Do the devs know what they're doing?

DAZ0273

@BriMan2222 said:
It’s actually the soul stone, and it’s doesn’t make the user immune to stun and airborne outright, it has a chance at turn start to create a countdown tile that makes the user immune while on the board. But, chasm will stun you at turn start nullifying that chance to happen.

Yes, d'oh, soul stone!

icarusmonkey

@entrailbucket said:
They need to pretty careful with stun immunity, because turning off some of the crazy passives via stun is keeping them in check. A support that makes literally anyone immune to stun just creates a totally new mess to clean up.

What about something like "The supported character cannot be stunned by enemies." Can you think of a situation where that would make a mess?

FWIW I say give people as many counters to OP characters as you want, but make them actually effective. It adds a bit of strategy to the game. OP characters create a problem for me to solve. I was aggressively trying to champ Cosmo to counter mThor until Shaw was released.

@KGB said:

There are actually a lot of options that would help without completely breaking the game.

1) Rogue and Archangel have an ability to prevent AP gain. Lets say they created a 5 star Rogue who instead of needing to fire it as a power (as those two do) it was a passive: "At the start of the turn whenever one doesn't exist, Rogue creates a 3 turn Siphon CD that prevents any AP gain in this color (extend it to include TUs) while the CD exists". Let the player / AI pick the color to siphon each time. Now you can perpetually block TU gain (or some other color gain as needed) by repeatedly choosing the same color every time the CD is created (yes, the CD can be destroyed and TU gain can happen then but that's a reasonable tradeoff).

2) Okoye has a passive that drains her own team's TU AP when she's not in front. A similar passive could be created only this one would drain enemy TU AP when that character was NOT in front type condition (would have been great on Kilgrave who wants to be in the rear).

3) A new support (Nullifier?) that drains all AP to 0 at battle start for BOTH teams. Doing it for both teams makes it a double edged sword since you can't then start with AP either (from supports or boosts). This is more to deal with the free support AP gain than Sidewinder but would be a nice addition and increase strategy options as you'd need to decide whether you also wanted to do without starting AP.

KGB

I like all of these support ideas.
1) Since Archangel lets you choose the color, I don't see why a power like this couldn't let the player choose. But it would have to drain that AP as well as prevent its gain, to be effective against Sidewinder. Also, I can't think of any support that makes the player make an active choice.
2) I like it but I wonder if it's too niche to be used for any other situation aside from battling Sidewinder.
3) Now this idea I can get behind.

entrailbucket

@KGB said:

@icarusmonkey said:

@entrailbucket said:

And how do you even answer Sidewinder? Create a guy who can't be stunned that reduces all match damage to 0? That guy just breaks the game even worse!

It would have to be something like reducing the enemy team's TeamUp AP regardless of how much they already have. Not guaranteed to win every time, but would directly counter what makes him OP. The only ability I can think of that works like that is 3* She Hulk's Green ability, but you can't choose which color gets reduced to 0. And she'll hardly survive long enough to you to fire it anyway.

There are actually a lot of options that would help without completely breaking the game.

1) Rogue and Archangel have an ability to prevent AP gain. Lets say they created a 5 star Rogue who instead of needing to fire it as a power (as those two do) it was a passive: "At the start of the turn whenever one doesn't exist, Rogue creates a 3 turn Siphon CD that prevents any AP gain in this color (extend it to include TUs) while the CD exists". Let the player / AI pick the color to siphon each time. Now you can perpetually block TU gain (or some other color gain as needed) by repeatedly choosing the same color every time the CD is created (yes, the CD can be destroyed and TU gain can happen then but that's a reasonable tradeoff).

This only works if the guy is immune to stun, otherwise the Chasm/Sidewinder team kills you before it even turns on.

2) Okoye has a passive that drains her own team's TU AP when she's not in front. A similar passive could be created only this one would drain enemy TU AP when that character was NOT in front type condition (would have been great on Kilgrave who wants to be in the rear).

Again, needs stun immunity. Also would need to drain TU AP on the opponent's turn/as they accumulate it-- this team can start from 0 and hit a monster cascade pretty easily. Draining AP at the start of your turn does nothing when you're already dead.

3) A new support (Nullifier?) that drains all AP to 0 at battle start for BOTH teams. Doing it for both teams makes it a double edged sword since you can't then start with AP either (from supports or boosts). This is more to deal with the free support AP gain than Sidewinder but would be a nice addition and increase strategy options as you'd need to decide whether you also wanted to do without starting AP.

I don't hate this but it doesn't help with Sidewinder and most teams aren't using the free AP supports right now anyway.

entrailbucket

@icarusmonkey said:

@entrailbucket said:
They need to pretty careful with stun immunity, because turning off some of the crazy passives via stun is keeping them in check. A support that makes literally anyone immune to stun just creates a totally new mess to clean up.

What about something like "The supported character cannot be stunned by enemies." Can you think of a situation where that would make a mess?

FWIW I say give people as many counters to OP characters as you want, but make them actually effective. It adds a bit of strategy to the game. OP characters create a problem for me to solve. I was aggressively trying to champ Cosmo to counter mThor until Shaw was released.

Stuns are a really effective counter to some of the more unpleasant passives -- especially defensive ones. Stunning is an excellent way to kill 4* Juggernaut, Colossus, Scarlet Witch, or May Parker, among many others.

If we had a support that gave stun immunity to anyone you're effectively removing one of the most powerful universal counter strategies we have. How many times have you been bailed out by a 1* Widow team up?

icarusmonkey

@entrailbucket said:

Stuns are a really effective counter to some of the more unpleasant passives -- especially defensive ones. Stunning is an excellent way to kill 4* Juggernaut, Colossus, Scarlet Witch, or May Parker, among many others.

If we had a support that gave stun immunity to anyone you're effectively removing one of the most powerful universal counter strategies we have. How many times have you been bailed out by a 1* Widow team up?

Ah, I see what you're saying. I wasn't thinking of it being used defensively. You're totally right; stunning is essential against many teams. I'll put my problem solving hat back on. Maybe a limit to the number of times the stun is ignored? Something like that already exists on the Hellfire Club support.

And to answer your question: never, because my alliance members are poop and keep giving me silly team ups.

KGB

@entrailbucket said:
This only works if the guy is immune to stun, otherwise the Chasm/Sidewinder team kills you before it even turns on.

Is the AI reliably lucking into that much TU during Chasms stun turn from Copter/Car supports? I rarely if ever face those in my PvP opponents so to lose on team 1 would require multiple cascades that included TU's.

Yes, I read your other thread where you were killed on turn 1 from a cascade but is that a regular occurrence (ie 1 in 5 type battles ) or more like 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 etc.

I don't hate this but it doesn't help with Sidewinder and most teams aren't using the free AP supports right now anyway.

This was more for future proofing.

If Car/Copter are so out of control on turn 1 (esp Chasms turn 1 stun) then maybe that Support that drains all the AP also (maybe R3) at battle start puts down a 3 turn CD that works like 5 star Thanos's Infinite Power (no board changes). That would prevent the those shenanigans for 3 turns or until the CD was matched away.

KGB

entrailbucket

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:
This only works if the guy is immune to stun, otherwise the Chasm/Sidewinder team kills you before it even turns on.

Is the AI reliably lucking into that much TU during Chasms stun turn from Copter/Car supports? I rarely if ever face those in my PvP opponents so to lose on team 1 would require multiple cascades that included TU's.

Yes, I read your other thread where you were killed on turn 1 from a cascade but is that a regular occurrence (ie 1 in 5 type battles ) or more like 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 etc.

I don't hate this but it doesn't help with Sidewinder and most teams aren't using the free AP supports right now anyway.

This was more for future proofing.

If Car/Copter are so out of control on turn 1 (esp Chasms turn 1 stun) then maybe that Support that drains all the AP also (maybe R3) at battle start puts down a 3 turn CD that works like 5 star Thanos's Infinite Power (no board changes). That would prevent the those shenanigans for 3 turns or until the CD was matched away.

KGB

Well, eating literally a million damage turn 2 isn't very common (it was pretty funny though!). But they don't really need to luck into THAT much to go crazy, because you're stacking Chasm's boost and Copter's boost with Sidewinder's completely insane boost.

Ultimately the fix here just has to involve dialling back Sidewinder -- the boost is too big.

BriMan2222

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:
This only works if the guy is immune to stun, otherwise the Chasm/Sidewinder team kills you before it even turns on.

Is the AI reliably lucking into that much TU during Chasms stun turn from Copter/Car supports? I rarely if ever face those in my PvP opponents so to lose on team 1 would require multiple cascades that included TU's.

Yes, I read your other thread where you were killed on turn 1 from a cascade but is that a regular occurrence (ie 1 in 5 type battles ) or more like 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 etc.

I don't hate this but it doesn't help with Sidewinder and most teams aren't using the free AP supports right now anyway.

This was more for future proofing.

If Car/Copter are so out of control on turn 1 (esp Chasms turn 1 stun) then maybe that Support that drains all the AP also (maybe R3) at battle start puts down a 3 turn CD that works like 5 star Thanos's Infinite Power (no board changes). That would prevent the those shenanigans for 3 turns or until the CD was matched away.

KGB

It's probably just confirmation bias, but is seems like when I use fantasticar or copter I get maybe an extra match or two every once in awhile, but on the enemy teams they often get an extra 57 matches. Just earlier I had a match where copter was going on and on for what felt like forever and then made a match 5 that allowed them to do it again and down my whole team.

WhiteBomber

KGB

It's probably just confirmation bias, but is seems like when I use fantasticar or copter I get maybe an extra match or two every once in awhile, but on the enemy teams they often get an extra 57 matches. Just earlier I had a match where copter was going on and on for what felt like forever and then made a match 5 that allowed them to do it again and down my whole team.

I believe this phenomenon is actually called "MThor Bias"

dianetics

As I said in the Sidewinder thread...Sidewinder is stupid and broken.
If he stays in the game in his current state, even after the "nerf" there is no turning back.
There is virtually nothing they can do address this.

@WhiteBomber said:
Whether on offense, defense in PVE or PVP, I invalidate so, so many other characters:
1. IronMay
2. Sidewinder
3. GoldMay (only because of AP supports)
4. MThor
5. ShangChi (barely even OP in the new world, it's gotten that crazy)
6. Polaris
7. Maaaybe MBaku

These characters do what they do so well, there is no reason to ever choose others

This is more or less right. We can deal with shethor and shangchi pretty easily. Polaris can be mitigated fairly easily. I don't run into M'Baku a whole lot, but I could see him being a problem.

Sssside, Dinner-May, and Sub-nuke-Namor are doing way too much.
5 May is stupid too.
I think it is just lazy design because they are focused on other things now.

These characters essentially invalidate the entire roster. Not fun.

entrailbucket

@BriMan2222 said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:
This only works if the guy is immune to stun, otherwise the Chasm/Sidewinder team kills you before it even turns on.

Is the AI reliably lucking into that much TU during Chasms stun turn from Copter/Car supports? I rarely if ever face those in my PvP opponents so to lose on team 1 would require multiple cascades that included TU's.

Yes, I read your other thread where you were killed on turn 1 from a cascade but is that a regular occurrence (ie 1 in 5 type battles ) or more like 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 etc.

I don't hate this but it doesn't help with Sidewinder and most teams aren't using the free AP supports right now anyway.

This was more for future proofing.

If Car/Copter are so out of control on turn 1 (esp Chasms turn 1 stun) then maybe that Support that drains all the AP also (maybe R3) at battle start puts down a 3 turn CD that works like 5 star Thanos's Infinite Power (no board changes). That would prevent the those shenanigans for 3 turns or until the CD was matched away.

KGB

It's probably just confirmation bias, but is seems like when I use fantasticar or copter I get maybe an extra match or two every once in awhile, but on the enemy teams they often get an extra 57 matches. Just earlier I had a match where copter was going on and on for what felt like forever and then made a match 5 that allowed them to do it again and down my whole team.

It generally has to do with the structure of these teams. Copter and Fantasticar do something when a specific character makes a match. So if you set things up such that the character carrying it tanks the entire board (say, by pairing a 550 with a loaner and a low level 4*), an endless cascade is a lot more common.

KGB

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:
This only works if the guy is immune to stun, otherwise the Chasm/Sidewinder team kills you before it even turns on.

Is the AI reliably lucking into that much TU during Chasms stun turn from Copter/Car supports? I rarely if ever face those in my PvP opponents so to lose on team 1 would require multiple cascades that included TU's.

Yes, I read your other thread where you were killed on turn 1 from a cascade but is that a regular occurrence (ie 1 in 5 type battles ) or more like 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 etc.

I don't hate this but it doesn't help with Sidewinder and most teams aren't using the free AP supports right now anyway.

This was more for future proofing.

If Car/Copter are so out of control on turn 1 (esp Chasms turn 1 stun) then maybe that Support that drains all the AP also (maybe R3) at battle start puts down a 3 turn CD that works like 5 star Thanos's Infinite Power (no board changes). That would prevent the those shenanigans for 3 turns or until the CD was matched away.

KGB

Well, eating literally a million damage turn 2 isn't very common (it was pretty funny though!). But they don't really need to luck into THAT much to go crazy, because you're stacking Chasm's boost and Copter's boost with Sidewinder's completely insane boost.

Ultimately the fix here just has to involve dialling back Sidewinder -- the boost is too big.

I presented other ways to dial him back without lowering the overall boost. The easiest being to continue increasing the amount of TU AP required to get the max boost.

But as I read your explanation about stacking, another thought hit me. A big part of the difference between yours and my experiences is the space you play in. That is, you play in the 550 space where not only does everyone have maxed characters they pretty much have maxed supports as well. But I play in a much different space where players don't necessarily have everything maxed and below where I play there are countless players playing who probably don't have many supports at all or Chasm etc. So dialing Sidewinders peak bonus back may help players in your space but isn't needed in my space or spaces below mine. Maybe instead the answer is to CAP the max bonus possible, something the game has never done before (this is why we have those High Evo challenges). So for match damage boost, maybe the max cap is set to something like 800% (spitballing) from all sources. Then it doesn't matter whether it comes from Sidewinder or Chasm+Copter+Sidewinder etc, it's simply capped at whatever the max cap is.

KGB

entrailbucket

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:
This only works if the guy is immune to stun, otherwise the Chasm/Sidewinder team kills you before it even turns on.

Is the AI reliably lucking into that much TU during Chasms stun turn from Copter/Car supports? I rarely if ever face those in my PvP opponents so to lose on team 1 would require multiple cascades that included TU's.

Yes, I read your other thread where you were killed on turn 1 from a cascade but is that a regular occurrence (ie 1 in 5 type battles ) or more like 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 etc.

I don't hate this but it doesn't help with Sidewinder and most teams aren't using the free AP supports right now anyway.

This was more for future proofing.

If Car/Copter are so out of control on turn 1 (esp Chasms turn 1 stun) then maybe that Support that drains all the AP also (maybe R3) at battle start puts down a 3 turn CD that works like 5 star Thanos's Infinite Power (no board changes). That would prevent the those shenanigans for 3 turns or until the CD was matched away.

KGB

Well, eating literally a million damage turn 2 isn't very common (it was pretty funny though!). But they don't really need to luck into THAT much to go crazy, because you're stacking Chasm's boost and Copter's boost with Sidewinder's completely insane boost.

Ultimately the fix here just has to involve dialling back Sidewinder -- the boost is too big.

But as I read your explanation about stacking, another thought hit me. A big part of the difference between yours and my experiences is the space you play in. That is, you play in the 550 space where not only does everyone have maxed characters they pretty much have maxed supports as well. But I play in a much different space where players don't necessarily have everything maxed and below where I play there are countless players playing who probably don't have many supports at all or Chasm etc. So dialing Sidewinders peak bonus back may help players in your space but isn't needed in my space or spaces below mine.

Totally agree with all of this, and it gets us back to the original topic of the thread. The devs play the game more like you do than I do, and I think they design characters more for players like you than for me. Many of the broken guys aren't broken at all unless you've got a big pile of maxed out stuff. And that makes sense! There's way more of you than me!

...except they can't have it both ways. They can't cater to both of us.
The game encourages competition to attract hardcore players. Every event has a leaderboard, and they want to leverage that to make money selling competitive advantages to players like me. So they have to make the game interesting for players who want to compete as well as those who don't.

WhiteBomber

Lets not overly soften just how bad Winder is now (don't want devs thinking it's ok).

Within a matter of days anyone can get Sidewinders yella and a couple covers for Shang. I think it's important to remember that "4star roster" isn't actually a thing, it's "mostly 4stars and 1-3 5stars that get used in every match, roster".

Every beginner to intermediate player I have in my squad and others that I roster check, is about that. So, if there is a window where Winder isn't absolutely shipping in someone's cereal, it's for like a very small amount of time.

He is still crazy outside of the norm, even if you only had 4stars.

KGB

@WhiteBomber - I totally agree with everything you said (I suspect we'll next go from 8 AP to 13 AP needed for 1300%). But the difference is that while Sidewinder may allow crazy damage potential even for those rosters, in PvP he's not much of an issue because those players won't be sporting leapfrog and thanoscopter and chasm stuns etc. In other words, you can totally beat enemy Sidewinder teams by simply targeting him on turn 1, making him go away (using up his blue get out of jail free) and downing him on turn 2-3 LONG before he ever becomes any kind of problem (you can even boost 2 TU if needed to speed the process).

So the question is whether making it much easier for those rosters in PvE / PvP than using Rocket/Polaris (the current go-to) is a problem for those players. Historically the answer has always been no (which is why we progressively got Rocket, Polaris, Shang etc long after we got big punch up characters even before that).

KGB

WhiteBomber

I hear ya. I feel like that still leaves the real problem, which is offense, even in low level PVP.

I have yet to lose to him, even when he's runnin with the big boiz, so defensively I don't think he is more of a problem than some others. He does however make it so an unchamped 5star can destroy boosted 550's in a matter of moves, which I have to imagine some people also don't like.

It's likely a less frustrating problem, because losing when you are in control typically feels worse, but it keeps the thing I actually dislike the most which is, you are punishing yourself by NOT choosing him.

WhiteBomber

Dianetics AND KGB slightly agreed with me, in the same day! Come on Entrail, there's still room for 1 more...

Chrynos1989

There are obvious bad descisions, like giving Sidewinder 1525% bonus match damage, but these are few.
The real problem is with 400 chars, which you can all get to 5* now so that they are all actually playable, you get so many synergies going. No one can keep an eye on them all.

Edit: Not to forget supports…

WilliamK1983

@WhiteBomber said:
Dianetics AND KGB slightly agreed with me, in the same day! Come on Entrail, there's still room for 1 more...

Are we sure that's a good idea? It might trigger an extinction level event 😆

entrailbucket

@WilliamK1983 said:

@WhiteBomber said:
Dianetics AND KGB slightly agreed with me, in the same day! Come on Entrail, there's still room for 1 more...

Are we sure that's a good idea? It might trigger an extinction level event 😆

I disagree.