Ghast wrote: gamar wrote: Ghast wrote: So when someone attacks me with low true health, do I retaliate against a team with full health or a team with "true health." Also, what about defense teams? Right now teams that you use to retreat or lose a match become your defensive team at full health. This change means that we still get to fight Lazy Thor/Lazy Daken/ Sentry every match because people can just take their 1 health point characters in for a quick retreat if that is the case. When did this happen again? For a long time now, you've had to actually win a battle for your team to be put in as the defensive team. At the exact time the greyouts began. Losses also now show up as retaliation nodes.
gamar wrote: Ghast wrote: So when someone attacks me with low true health, do I retaliate against a team with full health or a team with "true health." Also, what about defense teams? Right now teams that you use to retreat or lose a match become your defensive team at full health. This change means that we still get to fight Lazy Thor/Lazy Daken/ Sentry every match because people can just take their 1 health point characters in for a quick retreat if that is the case. When did this happen again? For a long time now, you've had to actually win a battle for your team to be put in as the defensive team.
Ghast wrote: So when someone attacks me with low true health, do I retaliate against a team with full health or a team with "true health." Also, what about defense teams? Right now teams that you use to retreat or lose a match become your defensive team at full health. This change means that we still get to fight Lazy Thor/Lazy Daken/ Sentry every match because people can just take their 1 health point characters in for a quick retreat if that is the case.
IceIX wrote: One of the intentions with this change is to cut down on things like Prologue Healing, which prolongs play time through something that is pretty obviously just a time intensive process that doesn't involve actual strong gameplay. It's something people do because it's there, much like tanking. It's not something that's fun. It's not something that's enjoyable. It's something that exists and is taken advantage of because of pure efficiency.
ZenBrillig wrote: Another question - in most systems that I've seen with this 'temporary HP' mechanism (which admittedly is mainly MMORPGs and tabletops), you can exceed a character's max HP. Will that be the case here?
Ben Grimm wrote: IceIX wrote: What we intend, and continue to drill in on is that we want players to have a broad mix of characters instead of a Top 3 that is their sole team to play with. In Versus this is a bit rougher of a prospect as players that battle have their last winning team placed on defense. So it's not always the best idea to fight with a less powerful defensive team in order to make up more points. That's something that we're always thinking about. We've discussed allowing players to set a defensive team, but with many other games out with similar versus situations this results in a very precise meta-game where an extremely large percentage of the user base chooses the same defenders. That's not a very fun time for most players.. Ice, I get what you're saying here, but this isn't a good way to do it. I say that as someone with a VERY broad roster - I level my top people together, and that's currently 17 people, all 106th or 107th level, plus six maxed 2*s, and 3 more 3*s at 89 or 102 (plus 2 more getting leveled there). And I try to use everybody. But what this is going to do is just reward people who pay for health packs, either legitimately or illegitimately. An we'll probably see more cheaters. If you want to reward using a diverse roster, REWARD USING A DIVERSE ROSTER. Do something direct, like bonuses for diversity or penalties for lack of it. Don't go about it sideways; this simply won't work. It will make the game pay to win, and people will still be using the same five combinations, except that the top of the charts will be nothing but whales and cheaters, and Patch and Daken will be the new power combo. Otherwise, it'll be exactly the same.
IceIX wrote: What we intend, and continue to drill in on is that we want players to have a broad mix of characters instead of a Top 3 that is their sole team to play with. In Versus this is a bit rougher of a prospect as players that battle have their last winning team placed on defense. So it's not always the best idea to fight with a less powerful defensive team in order to make up more points. That's something that we're always thinking about. We've discussed allowing players to set a defensive team, but with many other games out with similar versus situations this results in a very precise meta-game where an extremely large percentage of the user base chooses the same defenders. That's not a very fun time for most players..
IceIX wrote: However, in Events, we continually buff different characters, and outside of Heroics, still allow for characters to be used that aren't buffed. What we want players to do is to play with the breadth of their roster instead of using Spider-Man or Black Widow as necessary crutches and only building 3 other characters. This change is intended to result in exactly this as players see that they can't just rely on in-battle healing and look for other ways besides spending Health Packs to continue playing. We want you to keep playing on your own schedule. We want you to play with multiple characters. Doing so keeps players on their toes and making them think of character combinations that they wouldn't otherwise go with if they weren't forced out of their single set of heroes.
IceIX wrote: ZenBrillig wrote: Another question - in most systems that I've seen with this 'temporary HP' mechanism (which admittedly is mainly MMORPGs and tabletops), you can exceed a character's max HP. Will that be the case here? The mechanics are there for abilities to overcharge health, yes. With these particular abilities - Spider-Man, Black Widow, and She-Hulk, no. It wouldn't make sense for a breather from combat to put you at 110% health.
Chimaera wrote: IceIX wrote: One of the intentions with this change is to cut down on things like Prologue Healing, which prolongs play time through something that is pretty obviously just a time intensive process that doesn't involve actual strong gameplay. It's something people do because it's there, much like tanking. It's not something that's fun. It's not something that's enjoyable. It's something that exists and is taken advantage of because of pure efficiency. You do understand people who Prologue heal do so because they have to. What you are doing is removing their ability to play. Just like tanking allowed people to not fight oppressive games and allow people to progress, now that is severely messed up. So they are soft locked into playing teams out of their league. I don't want to fight only maxed teams, its not fun, sustainable or even worth my time. So how do you propose for people to play if they cant heal? People don't heal because they want to, they heal because its required. Even though D3 will refuse to do this I will restate it again for probably the 10th time. Let covers fully regenerate all health after every battle, and have health packs revive down characters. That will allow for extended play and only punish people who lose covers in a fight.
gamar wrote: Chimaera wrote: IceIX wrote: One of the intentions with this change is to cut down on things like Prologue Healing, which prolongs play time through something that is pretty obviously just a time intensive process that doesn't involve actual strong gameplay. It's something people do because it's there, much like tanking. It's not something that's fun. It's not something that's enjoyable. It's something that exists and is taken advantage of because of pure efficiency. You do understand people who Prologue heal do so because they have to. What you are doing is removing their ability to play. Just like tanking allowed people to not fight oppressive games and allow people to progress, now that is severely messed up. So they are soft locked into playing teams out of their league. I don't want to fight only maxed teams, its not fun, sustainable or even worth my time. So how do you propose for people to play if they cant heal? People don't heal because they want to, they heal because its required. Even though D3 will refuse to do this I will restate it again for probably the 10th time. Let covers fully regenerate all health after every battle, and have health packs revive down characters. That will allow for extended play and only punish people who lose covers in a fight. Ehh, that would just make Hulk an offensive machine I could see this change working out all right IF max health packs was doubled. If you're spending more than 10 health packs in a push, I'd feel more comfortable telling you pay up or take a break
Ben Grimm wrote: But what this is going to do is just reward people who pay for health packs, either legitimately or illegitimately. An we'll probably see more cheaters. If you want to reward using a diverse roster, REWARD USING A DIVERSE ROSTER. Do something direct, like bonuses for diversity or penalties for lack of it. Don't go about it sideways; this simply won't work. It will make the game pay to win, and people will still be using the same five combinations, except that the top of the charts will be nothing but whales and cheaters, and Patch and Daken will be the new power combo. Otherwise, it'll be exactly the same.
Narkon wrote: IceIX wrote: One of the intentions with this change is to cut down on things like Prologue Healing, which prolongs play time through something that is pretty obviously just a time intensive process that doesn't involve actual strong gameplay. It's something people do because it's there, much like tanking. It's not something that's fun. It's not something that's enjoyable. It's something that exists and is taken advantage of because of pure efficiency. You know, there was a much simpler solution. You could just lock out of the prologue heroes that heal. Just like that we would have no more Prologue healing. I think the intent behing this change is obvious to everyone. It's to promote healing pack sales.
akboyce wrote: Slightly related: Will this change result in increased sell back prices for Spider Man and OBW? I held on to Spider Man last time.... After this? I am starting to regret it....
ZenBrillig wrote: Ben Grimm wrote: But what this is going to do is just reward people who pay for health packs, either legitimately or illegitimately. An we'll probably see more cheaters. If you want to reward using a diverse roster, REWARD USING A DIVERSE ROSTER. Do something direct, like bonuses for diversity or penalties for lack of it. Don't go about it sideways; this simply won't work. It will make the game pay to win, and people will still be using the same five combinations, except that the top of the charts will be nothing but whales and cheaters, and Patch and Daken will be the new power combo. Otherwise, it'll be exactly the same. Side note: I have always wanted to see a developer implement negative feedback loops for powers, i.e., the more something gets used the weaker it gets. Imagine if every time a power got used its cost went up a tiny bit and the strength down a tiny bit, and at the same time every other power's cost went down an even tinier bit and the strength up. In theory such a system, when implemented correctly, would be self-balancing. The biggest downside is that the players would have to be accustomed to not being given fixed numbers for everything because they are always in flux.