PVP Supports: Feedback Thread

DarthDeVo

Can't remember the last time I logged in, but I'm doing it now to say that Supports in PvP suuuuuuuucccccckkkkkkkksssssss. So many matches, enemy 1* Spidey (at 672, of course) was able to fire his purple each turn for the first 2-3 turns, and sometimes also got a freebie power fire because of a Power Stone Support.

Did it make some of my matches go faster? Of course, but I would say I had more unnecessary losses than easier wins. And of course, this also makes the snipers/griefers faster as well. That was already the worst part of PvP, and you just made their job easier.

Also heard from others that some teams with much smaller comparative rosters were able to punch way above their weight because they found some character/Support combos that allowed them to do so. More power to them for figuring that out, I guess, but if I were a big spender who did so to gain an advantage in PvP and found myself taking cheap shots from broken/OP teams, I may find myself wondering what the point of spending all that money would be.

I sense a lot of time and resources was put into adding Supports in PvP, so this feels like useless screaming into the void. I don't imagine they'll just go away completely. But for what it's worth: Thanks, I hate it.

entrailbucket

@The_Boogie said:

@Tony_Foot said:
Pve is more PvP than the actual PvP.

OMG preach - This is the truth! To the majority of the most vocal and willing to spend MPQ players, Story mode is where the real competition exists in the game, to the point where Player A will ask their alliance mates to hit Player B in PvP during their closing hits of PvE so the pop-ups in game will screw up Player B’s chances of finishing optimally.

Versus mode is a place where you can (mostly) only succeed at the highest levels if you cooperate with a large group of like minded people.

For those of us who embrace the “Versus” element of it…we love supports in PvP. Allows us to easier protect the small piece of turf in MPQ where we put our flag in the ground.

Someone in another thread suggested breaking coordination by hiding player names. That wouldn't work -- there are a bunch of ways to get around it.

The nuclear bomb that (basically) stops coordination is "disable the skip button while you're shielded." I don't think they'd do it, but it's a pretty easy change.

Edit: ooof, dumb idea. Don't listen to me.

revskip

Enjoying supports in PvP so far.

My only real complaint is that id like a way to save my PvE set up so when I move stuff around for PvP I don't have to move it all back piece by piece. A function similar to the c saved teams but for supports would be awesome.

McPosterson

Supports in PVP are a hot steaming hot pile of trash.

The game is less fun. You went ahead and over-complicated a game mode that had 3 other ways of being fixed (limiting time slices, limiting the targeting 1 player incessantly, and heaven forbid - loosening up MMR).

But no, let's double down on a shard system that has barely seen any dev investment and has long been ignored by the player base because of horrible path of acquiring, finding, sorting and using them.

PVP felt worse. Like a lot worse. Also, when a level 670 toon can basically destroy a full team of 670s in one turn, it feels like a big FU to players. It's easier for the teams to win with supports than it is for team to drop some Deadpool whales. You f'd up this game mode.

Just waiting for the next round of surveys to come out.
Would you recommend this game to a friend... NOPE 0/10
App store stars = 1

Zarqa

If you continue with this, there needs to be a much more reliable way to gain your supports of choice and level them to 5 (other than paying for them in a store) in a reasonable amount of time. Right now that is a huge discrepancy for newer players that want to get into PvP.

But the time you reach SCL10 as a new(ish) player, you should have been able to get a decent number of supports leveled up. That is absolutely not the case in the current system. Which means that new players are locked out of PvP. Which means it’s a bad system.

Extrapolate this to players with longer tenure, and it just is clear to me that the slow speed of gaining supports if one of the biggest flaws in the new system.

ThisisClemFandango

I like it
Pvp is more enjoyable and adds a bit more strategy to beat the other team and to counter their supports.

obikenobi12

I like it so far. Chasm is a solid counter for the supports that grant huge benefits at the start of battle but supports that trigger during battle still work against him. There are definitely some supports that are much better than others for defense such as the Arrow support (can't remember the name). I'd like to see it a little more noticeable when a support is triggering in a match or to see what the opponents team is using so I can better counter it. If they have a crazy start of battle array of supports, I bring in Chasm. I enjoy how supports make more teams viable. Ran a godlike team today because of the support that is geared towards them and it was fun and effective

AlexR

I'm just going to copypaste/summarise my response from the other thread here:

@AlexR said:
I hate it.
I've held off on judgment until I've seen it in action, but people have lots of really strong supports (Omnipotence city...) and I lack the vast majority of them, having been on hiatus for a year. I'm tearing through my health packs. This is not sustainable. It is such a slog.
[...]
I freely admit it's a compounding issue for me: I'm early in 5* territory, so I have usually neither godboosted characters - too few 5* champs yet -, nor do I have good supports due to having been on hiatus. That combo made the vast majority of teams very threatening. Last week, even when I avoided all boosted iHulk, at least I did fine vs the non-boosted teams. Not so today in this event, where the non-boosted teams had also threatening supports and ate my health packs.

To me, they feel like they're an entry hurdle to pvp that I simply don't have the tools to really deal with. I'm losing noticeably more, going through more healthpacks and climbing to my usual 25 wins has become a slog. Fights are noticeably harder, without me being able to really do anything against that. I cannot make good use of mine in return, since I lack them and have no easy way to gain them.

Absolutely not a fan. Would prefer them to be offense-only.

Zarqa

@obikenobi12 said:
I like it so far. Chasm is a solid counter for the supports that grant huge benefits at the start of battle but supports that trigger during battle still work against him. There are definitely some supports that are much better than others for defense such as the Arrow support (can't remember the name). I'd like to see it a little more noticeable when a support is triggering in a match or to see what the opponents team is using so I can better counter it. If they have a crazy start of battle array of supports, I bring in Chasm. I enjoy how supports make more teams viable. Ran a godlike team today because of the support that is geared towards them and it was fun and effective

Chasm doesn’t block supports from triggering.

JoeHandle

@entrailbucket said:

@TheXMan said:

@entrailbucket said:
I guess I'd ask what you want the game to be. It appears that the consensus so far is that players just want to get PvP over with as fast as possible -- that this change would be good if it only applied to offense, so they could win 25 fights in a minute and a half and not have to bother with playing the game.

If you're interested in listening to players who want to "get it over with" rather than enjoying interesting gameplay, why not go all the way and make PvP autowin? They'd love it!

I think if players want to autowin on offense with supports, I should be able to construct a team that autowins on defense too.

The first event was a hodgepodge of all different stuff. Players haven't figured out how to optimize this, so the strategy is still fun. In a month or two everything will be solved and we'll see the same teams every event with the same supports.

I still think this whole thing is a terrible idea. Speeding up an already-fast game is not necessary at all. It reduces diversity and locks out strong but slower characters. I'd prefer the free AP supports be removed from PvE as well.

Do you use boosts? Or should those also be turned off?

Do you think they should be increased to +6ap per color?

Way back when, up to 3 of each AP boost was allowed, so +6 total of a color was possible.

For some never specificed reason it was necessary to cut that down to 2 of any kind of AP boost (+4 max total), wheere we still are after all these years.

Presumably it was a step toward cheaper abilities overall and a faster game.

y4747

personally, i'm at the stage in the game where anything new is good just for the value of shaking things up.
this change feels like a strong meta-shift, a lot more than a gambit-level release - suddenly people who bought 1spidey5 and have purple supports are annihilating everything. so those who worked to establish themselves in the old meta and aren't ready for the new will be unhappy.
my first reflex is to want them in offense only, but that will change pvp to pretty much ignore defense. i'm personally fine with that, IRL time is a much more valuable resource for me than any in-game currency and faster matches are better.
right now i'm enjoying the novelty, so i'd vote [supports on offense only] > [defense too] > [no supports], but ask me again after the season ends. if a support-enabled meta is established that makes pvp worse i may change my mind.

DAZ0273

@entrailbucket said:

@The_Boogie said:

@Tony_Foot said:
Pve is more PvP than the actual PvP.

OMG preach - This is the truth! To the majority of the most vocal and willing to spend MPQ players, Story mode is where the real competition exists in the game, to the point where Player A will ask their alliance mates to hit Player B in PvP during their closing hits of PvE so the pop-ups in game will screw up Player B’s chances of finishing optimally.

Versus mode is a place where you can (mostly) only succeed at the highest levels if you cooperate with a large group of like minded people.

For those of us who embrace the “Versus” element of it…we love supports in PvP. Allows us to easier protect the small piece of turf in MPQ where we put our flag in the ground.

Someone in another thread suggested breaking coordination by hiding player names. That wouldn't work -- there are a bunch of ways to get around it.

The nuclear bomb that (basically) stops coordination is "disable the skip button while you're shielded." I don't think they'd do it, but it's a pretty easy change.

Even if they limited how many skips you could do shielded it would help stop the co-ordination or at least make it more difficult.

Personally I prefer the Wild West PvP but then I don't have a roster that is playing for any high stakes so a few hits here and there are just part of the game. PvE is tedious, I would much rather that got ruined but I will be in the tiny minority.

CouchPanda

it seems a good bit of variety to me so far however my view may change once everyone cottons onto best set ups for them on characters, or even to actually apply them in the first place.

im in SCL 10 and comfortable even if opponents have R5 supports I dont have as makes it more of a challenge than just a routine for me to follow each day.

I do think offense only will be the best way to go as i reckon there will be a point in time that everyone is using the same supports with a few defensive teams that benefit more often than not from the free AP scenario.

i wonder whether there would be any benefit to limit the rank level on supports based on the SCL level so that it doesnt become an unfair barrier to less advanced rosters, ie:R5 for SCL, R4 for 7-9 etc

Tac

pvp support COULD (maybe) be fun if it wasn't a measurement of veterancy / your average heroic BF results.

Try putting catch up mechanics first so it doesn't feel that unfair.
Support shards in pve ;
Make it possible to unlock a support from shards ;
New milestones to earn 1* power stones (still takes forever but you're not screwed if you missed a community challenge) ;
Make support rarity / level matter for matchmaking ;
Ability search like for roster, so you don't have to sift through the list and find the desired effect, ...

Thank god I stalled my progress and top3 level for mmr reason. If I was facing random joee with a spidey 1a5 and power stone on a regular basis I'd probably stop playing pvp entirely until season's end

DAZ0273

@CouchPanda said:
it seems a good bit of variety to me so far however my view may change once everyone cottons onto best set ups for them on characters, or even to actually apply them in the first place.

im in SCL 10 and comfortable even if opponents have R5 supports I dont have as makes it more of a challenge than just a routine for me to follow each day.

I do think offense only will be the best way to go as i reckon there will be a point in time that everyone is using the same supports with a few defensive teams that benefit more often than not from the free AP scenario.

i wonder whether there would be any benefit to limit the rank level on supports based on the SCL level so that it doesnt become an unfair barrier to less advanced rosters, ie:R5 for SCL, R4 for 7-9 etc

It's possible I am misunderstanding what you are saying but SCL doesn't determine what opponents you can fight or who can fight you in PvP. Players with high level Shield Clearance ranks are already locked out of joining lower level PvP SCL but that is only for placement, they can still see and fight against any other players in their time slice. So locking Supports out of joining lower SCL will not have any effect on players still being able to attack people in the slice they joined.

JoeHandle

@entrailbucket said:

@The_Boogie said:

@Tony_Foot said:
Pve is more PvP than the actual PvP.

OMG preach - This is the truth! To the majority of the most vocal and willing to spend MPQ players, Story mode is where the real competition exists in the game, to the point where Player A will ask their alliance mates to hit Player B in PvP during their closing hits of PvE so the pop-ups in game will screw up Player B’s chances of finishing optimally.

Versus mode is a place where you can (mostly) only succeed at the highest levels if you cooperate with a large group of like minded people.

For those of us who embrace the “Versus” element of it…we love supports in PvP. Allows us to easier protect the small piece of turf in MPQ where we put our flag in the ground.

Someone in another thread suggested breaking coordination by hiding player names. That wouldn't work -- there are a bunch of ways to get around it.

The nuclear bomb that (basically) stops coordination is "disable the skip button while you're shielded." I don't think they'd do it, but it's a pretty easy change.

"Hiding names" .... the Big Brains have been dragging that one out since 2015. They don't understand how players coordinate, the range of possibilities.

"Disable slips while shielded" .... another dud. Not only does it undermine the value of both game features, it dings those not coordinating along with those who are.

DAZ0273

@JoeHandle said:

@entrailbucket said:

@The_Boogie said:

@Tony_Foot said:
Pve is more PvP than the actual PvP.

OMG preach - This is the truth! To the majority of the most vocal and willing to spend MPQ players, Story mode is where the real competition exists in the game, to the point where Player A will ask their alliance mates to hit Player B in PvP during their closing hits of PvE so the pop-ups in game will screw up Player B’s chances of finishing optimally.

Versus mode is a place where you can (mostly) only succeed at the highest levels if you cooperate with a large group of like minded people.

For those of us who embrace the “Versus” element of it…we love supports in PvP. Allows us to easier protect the small piece of turf in MPQ where we put our flag in the ground.

Someone in another thread suggested breaking coordination by hiding player names. That wouldn't work -- there are a bunch of ways to get around it.

The nuclear bomb that (basically) stops coordination is "disable the skip button while you're shielded." I don't think they'd do it, but it's a pretty easy change.

"Hiding names" .... the Big Brains have been dragging that one out since 2015. They don't understand how players coordinate, the range of possibilities.

"Disable slips while shielded" .... another dud. Not only does it undermine the value of both game features, it dings those not coordinating along with those who are.

There is likely to be a vast difference between the amount of skips a co-ordinating player needs to make to find specific targets as opposed to a non co-ordinating one, so limit the amount of skips you can make when shielded. If you want to make unlimited skips, put your head up above the surface and take the risks that go with the reward.

obikenobi12

@Zarqa said:

@obikenobi12 said:
I like it so far. Chasm is a solid counter for the supports that grant huge benefits at the start of battle but supports that trigger during battle still work against him. There are definitely some supports that are much better than others for defense such as the Arrow support (can't remember the name). I'd like to see it a little more noticeable when a support is triggering in a match or to see what the opponents team is using so I can better counter it. If they have a crazy start of battle array of supports, I bring in Chasm. I enjoy how supports make more teams viable. Ran a godlike team today because of the support that is geared towards them and it was fun and effective

Chasm doesn’t block supports from triggering.

Yeah i just ocnfirmed this. Maybe the devs should make it so supports don't trigger when the supported character is stunned at the start of a match. I had thought this was happening but it was just because the other enemies didn't proc their starting ap stuff because the % chance didn't go. My bad...sorry if i mislead anyone. Even still, i think Chasm is still a good character to use against teams with the start of battle AP gains since he drains enemy AP and you can use supports that also drain enemies AP too

Carnage1484

Nothing about supports in PvP is fun. If it continues I wont play PvP or if i do I’ll play 25 matches and forget about it until the next event. I will not invest any effort into it as long as supports exist there.

There is nothing interesting about free AP gen, free powers firing, and all the other **** supports have.

JoeHandle

@DAZ0273 said:

@JoeHandle said:

@entrailbucket said:

@The_Boogie said:

@Tony_Foot said:
Pve is more PvP than the actual PvP.

OMG preach - This is the truth! To the majority of the most vocal and willing to spend MPQ players, Story mode is where the real competition exists in the game, to the point where Player A will ask their alliance mates to hit Player B in PvP during their closing hits of PvE so the pop-ups in game will screw up Player B’s chances of finishing optimally.

Versus mode is a place where you can (mostly) only succeed at the highest levels if you cooperate with a large group of like minded people.

For those of us who embrace the “Versus” element of it…we love supports in PvP. Allows us to easier protect the small piece of turf in MPQ where we put our flag in the ground.

Someone in another thread suggested breaking coordination by hiding player names. That wouldn't work -- there are a bunch of ways to get around it.

The nuclear bomb that (basically) stops coordination is "disable the skip button while you're shielded." I don't think they'd do it, but it's a pretty easy change.

"Hiding names" .... the Big Brains have been dragging that one out since 2015. They don't understand how players coordinate, the range of possibilities.

"Disable slips while shielded" .... another dud. Not only does it undermine the value of both game features, it dings those not coordinating along with those who are.

There is likely to be a vast difference between the amount of skips a co-ordinating player needs to make to find specific targets as opposed to a non co-ordinating one, so limit the amount of skips you can make when shielded. If you want to make unlimited skips, put your head up above the surface and take the risks that go with the reward.

Ah, the voice of experience, ha.

Nothing "likely" about it; one of the most powerful aspects of coordinating is skipping less.

Think about it. Take two players taking a roughly equally aggressive approach to an event. Who's going to skip more ... a player that's working 'blind', with no firm knowledge of when there's anything there to find, or a player that knows exactly when to look and what they are looking for?

It's not the latter. The former is relying almost entirely on luck; the 'almost' representing possibly having enough experience to know roughly when the fishing might be better. The latter is pulling from a marked deck in a rigged game, when the dealer signals him to pull