***** Elektra (Woman Without Fear) *****

Vhailorx

HoundofShadow said:

If we keep comparing new characters with meta characters and expect them to do better, the only thing you get is power creep. I remember a lot of players lamenting about power creeps and how it makes older 5* useless. By releasing meta 5* more frequently, this will speed up the damage gap between characters. And rebalances have to be done even more frequently just to keep up with the damage gap.

If the dev wants to create meta 5* more often, they already have a lot of prototypes like Okoye, Kitty, Apocalypse, Wanda, iHulk, Colossus or Polaris to work with. All they need to do is make them deal more damage, make it easier to trigger, repackage them into other tile effect types and you have new meta. 

For example, if players want someone to replace Kitty as SAP buff and counter Colossus/Wanda, the dev could buff Ultron to make sure he can:

1) strengthen/create SAP tile by at least 3500 damage every turn with no minimum criteria like needing at least one SAP tile.

2) allow players to choose the type of SAP tile to create before battle start and here's your new SAP tile buff meta.

3)  prevents friendly SAP from getting affected by damage reduction ability passively.

You will see him in shield sim as frequently as Kitty/BRB/Polaris and Colossus/Wanda/Apocalypse. He might even replace them.

With only 16% of new 5* releases being worth comparing with meta every year, why focus on comparing with meta when the dev are not interested in creating 5* meta more frequently? 

If the standard of review is "do you have fun playing with this character?" then it becomes extremely hard to have a meaningful conversation. We would just be debating chocolate v. vanilla ice cream or red v. blue. There's no standard except a subjective opinion. 

The meta has its downsides as a measuring stick for sure, but it has the virtue of being universal. a character that can perform well for player X in PVP can perform equally well for anyone else, regardless of taste or personal preference.  That makes it a useful way to ground character discussions.

Additionally, the meta is extremely important to roster acquisition, since in-game performance relates directly to rewards (and MPQ is kinda all about roster building). a player must be able reliably to defeat level 500+ opponents and play 25+ matches a day to do CL10 pve, and must play cl 10 pve for progression to get the best resource rewards and keep pace with the character release schedule. a player must be able to do all that AND do it quickly to succeed in pve or pvp placement.

Competitive/dedicated play is not the only way to play MPQ, but it is more or less necessary to consistently grow a roster without spending vast sums of real $$. Everyone who endlessly complains about the myopic forumites who only want to compare every release to the meta never seem to mention that fact.

HoundofShadow

It depends on the role of each characters.
To me:

Odin: tank for allies, damage reduction, fortification, ap control, healing, buff damage with strong strike tiles

Colossus: strong self-match damage buff, strong match-damage reduction for allies and self, hard hitting black power, special tile remover.

Colossus is better than Odin for ease of use, but it doesn't mean that you can't use Odin with Colossus together. It depends on your goals and situations.

What I meant is that the dev's goal is to focus on fun and interesting mechanics, rather than meta. They mentioned it in some Q&A 5 to 6 years ago, and their actions continue to support that view till now. The evidence is clear: 2 out of 12 releases per year in the last 4-5 years are meta, or 16.67% of releases are meta. If we really want to push it, maybe there might be 3 a year, depending on criteria. Out of 66 5* released, only 6-7 are meta and it represents 10.6% of the 5* population.

On the other hand, the players' goal in forums revolves around speed or meta. They believe that all other players play for speed as well.

If we were to look at at the above contradicting views between the devs and the players in forum, either the dev are out of touch or we are out of touch. 

If we were to look at frequency of meta release from another angle, releasing fewers metas are better for majority of the players, especially for those who can't keep up.

For those who can only pick and choose due to lack of resources, it's better to have fewer meta releases so that they won't be stuck in a "what if the next set of characters would be even better than this meta?" conundrum. It takes me about 3 months to hoard enough to champ 3 sets of 5*. However, for some other players, it could take them 5 to 10 months to gather enough resources to champ them. For the 0.01%, it takes them about 50 days to hoard enough to champ 3 sets of 5*, if they want to. Somehow, I think if the hardcore players can hoard for 550 even more quickly, we might see more 5* meta release.

entrailbucket

If they insist on releasing "good" and "bad" characters, which is *completely ridiculous*, then they need to make sure one out of every three releases is "good." (Feel free to substitute whatever word you prefer to good and bad -- meta or whatever)

Otherwise they're completely screwing new players or low-information players.  Should a player really be required to read a bunch of stuff on a forum to figure out that some characters at the same rarity tier totally outclass other characters? 

It is not at all obvious to a new player that some characters are effectively 6* and some are effectively 4*, when they're all rated at 5 stars.

HoundofShadow

Unless you can prove that all players are only interested in meta characters, then you can't say they are screwed. Majority of players don't even min-max and they play leisurely.

Your criteria revolves around speed. Not all players' critieria revolve around speed. Majority of players play for fun or for leisure. If majority of players are min-max or focus on meta, at least 50% of pvp leaderboard will be a minimum of 2000 points in SCL 10. For SCL 9, at least 50% of the scores would be at least 1000-1200. In PvE, at least half of the players would be doing optimum clear. 

Not all new players would be thinking about meta. Such players who think about meta all the time are used to playing meta in other games. Even before they play the game, they would have researched carefully. Players who don't care about meta won't bother about who is meta or not. They simply play the game. They are likely to focus on champing their favourite characters or champ whoever they can get hold of. That's where the inspiration for shards design come from. Majority of players are not interested in champing every characters. They would focus on their favourite characters. Meta characters can be someone's favourite but it doesn't mean that all players' favourite characters are meta characters.

As long as players continue to impose what 5* MPQ power design should be like onto the dev, they will continue to be disappointed by the majority of 5* releases. If you really want to impose how game design should be in MPQ, a realistic option would be to apply for a job as a Design Lead with Demiurge. It's a much more practical option because imposing your own preferences on the game power design as an individual player or as a small group of player doesn't work. Players have been asking dev to stop creating DOA or bad characters for years, but they are still doing so. 

If the dev are the one who's out of touch, they would have gone bust before 2016.  The fact that they can continue to release bad/non-meta characters and still survive kind of prove that they are doing something right that makes majority of the players happy, and it's definitely not focusing on releasing only meta characters.

dianetics

If they cared about what the player base wanted, then why don't we have Omega Red? 

Vhailorx

HoundofShadow said:

Unless you can prove that all players are only interested in meta characters, then you can't say they are screwed. Majority of players don't even min-max and they play leisurely.

Your criteria revolves around speed. Not all players' critieria revolve around speed. Majority of players play for fun or for leisure. If majority of players are min-max or focus on meta, at least 50% of pvp leaderboard will be a minimum of 2000 points in SCL 10. For SCL 9, at least 50% of the scores would be at least 1000-1200. In PvE, at least half of the players would be doing optimum clear. 

Not all new players would be thinking about meta. Such players who think about meta all the time are used to playing meta in other games. Even before they play the game, they would have researched carefully. Players who don't care about meta won't bother about who is meta or not. They simply play the game. They are likely to focus on champing their favourite characters or champ whoever they can get hold of. That's where the inspiration for shards design come from. Majority of players are not interested in champing every characters. They would focus on their favourite characters. Meta characters can be someone's favourite but it doesn't mean that all players' favourite characters are meta characters.

As long as players continue to impose what 5* MPQ power design should be like onto the dev, they will continue to be disappointed by the majority of 5* releases. If you really want to impose how game design should be in MPQ, a realistic option would be to apply for a job as a Design Lead with Demiurge. It's a much more practical option because imposing your own preferences on the game power design as an individual player or as a small group of player doesn't work. Players have been asking dev to stop creating DOA or bad characters for years, but they are still doing so. 

If the dev are the one who's out of touch, they would have gone bust before 2016.  The fact that they can continue to release bad/non-meta characters and still survive kind of prove that they are doing something right that makes majority of the players happy, and it's definitely not focusing on releasing only meta characters.

This is moving the goalposts. There is a MASSIVE gap between "the majority of players play for speed" and "the game isn't about speed and you are wrong to assert that it is" so please don't suggest that the former necessarily equates to the latter. Also, who is imposing anything on the devs? I didn't know that forum griping had the power to require demi to do anything.

We are talking about 5* acquisition here. To get a 5* and really use that 5* in any meaningful way (say 10+ covers), a player needs to collect ~200 LT pulls.  That's literally impossible for anyone who is so casual that they stay at the low CLs, since there are no CP/LT rewards available there.  Getting to the mid-rank CLs will result in CP/LT acquisition, but getting 200 playing in CL5 would take many years and can be ignored as the game would change so much in that time that any strategy determined now would be hopelessly obsolete by the time it ripened. So we are really only talking about the subset of players that can play the highest tiers (say cl8 or above).  That means they need a deep roster, which requires many thousands of HP just for slots, or a smaller roster of meta characters, which requires carefully optimizing play to collect lots of polaris and karnak and ignore WM and Emma Frost.

For that select group of people, who like MPQ enough to play for months and build up through the 1-4* tiers just to get an RNG shot at covering a 1-3 5*s, are you really suggesting that being able to win lots of matches quickly and reliably is unimportant?!  That's not to say it's the only important thing, or that there aren't other ways to have fun with MPQ. I am just saying that effectiveness (i.e. speed and reliability) are very important factors to  endgame MPQ and it's totally fair to use that standard as a starting point for evaluating new content. Is it really so hard to agree with that position?

HoundofShadow

That reply wasn't meant for 5* acquistion. It was meant for metaness of characters.

Some have been trying to impose their views on how MPQ should be but they have been failing all these years. Because they couldn't deal with such failure, they decided that it is the dev who fails at their job by saying they don't know how to do their jobs or they don't know how to design characters, or they are out of touch. I apologise for missing out "trying to".

Like I said, it depends on the players' goals. If you still don't believe that majority of players play casually, go join a top 5k to 10k alliance. Even a T100 alliance requirement is pretty low. Look at their scores for the next 3 months and you'll see what I'm saying. You caa preach about how to play the game "effectively" for the next few months in the chat and most of them won't even bother with your advice.

If very casual players expect to hoard 200 LTs as quick as competitive players, they are being unrealistic. They should not be setting a goals meant for competitive players. Look, we have shards now. If they want to build meta characters faster, they can do so. In reddit, some player champed Apocalypse with the use of shards, feeders and pulls within 300 days and he's not even a whale.

Saying that it's difficult to build meta characters are becoming more of a myth, with the introduction of shards, feeders, milestone rewards. Besides, there are 2 meta a year, and meta stores are held 3-4 times a year. So, there are plenty of opportunities to cover meta.

The important point is all types of players exists. Just because winning matches quickly is the best way doesn't mean that it is the only way. For players who play for speed, winning matches quickly is important, but they consist of only 1 subset of the entire playerbase. Because they are many subsets of players, it's only right that the dev release characters that makes as many subsets of players as possible. Since competitive players remain a minority; therefore, 16% of 5* releases are for you. The rest is for non-meta chasing players.

entrailbucket

Aren't you also trying to impose your views on MPQ?  Who are you to say that competitive players' ideas are wrong or that they deserve only a certain percentage of characters?  If all views are valid, why are they wrong for advocating for their views?

HoundofShadow

I have never said anyone's point of view is wrong. What I emphasise is that there are many subsets of players, and therefore many different viewpoints. So, the dev creates different mechanics or playstyles to make as many players happy as possible.

What's happening is that meta or speed chasing players  want to increase the number of "good" or meta characters released by suggesting a certain minimum type of mechanics criteria, for example cds and repeaters must be fortified or must be 1-turn. 

Statistically speaking, meta chasing players will be unhappy with ~85% of the time with new 5* releases. Why isn't meta released 50% of the time to make this subset of players happier? Is it because the dev don't know how to design or play their games, or is it due to other reasons? 

bbigler

Vhailorx said:

bbigler said:

Because of my restart I think more about the latest 5*s than the established meta Classics.  Meaning, how good are the Latest and do they work together?  Most people I talk to about this game have champed all the meta Classic 5*s, but they’re certainly not representative of all players.  

What about new players that just started champing 5*s? Or ones that have no 5* champs but a hoard instead?  Should they listen to our comments and skip Elektra because she’s not top 10?  I wouldn’t advise that.  Her yellow power alone makes her viable.  

She’s certainly playable in my MMR.  She could be paired with Sersi to feed her yellow & red.  From the 4* tier, Clagger can constantly add yellow tiles.  Melinda could constantly feed her Red and provide a 2nd stun color too.  

Can we have another character category of “Not bad as one of your first 5* champs”? 

I usually say "X will probably be good for 5* transitioners. . ." To describe characters that are good first 5*s. But I don't know that Elektra is one of them.  DR is ok. And I think her yellow will be out in the board a lot. But until you face level 500+ enemies, most damage comes from unlucky enemy cascades (ans the powers fueled by the resulting ap). And elektra's yellow won't help as much against those because the traps will be plunked away first (compare this to SW's sir that ramps up when you really need it). So I would still recommend waiting for a good true healer as the ideal first leveled 5*.

Well, a 5* transitioner doesn’t have to fight level 500+ characters, they can easily skip those matches and fight someone their own size.  There’s plenty of people in that MMR.  

Even if they wanted to fight boosted 5*s with Elektra, they just need to bring either Clagger or Melinda along to fuel her yellow or red every turn.  Either have constant trap tile protection or constant stuns.  If they had Sersi champed, she could choke out enemy colors like Black, Blue, Purple and provide strong SAP tiles as well, then feed yellow using green.  So, I believe you can play 5* PVP with her until you get something better. 

bbigler

I would say that 95% of the comments on this forum are made by the same small group of people.  So, these few & very vocal people here cannot represent everyone’s views nor how everyone plays the game.  Let’s keep that in mind.  Our conversations exist in a very small bubble.  

If I play competitively, then I can rank top 10 or 25.  If I play casually, then I can rank top 100 or 200.  That means everyone else below me in rank is playing even more casually.  Since these event brackets have 500 or 1000 players in them, that means that most players play casually and not for speed! 

So what do casual players want with new 5*s? (If a casual player is reading this please enlighten us). I would guess they’re more interested in characters they already know, or characters that look cool or do cool things in the game.  They probably don’t care too much if they’re meta breaking, just good enough to win some battles.  

The devs know better than we do about how everyone plays the game.  They know who gets played and who doesn’t.  They’re trying to keep everyone happy, not just the top competitive players.  

DAZ0273

entrailbucket said:

It's definitely weird that basically every new 4* pushes the power creep threshold up and 5* seem so stagnant or spiky.  Maybe they feel like they can take more chances with 4* because they're limited by low health?

I think there is an element of truth to this BUT I think that sometimes these things do then end up transferred to the 5* tier. For example - Karnak is very much an early prototype of Shang Chi. Jump in front mechanics were trialed at the 4* tier before they applied them to the 5* tier. Damage reduction goes back to Rogue & Lockjaw. Etc etc. So I think the 4* tier is used as a kind of experimental place so they can see what happens when or if they scale some powers up.

Or maybe the Devs just like 4* better!

DAZ0273

dianetics said:

If they cared about what the player base wanted, then why don't we have Omega Red? 

Maybe they are saving the playerbase from themselves!

Bad

I started to play 1180 days ago.
I didn't know a thing about 4* players 5* players or transitioning 5*s.
Of course there was no shards, no polaris and no scl10. 
I wanted more power. I wanted to champ a 5*. I only had 2 organical covers of kitty, 5 of cable, and 4 of kingping. 
I thought to go with kingping as I thought his repeater was ok for dealing damage. 
For 8 months I earned all the cps I could and I upgraded kingping paying 720 cps per power. A bit later miles became a feeder and I focus on him too.
And I played scl to the most level I could unlock. When I was playing scl9 and I had a 12 cover kingping and 180 pulls, scl10 started and I unloaded to get a champed PX, champed Ice5 and half Carnage5. 
And I played scl10 with them. Still not the best trio to play scl10. 
So it's perfectly possible to play with 5*s to the top level. I did it. It's doable. Just forgetting about rankings.
Would it better for me if I could upgrade kitty instead of kingping? Of course. Absolutely. I'd had a better time. But that won't change that it's possible even for kingping. 
Right now there are shards and milestones. Any player can champ any 5* character even if it's a bad choice.
By the time he learns more about the game he can hoard in order to be stronger as long as he doesn't lets any cp to be wasted.

Srheer0

Can we start thinking of good teammates for Elektra?  

How about C5rnage, Elektra and Kitty? Once you get 10 pink ap on Elektra, chose attack tiles and see what happens.  

Would Wanda boosts, Okoye boosts and Apoc repeater boosts increase Elektras trap dmg?

@bad I can relate to your story. I did that minus the 720cp into 5star covers thing. 

Started with just champing kitty to fix her 3/5 pink. Then eventually champed profx, storm, Hela and continued from there. 

HoundofShadow

Colossus/Melinda May/Elektra gets my vote.

Suggesting a non-meta to fight yellow ap with meta characters like Apocalypse and Okoye is typically a bad move. Wanda is okay if you did not choose yellow, unless you want to compensate with her blue cd.

We need more info to see how her powers interact with other trap tiles users and other defensive characters. I realise that defensive mechanics can be buggy.

dianetics

Looking at what she does I don't  think she will synergize well with other heroes. If we assume she can only use her own trap tiles she does little to help others on her team. She is in an outlier damage position with limited damage and expensive skills.
Her best attribute is extra damage reduction, and the second best is stealing enemy tiles of a specific type when they are created.

I would stick her with Wanda, Colossus, or Electro. Electro would be interesting on teams that do aoe because you could Shadow Dance every turn and possibly create strike tiles...but that is situational. In a pick 3 Wanda, Electro, and Elektra would be funny I guess, but iHulkoye meta has already been limited in pvp.

She could be a great counter to BRB if she defaulted to protect tiles and not strikes.

Srheer0

dianetics said:

Looking at what she does I don't  think she will synergize well with other heroes. If we assume she can only use her own trap tiles she does little to help others on her team. She is in an outlier damage position with limited damage and expensive skills.
Her best attribute is extra damage reduction, and the second best is stealing enemy tiles of a specific type when they are created.

I would stick her with Wanda, Colossus, or Electro. Electro would be interesting on teams that do aoe because you could Shadow Dance every turn and possibly create strike tiles...but that is situational. In a pick 3 Wanda, Electro, and Elektra would be funny I guess, but iHulkoye meta has already been limited in pvp.

She could be a great counter to BRB if she defaulted to protect tiles and not strikes.

What WOULD be nice is if we had the option to default similar to when you chose taskmasters' powers.  

So you could default attack tiles if you are running a C4rnage or c5rnage. And protect tiles if you are against a BRB. 

dianetics

That would be perfect and make her more valuable.
Her value seems to be what she can do against certain characters not with certain heroes or villains on your team.

TheRiddler

I had already thought the same thing in terms of teams. Thinking that in a pick-3 Colossus and May. But in a pick-2 was thinking Wanda or Colossus as both have their own defensive mitigation, can deal damage and don't require yellow, red or purple (only 3 for Wanda) ap.