MPQ Halloween 2021 Activities

HoundofShadow

I think their design philosphy (picking 3 traits and translating into MPQ) is still largely the same. However, designing characters is a creative and subjective process. On top of that, they have damage formula to give them objective guideline. That probably explains why players scratch their heads about poor numbers and complicated process of activating effects. Players use emotions and metas as a guideline for numbers and designs. They are not really interested in creative powers. You see the love for Okoye, Apocalypse, Thor and you can see what kind of expectations they have.

Before Introducing... Events were reduced, they still briefly explain the thinking behind their designs. However, as time goes on, it gets more brief, which is likely due to lack of interest.

Here is the link where they were sharing how they come up with characters' abilities:

https://d3go.com/category/mpq-blog/page/3/


They were still sharing their thought process in 2020, so probably time flew pretty fast for you.

entrailbucket

This is not at all what I'm talking about.  These are interesting but not useful.


Some unanswered questions that are frequent topics of debate:

Why are some infinite combos ok and some aren't?  What are the criteria they use to evaluate an infinite combo?

Can a character be too strong?  Too weak?  What are the criteria for that?  Why would they decide to make a change?

In the past they've cited usage metrics and win rates as a reason for changes.  Are those still a factor?  What are the criteria for those metrics to trigger a change?  What else would go into that decision?

It's been speculated that they purposely release good or bad characters at certain intervals (2 good characters a year!).  Why don't we know their philosophy behind this?  What would they stand to lose by telling us?

sinnerjfl

ThaRoadWarrior said:

sinnerjfl said:

I mean you say that, but there are so many replacement characters who fill that roll at least as well. My pet theory is that she was nerfed ahead of Magneto for Yellow, and/or Ronan for the repeaters, but I don’t think either was really necessary. See my post above about what is and isn’t good.

That's very possible as well.

There are certainly other winfinites currently, agreed, but nothing was as broken and braindead as Danvers/BRB/Polaris. Match a few protects, spam green and collect AP, AI wasnt even getting turns.

ThaRoadWarrior

Except you can replace Danver5 with 1*Juggernaut, most of the Storms, Th4nos, Thing, XFW, TA Hulk, or Black Bolt. Nerfing Danver5 didn’t break that combo in any way because she wasn’t the lynchpin. 

entrailbucket

Here's an example of the kind of thing I'm talking about -- a few short paragraphs to be tacked onto the announcement post for Scarlet Witch (all numbers are just made up):

"As part of our regular monitoring of the metagame, we've noticed that Immortal Hulk teams represent an 85% share of the 5* teams used in versus mode.  As you know, this exceeds our goal of 60%.

In keeping with our new philosophy of introducing counters to solve problems like this (instead of changing characters), we created Scarlet Witch to give players a viable non-Hulk option in Versus mode.

If you've invested a lot of resources in Immortal Hulk, don't worry -- we will continue to monitor his usage, and if it falls below 20%, we'll develop a counter for Scarlet Witch."

(The counter would be Gamora)


Wouldn't that be useful to everyone?  Why can't we get something like that?  How long would it take?  Do they have defined numbers for this? 

Why do we have to guess about this stuff?

bowla33

entrailbucket said:

Here's an example of the kind of thing I'm talking about -- a few short paragraphs to be tacked onto the announcement post for Scarlet Witch (all numbers are just made up):

"As part of our regular monitoring of the metagame, we've noticed that Immortal Hulk teams represent an 85% share of the 5* teams used in versus mode.  As you know, this exceeds our goal of 60%.

In keeping with our new philosophy of introducing counters to solve problems like this (instead of changing characters), we created Scarlet Witch to give players a viable non-Hulk option in Versus mode.

If you've invested a lot of resources in Immortal Hulk, don't worry -- we will continue to monitor his usage, and if it falls below 20%, we'll develop a counter for Scarlet Witch."

(The counter would be Gamora)


Wouldn't that be useful to everyone?  Why can't we get something like that?  How long would it take?  Do they have defined numbers for this? 

Why do we have to guess about this stuff?

Because then people will hold them to thier word when things are obviously whacked and the devs don't like to be forthcoming so it's better not to say. 

Or they'd have to explain why Okoye, Apoc, Kitty, and BRB haven't gotten the nerfs they clearly deserve since they definitely exceed the OML usage rate.

bowla33

Or they could be honest...

OML: Saving healthpacks hurts the money line so we're nerfing him.

Gambit: We've milked all the money we can as he's been broken since release and now that he's being surpassed, we can nerf him. 

entrailbucket

bowla33 said:

entrailbucket said:

Here's an example of the kind of thing I'm talking about -- a few short paragraphs to be tacked onto the announcement post for Scarlet Witch (all numbers are just made up):

"As part of our regular monitoring of the metagame, we've noticed that Immortal Hulk teams represent an 85% share of the 5* teams used in versus mode.  As you know, this exceeds our goal of 60%.

In keeping with our new philosophy of introducing counters to solve problems like this (instead of changing characters), we created Scarlet Witch to give players a viable non-Hulk option in Versus mode.

If you've invested a lot of resources in Immortal Hulk, don't worry -- we will continue to monitor his usage, and if it falls below 20%, we'll develop a counter for Scarlet Witch."

(The counter would be Gamora)


Wouldn't that be useful to everyone?  Why can't we get something like that?  How long would it take?  Do they have defined numbers for this? 

Why do we have to guess about this stuff?

Because then people will hold them to thier word when things are obviously whacked and the devs don't like to be forthcoming so it's better not to say. 

Or they'd have to explain why Okoye, Apoc, Kitty, and BRB haven't gotten the nerfs they clearly deserve since they definitely exceed the OML usage rate.

That's the other alternative: the numbers, criteria, and general philosophy I cited don't exist at all, or are implemented randomly. 

If that's the case, wouldn't it be good if we knew that for sure?  What's the harm in telling us "we don't monitor the metagame anymore, and we won't be changing characters or making adjustments."

entrailbucket

Here's an example of the kind of thing we used to get on a semi regular basis (note the difference between this and the "design blogs"):

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/62953/upcoming-character-change-to-wolverine-old-man-logan

This cites a specific metric as a threshold, as well as other specific reasons for the change.  Players may disagree with the reasoning given here, but *there is a reasoning* presented.


Is that 10% number still something they look at?  Are those reasons still valid?  Have they been replaced by other reasons, thresholds, or criteria?

ThaRoadWarrior

Similarly, here is the Dr Octopus rebalance thread: https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/76498/doctor-octopus-classic-character-update-12-12-18/p1

ThaRoadWarrior

There was also this thread, from March of 2020, that seemed to indicate that rebalances mattered, but it got ghost town pretty quickly: https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/81128/feedback-wanted-character-balance/p1

HoundofShadow

I guess they think it's 1) pointless  2) risky to tell us and 3) exhausting.

1. Pointless because if (forum) players already have their povs of why certains characters get rebalanced, they won't accept what the dev said regardless of their explanations. They will reject the dev explanations and insist that their explanation is the "right" one.

For example, OML's reasons for nerf was due to whatever reasons the dev said, but players believe it was due to healthpack sales. Despite the fact that healthpack sales is not even 10% of the company's revenues and healthpack regenerates every 36 minutes, players today still believe it's due to healthpack sales that got OML nerfed. 

2) Risky because players will use the dev words of the past against them if it proves useful. Giving such % can prove dangerous. Why? Players have limited data because they can draw inferences or conclusions only from their and other allies' or players' experiences. They don't have the kind of massive amount of data that the dev has. If 10% usage is the threshold, players will apply the 10% to their own experience. Because of the way mmr works, meta characters will always appear to be more than 10% usage. When both parties apply the same metric to two different set of datas, there will be contradiction.

3) exhausting because even after explaining, players will ask for proof. They will ask for privy data. The worst part is, if the data the dev provide doesn't support the players' pov, they will keep asking for more data and keep doubting what the dev said. I think one that I remember was choosing Mr Fantastic to be rebalanced instead of the Thing. Players believe that the Thing should be rebalanced instead of Mr Fantastic. So, they keep pressing for more details on how they arrive at their conclusion until the dev stop replying them.

If you know that the other party has zero trust in you and everything you say is a lie, then what's the point of communicating with them?

entrailbucket

All that stuff is simple to resolve -- post the reasons/rationale, then leave.  Don't engage with players beyond a post explaining the reasons or philosophy for stuff. 

Why couldn't they post 3 paragraphs like what I wrote about SW?  There'd be a billion pages of debate following it that they could simply ignore.

HoundofShadow

If they do a post and dump on important things, it reflects badly on them. I'm sure we have communication specialists coming out to say what they do is totally unprofessional and they could engage their service for free on how to communicate effectively.

entrailbucket

HoundofShadow said:

If they do a post and dump on important things, it reflects badly on them. I'm sure we have communication specialists coming out to say what they do is totally unprofessional and they could engage their service for free on how to communicate effectively.

A certain group of players will say bad things about them no matter what they do or say.

That is not a reason that they shouldn't give players general information about their metrics and philosophy.

HoundofShadow

Rules and restrictions are created largely due to minority. Yes, there'll always be players who respond negatively regardless of what they say.  2018(?) was the last time they did Q&As in the forums. It went on for 2-3 months before It came to a screeching halt because some players' egoes got hurt because the dev said they have expert players who also play some part in the game metric. Player created thread demanding to see devs' rosters and blah blah blah. After that, we didn't have any q&a anymore. Those players seem to be pretty prominent in line as well, so I think they have players to support them to add fuel to fire. 

DAZ0273

HoundofShadow said:

For example, OML's reasons for nerf was due to whatever reasons the dev said, but players believe it was due to healthpack sales. Despite the fact that healthpack sales is not even 10% of the company's revenues and healthpack regenerates every 36 minutes, players today still believe it's due to healthpack sales that got OML nerfed. 

It wasn't just due to health pack sales. The Devs said he was featured on too many teams which indicated he was unbalanced. This was a game wide issue for the Devs, not like Gambit or Bishop which were higher level problems. His yellow power adversely affected all tier levels like no other character in the game. A 2* player could use a forever healing OML meatshield at 1 cover to progress far beyond their 2* roster. I know I did! When every CS cover swap request is OML Yellow, you know you have somebody out of kilter with the game you are trying to build.

Bad

Devs know absolutely everything. Look at the forum contest this month: characters that they know they win more battles in costume that those that are not.
Players will think negatively in every thing devs can say and after many years devs learned that too.
Imo they are not in need to be quarreling with players in forum or line as it's proved that players only will seek their interest, although it could actually damage the game. 
I think devs have done a great work developing metas and better than that, meta counter characters. The game never had so much variety on pvp teams. The godboost also helps that. They have been hearing good suggestions and they are improving all what they can, I can see it.
If now they want to rebalance a thematic 5* because they saw something in their tracks, congratulations then.
Finally I want to remind that there was some rebalance or tweak they did to carnage and I think it was a first time. It was few months since his release, and they enable carnage to put enemy tiles on starting the battle. That made carnage one turn faster. I wish they did the same to characters that everyone consider really bad and unusable.
(By the way that tweak created the bug on carnage moving first, taking damage and giving all that AP to a grateful player, and that lasted a long time since a modern actualization stopped the party).

HoundofShadow

I saw that explanation for OML's nerf but the overall consensus is that OML got nerfed because of healthpack sales. Players who accepted those dev's reasons for OML's nerf are few and rare. Most simply reject that reason and attribute it to healthpack sales. 

I think the misunderstanding probably stems from players trying to fit the dev explanation into their own limited experience. 

Over 10% of all battles won include an Old Man Logan on the player’s team. This is higher than the win or play rate of any other character in the game even when those characters are Powered-Up. 

All battles refer to players of all tiers battles, including 1* to 4* players. However, it seems like 5* players are applying the 10% to only the 5* tier and not to the rest of the tier. Logically, it's impossible for 5* players to know how things look like for other tiers because they don't have access to privy data.

If I were to apply this 10% rule as a 5* player now, it will be totally false because by the time I reach the top like 1800 in shield sim, I see mainly apocalypse/wanda/colossus or brb/kitty/polaris, who represents more than 80% of the usage. I think this signifies the danger of applying the same metric to different contexts. It seems like 4 years of wrong interpretations and misunderstanding has been ongoing.

Sekilicious

HoundofShadow said:

Players who accepted those dev's reasons for OML's nerf are few and rare. 

I wish we had data on this sort of thing, not just OML’s nerf but trending developer conspiracy theories in general.  I suspect most, like you, are happy to accept the developer’s explanations but there is a vocal minority that drown out reasoned explanations for whatever reason, skewing our perceptions. I want to say much like Covid vaccines but I do not want to open that can of worms here. There are enough pages dedicated to that on the cesspool that is Reddit.