Power creep, thy name is the 5* tier

Aweberman

Here are two simple graphs for your perusal.  The first is a chart of the match damage for all 5* characters at level 450, sorted in order of release.  The second is the health pools for all 5* characters, with the same criteria.  Enjoy!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vR0IWfh3VRN6hh8ZrwvQ96L7C1hdLX3xRhtOjGW_HX1-mBVQMQA4RGPaOcPYuPv1BH3hEmm6YvaDpru/pubchart?oid=1916766154&format=image

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vR0IWfh3VRN6hh8ZrwvQ96L7C1hdLX3xRhtOjGW_HX1-mBVQMQA4RGPaOcPYuPv1BH3hEmm6YvaDpru/pubchart?oid=303309606&format=image

Jacklag

The numbers for Archangel are from his most recent buff, right? Not from his original release.

Aweberman

Jacklag said:

The numbers for Archangel are from his most recent buff, right? Not from his original release.

Correct. It’s quite out of step with everybody else from that era.

sambrookjm

Great visualization of the problem!  And it's likely only to get worse as more 5-stars roll out, unless they're iHulk like and do a passive AoE and come back from the dead.

Are the Gambit/Old Man Logan health their current ones, or the ones from their initial releases?  I'm sure there were other 5-stars that have been changed, but those two nerfs were the biggest complaint generators in the tier.

Archangel's buff, which was hardly something that people were asking for, puts him at least 10K health above all of his other contemporary 5-stars.  Meanwhile, 5-stars sorely in need of a buff (you know who they are!) are still towards the bottom of the chart.

Aweberman

sambrookjm said:

Are the Gambit/Old Man Logan health their current ones, or the ones from their initial releases?

I assume they are the current values. I took all this data from Daredevil217’s amazing 5* character write-up. 

Kolence

Original Archangel had the exact same match damage numbers as Thor. I remember that well, because I had them both at 450 and had to be carefull about where they go in pvp to hide Thor.

Dr. Octopus also got a buff and higher match damage with it.

I'm pretty sure Logan and Gambit didn't change match damage?! If they did, it couldn't have been anything as big as the Archangel example.

Other two buffed 5-stars were Cap (older one) and Surfer - the oldest one!  

Omegased

it's very interesting, the health one is worth noting that the anomalies (profx and immortalhulk) have either high damage negation or benefit from dying.

also interesting to see Old Man Logan having HALF the health of Old Man Samuari Logan Daken

AXP_isme

I think Phoenix's health may be a bit out. The chart seems to show her with substantially more than the sub-45k that she actually has. 

Aweberman

AXP_isme said:

I think Phoenix's health may be a bit out. The chart seems to show her with substantially more than the sub-45k that she actually has. 

Good catch.  I have edited it.

Colognoisseur

This is a great visualization of the disparity in the 5* tier. Great job putting it together. 

It also shows what a difference a normalization of these numbers could do to the tier.

Unlike a lot of suggestions made to improve the game tweaking these values would have to be one of the easiest to achieve. 

The other interesting thing I noticed in seeing the data this way is it seems like at the moment they’ve hit a momentary upper limit on match damage. I wonder why?

Vhailorx

Colognoisseur said:

This is a great visualization of the disparity in the 5* tier. Great job putting it together. 

It also shows what a difference a normalization of these numbers could do to the tier.

Unlike a lot of suggestions made to improve the game tweaking these values would have to be one of the easiest to achieve. 

The other interesting thing I noticed in seeing the data this way is it seems like at the moment they’ve hit a momentary upper limit on match damage. I wonder why?

I have always assumed that they implement this powercreep to help players like you colog.  If every new 5* had similar match damage and health, wouldn't your older, 500+ characters just dominate all the time?  I think the theory is that new baby champs should be able to match straight up with classic 500s. 

for someone like me, who has all baby champs, this just means that the newer releases are stupid strong, and thus only worth champing if they can true heal or otherwise won't tank everything and die quickly.  But how does it work out for you?  Are you just defaulting to okoye anyway?

As for a match damage ceiling, I don't think we have much evidence of anything but a plateau. We had three in a row with best-in-game match damage, then another three with new best-in-game numbers.  and now two one-offs, one with very high (5mags) and one with very low (AW) match damage.  I would not be at all surprised for the next character to be >/= 5Mags.  Though I do concede that nice round numbers like 1000 can be sticky for human designers, so I would expect us to take longer getting to, and and be slow to grow past, 1k whenever that happens.

Mr_F

IMO, we need 5* nerfs not buffs if we speak about match damage and health pools. Its not like I wouldnt like it but from game health perspective it would be healthier to make them less powerfull in those 2 aspects.

I am 4* player and I chase 5* Wasp, one of the worst 5* in the game. And I can say by expierence: simple presence of lv 360 weak 5* made me stronger. Maybe not in PVP (especially simulator) but still noticable. Basically: Its still better for me to use weak 5* rather than another boosted 4*.

What I would like to see is some permament tiers. No more infinite scale up.

PiMacleod

I really and truly believe they do this purposely to entice people to buy it up based solely on damage and health.  Because lets say you're comfy/cozy with your Okoye, Thor, and other classics (that still work well, I might add)...

...but then you see this new shiny 5* that does like double the match damage, and a ton more health, and that's only at baby-champ level...

Aren't you at least a LITTLE enticed?  Missing out on such a brawny prospect may not be a bad deal now... but what about the next one that's even stronger and healthier?  The next one???  THE NEXT ONE??!?!  OMG THE CREEP!!!  

I think the idea is, that eventually, people will cave-in and say "welp, I guess I need to add some steroids into my roster" and buy up the next new strong-(wo)man.

Do I think this is healthy for the game?  No.  But do I think they care?  Also, no.  MPQ was never meant to be a competitive e-sport, sitting there next to Overwatch, Fortnite, Street FIghter, Smash, etc... and as such, they aren't gonna work at balancing it THAT much... just enough to make people complacent and keep them enthralled.

Is that a sad view of the game?  YES!!!  Am I still playing?  Also, Yes. 

KGB

For newer players, older 5* are hopeless to chase because the odds in classic LT's are infinitely small. Feeders give 1-2 covers (even L300 4* is hard to get with 100+ 4*) and maybe you get another one from daily resupply. But otherwise there is no path to the other 10 or so covers needed to champ them unless they appear in a special store (which maybe happens 1 time a year and you'd need to have 7000+ CP ready to use).

So it's probably for the best that they are rendered obsolete except for their 1 time a year use in PvE/PvP.

KGB

jp1

KGB said:

For newer players, older 5* are hopeless to chase because the odds in classic LT's are infinitely small. Feeders give 1-2 covers (even L300 4* is hard to get with 100+ 4*) and maybe you get another one from daily resupply. But otherwise there is no path to the other 10 or so covers needed to champ them unless they appear in a special store (which maybe happens 1 time a year and you'd need to have 7000+ CP ready to use).

So it's probably for the best that they are rendered obsolete except for their 1 time a year use in PvE/PvP.

KGB

This is so true. I’m not even “new” with just over 3 years, but I have at least 6-8 classics that I have resigned myself to never getting champed. The resources necessary just to keep up means I will never have the expendable CP for a special store to cover one of them.

Im fortunate that all of those besides BSSM and PP are among the worst in the game. I could just imagine trying to overcome the 4 star tier and even thinking of covering the meta that has already left LL while having to consider who I would let fall into obscurity. It’s  not really a collectors game any longer...which is a shame.

Vhailorx

jp1 said:

KGB said:

For newer players, older 5* are hopeless to chase because the odds in classic LT's are infinitely small. Feeders give 1-2 covers (even L300 4* is hard to get with 100+ 4*) and maybe you get another one from daily resupply. But otherwise there is no path to the other 10 or so covers needed to champ them unless they appear in a special store (which maybe happens 1 time a year and you'd need to have 7000+ CP ready to use).

So it's probably for the best that they are rendered obsolete except for their 1 time a year use in PvE/PvP.

KGB

This is so true. I’m not even “new” with just over 3 years, but I have at least 6-8 classics that I have resigned myself to never getting champed. The resources necessary just to keep up means I will never have the expendable CP for a special store to cover one of them.

Im fortunate that all of those besides BSSM and PP are among the worst in the game. I could just imagine trying to overcome the 4 star tier and even thinking of covering the meta that has already left LL while having to consider who I would let fall into obscurity. It’s  not really a collectors game any longer...which is a shame.

I predate 5*s in this game by more than a full year, and I also have many classic 5*s that I have resigned myself to never champing.  There is just no point in going back and finishing CW Cap or banner hulk at this point, even though I have 10 covers for them. 

ThaRoadWarrior

This is the inverse of the 4* tier complaint - "i would use ### character, but I already have So and So at 3XX level, so they're DOA to me..." unless there is a fundamental gimmick like Bishop, Karnak, or Polaris. Here we have all new 5*s just kind of baseline outclassing old ones unless those old ones have some fundamental gimmick (okoye, thor, etc). I'd love to see some re-calibration across the old ones, if not actual rebalancing of power cost and/or effect, because I like to try and chase all of them personally.

PiMacleod

huh.  i like where your head is at.  if each 5* had a thing they brought to the table.  Okoye and Thor and Kitty do.

In a way, Goblin does.  He's the only one that locks repeaters AND countdowns every turn  Hawkeye just does countdowns, but he also offers AP for friendly countdowns that hit 0, and that's nice..

But really, most of the rest of them, if they have something special, it's not special enough.  Doc Ock, immune to stun, if you hit a match 4+ (and add a tentacle tile).  Needs a bit more "oomf" in order to be useful.  Silver Surfer is at LEAST talked about because he's just IMMUNE to stun period.

OML has good regen, but should be much better (pre-nerf, please).  Phoenix comes back from the dead, but it needs to be more guaranteed in order to be useful.  Either that, or her abilities post-resurrection need to be outstanding, and even then, I doubt it'd be worth it to kill her EVERY fight.  Star-Lord brings nearly nothing to the table except a healing option for the team at half health.  The other two abilities are so small compared to other things like it in the 5* tier.  Black Widow at least revenge-stuns, but she probably should do that in more situations (i.e. in response to a stun AND/OR if any teammate take X damage or more, or maybe when an enemy gains AP from sources outside of matching tiles).  Dr Strange punishes active ability usage... would be better if he had strange's 3* healing too.

So many off-the-top-of-my-head things... and I need to stop it, because I need to work.

ThaRoadWarrior

There should be no duds at the 5* tier. Technical to play (but worth it) is fine, but full on bad is not.

Vhailorx

ThaRoadWarrior said:

There should be no duds at the 5* tier. Technical to play (but worth it) is fine, but full on bad is not.

We agree that wasps cannot happen. But what about doc oc, or im46?  How fiddly and technical to play is too much?

ThaRoadWarrior

I loved Original Flavor doc oc, the rebalance lost the fun of his convoluted insta win. And in fact, his very original flavor where he insta won wave nodes was even better, but that got nerfed like immediately. I think his ability to take turns while stunned (pre rebalance) was novel, but it went away before I had that color for him. Mine isn’t anywhere close to champed still though.

IM46 I don’t have much experience with though - mine is pretty lame at 3/2/2.

I would say Heimdall and Onslaught are the correct amount of convolution: they have a good passive that can benefit from other characters with an active that requires/allows you to think about where you drop it.