Can an MPQ character be overpowered on offense?

DAZ0273

@Vhailorx said:

@DAZ0273 said:

@entrailbucket said:

@DAZ0273 said:

@entrailbucket said:

@DAZ0273 said:

@entrailbucket said:

@DAZ0273 said:
How easy it to obtain One Punch Guy?

How does it change things if he's easy or hard to obtain?

If everybody has him and he can instawin every fight that means everybody can reach the final CP reward presumably with little effort. So what does that do to PvP placement? What does that do to MMR? What does that do to boosts?

I mean isn't it just a game of cupcakes because every team is irrelevant on defence but every single person with this character can do it? Isn't that PvE but actually even easier?

Would that be bad? I know how I'd feel about it. Some players might think it's a good thing for everyone to be able to easily get every reward, though.

I don't know? Easily win at PvE. Easily win at PvP. I mean it sounds appealing but don't you ever get some satisfaction from beating a tough match? I was fighting a battle the other day and it went properly bad but I managed to claw it back and win somehow. And that reminded me why I put time and effort into MPQ after all these years. I can't be one of these guys with their spreadsheet and clock and whatnot, this is meant to be fun not science homework. I can't claim to speak for everybody though. Maybe instawin would be fun but I struggle to see it myself.

Playing devil's advocate here...what would stop you from just not using one punch guy? If you prefer a game that isn't instawin in every mode, why not just completely ignore him and use only regular characters?

Because it would put me at a ridiculous disadvantage? Once One Punch Guy is out there you have to use him. Just because I didn't ask for him and don't like him doesn't all of a sudden make me stupid.

This argument is like people who oppose tax increases because "anyone can just pay more tax if they want to!" That may be technically true but it's entirely beside the point. The discussion is one of systemic incentives and resulting behaviors. The fact that specific individuals can act irrationally is meaningless if the vast majority of people will respond to the incentives.

If OPG existed then people who wanted to keep playing the game for rewards would use OPG to maximize their rewards.

I can't tell if you are dissing me or not? I think I am on the "if OPG existed then people who wanted to keep playing the game for rewards would use OPG to maximize their rewards" train am I not? I might not want it or enjoy it but I pretty much said that is what I would do?

Vhailorx

@DAZ0273 said:

@Vhailorx said:

@DAZ0273 said:

@entrailbucket said:

@DAZ0273 said:

@entrailbucket said:

@DAZ0273 said:

@entrailbucket said:

@DAZ0273 said:
How easy it to obtain One Punch Guy?

How does it change things if he's easy or hard to obtain?

If everybody has him and he can instawin every fight that means everybody can reach the final CP reward presumably with little effort. So what does that do to PvP placement? What does that do to MMR? What does that do to boosts?

I mean isn't it just a game of cupcakes because every team is irrelevant on defence but every single person with this character can do it? Isn't that PvE but actually even easier?

Would that be bad? I know how I'd feel about it. Some players might think it's a good thing for everyone to be able to easily get every reward, though.

I don't know? Easily win at PvE. Easily win at PvP. I mean it sounds appealing but don't you ever get some satisfaction from beating a tough match? I was fighting a battle the other day and it went properly bad but I managed to claw it back and win somehow. And that reminded me why I put time and effort into MPQ after all these years. I can't be one of these guys with their spreadsheet and clock and whatnot, this is meant to be fun not science homework. I can't claim to speak for everybody though. Maybe instawin would be fun but I struggle to see it myself.

Playing devil's advocate here...what would stop you from just not using one punch guy? If you prefer a game that isn't instawin in every mode, why not just completely ignore him and use only regular characters?

Because it would put me at a ridiculous disadvantage? Once One Punch Guy is out there you have to use him. Just because I didn't ask for him and don't like him doesn't all of a sudden make me stupid.

This argument is like people who oppose tax increases because "anyone can just pay more tax if they want to!" That may be technically true but it's entirely beside the point. The discussion is one of systemic incentives and resulting behaviors. The fact that specific individuals can act irrationally is meaningless if the vast majority of people will respond to the incentives.

If OPG existed then people who wanted to keep playing the game for rewards would use OPG to maximize their rewards.

I can't tell if you are dissing me or not? I think I am on the "if OPG existed then people who wanted to keep playing the game for rewards would use OPG to maximize their rewards" train am I not? I might not want it or enjoy it but I pretty much said that is what I would do?

I am agreeing with you and disagreeing strongly with the devil's advocate position raised by entrail. sorry for the confusion.

wymtime

I am going to say from the development point of view yes. From the players point of view no.

Here are some characters who got nerfed becuase they were too powerful on 0.

OML, XFW, Sentry, 2* magneto and 3* mystique. The developers have needed characters in the past for being too good offensively.

From a players perspective too good defensively is the issue. If I can still win with team X even though I don’t have character Y I’m good. It’s when I NEED to have character X to best team Y and team Y is so good defensively players have the most issues

entrailbucket

So our hypothetical one punch guy is only a problem from the developers' perspective, not from players'?

Vhailorx

@entrailbucket said:
So our hypothetical one punch guy is only a problem from the developers' perspective, not from players'?

I would say OPG is a different problem from different perspective. For the devs, OPG is headache that needs to be nerfed because he interferes with the game economy, making good rewards available to too many players , or upsetting whales who would otherwise spend heavily.

For the players fast clears would be a joy, but there is a point at which the "game" becomes so rote that it is boring and feels like busywork rather than entertainment. That is an entirely different concern than the devs have, but arguably no less significant for the health of the game.

Bad

However devs are gifting a 3* Kang cover, and precisely a blue one, for adding more salt to the wound.
When having champed the 5* version HE and Kang could share enemies beating and that could mitigate a bit the health pack hemorragy.
What drives me to the transcending question: could it be that devs' Master Plan was actually to shift up the meta to characters not regenerating?
Translating this to this thread: are you sure that OPG, excellent at offense but really bad in defense and so eating a lot of health packs, actually interferes with game's economy?

entrailbucket

Kang is definitely not one punch guy.

One punch guy only exists as a hypothetical to check whether "overpowered on offense" can exist for forum posters. Kang is good on offense and bad on defense, but that's where the comparison stops -- he's not 100% autopilot instawin in every scenario.

All that said, I do think it's interesting that they gave everyone a Kang blue cover, and I wonder if they're up to something.

Vhailorx

@Bad said:
However devs are gifting a 3* Kang cover, and precisely a blue one, for adding more salt to the wound.
When having champed the 5* version HE and Kang could share enemies beating and that could mitigate a bit the health pack hemorragy.
What drives me to the transcending question: could it be that devs' Master Plan was actually to shift up the meta to characters not regenerating?
Translating this to this thread: are you sure that OPG, excellent at offense but really bad in defense and so eating a lot of health packs, actually interferes with game's economy?

As designed OPG would only ever lose health in wave nodes (or against chasm). Otherwise the match would end immediately after the first match. There would be very little healthpack consumption.

Colognoisseur

There is a huge piece of the discussion you are avoiding. The idea of a purely offensive player evening the gap between players. Why does Shang Chi become important? Because with him as your only 5* there is a path to improving your roster more rapidly because you can enter higher Scl levels successfully for better rewards. 3* Kang now provides an entry to any player to the best rewards in the game, PvE progression. There are players if they never had these options who faced a much longer road to improve their roster.
The question of OPG comes down to perspective and where you are in the MPQ economy. At the elite level which is most everyone yakking here it is probably 10% of the player base. For us OPG guy makes the game boring. But as one of us I didn’t find Chasm, Shang Chi, or now Kang to make the game boring. I enjoy finding solutions to the meta. That I have never played Chulk yet get all the pvp and PvE rewards shows that you don’t have to.
But the other 90% they just want to get where we are. You give them OPG and they will flock to the path it gives them to improve more rapidly.

entrailbucket

I think that did get touched on a bit somewhere -- there has been some really good discussion in here.

Is it unequivocally a good thing for new players to get to the 5* tier/endgame more quickly? Are there any downsides to shortening that progression?

Vhailorx

@Colognoisseur said:
There is a huge piece of the discussion you are avoiding. The idea of a purely offensive player evening the gap between players. Why does Shang Chi become important? Because with him as your only 5* there is a path to improving your roster more rapidly because you can enter higher Scl levels successfully for better rewards. 3* Kang now provides an entry to any player to the best rewards in the game, PvE progression. There are players if they never had these options who faced a much longer road to improve their roster.
The question of OPG comes down to perspective and where you are in the MPQ economy. At the elite level which is most everyone yakking here it is probably 10% of the player base. For us OPG guy makes the game boring. But as one of us I didn’t find Chasm, Shang Chi, or now Kang to make the game boring. I enjoy finding solutions to the meta. That I have never played Chulk yet get all the pvp and PvE rewards shows that you don’t have to.
But the other 90% they just want to get where we are. You give them OPG and they will flock to the path it gives them to improve more rapidly.

This is a good point in theory, but is it actually relevant here? Not snarking here, but does 3* Kang really open up opportunities for transitioners? He definitely creates an opportunity for 27 blue ap = win. But no 3* team is going to do well against the hard cl10 challenge nodes (that can put out a minimum of 20-30k damage per turn as early as turn 1 or 2). So 3* kang's CL 10 value seems highest for those who can pair him with tanky 4s (or a squishy but useful 5 like HE).

Is he substantially better than the existing meta teams for that type of roster. Again, this is not snark, it's been a long time since I was playing at that level so I can only guess at the current experience (I assume characters like juggs, grocket, Karnak, and of course polaris are the usual suspects). D9es something like im40 + 3* Kang + Juggs perform substantially better than polaris + juggs + nico (in terms of either speed or strength?)

The transition experience is certainly a useful lens through which to view this topic, but I would like to get a better understanding of what 3* Kang will actually do for late 3* and early 4* players from someone whose most recent 4*-only experience is not 2017 (or even earlier for Colog ).

Vhailorx

@entrailbucket said:
I think that did get touched on a bit somewhere -- there has been some really good discussion in here.

Is it unequivocally a good thing for new players to get to the 5* tier/endgame more quickly? Are there any downsides to shortening that progression?

To the extent there are downsides I would say they are more dev/pub side concerns (incentive to spend real $, player engagement, etc) and less of an issue for us players.
But to be fair I think there is some threshold of difficulty/complexity below which the game is not fun for players (fast/easy roster acquisition loses some of its appeal if one never has a chance to actually use the new characters and abilities in a match that lasts longer than 1 move).

Colognoisseur

In a game as old and as large as this is right now this kind of shortening the early development time is probably essential to its continued health. Newer players need to see a path to getting up to the level they want to be. It is why I have thought Shang Chi and now 3* Kang are important additions. It is a way through new character design to achieve that. I also think this does that without affecting the placement in either PvE or pvp. The im40 he Kang team is not fast enough in PvE to compete for placement. It is reliable enough to get all the progression awards. That’s a good thing to me.
In my estimation it is desirable and a good thing for the health of the game overall.

entrailbucket

I'm not sure anyone here can say whether the path to competitiveness is too long for new players. I certainly haven't talked to a new player in a very long time, and I can't really picture a situation where I would.

Not every player's goal is to be competitive or to reach the 5* tier. For those who do have that goal, there are a lot of resources online to discover the path. Is that path too long? I'd say that's a matter of each player's opinion. I haven't seen a consensus like the constant parade of "the 3* transition is impossible" posts we used to get here in 2014.

There's also the problem of Kang (who exists) vs one punch guy (who does not now, and will never exist). Introducing a character as strong as OPG is essentially giving everyone a "win this fight" button. What happens to the game at that point?

I've posted this question quite a few times, but it's relevant here: if players view the "playing matches" part of the game as annoying busywork that's preventing them from getting rewards, what do they plan to use those rewards for? Staring lovingly at them on their roster page? The rewards they give are only useful for playing the game, they have no intrinsic value. If a player wants to skip the "playing the game" part of the game, what's the point?

Vhailorx

@Colognoisseur said:
In a game as old and as large as this is right now this kind of shortening the early development time is probably essential to its continued health. Newer players need to see a path to getting up to the level they want to be. It is why I have thought Shang Chi and now 3* Kang are important additions. It is a way through new character design to achieve that. I also think this does that without affecting the placement in either PvE or pvp. The im40 he Kang team is not fast enough in PvE to compete for placement. It is reliable enough to get all the progression awards. That’s a good thing to me.
In my estimation it is desirable and a good thing for the health of the game overall.

I don't disagree with your assessment of kang/im40/HE as a team (pretty strong but slow because Kang delays CDs), nor with the general need to provide quicker transition for players starting a decade old game.

I just don't know that 3* kang actually does that for real 3* and 4* players. A super powerful new team that relies on a 5* that has been in the classic pool for more than 5 years is hardly accessible for new players.

And without HE I don't know that any of the next best "get 27 blue asap" teams are much more reliable than the existing meta options at the equivalent roster strength.

Bad

@entrailbucket said:

I've posted this question quite a few times, but it's relevant here: if players view the "playing matches" part of the game as annoying busywork that's preventing them from getting rewards, what do they plan to use those rewards for? Staring lovingly at them on their roster page? The rewards they give are only useful for playing the game, they have no intrinsic value. If a player wants to skip the "playing the game" part of the game, what's the point?

Imo, as another player feeling really happy for to skip today the 3* characters CN with Kang squad, actually the problem isn't viewing the "playing matches" as annoying busywork.
The real problem is playing thousands and thousands times same old characters on same old pves, meaning battles which actually don't add nothing new anymore except the rewards for to continue grinding on the treadmill.
If new pves were designed, with modern characters and offering new challenges probably on the first second or third running players wouldn't see playing matches as annoying busywork. However they are needed triple the number of pves existing right now in order to not burning off players through repetitive running.
As a suggestion for pves offering interesting challenges, some nodes could have a requisite for to win the battle ala puzzle gauntlet, that would feel really like fresh air.

Bowgentle

Just wait until we see the 7 new CNs in enemy of the state.
Maybe we'll be glad they're not doing new PVEs more often.

Remember, the last 3 enemy types they added were Symbiotes, Ultron flyers and mindless ones.
Monkey paw.
Oh and the Gorr thingies that scaled to the high heavens and did unavoidable damage.

Vhailorx

@Bowgentle said:
Just wait until we see the 7 new CNs in enemy of the state.
Maybe we'll be glad they're not doing new PVEs more often.

Remember, the last 3 enemy types they added were Symbiotes, Ultron flyers and mindless ones.
Monkey paw.
Oh and the Gorr thingies that scaled to the high heavens and did unavoidable damage.

No love for AIM goons?

Pantera236

@Vhailorx said:

@Bowgentle said:
Just wait until we see the 7 new CNs in enemy of the state.
Maybe we'll be glad they're not doing new PVEs more often.

Remember, the last 3 enemy types they added were Symbiotes, Ultron flyers and mindless ones.
Monkey paw.
Oh and the Gorr thingies that scaled to the high heavens and did unavoidable damage.

No love for AIM goons?

And sentinels

entrailbucket

@Bad said:

@entrailbucket said:

I've posted this question quite a few times, but it's relevant here: if players view the "playing matches" part of the game as annoying busywork that's preventing them from getting rewards, what do they plan to use those rewards for? Staring lovingly at them on their roster page? The rewards they give are only useful for playing the game, they have no intrinsic value. If a player wants to skip the "playing the game" part of the game, what's the point?

>

The real problem is playing thousands and thousands times same old characters on same old pves, meaning battles which actually don't add nothing new anymore except the rewards for to continue grinding on the treadmill.

So like, I hear you, but...that's all there is. They haven't really added new events or new event types in forever, and if/when they do, those will just go into the rotation with the others.

I understand getting burnt out on the same old stuff and seeing events as busywork, but once you've got there, what's the point of continuing to play? 10 years in it's not reasonable to expect a total redo, so why keep playing to earn rewards that you can only use to play the same repetitive boring game?