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

entrailbucket

@Daredevil217 said:

@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.

I wouldn't call them out of touch if they actually committed to doing frequent changes, and demonstrated follow-up. With this dev team, if they announced a small change and promised to revisit it...well, yeah, we'd probably get upset, because these guys took a year or whatever to do ANYTHING about one of the most broken characters they've ever released. The theory is that smaller changes could happen more quickly and more often.

The "fully balanced" is a strawman. The game can never, and should never, be fully balanced, where every strategy/team/character is equal. That would be boring, and it's impossible anyway.

But like, can you really justify Black Widow and mThor being at the same tier/rated the same way/treated the same by the game's systems (like matchmaking)? Can you really justify Spider-woman and Polaris being treated the same? Because that's where we're at now. Do you think that's a good thing?

How can we get to a state where there's some level of parity among characters at a tier? Because what I see is a dev team that would like to get there but can only execute 1 or 2 complete rebuilds per month, and at that pace it'll take years to get to a state where the most egregious problems are fixed, assuming they don't accidentally create more.

KGB

@entrailbucket said:
The "fully balanced" is a strawman. The game can never, and should never, be fully balanced, where every strategy/team/character is equal. That would be boring, and it's impossible anyway.

How can we get to a state where there's some level of parity among characters at a tier? Because what I see is a dev team that would like to get there but can only execute 1 or 2 complete rebuilds per month, and at that pace it'll take years to get to a state where the most egregious problems are fixed, assuming they don't accidentally create more.

Given what we now know for sure about 5 star champ rates (or even 4 star rates), I'd suggest that it's a waste of dev time to even attempt it. They should just keep focusing on moving forward and not looking back.

The original creator of Puzzle Quest (Steve Fawkner) once told me in person that the worst thing any game (not just this one) can do is release an OP character/item/single power/side. The reason is that the game just becomes dominated by that one character/item/power/side to the exclusion of everything else. We've seen that with Chasm and other characters (or powers like healing) which is why it's so necessary to fix OP stuff.

He then said that if a game releases a useless character/item/power that it's not a big deal at all if it's never fixed. The reason is that players just ignore it and use everything else that's reasonably balanced/equal.

Here's how impossible it is to even acquire older 5 star characters for newer players. If they changed the daily resupply reward to simply give out a 5 star cover every day after year 1, the game would give out 365 a year. Divided by 90 characters that's ~4 covers a year or 3 years to get an older 5 from 0 covers to baby champed and then 25 more years to get to 550 (and that's without ever releasing another new 5). So really those rebalances you speak of are only for .01% of the players (not 1% but 1% of 1% or 1/10000). It's just not good use of dev time.

KGB

entrailbucket

You're assuming that a rebalance only benefits championed or max-covered characters, which is absolutely not the case.

I wouldn't have a problem with just retiring all those old characters, btw, except they haven't done that, or shown any inclination to do that. In fact, the game constantly reminds us that all the characters are needed.

You can still get Black Widow covers or shards in all sorts of ways, including many ways that new players have access to. If Black Widow was removed from all tokens, removed from rewards and feeders, never boosted and never essential, then sure, ignore her, let her suck forever. Until then, there's a problem.

KGB

@entrailbucket said:
You're assuming that a rebalance only benefits championed or max-covered characters, which is absolutely not the case.

I mean, sure, adding a small bit of health or a small bit of extra damage is absolutely a benefit. But how many times has that happened and it's actually mattered in a meaningful way for a non champed character? The reality is it only really matters for champed characters.

Also the kind of rebalance you alluded to above (adding 10% health or damage to a bunch of characters and repeating ad infinitum till character seems balanced) leads to a different problem that they don't want. Namely that for some characters like 5 star Widow it would mean adding a LOT of health and damage since her powers are the problem (too expensive). You can say so what, but remember these aren't faceless characters, they are Marvel heroes and villains and they always want the character to appear more or less as their comic counterpart. So having Widow ultimately getting more health and match damage / power damage than someone like Captain Marvel or other truly super powered character is going to be a 'no go'.

Anyway, for whom is this exactly a problem (besides someone like you who wants to evenly level all their characters and use them all equally)? These characters are used at most 1 or 2 times a year as essentials. The rest of the time everyone can ignore the character.

KGB

entrailbucket

So then why does Okoye, a non-powered Wakandan, completely outclass Captain Marvel, one of the most powerful heroes in the universe? They can make the lore/background/comics stuff do whatever they want.

For whom is it a problem? How about anyone who ever paid for a roster slot for Black Widow? Do you really feel happy paying for nothing?

KGB

I'm not paying for nothing.

I've used her many times as a required character in the 5 star node or shield training. Plus for those who've champed her, she provides champ rewards just like any other 5 star character.

I have zero problem that she has no use outside her essential and champ rewards.

KGB

Daredevil217

@KGB said:
I'm not paying for nothing.

I've used her many times as a required character in the 5 star node or shield training. Plus for those who've champed her, she provides champ rewards just like any other 5 star character.

I have zero problem that she has no use outside her essential and champ rewards.

KGB

Same here. Plus how much of a match damage increase would black widow need in order to become playable over other meta options? She’d have to have match damage higher than Chasm/Colossus with boosts, which would change the flavor of the character. And even then I still probably wouldn’t play Widownaut.

@entrailbucket said:

@Daredevil217 said:

@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.

I wouldn't call them out of touch if they actually committed to doing frequent changes, and demonstrated follow-up. With this dev team, if they announced a small change and promised to revisit it...well, yeah, we'd probably get upset, because these guys took a year or whatever to do ANYTHING about one of the most broken characters they've ever released. The theory is that smaller changes could happen more quickly and more often.

The "fully balanced" is a strawman. The game can never, and should never, be fully balanced, where every strategy/team/character is equal. That would be boring, and it's impossible anyway.

But like, can you really justify Black Widow and mThor being at the same tier/rated the same way/treated the same by the game's systems (like matchmaking)? Can you really justify Spider-woman and Polaris being treated the same? Because that's where we're at now. Do you think that's a good thing?

How can we get to a state where there's some level of parity among characters at a tier? Because what I see is a dev team that would like to get there but can only execute 1 or 2 complete rebuilds per month, and at that pace it'll take years to get to a state where the most egregious problems are fixed, assuming they don't accidentally create more.

We’re going around in circles here but you stated that they would need at least a month with each incremental change they make to gather any meaningful data and then time to assess the data/impact of said changes. Then decide the next incremental changes (across the top/bottom tier of each level). That takes time. If they were to come out with this minuscule change to Chasm, even just to start, even with the promise that they would be consistently revisiting him every month… yeah people would be upset. Because again it’s clear to anyone who plays the game (except you I guess) that more would be needed. So why not start with more if we know before the change even goes live that a 10% reduction in match damage isn’t going to be enough?It’s dumb.

As for your other point, the devs are giving us rebalances but are doing so in a much more meaningful/intentional way. I’d rather they take their time and make sure that each rebalance (or rework if needed) are true to what they want for the character instead of a lazy “let’s just slap some match damage on everyone who isn’t used as much” approach. But to each their own. While I wait for Widow to have her day in the sun, I’m happy to play Banner, Phoenix, Fatpin, FA Cap, Wasp, Angel, etc. when their numbers get called. Much much prefer our developers approach (even if they don’t get it right everytime) to rebalancing over yours.

entrailbucket

@Daredevil217 I have to believe you're being intentionally obtuse with the match damage thing. Yes, it would be stupid if the monthly balance passes adjusted only match damage. That's why I didn't suggest that. The Chasm thing was an example of a small change. You're also being sort of weirdly hostile about all this and I'm not sure why -- this is philosophy and design, it's not politics.

Small, frequent changes. For a character like Black Widow it might mean dropping her powers' costs by 1AP, or adding damage, or health, or, sure, match damage. But (and here's the key) you're not taking a character from 0 to 60 (or from 60 to 0) in one shot.

You do this because you don't know how the metagame will shake out. Make changes, monitor them, react as necessary. Instead they're doing these massive overhauls that take them forever, and what happens if they miss? When is Wasp going to get revisited? What if this Chasm nerf wasn't enough? What if it was too much? They can't know that without seeing how players react to it, and how the metagame changes.

Bowgentle

Neither the old crew nor BCS have done small tweaks, always earth-shaking changes.
They will NEVER start doing small tweaks after 10 years.
Just let go of the idea, this is not what this game is.
See also this gigantic overhaul of the game's economy that they've been talking about ever since they took over.
They could have dropped extra rewards into PVP at 1100, added a few 5* shards to prog rewards, etc... they don't do stuff like that.
Nope, it has to be a complete rework, and they will not iterate.

entrailbucket

@KGB said:
I'm not paying for nothing.

I've used her many times as a required character in the 5 star node or shield training. Plus for those who've champed her, she provides champ rewards just like any other 5 star character.

I have zero problem that she has no use outside her essential and champ rewards.

KGB

I really can't imagine this being a popular take. Like, I'm fine with rostering characters just for essentials and champion rewards, but you're saying you prefer that to be the case? You like that a bunch of characters are unusable garbage taking up slots for basically no reason?

I'd like for all the characters on my roster to be usable, even if I can't use all of them at once, or if some of the uses are things I don't like, or something else. Why would you want less options?

entrailbucket

@Bowgentle said:
Neither the old crew nor BCS have done small tweaks, always earth-shaking changes.
They will NEVER start doing small tweaks after 10 years.
Just let go of the idea, this is not what this game is.
See also this gigantic overhaul of the game's economy that they've been talking about ever since they took over.
They could have dropped extra rewards into PVP at 1100, added a few 5* shards to prog rewards, etc... they don't do stuff like that.
Nope, it has to be a complete rework, and they will not iterate.

I mean, I've also pretty much given up hope that they'll actually iterate. But these guys seem to be arguing that they like this big-bang stuff, they actually prefer it to iterating, and I cannot understand why any player would WANT that.

Kolence

You two, @Daredevil217 @entrailbucket, are now moving into arguing for the argument sake territory, sort of. Though I agree with EB somewhat when it comes to perceived hostility.
And even though neither is English my first language, nor have I ever had debating as part of my schooling and education, I can notice some logical fallacies used or pick and choosing of the examples for arguments. Imo, that serves nothing. (useful, anyway, in case of an internet forum)
As for the incremental changes to health and match damage, I believe the devs haven't completely discarded the idea of "normalizing" the older 5's stats like that (so a bigger jump to start it off). The problem currently is in that the other character stats like power damage are also tied with health and match damage, sort of as a single variable? Until the devs complete their work on changing the game innards (the engine?), we're stuck with this kind of reworks. Which, imo, is what most characters would need in the end.
I'll just mention, in the end, that not all reworks we've had have worked as the post describing the rework said. As an example you can check Wasp or Magneto. Wasp is so so, and Ant-Man change helps her a lot, so it's bearable. But she's supposed to be doing way better damage. Magneto otoh got such a strong offensive power now, that his more defensive oriented one not removing all the tiles it was supposed to is not that big a blow.
So we see there's possible drawbacks to any approach the devs take.
I still believe they know what they're doing, even if a mistake can sneak in now and then. And I can't wait for them to sort through the old code and different ways similar powers seem to behave (all the weird order of operations we can notice in practice), and see what these reworks look like once they are in control of things more fully.

KGB

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:
I'm not paying for nothing.

I've used her many times as a required character in the 5 star node or shield training. Plus for those who've champed her, she provides champ rewards just like any other 5 star character.

I have zero problem that she has no use outside her essential and champ rewards.

KGB

I really can't imagine this being a popular take. Like, I'm fine with rostering characters just for essentials and champion rewards, but you're saying you prefer that to be the case? You like that a bunch of characters are unusable garbage taking up slots for basically no reason?

I'd like for all the characters on my roster to be usable, even if I can't use all of them at once, or if some of the uses are things I don't like, or something else. Why would you want less options?

I guess I'm more of a specialist than a generalist (both in gaming and real life). I prefer to do a few things exceptionally well than a whole bunch of things reasonably well (pay better job wise too if you do a few things exceptionally well).

Here's an analogy. I have 14 clubs in my golf bag but I pretty much use only 4-5 (driver, putter, wedge and a couple of hybrids) when I play. I always look at that 60 degree specialized wedge and think I rarely ever hit it so even if it might be the play here, I'm much more comfortable using my regular wedge. So most of the clubs just sit unused in the bag.

So I'd rather have a few characters (say 10-20) that I use all the time and know exactly how they play in terms of power combinations and countering other teams etc than attempt to know how to use 200ish characters (the 4 &5 tiers) at a so-so level. So I'm more than fine with rostering tons of characters that are needed just for essentials or puzzle gauntlet etc. I doubt I'm alone in this.

KGB

DAZ0273

Oh god no, we have arrived at Golf! Stop it, stop it now - go back to fighting!!!

Daredevil217

I personally like the Magneto rework a lot. If the red wasn’t buggy it’d be even better. I think Wasp was a miss though. Stark as well. I have four whole tiers of characters rostered (plus dupes) that only really get used for essentials. I’m not doing back flips but I’m also okay that some of my fives fall into that territory as well and they get to them when they get to them. I also am not going to lie, I prefer this approach because it’s like getting a brand new toy whenever a new rebalance drops. I was legit excited to try new Fatpin and take him for a spin. If they just upped Fatpin, Banner and Jeans’s match damage 10% and lowered AP costs by 1, I probably would not have played them at all, and if I did I would not have the type of enthusiasm I do when it’s an overhaul. Even the Angel/YJ/Star-Lord that are more big numbers tweaks (what I call rebalances versus reworks where the powers actually change) I’ve been excited about.

So, no I don’t think it’s crazy to prefer it this way, and do think it probably takes less time than having to batch update the top/bottom 10% across all tiers. There just feels like more care given to this approach.

And if anything I’ve written feels hostile or offense to any poster, please let me more specifically what I’ve said (you can out me publicly or take it to PM, either way) that you’ve struggled with, because that’s not my intention.

entrailbucket

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:
I'm not paying for nothing.

I've used her many times as a required character in the 5 star node or shield training. Plus for those who've champed her, she provides champ rewards just like any other 5 star character.

I have zero problem that she has no use outside her essential and champ rewards.

KGB

I really can't imagine this being a popular take. Like, I'm fine with rostering characters just for essentials and champion rewards, but you're saying you prefer that to be the case? You like that a bunch of characters are unusable garbage taking up slots for basically no reason?

I'd like for all the characters on my roster to be usable, even if I can't use all of them at once, or if some of the uses are things I don't like, or something else. Why would you want less options?

I guess I'm more of a specialist than a generalist (both in gaming and real life). I prefer to do a few things exceptionally well than a whole bunch of things reasonably well (pay better job wise too if you do a few things exceptionally well).

Here's an analogy. I have 14 clubs in my golf bag but I pretty much use only 4-5 (driver, putter, wedge and a couple of hybrids) when I play. I always look at that 60 degree specialized wedge and think I rarely ever hit it so even if it might be the play here, I'm much more comfortable using my regular wedge. So most of the clubs just sit unused in the bag.

So I'd rather have a few characters (say 10-20) that I use all the time and know exactly how they play in terms of power combinations and countering other teams etc than attempt to know how to use 200ish characters (the 4 &5 tiers) at a so-so level. So I'm more than fine with rostering tons of characters that are needed just for essentials or puzzle gauntlet etc. I doubt I'm alone in this.

KGB

I'd be interested in more folks weighing in on this, because I really, really don't think it's a common preference. When they release a mediocre, nondescript character, we get tons of posts here that say "why would I bother rostering this guy at all?"

The obvious answer is "essentials and champion rewards," yes, and I've given that answer myself, but I'd MUCH rather say "here is what this character is useful for/who they combo with/what they're good for." You're saying you prefer the first answer, and like I said...I really cannot imagine many people agreeing there.

Bowgentle

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:
I'm not paying for nothing.

I've used her many times as a required character in the 5 star node or shield training. Plus for those who've champed her, she provides champ rewards just like any other 5 star character.

I have zero problem that she has no use outside her essential and champ rewards.

KGB

I really can't imagine this being a popular take. Like, I'm fine with rostering characters just for essentials and champion rewards, but you're saying you prefer that to be the case? You like that a bunch of characters are unusable garbage taking up slots for basically no reason?

I'd like for all the characters on my roster to be usable, even if I can't use all of them at once, or if some of the uses are things I don't like, or something else. Why would you want less options?

I guess I'm more of a specialist than a generalist (both in gaming and real life). I prefer to do a few things exceptionally well than a whole bunch of things reasonably well (pay better job wise too if you do a few things exceptionally well).

Here's an analogy. I have 14 clubs in my golf bag but I pretty much use only 4-5 (driver, putter, wedge and a couple of hybrids) when I play. I always look at that 60 degree specialized wedge and think I rarely ever hit it so even if it might be the play here, I'm much more comfortable using my regular wedge. So most of the clubs just sit unused in the bag.

So I'd rather have a few characters (say 10-20) that I use all the time and know exactly how they play in terms of power combinations and countering other teams etc than attempt to know how to use 200ish characters (the 4 &5 tiers) at a so-so level. So I'm more than fine with rostering tons of characters that are needed just for essentials or puzzle gauntlet etc. I doubt I'm alone in this.

KGB

I'd be interested in more folks weighing in on this, because I really, really don't think it's a common preference. When they release a mediocre, nondescript character, we gets tons of posts here that say "why would I bother rostering this guy at all?"

The obvious answer is "essentials and champion rewards," yes, and I've given that answer myself, but I'd MUCH rather say "here is what this character is useful for/who they combo with/what they're good for." You're saying you prefer the first answer, and like I said...I really cannot imagine many people agreeing there.

Softcapper.
It's not like he's using more than 4 guys across his roster anyway.

entrailbucket

@Daredevil217 said:
I personally like the Magneto rework a lot. If the red wasn’t buggy it’d be even better. I think Wasp was a miss though. Stark as well. I have four whole tiers of characters rostered (plus dupes) that only really get used for essentials. I’m not doing back flips but I’m also okay that some of my fives fall into that territory as well and they get to them when they get to them. I also am not going to lie, I prefer this approach because it’s like getting a brand new toy whenever a new rebalance drops. I was legit excited to try new Fatpin and take him for a spin. If they just upped Fatpin, Banner and Jeans’s match damage 10% and lowered AP costs by 1, I probably would not have played them at all, and if I did I would not have the type of enthusiasm I do when it’s an overhaul. Even the Angel/YJ/Star-Lord that are more big numbers tweaks (what I call rebalances versus reworks where the powers actually change) I’ve been excited about.

So, no I don’t think it’s crazy to prefer it this way, and do think it probably takes less time than having to batch update the top/bottom 10% across all tiers. There just feels like more care given to this approach.

And if anything I’ve written feels hostile or offense to any poster, please let me more specifically what I’ve said (you can out me publicly or take it to PM, either way) that you’ve struggled with, because that’s not my intention.

But you're still not getting it. Frequent, small changes. They're not going to make a small change to Kingpin then give up forever. If that change isn't enough, then go back and change more.

There is no chance that this philosophy change would take longer to make meaningful updates. Kingpin was bad for literally YEARS, and he sat unchanged and totally useless for all of them. Under a scheme like this he'd have had dozens of updates. Chasm dominated the game for what, a full year? And now he's going to go from everywhere to nowhere instantly, rather than a slow, steady step-down process.

Why would you want them to make big disruptive changes like that in one shot? I like chaos too, and I LOVE seeing the all-in players get demolished, but it's probably not healthy.

HuracanDolor

Glad they addressed the threshold for the infinite revivals, that was the biggest pain. Kang solved everything else. I’m not sure if this will address the infinite Chasm vs Chasm matches though.
Two things I still would have like to see done with him:
1. Instead of an instant revival, have just one turn inserted (we have other characters that have revival mechanics but has never been a problem in the game i.e. Phoenix, Loki. The commonality that they both share is that you get at least one turn to possibly down them to prevent the revival.
2. A passive that prevents Chasm from creating web tiles if he is the last character on the team standing. (I think this completely stops the infinite Chasm vs Chasm matches)

HuracanDolor

@Kolence said:

@revskip said:
Seems reasonable. Glad he wasn't ground into dust. Now when is the nerf coming for Shang-Chi and mThor?

Don't forget Kang!

Speak for yourself…… Kang is fine.