Marvel Puzzle Quest: Character Rebalances Insights

It would be interesting to see exactly what the usage stats are for Grocket. It seems to me that he appears on a lot of teams, but his green and blue powers are rarely used. I think he is in need of both a nerf and a buff.

@Read_Only said:

@Ptahhotep said:
It would be interesting to see exactly what the usage stats are for Grocket. It seems to me that he appears on a lot of teams, but his green and blue powers are rarely used. I think he is in need of both a nerf and a buff.

You could say that about any of the one trick ponies. I've never fired a power on 3* May.

Do we really think Grocket is more used than 3* may or Namor?

Grocket has been around much longer. May and Namor would register lower usage if the time period being used includes time before they were released.

@Ptahhotep said:

@Read_Only said:

@Ptahhotep said:
It would be interesting to see exactly what the usage stats are for Grocket. It seems to me that he appears on a lot of teams, but his green and blue powers are rarely used. I think he is in need of both a nerf and a buff.

You could say that about any of the one trick ponies. I've never fired a power on 3* May.

Do we really think Grocket is more used than 3* may or Namor?

Grocket has been around much longer. May and Namor would register lower usage if the time period being used includes time before they were released.

This is it. They are looking at data for characters who have been in game ages, featured in multiple vaults etc and who players had a chance to get to reasonable levels. Why are they not looking at the game as it is right now? They seem completely blind to the ascended characters.

@Blackstone said:

@DAZ0273 said:

@Ptahhotep said:

@Read_Only said:

@Ptahhotep said:
It would be interesting to see exactly what the usage stats are for Grocket. It seems to me that he appears on a lot of teams, but his green and blue powers are rarely used. I think he is in need of both a nerf and a buff.

You could say that about any of the one trick ponies. I've never fired a power on 3* May.

Do we really think Grocket is more used than 3* may or Namor?

Grocket has been around much longer. May and Namor would register lower usage if the time period being used includes time before they were released.

This is it. They are looking at data for characters who have been in game ages, featured in multiple vaults etc and who players had a chance to get to reasonable levels. Why are they not looking at the game as it is right now? They seem completely blind to the ascended characters.

I don't think most players have ascended characters.

Most of us here have them and see them all the time.

But the average player likely has a 3-4* roster with a few fives baby champed. And they don't have "room" for ascending because they'll let 5*s with 3-6 covers take up roster space without ever searching out advice on how to build a stronger roster.

I could be wrong, of course, but I don't think the average player is playing the same game as most of us on the forums.

All of that is to say, we may think certain characters are being used way more than those being nerfed, but that might not reflect what's actually happening with the average player. Which would explain why most of the "just dropped in" crowd are so upset about nerfing older characters... Because that's who they exclusively rely on and they can't imagine replacing the nerfed character with anyone else.

I don't mean offense to those just dropping in by pointing that out, I'm just using it as an example of differing perspectives from those who came here to vent about a single issue and those who are here regularly for years upon years.

It's true of course that we do see things from a different perspective I agree. Having played on both my son and wife's very raw accounts (1 or 2 champed 4, no champ 5), I can confirm that there are quite a few ascended characters running around at those levels but they were mostly ones available from vaults as opposed to built ( my son has a 3a4 Magik).

@DAZ0273 said:

@Blackstone said:

@DAZ0273 said:

@Ptahhotep said:

@Read_Only said:

@Ptahhotep said:
It would be interesting to see exactly what the usage stats are for Grocket. It seems to me that he appears on a lot of teams, but his green and blue powers are rarely used. I think he is in need of both a nerf and a buff.

You could say that about any of the one trick ponies. I've never fired a power on 3* May.

Do we really think Grocket is more used than 3* may or Namor?

Grocket has been around much longer. May and Namor would register lower usage if the time period being used includes time before they were released.

This is it. They are looking at data for characters who have been in game ages, featured in multiple vaults etc and who players had a chance to get to reasonable levels. Why are they not looking at the game as it is right now? They seem completely blind to the ascended characters.

I don't think most players have ascended characters.

Most of us here have them and see them all the time.

But the average player likely has a 3-4* roster with a few fives baby champed. And they don't have "room" for ascending because they'll let 5*s with 3-6 covers take up roster space without ever searching out advice on how to build a stronger roster.

I could be wrong, of course, but I don't think the average player is playing the same game as most of us on the forums.

All of that is to say, we may think certain characters are being used way more than those being nerfed, but that might not reflect what's actually happening with the average player. Which would explain why most of the "just dropped in" crowd are so upset about nerfing older characters... Because that's who they exclusively rely on and they can't imagine replacing the nerfed character with anyone else.

I don't mean offense to those just dropping in by pointing that out, I'm just using it as an example of differing perspectives from those who came here to vent about a single issue and those who are here regularly for years upon years.

It's true of course that we do see things from a different perspective I agree. Having played on both my son and wife's very raw accounts (1 or 2 champed 4, no champ 5), I can confirm that there are quite a few ascended characters running around at those levels but they were mostly ones available from vaults as opposed to built ( my son has a 3a4 Magik).

Fair enough. I would submit that the average player seeing random ascended characters that don't have much impact on gameplay would do very little to encourage ascending characters, and would still leave them valuing Mthor, Polaris, Groot, etc over any ascended character because they still don't see (or envision being able to roster) the power of ascended 5* MBaku, Namor, Juggs, etc, or even 3-4* May.

Maybe the devs are looking at older characters to nerf.

Or maybe those older characters still see much more consistent use by the masses of players that remain perpetually in that tier of play.

To be clear, I'm not saying you haven't found an answer to the issue of why they're choosing the characters they're choosing. I'm saying there's more than one possible answer to the issue of why they're choosing the characters they're choosing.

Unless they decide to show us the metrics they use, and the data used to decide upon this metrics, we might never really know.

@Grantosium said:
This week with Kitty boosted Rocket have been very playable in PvE. Normally I only use Rocket for the first 3 nodes of PvE and for seed teams, partnered with Juggs. Maybe that's enough to make them nerfs worthy? Slow down people's climb to 250 points in Lightning Rounds? If so, you've got to think Iron May would also eventually be in the firing line.

Guessing some newer characters being overlooked for nerfs because they are at a different place on a revenue/time curve.

They're at a very different place on the usage curve.

@Blackstone said:

@DAZ0273 said:

@Ptahhotep said:

@Read_Only said:

@Ptahhotep said:
It would be interesting to see exactly what the usage stats are for Grocket. It seems to me that he appears on a lot of teams, but his green and blue powers are rarely used. I think he is in need of both a nerf and a buff.

You could say that about any of the one trick ponies. I've never fired a power on 3* May.

Do we really think Grocket is more used than 3* may or Namor?

Grocket has been around much longer. May and Namor would register lower usage if the time period being used includes time before they were released.

This is it. They are looking at data for characters who have been in game ages, featured in multiple vaults etc and who players had a chance to get to reasonable levels. Why are they not looking at the game as it is right now? They seem completely blind to the ascended characters.

But the average player likely has a 3-4* roster with a few fives baby champed. And they don't have "room" for ascending because they'll let 5*s with 3-6 covers take up roster space without ever searching out advice on how to build a stronger roster.

The average player is no where close to that good of a roster. A few months ago when IceIX was doing the monthly questions I asked him how many players had at least one baby champed 5 on their roster to settle a long standing question. He did answer and I recall it was something like 1% of players or fewer.

My guess is the average roster is probably somewhere in the late 2 to mid 3 star stages of the game. That's the point where you start accumulating 4 star characters and predominately players there are choosing Polaris/Grocket (those are the 2 I got my step-son to champ on his account along with Juggs). The usage rates for Polaris/Grocket at those roster levels are probably off the charts.

If the Devs do care about usage in PvE and PvP when doing their measuring then it can only mean that the bean counters think too many lower level rosters are being able to get rewards in higher PvE CLs entirely due to Polaris/Grocket interaction (esp if they have the Low Level AI support).

KGB

I find it had to believe just because grocket is older that they wouldn’t be looking at data for the last 6 months to a year and go, well May is a problem more than grocket.

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@Blackstone said:

@DAZ0273 said:

@Ptahhotep said:

@Read_Only said:

@Ptahhotep said:
It would be interesting to see exactly what the usage stats are for Grocket. It seems to me that he appears on a lot of teams, but his green and blue powers are rarely used. I think he is in need of both a nerf and a buff.

You could say that about any of the one trick ponies. I've never fired a power on 3* May.

Do we really think Grocket is more used than 3* may or Namor?

Grocket has been around much longer. May and Namor would register lower usage if the time period being used includes time before they were released.

This is it. They are looking at data for characters who have been in game ages, featured in multiple vaults etc and who players had a chance to get to reasonable levels. Why are they not looking at the game as it is right now? They seem completely blind to the ascended characters.

But the average player likely has a 3-4* roster with a few fives baby champed. And they don't have "room" for ascending because they'll let 5*s with 3-6 covers take up roster space without ever searching out advice on how to build a stronger roster.

The average player is no where close to that good of a roster. A few months ago when IceIX was doing the monthly questions I asked him how many players had at least one baby champed 5 on their roster to settle a long standing question. He did answer and I recall it was something like 1% of players or fewer.

My guess is the average roster is probably somewhere in the late 2 to mid 3 star stages of the game. That's the point where you start accumulating 4 star characters and predominately players there are choosing Polaris/Grocket (those are the 2 I got my step-son to champ on his account along with Juggs). The usage rates for Polaris/Grocket at those roster levels are probably off the charts.

If the Devs do care about usage in PvE and PvP when doing their measuring then it can only mean that the bean counters think too many lower level rosters are being able to get rewards in higher PvE CLs entirely due to Polaris/Grocket interaction (esp if they have the Low Level AI support).

KGB

How dare you. That question was my white whale! I submitted it every month for like a year, then they finally answered it for me (it's closer to 10% but it depends how you count "active players" -- most players don't play MPQ every day).

Did you ask them at some point after that? I know that I got the answer first, and it kicked off a bunch of discussion.

When the moves they make don't make sense to us, it's important to consider that we represent a really tiny minority of overall players, and they interact with the game in totally different ways than we do.

Here's the thread.

You asked and they didn't answer. I pressed IceIX on it and then he finally answered and there was a discussion about it. So credit to both of us I guess?

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/88939/mpq-developer-q-a-july-2023-answers/p1

KGB

P.S. Doesn't seem like it was more than 2 years ago so I was shocked I had to go back that far to find it!