Getting bored

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:
The problem with 'year ofs' is that a huge section of the player base is locked out. In a 10 plus year old game even players who've been playing for 5 years might not have anyone meaningful to use in years 1-5 and now that supports are in PvP they can't even use loaners unless they'd also allow loaners to use supports.

KGB

I don't see any difference between this and PvE essentials. In the current PvE, 3* Iron Fist is essential, and he's ancient.

The real problem with roster restricted PvP (or PvE, for that matter!) is that a ton of players don't even know how to play the game unless they're using the handful of most popular characters.

Well in those class of X you could ONLY use characters from that year. That's far different than a PvE where you have to use Fist but you get 2 other character of your choice (unless the suggestion just meant you needed the middle character to be from the year in question which would actually broaden team choices by adding dozens of characters per PvP).

You are not wrong that tons of players don't know or even want to know how to play without their meta characters. But that's part of this games appeal, that 'roster building / collect them all' is a perfectly viable reason to play even if the match 3 part is just an inconvenience for players who play for that reason. Similarly there are players like you who play for the fun of making team combos and crushing people in PvP. In other words they need to keep the game interesting for all types of players.

KGB

The problem is that the things we want are directly in conflict -- there is no way to make both sides happy. The weekly boosts should accomplish this, but the "meta" characters are SO strong, and many of the boosted characters are SO weak, that they often don't do the job.

We're left with a situation where building a narrow roster and using a few of the very best characters always works and always wins, and building a wider roster sometimes works and sometimes wins. One alternative and one perspective is clearly superior.

Well in theory they are supposedly working their way through the list such weak characters and giving them a rebalance so that at least when boosted they are usable. I say 'in theory' because it's a very slow process (currently halted while we await a new engine), much slower than we'd all wish. But lets say they do get through the 30 to 40 worst 4/5 stars to rebalance them so they were at least semi-usable when boosted. At that point things would in theory be fine between the 2 competing factions.

Also the 'always wins' statement need a bit of clarification. Are you meaning 100% of the time meta wins a fight vs the useless boosted characters no matter what you do? Or more like these boosted useless characters only win 75-25 vs the meta instead of the 95-5 that regular characters do when boosted? I'm genuinely asking since obviously I'm not in 550 land to experience it.

KGB

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:
The problem with 'year ofs' is that a huge section of the player base is locked out. In a 10 plus year old game even players who've been playing for 5 years might not have anyone meaningful to use in years 1-5 and now that supports are in PvP they can't even use loaners unless they'd also allow loaners to use supports.

KGB

I don't see any difference between this and PvE essentials. In the current PvE, 3* Iron Fist is essential, and he's ancient.

The real problem with roster restricted PvP (or PvE, for that matter!) is that a ton of players don't even know how to play the game unless they're using the handful of most popular characters.

Well in those class of X you could ONLY use characters from that year. That's far different than a PvE where you have to use Fist but you get 2 other character of your choice (unless the suggestion just meant you needed the middle character to be from the year in question which would actually broaden team choices by adding dozens of characters per PvP).

You are not wrong that tons of players don't know or even want to know how to play without their meta characters. But that's part of this games appeal, that 'roster building / collect them all' is a perfectly viable reason to play even if the match 3 part is just an inconvenience for players who play for that reason. Similarly there are players like you who play for the fun of making team combos and crushing people in PvP. In other words they need to keep the game interesting for all types of players.

KGB

The problem is that the things we want are directly in conflict -- there is no way to make both sides happy. The weekly boosts should accomplish this, but the "meta" characters are SO strong, and many of the boosted characters are SO weak, that they often don't do the job.

We're left with a situation where building a narrow roster and using a few of the very best characters always works and always wins, and building a wider roster sometimes works and sometimes wins. One alternative and one perspective is clearly superior.

Well in theory they are supposedly working their way through the list such weak characters and giving them a rebalance so that at least when boosted they are usable. I say 'in theory' because it's a very slow process (currently halted while we await a new engine), much slower than we'd all wish. But lets say they do get through the 30 to 40 worst 4/5 stars to rebalance them so they were at least semi-usable when boosted. At that point things would in theory be fine between the 2 competing factions.

Also the 'always wins' statement need a bit of clarification. Are you meaning 100% of the time meta wins a fight vs the useless boosted characters no matter what you do? Or more like these boosted useless characters only win 75-25 vs the meta instead of the 95-5 that regular characters do when boosted? I'm genuinely asking since obviously I'm not in 550 land to experience it.

KGB

When I say "always wins" I mean leaderboards, generally. If you have a few of the best characters maxed out, and one cover of everyone else, you've got all you need to win everything forever.

In a match, the useless guys at 672 will usually lose on offense to 550 "meta" characters, and will obviously always lose on defense. The non-"meta"-but-not-useless boosted characters will almost always win on offense and almost always lose on defense.

I don't think the Devs care about leader boards, nor should they. In the same way they shouldn't care about defensive wins etc. Those are things players care and worry about when formulating strategies to be on those leader boards.

The only time they'll really care is if it affects revenues.

KGB

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:
The problem with 'year ofs' is that a huge section of the player base is locked out. In a 10 plus year old game even players who've been playing for 5 years might not have anyone meaningful to use in years 1-5 and now that supports are in PvP they can't even use loaners unless they'd also allow loaners to use supports.

KGB

I don't see any difference between this and PvE essentials. In the current PvE, 3* Iron Fist is essential, and he's ancient.

The real problem with roster restricted PvP (or PvE, for that matter!) is that a ton of players don't even know how to play the game unless they're using the handful of most popular characters.

Well in those class of X you could ONLY use characters from that year. That's far different than a PvE where you have to use Fist but you get 2 other character of your choice (unless the suggestion just meant you needed the middle character to be from the year in question which would actually broaden team choices by adding dozens of characters per PvP).

You are not wrong that tons of players don't know or even want to know how to play without their meta characters. But that's part of this games appeal, that 'roster building / collect them all' is a perfectly viable reason to play even if the match 3 part is just an inconvenience for players who play for that reason. Similarly there are players like you who play for the fun of making team combos and crushing people in PvP. In other words they need to keep the game interesting for all types of players.

KGB

The problem is that the things we want are directly in conflict -- there is no way to make both sides happy. The weekly boosts should accomplish this, but the "meta" characters are SO strong, and many of the boosted characters are SO weak, that they often don't do the job.

We're left with a situation where building a narrow roster and using a few of the very best characters always works and always wins, and building a wider roster sometimes works and sometimes wins. One alternative and one perspective is clearly superior.

Well in theory they are supposedly working their way through the list such weak characters and giving them a rebalance so that at least when boosted they are usable. I say 'in theory' because it's a very slow process (currently halted while we await a new engine), much slower than we'd all wish. But lets say they do get through the 30 to 40 worst 4/5 stars to rebalance them so they were at least semi-usable when boosted. At that point things would in theory be fine between the 2 competing factions.

Also the 'always wins' statement need a bit of clarification. Are you meaning 100% of the time meta wins a fight vs the useless boosted characters no matter what you do? Or more like these boosted useless characters only win 75-25 vs the meta instead of the 95-5 that regular characters do when boosted? I'm genuinely asking since obviously I'm not in 550 land to experience it.

KGB

When I say "always wins" I mean leaderboards, generally. If you have a few of the best characters maxed out, and one cover of everyone else, you've got all you need to win everything forever.

In a match, the useless guys at 672 will usually lose on offense to 550 "meta" characters, and will obviously always lose on defense. The non-"meta"-but-not-useless boosted characters will almost always win on offense and almost always lose on defense.

I don't think the Devs care about leader boards, nor should they. In the same way they shouldn't care about defensive wins etc. Those are things players care and worry about when formulating strategies to be on those leader boards.

The only time they'll really care is if it affects revenues.

KGB

Why on earth shouldn't they care about leaderboards??? Every single mode in this game was purpose-built to be competitive. If they don't care about leaderboards why do they give out rewards for placement?

Let me clarify a bit. The provide leader boards and rewards for being on them as incentives for players to play the modes (PvE, PvP, Lightning etc). But they don't care HOW/WHAT strategy / character wise is required for a player to be on the leader board (minus via cheating their set of rules of course).

It's not really much different that how say Formula 1 works (as a sports metaphor). F1 provides the rules just as the Devs have the MPQ rules. The individual race courses are like the various essentials required in PvP in that each one is slightly different. Beyond that, the various teams compete to be on the leader board (for each race and the end of the year - season in MPQ) by building / testing cars and training drivers. But F1 itself doesn't really govern or care what the teams do strategy / driver wise so if a dominant car / strategy etc arises that's something the teams have to deal with, not F1 (again within the legal rules).

My point is the Devs shouldn't care whether or not there are 1-2 dominant teams/strategies or 10. They only care whether players keep playing and revenues keep flowing.

KGB

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:
The problem with 'year ofs' is that a huge section of the player base is locked out. In a 10 plus year old game even players who've been playing for 5 years might not have anyone meaningful to use in years 1-5 and now that supports are in PvP they can't even use loaners unless they'd also allow loaners to use supports.

KGB

I don't see any difference between this and PvE essentials. In the current PvE, 3* Iron Fist is essential, and he's ancient.

The real problem with roster restricted PvP (or PvE, for that matter!) is that a ton of players don't even know how to play the game unless they're using the handful of most popular characters.

Well in those class of X you could ONLY use characters from that year. That's far different than a PvE where you have to use Fist but you get 2 other character of your choice (unless the suggestion just meant you needed the middle character to be from the year in question which would actually broaden team choices by adding dozens of characters per PvP).

You are not wrong that tons of players don't know or even want to know how to play without their meta characters. But that's part of this games appeal, that 'roster building / collect them all' is a perfectly viable reason to play even if the match 3 part is just an inconvenience for players who play for that reason. Similarly there are players like you who play for the fun of making team combos and crushing people in PvP. In other words they need to keep the game interesting for all types of players.

KGB

The problem is that the things we want are directly in conflict -- there is no way to make both sides happy. The weekly boosts should accomplish this, but the "meta" characters are SO strong, and many of the boosted characters are SO weak, that they often don't do the job.

We're left with a situation where building a narrow roster and using a few of the very best characters always works and always wins, and building a wider roster sometimes works and sometimes wins. One alternative and one perspective is clearly superior.

Well in theory they are supposedly working their way through the list such weak characters and giving them a rebalance so that at least when boosted they are usable. I say 'in theory' because it's a very slow process (currently halted while we await a new engine), much slower than we'd all wish. But lets say they do get through the 30 to 40 worst 4/5 stars to rebalance them so they were at least semi-usable when boosted. At that point things would in theory be fine between the 2 competing factions.

Also the 'always wins' statement need a bit of clarification. Are you meaning 100% of the time meta wins a fight vs the useless boosted characters no matter what you do? Or more like these boosted useless characters only win 75-25 vs the meta instead of the 95-5 that regular characters do when boosted? I'm genuinely asking since obviously I'm not in 550 land to experience it.

KGB

When I say "always wins" I mean leaderboards, generally. If you have a few of the best characters maxed out, and one cover of everyone else, you've got all you need to win everything forever.

In a match, the useless guys at 672 will usually lose on offense to 550 "meta" characters, and will obviously always lose on defense. The non-"meta"-but-not-useless boosted characters will almost always win on offense and almost always lose on defense.

I don't think the Devs care about leader boards, nor should they. In the same way they shouldn't care about defensive wins etc. Those are things players care and worry about when formulating strategies to be on those leader boards.

The only time they'll really care is if it affects revenues.

KGB

Why on earth shouldn't they care about leaderboards??? Every single mode in this game was purpose-built to be competitive. If they don't care about leaderboards why do they give out rewards for placement?

Let me clarify a bit. The provide leader boards and rewards for being on them as incentives for players to play the modes (PvE, PvP, Lightning etc). But they don't care HOW/WHAT strategy / character wise is required for a player to be on the leader board (minus via cheating their set of rules of course).

It's not really much different that how say Formula 1 works (as a sports metaphor). F1 provides the rules just as the Devs have the MPQ rules. The individual race courses are like the various essentials required in PvP in that each one is slightly different. Beyond that, the various teams compete to be on the leader board (for each race and the end of the year - season in MPQ) by building / testing cars and training drivers. But F1 itself doesn't really govern or care what the teams do strategy / driver wise so if a dominant car / strategy etc arises that's something the teams have to deal with, not F1 (again within the legal rules).

My point is the Devs shouldn't care whether or not there are 1-2 dominant teams/strategies or 10. They only care whether players keep playing and revenues keep flowing.

KGB

The comparison doesn't make sense, because the developers create these characters. Imagine F1 themselves made each car, and the drivers could choose which one to run. One car is m'Thor and all the other cars are 5* Hawkeye. How much would fans like that?

Every single competitive multiplayer game ever has some degree of balance between different strategies. Esports rebalance characters constantly to create a fun metagame. Collectable card games ban. Please find one example of a competitive multiplayer game where the game makers do nothing to promote balance.

And besides that, the title of this post is "getting bored" (and it wasn't written by me!). A stagnant metagame is boring. And didn't we just have a huge discussion about revenues and player counts dropping?

@KGB said:

@BriMan2222 said:

"In the same way they shouldn't care about defensive wins"

They definitely do and should care about defensive wins. Bishop and Chasm were nerfed because they were too good on defense.

Pretty sure Bishop/Worthy Cap was nerfed because he generated WAY too much free AP leading to stun locks that forced mirror matches. Not because of defensive wins. Chasm for a similar reason only related to AP drain.

I don't ever recall players complaining about too many defensive wins (or wipes). And yes, players always complain about wipes. But I meant the gist of the complaints were about forced mirror matches, stun locks, being OP etc. Its only once it affected the bottom line that something was done (as I suggested, they only care when money stops flowing).

KGB

You got part of it, but there were plenty of complaints of wipes. In my 11 years of playing I've never wiped so consistently as I had vs bishop, and chasm/hulk was a close second.

The problem with bishop was that the mirror match did not work because you as the player have to make the first match, so you always triggered the enemy bishop first and they always got the stun lock going first. The only stun immune character was pre buff silver surfer who got stomped.

Using 4 stars you could avoid triggering bishop, but you'd be quickly stomped by 5 star match damage.

You had exactly 1 turn to kill bishop. All you could do was hope you started with a match 5 available to match damage him to death. Him with beta ray bill, plus Bishops passive ap gain, plus his passive of turning protect tiles into blue tiles meant every single turn the enemy had enough blue ap to hammer you with bills blue and stun lock you with bishop. The best option was to skip

People often complained that bishop was essentially a free shield in pvp. There were multiple topics on this forum about nerfing bishop and nearly every other topic devolved into a bishop nerf discussion. On line and discord people often shared pics bragging about how they won more points in defensive wins than they lost by leaving bishop out over night. When he was eventually nerfed, I'm pretty sure the number of defensive wins he got was given in the explanation of why they were nerfing him.

Chasm/ hulk mirror match very often resulted in long drawn out matches where every tile on the board was a web tile and neither Chasm could possibly die and your only option was to retreat.

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:
The problem with 'year ofs' is that a huge section of the player base is locked out. In a 10 plus year old game even players who've been playing for 5 years might not have anyone meaningful to use in years 1-5 and now that supports are in PvP they can't even use loaners unless they'd also allow loaners to use supports.

KGB

I don't see any difference between this and PvE essentials. In the current PvE, 3* Iron Fist is essential, and he's ancient.

The real problem with roster restricted PvP (or PvE, for that matter!) is that a ton of players don't even know how to play the game unless they're using the handful of most popular characters.

Well in those class of X you could ONLY use characters from that year. That's far different than a PvE where you have to use Fist but you get 2 other character of your choice (unless the suggestion just meant you needed the middle character to be from the year in question which would actually broaden team choices by adding dozens of characters per PvP).

You are not wrong that tons of players don't know or even want to know how to play without their meta characters. But that's part of this games appeal, that 'roster building / collect them all' is a perfectly viable reason to play even if the match 3 part is just an inconvenience for players who play for that reason. Similarly there are players like you who play for the fun of making team combos and crushing people in PvP. In other words they need to keep the game interesting for all types of players.

KGB

The problem is that the things we want are directly in conflict -- there is no way to make both sides happy. The weekly boosts should accomplish this, but the "meta" characters are SO strong, and many of the boosted characters are SO weak, that they often don't do the job.

We're left with a situation where building a narrow roster and using a few of the very best characters always works and always wins, and building a wider roster sometimes works and sometimes wins. One alternative and one perspective is clearly superior.

Well in theory they are supposedly working their way through the list such weak characters and giving them a rebalance so that at least when boosted they are usable. I say 'in theory' because it's a very slow process (currently halted while we await a new engine), much slower than we'd all wish. But lets say they do get through the 30 to 40 worst 4/5 stars to rebalance them so they were at least semi-usable when boosted. At that point things would in theory be fine between the 2 competing factions.

Also the 'always wins' statement need a bit of clarification. Are you meaning 100% of the time meta wins a fight vs the useless boosted characters no matter what you do? Or more like these boosted useless characters only win 75-25 vs the meta instead of the 95-5 that regular characters do when boosted? I'm genuinely asking since obviously I'm not in 550 land to experience it.

KGB

When I say "always wins" I mean leaderboards, generally. If you have a few of the best characters maxed out, and one cover of everyone else, you've got all you need to win everything forever.

In a match, the useless guys at 672 will usually lose on offense to 550 "meta" characters, and will obviously always lose on defense. The non-"meta"-but-not-useless boosted characters will almost always win on offense and almost always lose on defense.

I don't think the Devs care about leader boards, nor should they. In the same way they shouldn't care about defensive wins etc. Those are things players care and worry about when formulating strategies to be on those leader boards.

The only time they'll really care is if it affects revenues.

KGB

Why on earth shouldn't they care about leaderboards??? Every single mode in this game was purpose-built to be competitive. If they don't care about leaderboards why do they give out rewards for placement?

Let me clarify a bit. The provide leader boards and rewards for being on them as incentives for players to play the modes (PvE, PvP, Lightning etc). But they don't care HOW/WHAT strategy / character wise is required for a player to be on the leader board (minus via cheating their set of rules of course).

It's not really much different that how say Formula 1 works (as a sports metaphor). F1 provides the rules just as the Devs have the MPQ rules. The individual race courses are like the various essentials required in PvP in that each one is slightly different. Beyond that, the various teams compete to be on the leader board (for each race and the end of the year - season in MPQ) by building / testing cars and training drivers. But F1 itself doesn't really govern or care what the teams do strategy / driver wise so if a dominant car / strategy etc arises that's something the teams have to deal with, not F1 (again within the legal rules).

My point is the Devs shouldn't care whether or not there are 1-2 dominant teams/strategies or 10. They only care whether players keep playing and revenues keep flowing.

KGB

The comparison doesn't make sense, because the developers create these characters. Imagine F1 themselves made each car, and the drivers could choose which one to run. One car is m'Thor and all the other cars are 5* Hawkeye. How much would fans like that?

The cars are in a way created by F1 because they are regulated as to a whole host of things (way too many to list here). The teams using those regulations create custom cars and pair them with drivers in the same manner we create teams of characters. The essential is the course which is different in each race.

Some teams have vastly more amounts of money (MThor vs Hawkeye) to spend on their cars and drivers. Doesn't seem to affect F1 popularity one bit even though certain drivers and teams dominate for years at a time.

Every single competitive multiplayer game ever has some degree of balance between different strategies. Esports rebalance characters constantly to create a fun metagame. Collectable card games ban. Please find one example of a competitive multiplayer game where the game makers do nothing to promote balance.

Monopoly, Risk. If you want to consider 2 player games you have Chess etc. Essentially board games never change and yet they don't seem to have waned in popularity even if the optimal strategies are well known.

Even in the computer games world, early releases way back in the 90s like Command and Conquer never really changed because there was no realistic way to put out updates.

And yes, my answer is pedantic but you did ask. Sure, many computer games these days change things up regularly. Doesn't mean it's required (See my examples above for games that survive just fine) and since this game is still going after 10 years it would seem they've made the right choices.

I think things are stale at the very highest end of the game for sure because it's been capped for a very long time now (550 has been the cap for what, better part of 6+ years now ever since champions has been introduced) with no place to go once you get there. It's also stale because it's a 10 year old game and how many other 10 year old PC/Mobile games are still going strong? The answer is next to none. Let's see if any of these games making all these changes are still going in 10 years time.

KGB