PVP Supports: Feedback Thread

entrailbucket

@BriMan2222 said:

@entrailbucket said:

@ThaRoadWarrior said:
It appears I see nothing but level 5 Omnipotence City, Eros’s Arrow, and maybe one or two others.

Include leapfrog, fantasticar, and low level AI and that's pretty much all I ever see. I do occasionally see some of the "6 free AP" ones as well.

Counting the infinity stones, there are 72 supports, so folks actually use about 10% of them.

I would add the power stone, the chance to fire a power for free every turn on a character that tanks a lot of colors is very useful and the Thanos Copter. I have seen quite a few Thanos Copters equipped to 4 star ascended juggs and the free moves can cause some crazy cascades. It's basically the Fantasticar for villains but it doesn't end after 4 turns. It's a newer support, but I'm sure we'll see it more often when more people acquire it and rank it up.

Yeah, there are a couple more.

But why do we have two (!!!) supports that can only be equipped to Black Panther, and one that can only be equipped to Captain Marvel, all of which are much worse than the ones players actually use? Have you ever seen Sharon Carter, or Hulkling, or Quinjet? Why would I ever choose to equip any of them?

DAZ0273

I am sharding the power stone also being at 1310 shards out of 1600 so hopefully that will be my next R5 fairly soonish. I think my R4 Fantasticar will be next project.

DyingLegend

I quit PVP because of supports. Some supports drag out matches, some make certain characters impossible to fight, etc. I don't want to research every team I have to fight considering pvp is very time centric. I just wanna hit and go.

I will say, I don't agree with nerfing supports because of it either. The majority of the player base is pve focused, so nerfing supports hurt the overall community.

I think a more reasonable approach, having support function one way in PVE and another in PVP. Separate the support sandbox. Certain video games devs do this, a perk in pve does 20 % damage but in PVP caps at 5%.

entrailbucket

I'm not expecting nerfs to supports at this point (barring some future character that combos with a support to create an unbeatable superteam, which honestly seems unlikely).

A change to a support that causes it to function worse in PvP than in PvE would absolutely be a nerf.

KGB

@entrailbucket said:
I'm not expecting nerfs to supports at this point (barring some future character that combos with a support to create an unbeatable superteam, which honestly seems unlikely).

A change to a support that causes it to function worse in PvP than in PvE would absolutely be a nerf.

Technically everything is a nerf 'from a certain point of view'. For example every time they buff some old dusty 5 to modern standards they nerfed every other character relative to the one who was buffed (eg the Devs could stealth nerf MThor if they doubled every other 5 stars health/match/ability damage but hers all without having to give out nerf compensation).

Changing how supports work in PvE vs PvP isn't really a nerf as much as a game balance change. For example if they changed supports in PvP to only use only 1 of the supports powers on offense and 1 on defense (different powers) which is something I argued for WAY back when they announced it, then that's a game balance change more than a nerf.

KGB

entrailbucket

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:
I'm not expecting nerfs to supports at this point (barring some future character that combos with a support to create an unbeatable superteam, which honestly seems unlikely).

A change to a support that causes it to function worse in PvP than in PvE would absolutely be a nerf.

Technically everything is a nerf 'from a certain point of view'. For example every time they buff some old dusty 5 to modern standards they nerfed every other character relative to the one who was buffed (eg the Devs could stealth nerf MThor if they doubled every other 5 stars health/match/ability damage but hers all without having to give out nerf compensation).

Changing how supports work in PvE vs PvP isn't really a nerf as much as a game balance change. For example if they changed supports in PvP to only use only 1 of the supports powers on offense and 1 on defense (different powers) which is something I argued for WAY back when they announced it, then that's a game balance change more than a nerf.

KGB

If I invested a bunch of scarce resources into, say, leapfrog, a support which has approximately zero value in PvE currently, and the developers changed it so that it got way worse in PvP...I think I might not be too happy about that. That seems like pretty much the definition of a nerf.

entrailbucket

I'm not even...like I'm pro-nerf, in basically every debate, including this one. Yes, they should nerf a bunch of these dumb supports, or better yet, get them out of PvP entirely.

They're not going to do that though.

We know they never nerf anything ever, and for supports specifically they've done a "test period" and "gathered feedback" and the end result was a series of relatively minor buffs to a handful of the bad supports.

Now you've got players plowing all of their scarce resources (and supports are the scarcest possible resource) into stuff like leapfrog and Eros arrow -- things which are only useful in PvP. These people would lose their minds if BCS came back and said "eh, never mind" at this point. The time to make those fixes was months ago, not months from now.

The devs have made this bed and now they've got to lie in it. I don't see an easy way out here.

KGB

@entrailbucket said:
I'm not even...like I'm pro-nerf, in basically every debate, including this one. Yes, they should nerf a bunch of these dumb supports, or better yet, get them out of PvP entirely.

They're not going to do that though.

We know they never nerf anything ever, and for supports specifically they've done a "test period" and "gathered feedback" and the end result was a series of relatively minor buffs to a handful of the bad supports.

Now you've got players plowing all of their scarce resources (and supports are the scarcest possible resource) into stuff like leapfrog and Eros arrow -- things which are only useful in PvP. These people would lose their minds if BCS came back and said "eh, never mind" at this point. The time to make those fixes was months ago, not months from now.

The devs have made this bed and now they've got to lie in it. I don't see an easy way out here.

As I said, they could make 1 power on offense and one on defense.

Leapfrog
Offense: The R3 power
Defense: The R1 power (or R5 power if unlocked)

Voila, the annoying part of facing Leapfrog on offense is gone (invisibility for the AI) but it's there for the player. On defense you get some bonus damage on match 4 or the potential to be sent away/heal which is a minor boost for the AI but not overwhelming.

Note: You'd also of course get the synergy perk on offense and defense.

KGB

entrailbucket

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:
I'm not even...like I'm pro-nerf, in basically every debate, including this one. Yes, they should nerf a bunch of these dumb supports, or better yet, get them out of PvP entirely.

They're not going to do that though.

We know they never nerf anything ever, and for supports specifically they've done a "test period" and "gathered feedback" and the end result was a series of relatively minor buffs to a handful of the bad supports.

Now you've got players plowing all of their scarce resources (and supports are the scarcest possible resource) into stuff like leapfrog and Eros arrow -- things which are only useful in PvP. These people would lose their minds if BCS came back and said "eh, never mind" at this point. The time to make those fixes was months ago, not months from now.

The devs have made this bed and now they've got to lie in it. I don't see an easy way out here.

As I said, they could make 1 power on offense and one on defense.

Leapfrog
Offense: The R3 power
Defense: The R1 power (or R5 power if unlocked)

Voila, the annoying part of facing Leapfrog on offense is gone (invisibility for the AI) but it's there for the player. On defense you get some bonus damage on match 4 or the potential to be sent away/heal which is a minor boost for the AI but not overwhelming.

Note: You'd also of course get the synergy perk on offense and defense.

KGB

It'd be worthless (or rather, its worth would take an absolutely massive hit).

This would be a massive, massive nerf. The only reason anybody is investing resources into leapfrog is to make their teams difficult to hit on defense.

And like, again, it never should have done this -- this should never have existed at all, or never existed in PvP, or have been addressed in PvP during the "extensive testing" before anybody invested into it. Now it's too late to do it without making people very, very mad.

bluewolf

@entrailbucket said:
I'm not even...like I'm pro-nerf, in basically every debate, including this one. Yes, they should nerf a bunch of these dumb supports, or better yet, get them out of PvP entirely.

They're not going to do that though.

We know they never nerf anything ever, and for supports specifically they've done a "test period" and "gathered feedback" and the end result was a series of relatively minor buffs to a handful of the bad supports.

Now you've got players plowing all of their scarce resources (and supports are the scarcest possible resource) into stuff like leapfrog and Eros arrow -- things which are only useful in PvP. These people would lose their minds if BCS came back and said "eh, never mind" at this point. The time to make those fixes was months ago, not months from now.

The devs have made this bed and now they've got to lie in it. I don't see an easy way out here.

Being "that guy"....I have to point out that there was never a test period leading to some supports being buffed. The announced implementation of supports in PVP (on June 19th) was for the June 27th Soul Season. The support buff mentioned was announced June 25th, and went live on June 27th with the start of the Soul Season.

They haven't adjusted any Supports since they went live, as far as I know.

entrailbucket

@bluewolf said:

@entrailbucket said:
I'm not even...like I'm pro-nerf, in basically every debate, including this one. Yes, they should nerf a bunch of these dumb supports, or better yet, get them out of PvP entirely.

They're not going to do that though.

We know they never nerf anything ever, and for supports specifically they've done a "test period" and "gathered feedback" and the end result was a series of relatively minor buffs to a handful of the bad supports.

Now you've got players plowing all of their scarce resources (and supports are the scarcest possible resource) into stuff like leapfrog and Eros arrow -- things which are only useful in PvP. These people would lose their minds if BCS came back and said "eh, never mind" at this point. The time to make those fixes was months ago, not months from now.

The devs have made this bed and now they've got to lie in it. I don't see an easy way out here.

Being "that guy"....I have to point out that there was never a test period leading to some supports being buffed. The announced implementation of supports in PVP (on June 19th) was for the June 27th Soul Season. The support buff mentioned was announced June 25th, and went live on June 27th with the start of the Soul Season.

They haven't adjusted any Supports since they went live, as far as I know.

Huh. I was giving them more credit than they deserved!

KGB

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:
I'm not even...like I'm pro-nerf, in basically every debate, including this one. Yes, they should nerf a bunch of these dumb supports, or better yet, get them out of PvP entirely.

They're not going to do that though.

We know they never nerf anything ever, and for supports specifically they've done a "test period" and "gathered feedback" and the end result was a series of relatively minor buffs to a handful of the bad supports.

Now you've got players plowing all of their scarce resources (and supports are the scarcest possible resource) into stuff like leapfrog and Eros arrow -- things which are only useful in PvP. These people would lose their minds if BCS came back and said "eh, never mind" at this point. The time to make those fixes was months ago, not months from now.

The devs have made this bed and now they've got to lie in it. I don't see an easy way out here.

As I said, they could make 1 power on offense and one on defense.

Leapfrog
Offense: The R3 power
Defense: The R1 power (or R5 power if unlocked)

Voila, the annoying part of facing Leapfrog on offense is gone (invisibility for the AI) but it's there for the player. On defense you get some bonus damage on match 4 or the potential to be sent away/heal which is a minor boost for the AI but not overwhelming.

Note: You'd also of course get the synergy perk on offense and defense.

KGB

It'd be worthless (or rather, its worth would take an absolutely massive hit).

This would be a massive, massive nerf. The only reason anybody is investing resources into leapfrog is to make their teams difficult to hit on defense.

And like, again, it never should have done this -- this should never have existed at all, or never existed in PvP, or have been addressed in PvP during the "extensive testing" before anybody invested into it. Now it's too late to do it without making people very, very mad.

Interestingly, I cleared a vault to get a R2 version and immediately opened some tokens to shard it to L3. The only reason I did was for using it on offense in PvP so that annoying AI cascades that got them enough AP to fire a power would not 1 shot one of my character or damage them enough to require a health pack. As far as I know, it hasn't done a single thing for me on defense (ie you are never told if it triggered and won me a battle or caused a skip) and I really couldn't care less since I'm not trying for placement.

As we well know, less than 1% of players are playing competitively in PvP so while I sympathize with their plight, the rest of the player base shouldn't have to lose supports in PvP just for the 1% (needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few to quote Mr Spock).

KGB

revskip

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:
I suspect competitive players hate it because:

1) They pretty much have all the relevant supports at R5. Many casual players are missing plenty of supports entirely or only have them at R1-3 or don't even deploy them optimally on their teams. This means supports affect battles at lot more at competitive high level play.

2) A lot of people just don't like or aren't comfortable with change. The game is 10 years old and PvP hasn't changed (other than Meta characters) in the last probably 5 years (prior to that there were cup cakes and other scoring nuances that happened during years 1-5). So those players had all but memorized exactly what had to be done when to beat team 'A'. Now all of a sudden with supports that doesn't work any more (hence the endless comments about needing to read all the support descriptions to figure out their own team) and they've been forced out of their routine and they don't like that.

KGB

This pretty well sums it up, I think. To add to #1: a lot of the players who really like supports are noncompetitive players who have a strong set of supports but are matched against players who don't.

I've basically adapted to it. I still don't like it, mostly because it creates more non-games (matches decided before anybody makes a move).

I also don't like that players have standardized on the same set of optimal supports, after a period where some really fun experimentation was happening. I'd like to see more balance among the supports themselves -- there are some totally useless ones and some universally excellent ones. This would be a chance for the devs to introduce some real variety and team-building strategy.

But I don't hate it enough to quit, and I guess that's all that matters.

I'm a player who is competitive (top 5-10 most events, top 25 events when I coast, usually top 10-25 for season).

I like it. Don't have every "good" support (tiny leapfrog, 3* eros, no Thanos copter, etc). It adds an extra layer to matches both when trying to punch up and when trying to avoid attacks while climbing.

There are very loose definitions of what makes someone a competitive player so someone who is trying for stones versus me is going to be a different animal I suppose but I'd say relative to the field I'm pretty competitive.

entrailbucket

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:
I'm not even...like I'm pro-nerf, in basically every debate, including this one. Yes, they should nerf a bunch of these dumb supports, or better yet, get them out of PvP entirely.

They're not going to do that though.

We know they never nerf anything ever, and for supports specifically they've done a "test period" and "gathered feedback" and the end result was a series of relatively minor buffs to a handful of the bad supports.

Now you've got players plowing all of their scarce resources (and supports are the scarcest possible resource) into stuff like leapfrog and Eros arrow -- things which are only useful in PvP. These people would lose their minds if BCS came back and said "eh, never mind" at this point. The time to make those fixes was months ago, not months from now.

The devs have made this bed and now they've got to lie in it. I don't see an easy way out here.

As I said, they could make 1 power on offense and one on defense.

Leapfrog
Offense: The R3 power
Defense: The R1 power (or R5 power if unlocked)

Voila, the annoying part of facing Leapfrog on offense is gone (invisibility for the AI) but it's there for the player. On defense you get some bonus damage on match 4 or the potential to be sent away/heal which is a minor boost for the AI but not overwhelming.

Note: You'd also of course get the synergy perk on offense and defense.

KGB

It'd be worthless (or rather, its worth would take an absolutely massive hit).

This would be a massive, massive nerf. The only reason anybody is investing resources into leapfrog is to make their teams difficult to hit on defense.

And like, again, it never should have done this -- this should never have existed at all, or never existed in PvP, or have been addressed in PvP during the "extensive testing" before anybody invested into it. Now it's too late to do it without making people very, very mad.

As we well know, less than 1% of players are playing competitively in PvP so while I sympathize with their plight, the rest of the player base shouldn't have to lose supports in PvP just for the 1% (needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few to quote Mr Spock).

KGB

I don't disagree with this. I'd be fine with removing them, or nerfing them all, or nerfing the most annoying ones, or any number of other fixes.

I don't believe they'll ever get rid of supports in PvP, though.
And I really doubt, at this point, that they'll nerf them in the manner you're describing, or in some other across-the-board fashion. They've shown zero inclination to do that sort of thing, ever.

The best we'll get, if we're lucky, is a nerf to a future character or support if the combination produces something like Chasm/Hulk -- and even then, I doubt they'd take action until that combo took over the entire metagame for a long time.

bluewolf

I think it’d be good for the devs to take like 2-3 events every 4 weeks, at minimum, with some reduced set of Supports being available.

They could gather feedback as well.

There’s no reason they need to have all of them available all the time. It could be handled like the boost weeks with a rotation, eventually. Yes, it’s different, as not everyone has every support but I mean that’s kind of the whole point of the game….? To encourage collecting and building as many things as possible.

DAZ0273

Supports are still switched off in SHIELD SIM right? If they are here to stay should we not get them in that too? I might even play it a bit more just for a laugh. Of course this is where you tell me they have been on in that all along and I just didn't notice...

pepitedechocolat

If I sum up : people find that support are good when they have them and opponent don't.

If they make a "balance of support" pvp event with all the support are unlocked and max level I'm convinced it would have a very low participation rate as most people would ragequit after a couple of game.

bluewolf

@DAZ0273 said:
Supports are still switched off in SHIELD SIM right? If they are here to stay should we not get them in that too? I might even play it a bit more just for a laugh. Of course this is where you tell me they have been on in that all along and I just didn't notice...

They aren’t on there for whatever reason.

I feel like you’d really hate fighting the OR/Chasm/Asc Iron May team when they’re equipped with Leapfrog etc and the meta hell that Simulator is would just be worse with supports.

ThaRoadWarrior

Sim is supposed to be the flat, no boost zone, right? I assume that extends thematically to supports

entrailbucket

@ThaRoadWarrior said:
Sim is supposed to be the flat, no boost zone, right? I assume that extends thematically to supports

...they probably just forgot about sim.