Prevalence of MThor and could she be the target of a rebalance?

Bowgentle

But we don't matter!
Even if all 5* players use Jane for everything, it's only 3% of the playerbase!
So handy, these quotes from Ice.

entrailbucket

@Bowgentle said:
But we don't matter!
Even if all 5* players use Jane for everything, it's only 3% of the playerbase!
So handy, these quotes from Ice.

Who said anything about 5* players? Chasm was (apparently) nerfed only due to overuse. Based on that criteria, he must've been impacting the lower tiers. Thor is definitely impacting lower tiers -- she seems to be used with Polaris more than Beta Ray Bill is.

Bowgentle

We both know Chasm was nerfed because we complained for a year.
Of course they're not going to admit that.

entrailbucket

@Bowgentle said:
We both know Chasm was nerfed because we complained for a year.
Of course they're not going to admit that.

Why on earth wouldn't they admit that?

Saying "we did this because we heard your complaints" would create goodwill amongst the playerbase, not destroy it! They have no reason to lie about this.

Bad

Another quote from IcelX: Mthor has an awesome loss ratio, I think it was more than 70%.
So sadly (for many players) the nerf never will touch her.

Blackstone

@Bad said:
Another quote from IcelX: Mthor has an awesome loss ratio, I think it was more than 70%.
So sadly (for many players) the nerf never will touch her.

Would mean more if that stat included how often she was in both teams. Jane vs Jane will give a 50% every time.

I don't think she needs a nerf... But I'm also tired of seeing her so much, so I could be wrong.

meadowsweet

@Blackstone said:

@Bad said:
Another quote from IcelX: Mthor has an awesome loss ratio, I think it was more than 70%.
So sadly (for many players) the nerf never will touch her.

Would mean more if that stat included how often she was in both teams. Jane vs Jane will give a 50% every time.

I don't think she needs a nerf... But I'm also tired of seeing her so much, so I could be wrong.

Does Mighty Thor's 70% loss rate include:

1) Offense (active player control) & Defense (passive AI control)? What would her win-loss ratio be if you split out offense & defense separately?

2) If players open a PVP node, see Mighty Thor, and press the Skip button, does / should that count as a "win" for Mighty Thor? She "won" in that they were afraid to even fight her, right? In theory, only players who have a counter-plan are willingly choosing to fight her, so you would expect that pool of players to have a higher win rate, correct?

3) If players have to bring two boosted 5★ Level 570 characters and defeat a Level 450 Mighty Thor, does that really mean she's balanced and doesn't need to be nerfed? It's worth noting if players would rather have her fighting their defense (and scaring off opponents) over a character that's boosted 100+ levels higher. Being a "default" team like Hulk & Okoye or Colossus & Scarlet Witch used to be says a lot...

4) If she's the flavor of the moment, are there players who broke their hoard for her, have her champed as one of their only 5★, who are using her in ever fight, regardless of context? That could drag the overall loss ratio higher...

Bad

@Blackstone said:

Would mean more if that stat included how often she was in both teams. Jane vs Jane will give a 50% every time.

The data should be taken in defense. So it wouldn't matter which character you choose. A defeat for you is a win for her.
My personal experience matches those trackings: very rarely I lose a battle vs a Mthor team.

entrailbucket

Maybe someone should ask them how they decide which characters to nerf...

Oh wait, someone did, and they told us that it was based on usage rate (and nothing else). Not win rate, not defensive wins, not complaints, not popularity.

Bad

@entrailbucket said:
Maybe someone should ask them how they decide which characters to nerf...

Oh wait, someone did, and they told us that it was based on usage rate (and nothing else). Not win rate, not defensive wins, not complaints, not popularity.

Then why okoye didn't get nerfed? And thor? Ihulk? SW and colossus? Kitty polaris grocket?
And cap worthy, bishop were really that used or they were nerfed because of complaints and defensive wins?

entrailbucket

@Bad said:

@entrailbucket said:
Maybe someone should ask them how they decide which characters to nerf...

Oh wait, someone did, and they told us that it was based on usage rate (and nothing else). Not win rate, not defensive wins, not complaints, not popularity.

Then why okoye didn't get nerfed? And thor? Ihulk? SW and colossus? Kitty polaris grocket?
And cap worthy, bishop were really that used or they were nerfed because of complaints and defensive wins?

It's possible that their policy changed since then. There's a relatively new development team. It's also possible that none of those other characters met their (undisclosed) threshold for "overused."

Either way, it's a question for them, not me.

Codex

@Bad said:

Then why okoye didn't get nerfed? And thor? Ihulk? SW and colossus? Kitty polaris grocket?
And cap worthy, bishop were really that used or they were nerfed because of complaints and defensive wins?

That's is probably because effective counters were made those you mentioned before a nerf was needed. Okoye-ihulk being SW; Kitty polaris grocket mthor being chasm; SW colo didn't need a counter anyone with a stun would work. I don't consider any of the BCS attempts for a chasm counter to be effective hence the nerf.

A better argument would be why was oml nerfed it was definitely not for usage rates.

bbigler

I judge a character on how fair the fight is.

Against MThor, it’s not a fair fight! The AI gaining about 3 times more AP than you isn’t fair (plus the extra match dmg). Colossus only solves the lesser of 2 problems. That’s why she should be nerfed.

Against nerfed Chasm, he’s beatable but annoying and I don’t think it’s unfair now. Before, it was unfair with his big AP drain.

Against Shang, it’s fair because he has to get lucky, he’s not consistent. Those unlucky times are frustrating but manageable. Using Shang is also fair because you have to focus on him alone to deal the godlike dmg.

Against Omega & IHulk, it’s fair because counters exist like Electro & Switch. Omega is awesome in many ways and borders on unfairness, but I don’t see anyone complaining.

Against Kang & Deathlok, it’s only fair for now because you can down Deathlok quickly, but once he’s ascended, that duo may become the new meta calling for a nerf.

Against the other Classic metas of Okoye, Kitty, Thor, Thanos, Colossus, etc - those are easy wins if you use the right characters.

Unfortunately, ascending all 4-stars is going to bring some nasty teams - I just hope they have counters. I think the ideal gameplay is variety, where every week you look at the boost list and come up with something new. That would be fun to play with and against.

Ptahhotep

My guess would be that a strong defensive character is more likely to be nerfed. If they can defend without the need for shields then they affect the game economy. Strong offensive characters like Shang and Polaris that are weak on defence are not a problem . Players using them either have to spend HP to shield or are only interested in progression which they can get with 50 wins and not bother to shield at all.

LavaManLee

@entrailbucket said:
Maybe someone should ask them how they decide which characters to nerf...

Oh wait, someone did, and they told us that it was based on usage rate (and nothing else). Not win rate, not defensive wins, not complaints, not popularity.

Not true. Their actual answer was far more nuanced.

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/89282/mpq-developer-q-a-september-2023-answers/p1

The answer they provided was not "the only thing we look at is usage rate (and nothing else)". They never said they only look at usage rate. The answer was:

"Devpool: There are a surprising number of factors involved here. One is definitely player usage. Sometimes, player usage is a function of a character being great, but occasions do exist in which players perceive characters differently than what the metrics say. In other words, very strong characters simply might not be perceived as strong (yet). For reasons like this, we don't want to be too hasty with rebalances. Such was the case with Chasm, a character that, upon release, was believed to be very, very weak. It wasn't until some time after Chasm's release that players started to grasp his potential.

IceIX: It is impossible to really answer, but generally, it's when they dominate meta. As in, nearly any successful team uses them even when they're not buffed against teams that are, just because they're that powerful."

DAZ0273

@Bowgentle said:
We both know Chasm was nerfed because we complained for a year.
Of course they're not going to admit that.

Why on earth wouldn't they admit that?

Saying "we did this because we heard your complaints" would create goodwill amongst the playerbase, not destroy it! They have no reason to lie about this.

Because there is a case for not letting your player base become so significantly powerful that they become also incredibly entitled. The Devs held out until they achieved what they wanted with Chasm and had whatever data that matters to them to decide it was time to act. They don't want to give off the impression that if we whine about things enough they will always kowtow to us. Players don't always know best and sometimes we need saving from ourselves and our kneejerk reactions to things.

Jinx

Why does every character thread devolve into a running commentary on who should be nerfed? I don’t think MT needs to be nerfed. She’s beatable and I don’t even use her that much. I just wonder if anyone has found a team for Grandma Thor.

Jinx

Oops. Wrong thread. I will say ascending characters have changed everything. Just ascended Medusa and paired he with Apoc and BRB. That team is crazy.

BriMan2222

@bbigler said:
I judge a character on how fair the fight is.

Against MThor, it’s not a fair fight! The AI gaining about 3 times more AP than you isn’t fair (plus the extra match dmg). Colossus only solves the lesser of 2 problems. That’s why she should be nerfed.

Against nerfed Chasm, he’s beatable but annoying and I don’t think it’s unfair now. Before, it was unfair with his big AP drain.

Against Shang, it’s fair because he has to get lucky, he’s not consistent. Those unlucky times are frustrating but manageable. Using Shang is also fair because you have to focus on him alone to deal the godlike dmg.

Against Omega & IHulk, it’s fair because counters exist like Electro & Switch. Omega is awesome in many ways and borders on unfairness, but I don’t see anyone complaining.

Against Kang & Deathlok, it’s only fair for now because you can down Deathlok quickly, but once he’s ascended, that duo may become the new meta calling for a nerf.

Against the other Classic metas of Okoye, Kitty, Thor, Thanos, Colossus, etc - those are easy wins if you use the right characters.

Unfortunately, ascending all 4-stars is going to bring some nasty teams - I just hope they have counters. I think the ideal gameplay is variety, where every week you look at the boost list and come up with something new. That would be fun to play with and against.

How is Mthor gaining 3 times more ap than you? Are you meaning that she creates charged tiles that give extra ap if matched? The majority of the time I can match those before the AI does. Sure, the ai can sometimes get those matches or get a great cascade with charged tiles involved, but that is rare. Mthor doesn't have some passive that she will get more ap from matches or is more likely to get great cascades.

With the boost week being poor right now in pvp hardly anyone is running boosted characters and I'm mostly seeing either MThor/shang or colossus/Omega red. I will fight the thor teams every time over the collosus/OR teams. The OR teams aren't terribly difficult to deal with, but the fights against mthor are much, much easier and faster to beat and I would much rather be able to climb off of those teams than deal with OR teams.

"Against nerfed Chasm, he’s beatable but annoying and I don’t think it’s unfair now"

Against mthor I find her very easily beatable and not even annoying, unless she's paired with riri and gets a stun lock going (Which is why I usually have apocoalypse as Collosus partner to have the stun immunity)

entrailbucket

@LavaManLee said:

@entrailbucket said:
Maybe someone should ask them how they decide which characters to nerf...

Oh wait, someone did, and they told us that it was based on usage rate (and nothing else). Not win rate, not defensive wins, not complaints, not popularity.

Not true. Their actual answer was far more nuanced.

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/89282/mpq-developer-q-a-september-2023-answers/p1

The answer they provided was not "the only thing we look at is usage rate (and nothing else)". They never said they only look at usage rate. The answer was:

"Devpool: There are a surprising number of factors involved here. One is definitely player usage. Sometimes, player usage is a function of a character being great, but occasions do exist in which players perceive characters differently than what the metrics say. In other words, very strong characters simply might not be perceived as strong (yet). For reasons like this, we don't want to be too hasty with rebalances. Such was the case with Chasm, a character that, upon release, was believed to be very, very weak. It wasn't until some time after Chasm's release that players started to grasp his potential.

IceIX: It is impossible to really answer, but generally, it's when they dominate meta. As in, nearly any successful team uses them even when they're not buffed against teams that are, just because they're that powerful."

Both of these answers only talk about usage though...

Unless you're reading heavily into "surprising number of factors" or "impossible to really answer," all I'm seeing here is a discussion of how much characters are used.

Why wouldn't they bring up, say, defensive strength here, if that's a major reason?