How do we feel about the nerf of buffed 3*s

Pylgrim
Pylgrim Posts: 2,296 Chairperson of the Boards
edited February 2016 in MPQ General Discussion
In case some people haven't noticed yet, the R91 update (the one that introduced the champions feature), also introduced a change that decreased the ability values of all "buffed" 2* and 3* characters' abilities by around 20-30% (e.g. level 150 2* Storm's Wind Storm deals 2.5k damage instead of almost 2.9, 290 3* Cyclops's Full Blast deals a maximum of 10k damage instead of 13k.) This change was never mentioned in release notes nor acknowledged afterwards when we pointed it out, so we've been in the dark for a month and a half! Whether it was an intentional change or a bug, the devs have kept silence about it and it's only a handful of us still asking for communication on this matter.

Note that 4*s were not only not affected by this, they were also made stronger at lower levels and now two additional 4*s are buffed in each PVP. Boosted 3*s are the only hope of early 3*-4* transitioners when facing the teams of maxed, buffed, and now, championed 4*s that tend to appear above 700 points, and their nerfing has greatly affected their ability to remain competitive.

David Hi-Fi is attempting to get word from them so I though I'd boost the signal, hopefully showing with this poll how many of us care about this issue, besides the two or three usual lobbyists.
Failed to load the poll.
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Comments

  • fmftint
    fmftint Posts: 3,653 Chairperson of the Boards
    Since I've moved primarily into 4☆ territory, I have to say I'm not happy, but moved on.
  • Redrobot30
    Redrobot30 Posts: 348 Mover and Shaker
    Being told that you will be able to get your characters to higher levels to be able to compete with the higher tiers sounded awesome when they officially announced Champions. Then to see that our characters were now at higher levels but doing lesser damage was not cool at all.
  • Linkster79
    Linkster79 Posts: 1,037 Chairperson of the Boards
    When R91 hit we were asked for feedback regarding the champion system but we're asked for actual data, this proved hard because of the bug regarding boosted characters. Repeatedly some asked if a reduction in match and ability was intentional was a by product of the bug or intentional, repeatedly these request were ignored. The developers would surely have had all factual data if not more that we could have provided so this request was confusing at best, almost as if the forum were being deliberately misled in order to hide this nerf.

    After the fact we find out through our own experiences and some users compiling their own data that some tiers have received a boost while others, predominately the 3* tier received a nerf at max but unchampioned level. Why this lack of communication is baffling, even more so than the decision to make it even harder to transition from the 3* phase to 4*.

    Am I happy about this nerf? No, but I guess I will learn to live with it over time. Am I happy about having confusing communication and some being completely ignored when asked for clarification? Actually I am bloody furious and think that it is a bloody joke. If this was the first time there was a miscommunication or lack thereof I would most likely write it off as one of those things, but it isn't and now seems to be standard operating procedure. Sure some will point to their recent efforts but it is now locking the stable door after the horse has bolted.
  • Pylgrim
    Pylgrim Posts: 2,296 Chairperson of the Boards
    fmftint wrote:
    Since I've moved primarily into 4☆ territory, I have to say I'm not happy, but moved on.

    Yeah I figure that pretty much everybody who chooses this option or the don't care/don't mind are the ones firmly in 4* territory. I'm myself already starting to get there, so every day it will matter less to me. Still, I think it's outrageous that such a big change wasn't announced or acknowledged after discovered. Seems like the laziest attempt at damage control.
  • Infrared
    Infrared Posts: 240 Tile Toppler
    I'm in 4* land so this has made PVP easier for me, being even less likely to get hit by 3* players. However, I do like to use 3* teams in PVE for fun and to control my scaling. This has gotten harder since the nerf.
  • Pinko_McFly
    Pinko_McFly Posts: 282 Mover and Shaker
    Wasn't the 3* nerd initially acknowledged as a bug, then never mentioned again?
  • Linkster79
    Linkster79 Posts: 1,037 Chairperson of the Boards
    Wasn't the 3* nerd initially acknowledged as a bug, then never mentioned again?

    It was mentioned many times, just never by an administrator.
  • Pinko_McFly
    Pinko_McFly Posts: 282 Mover and Shaker
    Linkster79 wrote:
    Wasn't the 3* nerd initially acknowledged as a bug, then never mentioned again?

    It was mentioned many times, just never by an administrator.
    I could have sworn it was acknowledgged by Dave as a bug that could not be fixed until v94 patch (at the earliest), then never mentioned again.
  • Raffoon
    Raffoon Posts: 884
    I was going to click that I was unhappy, but moving on. Then, I saw the last option.

    I'll never pass up a chance to let the developers know how terrible their communication has gotten lately.

    There are still two people whose job it is to interact on the forums still, right?

    Drop by the Marvel Future Fight forums some time. Their community manager can be a bit of a jerk sometimes, but he/she posts around 10-30 times per day ON AVERAGE. I'm talking about a game that's currently sitting 7 spots lower than MPQ in terms of the top grossing list in the Apple App Store
  • DFiPL
    DFiPL Posts: 2,405 Chairperson of the Boards
    I've heard a lot about it, but I haven't noticed a negative change to damage levels of my champions. Although, I've been raising them from 130 to 166 and then championing them all at once; are they doing less damage at 166 than they used to? Because they look stronger than what I've been using.
  • scottee
    scottee Posts: 1,609 Chairperson of the Boards
    I think people are overreacting. But I guess I always think that.

    Previously a level 166 Cyclops was being buffed to level 240. So 240 was the max. But now, you can take Cyclops to level 266, which means when buffed, he'll be over level 340 (not sure if buffs are % based).

    So comparing at level 240, yes, they're weaker. But comparing at their highest attainable levels, it won't even be close.
  • Pylgrim
    Pylgrim Posts: 2,296 Chairperson of the Boards
    Wasn't the 3* nerd initially acknowledged as a bug, then never mentioned again?

    There was a mention of a bug related to buffed characters which was not very well explained, so it was our assumption that this issue was that bug. When the bug was fixed in R93, we realised it was just a small adjustment on the amount of levels granted by a buff and had nothing to do with ability values.
    DFiPL wrote:
    I've heard a lot about it, but I haven't noticed a negative change to damage levels of my champions. Although, I've been raising them from 130 to 166 and then championing them all at once; are they doing less damage at 166 than they used to? Because they look stronger than what I've been using.

    There was no change for characters up to their maximum levels. Decreased values can only be observed in levels beyond their maximum, either via championing or weekly/featured buffs. Obviously, they're far less noticeable at the lower levels because it's easier to remember that level 240 Human Torch used to deal 1k more with Fireball than say, level 180 used to deal 100 or so more.
  • Mawtful
    Mawtful Posts: 1,646 Chairperson of the Boards
    Raffoon wrote:
    There are still two people whose job it is to interact on the forums still, right?

    Actually only one; Hi-Fi is the community manager, for D3, so he's covering MtGPQ and ATPQ as well, and probably Twitter, Facebook, Google+ (that's still a thing, right?), Youtube (do they have a youtube account?), MySpace, Tumblr, LiveJournal, alt.arts.sf.marvel.games.mpq Usenet group, and tend to the carrier pigeons used for offline messaging. So I think he actually manages to stay quite busy.

    IceIX's role was, if I'm not mistaken, Product Manager. That might involve overseeing customer interaction or at least reviewing and reporting feedback, but it doesn't generally require direct, day-to-day interaction. IceIX definitely went above and beyond in that regard. It would see that Cthulhu is sticking to that role a little more traditionally.

    That said, Hi-Fi and Cthulhu represent the publisher, D3, and not the developer, Demiurge. For the most part, I think the developers keep their interaction limited to the almost-monthly dev video. There have been one or two times where Will, Casey and Anthony have all answered questions directly on the forums, but that was a long time ago.

    Now that's out of the way, I also voted for disappointment in the lack of communication. It's verging on amateur. I think what makes it worse is that is used to be decent. Obviously, somewhere along the line, someone said too much once, and once was enough to shut it down. Of course, there was the time that they asked the forums to ask questions and then they got metaphorically crucified when they didn't answer those questions. Possibly we overreacted, but possibly they could have just answered the damn questions. Uh, anyway, I'm starting to get sidetracked.

    This sort of SNAFU absolutely requires an official post acknowledging the situation and some insight into what the next steps are going to be.
    If it was a mistake and the plan is to resolve it, say so. You don't need to commit to a definite end date but "Hey, super sorry about that. Totally a mistake. We're going to work on it. Can't say which release it'll be in, but we'll let you know" would be great.
    If it was on purpose there might have been a few reasons. Maybe it was only half of a set of updates - we've seen a few features rolled out incrementally recently where the first didn't really make sense until the last was finally added. That could have been addressed like "Yep, it was on purpose. Sorry we didn't mention it, that's on us. This was actually only part of a set of updates that we're rolling out and the second part just wasn't ready at the same time. It all makes much more sense when it's all working together, but we don't want to discuss the missing components just yet. We'll keep an eye on things like your scaling and placement as per normal. If it looks like this debuff is hindering too much then we can roll it back until part 2 is ready."

    I honestly get the impression that the lapses in communication here on the forums are indicative of a breakdown of communication either between Demiurge and D3, or internally at Demiurge, or both. If it is a scenario as I outlined above, but the developers don't ever mention that to Hi-Fi then he can't actually lay it all out for us. That's bad.
  • Dauthi
    Dauthi Posts: 995 Critical Contributor
    scottee wrote:
    So comparing at level 240, yes, they're weaker. But comparing at their highest attainable levels, it won't even be close.

    Exactly this. If they kept the original power levels, I believe 3*s would be too strong, or show less significant power changes.

    What it also means is that elder 3* rosters will be as strong as 4* rosters making the transition easier to get to 4*s.

    Here is what the system will look like over time:
    Weakest to Strongest (and means they are fairly equal)

    Elder 2* Champions and Newer 3* Champions
    Elder 3* Champions and Newer 4* Champions
    Elder 4* Champions and Newer 5* Champions
    Elder 5* Champions

    We now have more specific roster types that can equate to each other, which should in theory help the transition by far better than before.
  • RoboDuck
    RoboDuck Posts: 142 Tile Toppler
    Wasn't the 3* nerd initially acknowledged as a bug, then never mentioned again?

    Yes it was & acknowledged by a Dev. Used to be stickied in the Bug forum. Its totally buried now, but can view it here:

    viewtopic.php?f=9&t=37685

    I'm pretty sure they hope we forget & shut up about it. It was supposed to be fixed on this latest patch, but theres been silence on it for a month.
  • Pylgrim
    Pylgrim Posts: 2,296 Chairperson of the Boards
    scottee wrote:
    I think people are overreacting. But I guess I always think that.

    Previously a level 166 Cyclops was being buffed to level 240. So 240 was the max. But now, you can take Cyclops to level 266, which means when buffed, he'll be over level 340 (not sure if buffs are % based).

    So comparing at level 240, yes, they're weaker. But comparing at their highest attainable levels, it won't even be close.

    First, it is not consolation to us that you say that our characters will be strong once we gather a 100 covers of them. Second, as far as I know there are no fully championed 3*s yet but available reports of the highest ones around suggest that they are still nowhere near as powerful as they were pre-nerf. In other words, a level 300 or so 3* is not as strong as a level 240 one used to be. It may well be that they will only become as strong at level 340 (fully championed + buffed) meaning that all that championing did for them was making them a 100 covers weaker. So yeah, no overreaction.
    RoboDuck wrote:
    Wasn't the 3* nerd initially acknowledged as a bug, then never mentioned again?

    Yes it was & acknowledged by a Dev. Used to be stickied in the Bug forum. Its totally buried now, but can view it here:

    viewtopic.php?f=9&t=37685

    I'm pretty sure they hope we forget & shut up about it. It was supposed to be fixed on this latest patch, but theres been silence on it for a month.

    Read what I posted above. The admitted bug was one already resolved regarding the amount of levels given by a buff (e.g. 120 instead of 124 for a featured 3*). It was never this issue.
  • Lukoil
    Lukoil Posts: 266 Mover and Shaker
    RoboDuck wrote:
    Wasn't the 3* nerd initially acknowledged as a bug, then never mentioned again?

    Yes it was & acknowledged by a Dev. Used to be stickied in the Bug forum. Its totally buried now, but can view it here:

    viewtopic.php?f=9&t=37685

    I'm pretty sure they hope we forget & shut up about it. It was supposed to be fixed on this latest patch, but theres been silence on it for a month.
    The bug was not in power of buffed 3*, but in amount of levels the buff gives.
    So the bug was that buffed 3* were given only +x levels(whatever the number was), and now bug is fixed and 3* recieve static + 74 levels.
    The decreased powerlevel wasn't a bug.

    The problem here - i don't fill that buffed 3* are buffed at all....
    IF pink without buff - 4150
    IF pink with buff - 4800
    That is insignificant buff to say the least against 4* with 14k+ HP.
  • _Ryu_
    _Ryu_ Posts: 149
    RoboDuck wrote:
    Wasn't the 3* nerd initially acknowledged as a bug, then never mentioned again?

    Yes it was & acknowledged by a Dev. Used to be stickied in the Bug forum. Its totally buried now, but can view it here:

    viewtopic.php?f=9&t=37685

    I'm pretty sure they hope we forget & shut up about it. It was supposed to be fixed on this latest patch, but theres been silence on it for a month.

    Its like the initial post say, no communication since then is a "no go" in my opinion. In a other post i wrote, i can live with the power change when its been communicated to me/us by d3, but this without any resonse anymore, instead only silence is shabby.

    So here from me to the devs:

    Please give a post with clarification about the power decrease. Was it intentionally, when yes what is the background for it? Was it a bug, when yes whats the timeline to correcting it? To standing there not knowing the "why" gives me a bad tatse in the mouth, this was a huge change in the gameplay even for 4* transitioners because 3* are the working horses and in every event essential.

    Anyone who has a issue with this theme too, please give a noise for the good, bad or neutral. The important thing is that it shouldnt be forgotten until word from d3.
  • SolidQ
    SolidQ Posts: 247 Tile Toppler
    325lvl new = 290 old, so seems 275 new = 240 old icon_rolleyes.gif
  • RoboDuck
    RoboDuck Posts: 142 Tile Toppler
    Pylgrim wrote:
    scottee wrote:
    I think people are overreacting. But I guess I always think that.

    Previously a level 166 Cyclops was being buffed to level 240. So 240 was the max. But now, you can take Cyclops to level 266, which means when buffed, he'll be over level 340 (not sure if buffs are % based).

    So comparing at level 240, yes, they're weaker. But comparing at their highest attainable levels, it won't even be close.

    First, it is not consolation to us that you say that our characters will be strong once we gather a 100 covers of them. Second, as far as I know there are no fully championed 3*s yet but available reports of the highest ones around suggest that they are still nowhere near as powerful as they were pre-nerf. In other words, a level 300 or so 3* is not as strong as a level 240 one used to be. It may well be that they will only become as strong at level 340 (fully championed + buffed) meaning that all that championing did for them was making them a 100 covers weaker. So yeah, no overreaction.
    RoboDuck wrote:
    Wasn't the 3* nerd initially acknowledged as a bug, then never mentioned again?

    Yes it was & acknowledged by a Dev. Used to be stickied in the Bug forum. Its totally buried now, but can view it here:

    viewtopic.php?f=9&t=37685

    I'm pretty sure they hope we forget & shut up about it. It was supposed to be fixed on this latest patch, but theres been silence on it for a month.

    Read what I posted above. The admitted bug was one already resolved regarding the amount of levels given by a buff (e.g. 120 instead of 124 for a featured 3*). It was never this issue.

    Yeah, I'm not following. The link I linked isn't about levels being off, its about the same boosted characters doing drastically different damage the day of the champions patch. Nothing about levels. Its about power.