Counterpoint: Bite the bullet and nerf everyone

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

There have been a lot of changes and conversations about the changes, with regards to 4hor nerf, Ragnarok changes, Buffed Punisher, the PVP experiment, and the ever present “buff, don’t nerf” crowd, and since my viewpoint on it tends to be more contrary to mass opinion than pretty much anybody but Phantron, I figured I’d write a detailed feedback post even if it makes me the forum’s most unpopular poster icon_razz.gif
Note also that this is just my feedback, I figure anything like this has about as much chance of happening as restoring Sentry to his former glory

I see a lot of conversation about how “ridiculously” overpriced Rags’ Green is. Compared to what? Doc Ock’s Green? Gamora’s Green? She-Hulk’s Green? Anything IM40 does?

My problem is that (after the early nerfs) we had a set of 3* characters that presented very interactive battles. Even cMags and Spidey in PVP presented distinct disadvantages because of low HP and the dumb AI. Then LazyThor was released and everything changed. No longer did you have to grab frail GSBW to get that kind of power. And everything now has to get baselined off the new best character, which is a problem not because “there always has to be a best character” but because LThor was SO MUCH MORE “BEST” than everyone else. Can Panther compete with LThor? Is Sentry better? Now battles are even FASTER! Can Human Torch or She-Hulk compete? Not a chance. They’re great characters I’d love to use but they go in the garbage can because EVERYONE has to compete with the “12 AP, then win” characters. Design is severely limited - an 11 AP ability that makes 3-turn CD tiles? That’s an ETERNITY when you can deal over 4500 damage to two enemies and 2000 to a third with 12 AP. Special Tiles? Better be on a passive or you’ll rarely get them out soon enough to affect the battle. And now, we say, the 4*'s must be even BETTER than that or it’s not “fair”!

I think about how much FUN this game would be if Power of Attorney, Furry Friends, Hypersonic Punch were what we could expect to be typical “good” abilities on a 3*. Those abilities are cool, fun, and fairly powerful in terms of the percentage of health they can knock off someone. But who cares when 10-12 AP is all you need to almost completely seal a battle, when characters with 6800 health die to match damage and one ability? There used to be some question, strategy, and risk about when to use a damaged hero and when to use health packs; nowadays most (not all) of that is gone because abilities are so powerful they either don’t activate and you don’t need health packs or they do and that character crippled or dead. (And it goes without saying that without abilities that do 7000 damage on the cheap d3p ought to end level 400 scaling… Wouldn’t it be more fun to use characters at the level of Psylocke and Punisher to whittle down level 250 PvE enemies than have to deal with the tinykitty we face now?)

So why nerf instead of buff? (1) With the best “damage” abilities being so powerful right now, there is almost no place for board manipulation, special tiles, and CD tiles unless they’re INCREDIBLY efficient. That’s kind of lame. (2) Do we really want every character to be LThor, pre-nerf Sentry, 4hor? You think you had a problem with health packs, with one unlucky break resulting in death, with getting hit for -100 BEFORE?

In summary, yes, I’d much rather see all the 3s knocked down to Punisher’s level and the 4s at maybe Nick Fury’s level, instead of all the 4s at “old” 4hor’s level and all the 3s at LThor’s level.

2

I remember someone saying they wanted to be like Blizzard and “make everything OP”. I wonder what happened?

3

I’ll support you!

(Well, until the mob shows up. Then I’m outta here.)

4

Punisher and Fury is taking it a bit far I think: just getting all the 3s to Cage tier and the 4s to somewhere between XF and GT tier seems like the way to go.

5

Nerf the everyone nerfs!

This is a thoughtful post. I think my gut reaction is “nerfing everyone wouldn’t be a positive change”, but it’s definitely something that’s worth pondering, at least in theory…

6

Punisher was always lauded as perfectly balanced when he was released

Then the power creep came and we got Thor/BP/ETC and now punisher is kind of a bitch

Rags’ green would be much more suited for 14 ap if his randomly destroyed column generated AP, especially with his charged tile generation

He’s still pretty crap because of TH

7

While I’m attempting to be thoughtful, Will got a lot of guff a while ago when he said that “a buff to one character is a nerf to everyone else and vice versa” but that kind of makes sense to me…

Ok, if we disregard the psychological effect of having something that is “yours” made weaker, suppose we have Mr Fantastic and Flatman. Mr Fantastic is fantastic, Flatman not so much. So I spend HP or time to build my Mr Fantastic and ignore Flatman

Now d3p says, “Flatman sucks too much, buff him.” Either he (1) fills a different role than Mr Fantastic or is still worse than Mr Fantastic, in which case I don’t care, or (2) he’s now better than Mr Fantastic so I have to build FLATMAN and my Mr Fantastic is now USELESS!

Or d3p could say “Mr Fantastic is too fantastic, nerf him.” Either he (1) fills a different role than Flatman or is still better than Flatman, in which case I don’t care, or (2) he’s now worse than Flatman so I have to build FLATMAN and my Mr Fantastic is now USELESS!

Aside from the period when I’m scrabbling for covers/iso to get back on top I don’t see how the outcome is any different and D3P SHOULD BE OFFERING FREE RESPEC ON CHARACTER CHANGES ANYWAYS DO YOU HEAR ME D3P

I know I’ve talked to bonfire and a few others who don’t think that analogy is apt but I think it all comes out the same, unless we’re talking about nerfing someone to Beast-level so they aren’t even usable in PvE anymore

Sure, realistically I don’t think this kind of thing is viable because in reality the psychological effect/backlash doesn’t turn out to be insignificant for consumers and the distortion of what we “expect” from this game would be really, really freaking severe; but I think the balance between keeping game balance and power creep isn’t as simple as “Make everything OP.” (At least not in a turn-based game of this type where that would eventually just lead to “everyone wins on turn 1 yaaaaay” icon_e_wink.gif
)

8

Compared, very specifically, to Thor’s greenflag.png
and now the newcomers greenflag.png
. Thor because they have similar HP levels, so theorectically their powers should be in line and both have a green AoE. He’s Dark Avengers Thor for Pete’s sake. Compare: Rags 14 AP 6828 damage (with team damage) 487.7 damage per AP, Thor 14 AP 9036 damage 645.4 damage per AP, new girl 6800 health 12 AP 10170 damage 847.5 damage per AP. The argument for Rags being balanced and Thor being an outlier goes out the window with New Girl because her damage per AP is much much higher than Thors, than a 4* even. It’s OMG amazeballs good. Then, if a 10200 health character can have 645.4 damage per AP, and Ragnaroks power has a drawback and Thor’s doesn’t, why the hell does Ragnarok do less damage for the same AP? Less damage needs to cost less AP. Knock off Thor I get does less damage, but kick it down to 10 AP man. At least then it’s functional.

It’s not that “there always has to be a best” it’s that there always WILL be a best, no matter what. No matter how many balance changes you make someone is always better at PvP than everyone else. It’s a fact. When BP came out and before his blackflag.png
nerf it was him, because most characters had 6800 health so 8500 was a lot and he hit like a truck. Then Thor came out and shot that all to hell. PvP is MADE for “12 AP, then win”, it’s quick and dirty back alley fighting. Grab the most points the quickest to win brackets. If you want to use She Hulk you get to use her in PvE. She’s actually not the worst there with CD management, and a half decent AoE. If someone will always be on top, why not let it be XF and Thor? They can (and have) introduce characters that shake up the top slightly, but the only way to oust a top tier is to either nerf them or to power creep the top forward.

And we didn’t say 4s should be better, the Dev’s did. 160% of a 3. It’s the * tier system we have. Also why shouldn’t they be better? They are much harder to obtain and level.

This is a side effect of HP creep. The root of the “problem” is Thor/Sentry coming out with 10200 health, and now Cyclops/Iron Fist at 7650. If HP goes up, then damage goes up to compensate, then you need more HP again, and it’s power creep all over again. There are a TON of 6800 health characters that I feel deserve 7650 health. And a few 8500s that deserve 10200 health. That would go a long way to rebalancing the middle/low end. If their powers didn’t change but their HP class did, they would be stronger because they have the supposed “balanced” powers of a 6800 on a 7650 chassis now.

Not Pre Nerf Sentry. That was too much, thanks to boosting in 12 of his 15 needed AP. Plus he did damage on an unheard of scale, more than Call the Storm even. But yes I want every character to be LThor, and pre-nerf 4Thor. Buff, don’t nerf. Fix the lower HP classes of 3*s, that would allow for SOME board manipulation to be effective. But it’s like every other game out there, the best status effect is dead. Things that kill faster are better than things that kill slower, and always will be.

Instead, if you want board manipulation to be relevant, make it A) CHEAP and 2) very effective. Good examples of this: Cyclops yellowflag.png
, Iron Fist purpleflag.png
, New Girl purpleflag.png
. Bad examples of this: GSBW purpleflag.png
(too expensive), Doc Ock blueflag.png
(Too expensive, not effective). If it’s 12 AP win, and you can disrupt that for 5-7 AP, that’s great. If it costs 11 AP to disrupt you have diverted too much time from your own 12 AP win.

In summary, yes, I’d much rather see all the 3s knocked down to Punisher’s level and the 4s at maybe Nick Fury’s level, instead of all the 4s at “old” 4hor’s level and all the 3s at LThor’s level.

Buffs, not nerfs. I’ll even give you that 4* Thor was too good, but they took it too far. I want the 4* power curve to be XF, and the 3* power curve to be LThor.

9

ki was also looking at Captain Marvels Hypersonic Punch and was suprised to see at max level it only did 2500. it should definetly do around 3-4k seeing as its her only nuke. and the red doesnt do much damage. But i will say she is no where near in the gutter like the likes of Gsbw,storm, doc. She has high Health and a nice 7ap damager and a decent passive. the only problem with her is that all of her abilities are so good at max level that you have to choose.

For maxed red you get 1700 damage for 7 ap
maxed Black is 2500 and 2 turn stun. (i think damage needs a slight increase to maybe 3100?)
Maxed Yellow gives you 5 red and 3 black ap when you take 600 damage. (at max level the activation amount should lower to around 435 imo)

but you can get all 3 you only get 2 out of 3 golds

Squirell girl in my opinion is a solid character. but why does her yellow end the turn. why is purple circumstantial? her green is really fun to use but there should be a side effect if the tile is destroyed such as: If this tile is destroyed before it detonates all other furry friends tiles on board destroys a basic tile. dealing damage and gaining ap.

Yes she hulk is bad. i get it. but a 9ap aoe that does 1500 damage and does a board shake? ill take that anyday of the week!! now if her green ( really wish this got turned to purple) was a damage dealer shed be good.

Drop Kick purpletile.png
10ap
She lunges at her foe delivering a deadly drop kick to there chest. This slows her momentum alowing the enemies allies to retaliate. Deals 2900 damage Creates 1 strenth 35 strike tile for the enemy team for each enemy team member still in battle. ( this abilities alows her blue to be useful if no special tiles on the board )

I WOULD ABSOLUTELY* Love if she had a Passive Called

Objection!: purpletile.png
Passive
She Hulk is always ready to Defend her team! When an enemy Protect tile is created she creates one for the team with 25 percent the strength of the enemies.

Level 2: Activates and Creates Strike Tiles
Level 3: Activates and Creates Attack Tiles
Level 4: Match opponents special tile by 40 percent
Level 5: Matches Opponents Special tile by 60 percent

they could use the same animation as reprieve

but we all no anything cool like this the Devs would never allow

10

What is she, Phoenix Wright?

Really all I think She-Hulk needs is 2 things. 1) Make the damn tiles broken with Power of Attorney do damage to the front guy. Then you’d have an ability that does 1401 AoE, about 656 bonus damage to the front guy, plus it’s cascade potential, that lands it at 540 damage per AP which is pretty good for a 10200 health character AoE that’s that cheap. Could bump up the damage just a tad if you felt like it. 1475 maybe or 1525.

B) Fix Reprieve. She Hulk came out JUST after True Heal. That made her go from “hey a 3* I can heal my guys with, cool, I don’t need that fragile OBW in PvP now” to “what a massive green pile of wasted space”. Basically every healing ability from OBW to Beast needs to be rebalanced due to the change IMO. I don’t know how, but there has to be something you can do with it. Also random AP destruction is random and therefore usually useless. How about “pick a basic tile, change target tile to X strength shield tile (She Hulk Blocks for team, its in the description already), enemy loses X AP of the chosen tile color”. Higher levels could either steal half, or destroy half of a random color, as long as I can get all the AP of a chosen color it’s all good. I’m pretty sure the heal was specifically undervalued because it would be used to prologue heal and or battle heal, 757 group health at 166 is a farce. It’s useless.

11

Are you also going to reduce everyone’s health? Otherwise, I’m just wondering what you envision high-end PvP to look like when each battle takes 15 minutes because your best nuke does 1k damage.

12

Slowing down the game isn’t necessarily a bad thing. People seemed to like the 4hor era more so than Sentry era.

13

Not Gonnna Lie, was totally playing Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 when i thought of these idea ( btw she hulk sucks there too)

but come on. dont even think about the name. The ability is the point i was getting at. Though… Naming it Objection! wouldnt hurt icon_e_biggrin.gif

Totallly agree anyone who has a burst health move needs to be equally as useful as original black widows. god ******* obw is da best even in the burst of health department

14

If the devs don’t want people to have expectations of buffing underused or lame characters then they must make extra gameplay features that encourage the use of those characters. Combinations beside the obvious (Avengers or X-Men) that can unlock reduced AP, extra match damage or extra power damage, boosts to HP or def tiles etc

Law & Order combination: Daredevil / She-Hulk / Captain America / Spider-Man
Heroes for Hire: Luke Cage / Iron Fist / Daredevil / (AKA Jessica Jones)
Defenders: Luke Cage / Iron Fist / Daredevil / (AKA Jessica Jones) / Hawkeye / HULK / (Namor) / (Dr Strange)
Warriors of Asgard: Thor or 4hor / Loki / Ragnarok
Weapon X: XF / Patch / Daken / (X23) / (Sabretooth) / (Lady Deathstrike)
GOTG: Starlord / R&G / Gamora

The list of combination will go on and on and it will make gameplay more interesting as players discover that different combinations unlock different special bonuses or extra abilities. This is just one suggestion. I am quite sure that smart people here can have better suggestions that will improve usage of “weak” characters beside the nonstop call for “buffs”.

15

Excellent points, OP.
In fact overpowered damage dealing abilities hurt the gameplay. It makes other abilities to be meager and removes strategy from the game.
On easy nodes you don’t need to strategize much - they are easy anyway. Your strategic thinking should shine on hard battles. But there is no room for it. On tough battles the only strategy (aside from relying on sheer luck) is boost your nuke power as much as possible and one-shot them as fast as you can. Otherwise they’ll fire their ability first and one-shot you.
Reduce damage dealing abilities and many powers that are now deemed garbage might become quite useful. And that will allow deeper and richer gameplay.

16

OR, we could say that “based on similar HP levels” Rags’s green should be in line with Reprieve, Colossal Punch, and New World Rupture…

That’s… the entire point of my post. Because of LazyThor, we now have New Girl, because everyone has to have Rage of the Panther+ or they’re trash. I don’t want this game to just be “get to Rage of the Panther.” And that’s entirely without discussing how, as you just pointed out, New Girl’s power comes at the cost of 2/3 the amount of Hit Points

My point was that if you can’t tell the difference between “Punisher is the best because he’s better than Human Torch” and “LThor is the best because he’s better than Punisher” I don’t even know what to say

I mentioned Furry Friends in my first post because I was using it to fool around in the Heroic and that ability made me happy when I used it. Incremental AP gain and cascades culminating in a blast of damage was really fun. Tell me how to tweak the AP cost or effect to balance that to be usable but not broken without the common refrain of “well add damage to it until it’s as powerful as Call the Storm.” Or Godlike Power, or Power of Attorney, or any of the “bad” greens from my OP. I just don’t think a game where every single character that is playable is used because they have an ability that says “Do Rage of the Panther with a slightly different completely irrelevant side effect” is interesting.

The question isn’t “why do you suggest my 10-12 AP nukes do 1k damage” it’s “why are the game’s freaking NUKES costed at only 10-12 AP”?

I mentioned in another thread that they seem to obviously have two designers/teams working on this, with the first giving us LazyThor and Deadpool and the second giving us She-Hulk and Rags. I’ve outlined why I don’t like LazyThor “Race to 12 AP” design. What would be wrong with what the “category 2” heroes already have? 8-10 AP should give 2-3k damage worth of damage and effects (in general, with some adjustment depending on the effects and what other abilities/health the character has), 12-14 AP should add one or two thousand damage and/or very significant effect, and true “nuke” abilities that give 6k or more damage or have a backbreaking effect are costed at 16-19. For 4s, they get the health boost, give them abilities with a bit more damage or effectiveness at similar AP costs to the 3s, but they still shouldn’t be able to do 7k damage and outright directly kill a significant number of 3* characters (and “practically” kill many more) for less than 15 AP

17

When fake healing was first introduced I was a little concerned that letting it heal over Max Health could create some really unbalanced situations where Morale Boost or AGD could just make a player fall more and more behind in a tedious battle but after playing with it this long I really don’t think it would. Just don’t cap the health anymore would be a good first step to try out (Reprieve would still be too weak but I think some of the other Fake Heals would actually be usable)

18

But you could still hop fine with her. If you slow down the game as much as was suggested, you’d be lucky to be able to do one battle per hop without getting hit. Doesn’t sound enjoyable.

19

The games nukes only cost 12-14 AP because NO ONE PLAYS IM40 He has never been good. Neva eva. The devs have said when he was designed they thought a good game changing ability could be in the 20 cost range, and then they reversed that position. Now there is just no way. Games must end much much quicker than this. I don’t want to play 15 minutes in 1 match, I want to play 15 minutes in 3-5 matches.

Every character you desire to play is available in PvE. PvE is beatable with basically anyone. Team combos and quirky abilities belong here. PvP is dominated by speed, and it always will be unless they change the format. Buffing rotating characters just means your speed combo may change from match to match. And what’s wrong with a game where fast abilities cost 5-7 and nukes cost 11-14 with some decent strong hit abilities in the 8-10 range?

20

Actually, before Hulk was released he was used quite a bit because of his high health, and the problem with his abilities isn’t that they’re expensive, it’s that they aren’t nukes or game-changers. They cost 20+ AP and do only slightly more damage than 2* abilities costing half that

If unibeam cost 13 AP flat and did 4k-ish damage, Ballistic Salvo cost 20 and did 3k team damage + the targeted stun, and recharge had a base cost of 2 fewer AP, IM40 would make a pretty usable 3*