Upcoming Character Rebalance - Chasm (9/21/23)

tonypq

It's getting a little stupid these calls to nerf so many other characters. Chasm probably deserved to be taken a notch down but these other characters some are griping about are perfectly fine.

As far as the Chasm rebalance, I was surprised it wasn't a tad more heavy handed personally, considering how long and how many players have been asking for one. I expected more of a gutting but think I'm ok with the rebalance. I don't really love or hate it, just is what it is. He still seems pretty functional and retaining much of his PITA factor.

He looks to remain potent enough to use if one chooses. Sure he'll still be a tad annoying when boosted. Glad they kept the stun mechanic as that to me is his calling card. I can live with the revive and AP adjustments. We'll soon see I guess if the rebalance ultimately pleases the masses or fell short though.

DrClever

Yes, > @jp1 said:

I don’t even use Chasm, but “rebalance” seems generous when you only take away from a character. Why not just call it what it is?

It's rebalancing the game.

DrClever

@Bad said:
Fighting Mthor you take out her first because the cascades she can do can benefit the other character she is paired and also gaining AP.

Or as BriMan pointed out, if you don't have any special tiles to worry about you might keep her around so you benefit from the charged tiles.

Daredevil217

This is to my recollection BCS’s first nerf. All in all I think they did a great job and gave something players have been asking for. In the past, the developers would either gut the character (Gambit/OML) or give them a completely different power set (Bishop) and in all cases the character remains unusable.

It’s clear that BCS loves/is proud of Chasm. They had a concept with him being unique, all-passive, and suppressive/defensive. They didn’t want to get rid of the “DNA” of the character that they created and instead gave players what they have asked for for YEARS. I don’t know how many times I’ve read people asking for the developers to do numbers tweaks rather than gutting or changing. They did that here and I’m interested to see how it plays out.

Chasm should be seen less because he was never fun to play, but he’ll still be a pain with other immortals and still has that first turn stun. So he still has some utility. He’s just no longer THE choice and allows room for other teams as well.

Daredevil217

On the nerf everyone topic, you have to understand the audience asking for the nerf. Entrail says he expects to see nothing but Thor in his queues and now feels she should be nerfed for that reason. I personally believe my queues will be filled mostly with the weekly boosted which is what I wanted (and had prior to Chasm). I’m sure there will be a smattering of Jane/Shang, Jane/Riri and Kang/battery. Reason being they all can “punch up”. They are suitable alternatives that can allow players to hit higher points/wins if you don’t have the weekly boosted, but they aren’t going to be replacements for them. As long as the boost list isn’t filled with trash. I’d personally rather play a 550 Deadpool, Electro, Venomsaurus, Arcade, Ronin, Hit Monkey etc. (good but not meta) against an unboosted Jane/Shang. That feels like easy pickens to me personally.

Now if I’m a person who has 550 trash characters because I refuse to “chase the meta” or “go all in”, then there’s incentive for me to want the Jane’s and Kang’s nerfed. It probably feels unfair that other people can go all in on a handful of characters and do as well as me. I personally don’t feel that punching up is inherently grounds for a nerf. Now if the 450 character becomes a better option than most other characters boosted or unboosted, that for me is where the issue lies. I’m hopeful that the game will go back to mostly boost list characters which was when it was most fun for me personally. I don’t believe other nerfs are needed. Especially since Okoye, Jane and Kang are helpful for PVE.

KGB

@entrailbucket said:
But I think they had a chance to do something cool here. Rather than letting him keep all his old stuff, just worse, they could've removed the problematic stuff entirely and given him strong but non-problematic stuff.

The problem is that in a game with 90+ 5 star characters now and another 13 coming in the next year and 13 more the year beyond that, what exactly could they do that would feel fresh and new? Another 'gather X AP and fire for Y damage' is going to be met with a collective yawn by the player base. Adding a brand new skill like his 1st turn stun probably takes a lot of coding and design time and of course has the potential to unbalance the game since it would never have been seen before etc.

The game needs characters with unique skills for certain matchups. Electro (Quake) render AOE powers all but pointless and no one calls for those skills to get removed because the rest of the character is isn't OP. I suspect if this balance fixes Chasm's OPness then no one is going to worry about his 1st turn stun.

KGB

P.S. Regarding 1st turn move advantage. I'd love if they added a new skill to each character that determined whether that character would move first in a battle. Say something like a 'speed' score in the range 1-100. Someone like Quicksilver would have a 99 or 100 value while someone with slow speed/reaction times (Mindless Ones) might have a value in the range of 1-5. Then the team with the character with the highest score would move first (in case of tie, uses 2nd highest character number, then 3rd and if still tied player gets it). It would add another element to team design if you wanted to move first. It would freshen up the game a little in a 10 year old game that need some freshing up.

DAZ0273

@tonypq said:
It's getting a little stupid these calls to nerf so many other characters. Chasm probably deserved to be taken a notch down but these other characters some are griping about are perfectly fine.

As far as the Chasm rebalance, I was surprised it wasn't a tad more heavy handed personally, considering how long and how many players have been asking for one. I expected more of a gutting but think I'm ok with the rebalance. I don't really love or hate it, just is what it is. He still seems pretty functional and retaining much of his PITA factor.

He looks to remain potent enough to use if one chooses. Sure he'll still be a tad annoying when boosted. Glad they kept the stun mechanic as that to me is his calling card. I can live with the revive and AP adjustments. We'll soon see I guess if the rebalance ultimately pleases the masses or fell short though.

I don't think it is useful to say other people's opinions about nerfs is "stupid". Let them express their opinion. Maybe they thought nerfing Chasm was "stupid". Not me but hey ho.

entrailbucket

@Daredevil217 I do think Thor will become ubiquitous in my queues, and I think that's reason enough for a nerf. I don't think they should do that until she becomes 100% of PvP, though.

"Punching up" is not necessarily grounds for a nerf, but punching up shouldn't be trivial. That's why I don't see a problem with Shang-Chi. I lose to those teams, and that's fine by me -- that player had to work hard to beat me. I can also trivially stomp him on retaliation.

The problem happens with characters like Chasm, and like Thor, and some others, where those characters at 550 are better than most of the tier at 672, and they play themselves. You shouldn't be able to trivially, automatically punch up by 120+ levels. That's a balance problem.

Daredevil217

@entrailbucket said:
@Daredevil217 I do think Thor will become ubiquitous in my queues, and I think that's reason enough for a nerf. I don't think they should do that until she becomes 100% of PvP, though.

"Punching up" is not necessarily grounds for a nerf, but punching up shouldn't be trivial. That's why I don't see a problem with Shang-Chi. I lose to those teams, and that's fine by me -- that player had to work hard to beat me. I can also trivially stomp him on retaliation.

The problem happens with characters like Chasm, and like Thor, and some others, where those characters at 550 are better than most of the tier at 672, and they play themselves. You shouldn't be able to trivially, automatically punch up by 120+ levels. That's a balance problem.

I guess that’s where we differ. I don’t see Thor at 450 as better than most characters at 572. But I guess we’ll see. Maybe you’re right.

entrailbucket

@Daredevil217 as to the chasm nerf, and requests for small changes, this is not that, at all. Reducing his AP drain from 3 to 2 is a MASSIVE change. Changing his resurrection from "infinite, forever" to "once, maybe twice" is a MASSIVE change. A small change would be reducing his match damage bonus by 10%, or his healing.

The other part of "small, frequent changes" (which is actually what I've been asking for for YEARS) is "frequent." Drop his match damage by 10%, wait a month to see if his usage is changed, then do it again if it didn't have an impact. That's how you get to balance, not big-banging out huge changes like this.

entrailbucket

@Daredevil217 said:

@entrailbucket said:
@Daredevil217 I do think Thor will become ubiquitous in my queues, and I think that's reason enough for a nerf. I don't think they should do that until she becomes 100% of PvP, though.

"Punching up" is not necessarily grounds for a nerf, but punching up shouldn't be trivial. That's why I don't see a problem with Shang-Chi. I lose to those teams, and that's fine by me -- that player had to work hard to beat me. I can also trivially stomp him on retaliation.

The problem happens with characters like Chasm, and like Thor, and some others, where those characters at 550 are better than most of the tier at 672, and they play themselves. You shouldn't be able to trivially, automatically punch up by 120+ levels. That's a balance problem.

I guess that’s where we differ. I don’t see Thor at 450 as better than most characters at 572. But I guess we’ll see. Maybe you’re right.

We won't know what the metagame looks like until this happens. I don't think we should be preemptively asking for nerfs, and I'm not. But I also don't think we should rule them out preemptively.

KGB

@entrailbucket said:
The other part of "small, frequent changes" (which is actually what I've been asking for for YEARS) is "frequent." Drop his match damage by 10%, wait a month to see if his usage is changed, then do it again if it didn't have an impact. That's how you get to balance, not big-banging out huge changes like this.

How would they measure this in a meaningful manner?

Players with imbalanced rosters say 3-4 550s with the rest at 450 with one being Chasm would be forced to use him regardless of the minor change because of MMR. Same goes for someone with say 3-4 450s and the rest of their roster in the 300 range (4 star transition players).

Then you'd have to get rid of 5 star boosts entirely because it's possible the boost weeks skewed the usage. Would you want to get rid of boosts for that?

KGB

entrailbucket

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:
The other part of "small, frequent changes" (which is actually what I've been asking for for YEARS) is "frequent." Drop his match damage by 10%, wait a month to see if his usage is changed, then do it again if it didn't have an impact. That's how you get to balance, not big-banging out huge changes like this.

How would they measure this in a meaningful manner?

Players with imbalanced rosters say 3-4 550s with the rest at 450 with one being Chasm would be forced to use him regardless of the minor change because of MMR. Same goes for someone with say 3-4 450s and the rest of their roster in the 300 range (4 star transition players).

Then you'd have to get rid of 5 star boosts entirely because it's possible the boost weeks skewed the usage. Would you want to get rid of boosts for that?

KGB

Nah, they've got more detailed metrics than that, and they've got enough data on the boosts now to understand how they affect usage.

As for the players with "all in" type rosters, I'd say:

1: a balancing strategy like this screams "don't go all in, because the guy you went all in on isn't going to be the best for long." So you'd see these types of rosters stop existing before too long, because they'd stop being optimal.

2: after enough small changes these players will need to pivot somehow, or they'll be locked out of the game entirety. If, after, say, revision #5, your 550 Chasm can no longer trivially beat 672s, you're going to have to figure something out. If those players can't find an alternative strategy...well, Chasm's usage metrics will drop, because they won't be able to play!

mani82

Is it the case EB that characters at 550 are closer to 672 characters in terms of strength than ones that are 450 compared to 572 I don t see Thor at 450 manhandling my 572 boosted characters should be different at the 550 mmr I suppose

Kolence

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:
But I think they had a chance to do something cool here. Rather than letting him keep all his old stuff, just worse, they could've removed the problematic stuff entirely and given him strong but non-problematic stuff.

The problem is that in a game with 90+ 5 star characters now and another 13 coming in the next year and 13 more the year beyond that, what exactly could they do that would feel fresh and new? Another 'gather X AP and fire for Y damage' is going to be met with a collective yawn by the player base. Adding a brand new skill like his 1st turn stun probably takes a lot of coding and design time and of course has the potential to unbalance the game since it would never have been seen before etc.

The game needs characters with unique skills for certain matchups. Electro (Quake) render AOE powers all but pointless and no one calls for those skills to get removed because the rest of the character is isn't OP. I suspect if this balance fixes Chasm's OPness then no one is going to worry about his 1st turn stun.

KGB

P.S. Regarding 1st turn move advantage. I'd love if they added a new skill to each character that determined whether that character would move first in a battle. Say something like a 'speed' score in the range 1-100. Someone like Quicksilver would have a 99 or 100 value while someone with slow speed/reaction times (Mindless Ones) might have a value in the range of 1-5. Then the team with the character with the highest score would move first (in case of tie, uses 2nd highest character number, then 3rd and if still tied player gets it). It would add another element to team design if you wanted to move first. It would freshen up the game a little in a 10 year old game that need some freshing up.

Well, in case of Chasm, a unique way to change him, for example, could've been if he only counted his team's AP to determine the strength of his attacks, match damage or power. And only drained his team's AP passively. Then, the abyss tiles can slow the enemy after a while, but not shut down any power completely. Even the not so cheap ones. Now you can pick your Chasm support team accordingly. Do you want to use active powers or forego that to gain whatever else Chasm brings.

Now, Chasm alone wasn't as big of a problem. Hulk helps him, and not only because of reviving. Also as a cascade machine. Which speeds up creation of abyss and web tiles, which then chokes the enemy team even more.

Thor is similar in a way, she both shuts down any enemy team that would use special tiles and creates insane cascades. Not all the time, but it happens, and on defense which is especially egregious.

I'd love to hear what the average match count would be per fight, at various tiers, and compare it with teams that have M'Thor, iHulk or Carbage, let's say.

Kang is capable of winning a fight against a way way stronger enemy, because he has the ability to ignore their health, in a way. On top of that, he also renders useless all the characters which steal or destroy enemy AP. Plus slows down those who need their CDs to resolve.

All of these characters, in my mind, do some things too well and/or too easily with no real bad sides... That's why I am always ready to mention them if talking about possible nerfs.

Characters like Shang-Chi aren't that problematic, because to really make him so powerful, you need a human player to properly use his powers. The fact that Thor can sometimes boost his power so high shows her brute force can break through the "luck" barrier the AI is supposed to have on defense, with a character like SC.

Daredevil217

@entrailbucket said:
@Daredevil217 as to the chasm nerf, and requests for small changes, this is not that, at all. Reducing his AP drain from 3 to 2 is a MASSIVE change. Changing his resurrection from "infinite, forever" to "once, maybe twice" is a MASSIVE change. A small change would be reducing his match damage bonus by 10%, or his healing.

The other part of "small, frequent changes" (which is actually what I've been asking for for YEARS) is "frequent." Drop his match damage by 10%, wait a month to see if his usage is changed, then do it again if it didn't have an impact. That's how you get to balance, not big-banging out huge changes like this.

“3 to to 2 is a MASSIVE change”… lol. It’s not like they could have went from 3 to 2.5 AP drained.

I’m not going to lie, I would have been beyond upset if they dropped the match damage 10% and then decided to wait a month. That’s pitchfork territory. It would be obvious to ANYONE who plays the game that that wouldn’t be enough and something tells me you’d be the first one complaining if that’s how they decided to approached this nerf.

“Hey guys… we’re going to lower Chasm’s match damage 10% but keep the AP drain, resurrection, and stun you all hate completely untouched. Don’t worry, we’ll be monitoring closely and report back next season to see if that was enough”.

This Chasm nerf was in fact just a numbers tweak. The powers remained the same, the numbers are different. This is what people wanted. The big dream you are asking for is not realistic in a tier nearing triple digits. Look how long it took them to them just to tweak these Chasm numbers? Look how slow these tweaky character rebalances come out. Since they’re not going to make “incremental changes” over the next 8 months until we finally achieve balance, I appreciate the measure thrice, cut once approach.

Constantly monitoring, pulling reports, and tweaking/updating all the characters seems like a big undertaking when they have other much bigger stuff to manage. Not to mention this is the minority tier.

tonypq

@DAZ0273 said:

@tonypq said:
It's getting a little stupid these calls to nerf so many other characters. Chasm probably deserved to be taken a notch down but these other characters some are griping about are perfectly fine.

As far as the Chasm rebalance, I was surprised it wasn't a tad more heavy handed personally, considering how long and how many players have been asking for one. I expected more of a gutting but think I'm ok with the rebalance. I don't really love or hate it, just is what it is. He still seems pretty functional and retaining much of his PITA factor.

He looks to remain potent enough to use if one chooses. Sure he'll still be a tad annoying when boosted. Glad they kept the stun mechanic as that to me is his calling card. I can live with the revive and AP adjustments. We'll soon see I guess if the rebalance ultimately pleases the masses or fell short though.

I don't think it is useful to say other people's opinions about nerfs is "stupid". Let them express their opinion. Maybe they thought nerfing Chasm was "stupid". Not me but hey ho.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. Since you seem to value ones opinions, I've expressed mine and youve expressed yours, leave it at that.

All these posts saying this or that character now needs a nerf because Chasm got one is getting old quick. That's just my opinion, anyone else is certainly welcome to disagree. I don't don't feel we need to start raising pitchforks saying Mthor, Shang-Chi, BRB and or others now need nerfs just because Chasm got one and go overboard. Chasm was was a special case and has been dealt with. Whether one likes the rebalance or not is a choice each of us can make for ourselves.

entrailbucket

@Daredevil217 said:

@entrailbucket said:
@Daredevil217 as to the chasm nerf, and requests for small changes, this is not that, at all. Reducing his AP drain from 3 to 2 is a MASSIVE change. Changing his resurrection from "infinite, forever" to "once, maybe twice" is a MASSIVE change. A small change would be reducing his match damage bonus by 10%, or his healing.

The other part of "small, frequent changes" (which is actually what I've been asking for for YEARS) is "frequent." Drop his match damage by 10%, wait a month to see if his usage is changed, then do it again if it didn't have an impact. That's how you get to balance, not big-banging out huge changes like this.

“3 to to 2 is a MASSIVE change”… lol. It’s not like they could have went from 3 to 2.5 AP drained.

I’m not going to lie, I would have been beyond upset if they dropped the match damage 10% and then decided to wait a month. That’s pitchfork territory. It would be obvious to ANYONE who plays the game that that wouldn’t be enough and something tells me you’d be the first one complaining if that’s how they decided to approached this nerf.

“Hey guys… we’re going to lower Chasm’s match damage 10% but keep the AP drain, resurrection, and stun you all hate completely untouched. Don’t worry, we’ll be monitoring closely and report back next season to see if that was enough”.

This Chasm nerf was in fact just a numbers tweak. The powers remained the same, the numbers are different. This is what people wanted. The big dream you are asking for is not realistic in a tier nearing triple digits. Look how long it took them to them just to tweak these Chasm numbers? Look how slow these tweaky character rebalances come out. Since they’re not going to make “incremental changes” over the next 8 months until we finally achieve balance, I appreciate the measure thrice, cut once approach.

Constantly monitoring, pulling reports, and tweaking/updating all the characters seems like a big undertaking when they have other much bigger stuff to manage. Not to mention this is the minority tier.

30% in one shot is a pretty big deal. The rest of the changes are even bigger than that. This isn't a tweak.

Yeah, if they announced they were reducing his match damage by 10% and then stopping, I'd be upset. Except that's explicitly not what I said. The words I used were "small" and "frequent." You missed the "frequent" part.

I don't see how this took longer or was somehow harder than incremental changes. Every month, take 10% off the 5 most used characters at each tier (not just for this one), and add 10% to the 5 least used. That's it.

It took like 8 months to get this one Chasm change and they're never going to go back to him. We get a 5* rework, what, every 3 months? They're doing way too much with each character, when they could be making small, repeatable changes and letting the metagame figure out what's too much or what's enough.

Constantly monitoring the state of the metagame is literally their job, and they're doing it already. They just don't do anything about it currently.

jp1

@entrailbucket said:

@jp1 said:
I don’t even use Chasm, but “rebalance” seems generous when you only take away from a character. Why not just call it what it is?

Anyway, trade all covers above 450 for O-Red covers?

I think the Chasm nerf takes a bit of shine off Omega Red. He's still good -- a passive AoE is always going to play -- but the two big things favoring him over Hulk were "hits while he's stunned" and "permanent damage," and both of those things just got a lot less important.

I don’t disagree. I still like his kit a lot though, and he seems to be a bigger is better sort of character. They would never do what I’m suggesting anyway, but I think it would be a great offer that everyone could just trade in any amount of acquired covers for a character of their choosing.

It just seems like that’s the solution that covers the largest group of affected players.

Daredevil217

@entrailbucket said:

@Daredevil217 said:

@entrailbucket said:
@Daredevil217 as to the chasm nerf, and requests for small changes, this is not that, at all. Reducing his AP drain from 3 to 2 is a MASSIVE change. Changing his resurrection from "infinite, forever" to "once, maybe twice" is a MASSIVE change. A small change would be reducing his match damage bonus by 10%, or his healing.

The other part of "small, frequent changes" (which is actually what I've been asking for for YEARS) is "frequent." Drop his match damage by 10%, wait a month to see if his usage is changed, then do it again if it didn't have an impact. That's how you get to balance, not big-banging out huge changes like this.

“3 to to 2 is a MASSIVE change”… lol. It’s not like they could have went from 3 to 2.5 AP drained.

I’m not going to lie, I would have been beyond upset if they dropped the match damage 10% and then decided to wait a month. That’s pitchfork territory. It would be obvious to ANYONE who plays the game that that wouldn’t be enough and something tells me you’d be the first one complaining if that’s how they decided to approached this nerf.

“Hey guys… we’re going to lower Chasm’s match damage 10% but keep the AP drain, resurrection, and stun you all hate completely untouched. Don’t worry, we’ll be monitoring closely and report back next season to see if that was enough”.

This Chasm nerf was in fact just a numbers tweak. The powers remained the same, the numbers are different. This is what people wanted. The big dream you are asking for is not realistic in a tier nearing triple digits. Look how long it took them to them just to tweak these Chasm numbers? Look how slow these tweaky character rebalances come out. Since they’re not going to make “incremental changes” over the next 8 months until we finally achieve balance, I appreciate the measure thrice, cut once approach.

Constantly monitoring, pulling reports, and tweaking/updating all the characters seems like a big undertaking when they have other much bigger stuff to manage. Not to mention this is the minority tier.

30% in one shot is a pretty big deal. The rest of the changes are even bigger than that. This isn't a tweak.

Yeah, if they announced they were reducing his match damage by 10% and then stopping, I'd be upset. Except that's explicitly not what I said. The words I used were "small" and "frequent." You missed the "frequent" part.

I don't see how this took longer or was somehow harder than incremental changes. Every month, take 10% off the 5 most used characters at each tier (not just for this one), and add 10% to the 5 least used. That's it.

It took like 8 months to get this one Chasm change and they're never going to go back to him. We get a 5* rework, what, every 3 months? They're doing way too much with each character, when they could be making small, repeatable changes and letting the metagame figure out what's too much or what's enough.

Constantly monitoring the state of the metagame is literally their job, and they're doing it already. They just don't do anything about it currently.

No I heard and understood you just fine. I never said you said “10% then stop”. What I said (please read) and still maintain is if they came back with the 10% match damage reduction and a “we’ll analyze and then be back next season to see if more is needed”, you and everyone else would call them out of touch.

So your metric for these incremental rebalances are most/least used? You know, some people are used more because they are fun (not OP), others because they are fan favorites, and others because they have synergy with many partners. Some aren’t used much but are super useful in niche situations, or maybe have one good partner, which is just fine.

This game will never be balanced. Since the dawn of the game there has always been a best/meta everyone flocks to. The god boosts made it so that meta changes weekly (except in your queues that are all Thor apparently). I say only the most egregious offenders deserve a nerf. How do you define who that is? For me it isn’t most used.

As long as I’ve been around, people have confused meta/powerful with broken and there are always a few people who cry that they are too strong. Thor, Okoye, Kitty, Bill, Switch, etc. were all whined about by a minority of players and those people called for nerfs. Shang, new Thor, and Kang are in this tier. Gambit, Bishop, and Chasm had a much MUCH bigger crowd calling for their heads and the developers responded. Those characters were considered not just broken, but unfun. All three were suppressive as well. That’s my metric for a nerf. When players are crying out over and over (not just a small minority) then it’s time to look at counters. Once those counters prove ineffective, it’s time to bring out the hammer. You might not like it. But it’s the game we’ve got.