Nerf Okoye

fight4thedream

JaGo said:

acescracked said:

 Oh, I'm pretty sure that ursopro opened his one liner post as a joke post messing around. People here take the bait and it's gone viral.with 10 pages! 😄😀

A few of us very early on speculated that the OP was trolling. My post in particular was completely removed by a forum moderator as off topic, so this post may also be censored.

On topic, Okoye should not be changed in any way shape or form. It’s simply just not necessary.

-JaGo

To be clear, we have a policy against calling other users "troll" as 1.) it contributes nothing to the conversation and 2.) is often used to belittle the ideas of others. In that respect, using the term "troll" could be interpreted as insulting another forum user which is grounds for a warning.  This is why we discourage the use of the term. If you suspect a user of trolling, you can contact a forum moderator with your concern.

Although I think the old adage "Don't feed the trolls" is usually the most appropriate way to handle such situations.

Back on topic, I think this has been a worthwhile discussion. To summarize:

There is general agreement that Okoye is the most useful character in the game.

There's disagreement on whether she is too good with basically three arguments on the table:

Argument 1: She is too good and should be nerfed.
Argument 2: She is fine as is and should be left as is.
Argument 3: The game needs better counter mechanics and characters to address her dominance of the meta.

Let's go over the finer points of each argument:

Argument 1: She is too good and should be nerfed.

• She has a ubiquitous influence on top level competitive play in both PvE and PvP
• Having one high level Okoye is more useful than having other maxed champed 5* characters

Primary concern: Monotonous game play since she is considered the best option for both PvE and PvP and redundancy of other 5* characters

Argument 2: She is fine as is and should be left as is

• She is easy to beat on defense (when not paired with a character that has passive damage abilities)
• Many players have invested a lot of resources in leveling up their Okoye, nerfing her will lead to many people leaving the game
• She increases match speed and greatly aids players in higher CLs 

Primary concern: Any nerf will have a net negative effect on the player base who rely on her for PvE and have invested a lot of resources leveling her up

Argument 3: The game needs better counter mechanics and characters to address her dominance of the meta

• There aren't enough strong counter characters to deal effectively with Okoye's abilities
• A lot of players purposefully make Okoye their highest character to by pass her limiter by having her tank as much as possible
  
• A new character's value is often determined by how well they interact with booster-type characters like Okoye, among which she is considered the best

Primary concern: As on outlier, she has a negative effect on game balance since abilities to counter act her own are few and far between. She ends up being the best character in terms of effectiveness and efficiency for too many situations.

I fall into argument 3. I don't think she needs to be nerfed but I do believe she needs to be reined in a bit, at least for PvP. And as always, I would prefer that be done with good counter mechanics. Admittedly, BRB/Kitty is effective against Okoye/iHulk and Onslaught offers some decent counter measures by removing TUs from the board but considering her continued dominance of the PvP meta, I think it's clear it's not enough.

As I stated in a previous post, I would like to see her follow the same path that 5* Thor has taken which is mainly a meta shift that discourages the use of the character in PvP.  Many players still rely on him for PvE which I think is fine.

I just would prefer that PvP and PvE meta not be dominated by the same character. Obviously as @DeNappa pointed out, that's difficult since both rely heavily on speed if played competitively but I think with the arrival of BRB and Onslaught, PvP has branched out more into defensive mechanics.

To the dev's credit, PvP has grown more diverse in terms of viable teams that can be played competitively. Here's hoping that continues.

Polares

I think that is a good summary @fight4thedream

I really think Hulkoye is just one "good counter / good char" release to just be a team of the past. Just imagine YJ with a passive on his black "chars killed by this char can not resurrect" and the Hulkoye team would be easily countered already (as once Hulk is dead Okoye would be useless against YJ).

DAZ0273

I have said it before and I will say it again: 5* Cyclops. Cyclops in MPQ already has an established relationship with team up tiles so giving him a passive or a cheap active that drains enemy team ups is a total non brainer to me and would not be a shoehorned gimmick - "Cyclops brilliant mastery of strategy causes his enemies to fall apart under pressure, drain all team-up AP" or along those lines.

ThaRoadWarrior

I think if she were nerfed, focus would shift to Apocalypse if it hasn't already. 

SnowcaTT

JaGo said:

acescracked said:

 Oh, I'm pretty sure that ursopro opened his one liner post as a joke post messing around. People here take the bait and it's gone viral.with 10 pages! 😄😀

A few of us very early on speculated that the OP was trolling. My post in particular was completely removed by a forum moderator as off topic, so this post may also be censored.

On topic, Okoye should not be changed in any way shape or form. It’s simply just not necessary.

-JaGo

I assumed in December OP was very much in jest/joking.

Since then I watch all these Okoye vaults and realize the joke has become something that it's time to do.

ursopro: thinker ahead of his time.

Michael1957

All these fixes target Okoye primarily, which is unique to almost any other power. I still think an active power of “ Block all enemy passive powers for X turns “ would work without specifically targeting Okoye or Hulkoye users. 

KGB

Michael1957 said:

All these fixes target Okoye primarily, which is unique to almost any other power. I still think an active power of “ Block all enemy passive powers for X turns “ would work without specifically targeting Okoye or Hulkoye users. 

Unfortunately such a power would likely be considered incredibly powerful by the Dev team since it would block for example all the passive AP gain by goons which would dramatically affect PvE. So it's cost would likely be crazy high for a few turns (like 10-12 AP for 3 turns) which wouldn't really help much (not to mention that during those turns her team up drain wouldn't happen either).

Right now the tile percentages are 15/15/15/15/15/15/10 with 10% being team up. Imagine a passive similar to Domino's (increases Black tile drop) but instead it reduced team up drop by 6% so that the drop percentages were 16/16/16/16/16/16/4. Now there would be a dearth of team up tiles on the board...

KGB

thedarkphoenix

KGB said:

Michael1957 said:

All these fixes target Okoye primarily, which is unique to almost any other power. I still think an active power of “ Block all enemy passive powers for X turns “ would work without specifically targeting Okoye or Hulkoye users. 

Unfortunately such a power would likely be considered incredibly powerful by the Dev team since it would block for example all the passive AP gain by goons which would dramatically affect PvE. So it's cost would likely be crazy high for a few turns (like 10-12 AP for 3 turns) which wouldn't really help much (not to mention that during those turns her team up drain wouldn't happen either).

Right now the tile percentages are 15/15/15/15/15/15/10 with 10% being team up. Imagine a passive similar to Domino's (increases Black tile drop) but instead it reduced team up drop by 6% so that the drop percentages were 16/16/16/16/16/16/4. Now there would be a dearth of team up tiles on the board...

KGB

It really wouldn't be that bad, especially if the goons still gain AP, it just means when if wears off they are going to drop all there stuff at once. In fact it would make some matches with actual villains or hero's even worse since they would actually fire there powers all the time instead of the goons using up the AP they generate.


The thing is it really wouldn't be super useful in pvp unless it was like 6-7 ap and lasted at least 3 turns by it could be a count down tile so that would make it a 6 ap cost a bit more bearable since you could match or destroy it. And as long as only one can be on the board it means that goons would at least get to unload there AP.

Michael1957

KGB said:

Michael1957 said:

All these fixes target Okoye primarily, which is unique to almost any other power. I still think an active power of “ Block all enemy passive powers for X turns “ would work without specifically targeting Okoye or Hulkoye users. 

Unfortunately such a power would likely be considered incredibly powerful by the Dev team since it would block for example all the passive AP gain by goons which would dramatically affect PvE. So it's cost would likely be crazy high for a few turns (like 10-12 AP for 3 turns) which wouldn't really help much (not to mention that during those turns her team up drain wouldn't happen either).

Right now the tile percentages are 15/15/15/15/15/15/10 with 10% being team up. Imagine a passive similar to Domino's (increases Black tile drop) but instead it reduced team up drop by 6% so that the drop percentages were 16/16/16/16/16/16/4. Now there would be a dearth of team up tiles on the board...

KGB

That’s also a valid solution but when I’m running Hulkoye/ Northstar 90% of the time I have 10+ TU by turn 5. He’d become more meta team as a counter to the new power. 

KGB

@Michael1957 - Hulkoye / Northstar is only viable in pick 3 like simulator. So if that becomes a Meta team there then I doubt many are worried because the AI would never play that right on defense (it would use Okoye's Yellow) so it would be trivial to beat it.

KGB

killahKlown

Solution... change her so she only buffs active abilities, not passives. That way she'll still be strong in pve play, but not so much in pvp where the immediate Hulk passive aoe has become the standard.  Also brings back strategy of matches in pvp.  Using hulk okoye is just autopilot  now.

ursopro

killahKlown said:

Solution... change her so she only buffs active abilities, not passives. That way she'll still be strong in pve play, but not so much in pvp where the immediate Hulk passive aoe has become the standard.  Also brings back strategy of matches in pvp.  Using hulk okoye is just autopilot  now.

This sounds like a good compromise ti balance the character.

Thanks for the input and keep the ideas coming guys, I really think we have something good here!

BigSoftieFF

I heard level 508 Kitty got nerfed recently, maybe even level 465 Phoenix. Keep the hope alive.

freakygeek

Some things to keep in mind.

1) If a nerfbat comes for Okoye, it will be an over-nerf like it always is and will destroy any usefulness the character has.  She would be new best friends with Gambit.

2) Most people with Okoye had her on the shelf collecting dust until iHulk came along.  Thorkoye had long since been passed by in the meta.  Okoye is only relevant and discussed because of iHulk acceleration.  The interesting thing here is that on move 1 (the one everyone here is complaining about) enemy Okoye has 0 team up and all the damage comes from iHulk himself.

3) As someone else brought up, all removing Okoye from the equation would do is move Apocalypse to the top.  He would take 2 yellow matches with an AP boost to fire his yellow and then accomplish the same thing except without the worry of team-up drain that Okoye has.

IMOHO with Adam Warlock and iHulk clearly passive damage is the new thing and a Quake like character in the 5* meta would be the best counter.

PiMacleod

Still waiting on Leech...

(I posted the idea in the new character idea section)

Yellow passive - at the start of your turn, "blank" the text and effect of one randomly selected enemy passive ability for 1 turn.
Level 2 - if you have 10 yellow AP, blank up to two randomly selected enemy passive abilities for 1 turn.
Level 3 - reduced requirement from 10 to 6 yellow AP.
Level 4 - if you have 10 purple AP, blank another randomly selected enemy passive ability for 1 turn.
Level 5 - reduced requirement from 10 purple AP to 6 purple AP.

The overall ability remains the same from before, but i might've had something slightly different here or there.  Doing this on a phone leaves a lot to be desired... So im not about to flip back and forth through mobile phone pages to reference it. 

All of this to say, i know such a character wouldnt have much use in PvE, but it would be super interesting in PvP, where passives rule the game.  Since you cant choose which ones to blank, you cant guarantee outcomes, but no matter what, he would disrupt some sort of enemy plan.  This could be a thorn in Okoye's side, or iHulk, or BRB, or Kitty, or Polaris.... Etc.

I guess you could say i fall into that 3rd category -- present more options via new characters or buffs to old characters. 

ThaRoadWarrior

freakygeek said:

[...]IMOHO with Adam Warlock and iHulk clearly passive damage is the new thing and a Quake like character in the 5* meta would be the best counter.

I would be willing to bet that 5* Magneto was somebody's attempt to do that, but as with all active counters to passive threats, he doesn't work as intended. His blue is cheap and converts green to yellow while he removes himself from the board - if it kept turning green to yellow while airborne, this would be great, but it doesn't, so it isn't.

He passively increases by percentage (this is actually strong design, since it doesn't require him to be at excessive levels to do it) the effectiveness of Protect tiles for every active X-Man on the team, but until a BRB-esque passive tile spammer appears, you're looking at a 3rd in pick-3 for it to work rather than a pick-2 pvp savior. So getting back to that Gambit example, Magneto is hanging out with Lumbercap and Archangel already even before any hypothetical nerf.

Bad

Even with the best start apocalypse needs 2 turns to collect 7 AP and then fire it. 3 turns on a great lucky start for ihulk damaging like 10 k more on the turn 4. It will happen counted times, being the usual hapoening collecting 7 AP on turn 5. Boosting Ihulk on turn 7. And being happy. 

Okoye in the same lucky start is boosting damage on turn 2,  plus as she could be hyper leveled she could tank Ihulk and the damage just accumulates on next turns. Being so a lot faster and more damaging than apocalypse,  even more if using healing  yellow power.
Apocalypse can be used as a meatshield for ihulk damaging more, but not, the real problem no matter how its exposed is okoye as all of you deep inside well know it.

ThaRoadWarrior

The complaints about Okoye being "hyperleveled" are so interesting to me. Like that's a trivial thing to do, and didn't take someone actual human years to accomplish through hoarding, or SIGNIFICANT spending through buy clubs or however that's done. That you're getting match up against people with 550s on their roster is the problem, not that a character 100 levels higher than mine is significantly better.

Bad

ThaRoadWarrior said:

The complaints about Okoye being "hyperleveled" are so interesting to me. Like that's a trivial thing to do, and didn't take someone actual human years to accomplish through hoarding, or SIGNIFICANT spending through buy clubs or however that's done. That you're getting match up against people with 550s on their roster is the problem, not that a character 100 levels higher than mine is significantly better.

A lot of people dipped on okoye exactly for to bend her rule and to take advantage of the meta.
Intently hyper leveling her to the point were she tanks a baby champed Ihulk. 
Exactly that fact is what Im meaning with hyper leveled, and so its used as there is no faster team both on pvp and pve.
When a character needs 40 copies for to bend a rule, being quite commited to achieve it, its not a healthy meta.

ThaRoadWarrior

When you say "bend a rule," that implies people are doing things they ought not to be doing. This is just making roster choices using resources. If you want to do it, you could spend a year saving up and then do the same thing in one of the special stores she's always in. I'm just saying that nobody is "cheating" or "bending the rules" by choosing which characters to invest in. It also doesn't make the character broken if having 40+ more levels on it is significantly better than a baby champ.