Nerf.... some people (split from Cover Swap thread)

DAZ0273

@entrailbucket said:

@DAZ0273 said:

@ThaRoadWarrior said:
Worthy Cap was a totally different set of Devs though.

Welllllllll...sort of. IceIX was involved with that one and he is very much still with us.

Ice actually works for the publisher, not the devs -- D3, now 505.

What does that mean about what he does or how involved he is with new characters, nerfs, etc? No idea!

Ice developed the Ascension system from what I recall him saying on Discord (?!?) and seems to be involved with testing and designing characters, so although he works for the publisher company it appears he has fingers in pies with regard to what final product we get.

entrailbucket

@DAZ0273 said:

@entrailbucket said:

@DAZ0273 said:

@ThaRoadWarrior said:
Worthy Cap was a totally different set of Devs though.

Welllllllll...sort of. IceIX was involved with that one and he is very much still with us.

Ice actually works for the publisher, not the devs -- D3, now 505.

What does that mean about what he does or how involved he is with new characters, nerfs, etc? No idea!

Ice developed the Ascension system from what I recall him saying on Discord (?!?) and seems to be involved with testing and designing characters, so although he works for the publisher company it appears he has fingers in pies with regard to what final product we get.

Yeah, I've never quite understood how that all works, both in general and with MPQ specifically.

Crowl

@slidecage said:
Nerf. Equal wallet closed forever. Nerf them then will never ever put another cent into this game

Well that is until the next one star for 20 😂😂😂😂😂

This will be one of the main consideration for them, after encouraging people to build these characters for as long as they have done, any significant nerfs are going to have a noticeable backlash on spending.

It'd be nice if they could take a lighter hand with any changes, even if it takes multiple rounds of tweaking the numbers downwards, looking at how interactions between boosts, supports etc can be tweaked or implementing ability differences between pve and pvp would be good too.

entrailbucket

@Crowl said:

@slidecage said:
Nerf. Equal wallet closed forever. Nerf them then will never ever put another cent into this game

Well that is until the next one star for 20 😂😂😂😂😂

This will be one of the main consideration for them, after encouraging people to build these characters for as long as they have done, any significant nerfs are going to have a noticeable backlash on spending.

It'd be nice if they could take a lighter hand with any changes, even if it takes multiple rounds of tweaking the numbers downwards, looking at how interactions between boosts, supports etc can be tweaked or implementing ability differences between pve and pvp would be good too.

First, they should absolutely adjust characters (both down and up in power level) slowly, then observe the changes in usage/winrate/whatever and adjust again if necessary. They don't do this and have never done this, and I think it's a big mistake. They've had to undo heavy-handed nerfs in the past, and they've also had to undo heavy-handed buffs!

The spending thing is a red herring, I think. Some players quit when they nerf, but a lot of them end up coming back. Others plan to quit but never actually do. I've been around a long time and I've seen a lot of nerfs, and a lot of "I quit" posts, and the folks who post that stuff in reaction to a nerf are often the same names who posted it last time.

entrailbucket

The other issue revenue-wise is that character imbalance can depress long-term revenue.

If one character is way, way better than everybody else, players will pay to chase that character. But once they get them, they're done. They never need to spend again, until the next really strong character comes up and obsoletes them.

It's kind of weird that nobody complains about that in MPQ ("I spent all this money on Okoye and then you released Iron May and now she's useless!") but maybe that's a timing thing.

They need people to spend and keep spending. So with Golden Oldie, for example, a turn 0 PvE win is about as fast as you can ever get. So players do need to chase her, but when they get her, they're set in PvE forever. Every other character will be worse, so you can basically just ignore them.

LavaManLee

@entrailbucket said:
It's kind of weird that nobody complains about that in MPQ ("I spent all this money on Okoye and then you released Iron May and now she's useless!") but maybe that's a timing thing.

Yeah, I think it's definitely a timing issue. I imagine most players had a year (or years) playing Okoye before Golden Oldie came out so it was like "Well, I had enough time playing Okoye that it's time to move on".

I imagine there were some people who finally maxed Okoye the week Golden Oldie came out, and those people might be a tad cranky. But I haven't met one of them in the wild yet.

entrailbucket

@LavaManLee said:

@entrailbucket said:
It's kind of weird that nobody complains about that in MPQ ("I spent all this money on Okoye and then you released Iron May and now she's useless!") but maybe that's a timing thing.

Yeah, I think it's definitely a timing issue. I imagine most players had a year (or years) playing Okoye before Golden Oldie came out so it was like "Well, I had enough time playing Okoye that it's time to move on".

I imagine there were some people who finally maxed Okoye the week Golden Oldie came out, and those people might be a tad cranky. But I haven't met one of them in the wild yet.

I dunno, it's probably not important at all. But I find it interesting that we are very focused on the times they change the actual abilities of the character, and don't really mind other changes that potentially invalidate our spending in basically the same way.

Introducing a new character that obsoletes an old one is one example, but there are probably others too. I know supports had an impact on which characters I'm able to use these days.

Rejoinder

I just had an idea for a potential nerf for MThor: just limit her blue to the central two columns.

She'll still be one of the best characters in the game - capable of great single-target damage, team damage, AP generation, tile removal, and multiple passive cascades per turn. She'll easily outshine 90% of the roster even with the nerf.

The change will just mean that she won't always invalidate every character that uses special tiles, since there's a chance the tile will be in one of the outer columns.

DAZ0273

If we are going to Nerf her blue might as well stop it blowing up all special tiles rather than do it by half measures, she will still be a wrecking ball.

captainheath

I say just remove the create charged at start of match and leave the rest as is.

StanleyBurrell

Golden May is the worst character ever designed mostly due to the fact that she makes the highest levels of PvE even more trivial than it already was. For instance, in the current event schedule Apocalypse is boosted. That used to be a reason to celebrate, now it’s just another event because he’ll never get off of the bench. May has invalidated boost lists completely. At the highest level of PvE the only differentiation is your CN team, Wave team, 5* team, and how well you manage timers.

I don’t have the biggest roster but do have a ton of 550’s. Between May, the new cover swap thievery, and the fact that supports in PvP are basically the same trio the game is beyond stale. Maybe it’s just time for me to be done, I just hate to see it go down this way.

BriMan2222

@StanleyBurrell said:
Golden May is the worst character ever designed mostly due to the fact that she makes the highest levels of PvE even more trivial than it already was. For instance, in the current event schedule Apocalypse is boosted. That used to be a reason to celebrate, now it’s just another event because he’ll never get off of the bench. May has invalidated boost lists completely. At the highest level of PvE the only differentiation is your CN team, Wave team, 5* team, and how well you manage timers.

I don’t have the biggest roster but do have a ton of 550’s. Between May, the new cover swap thievery, and the fact that supports in PvP are basically the same trio the game is beyond stale. Maybe it’s just time for me to be done, I just hate to see it go down this way.

Before you quit, you could just stop playing pve for placement and see if that's more fun. I started to have much more fun with pve once I completely stopped caring about placement. I'm having plenty of fun with boosted apocalypse and onslaught and playing to progression whenever I feel like.

entrailbucket

@BriMan2222 said:

@StanleyBurrell said:
Golden May is the worst character ever designed mostly due to the fact that she makes the highest levels of PvE even more trivial than it already was. For instance, in the current event schedule Apocalypse is boosted. That used to be a reason to celebrate, now it’s just another event because he’ll never get off of the bench. May has invalidated boost lists completely. At the highest level of PvE the only differentiation is your CN team, Wave team, 5* team, and how well you manage timers.

I don’t have the biggest roster but do have a ton of 550’s. Between May, the new cover swap thievery, and the fact that supports in PvP are basically the same trio the game is beyond stale. Maybe it’s just time for me to be done, I just hate to see it go down this way.

Before you quit, you could just stop playing pve for placement and see if that's more fun. I started to have much more fun with pve once I completely stopped caring about placement. I'm having plenty of fun with boosted apocalypse and onslaught and playing to placement whenever I feel like.

Seconded this. I quit competitive PvE a very long time ago because the gameplay required for placement just wasn't fun for me. Now I play whenever I feel like with whoever, and actually enjoy it. The difference in rewards really isn't that big, either.

BlackBoltRocks

Third-ing the "forget about placement in PVE" sentiment. My own MO is that every event I use the boosted 5s (and 4a5 if I have them). Of course there's room for allowance, like if the Challenge node is really irritating (such as the just-ended Cosmic Chaos, which had Prof X/Kitty/buffed OML. Even the previous event, Prof X/Iceman/buffed Havok gave me some trouble), then I'll use Shang or my Kang/Nova countdown team. Otherwise, I have fun using the boosted characters. I'll always have a soft spot for Apocalypse and Onslaught, Apocalypse especially, because when he was released I got him up to 10 covers quickly, and even a 10-cover Apoc helped me finally compete feasibly in CL10. Onslaught being released right after him only solidified me as a CL10 player. Boosted Namor/Apoc/Onslaught in the current Venom Bomb event has been an absolute riot.

And since I brought up Shang, everything SB said about May can be applied to him. I could play Shang every PVE node and wipe everyone. But where's the fun in that? Shang - and May - only invalidate PVE and the weekly boosts if you choose to run them in every node. That's not the fault of the character or the designers. It's like how I use 4a5 Grocket + Juggernaut to beat the three easy nodes with one match. That's not poor design. Not having a go at SB, but while, yes, there are a good bunch of characters that make PVE and PVP a breeze, to the point of beyond trviality, the players also have a lot of say in how they choose to approach the game.

Scofie

This is all because of the speed element of PvE though. Which I get completely that people enjoy but what if we thought differently about how PvE could run?

How would people feel about adding a "point premium" for using certain characters? If you use 4Juggs5, you lose 5% of the node points, Golden May 10%. If you use Odin or any of those on the rebalance list you get +5%. You could refresh it every month with the top x% and bottom y% of characters getting the adjustment.

Or, moving completely away from speed, you could have one-try-only hits where you maximise the Points as above in 4/6 tries in 24 hours. So if you assemble the "worst" squad to do the job, you get the most points. If you wipe you get nothing, so there's still jeopardy.

Might have to wait for the new engine for those, though.

LavaManLee

@Scofie said:
This is all because of the speed element of PvE though. Which I get completely that people enjoy but what if we thought differently about how PvE could run?

How would people feel about adding a "point premium" for using certain characters? If you use 4Juggs5, you lose 5% of the node points, Golden May 10%. If you use Odin or any of those on the rebalance list you get +5%. You could refresh it every month with the top x% and bottom y% of characters getting the adjustment.

Or, moving completely away from speed, you could have one-try-only hits where you maximise the Points as above in 4/6 tries in 24 hours. So if you assemble the "worst" squad to do the job, you get the most points. If you wipe you get nothing, so there's still jeopardy.

Might have to wait for the new engine for those, though.

Personally, I would not be a fan of a negative point premium. Maybe a positive point premium would be good. Use Apoc and gain 10% node points or something like that.

Scofie

@LavaManLee said:

@Scofie said:
This is all because of the speed element of PvE though. Which I get completely that people enjoy but what if we thought differently about how PvE could run?

How would people feel about adding a "point premium" for using certain characters? If you use 4Juggs5, you lose 5% of the node points, Golden May 10%. If you use Odin or any of those on the rebalance list you get +5%. You could refresh it every month with the top x% and bottom y% of characters getting the adjustment.

Or, moving completely away from speed, you could have one-try-only hits where you maximise the Points as above in 4/6 tries in 24 hours. So if you assemble the "worst" squad to do the job, you get the most points. If you wipe you get nothing, so there's still jeopardy.

Might have to wait for the new engine for those, though.

Personally, I would not be a fan of a negative point premium. Maybe a positive point premium would be good. Use Apoc and gain 10% node points or something like that.

A purely positive one would make things easier, the baseline being the fastest team at 0%. Perhaps even have tiers for the rarity of the highest level on the team - so a team of 3* gives you a 20% bonus on CL10 etc.

slidecage

Sick of people **** saying I want this person nerf cause they are too powerful and I dint have them and it's not fair. But you better not even think of touching the overpowered person I'm using or all hell is going to break loose

Simple way is make pve pure solo

Scofie

@slidecage said:
Sick of people **** saying I want this person nerf cause they are too powerful and I dint have them and it's not fair. But you better not even think of touching the overpowered person I'm using or all hell is going to break loose

Simple way is make pve pure solo

I think it's a bit more nuanced than that.

Every character has ways to kill them in PvP. Some are just slower to fight, or harder to beat, or RNG can beat you with them. I think it's down to what you find fun to play against. I don't mind fighting MThor and if I fall against the cascade onslaught then so be it. For others that kills their fun and I absolutely understand: if you detest losing and play a lot of PvP then you'll hate it because she is everywhere! I hate fighting Colossus, OR, Chasm teams personally. If every skip gave me variations of that team, I'd hate it too.

On Golden May, I think the point is that competitive PvE is now a case of those that use her win and those that don't, can't win. It also can't get any quicker so the future of the game is unlikely to change. I don't use her and I can't get T10 in a later bracket in my optimal slice. One day, I might try and see what happens but it's not fun for me to not match 3 in a "match 3" game. Some people will play that way to win and not enjoy it, and others will love clearing the game in 15 minutes per day to get the top prizes.

In summary, it's not so much a case of sour grapes over individual characters, more a comment over the practical impacts on playing the game for fun where the opponents you face have such an impact on your enjoyment.

Chrynos1989

I‘m with slidecage here (not the cursing part, the pure solo part).
At the moment Pve is just Pvp light