Let’s talk Supports and what is a meaningful revamp.

KGB

Akoni said:

To your, and others', point, adding supports to PvP or adding PvP-only supports could become very complicated (and frustrating) very fast. My suggestion would be to keep things very simple by keeping the same supports, but add a single power for PvP. During PvE, this PvP-specific power would be disabled. During PvP, all of the other powers are disabled. This way, players can use the same support, without it becoming complicated. This also solves the "too powerful/unfair for PvP" argument.

I think your wrong about PvP supports in addition to PvE supports being too complex. I don't see that being too complex at all. All they'd need to do is allow you to equip 2 supports on a character, 1 PvE and 1 PvP support.

Also just randomly dropping a new power onto existing supports is going to cause some issues. We as players won't get to vote what power goes where and we know they won't all be equal so it's going to cause resentment if they drop good powers onto **** supports no one chased or drop good powers onto supports that people have at rank 1 as opposed to rank 5. Or even worse a great power on a support that is locked to 1 character/classification.

It's better to create new supports for PvP only and gradually release them like they do with new characters. In fact the new release schedule could be 4*, 5*, PvP Support. This gives all players a shot at new supports and we all start at the same place (not having the support). Also it would be cool if PvP supports had 2 powers, one on offense and 1 on defense so you had to make some decisions on what to equip to who (if you care about defense). Plus the new PvP supports would not be locked to 1 character/classification.

KGB

ThaRoadWarrior

I can understand the hesitancy to ramp up design time spent on supports since they operate differently than characters. You don't have to pay any currency cost to roster them, but you can't get any dupes and you can't sell them. so in that way, it makes some sense to throttle the growth curve on them. 

There are a lot of user experience logistics we'd need to have come along for the ride if they were going to start being equipped to AI enemies in either game mode though, because expecting everyone to keep in their heads everything they do alongside what the actual characters do is too much brain loading. 

Phumade

KGB said:

Akoni said:

To your, and others', point, adding supports to PvP or adding PvP-only supports could become very complicated (and frustrating) very fast. My suggestion would be to keep things very simple by keeping the same supports, but add a single power for PvP. During PvE, this PvP-specific power would be disabled. During PvP, all of the other powers are disabled. This way, players can use the same support, without it becoming complicated. This also solves the "too powerful/unfair for PvP" argument.

I think your wrong about PvP supports in addition to PvE supports being too complex. I don't see that being too complex at all. All they'd need to do is allow you to equip 2 supports on a character, 1 PvE and 1 PvP support.

Also just randomly dropping a new power onto existing supports is going to cause some issues. We as players won't get to vote what power goes where and we know they won't all be equal so it's going to cause resentment if they drop good powers onto **** supports no one chased or drop good powers onto supports that people have at rank 1 as opposed to rank 5. Or even worse a great power on a support that is locked to 1 character/classification.

It's better to create new supports for PvP only and gradually release them like they do with new characters. In fact the new release schedule could be 4*, 5*, PvP Support. This gives all players a shot at new supports and we all start at the same place (not having the support). Also it would be cool if PvP supports had 2 powers, one on offense and 1 on defense so you had to make some decisions on what to equip to who (if you care about defense). Plus the new PvP supports would not be locked to 1 character/classification.

KGB

Adding space for a second support is probably as technically demanding (on the dev side) as bolting on extra powers for the object class.  Either one accomplish the main goal of leveraging the design and technical  investment in the support concept.  It will be up to the devs to determine the most affordable implementation based on their current platform.

Overall ideas that I liked.
1.  1 offensive and 1 defensive effect is a great simplification on 3vs5 powers.  I think the current effects are too hard to understand vs all their limitations.  1 offensive and 1 defensive effect amplified based on level rank is a better understood and more easily used system.   Keep in mind that still means 3 different offensive/defensive effects per match. 

Maybe only allow 1 support for featured char? And disallow the effects on the pick 2 chars?

2.  The bonus synergy effect has been a real failure.  I can’t think of a single support that popular for its specific synergy.  Single power supports that fire consistently are easier to plan for and more enjoyable to use.

3. 54 active support is too much for the active landscape of play.  20-30 currently active supports is a reasonable number of pvp modifiers.  Beyond that, I think you exponentially increase the probability of ground breaking interactions.  Maybe this means that supports get retired.?  I know that’s a concept that Anathama to our community,  but it allow a better rotation of suppports that they can consistently monetize

KGB

@Phumade

The problem with only allowing a support on the featured character is that what do you do about the loaner (or even duplicate for those who have them). Plus some events like Sim don't have a featured character. I think it's gotta be either all characters or no PvP supports.

Obviously the most important thing to do is learn from the PvE supports that they can't over power them. By now we as players and presumably they as developers have a better handle on things so as not to give a power that start off with 80% chance for 6 green AP type thing and make multiple supports have that power. A better way to do it might be:

Rank 1 -  10% chance for 1 AP

Rank 2 - 20%

Rank 3 - 30% chance for 2 AP

Rank 4 - 40%

Rank 5 - 50% chance for 3 AP

and if you limit it so only 1 support that has that power on offense then at most you could start with 3 AP in a color on a Rank 5 support. If 3 AP is too much maybe it would be 2 AP at Rank 5 and just pure percentage increases at Ranks 2-4.

It should be pretty easy to come up with 20 or so unique powers, some of which have multiple variants (for example 'starting AP' is 1 power but there are 7 possible variants, one for each color + TU) so it would be possible to have 40+ potential supports over time. To help players quickly know what's what they would need to use common names for variants so the 7 'starting AP' supports should all have a name like 'The Blue Ring', 'The Red Ring' so that if you saw a 'Ring' support you'd know it means starting X AP rather than trying to memorize things like Atlantis vs Avengers Tower.

KGB

Colognoisseur

I like the supports themselves just fine. The most meaningful thing they could do is make them more available. 

The easiest way is to make beginner support tokens purchasable for regular iso. This would have a dual effect of allowing more players to have a bigger collection of low powered versions. Allowing them to explore using them. The other effect is to increase the flow of red iso since every dupe is more red iso. It would allow a player to have enough red iso so when the rng smiles on them they can level up.

Akoni

KGB said:

Akoni said:

To your, and others', point, adding supports to PvP or adding PvP-only supports could become very complicated (and frustrating) very fast. My suggestion would be to keep things very simple by keeping the same supports, but add a single power for PvP. During PvE, this PvP-specific power would be disabled. During PvP, all of the other powers are disabled. This way, players can use the same support, without it becoming complicated. This also solves the "too powerful/unfair for PvP" argument.

I think your wrong about PvP supports in addition to PvE supports being too complex. I don't see that being too complex at all. All they'd need to do is allow you to equip 2 supports on a character, 1 PvE and 1 PvP support.

Also just randomly dropping a new power onto existing supports is going to cause some issues. We as players won't get to vote what power goes where and we know they won't all be equal so it's going to cause resentment if they drop good powers onto **** supports no one chased or drop good powers onto supports that people have at rank 1 as opposed to rank 5. Or even worse a great power on a support that is locked to 1 character/classification.

It's better to create new supports for PvP only and gradually release them like they do with new characters. In fact the new release schedule could be 4*, 5*, PvP Support. This gives all players a shot at new supports and we all start at the same place (not having the support). Also it would be cool if PvP supports had 2 powers, one on offense and 1 on defense so you had to make some decisions on what to equip to who (if you care about defense). Plus the new PvP supports would not be locked to 1 character/classification.

KGB

Assuming the creation of PvP-specific supports, permitting 2 supports to be attached to a character is a great idea. I must disagree with your statements in the second paragraph, though. It may seem like it to some, but I am certain devs aren't rolling dice or spinning wheels to randomly determine what powers go where. The allocation of powers seems to be rather logical, thus far.
Also, we as players don't get a say in what powers devs come up with anyway. The UI update proves that devs have no obligation to run ideas by the players before implementing anything. Not a single support or character has been designed or implemented by players or with player feedback. If I am wrong about that, I hope someone comes forth with examples. That would be pretty cool to see.
Finally, I like the idea of having 2 powers. It is very possible to want the offensive power for one character and the defensive power for another character. That adds another layer of strategy to the whole thing. Good thoughts. In the end, it'll come down to what the devs envision and how they want to implement that vision. 

HoundofShadow

Some of the nerfed Bishop's abilities came from players' feedbacks. Look for the thread spanning over 10 pages where you see Bishop's nerfed abilities being suggested by those  players. 

Bad

Wanda's hard counter to ihulk has appeared after extensive feedback about hulkoye teams and how it is needed to counter it with a passive.
Morbius appeared after many complaints about polaris hegemony.
Puzzle ops running for a week appeared after suggestions to do gauntlets running a month.
New UI design appeared after revealing the exploits and has explicity changed by players feedback.

DAZ0273

You can see other obvious counters implemented that will have had some level of player base feedback. An example is Hela's punishment of Green AP which was clearly designed to try and clip Half-Thor's wings a bit - a topic of discussion on these boards with some even claiming God of Thunder was an exploit. If they can make it make sense (Hela shooting down Thor does) then great but if not they also have no issue of just throwing it out there even if it fails - like Infini-War Cap being an attempt at a Gambit counter. There is no logical reason to have this character be Gambit's counter which suggests it was player feedback based rather than natural design choice. "Give us a counter and give it now!" - Fine, who is next up? Right then.

I also think that Wanda almost had to be an iHulk counter, nothing else would have been entertained because she was so highly sought by the player base to have a 5* version and that version must absolutely not be anything but good. That is player base lead as much as anything else. Nobody wanted another Cap Marv5l...not even the DEVS.

MegaBee

DAZ0273 said:

Nobody wanted another Cap Marv5l...not even the DEVS.

Still annoyed that they stealth nerfed her...

Akoni

HoundofShadow said:

Some of the nerfed Bishop's abilities came from players' feedbacks. Look for the thread spanning over 10 pages where you see Bishop's nerfed abilities being suggested by those  players. 

Bad said:

Wanda's hard counter to ihulk has appeared after extensive feedback about hulkoye teams and how it is needed to counter it with a passive.
Morbius appeared after many complaints about polaris hegemony.
Puzzle ops running for a week appeared after suggestions to do gauntlets running a month.
New UI design appeared after revealing the exploits and has explicity changed by players feedback.

DAZ0273 said:

You can see other obvious counters implemented that will have had some level of player base feedback. An example is Hela's punishment of Green AP which was clearly designed to try and clip Half-Thor's wings a bit - a topic of discussion on these boards with some even claiming God of Thunder was an exploit. If they can make it make sense (Hela shooting down Thor does) then great but if not they also have no issue of just throwing it out there even if it fails - like Infini-War Cap being an attempt at a Gambit counter. There is no logical reason to have this character be Gambit's counter which suggests it was player feedback based rather than natural design choice. "Give us a counter and give it now!" - Fine, who is next up? Right then.

I also think that Wanda almost had to be an iHulk counter, nothing else would have been entertained because she was so highly sought by the player base to have a 5* version and that version must absolutely not be anything but good. That is player base lead as much as anything else. Nobody wanted another Cap Marv5l...not even the DEVS.

I apologize for any confusion. What I meant was although devs use feedback to implement changes, what they do not use is direct recommendations. For example, Bishop should have X power written "this" way. Players have provided feedback regarding Bishop, but devs did not ask players what should happen with that particular character's powers. Are there any examples of situations where a player has made a very specific recommendation regarding a character design that was taken by devs and implemented?

ThaRoadWarrior

MegaBee said:

DAZ0273 said:

Nobody wanted another Cap Marv5l...not even the DEVS.

Still annoyed that they stealth nerfed her...

Same. I have no opinion on Wanda the character, but if Omega Red comes out as anything but a good playable 5* i'm going to riot.

Bad

Akoni said:

I apologize for any confusion. What I meant was although devs use feedback to implement changes, what they do not use is direct recommendations. For example, Bishop should have X power written "this" way. Players have provided feedback regarding Bishop, but devs did not ask players what should happen with that particular character's powers. Are there any examples of situations where a player has made a very specific recommendation regarding a character design that was taken by devs and implemented?

If I was a dev the last thing I would do is to take a very specific recommendation literally to design a character. 
However after saying that, apocalypse was reduced SS from 9 to 7 AP.
Magneto blue was implemented to 8 hits maximum. And cyclops was specified to increase to 375%, altough the only way to see that is using him.
So there are details here and there happening, altough perhaps players would want more.

DeNappa

My cents on this topic (as someone who likes supports). First of all: I think it's fairly safe to assume they aren't going to change the system any time soon, if at all. We haven't seen any new supports in months (years?), they discontinued the supports event, and the only relevant work they did on them was the UI improvement.

That said here's my list of comments about them:

* The rank system sucks and needs to improve. I've come to a point where I just call support tokens 'duplicate support tokens' because it just gives red ISO most of the time. I think I offered a suggestion once that worked a bit like sharding but I can't be bothered to find it anymore.

* It's stupid they switched to supports having only 3 perks instead of 5 somewhere along the way. It's inconsistent.

* The infinity stone supports.... Why are they here? Let's face it, they will probably only be attainable for at most 1% of the player base, and I think of the few people who DO have them, they got them by coordinating and cheesing it by getting into flipped brackets. Either get rid of them or provide a better way to obtain them too.

* I'm okay with supports not active in PVP, especially if the system to obtain/level them is so random.

Bad

DeNappa said:

* The infinity stone supports.... Why are they here? Let's face it, they will probably only be attainable for at most 1% of the player base, and I think of the few people who DO have them, they got them by coordinating and cheesing it by getting into flipped brackets. Either get rid of them or provide a better way to obtain them too.

* I'm okay with supports not active in PVP, especially if the system to obtain/level them is so random.

Actually the whole pvp system right now it is oriented to coordinating and cheesing it, and nobody is playing it until the last hours.
What I would really want is a pvp system more oriented to puzzle rather than this shielding ultra fast contest when perhaps some players on first slice win all rewards but few on the last ones are willing to play for getting all. Enabling supports officially to more fast wins and playing even less I think its a good step in the way of the precipice.

Glockoma

I think they can allow Supports in PvPs. If they disable Support for AI, the effects are players will be beaten even faster. Currently, players with the right Supports can frequently fire Apocalypse's yellow and black powers, and BRB's blue power on Turn 0. In a Pick-3. BRB can fire his Green Power on Turn 0 too.

Which supports?

DAZ0273

New Support: Back from the dead!

Lvl 1: This thread looks like a new comment on...

Lvl 2: Waitaminute!

Lvl 3: 2021...

Lvl 4: Really?

Lvl 5: Man...I guess this thread has socially distanced itself long enough that we might not get COVID 19 from it?

Synergy Perk: Attaching this Support to any character allows them to time travel back to a time when there was absolutely no whining about Chasm which hang on...is sort of useless as there is no whining about Chasm now also? Oh and also +5 AP in every colour.