Self service rebalance!

Bad

Right now there are 54 5*s. There are 111 4*s characters too.
On the 5* side, among all the 55 characters, a seasoned player knows how many characters people use on pvp.
Players usually ask for rebalances for them, but these rebalances never come or if it comes it is not enough for making them playable.
Shards can upgrade them some levels but still is not enough. 

What would happen if the player could personally rebalance them? With another designed item.

What really olds characters usually lack is power creep and AP cost.
If there would be items that:
1-increase health in a % or in a 5000 points
2-increase powers damage in a % or in 2000 points
3-increase match damage in 100 points
4‐decrease powers in 1 AP
If those legendary items could be earned and activated on some outclassed 5*s, a lot of really classic 5*s could return to life.
Conversely that could happen to some really old 4*s, at least the AP reduction.

Then oficially that would be a rebalance and a revolution like shards, and devs could considerate if those items could serve for any classic 5*, of if they are personal for any character like shards work. 
And the way those items would be adquired.
Any thoughts?

HoundofShadow

It sounds like Supports and players don't want Supports in pvps unless the opponents don't get to use them.

Besides, they would rather put those items on meta characters.

Bad

If this idea is intended for outclassed classics, it wont serve for medium age classic meta characters.
It wont be item supports, it would be like upgrades.
What is it a cover? It is a piece of upgrading into a certain limit.

Now unchamped characters are seen as yellow, champed characters blue, and modified old characters could be green.

Cannibalqueen

Outside of reducing AP costs, it seems like you are talking about something that could be done by raising the level cap over 550.  I, like I think the huge majority of players in 5* land,
have left most characters pretty baby champed. If I really wanted my Silver Surfer, Jessica Jones or Iceman to do that much more for me, I have 90-100 champ levels that I could pursue before any system that you are proposing.  

For the players that do have 500+ level 5*s, I doubt they are much interested in characters outside the meta.

I mean, I think I get what you are putting forward, but it seems like a lot of work for a system that I’m not sure who it really serves.  Things like reducing AP costs or changing the mechanics of certain powers, I think they would rather wrap up that functionality in a new character coming down the line.  

That’s why as much as I would love to see classic 5*s rebalanced, I don’t know if it makes sense from the devs standpoint.  

HoundofShadow

The kind of rebalance players here want touches on four core factors:

1) healthpoint
2) match damage
3) damage/ap
4) usability

The easiest way to achieve that is simply boost 2 non-meta 5* per week. Champed 5*, boosted to level 550, will have their power damage increase by ~2.16x. It will more or less achieve the first 3 factors. Of course, there will still be players who are gonna keep on comparing and arguing that boosting is not enough because of x, y and z reasons.

Anyway, for factor no. 4, two 5* had rebalances: Dr Ock and Archangel. 

However, they are examples of failed rebalances because players are still not using them enough. It proves that if the rebalance doesn't elevate those 5* characters to GED/Carbage/Onslaught tier of usability, all the efforts put into rebalances are simply a waste of developers time. I rather they boost two old 5* to 550 per week to save all the trouble.

So, your solution need to touch on all four points, and your items need to be tagged to specific 5*. If not, they will simply put those stuff on meta 5* and continue to ask for rebalances.

ThaRoadWarrior

Increasing the number of weekly boosted characters would be interesting for sure. Enabling supports in PVP is a guaranteed way to get people to care about chasing supports, though of course that would then mean the dev team would have to start caring about and balancing supports and I’m not sure they have the capacity to do it with the number of characters already in the game and their various permutations. They would need to be much more proactive about managing balance and tending the meta. But all those suggestions already exist as effects on various supports (cost reduction not so much, but AP acquisition or start do which is close).

Srheer0

The gap between number of 5s and 4s is only going to widen. They aren't releasing 4 5 4 5 4 5 in that order.

If D3 were to do a mass rebalance of the older and less useful 5s (which would be very good for a stale meta) they would want to be able to monetise it. Because a lot of the older playerbase already have those older 5s champed or max champed. So they would just use them and not need to spend any CPs or real money to chase them.  

They could potentially buff 3x 5stars at a time. Make another "legends" vault for them and make it cost 25CP a pop. Same pull odds as Latest or Classic. This way, you give new players a realistic chance of pulling a 5 they don't have (talking about pulling what you want in classic legends), and because the changed 5s would hopefully be viable in the current game. 

Or it would have the opposite effect and make something even more centralising appear than iHulkoye.

Out of all the classic 5s, I would love to see Ironman and Green Golbin get buffs. Fortifying tiles passivly is a very strong passive. But Golbin has really low hitpoints and maybe too high ap costs to exist in todays pvp. 
 

Changing numbers or effects of already existing 5s should in theory be the same work, or less work than making a whole new 5star or 4star. I view it as win-win for both the players and the developers.

Bad

Thank you for to comment this!
Im going to develop further my suggestion without going away from the game power gacha system.
I will throw away the increased match damage option for having the usual trinity.

There would be i.e 13 perks. It could be like this:(i.e)
Health:
Level 1+2000 level 2+3000 more level 3+3000 more level 4 +3000 more level 5+9000 more
Damage powers:
Level 1+1000 more level 2+1000 more level 3+1000 more level 4+1000 more level 5+ 3000 more
AP reduction:
Level 1 nothing level 2 1AP reduction on weak color level 3 1AP reduction on 2 weak color level 4 1AP reduction on 3 powers level 5 2AP reduction on strong power and 1AP reduction on the other 2.
When having the 13 it would be possible to set it like champing.
That would be under the supposition of colored perks with the personal face of the character, like covers.
Cannibalqueen said:

Outside of reducing AP costs, it seems like you are talking about something that could be done by raising the level cap over 550.  I, like I think the huge majority of players in 5* land,
have left most characters pretty baby champed. If I really wanted my Silver Surfer, Jessica Jones or Iceman to do that much more for me, I have 90-100 champ levels that I could pursue before any system that you are proposing.  

No. Some really old characters wont change much even if raising them over 550 or buffing them still they would be pretty easy to beat. 
It should need to paint the line to the old 5*s taking this system and those who will not, as jessica is still playable but silver surfer not too much.

ThaRoadWarrior

Characters with abilities/buffs/passives that aren't tied to their base level will stay evergreen. iHulk will always be relevant, as will 5witch because her powers are tied to a % rather than hard numbers that need to be leveled up to increase. Jessica Jones stays playable because her traps also gain strongest color AP that someone newer/better can use. I feel pretty confident that MEANINGFUL updates to health along with power cost reduction or timer/repeater length reductions would need to happen to revitalize older characters. Some 5*s were just dead on arrival and need a complete rework, like Wa5p, Rescue, and Fi5k, and others are hard counters to a meta that doesn't exist like Archangel. Then there is that group that got nerfed into the ground like OML, Gambit, and inexplicably Danver5 (serioiusly why WAS that done?). 

I still maintain you're describing Supports - they already exist as an end-game RNG method of aquisition where you get tokens out of a vault that then give you a chance at earning one you don't have, and no meaningful way to chase a specific one you want or grow an existing one you already have on purpose. I have to imagine that's the way 6* characters would roll out.

Something else that could be done to revitalize older characters is do something more with Affiliations. Maybe this ties in to The Saved Teams feature where you can assign an affiliation attribute to a saved team (or have dedicated saved team slots for this) where say anyone with the X-Men affiliation gains a bonus, and anyone who doesn't have the X-Men affiliation already gains it if added to that team (but they get a lesser bonus). Just thinking out loud about that, it's not a fully formed idea. 

KGB

I still believe the game would be better off if it started retiring some older 5*.

For example we have 2 Caps at the 5* level. Civil War Cap is a perfect candidate to retire leaving 1 Cap at the 5* level. The same argument goes for retiring Banner since we have IHulk.

Sometime in 2022 we will get a new Dr Strange movie. That's a perfect time for a new 5* Strange and retire the older one. Same with 5* Black Panther when the new Black Panther movie drops. There are also 2 Spidermans and both those could be retired when the new Spiderman movie drops.

Other older 5* can just be retired (Surfer, Phoenix, Iron Man, Goblin etc) and eventually replaced with new 5* characters (ideally tied to movies but doesn't have to be).

KGB

ThaRoadWarrior

The only way that would be acceptable is if there was a resource refund as they dropped out of usability. And it would need to be 1:1, or have them turn into claimable favorite shards equal to their level or something like that. I'd for sure quit if my 5* roster started dropping off into the aether with no compensation.

Bad

ThaRoadWarrior said:

where say anyone with the X-Men affiliation gains a bonus, and anyone who doesn't have the X-Men affiliation already gains it if added to that team (but they get a lesser bonus). Just thinking out loud about that, it's not a fully formed idea. 

Not more bonuses to xmen! I think it is the most favoured affiliation in game. 

KGB said:

I still believe the game would be better off if it started retiring some older 5*.

Other older 5* can just be retired (Surfer, Phoenix, Iron Man, Goblin etc) and eventually replaced with new 5* characters (ideally tied to movies but doesn't have to be).

KGB

No problem for me—I dont have any (any!) old classic champed. Possibly a problem for vets who have them, and when it wasnt the shards there.

The whole idea is to put in play retired 5*s with an easy sistem for them. 

ThaRoadWarrior

X-Men was just an example - currently you might say it's the only affilation that matters and that's a shame.

KGB

ThaRoadWarrior said:

The only way that would be acceptable is if there was a resource refund as they dropped out of usability. And it would need to be 1:1, or have them turn into claimable favorite shards equal to their level or something like that. I'd for sure quit if my 5* roster started dropping off into the aether with no compensation.

For sure they'd need to offer a buy back at the time of retirement. Say what they did with Gambit when he got nerfed (I can't recall the exact buy back details now, was it 1 random classic 5* per 2 covers?).

You wouldn't be forced to sell and you could continue to use the older character if you didn't sell (just like you can with 1* Yelena). They could even allow players to sharget them if they wanted to continue developing them. It's just that they would no longer be in tokens/vaults/new 5* release stores or featured in PvE (or PvP if we ever get 5* PvP) so they wouldn't disappear off your roster.

KGB

Bad

SSBB, logan, banner, strange,BW, jean grey, silver surfer, green goblin, have 40k health. 
SSBB, strange, BW and SS have powers of 14 AP, so a reduction of 2 AP wouldnt matter for them. 
So what would be a playable character?
Perhaps you will agree, to nowadays standars:
‐must have 60k health minimum
-must have maximum 10AP cost
-must damage minimum 15k per 7 AP if there is no other effect.

ThaRoadWarrior

Bad said:

SSBB, logan, banner, strange,BW, jean grey, silver surfer, green goblin, have 40k health. 
SSBB, strange, BW and SS have powers of 14 AP, so a reduction of 2 AP wouldnt matter for them. 
So what would be a playable character?
Perhaps you will agree, to nowadays standars:
‐must have 60k health minimum
-must have maximum 10AP cost
-must damage minimum 15k per 7 AP if there is no other effect.

10ap is too much if they aren't a self-battery I think.

Warbringa

They could fairly easily rebalance old 5* and 4* with health and AP match upgrades along with AP cost adjustments and do batches of old 4* and 5* without too much time or problems since you are not retooling whole powers. While these characters would still not be meta they would be at least more serviceable.   The issue is that there no real monetary benefit for them to do so (or at least compared to other game projects) and they are going to have their limited work force concentrate on areas they believe will monetarily benefit them.  It may one day be on the list of to-do's for the devs but it is probably far down the list.  Let's face it 6* characters are probably higher on their list than old 4* and 5* mass rebalances & upgrades....

Daredevil217

We were asked in a poll here whether we’d prefer buffs to weak characters or nerfs to over-powered ones. I think the consensus was “buffs to old 5s but please nerf Bishop”. I wonder if they thought “nerf” would run away with the poll since Bishop was a thing and they were planning to nerf him anyways. By asking the way they did, they could say “well we offered but people weren’t interested in buffs”. 

But instead we said “Both! It doesn’t have to be either/or!”  (And I think buffs won the actual poll... so clearly people are interested). I think Archangel was the only character to get buffed since that poll (I believe he was buffed the same day Bish was nerfed). So I guess that was all that came of that. I mean why ask if you’re not going to follow through??

ThaRoadWarrior

KGB said:

ThaRoadWarrior said:

The only way that would be acceptable is if there was a resource refund as they dropped out of usability. And it would need to be 1:1, or have them turn into claimable favorite shards equal to their level or something like that. I'd for sure quit if my 5* roster started dropping off into the aether with no compensation.

For sure they'd need to offer a buy back at the time of retirement. Say what they did with Gambit when he got nerfed (I can't recall the exact buy back details now, was it 1 random classic 5* per 2 covers?).

You wouldn't be forced to sell and you could continue to use the older character if you didn't sell (just like you can with 1* Yelena). They could even allow players to sharget them if they wanted to continue developing them. It's just that they would no longer be in tokens/vaults/new 5* release stores or featured in PvE (or PvP if we ever get 5* PvP) so they wouldn't disappear off your roster.

KGB

Is this at all different than how Vaulting used to work? Where characters would rotate out of the store pool but still turn up in PVP and be on the boost list? I recall really hating that system back when I was a 3* player personally.

HoundofShadow

That's the controversial old vaulting. His suggestion also makes sure they won't be featured or boosted anywhere at all.

ThaRoadWarrior

I dont see how that really adds anything to the play experience myself, but I only pull out of Latest so for me 5* dilution is the 3 latest legends and whoever I’m shargeting.