Debate on Character Valuation

Daredevil217

@entrailbucket said:
Show me a character with "synergy" that doesn't ultimately result in doing damage, and I will show you a bad character.

Kang/IM40/Hawkeye

Boom.

KGB

@fight4thedream said:
Now that we have identified what is causing this lack of variety, let's consider some possible solutions:

1. Get rid of health packs and have teams automatically refresh to full health after every battle. Very unlikely to happen but had to be said because this is very much a significant factor in player behavior. If the overall goal is to increase user engagement of the PvP event mode and encourage variety, doing away with the current health pack system would be a big boon to casual players and see them engage the event with different teams.

I've advocated for this for a very long time now (2+ years)

But rather than entirely remove health packs, I'd prefer to see if that if you win, you refresh to 100% health (including any characters who died during battle) as part of the reward for winning. But if you lose (including a retreat), then all 3 characters are downed and you need 3 health packs.

I also strongly believe the AI should play better in PvP as well as part of this tradeoff of refreshing to full health on a win. So that the AI would find all those corner match 5's, spam powers, not match it's CDs and match yours etc.

KGB

entrailbucket

@Daredevil217 said:

@entrailbucket said:
Show me a character with "synergy" that doesn't ultimately result in doing damage, and I will show you a bad character.

Kang/IM40/Hawkeye

Boom.

Mod edit to remove unnecessary content

Kang blue actually does infinite damage! It's "9 blue: kill a guy." It's like Whales, which technically does no damage but instantly wins the game.

sambrookjm

@entrailbucket said:

@Daredevil217 said:

@entrailbucket said:
Show me a character with "synergy" that doesn't ultimately result in doing damage, and I will show you a bad character.

Kang/IM40/Hawkeye

Boom.

Kang blue actually does infinite damage! It's "9 blue: kill a guy." It's like Whales, which technically does no damage but instantly wins the game.

Sending Away does not do any damage; if the enemy character does manage to come back, they're still at the same health as they were before.

Kang's Kill is more like "27 blue: Send the entire team away and win the game." Having just 9 blue doesn't do anything unless you've already taken out the other two team members.

Scofie

@entrailbucket said:

@Daredevil217 said:

@entrailbucket said:
Show me a character with "synergy" that doesn't ultimately result in doing damage, and I will show you a bad character.

Kang/IM40/Hawkeye

Boom.

>

Kang blue actually does infinite damage! It's "9 blue: kill a guy." It's like Whales, which technically does no damage but instantly wins the game.

Nope. His ability does no damage. If it was 9 Blue: kill a guy, then they'd never return from Away, zombies would bounce back immediately etc.

Bad

And for that reason kang will always be a bad character in defense. Because AI will mess up his power, auto sending the character in front as soon as he has AP. Not really a threat.
So the counter for chasm never will be the same deterrent as chasm and he places behind him for pvp in arrival. The unbalance continues, better said it gets bigger as another good counter is the shark, a totally meh character who isn't any deterrent even for chasm players.

HoundofShadow

Mod edit to remove unnecessary content

What is the existence of synergy in MPQ? To deal damage.

DAZ0273

Kang's blue does specify it does damage when the target returns based on how many turns they were sent away.

fight4thedream

@Alex502 said:
I appreciate you both (Scofie and fight4thedream), totally valid views that take in the full scope of the game.

Here's the core of my issue, I've been a casual player for seven years or so, give or take. I've only recently, in the last year, champed my first 5* (Jessica Jones, mid-tier but nice to have) and now the only thing I see is a wall of meta. The game has decided I'm in full 5* land and go against all champed 5* opponents. I might see the odd meta 4* paired with someone, like Karnak or Chavez, but usually its all just the same same same.

Now here's the bonus, I've figured out several teams that can handle that "same same same" troupe that's driving me nuts. But then I have to flex down through the roster and get creative (which I like, when I have the time) but the disparity I feel at facing the same meta teams over and over is just exhausting.

I'd like have some hope for the Supports introduced to PvP, but that's going to address this issue of bland meta teams that are exhausting to combat.

Yeah, I imagine jumping into the 5* pool of MMR can be very frustrating if you don't have a good team to work with. It's one of the reasons I am not in favor of the weekly character boost as newer players are less likely to have older 5* characters in a useable state which leaves them with the double whammy of having to deal with both meta teams and mega boosted teams.

And definitely, the power gap disparity sounds like it would be tough to chew down over and over again. I imagine the first couple times a player finds something that works there is a sense of achievement but after a few more matches the overall commitment in terms of resources and time would probably weigh on their mind.

So I am right there with you for wanting a more diverse PvP experience but I think it really is a systemic issue that would require a fundamental change of the PvP format.

@KGB said:

@fight4thedream said:
Now that we have identified what is causing this lack of variety, let's consider some possible solutions:

1. Get rid of health packs and have teams automatically refresh to full health after every battle. Very unlikely to happen but had to be said because this is very much a significant factor in player behavior. If the overall goal is to increase user engagement of the PvP event mode and encourage variety, doing away with the current health pack system would be a big boon to casual players and see them engage the event with different teams.

I've advocated for this for a very long time now (2+ years)

But rather than entirely remove health packs, I'd prefer to see if that if you win, you refresh to 100% health (including any characters who died during battle) as part of the reward for winning. But if you lose (including a retreat), then all 3 characters are downed and you need 3 health packs.

I also strongly believe the AI should play better in PvP as well as part of this tradeoff of refreshing to full health on a win. So that the AI would find all those corner match 5's, spam powers, not match it's CDs and match yours etc.

KGB

That definitely seems to be a more well-thought out and less extreme idea than what I was proposing. And I have no qualms with the AI playing better as a tradeoff so you have my support.

DrClever

@entrailbucket said:
Sometimes, I use the bad characters on purpose, because it's fun. That does not make them good characters, even though I can win every fight with them.

Have to say a lot of players would read that and wonder what the flup sort of world we're dealing with where "bad characters" and "win every fight" have any sort of overlap on the Venn diagram.

The MPQ meta game needs some serious attention by the look of it; character categories seem to go from 'best' directly to 'bad', and the few players playing it appear perpetually miserable.

Borstock

I was pretty happy with the PvP variety before Chasm. I think some people forget how good it got for a while. Some pick-2s did end up being the same two best boosted 5's for a week, but I personally think that would get mitigated by a larger boost list. The 5* tier is big enough to support that, I think.

entrailbucket

Are you guys serious? You're seriously going to invalidate the entire argument over one character who doesn't literally do damage, but functionally "does damage?"

What an absolutely worthless, pointless nitpick. I suppose dealing damage is useless because Whales exist, or because Gamora can auto-kill characters with her passive, or Punisher can auto-kill under a threshold on his red?

Yes, sorry, in a few extremely limited cases this game has alternate win conditions. So sorry that I left out the 1% of characters who occasionally can win the game without doing damage.

Now can you please point out a good synergy combo who doesn't do damage or have an alternate win condition?

entrailbucket

@HoundofShadow said:

What is the existence of synergy in MPQ? To deal damage.

The game is just not that complicated, no matter how much you want to make it out to be. Yes, it's great fun to create a team that, say, creates infinite protect tiles, or heals to 100% every turn, or generates infinite AP, or stunlocks forever. Those teams are bad in the actual game that actually exists, unless they have some way to win the game. You win by downing all of the enemies -- that's it.

Scofie

@dianetics said:

@Scofie said:
Nope. His ability does no damage. If it was 9 Blue: kill a guy, then they'd never return from Away, zombies would bounce back immediately etc.

His ability does do damage when they return from away.

If you are using it to auto-win or take out a specific enemy then it is more or less infinite damage.

Yes, good point! Nothing like "infinite" damage though, unless they were away for an infinite number of turns.

Daredevil217

@entrailbucket said:
Are you guys serious? You're seriously going to invalidate the entire argument over one character who doesn't literally do damage, but functionally "does damage?"

What an absolutely worthless, pointless nitpick. I suppose dealing damage is useless because Whales exist, or because Gamora can auto-kill characters with her passive, or Punisher can auto-kill under a threshold on his red?

Yes, sorry, in a few extremely limited cases this game has alternate win conditions. So sorry that I left out the 1% of characters who occasionally can win the game without doing damage.

Now can you please point out a good synergy combo who doesn't do damage or have an alternate win condition?

I mean, you asked for an example of a synergy not built on dealing damage, and I gave you one. Then, rather than saying “you’re right. I didn’t think of Kang”, you resorted to name-calling (“Okay Hound”). Which means you weren’t really wanting examples. You already had your mind made up and got upset when evidence contrary to your assertion was injected into the conversation.

There are other synergies in this game where the primary objective is to slow down the opponent, force them to skip, etc. But since the question is loaded, I’ll bow out and let you have it.

HoundofShadow

Another way to look at this is you are focus on reaching the destination as fast as possible while I'm focusing on the journey and enjoying the moment. That's why the dev publicly said that their design goals is to create characters that appeal to different group of players. Obviously, Magik doesn't appeal to many in this forum because she's "slow" and doesn't ramp up damage quickly like Okoye, or she doesn't behave like a 5* Polaris.

entrailbucket

@Daredevil217 said:

@entrailbucket said:
Are you guys serious? You're seriously going to invalidate the entire argument over one character who doesn't literally do damage, but functionally "does damage?"

What an absolutely worthless, pointless nitpick. I suppose dealing damage is useless because Whales exist, or because Gamora can auto-kill characters with her passive, or Punisher can auto-kill under a threshold on his red?

Yes, sorry, in a few extremely limited cases this game has alternate win conditions. So sorry that I left out the 1% of characters who occasionally can win the game without doing damage.

Now can you please point out a good synergy combo who doesn't do damage or have an alternate win condition?

I mean, you asked for an example of a synergy not built on dealing damage, and I gave you one. Then, rather than saying “you’re right. I didn’t think of Kang”, you resorted to name-calling (“Okay Hound”). Which means you weren’t really wanting examples. You already had your mind made up and got upset when evidence contrary to your assertion was injected into the conversation.

There are other synergies in this game where the primary objective is to slow down the opponent, force them to skip, etc. But since the question is loaded, I’ll bow out and let you have it.

Oh come on. You were being pedantic, and I responded as if you were. Again, yes, there are a few obvious examples of characters that can win fights without doing damage. That in no way invalidates the argument that, 99% of the time, you must do damage to win fights.

Sure, there are synergies meant to create problems on defense, or generate skips. They still need a way to win the game. If your defensive synergy team can't win a fight, or takes 3 hours to win a fight 1 damage at a time, then that's a bad team.

entrailbucket

@HoundofShadow said:
Another way to look at this is you are focus on reaching the destination as fast as possible while I'm focusing on the journey and enjoying the moment. That's why the dev publicly said that their design goals is to create characters that appeal to different group of players. Obviously, Magik doesn't appeal to many in this forum because she's "slow" and doesn't ramp up damage quickly like Okoye, or she doesn't behave like a 5* Polaris.

Wait, sorry, wasn't your argument that Magik is good because she CAN do tons of damage really quickly? Didn't you say that it was trivially easy to get 8 repeaters on board every match?

Which is it? Is she a synergy character or a damage character?

And again, you are faulting some players for playing the game as designed. In every single mode besides puzzle gauntlet and DDQ, this game rewards winning a lot of fights quickly. There is zero incentive anywhere to go slow, so why should we be surprised that players don't like slow characters?

Bad

@HoundofShadow said:
Obviously, Magik doesn't appeal to many in this forum because she's "slow" and doesn't ramp up damage quickly like Okoye, or she doesn't behave like a 5* Polaris.

Magik is a bad designed character. As well as Mthor and riri are pretty good, she is pretty bad.
You need to match the repeaters in order to own a lot, but everytime you match 1 you get 2 repeaters starting from 2 turns. Are you kidding me? Then exactly when your magik will deliver the awesome attack? At turn 12?
There is also the fact that they prenerfed her. How about making % not stacking, like the game always worked until now? Probably then the numbers won't raise that high.
Also, if you focus a team for supporting a character, obviously that character will hit really hard. But by herself, magik is meh.

HoundofShadow

The original argument was why Magik was nerfed before release. I did the math about the massive damage she could do pre-nerf. It does deserve a tone down. It's easy to hit more than 5, depending on team compositions. If I want to focus on her permanent damage, then repeaters won'tt be the focus. How hard is it to understand that?

The dev has also mentioned that the game is about speed if you make it about speed or something to that effect. Stop faulting the dev if x group of players want the best of both world. There are players who don't like slow characters and there are those who like it. Players who don't like slow character should just move on and wait for the next 5* to arrive. Each group of players will get their turn to play with mechanics they like.