entrailbucket said:This sort of communication is extremely common in competitive games. Magic does it. League of Legends does it. Fortnite does it. It's really hard to find examples of popular games that don't do something like this.
HoundofShadow said: I think players, if they observe and deduce, can estimate when changes occur.As mentioned, the game strives to achieve a state of rock/scissor/paper. Naturally, there will be counters and anti-counters. You should be expecting constant change. But how constant should change be?From 2018 till now, there are 2 meta releases per year. For every meta out there, there are on average 2-3 counters.There are 12 5* released in a year. For those who can catch up, it take them between 1 day to 4 months to fully champ a 5* after new 5* enters LT. As we know, dev also use metrics and players' feedbacks to determine whether they should shake up data. However, there must be enough data to make better decision. From here, we know the minimum period a meta will persist is 3-4 months in order to get the widest feedbacks. Two-three months or two to three seasons of data is reasonable. Your long time whales provide the first trench of dataset, followed by long time players, followed by players who can manage to catchup just in time. If we plot it logically, we would see:Month 1: Meta enters LTMonth 4: Meta leaves LTMonth 5-6: Dev gathers a lot of data and feedbacks. So, they have a brief idea of what counters to create.Month 7-12: creates 2-3 anti-meta counter and observe data again. Then, we probably a new meta or an anti- anti-meta.So, this goes on like a cycle. Due to the constant cycle of counters and anti-counters, it's possible for old meta to be revived.Therefore, I don't think they need to explicitly state that a counter will be created. By the natural law of rock/paper/scissor and the need to have large data, players should expect changes every 6-8 months.
Srheer0 said: "This has been the hardest year as a hoarder as even I have struggled to find reason to break on one poor release after another. "What? Shangchi, wanda and colossus not good enough for you? Saving for 3 metas in a special store or 3 metas in Latest at the same time?
HoundofShadow said: The reason why 2018 was chosen is because in the first years of many games, changes are made frequently. It's logical because the metric and data that dev relies on in the first few years largely come from players' feedbacks. Over time, they would have gathered large amount of data/metric, refined and tweaked those metrics, and fewer changes are expected because things more or less stabilise. In terms of no of nerf, if we compare the first 4 years of nerfs to the last 4 years of nerfs, I believe there are more nerfs from 2014-2017 compared to 2018 to 2021. Players who play from 2014 can verify if what I said is accurate.Since I only started playing in late 2017, I can't break down the entire meta set and I will limit it to only 5* meta play. The first 5* was created in September 2015. In late 2017, the meta was 3* and 5* Gambit. Timeline of 5* meta from late 2017 to 2021, based on imperfect memory:Late 2017Gambit reigns lasted from October 2017 to July 2018 - 9 months reign. Archangel was the first counter release in December 2017 and Cap (IW) was the second counter released in April 2018. Gambit was finally nerfed in July 2018. Because Gambit received strong feedbacks, that probably explains why a counter was also released 2 months later. The next counter happened 4 months later. I think Thor was also part of the Gambit meta later but I can't be sure2018Okoye was released in May 2018 and Kitty in September 2018. After Gambit was nerfed, the meta shifted to more Thorokoye: an offensive glass cannon that doesn't need a counter. The only thing wrong with this meta is that they made pvps boring. I think Hela (released April 2019) was the first 5* to directly counter this meta a little because Thor operates at <50% health and she punishes opponents for having 10 or more green aps.Kitty pops up in September 2018 to create another meta with R4G but she didn't have an edge over Okoye. So, essentially we have 1 + 2 metas. Players were looking for counters but SM(BiB) was already a counter. I think 4* players were more unhappy with Kitty, rather than 5* players since they have Okoye to true heal.Bishop popped in November 2018 and became a 5* meta, who unintentionally killed these two metas but requires a lot of healthpacks.2019Bishop continues his reign of terror until his nerf in September 2020. This is probably the longest reign a controversial "meta" has achieved. Bishop managed to bring out the difference in thinking or grievances between non-5* and 5* players.Non-5* players: Bishop allows them to punch up and they are sick of getting steamrolled by 5* players in pvps. With Bishop, 5* players are afraid of beating them.5* players: they are getting punished for making match-3 and getting stunlocked by Bishop. Bishop made all 5* useless.Meanwhile, Professor X (August released), Worthy Cap (September) and BRB (December released) were released. I often see Professor X paired with America Chavez. I think some players were using him to counter Bishop with success. Then Hawkeye/Worthy Cap meta was created. I think Bishop and Worthy Cap were called the Stunner Bros.2020BRB/Bishop and Hawkeye/Worthy Cap were the common pairs until The Hulk (Immortal) was released on 26 March. I can't remember if Hulkoye was killing these two teams before their nerfs.Then, on 7 May, Apocalypse (Classic) was released with immunity to stun. I can't remember who was paired with Apocalypse often. Probably Kitty or Thor.After Stunner Bros were nerfed, iHulkoye and Kitty BRB reigned supreme in pvps. At this point of time, we have these two as our core metas. This is where 5* meta really have a rock/scissor/paper.Kitty/BRB was eaten by Apocalypse/Thor, who was eaten by iHulkoye, who was eaten by Kitty/BRB.2021Wanda was created in April and killed iHulkoye. She and Colossus formed a new defensive meta until Ultron and Gamora arrives in September/October to counter them. During these six months, Apocalypse + Wanda/Colossus were probably the fastest counters to Wanda/Colossus, before 5* boost week kicks in.With the exception of Bishop , completely dominant 5* meta rarely last more than 1 year. I suppose they were busy with Shards/Mighty Tokens project from late 2019 to mid 2020 and didn't focus too much on Stunner Bros. After they were more or less done with shards, they focused on Stunner Bros.I don't compete for T1 in pvps because I'm not interested in Line coordination and I don't have time to shield hop frequently. Besides, you don't need to be T1 in pvps to know who the meta are. Once you cross 1000-1200 points, the metas show up. And those extensive knowledge comes from experiences of other players who share them in the forum. Also, those top players who lock themselves in Line will come back and post in the forums when they have beefs with the developers. So, that's where you see things from the really top players' experiences.
HoundofShadow said: I haven't seen any of her leaks (I assume datamined infor), so I've no idea how her black look like. Ignorance is bliss?