The time for Buffs is Now

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

There are various balancing threads:

  1. Who should be next in line for balancing? v2.
  2. Upcoming Character Change: Spider-Man (Classic).
  3. Is there a known ETA on the Magneto changes.
  4. Compendium buff suggestions.

A round of buffs is necessary now to elevate the weak characters. Weak characters hurt the game since they don’t get used, which decreases variety in play. They also don’t get leveled, which makes them even weaker.

  1. Loki – see the Buff Loki thread.
  2. Doom, Loki, Ragnarok, Bullseye, 2* Daken – give them a third skill.
  3. BWGS, Daredevil – more health. [EDIT – Removed The Hood]
  4. BP, HT, Psylocke, Spiderman, Hawkeye – allow choice of basic color tile. (EDIT - removed Daredevil, added Hawkeye)
  5. IW, IM40, Bullseye, Moonstone, Bagman, Cap, Yelena – Reduce AP costs of most expensive skills.
  6. IM40 – remove his AP drain.
  7. 2* Captain America – align with 3* Cap.
  8. Daredevil – Return (AP-1) when traps are deactivated. If enemy countdown tiles exist, lowest value +1 when trap is set.
  9. Psylocke – Let her choose a basic color tile, and her drain works on that color.
  10. BWGS – Let Deceptive Tactics convert environment tiles.
  11. Change Magneto’s max yellow tile damage to 10, and his max purple to 52.
  12. For certain weak characters, occasionally allow half cost power promotion and half cost leveling.

To increase team diversity, some character should get color changes. We don’t need any more red/green/yellow characters. Here are some of the best possibilities for color changes:

HOOD – yellow/blue/black → yellow/purple/black
HUMAN TORCH – red/black/green → red/black/yellow
HULK – green/red/black → green/purple/black
WOLVERINE – green/red/yellow → green/red/blue

The Spiderman nerf has caused inclusion in the opponent teams to go from near 90% to almost nonexistent. The greater variety of opponent teams is a good thing, but there were several suggestions would have made Spiderman more fun to play that would have still removed his abusiveness.

I’m not sure what nerf is planned for Magneto, but do this nerf instead: Increase blue cost by 1. Double red costs/damages/effects. This effectively erases the character’s worst abuses, but doesn’t change much about him. This is the nerf everyone is expecting, so may as well do it. A much more severe nerf would remove the character that is most fun to play.

OBW needs some sort of nerf, but make it minor. Increase AP costs for blue/purple by 1.

Another buff could apply to any player with a roster going above some threshhold, such as having 5 level 141 characters. When a roster passes a threshhold, then let them get an automatic +50% buff on all 2* characters and an automatic +100% buff on all 1* characters.

2

I think Hood with any more HP would be a mistake - every turn he survives directly equates with stolen AP. I like him as he is now, he’s a character with clear strengths and weaknesses. I think changing Psylocke’s blue in that fashion might also be too strong, but I’m less certain on that one. And I’m not actually sure Magneto needs a nerf at all, anymore, since the purple fix. Aside from that, though, I’m largely in agreement with you.

3

I’m all for third skills for heroes but mixed opinions on some of the other ideas…

More health on the heroes you listed I can get behind but not much more health, I can just imagine the frustration vs a hood with more health scaled in PvE now… I wouldn’t want him to have more health per level than, say, OBW.

Selection of basic colour tiles for heroes like BP, daredevil etc is IMO a bad idea full stop. It simply makes those heroes far better on offence than defence because the AI will still place them completely randomly while on offence you get the choice. It would also make daredevil go from being of dubious use to completely OP on offence. A 5 red cover ambush is 7.7k damage at 141 and you can guarantee the ai will pop it if there is a red 4 match OR another 4 match that will go through a red tile. If anything I would say that if his trap is destroyed or overwritten it should count as a player match and jump somewhere else and live with the fact he’s useless vs goons.

I can see some small cost reductions being a good idea except cap who’s IMO fine. IM40 drain removal is a good idea though, his skills aren’t good enough to justify the drain, esp the blue when compared to C.Storm’s blue or BP’s black…

2* Cap’s blue making a protect tile like 3* does would be a good change I agree but letting Psylocke pick a colour for Bewilder might be too good because of the potential to feed your specific choice of power, not sure though.

Deceptive tactics change makes sense, magneto damage change also makes sense to me..

Don’t see how colour changes you listed would help diversity. With the exception of Torch those are already popular enough characters, feels like just making what’s already used fit together better rather than adding diversity.

110% agree about C.Mags.

For me you could tweak OBW a couple of ways. You could make AR pop down a, say, 2 turn CD tile to steal like bewilder. You could instead increase the cost of AR by 1-2 points.

Alternatively I guess you could rework espionage to do something other than steal AP which in turn reduce the impact of her other 2 powers by making them a bit harder to get AP for. If still a passive maybe just do damage, or perhaps reduces enemy AP by 1 but doesn’t add it to your total. Otherwise make it an active of some sort…

Nice ideas overall though 8)

4

Being a devils advocate here…

But I think too much buff may be bad for the game, especially for pve.

While characters like Moonstone and Yelena and bullseye are generally cannon fodder. But in pve with scaling, they can be very scary.

If you buff them, they may become very scary.

5
  1. BWGS – Let Deceptive Tactics convert environment tiles.

Regarding Deceptive Tactics, I’d also like to see a buff to the AI’s use of this ability: when the AI picks a random tile to convert to green, all of the other tiles chosen should be adjacent to that tile.

6

Curious that you left out X-Force… In my opinion he is the most in need of a buff. He is a 4*, yet not a single thing about him is 4* worthy. He has super low health, none of his offensive abilities are valuable even at high level, and his healing ability - something that all other wolverines seem to at least be close to having right, is an absolute joke. Buffing X-Force should be #1 on the list.

7

It would certainly be nice to see some characters “funbalanced” up as well as down.
I don’t think simply slicing the cost of the abilities for characters like Yelena and Moonstone or increasing HP of characters like Hood is the way to go. It should be done properly (both for the sake of making them truly useable by players and avoiding turning them into PVE monsters). They probably shouldn’t waste time on the 1* like Yelena, but low-usage 2 and 3* characters should be looked at.

8

OK so, it seems this thread is like 90% the same as my who is next in line for balancing thread, which you have linked and commented on.

I really don’t see the point in this 1. Seems like a dupe to me.

9

More heath for the Hood? heck no. icon_evil.gif

10

Actually, you know what, since apparently when we stop talking about things they think it means we don’t care anymore just ignore my last comment. In fact let’s start up 4-5 more threads across here, suggestions, and character forums. Lol

11

Or just up how many it creates when the ai uses it. +3 green created for when ai uses it puts it at same tile creation level level as thunder strike without any of the damage at the cost of 1 less ap. Still a much worse move but at least not laughable.

I don’t think I’d double the effects along with the cost for c mags red. 10 tiles destroyed for 4 ap seems a bit much.

I’d be all for some color shifting. Have way too much reserve iso that I don’t really feel like spending to level another green/red. Imagine she hulk will be another one.

12

He was promised a buff five months ago, so I figure that one is too obvious to mention.

13

How many have quibbles with the following assignations?

OVERPOWERED: Lazy Thor, OBW

SLIGHTLY OP: C Magneto

BALANCED: Lazy Cap, Lazy Daken, Human Torch, The Hood, The Hulk, Punisher, Patch, Ares, Magneto MN, Storm (Classic), 2* Thor, 2* Wolverine

SLIGHTLY UP: Black Panther, BWGS, Daredevil, IM40, Psylocke, Spider-Man, 2* Cap, 2* Daken, Doctor Doom, Moonstone, IW

UNDERPOWERED: Falcon, Loki, 2* Hawkeye, Bagman, Wolverine X-Force

14

I find it interesting that the only character who can potentially have infinite turns (Cmags) is only slightly OP.

15

I would argue against OBW being overpowered - her health really is quite pitifully low and she is not good for pushing past ~700 in PvP tournaments.

What I would rather see is either the complete removal of healing abilities if it is the dev’s intention that it play no part in the game, or else the introduction of a variety of support heroes so that we are not pigeon-holed into using OBW. Spiderman is somewhat usable in PvE, but I think I take more damage with him than without him in PvP now. The Hood is solid and probably the best balanced of the supports. Falcon looks good, but is not widely available. OBW is mandatory for PVP grinding – but I think this reflects much more on the lack of other options than her being ‘overpowered’. If you took away her purple entirely, she would probably still be used more than Spiderman for the easier heal.

16

LT and OBW are not overpowered.

C Magneto is overpowered.

Black Panther is not underpowered. Psylocke is not underpowered. BWGS is not underpowered. Falcon i snot underpowered.

Also 2* Cap and Daken are both fine, they are 2*s, they aren’t meant to be world beaters.

17

I really agree with this. I’m tired of seeing all these new characters coming out with the same color ability pallet that almost never includes black, purple, and blue ACTIVE and not passive abilities. Forget about adding new characters for now, we have already received enough for the time being and we hardly get any time to use their true form without them being boosted, not giving us enough time to get to know the characters ins and outs without throwing a new character our way. What happened to Black Panther? And Daredevil and the Human Torch? I almost never see them in PvPs and the same thing is happening with Falcon, where the new characters are forgotten because their is a new one right around the corner. Let’s fix the current heroes abilities and I can almost guarantee you that this game will become a lot more fun when their are a greater diversity of teams to fight in PvP rather than the standard teams that almost always consist of OBW, Punisher, LT.

18

Don’t think either Lazy Thor or OBW are OP. Both have definite drawbacks - Thor-slow & OBW- low health.

C Mags - Slightly but only red needs tweaked.

I agree with the balanced list.

I would put Daredevil in the underpowered category. The probability of his powers having an effect seem slightly less than pulling a 3* from a standard token.

I would also put postnerf Spidey in the UP category as well.

19

Magneto is only overpowered when he’s combined with a strike tile artist like Punisher, which is the new fashionable default tandem for PVP among maxed 3* players. Why heal when you don’t have to take any damage at all? With red/yellow, green/black, blue/purple boosts it takes about 4-6 turns to get a 5/5/3 Magneto rolling enough to potentially take out the opposing team without them getting another turn (after strike tiles are out). A simple increase in AP cost (even as little as 1 AP) as the original poster suggested for his red and blue would go a long way to solve the unbalance.

OBW isn’t overpowered, I don’t think. It’s just that every other character who has AP steal sucks and she seems overpowered in comparison. I wish more 2* characters had better utility powers like she does to keep them more viable after transitioning to 3* characters. In fact, I now view 3* Spidey as a 2* caliber character on-par with OBW for pure utility.

Lazy Thor might be slightly overpowered, but it’s not unreasonable. It seems like his abilities make him OP but only because not one of his abilities are sucky like most everyone else in the field. Think about a lot of 3* characters, and most of them have a power you don’t give a crap about: Cap’s yellow, Psylocke’s blue, Hulk’s red, Daredevil’s . I don’t even think Thor’s damage abilities are out of line, it’s just that his health is so tanky in combination. The Human Torch, for example, can throw out even more damage but it’s tempered by the fact that he’s so squishy - which makes him manageable to fight against.

I don’t believe in nerfs. Nerfing is lazy programming. What good games/developers do is buff the rest of the cast up to the level they need to be to compete, which the original poster suggested in most cases. That’s what will add more variety to the game. Like the poster said, nerfing Spider-Man didn’t suddenly force players to start using BP, Daredevil, and Model 40. Instead, we just see more Patch/Punisher & C.Mags, or Lazy Thor & OBW.

20

I was with you up to here. I actually think nerfing can be really healthy, provided A) characters have clearly defined strengths and weaknesses, and b) the strengths are strong enough to feel powerful. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I actually think The Hood is a really well designed character - very low HP and a low-damage skillset in exchange for immense utility. The Hulk is fantastic on defense, kind of a lump on offense. Patch is high risk/high reward. Etc. If you have a large number of champs with this level of power, then nerfing any particular one who gets too strong is much better than buffing everyone. It’s more efficient, less likely to cause unintended consequences, and it keeps the speed of the game about the same. If you buffed all the weaker characters, eventually you end up with a game where matches end earlier and earlier, until there’s hardly any tile matching going on anymore.