MPQ Developer Q&A April 2024 (ANSWERS)

MPQBlaine
MPQBlaine ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 191 Tile Toppler
in MPQ General Discussion

Fresh off the Developer presses! Check out the answers to your April questions below.

  1. ReturnalShadow [Reddit]
    Question: Many vet players in the forums think that many of your 5-star releases (~70% or more) are "DoA" or "Unusable". Why are there such a huge disconnect between the dev team and them when it comes to designing abilities and assigning damage value?

    Answer: IceIX: From the data, we're seeing that nearly every 5-Star we release, after their cooldown release period, slots somewhere pretty comfortably into the middle or higher end of the 5-Star meta. They're not breaking any new meta strategies, but they're 100% not DoA. It seems like the people that are saying this are being disappointed that new characters aren't just breaking up the current meta with Shang-Chi, Mighty Thor, etc. Sure. We could do that. But be honest here, what does that look like? Players are already pushing out 2-3 turn wins against difficult opponents with those characters. So to break up current meta or not make them not supposedly "DoA", the characters would have to do things BETTER than characters that already have the capability of making the puzzle portion of the game last about as long as the menuing to get to the puzzle portion.
  2. @entrailbucket [Official Forums]
    Question: Are the fights in the new character Shield Training events meant to be winnable by everyone or are they meant to be gated to certain roster levels?

    Answer: The short answer to this is no, not exactly. Similarly to how a first full clear on a DDQ is something players are proud of and post about, Shield Training events (Welcome to SHIELD) are very beatable, but not right out the gate. Many new players will need to make progress in the game before they are expected to regularly clear these.
  3. @Katetheliteraryapothecary [Discord]
    Question: When are we going to come up with a 3*, 5* Namor?

    Answer: IceIX: I'll just say that we have no intention of leaving the Phoenix Five as the Phoenix Four.
  4. @jdpastor666 [Official Forums]
    Question: When are we going to see updates and rebalances to existing supports?

    Answer: It's in the cards for certain actually! Stay tuned!
  5. @Hammer 3001 [Official Forums]
    Question: Why are there still limited characters? You made it obvious that you can change them with the 1-Star Yelena.

    Answer: IceIX: We have to find the time to go back to the Limited characters to make them more regularly balanced. Spider-Ham, Devil Dino, etc weren't using the same balancing formulae as a normal character, and they'd need some work to make them do so. Yelena's extra ability brought her out of that state, so we got rid of Limited for that character.
  6. @DAZ0273 [Official Forums]
    Question: With Affiliation s now becoming possible Milestone quests can we expect them to be upgraded to characters who are missing them? For example Namor and Silver Surfer not being Defenders and Thunderbolts seem all over the place. Many thanks!!!

    Answer: IceIX: Sure, its possible. I'd personally say no to Namor's inclusion as a Defender though, DESPITE the fact that he's been included on the little team bubbles on covers and the like. He's never liked being "on the team", or even working with the people he has to work with while doing Defenders stuff. Any time he's roped in, he's always indignant that he has to do it. It's always a magical/ethical compulsion or a grumbling "FINE, but only because I'd never hear the end of it." Thunderbolts on the other hand generally tend to be all over the place because we try to keep Affiliations to applicable versions of characters, and Thunderbolts versions of characters aren't usually universal.
  7. @Tony Foot [Official Forums]
    Question: God boosts brought variety to the game. Now we have ascended they seem to do the opposite. We have far more characters to use, do you think the game still needs it? I feel if it was removed there would be far more variety.

    Answer: It's a good point, and something to think about. Rarity boosts haven't really been looked at very hard post Champs 2.0. We'll bring it up for a talk internally!
  8. @Carnifex [Official Forums]
    Question: How come if I tickle an enemy Hulk (Indestructible) it will generate 54 Anger tiles, but if my Hulk gets hit by a nuclear blast he doesn't seem to notice?

    Answer: IceIX: Because your Hulk is the REAL Hulk and is thus indestructible while every other Hulk out there is a secret Skrull that's overcompensating to keep cover intact.
  9. @fight4thedream [Official Forums]
    Question: The team did a great job buffing Dr. Stephen Strange & Dr. Nathaniel Essex, both of whom served the greatest doctor of all, Victor von Doom, when he was God Emperor. Any chance the savior of the multiverse gets his time to shine in the MPQverse?

    Answer: Not planned for the near future, but Doom is definitely on the "needs a bit of help" shelf.
  10. @UnityGamer [Official Forums]
    Question: The new 4-star Dr. Doom features "feedback damage." Is it the same as Thanos's Court Death where his allies take "penalty damage" when downing an enemy? What is feedback damage? Will there be a distinction between such terms?

    Answer: In this case, it's just flavor for a spell that draws extra energy but damages its casters (or their representatives). Like blood magic, without all the blood.
  11. FluffyLlamacorn [Reddit]
    Question: Would it be possible to add a way to check the contents of a closed vault? (I skip vaults where I don't have the 4s and if it's been months, it would be nice with a way to see if I've gotten the 4 in the meantime)

    Answer: That functionality is built pretty deeply into how Vaults are surfaced. It's something that could be changed, but would take a decent amount of work, so we'll add it to our list of potential QoL changes!
  12. @TimeMachineGo [Official Forums]
    Question: I may not be understanding how the odds work specifically here, but have you considered increasing the "debut" odds for 3* characters as the tier gets larger and larger? I feel like I'm drawing roughly the same amount when they come but getting less.

    Answer: Probably the easiest way to think about odds shifts are to think of the specific tier as a bucket, then you toss more copies of whatever it is in when they're multiplied out. So if you see "x21 odds", the bucket is filled with all the other covers, then 21 copies of the boosted character are put in that bucket. At current odds, that brings a 4-Star character pull up from something like .7% to ~13% when a 4-Star is rolled.
  13. @Steellatch [Official Forums]
    Question: Its been a while since I have seen anything on this topic but is an API still on the table?

    Answer: Not in the near term, but possible. A web or other API was actually starting to float towards the top of our backlog, but with a portion of the team's work towards a full on engine update it was pushed back down. After all, any work towards an outward facing API would almost have to be totally redone with new bare metal engine pieces.
  14. @Codex [Official Forums]
    Question: Can you add timers to both the Latest Legends and Support stores?

    Answer: Cover packs have timers because that's when they would end and expire. Legendary and Support Stores never really expire, so it'd take a rework of these stores to do so.
  15. u/Unkn0wnnn90 [Reddit]
    Question: When you guys make a section of character clothing store in the app? When you guys do deals on infinity stones on market?

    Answer: The first part of that falls under the realm of large UI changes that would be necessary to support the store that's just not feasible right this second. There have been early napkin designs for what something like that would look like though, so it's a definite possibility. For the latter, there aren't current plans to directly sell or make the stones available, but that could change, especially with Supports being available in PVP down the road.
  16. @CASSIDYFROST [Official Forums]
    Question: The launch of Doom 4* with a costume that changes very little from the original design was a great idea for me! Will we have more characters with this release form? For example, an X-Men with just a different uniform...

    Answer: Alternate costumes for new characters are something we're tinkering with, yes. As well as the Chroma costumes like we just did for Golden Week which are closer to recolors (and therefore at a lower value monetarily, but no less cool visually sometimes. Check out the fish scales on SP//DR!)
  17. @StrangeWitch [Official Forums]
    Question: It is noticeable that lately the release of costumes in the game has increased a little, will this frequency continue? How is their creation process going lately? What do artists have to say about this?

    Answer: Conscious decision, and the artists are fully on board. They've been pushing hard to get ahead on standard character art so that they can branch out to some other work like costumes and art updates of iffy older art. Expect to see more!
  18. @CarnageWing [Official Forums]
    Question: Just like with the launch of Magical Girl, they could introduce other ways of acquiring costumes besides just buying them, winning them 5 times too, just like with her, or in a different way, who knows...

    Answer: Necroko was a special case to celebrate the game's 10 Year Anniversary as a reward for the community banding to gather together to complete a massive community challenge. We're definitely not saying never again but the event would need to be of similar value.
  19. @kleussaroot [Official Forums]
    Question: A great costume idea would be Gambit with the pink crop top from 97 for his 3* version, can we have this in the game in the future?

    Answer: No plans at this very second, we've got Mister Sinister and Jubilee representing X-Men '97 at the moment, but we can and have done costumes for "older" MCU/D+ stuff before, so don't count that cajun out!
  20. @ARIS17 [Official Forums]
    Question: Can you speed up the Countdown activations or have such a setting? I love playing with teams who rely on filling the board with Countdown tiles. But they are too slow, and to compete, I have to select quicker and ever-present teams.

    Answer: IceIX: Unfortunately, current tech doesn't easily allow us to selectively change certain CDs/Passives/etc. The best we could do is a binary on/off for all of that, and after some internal testing, we decided against it. In test it created a massively chaotic environment where tiles changed colors, blew up, and characters fell over without notification. It's definitely something we'd like to revisit when the engine has undergone some tune ups, but at the moment, not so much. Trust me, it's just as annoying to us to play through a 6 Mindless One wave mission.
  21. @seph1roth5 [Discord]
    Question: I'm still having trouble understanding how the budget for 5* powers works. Could you show how say, sebastian shaw or angela would look if they had been released as 5s? Or even a 3 like May or Magik. How their ability numbers would be?

    Answer: For the most part, you can see that already with Ascended characters, who are largely balanced according to the rarity that they're currently at. But basically, you can think of a 5-Star character as having the same ability budget as a 2-Star, but with MUCH higher match damage and health built in.
  22. @BlackBoltRocks [Official Forums]
    Question: In view of Ascension, is it possible to rework some 5* powers so that they are in line with the numbers and mechanics of ascended 1-4?

    Answer: We've got a list on our end (with all the ones that the community notes, and some more) that we'd like to go back for a second pass on. Simply a matter of finding the time for not only a numbers rework in design time, but also time for QA to re-test and make sure that the rebalanced character didn't just either fall off the map or break meta in some way.
  23. @OrbitingDeath [Discord]
    Question: Can the shard rate for duplicate 4's go up? I would think 400 shards (25% until new level) would atleast be worth it for players, considering a dupe 5 gives 1400. The jump is just too big

    Answer: The shard rate is based off of the pull rates across the different cover packs for the items. So if we were to make changes to those ratios, the shard rates would necessarily change, and vice versa.
  24. @rainkingucd [Official Forums]
    Question: How often are boosts used in fights? Of the boosts that are used, which is the one used most frequently?

    Answer: A boost of some kind is used in approximately 55% of battles overall, with a higher ratio of PVE battles using them than PVP. Which makes sense, PVE contains the Deadpool Daily Crash(es), which is a HUGE place players use boosts. The most popular boosts are the AP All Boost, then the various AP Boosts, then Match Damage All.
  25. @DJ47057 [Official Forums]
    Question: The new seasonal vault is great. Thanks for that. Why do the quests where i can get token for that alsways have to start at that time? For me it's 6pm. Why can't they start with the new day like price reduction for heroic?

    Answer: Due to the way that the underlying tech works, daily play tokens have to be turned on or off manually with a data patch. So for right now, that's just when the engineer(s) in question flip a given switch.
  26. @Zarqa [Official Forums]
    Question: Can we get a search function to see which characters have costumes?

    Answer: We agree, and it's something that we'd like to add in future. The way that costumes are implemented on the back end at the moment though make implementing something so theoretically simple a bit of a difficult proposition. It's on the list!
  27. @phillsam [Official Forums]
    Question: Now that you will be adding new 2* characters again (only added 1 and never again), can Kaecilius, Hydro-Man and Molten-Man be added as 2* characters? Or do you already have other plans for these?

    Answer: Don't forget Gorgon! Not at this very second since they'd need some reworks to make them playable (having a character that can't be killed normally given our current AI would be just a bit broken), but it's 100% possible.
  28. @_Trash Panda [Official Forums]
    Question: Before we could click on "Champion Maxed" button to be able to see Champ Reward info. Now with Ascended characters, there is no place can see Champ Reward info if the character is ready to be ascended. Can something be done about this.

    Answer: Good point. We'll take it under advisement.
  29. @leviticuschoms [Official Forums]
    Question: Any chance that Modern Black Widow/Yelena/Red Gaurdian could get rebalances sooner than later? Their intro games in Spider Silk need help. Please consider!

    Answer: No plans for them to get a rebalance at the moment, but you do make a good point. Could be worth seeing if a quick numbers check on them reveals anything we could do as a quick fix.
Tagged:

Comments

  • Zarqa
    Zarqa Posts: 350 Mover and Shaker

    @NMANOZ They tagged me in the answer, but you’re the one who asked it first. I just +1’d your question because I thought it was a good one

  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 10,342 Chairperson of the Boards

    Poor Namor - he can't help being cranky. He likes the Defenders really! Look:

    Oh. Well not that one but

    OK so it's just Hulk he doesn't like he is fine with the rest of ...

    Oh c'mon...

  • Seph1roth5
    Seph1roth5 Posts: 429 Mover and Shaker

    Saying 5*s budget is the same as a 2 goes counter to everything we've heard so far. Granted, Jubilee and (to a lesser extent) May have been pretty good. Characters I saw and thought "hey I could do something fun with these maybe."

    When previous 5s have come out and most people thought "meh." And when their 3 turned out to be much better (peggy) we were told that the devs have more room to be unique/good in 3-4land because the budget would neuter those particular powers if they were in a base 5.

    Same with 4s that come out with cool power kits. We're told specifically that those powers are unable to be put on a 5. Without ascension. I don't mind ascended characters being stronger than a normal 5, it takes a lot more work, but it really seems like many MANY of the 5s we've seen were a combination of just plain bad and trying to do too much.

    Don't think anyone would consider any of these mid to high tier. At best, somewhat usable when boosted because of big numbers. Also not sure if these were all the new team's 5s.

    Venom Rex, Gwenom (worst), peggy, miles, ultron, gamora, abigail brand, adam warlock, cyclops p5, hit monkey, hunter, arcade, x-23, jeffrey, big wheel

    It doesn't have to be a distinction between meta and useless. But those characters I only ever see when they're boosted. Because they're still ****, but with 100k+ hp they're a big pile of ****.

    There are plenty of characters I see now and then that are useful but not meta/garbage.

    Wong, Goose, she-hulk (just to combo with other revivers).

    The team's being doing great jobs with revamps. Sinister looks pretty cool and is a monster in the CN lol. That's what I'm kind of looking for when a 5 is NEW. I don't think he's meta but can be pretty annoying, and it's fun to try and think up a team to make him really badass.

    I've tried making teams around Hunter, when she was boosted, but she was just fighting herself the entire time. Same with Jeffrey, tried making a bunch of tiles to eat and beefcake him up, but it was just 10x more work than just using a decent 5* and ignoring his powers.

  • ThisisClemFandango
    ThisisClemFandango Posts: 852 Critical Contributor

    Bit harsh when it comes to big wheel, put him with other movers and shakers and the match is done before the other team has done much of anything.
    As for everyone else I have them champed but yeah don't see much usage.

  • BlackBoltRocks
    BlackBoltRocks Posts: 1,191 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited 9 May 2024, 04:04

    Don't think anyone would consider any of these mid to high tier

    Wrong! Venomrex, Hex-23, Big Wheel are all solidly mid-tier at worst. The former two are huge damage sticks. Ultron really needs a buff, but at least he has synergy with Polaris and R4G. Gamora's niche has practically disappeared (she was likely intended to be a counter to Colossus' and Wanda's damage reduction abilities, but there are much better ways of dealing with SteelWitch today), but she's still decent. Adam is held back by his see-sawing; Arcade could really do with the trap tile buff that Sinister got; Hit Monkey is great against villains but not much else.

    The only ones that were/are certified DOA are Peggy, Miles, Jeffrey. I'd rather have Abigail and Hunter over those three. I don't know if I'd put Gwenom as DOA as well, because she can hit very hard, but that 0 match damage is absolute rubbish.

  • Omegased
    Omegased Posts: 605 Critical Contributor
    edited 9 May 2024, 04:24

    I use Cyke p5 all the time with Shang Chi. His Yellow and green (altho, a bit expensive) works VERY well with Shang.

    Big Wheel is also an awesome passive damage dealer when paired with mThor.

    To me there's 4 category of 5 stars

    Awesome - you build a team around them
    Looks fun - they look fun
    Niche/supports - do something specific, very well. Pairs well with Awesome Characters
    Kinda Naff - these are kinda naff. Maybe they've been left behind.

    I don't think there's a lot of Naff characters dropping, but very rarely do we get an Awesome one (and this is probably by design).

  • Seph1roth5
    Seph1roth5 Posts: 429 Mover and Shaker

    I think I've seen big wheel, x23, and venom rex all of 1 time each when not boosted. And when they were boosted, I wasn't worried lol. Was GLAD to see them.

    Maybe a few people disagree on big wheel and such, but I'm just going off of what I see people using. You can branch out a ton in pve because, other than the CN and x-men sim, you'll be fine with weirdo teams.

    Or maybe some people are more forgiving on what they consider "mid" tier lol. I think of it as I might use them occasionally when unboosted. Like Magik or Wong or Ronan or something.

    Below mid tier are the people that I probably wouldn't bother with. I think I tried hit-monkey last time boosted (and champed) and was just very unimpressed. Even when chasm wasn't nerfed his insta-kill was very hard to use against him, and that's his main draw. His red/purple seemed to mess UP my shang more than help lol.

    And below THAT is gwenom. Because she doesn't even bring the 5* match damage, specifically doesn't bring it. Ya her ability damage goes up but while you're building that up she's literally useless and can't even be in front to take hits like a meat shield unless everyone else is out of the way.

  • Timemachinego
    Timemachinego Posts: 509 Critical Contributor

    @Seph1roth5 said:
    I think I've seen big wheel, x23, and venom rex all of 1 time each when not boosted. And when they were boosted, I wasn't worried lol. Was GLAD to see them.

    Maybe a few people disagree on big wheel and such, but I'm just going off of what I see people using. You can branch out a ton in pve because, other than the CN and x-men sim, you'll be fine with weirdo teams.

    I'm not sure what the idea of "weirdo" teams in PVE is but I know t5 finishers who are making use of X-23. She's top tier there. If a character is worth using they usually fall into either the PVE or PVP side of things, the ones that try to appeal to both will fall into "use if boosted, maybe" most of the time.

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 5,965 Chairperson of the Boards

    Do people really want power creep, such that every new character is better than the last?

    I guess I'd take that predictability over the weird random spikes we get now, but I feel like if they pushed the envelope with every single release, you'd see people screaming about "cash grabs" or whatever. Hoarding certainly wouldn't be a viable strategy anymore!

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 5,965 Chairperson of the Boards

    @Seph1roth5 said:
    I think I've seen big wheel, x23, and venom rex all of 1 time each when not boosted. And when they were boosted, I wasn't worried lol. Was GLAD to see them.

    Maybe a few people disagree on big wheel and such, but I'm just going off of what I see people using. You can branch out a ton in pve because, other than the CN and x-men sim, you'll be fine with weirdo teams.

    Or maybe some people are more forgiving on what they consider "mid" tier lol. I think of it as I might use them occasionally when unboosted. Like Magik or Wong or Ronan or something.

    Below mid tier are the people that I probably wouldn't bother with. I think I tried hit-monkey last time boosted (and champed) and was just very unimpressed. Even when chasm wasn't nerfed his insta-kill was very hard to use against him, and that's his main draw. His red/purple seemed to mess UP my shang more than help lol.

    And below THAT is gwenom. Because she doesn't even bring the 5* match damage, specifically doesn't bring it. Ya her ability damage goes up but while you're building that up she's literally useless and can't even be in front to take hits like a meat shield unless everyone else is out of the way.

    I actually agree with the vast majority of this -- I never see any of these characters used, and most players DO totally ignore them in favor of the few old overpowered guys.

    I don't think they're objectively bad though, but it's a catch-22 -- Hit Monkey is pretty good when he's got a bunch of levels on him, but nobody will ever level him because they only invest resources into overpowered guys.

    I think a much better solution to the problem is fixing the old overpowered guys, rather than releasing a few new ones, because that makes all the "bad" characters viable immediately. Making more overpowered guys just pushes everybody else even further down.

  • Seph1roth5
    Seph1roth5 Posts: 429 Mover and Shaker

    @Timemachinego said:

    I'm not sure what the idea of "weirdo" teams in PVE is but I know t5 finishers who are making use of X-23. She's top tier there. If a character is worth using they usually fall into either the PVE or PVP side of things, the ones that try to appeal to both will fall into "use if boosted, maybe" most of the time.

    Was she boosted though? Or was someone else boosted that kept her chock full of red ap? I'd say she's one of the better 5s in the past year but still clunky. Would've loved if her extra hit was just passive if you had so much red AP or something. It's what, 5 to cast, drain 2 a turn? Then she tries to do stuff with strike tiles and it's all just messy. If they had streamlined her a bit she would've been very solid but not meta.

  • Timemachinego
    Timemachinego Posts: 509 Critical Contributor

    @Seph1roth5 said:

    @Timemachinego said:

    I'm not sure what the idea of "weirdo" teams in PVE is but I know t5 finishers who are making use of X-23. She's top tier there. If a character is worth using they usually fall into either the PVE or PVP side of things, the ones that try to appeal to both will fall into "use if boosted, maybe" most of the time.

    Was she boosted though? Or was someone else boosted that kept her chock full of red ap? I'd say she's one of the better 5s in the past year but still clunky. Would've loved if her extra hit was just passive if you had so much red AP or something. It's what, 5 to cast, drain 2 a turn? Then she tries to do stuff with strike tiles and it's all just messy. If they had streamlined her a bit she would've been very solid but not meta.

    So this is mostly pertaining to 550ers (though she's still quite good baby and boosted) and it's her green that does most of the work. There are numerous big +green supports to choose from. You run her with Emma (Krakoa, for the reliable red) and someone else that'll add damage of some sort... like r4g or thanos. Fire red, fire green once or twice, turn 0 kill on most hard nodes, worst case you make a match in her colors and that mops things up. 550s can nail a lot of the CNs too.

  • IceIX
    IceIX ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 4,328 Site Admin

    @Seph1roth5 said:
    Saying 5*s budget is the same as a 2 goes counter to everything we've heard so far. Granted, Jubilee and (to a lesser extent) May have been pretty good. Characters I saw and thought "hey I could do something fun with these maybe."

    From a design philosophy point of view, 2s and 5s are very different, yes. But from a pure numbers point of view, the average budgets for the powers of a 2 and 5 are identical. So when building a 5, the challenge is always to do more with less numbers.

    Champs broke this a bit with a few of the Ascended 1-3s with a few abilities, but this was targeted as such on purpose. We found that some of the characters that have “static” abilities like Stuns or Fortifications or such just… didn’t work at 5-star due to that scaling, making a 4-star 370 “stronger” than their 550 version if we went purely by the numbers.

    This has the knock on though that any “native” 5 is using normal balancing which doesn’t take that brokenness into account, so it can feel a bit strange that they can’t do something an Ascended character can.

  • Domitronas
    Domitronas Posts: 179 Tile Toppler

    @IceIX said:
    From a design philosophy point of view, 2s and 5s are very different, yes. But from a pure numbers point of view, the average budgets for the powers of a 2 and 5 are identical. So when building a 5, the challenge is always to do more with less numbers.

    Could you please comment on the 2* Captain America power budget?

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