PVP Supports: Feedback Thread

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.

WhiteBomber

@entrailbucket said:

@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.

That was actually kinda funny.

I don't have any issues with any of the supports. I can see how leapfrog is better than a lot of the others, but there are also multiple ways around it. I personally never skip because of supports, I'm not at 550 yet though, maybe something there gets significantly worse.

The need for speed makes people not want to have to continually adapt to change, swapping kits and retaining that much info is time consuming, but I'm lovin it playing different teams. SIM really is only that 1 single team though, if they add supports I would have more tools to easier stop that 1 team.

entrailbucket

@WhiteBomber said:

@entrailbucket said:

@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.

That was actually kinda funny.

I don't have any issues with any of the supports. I can see how leapfrog is better than a lot of the others, but there are also multiple ways around it. I personally never skip because of supports, I'm not at 550 yet though, maybe something there gets significantly worse.

The need for speed makes people not want to have to continually adapt to change, swapping kits and retaining that much info is time consuming, but I'm lovin it playing different teams. SIM really is only that 1 single team though, if they add supports I would have more tools to easier stop that 1 team.

I don't like supports in PvP, and probably never will, but I've gotten used to it. I've never skipped anybody based on team comp or supports anyway, and I've figured out how to deal with the supports that players use. The rest aren't relevant so there's no point learning them.

I'd like to see more good options so that we don't all have to use the same 7 or 8 supports (or whatever the actual number is).

Here's what I was after with the rants: if you HATE this, or you've quit because of it, or you've got an idea that'll fix the whole thing...don't hold your breath. Decide whether you can live with it like it is (maybe we'll get some buffs to the bad supports eventually), but if you're waiting on some massive overhaul, I really really doubt we'll ever see that.

Bubba3210

I love supports in pvp and I play more than I ever have as a result.

bluewolf

I don't mind Supports right now, to be clear. I like them fairly well because I'm going for 25 wins most of the time and calling it good, and it's faster.

I kind of doubt the various defense troll supports will move to ubiquity like the meta teams do each week, because they're not always fun or reliable. However, I could be wrong there.

I do wish the devs were providing some feedback or data about what they've seen and were trying occasional tweaks to even adjust, as I said before, which ones are available in different PVPs. So far we saw some PVPs where they were accidentally (maybe just 1? 2?) disabled, which isn't really the same thing. An on/off switch isn't really the kind of adjustment tool that should be used.

However.....I do not think there is much spare capacity to do these kinds of things. I'm not even sure how easy it is to create limited pools of supports for different PVPs. Maybe the kinds of things they talked about are hard to execute, or at minimum too time consuming to spend resources on. (I'd rather they focused on the new engine if that's a choice that is being made.)

I think the only appropriate expectation, as already said, is that they keep doing it like this for quite a while.

Pylgrim

Further feedback: I used to play more SIM than PVP events. I only have a comparative few 5* (and most of them old), so in PVP events, I'm usually fighting 550+ level teams with 450 level teams. At least in SIM, it's all 450-500 in my matchmaking. However, with supports, now I'having a much easier time in PVP against those 550+ teams, while in comparison, SIM feels like an utter slog.

I'd much rather now have a loss that came in 1-2 turns due to supports (and some wins like that) than the 5-10 turn losses I get in SIM when the board refuses to give me the colours I need, while the opponent cascades every turn. Much less frustrating.

ThaRoadWarrior

The other one I see a lot (on boosted juggernaut) is the implanted bomb one. Forgot about that one.