Phantron wrote: ZenBrillig wrote: Ben Grimm wrote: But what this is going to do is just reward people who pay for health packs, either legitimately or illegitimately. An we'll probably see more cheaters. If you want to reward using a diverse roster, REWARD USING A DIVERSE ROSTER. Do something direct, like bonuses for diversity or penalties for lack of it. Don't go about it sideways; this simply won't work. It will make the game pay to win, and people will still be using the same five combinations, except that the top of the charts will be nothing but whales and cheaters, and Patch and Daken will be the new power combo. Otherwise, it'll be exactly the same. Side note: I have always wanted to see a developer implement negative feedback loops for powers, i.e., the more something gets used the weaker it gets. Imagine if every time a power got used its cost went up a tiny bit and the strength down a tiny bit, and at the same time every other power's cost went down an even tinier bit and the strength up. In theory such a system, when implemented correctly, would be self-balancing. The biggest downside is that the players would have to be accustomed to not being given fixed numbers for everything because they are always in flux. People don't like nerfs so you should instead do it the other way around, that each time someone is not used they get more powerful. If Daredevil gets to a point where he's level 300 (from base 141), someone's going to take a chance with him just because level 300 is such an overwhelming advantage to have.
ZenBrillig wrote: Ben Grimm wrote: But what this is going to do is just reward people who pay for health packs, either legitimately or illegitimately. An we'll probably see more cheaters. If you want to reward using a diverse roster, REWARD USING A DIVERSE ROSTER. Do something direct, like bonuses for diversity or penalties for lack of it. Don't go about it sideways; this simply won't work. It will make the game pay to win, and people will still be using the same five combinations, except that the top of the charts will be nothing but whales and cheaters, and Patch and Daken will be the new power combo. Otherwise, it'll be exactly the same. Side note: I have always wanted to see a developer implement negative feedback loops for powers, i.e., the more something gets used the weaker it gets. Imagine if every time a power got used its cost went up a tiny bit and the strength down a tiny bit, and at the same time every other power's cost went down an even tinier bit and the strength up. In theory such a system, when implemented correctly, would be self-balancing. The biggest downside is that the players would have to be accustomed to not being given fixed numbers for everything because they are always in flux.
Ben Grimm wrote: But what this is going to do is just reward people who pay for health packs, either legitimately or illegitimately. An we'll probably see more cheaters. If you want to reward using a diverse roster, REWARD USING A DIVERSE ROSTER. Do something direct, like bonuses for diversity or penalties for lack of it. Don't go about it sideways; this simply won't work. It will make the game pay to win, and people will still be using the same five combinations, except that the top of the charts will be nothing but whales and cheaters, and Patch and Daken will be the new power combo. Otherwise, it'll be exactly the same.
IceIX wrote: One of the intentions with this change is to cut down on things like Prologue Healing, which prolongs play time through something that is pretty obviously just a time intensive process that doesn't involve actual strong gameplay. It's something people do because it's there, much like tanking. It's not something that's fun. It's not something that's enjoyable. It's something that exists and is taken advantage of because of pure efficiency. What we intend, and continue to drill in on is that we want players to have a broad mix of characters instead of a Top 3 that is their sole team to play with. In Versus this is a bit rougher of a prospect as players that battle have their last winning team placed on defense. So it's not always the best idea to fight with a less powerful defensive team in order to make up more points. That's something that we're always thinking about. We've discussed allowing players to set a defensive team, but with many other games out with similar versus situations this results in a very precise meta-game where an extremely large percentage of the user base chooses the same defenders. That's not a very fun time for most players. However, in Events, we continually buff different characters, and outside of Heroics, still allow for characters to be used that aren't buffed. What we want players to do is to play with the breadth of their roster instead of using Spider-Man or Black Widow as necessary crutches and only building 3 other characters. This change is intended to result in exactly this as players see that they can't just rely on in-battle healing and look for other ways besides spending Health Packs to continue playing. We want you to keep playing on your own schedule. We want you to play with multiple characters. Doing so keeps players on their toes and making them think of character combinations that they wouldn't otherwise go with if they weren't forced out of their single set of heroes.
stephen43084 wrote: Thank you. Regardless if you agree with the changes, the explanation makes great sense. While news and explanations are not requisite to your subscribers, I really think you underestimate the value of such as communication. I know obviously you are in the business of running a game, not a forum site. However, I (we) appreciate when you do take the time (even if its not much) to communicate changes/errors. Thanks again.
Monty Python Flying Circus wrote: Vercotti: Well I had noticed that the lad with the thermo-nuclear device was the Chief Constable for the area. Anyway a week later they came back, said that the cheque had bounced and that I had to see Doug. Interviewer: Doug? Vercotti: Doug (takes a drink) I was terrified of him. Everyone was terrified of Doug. I've seen grown men pull their own heads off rather than see Doug. Even Dinsdale was frightened of Doug. Interviewer: What did he do? Vercotti: He used sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and satire.
IceIX wrote: Phantron wrote: ZenBrillig wrote: Ben Grimm wrote: But what this is going to do is just reward people who pay for health packs, either legitimately or illegitimately. An we'll probably see more cheaters. If you want to reward using a diverse roster, REWARD USING A DIVERSE ROSTER. Do something direct, like bonuses for diversity or penalties for lack of it. Don't go about it sideways; this simply won't work. It will make the game pay to win, and people will still be using the same five combinations, except that the top of the charts will be nothing but whales and cheaters, and Patch and Daken will be the new power combo. Otherwise, it'll be exactly the same. Side note: I have always wanted to see a developer implement negative feedback loops for powers, i.e., the more something gets used the weaker it gets. Imagine if every time a power got used its cost went up a tiny bit and the strength down a tiny bit, and at the same time every other power's cost went down an even tinier bit and the strength up. In theory such a system, when implemented correctly, would be self-balancing. The biggest downside is that the players would have to be accustomed to not being given fixed numbers for everything because they are always in flux. People don't like nerfs so you should instead do it the other way around, that each time someone is not used they get more powerful. If Daredevil gets to a point where he's level 300 (from base 141), someone's going to take a chance with him just because level 300 is such an overwhelming advantage to have. We've discussed doing something very similar, with characters getting more powerful as they "rest". The problem is pretty much what gets outlined above. In PVE Events, it would be an interesting addition, but in Versus it would be fairly well unworkable. Players would either win with a level 150 2* Thor and have a 150 defending (thus only playing with the most rested characters) or they would win with the 150 and have an 85 defending (so that attacking players don't have to rely upon rested characters to get any wins). Characters being buffed per Versus or Event is the go-between that we went with using.
Emeryt wrote: stephen43084 wrote: Thank you. Regardless if you agree with the changes, the explanation makes great sense. While news and explanations are not requisite to your subscribers, I really think you underestimate the value of such as communication. I know obviously you are in the business of running a game, not a forum site. However, I (we) appreciate when you do take the time (even if its not much) to communicate changes/errors. Thanks again. Monty Python Flying Circus wrote: Vercotti: Well I had noticed that the lad with the thermo-nuclear device was the Chief Constable for the area. Anyway a week later they came back, said that the cheque had bounced and that I had to see Doug. Interviewer: Doug? Vercotti: Doug (takes a drink) I was terrified of him. Everyone was terrified of Doug. I've seen grown men pull their own heads off rather than see Doug. Even Dinsdale was frightened of Doug. Interviewer: What did he do? Vercotti: He used sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and satire.
Spoit wrote: I don't see how having a 85 character defending is really any different from your stated intended behavior of switching in your 'B team'?
IceIX wrote: Absolutely not the case. I can definitely understand that the intent is that we're making this change to increase revenue through Health Packs. That's not the case. We do think that some players will buy a couple more Packs off the back of this change for a couple days after it. This is the case with any change, such as a buff to an ability for a character. Users then go out and spend some Hero Points on respeccing. But we don't buff or nerf an ability because we want it to bring in revenue. We do it because we believe it will be in the best long term benefit for the game and for the users.
Phantron wrote: Unless you enjoy playing the game simply for the sake of playing the game, progress in this game is almost always measured relative to your opponent (Heroic Oscorp is the one notable exception I can think of where the best prizes are progression-based). You being able to play less because prologue healing is removed doesn't change your relative positioning to other players with similar capability because they also will be playing less. In the villians only PvP people generally played far fewer games because it's a pain to bring people to prologue to heal, and that didn't stop people with strong characters from doing well, because if you win 6 games versus someone who can only win 5 games before you run out of health packs, that's generally still sufficient to achieve your usual ranking. Frankly all the argument about healing seems to be more about how it gives the player an advantage, except it does not because people who you ought to be competing against will have it too.
Phantron wrote: I'm not too worried about P2W on health packs simply because if you're rich enough to heal at 50 HP a pop, you could just upgrade the covers outright and isn't the covers what we're fighting for in the first place? It you got to spend 1000 HP of health pack to win some cover, is that really saving anything? I'm going to assume a guy who can afford to do this isn't going to have problem winning his first cover and surely it's easier to just shell out 1250 HP than buying a bunch of health packs and still have no guaranteed you'll win?
IceIX wrote: We've discussed doing something very similar, with characters getting more powerful as they "rest". The problem is pretty much what gets outlined above. In PVE Events, it would be an interesting addition, but in Versus it would be fairly well unworkable. Players would either win with a level 150 2* Thor and have a 150 defending (thus only playing with the most rested characters) or they would win with the 150 and have an 85 defending (so that attacking players don't have to rely upon rested characters to get any wins). Characters being buffed per Versus or Event is the go-between that we went with using.
Vairelome wrote: Good PR required credibility. Given how thoroughly your team has worked to squander its reputation--despite the extensive feedback--why should we believe you *aren't* "listening to the metrics" this time? If D3/Demiurge actually cared about user experience, communication would become a vastly higher priority--way above new content, for instance--and you'd completely eliminate undocumented ninja changes to how the game works midway through events.
gamar wrote: I honestly don't think this is a cash grab - prologue healing IS a really terrible mechanic and it's terrible that the way the game works forces it on us. I think d3p was thinking kind of like Phantron: Phantron wrote: Unless you enjoy playing the game simply for the sake of playing the game, progress in this game is almost always measured relative to your opponent (Heroic Oscorp is the one notable exception I can think of where the best prizes are progression-based). You being able to play less because prologue healing is removed doesn't change your relative positioning to other players with similar capability because they also will be playing less. In the villians only PvP people generally played far fewer games because it's a pain to bring people to prologue to heal, and that didn't stop people with strong characters from doing well, because if you win 6 games versus someone who can only win 5 games before you run out of health packs, that's generally still sufficient to achieve your usual ranking. Frankly all the argument about healing seems to be more about how it gives the player an advantage, except it does not because people who you ought to be competing against will have it too. Phantron wrote: I'm not too worried about P2W on health packs simply because if you're rich enough to heal at 50 HP a pop, you could just upgrade the covers outright and isn't the covers what we're fighting for in the first place? It you got to spend 1000 HP of health pack to win some cover, is that really saving anything? I'm going to assume a guy who can afford to do this isn't going to have problem winning his first cover and surely it's easier to just shell out 1250 HP than buying a bunch of health packs and still have no guaranteed you'll win? Unfortunately, this change 1) makes worse the "play on OUR schedule, not yours" problems with the game - would you rather play for 2 hours once instead of a half hour four times a day? Tough tinykitty! 2) doesn't account for the way a level 300 PvE team will all but shut you out of placing in an event now