5. Best Character Buffs in Year Two:
-63%: Loki
-40%: Dr. Doom
-25%: She Hulk
-17%: Beast
-15%: Daredevil
We had many buffs earlier in the year but then the devs focused on new characters instead. Leading the pack is Loki, giving him a third ability made him a star. The CPU opponent constantly chains together “lucky” match 4-5’s, this gave us a nice counter to steal some AP. Another awesome third ability is Dr. Doom’s, his purple can one-shot many opponents, I hate playing against him because he’s always able to pull off his skills. Next She Hulk went from being unusable to having a nice skill set. Changing her lame Heal to a 6AP Drain was awesome. Her blue took a bit of hit after she was “fixed” shortly after her buff but overall she is a decent 3* now. My personal favorite Beast, he went from being the character no one wants to the character no one will admit they like! The devs fixed his blue with a 1-turn CD and that changed everything! Pair him with SW to watch the team of Beauty & the Beast dominate PVE! Lastly we have Daredevil who went from being nothing but a trap tile guy to having a nice stun, special tile counter and a much better red trap. Overall, I wish the devs continued the character buffs… come on with Ironman and Spidey already for the 100000000th time.
6. Worst Character Nerfs in Year Two:
-56%: Wolverine (X-Force)
-32%: Sentry
-23%: Character who did not receive Health Buff (Loki, Hood, OBW, CStorm, etc)
-21%: Thor (Goddess of Thunder)
-15%: Magneto (Marvel Now)
Every nerf this year came along with huge backlash from the players. It was not because we felt these characters needed nerfs because some characters and moves were OP, the problem is the devs like to over-nerf characters to the point they are pathetic versions of their former selves. Wolverine with more than half the percent of the votes is a perfect example. Yes many players felt his Black gaining AND draining AP was crazy, but he did not need to the over-nerf to his Green damage. Same goes for Sentry who went from having the power of one million exploding suns to just a slight beam of light that barely harms anyone such as Luke Cage who laughs at him when the Green CDs go off and you’re only hitting him for 1-damage. Sentry’s nerf increased the cost of his Green and also increased the self-damage of his yellow. The devs might as well had deleted his character from the game! Over nerfs continued with 4* Thor, whose reason for the nerf was because more new characters were going to have Charge Tiles.. well only Ragnarok gained them and Silver Surfer does not count. These characters need some buffs to bring them back to some glory since everyone is much better than them.
Later in the year, the devs decided to indirectly nerf characters with the health buff to 95% of the characters. When I read that many characters with low health were getting increased health I got excited, only to see it did not include OBW and CStorm (I was a 2-3* transiter at the time). It was a huge slap in the face, and clearly a way to stop players from using Hood, which worked (along with weekly character buffs). While I argued matches would be longer as a result, I became use it and it passed along like every other change. Surprisingly MNMags had more votes than Mystique (14%) and Ragnarok (9%). While MNMags’ purple was great, the devs at least tweaked it so it also made red tiles. Mystique’s was just straight BS! I rarely use her blue now. Rags on the otherhand gained a third power, but unlike Doom and Loki who kept their original skills, his entile moveset to be changed for the worse. I cannot complain because he became much easier in PVE compared to the raging maniac he was before.
7. Best New Character in Year Two:
Best:
-52%: Ironfist
-40%: Luke Care
-39%: Cyclops (Uncanny X-Men)
-34% TIE: Iron-Man (Hulkbuster); Scarlet Witch
-31% TIE: Jean Grey; Blade
Worst:
-0%: Devil Dinosaur
-0%: Vision
-0%: Mr. Fantastic
-1%: Bullseye (Classic)
-1%: Star-Lord
-1%: Sam Wilson (Captain America)
There were more great new characters than lousy characters in my opinion. You cannot argue Hero for Hire team of IF and Cage, and the rest of the T5/6 need no introduction. The same cannot be said for the likes of Devil Dino, Vision, Mr. Fantastic, Bullseye, Star-Lord and Sam Wilson (Captain America). Devil Dino likely received no votes since the only way you can obtain him is during Anniversary plus he’s not nearly as threatening as he was during his first release. Vision is just strange altogether, while his moveset sounds nifty on paper, his actual moves in the game are well.. disappointing. He was such a cool character in Avengers 2, yet he’s joked about as the Dance of MPQ. His CD’s should have been special tiles, and it did not help that the Attack tile exploit that made him decent was taken away as a “fix”. Mr. Fantastic came in to surprisingly complete the Fantastic Four team! Unfortunately he did not come with a purple power so now member of F4 has a purple power, which means their arch-enemy is just sitting there setting traps in a color the F4 members will not touch.. silly? Absolutely. Surprising? Nope.
Bullseye only gained 1%, while I agree he’s not the best new character, I will argue that he is the funnest! I try to find ways for him to kill the opponent so his creepy face can unleash a board full of strikes. He is definitely worth using in easy-mid PVE nodes, paired with Psylocke and BP. Star-Lord came, and many players were irritated he was a 4*. His moveset is unique but nothing super crazy. He’s more annoying than threatening. Same goes for Sam Wilson, we knew he was coming but did anyone really want him? Nah. While he took a bit of his Falcon character and Captain Americas, it is not anything impressive.
8. Favorite PVP (Multiple Character) in Year Two:
-40%: Balance of Power (All Characters buffed to level 270)
-35%: Class of 2015 (2nd Year Characters buffed)
-30%: Combined Arms (Team of 1,2,3 buffed)
-26%: Women of Marvel (Females buffed)
-9%: Earth’s Mightiest (Avengers buffed)
I was originally going to list every single PVP character event but figured that would be annoying to vote for. The Multiple Character PVP’s are normally interesting. Balance of Power is great because it gives most players a chance to achieve higher scores than normal. Class of 2015 was my personal favorite as the team of IF, KK and Gamora wrecked havoc! Combined Arms has not ran in awhile and perhaps will become 2,3,4 if it returns, which could be exciting. Women of Marvel gives the spotlight to the ladies and it only shows we need more female characters (e.g. Rogue, Lady Deathstrike, Wasp). I think we can agree that we need more Multiple Character PVPs like Bald Guys buffed!
9. Favorite PVE in Year Two:
Best:
-37%: Ultron v Avengers
-34%: The Gauntlet
-33%: Growth Industry
-35%: Enemy of the State
-27%: Deadpool v MPQ
Worst:
-1%: Heroics Oscorp
-1%: Heroics Dark Avengers
-2%: Heroics Venom
-2%: Heroics Juggernaut
-2%: The Hunt
The results for the best and worst PVE was not surprising. Ultron grabbed #1 as his event was a true boss battle for MPQ. While it had its share of issues, overall it felt like a puzzle and made me remember of the Original Puzzle Quest. Next up is Gauntlet and Growth Industry. Two events that were non-competitive, you can choose to complete them or not without the stress of fighting for your alliance. We need more of these! Enemy of the State introduced Survivor Nodes and yield alot of tokens, so despite it being a 7-day event, at least you gain some nice rewards for your efforts. Deadpool v MPQ is just fun, normally has some interesting nodes to complete and it’s Deadpool, nuff said. Please note that I did not add Deadpool’s Daily Quest because it would have obviously dominated.
What do you mean you don’t like Heroics? You’re given a limit amount of characters to defeat difficult nodes, isn’t that fun? No, ugh whatever! Maybe one day we’ll gain new PVE events.. one day.
10. Wish List for Year Three
-85%: More ways to earn 4* Characters
-79%: Drop 20 Iso rewards. Let us win the 4/4 first
-71%: Different ways to earn Roster Slots
-67%: New Types of Gameplay (Non-Competitive)
-65%: Buffs to weak characters (e.g. 3* Ironman)
-64%: New PVE Storyline Events
-61%: Tokens-Reduce odds for 2* Characters
-56%: Strong Color Indictator
-56%: More Alliance Team Events (e.g. Galactus Hungers)
-51%: More ways to earn 5* Characters
Originally this question was not on the poll but felt it was necessary and quickly thought of all these wishes off the top of my head… yes it’s alot and I even missed some big ones such as Improving the Vault and +1 level-up button. An astounding 85% want more ways to earn 4*. While the devs have definitely stepped up to giving us more ways to earn them, at the same time they keep releasing new ones. 3*'s are becoming the new 2*, we want 4*'s now in order to stay competitive. I remember how annoying it was being a 2* player trying to earn 3* covers until DDQ came along, now I am in the same boat as a 3* players. Curious to see how the devs continue to address this concern. Next we have the obvious 20 Iso reward… seems like such an easy fix but the devs refuse to improve this. Roster Slots are a growing issue. Earlier in the year the devs stated we would have more ways to earn slots, including pulling them in the vault. Well that never happened and recently the devs admitted slots are their biggest source of revenue. New Types of Gameplay (Non-Competitive) needs to happen. There are too many times that I’m bored with a current PVP/PVE and wish there was something else. Why we can’t have a permanent Gauntlet running for a month is beyond me.
Buffs to weak characters is getting frustrating by now. I feel like the 1* Spidey was a low blow to all the players who begged for a buff for 3* Spidey. New PVE Events has been another major thing we beg about, at this point I would be happy to purchase old PVE events to be added to the prologue to give them revenue to allow the devs to create some new PVEs. Token reduction for 2*'s needs to happen like right now… we’re done pulling Hawkeye, Ares and Moonstone! Time to move 2*'s to standard tokens with higher odds and make the Heroic tokens 3* and above. Strong Color indicator is another obvious ability we should have, yet it’s still a guessing game. More and more characters have skills that target strong color so why can’t this finally be implemented?! Lastly we have more Alliance Team events (e.g. Galactus Hungers) and more ways to earn 5* characters. I’m sure we’ll have more boss battles soon (Apocalypse anyone?) and new ways to earn 5*'s eventually.
Well players, that’s it! Thank you everyone again for participating. I hope you all found this as enjoying as I did. This was fun and I am happy to conduct more polls. Show your support by Thumbs Up or Liking this post. Feel free to message me if you have ideas for a future poll. Happy playing!
Full results: https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-VRHV75JC/
