Marvel Puzzle Quest R284 Release Notes (08/15/23)

entrailbucket

Characters can have low health as a balancing mechanism. Like there's a reason Hood's health is crazy low -- in the early days of the game, if he had "regular" HP he'd have been WAY overpowered.

They don't seem to be using it that way anymore though. Every new character seemingly has a giant pile of health and match damage no matter how good their powers are.

Archangel losing health is completely insane. Sure, it'd make sense if they gave him some crazy oppressive passive, or insanely cheap, super strong active powers. But absent something totally overpowered -- beyond anything that currently exists -- there is zero reason he shouldn't have "average" health and match damage for a modern 5*.

nycjonny

Yeah to me the health reduction is a mystery. I wonder if it was intended.

DAZ0273

He was was pretty anonymous in my Class of 2017 - like Gambit was way more of a threat. That health reduction puts him among the never rebalanced guys like Spidey & DD (and Thor but I get that one considering what his best power is).

I don't see how a reduction in stats can ever be "not intended". Unless maybe the + health and - health buttons are next to each other and it was a liquid lunch Wednesday or something.

entrailbucket

Daredevil probably isn't a great example either, because of his passive, and the fact that he true heals -- true healers should have lower health to balance those powers.

But -- that's yet another reasonable explanation for a low health pool, except it ALSO doesn't apply to Archangel!

ThisisClemFandango

As a great man once said "broke? Or made it better?"

rainkingucd

@entrailbucket said:
Characters can have low health as a balancing mechanism. Like there's a reason Hood's health is crazy low -- in the early days of the game, if he had "regular" HP he'd have been WAY overpowered.

They don't seem to be using it that way anymore though. Every new character seemingly has a giant pile of health and match damage no matter how good their powers are.

Archangel losing health is completely insane. Sure, it'd make sense if they gave him some crazy oppressive passive, or insanely cheap, super strong active powers. But absent something totally overpowered -- beyond anything that currently exists -- there is zero reason he shouldn't have "average" health and match damage for a modern 5*.

I always found it odd that 5* health wasn't tied to character type. Up until the launch of 5*, the 2, 3, and 4* tiers had fairly set health pools, depending on the classification of character. Not exactly uniform, but still. I ran through them here and listed them because why not. I don't have all the newest 3* at 266, but the ones I do have stand out.

3* @ 266 (except the newest where noted)
26,692 - Arcade
25,006 - Hit-Monkey
24,963 - Omega Red @ 227
24,772 - Spider-Rex @ 206
23,455 - Magik @ 240
22,2919 - Emma Frost @ 237
21,548 - Spider-Gwen @ 229
21,233 - Kang @ 206
19,591 - Thanos
18,240 - Hulk
17,024 - Colossus, Ragnarok, R&G, Sentry, She-Hulk
16,213 - Thor
15,402 - Black Panther, Cap, Cap Marvel, DOOM, Gamora, Iron Man, Luke Cage, Spider-Man, Vision
14,727 - Cyclops, Hawkeye, Star-Lord
13,781 - Angel, Beast, Blade, DD, DP, Doc Ock, Elektra, Gambit, KK, Magneto, Pyslocke, Punisher, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Squirrel Girl,
12,835 - GSBW, Human Torch, Mystique, Falcon
12,160 - Iron Fist
12,025 - Bullseye, Storm
10,809 - Daken, Strange, Patch
9,458 - Loki
8,106 - Hood

ThaRoadWarrior

Characters with good heals or damage reduction seemed like they were getting low health as a balancing mechanism for awhile there, and characters with no teeth like Knull seemed to get excessive meat shield health, but I don’t know that it was really consistent.

jkzl

@MPQBlaine said:
“Flight Risk…”

• Keep coming back weekly for your Pick-3 road to Anniversary rewards!
• Be sure to cast your vote for the next MPQ Classic Pack boosts!
• Announcing a rebalance for Archangel (Classic) on 8/17!
• The current PVP Mind Season ends on 8/21. Climb to the top of the leaderboard! Thank you for playing!

@MPQBlaine - is there any expectation to see a writeup/forum post on the AA changes? I know there's a lot of communication that seems to be deprioritized, but was wondering if we'll see a "catch-all" post to detail all of the changes in the last couple of months, or if going forward the expectation should be that we'll just see a bulletpoint in the release notes. Thanks in advance.

fractalvisions

@rainkingucd said:

@entrailbucket said:
Characters can have low health as a balancing mechanism. Like there's a reason Hood's health is crazy low -- in the early days of the game, if he had "regular" HP he'd have been WAY overpowered.

They don't seem to be using it that way anymore though. Every new character seemingly has a giant pile of health and match damage no matter how good their powers are.

Archangel losing health is completely insane. Sure, it'd make sense if they gave him some crazy oppressive passive, or insanely cheap, super strong active powers. But absent something totally overpowered -- beyond anything that currently exists -- there is zero reason he shouldn't have "average" health and match damage for a modern 5*.

I always found it odd that 5* health wasn't tied to character type. Up until the launch of 5*, the 2, 3, and 4* tiers had fairly set health pools, depending on the classification of character. Not exactly uniform, but still. I ran through them here and listed them because why not. I don't have all the newest 3* at 266, but the ones I do have stand out.

3* @ 266 (except the newest where noted)
26,692 - Arcade
25,006 - Hit-Monkey
24,963 - Omega Red @ 227
24,772 - Spider-Rex @ 206
23,455 - Magik @ 240
22,2919 - Emma Frost @ 237
21,548 - Spider-Gwen @ 229
21,233 - Kang @ 206
19,591 - Thanos
18,240 - Hulk
17,024 - Colossus, Ragnarok, R&G, Sentry, She-Hulk
16,213 - Thor
15,402 - Black Panther, Cap, Cap Marvel, DOOM, Gamora, Iron Man, Luke Cage, Spider-Man, Vision
14,727 - Cyclops, Hawkeye, Star-Lord
13,781 - Angel, Beast, Blade, DD, DP, Doc Ock, Elektra, Gambit, KK, Magneto, Pyslocke, Punisher, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Squirrel Girl,
12,835 - GSBW, Human Torch, Mystique, Falcon
12,160 - Iron Fist
12,025 - Bullseye, Storm
10,809 - Daken, Strange, Patch
9,458 - Loki
8,106 - Hood

I have been wondering why they decided to introduce power creep into the 3*. Is the intention to make it easier for 3* players to compete against 4*s?

KGB

It can't be to compete against 4* because these guys BLOW AWAY 4* in terms of health. A L270 4* like Moondragon has only 13K health (for that matter L255 5* normally only have 13-15K health). Look at those bolded characters, they have roughly double that. Essentially at L266 (max champ) they have the same health as max champed 4* at L370! I wonder what kind of crazy health they will end up at at L550 (ie when they appear in a PvE challenge node or if we ever get another Balance of Power PvP where everyone is L550).

The only explanation I can come up with is that there is still a lot of 3* PvP and having health that high means when those 3* are featured they aren't 1 match road kill for baby champed 5*.

It also means the 4* tier probably needs a dramatic power creep boost itself because it's rapidly being left behind by new 3* and all the modern 5*.

KGB

entrailbucket

Someone should ask about 3* health creep in the Q&A. They're obviously doing it, and it has to be on purpose, but...why? I can't think of any reason to do it. Are they going to go back and buff all the old guys' health? Are they going to update all the 4* too? It's very weird.

Punisher5784

@entrailbucket said:
Someone should ask about 3* health creep in the Q&A. They're obviously doing it, and it has to be on purpose, but...why? I can't think of any reason to do it. Are they going to go back and buff all the old guy's health? Are they going to update all the 4* too? It's very weird.

It's on my list of many questions to ask for future Q&A. I'll ask next time if no one else does this round

rainkingucd

@Punisher5784 said:

@entrailbucket said:
Someone should ask about 3* health creep in the Q&A. They're obviously doing it, and it has to be on purpose, but...why? I can't think of any reason to do it. Are they going to go back and buff all the old guy's health? Are they going to update all the 4* too? It's very weird.

It's on my list of many questions to ask for future Q&A. I'll ask next time if no one else does this round

asked!

3* health was uniform (Colossus, Rags, Sentry have identical health pools). New releases (since Emma) have massively higher health pools relative to a fixed 3* tier. What is the driving factor for new 3* characters to have such high health pools?

DyingLegend

Just noticed we now have 12 slots for saved teams? When did that happen?

jkzl

@DyingLegend overnight. upgrades to amount of boosts held and allegedly how many shards of someone you can have as well. if only there was a place to formally announce these changes...

Punisher5784

@DyingLegend said:
Just noticed we now have 12 slots for saved teams? When did that happen?

We also have a higher cap on Boosts!!

Bowgentle

@Punisher5784 said:

@DyingLegend said:
Just noticed we now have 12 slots for saved teams? When did that happen?

We also have a higher cap on Boosts!!

But you still can't buy more than 5 when you run out.

MPQBlaine

@jkzl said:

@MPQBlaine said:
“Flight Risk…”

• Keep coming back weekly for your Pick-3 road to Anniversary rewards!
• Be sure to cast your vote for the next MPQ Classic Pack boosts!
• Announcing a rebalance for Archangel (Classic) on 8/17!
• The current PVP Mind Season ends on 8/21. Climb to the top of the leaderboard! Thank you for playing!

@MPQBlaine - is there any expectation to see a writeup/forum post on the AA changes? I know there's a lot of communication that seems to be deprioritized, but was wondering if we'll see a "catch-all" post to detail all of the changes in the last couple of months, or if going forward the expectation should be that we'll just see a bulletpoint in the release notes. Thanks in advance.

Hey there, as for the Archangel changes, it seems his numbers were tweaked slightly to bring him up to modern standards of Health and damage as opposed to a full-on rework.

We've got a lot going on in the background in preparation for the big anniversary. We do have plans in the not-so-far-off future to improve the MPQ communication experience, so please give us a little time and buckle up for some big announcements!

Bowgentle

@MPQBlaine said:

@jkzl said:

@MPQBlaine said:
“Flight Risk…”

• Keep coming back weekly for your Pick-3 road to Anniversary rewards!
• Be sure to cast your vote for the next MPQ Classic Pack boosts!
• Announcing a rebalance for Archangel (Classic) on 8/17!
• The current PVP Mind Season ends on 8/21. Climb to the top of the leaderboard! Thank you for playing!

@MPQBlaine - is there any expectation to see a writeup/forum post on the AA changes? I know there's a lot of communication that seems to be deprioritized, but was wondering if we'll see a "catch-all" post to detail all of the changes in the last couple of months, or if going forward the expectation should be that we'll just see a bulletpoint in the release notes. Thanks in advance.

Hey there, as for the Archangel changes, it seems his numbers were tweaked slightly to bring him up to modern standards of Health and damage as opposed to a full-on rework.

We've got a lot going on in the background in preparation for the big anniversary. We do have plans in the not-so-far-off future to improve the MPQ communication experience, so please give us a little time and buckle up for some big announcements!

But his health was lowered, that is not bringing him up to modern standards.

Daredevil217

@MPQBlaine said:

@jkzl said:

@MPQBlaine said:
“Flight Risk…”

• Keep coming back weekly for your Pick-3 road to Anniversary rewards!
• Be sure to cast your vote for the next MPQ Classic Pack boosts!
• Announcing a rebalance for Archangel (Classic) on 8/17!
• The current PVP Mind Season ends on 8/21. Climb to the top of the leaderboard! Thank you for playing!

@MPQBlaine - is there any expectation to see a writeup/forum post on the AA changes? I know there's a lot of communication that seems to be deprioritized, but was wondering if we'll see a "catch-all" post to detail all of the changes in the last couple of months, or if going forward the expectation should be that we'll just see a bulletpoint in the release notes. Thanks in advance.

Hey there, as for the Archangel changes, it seems his numbers were tweaked slightly to bring him up to modern standards of Health and damage as opposed to a full-on rework.

We've got a lot going on in the background in preparation for the big anniversary. We do have plans in the not-so-far-off future to improve the MPQ communication experience, so please give us a little time and buckle up for some big announcements!

I think the wrong button was pressed because his health went down and match damage untouched. Glad to hear this wasn’t intended. Any chance this will be fixed soon?