s have such wildly divergent match damage ranges across the entire rank? It makes it hard and annoying to remember who-tanks-which-color among characters who are equal level. Was the point to shake that up and make it harder to plan for that exact thing? Before 5*s existed, I liked knowing that two characters of same level in same rank would do equal match damage on the 1st/2nd/3rd colors, and planning teams around that to be able to keep someone specific on the front line / someone else hidden away. If I had my druthers, 5* match damage would be equalized the same way across the entire rank — but if that’s too much to ask more, at least a boost to the match damage of older 5*s as others have asked for.

UNDERPERFORMING 4*s:

Emma Frost — Apropos character-design lore-wise (as she can’t use any mental powers while in diamond form) but the execution here doesn’t make for a fun character. Shifting to Diamond Skin usually leaves me trapped like that due to some random fortified strike tile the enemy will never be able to reach, while they then match away or destroy my yellow/purple repeaters that I can’t recast, leaving Emma as nothing but a high-match-damage punching bag for the rest of match. Maybe she should switch back to normal — or, have the OPTION to switch back (at zero, or low amount of black AP) once one of her repeaters is matched or destroyed? (Also, shouldn’t diamond skin reduce incoming damage as well?? Diamonds are tough, y’know!)

Kraven — for how little his blue trap tile does, I’m aghast at its 10AP cost. 6-7 would seem more reasonable, as would allowing multiple traps on the board to steal 1AP each, instead of just 1AP total for however many traps are out. I would honestly vote this as the most pathetic active-power in the entire 4* tier.

Flaptain — was already junky on launch when most countdowns were things you’d WANT to hasten/resolve, but becomes even worse with every countdown added which one would want to keep on the board for an added effect. It’s probably too much to ask for his passive to smartly differentiate between the two.

UNDERPERFORMING 5*s:

5*Kingpin — The phrase “too many notes” from the film Amadeus comes to mind. I covered him fairly quickly, and never use him unless required — as his (adequate-at-best) moves require too much thinking. XD  Comparing AP amounts each turn is thematically fun via the Fisk-as-businessman theme you’re going for here, but is not conducive to fast play.

5*Loki — Purple can be effective and fun with a variety of on-countdown-finishing based characters. Green seems fine, if unexciting. But - that passive!!!    Feign Death has near-zero use in a game where the goal is to "not die", even moreso when - in an endgame tier like 5*land - any player who has a built-up Loki also has a variety of other better meta-characters with which to avoid that pesky dying thing (whether grouped with Loki or not). Please let it do ANYTHING else at all, even if it's just stun immunity, or generating 1 green AP a turn. The only thing I appreciate about it in its current form is the thematic appropriateness of seeing Feign Death fire when killing an enemy Loki last -- as if he's escaping to fight another day, and one can never actually truly kill the real Loki. ^_^

5*Banner. Is. So. Boring.  A fun meat-shield to play with when buffed, but I don’t think the “extra life” of his Hulk-form is enough of a trade-off for how little else he can do (let alone the no AP gen on his auto-matches, which feels even worse now that 5*Carnage’s auto-matches DO generate AP.). Not irredeemably terrible, but phenomenally less exciting than any Hulk deserves to be.

5*Wasp on the other hand is a frustrating dumpster-fire of interesting ideas that just don’t work in practice — which was such a shame as I love her character in the films and love her artwork in MPQ. The community (correctly) labelled her dead-on-arrival upon release, and of course that meant fates would conspire to have her become my fastest-covered 5* ever. I levelled her merely for sh*ts&giggles to see if she could work as a fun troll-character in any capacity, and she can’t even do THAT well. The only notable thing going for her is a less-common color combination. She just has no synergy with anyone at all, and her 4* counterpart bests her in every conceivable way. Someone said it best earlier in the thread: There should not BE trash-tier 5*s, and Wa5p is the poster child.

Thanks again for your attention to character-balance! I hope for a fun and dynamic year for MPQ devs and players alike.

Warbringa

Some characters could use super soldier serum

DyingLegend said:

Buff under used characters and give them the ability to counter play some of the stronger characters.

Also some characters abilities need more synergy in there own kit. For instance. Archangel causes damage when an enemy is airborne, yet only a handful of characters go airborne or can send enemies airborne. What gives? AA should be able to send enemies airborne. In fact he should do it passively after a certain condition is met.

Interesting tidbit, AA was originally released to be a counter to the original Gambit, by sending him airborne and taking him out of the fight for a few rounds.  AA was pathetically too slow though to really do anything against old Gambit.  By the time you had the AP to fire his airborne move, Gambit had already killed you.  AA has an ok power set, he just needs all of AP costs reduced to fire his powers imo.  

Warbringa

Some characters could use super soldier serum

starlord1982 said:

Nerf bishop and hammercap. There is no reason for them to be overpowering for 5s but to be so weak against their own tier. For instance xfdp is very good in his tier, he can even slightly punch upward but he is not meta where most 5* rosters would skip over him. 
The saddest thing about bishop is in SIM every season, where people will float for 2 weeks without losing points. Is it kitty or r4g that people are skipping? Nope is the instant stun lock of bishop. 

I generally skip Gritty teams but I fight Bishop teams because I generally take less damage from them.  It all depends on what your roster is like btw. I can hard counter Bishop with specific mixed 4* and 5* teams pretty easily.  I of course skip all Gritty + Bishop teams, but once again not because of Bishop. If I had a 5* BSS I would pound on Gritty teams....but I don't.  

I would also say that most 4* players would say Gritty is a bigger problem than Bishop. As a 5* player,  I can beat Gritty teams with Okoye & XFDP but it isn't always a sure thing as I lose about 25% of those matches due to not having enough team up matches early in the game or unfortunate AI cascades.  I almost always need 1 to 2 health packs  even when I win due to the damage Okoye and other 5* I pair with them takes. ( I can mitigate Okoye damage with her healing if I am not in a hurry of course).  XFDP usually takes no damage unless I wipe completely.  The key is I rarely ever lose to Bishop only teams (w/o Gritty) and I usually one have to spend 1 health pack in most cases beating those teams. 

MoosePrime

Some characters could use a dusting of nerf powder

Warbringa said:

DyingLegend said:

Buff under used characters and give them the ability to counter play some of the stronger characters.

Also some characters abilities need more synergy in there own kit. For instance. Archangel causes damage when an enemy is airborne, yet only a handful of characters go airborne or can send enemies airborne. What gives? AA should be able to send enemies airborne. In fact he should do it passively after a certain condition is met.

Interesting tidbit, AA was originally released to be a counter to the original Gambit, by sending him airborne and taking him out of the fight for a few rounds.  AA was pathetically too slow though to really do anything against old Gambit.  By the time you had the AP to fire his airborne move, Gambit had already killed you.  AA has an ok power set, he just needs all of AP costs reduced to fire his powers imo.  

AA doesn't actually send enemies airborne.  His counter was preventing AP gain in a chosen color.  You're correct about it being too slow to effectively counter Gambit.

Jacklag

Some characters could use super soldier serum

Ok, so what I'm getting from this is that to make everybody happy they should nerf both Bishop and Gritty. All in favor?

MegaBee

Some characters could use super soldier serum

Leave Bishop and HammerCap alone and focus on buffing some underpowered characters.

Godzillafan67

Some characters could use super soldier serum

An important note: At 163 votes having been cast thus far, exactly zero of those are for "Balance is fine right now".

A_Wise_Man

Some characters could use a dusting of nerf powder

Why is it that people like bishop and hammercap so much on these here forums?  I've seen several people saying not to nerf them.  I'm just curious---you think it's ok for characters not to allow a simple matching of 3 in a match 3 game?  Build counters?  They *are* counters built to counter a broken 4 star and are themselves more broken.  Any further counter would be even more broken and OP.  

4 stars shouldn't be able to compete with 5 stars, period.  Pull off a win against them? Sure.  But the 5s should be able to steamroll them back.  If 4 star players want to keep the annoying factor there, that's fine.  But then release a 3 star that beats 4 stars 50% of the time on defense and allows 3 star players to hit 4 star players as well.  Make a 2 star that does the same to 3 stars.  Punish everyone for moving up.  Then see who wants to move up.

Warbringa

Some characters could use super soldier serum

A_Wise_Man said:

Why is it that people like bishop and hammercap so much on these here forums?  I've seen several people saying not to nerf them.  I'm just curious---you think it's ok for characters not to allow a simple matching of 3 in a match 3 game?  Build counters?  They *are* counters built to counter a broken 4 star and are themselves more broken.  Any further counter would be even more broken and OP.  

4 stars shouldn't be able to compete with 5 stars, period.  Pull off a win against them? Sure.  But the 5s should be able to steamroll them back.  If 4 star players want to keep the annoying factor there, that's fine.  But then release a 3 star that beats 4 stars 50% of the time on defense and allows 3 star players to hit 4 star players as well.  Make a 2 star that does the same to 3 stars.  Punish everyone for moving up.  Then see who wants to move up.

Indeed both need their powers altered as a 5* player but you are looking at them from your point of view only.  4* players don't care about your gripes about either of them because neither is really much of an issue for pure 4* players.  They have problems of their own in the 4* tier. I imagine there are many 4* or early 5* players who lean on them to punch above their rosters normal weight who would defend them is my guess.

I ask the same thing about people who defend Gritty as you do about Bishop and Hammercap btw.

Warbringa

Some characters could use super soldier serum

MoosePrime said:

Warbringa said:

DyingLegend said:

Buff under used characters and give them the ability to counter play some of the stronger characters.

Also some characters abilities need more synergy in there own kit. For instance. Archangel causes damage when an enemy is airborne, yet only a handful of characters go airborne or can send enemies airborne. What gives? AA should be able to send enemies airborne. In fact he should do it passively after a certain condition is met.

Interesting tidbit, AA was originally released to be a counter to the original Gambit, by sending him airborne and taking him out of the fight for a few rounds.  AA was pathetically too slow though to really do anything against old Gambit.  By the time you had the AP to fire his airborne move, Gambit had already killed you.  AA has an ok power set, he just needs all of AP costs reduced to fire his powers imo.  

AA doesn't actually send enemies airborne.  His counter was preventing AP gain in a chosen color.  You're correct about it being too slow to effectively counter Gambit.

Good catch, I haven't used him in forever I forgot the how his powers actually worked, just remembered his initial purpose lol.

jackstar0

Some characters could use super soldier serum

Give us many buffs!

After those have been absorbed into the game and we see what happens, then you can do a couple nerfs, as a treat.

Warbringa

Some characters could use super soldier serum

HoundofShadow said:

Background info: 4* player with majority of 4* champed. Plays PvPs and PvEs competitively, but not competitive enough to join LINE.

Nerf

1. 5* Thor passive ap gain
2. Gritty's purple that overwrite those 4 special tiles.
3. Bishop

Reason for choosing Thor is because he's the measuring stick (due to gaining 5 aps per turn) for future 5* characters. In order to replace Thor, someone need to be better than what Thor is doing.

Reason for choosing Bishop is so that we have something new to talk about here.

The only threat Hammercap presents is him taking forever for his CDs to finish. He's only good with C4rol/R4G and 5* Hawkeye. 

 
Generally speaking, I prefer buffs and hard counters more than nerfs because

1. meta comes and goes
2. putting together teams to beat meta teams is like solving puzzles.

If the dev decided to buff characters, especially 5* characters, make sure they fall into meta or good tier. If not, you are wasting your time. I think the reworked 5* Dr Ock is a good example. He still belongs to the bottom tier even with increased match damage and higher damage.

Agree, in principle on everything but Thor. There will always be meta characters, ditching his AP gain removes him from meta and probably any play.   He speeds up the game, which is a plus for everyone who has him or anyone who wants to eventually get him. He is easy to beat on defense.  Bishop/Worthy/Gritty are generally more called for nerfs because they make it so you are generally attacked less which really hurts the way PvP works. Hence the complaint of why the Sim is all Gritty & Bishop beyond a certain level.   In fact I would argue that Bishop/Worthy/Gritty basically break the general principles of the game. Great offense and great defense.  

Thor is clearly a meta character but without his AP gain he drops to being average character at best and is relegated to never being used. I argue that Okoye is actually better and the best meta character because she can significantly enhance a large number of normally useless characters with her passive, self-heal (true healing) and deal good damage with her red (and passive).  Hence why Thorkoye is so popular.  The key though is that they are easy to beat on defense, no one skips a Thorkoye team (unless it is paired with Bishop!).  

Jarvind

Some characters could use super soldier serum

If they buff 5* Banner I'll come back to the game and start updating my 4* ranking thread again.

max5esq

Some characters could use super soldier serum

The answer is a bit a both, however the nerfing should be as minimal as possible, for example, a Kraven fix could at the start of his turn Kraven removes half the strike tiles on the board, if you do something like that you don't have to nerf Gritty. Bishop might need to be fixed. This game is very weird in the fact that their is a disincentive to move to 5 star land, I have several 5 stars fully covered but not the meta ones so I would be in a really bad place if I champed them. There is too much Kitty, Bishop Cap and 4 star Groot but outside of Bishop I see easy solutions to all of them, builidng hard counters like AA was to vulture can let you nerf fewer charecters which should be the goal.

  For a while a a character was getting updated every month, that was a good thing, not all the updates were great but I think everyone agrees that was a good thing. I would change the release schedule and cut the number of new characters in half and i the mean time buff 2 weaker characters.  Lots of buffs maybe 1  or 2 nerfs but iff you do the buffs right you can nerf less.