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.