Some Suggestions When Nerfing

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
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1

Ok, I know, nobody likes the nerf gun. Probably the single biggest suggestion in response to this post will be, “Don’t Nerf!”, but we all know the devs are going to nerf/tweak/re-work characters. We will almost always hate it, unless it really is a significant upgrade (I don’t remember too many people crying because 3* Spidey got a good damage dealing yellow ability). With this latest Mr. F nerf, it got me thinking about how the devs could probably handle nerfs a bit better, and I will use it as an example throughout my suggestions.

  1. Explain why the character is being nerfed. Now this was explained for OMW and Gambit, and I think people realized these guys were overpowered and a nerf was coming. For the Mr. F nerf, there really isn’t any explanation as to why he was changed. Brigby tried to give an explanation, but he doesn’t have all of the data, nor is he really fully aware of what they were thinking when they made the change. This information should be provided in the announcement.

  2. Show some analysis. OML was nerfed because he was on 10% of every team. This is a simple analysis, but it gives data as to why they are making the change. Brigby had given some data on Mr. F (after it was requested), but he doesn’t always have all the statistics to make a compelling argument. The devs do, and they should share that when the change is announced. It really isn’t fair to dump this on Brigby.

  3. Give some explanation as to why character X was changed, but not other characters. There are quite a few characters that people will argue need improvement, and most response to a change will be, “why did they change this guy, when so many others really need help.” Provide this data upfront so Brigby doesn’t have to guess.

  4. Explain what they are thinking the use cases will be for the new changes. The devs do a really good job of explaining new character powers and how they think they will integrate with other team members. They obviously put some thought into which characters will pair well with the new addition. I have to think they do the same when they re-work. To use the Mr. F nerf as an example again, 99% of the people on the forum hated the change. They were used to him being a niche character for teams x/y/z, and were having a difficult time trying to see who he would pair with after the change. I would like to think that there are some un-thought of pairings where the new Mr F would work well, and I really hope the devs had some ideas. If they were to share their thinking upfront, that might soften the blow a little.

  5. If trying to improve usage, err on the side of buff. Unilateral or slight buffs will probably still be seen as a nerf. Again using Mr. F, he was changed from a understood niche character to an unknown niche character. We really won’t know the extent of his nerf/buff until people play him for awhile, but since there was not a clear improvement, people were critical of the ‘nerf’.

  6. Try to keep unique abilities. If a character has a unique set of skills, try to build off of that instead of just giving him a generic ability to improve him. This also goes with keeping/making new powers consistent with the character.

Like i said, we still won’t like the nerf, but it will be a lot easier to deal with if these suggestions are followed. Anyone else have any ideas?

2

They have thought of every single one of these things. If they don’t do it already, it’s because they made the decision not to.

3

From my perspective here’s what I think the answers are:

  1. They clearly explained the Gambit/OML nerfs so they were designed nerfs. Mr F wasn’t explained as a nerf so he wasn’t a designed nerf. As for the reason he was changed, I think the fact it was ‘Fantastic Four Celebration’ time pretty much explains why he was changed. They simply picked the least used member of the team and changed (not nerfed) him.

  2. Analysis is almost pointless. Regardless of what they post you can spin the numbers in any way you want. Post some numbers and I’ll spin them positively or negatively for you. That pretty much happened with the numbers Brigby posted later on usage rates. It also happened during the OML nerf when they talked about his usage rates and players spun that positively or negatively. The Forum would argue forever about any set of numbers and what they mean which means nothing would ever get done.

  3. This would be nice. In Mr F’s case it’s clearly because it was Fantastic Four Celebration time and rather than release a new FF character variant or create a new PvE they just reworked an existing one.

  4. Seriously? Why would they do our work for us? It’s up to the players to figure out how to use character combo’s. It’s not up to the dev’s to spoon feed teams to players. It only takes a few days for this community to figure out teams/ways to use characters.

  5. They probably do think they erred on the side of buff. As you noted, no one knows whether the change is going to make him more or less used until probably a year or more passes. If he’s more used then they were ‘successful’ in their mission even if some players think he was nerfed or that the change was bad.

  6. Absolutely. More unique skills are always welcome.

KGB

4

TL;DR Players already have their own set of truth or reasons that they believe in. The devs could write an essay or a 20-page report filled with charts and statistics explaining why certain characters get buffed or nerfed. At the end of the day, as long as the devs’ explanations don’t fit in with the players’ truth or reasons, it’s going to be refuted with emotional outburst most of the time.

Think about OML. Some players still believe that the reason why OML was nerfed because healthpack sales were affected.

Mr Fantastic was nerfed because they wanted to disrupt Fantastic Bishop infinite stun.

It took them a long time to nerf Gambit because they were not done with milking Gambit.

If any new meta 5* character is nerfed in future, the only reason for the nerf that many will only believes in is because the devs have finished milking that character, and they are moving on to milk other characters.

My idea? Adapt to changes.

5

GrocKitty needs an adjustement…PRONTO!

6

Simple: give Kitty’s Yellow a flat modifier on friendly Strike/Attack/Protect tiles, similar to the modifiers on Punmax, EddieVenom, BSSM.

7

Probably just 4-star Rocket & Groot need an adjustment. For too long they’ve been at the center of the meta. And while they certainly can make MPQ easier/quicker, I’ve always felt that many strike tiles right from a match’s onset (passively) is ridiculously over-powered. There should be an AP cost or qualifying action like Daken’s passive generation.

8

Right there with you. Creating one from the start, like 3* IF, Cage, isnt bad. Creating one or two from certain matches (Daken, 2* Bullseye, 3* Spiderman (friendly matches only)), isnt bad. Creating some from situational events, like Blade’s tiles from excessive reds on board, isnt bad. Creating some when an auto-generated countdown is destroyed, like Medusa, is not bad.

Starting the match with 7 of them? That’s ridiculous. Sure, he cant make more. Sure, that ability is now used. But does it matter? Nope. The damage is done, and it simply makes so many things stronger from the start that it’s very hard to find a reason NOT to use it.

I would suggest an altered version of Medusa’s countdown for this. Lasts 3 or 4 turns. While it’s out, all matches deal an extra # of damage (increased for each GotG on the team). When its destroyed, create two strike tiles of value # (increased for each GotG on the team). This way, you still get the damage buff, but each individual tile cant be altered. Defense teams can still play against it all the same. The only downside is that Kraven will be even more useless than before against this… but he never really saved the day against this anyways, so who cares.

The key is in how much the CD tile does extra. If he made strong strikes, that’s fine – it has a requirement. I think the damage increase for the tile itself should be a bit smaller, though. Let the matches of the CD tile signify Rocket making and giving out something cool for the team to use.

9

Make yellow for Kitty similar to Gambit black…a repeater tile that increase friendly tiles after 2 turns if not matched :problem solved

10

They could also make Kitty’s yellow improve tiles, but every round a bit less. For example from 100% first round, then 90% etc. (Numbers are just an example).

11

Kitty is fine as is. She’s not very fast on her own, and even paired with 5-stars which make strike tiles she’s not too strong, as there’s overlap on active colors and it takes time. But she can still work with many 5-stars and is fun and puzzly to play. Pretty well balanced to me, and again, very fun.

It’s Rocket that’s making the pairing a tad broken.

How to fix Kitty/Rocket without also ruining Rocket’s role with other Guardians of the Galaxy, though? Gamora makes specials too, and SL can steal them. Even Drax can make a tile (that one is mostly a dud), so it looks like teams made of Guardians are meant to use a lot of attacking special tiles.

What if he was reducing the number of strike tiles to below Kitty’s threshold? And/Or, if his tiles would have trouble appearing when Kitty was added to the team? Or if he needed a few turns to create his strikes, but without much trouble at the start of the match? Some easy condition(s) but still delayed execution. Anyway, as an example, something like this:

Different Passive

Welcome to the Team (PASSIVE) - Create (number) friendly strike tiles once during the fight for each of Yellow, Blue, Green (or whatever) matches made as the initial matches on your turn. Stronger tiles paired with other Guardians.

Active/Passive

Welcome to the Team (X Yellow AP) - Remove up to (number) of non purple friendly strike tiles (to a minimum of (number) remaining) and use their combined strength value to improve the strengths of remaining tiles (divided evenly). Add (percentage) more strength when improving tiles for each other Guardian in the team.

(PASSIVE) - Whenever a Guardian makes a match in their strongest color for the team, create (number) friendly strike tiles.

Alternating Passives

Welcome to the Team (PASSIVE) - Whenever a Guardian makes a match in their strongest color for the team, create (number) friendly strike tiles. When there are (number) or more friendly strike tiles in play, this power becomes Frickin’ Guardians of the Galaxy :slight_smile:

Frickin’ Guardians of the Galaxy (PASSIVE) - At the start of the turn, remove up to (number) of non purple friendly strike tiles (to a minimum of (number) remaining) and use their combined strength value to improve the strengths of remaining tiles (divided evenly). Add (percentage) more strength when improving tiles for each other Guardian in the team. If there are fewer than (number) friendly strike tiles in play, this power reverts back to Welcome to the Team.

In case blocking his tile creation with Kitty isn’t needed (if both passive are enough to keep it in check), just change that passive to:

“Whenever you make a match in the strongest color of one of the Guardians in the team…”

12

I think Dazzler is a very good counter to Gritty but she has three issues that keep her from being usable against this team.

  1. You really must have Grocket on your team, which unless she has a higher level than Grocket, for most 4* players that’s not likely, this means she has to tank either Black or Red to get rid of the strike tiles. If you have a maxed 3 star that has black and/or red in PVP she simply becomes a very risky or not an option to counter this team.

2)You have to have Grocket as a teammate. Let’s face it Grocket without a guardian or Kitty is pretty much just a mediocre character, once his strike tiles get inevitably matched away.

3)Kitty punishes you for bringing Grocket into the battle to fight them. This makes you have to take out Kitty first or take the inevitable damage that she’ll hand to you once your Grockets strike tiles have been demolished.

So my solution: try to come up with a character that isn’t reliant upon bringing another character to help mitigate the damage this team can do. Here are a few suggestions that I’ve thought about.

  1. Make a character that either eliminates special tiles passively or maybe even a passive that halves special tiles when that character takes a certain amount of damage when they have x amount of more special tiles than you. This character may also have to have a higher match damage in order to tank colors and take the initial damage.

  2. Make Kraven more useable. His damage and decreasing of special tiles is good but he pretty much brings very little else to the table. Maybe give him a mechanic similar to Mr. F where at a certain amount of AP one of his powers gives more damage or whole team damage if there are more than x amount of special tiles on the board or the other team has x amount of special tiles more than you.

  3. People have said that BSSM is a pretty good counter to this team: so make a 4* character that shares his same mechanic; since it would be extremely difficult for us to gain covers for him in classics.

I think the developers have tried to develop some ok counters to this team but they seemed to have just missed the mark on creating an effective counter.

13

Why is it always Rocket that is broken? He was here long before she was. If Gritty is a problem then Kitty is the one who needs a change.

The easiest change is to simply change her passive so that the full boost on special tiles only works for specials created by 5* characters (her tier) and all specials created by 4* and below characters are only boosted at 1/10 (63 at L450) or 1/5 (126 at L450) the rate. Voila, Gritty is no more (she wouldn’t boost much better than Nico) and yet Kitty remains viable in 5* tier as future 5* special tile creators are released.

KGB

14

Kitty + Rocket are my favorite targets in PvP. They’re not hard to get past if you look past the “meta” and use depth/niche characters in your roster. Not everything has to be Panthos/Thorkoye/Gritty.

15

Hulk+Carol+strike generator is a great grocket counter, with an interesting mechanic. What they need to do is package that into a 2-character combo so it can be used in all PvP.

They could do something else, like make a character that creates a 2-turn countdown on spawn. While this countdown is on the board, all damage is reduced by 75%