Season XXXII: Character Rebalances

David [Hi-Fi] Moore
David [Hi-Fi] Moore Posts: 2,872 Site Admin
edited September 2016 in MPQ General Discussion
Hi everyone,

As promised a few days back, in the Character Rebalance Plan post - here's word from Marvel Puzzle Quest Lead Designer, Dave Guskin regarding the first set of updates. Preview screenshots are included.
    "Today is the start of the Versus offseason, and announcement day for character rebalances. First, an update - we’ve reviewed your feedback from last week’s message about our rebalance philosophy, and we’ve heard your concerns about nerfing existing characters. So with this release and for the time being, we’ll focus only on releasing updates to existing characters that increase that character’s power. We’ll be keeping an eye on how the competitive experience develops with these changes. Characters to be updated when Season XXXII starts --
Silver Surfer (Skyrider)

We decreased the cost of Silver Surfer’s expensive powers, added the ability to choose a color for charged tiles created in Perfect Being, increased damage numbers for Cosmic Beam, and added massive damage upon Silver Singularity’s completion.

The Hulk (Totally Awesome)

We added increased damage (with backup tile destruction) to Mastermind Excello, converted See the Math of It into a passive to activate more reliably, and reworked Hot Dog Stand to remove the drawbacks and create Charged tiles rather than convert tiles.

We expect these updated characters to play and feel more powerful, but we may continue to make course corrections to them as needed."

Preview Screenshots (Shots are works-in-progress. Any typos will be corrected before release)

Silver Surfer (Skyrider) (Max Level 450)

Perfect Being (Blue)
Silver_Surfer_Blue_3.jpg
Silver_Surfer_Blue_5.jpg

Cosmic Beam (Red)
Silver_Surfer_Red_3.jpg
Silver_Surfer_Red_5.jpg

Silver Singularity (Black)
Silver_Surfer_Black_3.jpg
Silver_Surfer_Black_5.jpg

***

The Hulk (Totally Awesome) (Max Level 270)

Mastermind Excello (Green)
Awesome_Hulk_Green_3.jpg
Awesome_Hulk_Green_5.jpg

See the Math of It (Blue)
Awesome_Hulk_Blue_3.jpg
Awesome_Hulk_Blue_5.jpg

Hot Dog Stand (Black)
Awesome_Hulk_Black_3.jpg
Awesome_Hulk_Black_5.jpg
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Comments

  • brisashi
    brisashi Posts: 418 Mover and Shaker
    These both look good. Excited to try both out in game.
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited September 2016
    thanks for the update!

    These are great choices for the first two character rebalances.

    SS in particular was a disappointment despite a fairly solid basic design (perhaps because he was one of the first 5*s and his original design couldn't fully anticipate what the 5* tier would become). Target charged tiles is a huge buff. This will turn him into a much better battery. And big damage on singularity will go a long way to make it worth the very high cost, but 8k and change is not massive damage at the 5* tier. That's like 2.5 k at the 4* level. I look forward to seeing reports on his new redesign from 5* players. This is also an exciting change because so many people have him covered fairly well already. It's impact will be large right from the beginning.

    Chulk is harder to review on spec. His initial design was hopelessly compromised, so a a lot of things need to be changed. Passive AP generation should help, and almost anything would have been an improvement on the original black, but green still looks pricey for the damage. Lots of the new 4*s do 10k damage for less ap with fewer conditions/drawbacks. Look forward to seeing this in action too, but it doesn't look top tier on first read. Which isn't necessarily a problem. If the passive works better than expected, be might still be solid.

    Finally, thanks for holding off on some of the rumored 4* and 5* nerfs. They may still prove necessary, but the bad 4*s/5*s are much further from the mean than are the (now fairly deep) top tiers. So let's buff the laggers first then see if the top tiers are still completely dominant (though I am actually not sure that any 4*s are completely dominant right now. Ice and Rulk are probably the best two, and neither sees a lot of action when a good alternative is buffed. Don't have as much experience with the 5*s, but from the outside, OML doesn't look much better in a single match than GG, or IM46 to name a few).

    This is a much better approach!
  • That's a good Cho nerf! Thank you!
  • fmftint
    fmftint Posts: 3,653 Chairperson of the Boards
    "David wrote:
    Moore"]

    First, an update - we’ve reviewed your feedback from last week’s message about our rebalance philosophy, and we’ve heard your concerns about nerfing existing characters. So with this release and for the time being, we’ll focus only on releasing updates to existing characters that increase that character’s power.
    THANK YOU!
  • Entropic
    Entropic Posts: 14 Just Dropped In
    The updates to these characters look like pure win! I'm looking forward to dusting off my SS and actually playing Cho outside of required nodes. Also very glad to see you're starting with power boosts instead of nerfs.

    Between these changes, the iso influx, and the reward structure retooling, you guys are on a roll lately. Thanks!
  • STOPTHIS
    STOPTHIS Posts: 781 Critical Contributor
    That's some damn fine buffing! Thanks!
  • notamutant
    notamutant Posts: 855 Critical Contributor
    Wow TAH might actually be good. He is like a weaker version of Black Bolt now.
  • drayviper32
    drayviper32 Posts: 123 Tile Toppler
    Thanks for the buffs and no nerfs!!! Keeps the majority of us happy!!! icon_e_biggrin.gif
  • waywreth
    waywreth Posts: 303 Mover and Shaker
    These look like great changes! Excited to try them out. hotdog.png for all!
  • zonatahunt
    zonatahunt Posts: 250 Mover and Shaker
    THANK YOU for listening to your player base! These types of decisions are what make loyal and happy customers.
  • danielrandkai
    danielrandkai Posts: 89 Match Maker
    These are very exciting changes. Well done, well done.

    icon_e_biggrin.gif
  • IamTheDanger
    IamTheDanger Posts: 1,093 Chairperson of the Boards
    Once again, my faith is rewarded as Demiurge proves that they do listen to the players.

    Thank you Demi. Keep up the awesome work. icon_e_biggrin.gificon_e_biggrin.gif
  • KinDM
    KinDM Posts: 72 Match Maker
    Something that may want to be considered is that, with quite a few characters only needing slight tweaks to be brought up to"average" (think Psylocke, as compared to Spidey), it may be worth just doing a mass tweaking. If you handle 2 characters a month, then by the time all the current "problem" characters are fixed, there will be another year's worth of problems to rebalance. Since so many characters would just need slight damage/health/stat/effect tweaks, it may be a way to just get it out of the way quickly and less painfully, like tearing off a bandage.
    Oh, and on topic, way to fix TAH. Much better than the old contradictory powers.
  • Pylgrim
    Pylgrim Posts: 2,296 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited September 2016
    KinDM wrote:
    Something that may want to be considered is that, with quite a few characters only needing slight tweaks to be brought up to"average" (think Psylocke, as compared to Spidey), it may be worth just doing a mass tweaking. If you handle 2 characters a month, then by the time all the current "problem" characters are fixed, there will be another year's worth of problems to rebalance. Since so many characters would just need slight damage/health/stat/effect tweaks, it may be a way to just get it out of the way quickly and less painfully, like tearing off a bandage.
    Oh, and on topic, way to fix TAH. Much better than the old contradictory powers.

    My guess is that with the planned "nerfs" there would have been 4-5 characters reworked this end of season and by holding their hand from them at the last minute, there was no time to test more buffs. But yeah, hopefully we see a few more changes in the next iterations.

    As for the Chulk, I'm not sure he's quite there yet. His blue is much better now and black might be useful if it's true heal. However, his green is way too expensive. It compares negatively (though not that much) to 4*clops Red, which is another power with an "upgraded version". For only 10 red, he deals similar "base damage" but by fulfilling its condition (which is easier than Chulk's), he gets almost 2k more damage. Moreover, Cyclops' accelerates to red with his yellow and blue, more reliably/less randomly than Chulk accelerates to green with his blue and black. I know Chulk additionally destroys tiles, but that doesn't seem worth 3 AP and 2k damage.

    I guess I need to try him hands on first, but at the very least, I'm happy they mentioned that they're keeping an eye open and will further improve if necessary.
  • spghttihead
    spghttihead Posts: 74 Match Maker
    I don't have SS well covered but BRAVO! for actually listening to your players. I was hesitant to buy some HP for fear I may be done with this game but this has renewed me.
  • JamesV
    JamesV Posts: 98 Match Maker
    I appreciate taking the buff first, assess mentality. Thanks for taking the board feedback into consideration there. icon_e_smile.gif

    Really curious about how Chulk plays now.
  • MushroomGenius808
    MushroomGenius808 Posts: 138 Tile Toppler
    2ihpfew.png
  • DarthDeVo
    DarthDeVo Posts: 2,176 Chairperson of the Boards
    I don't have either of these characters (I drew Chulk blue once upon a time, but had no space for him on my roster so I sold him), but just wanted to chime in with a kudos for the devs. It sounds like you guys are really listening, which is appreciated. Keep up the good work, and may the potential future nerf hammer be light. icon_e_smile.gif
  • theshadeofopal
    theshadeofopal Posts: 93 Match Maker
    Is black still unmatchable directly and that errata just couldn't fit any more with the end of countdown damage being added? Would be a bit of a lateral move for singularity if it wasn't considering it's only 1 ap cheaper. Pretty happy with surfer otherwise. Cho seems like he'll be an interesting tanky ap generator blue and especially green characters, providing his black heals a bit more than the sub 1000 the buff pics make it seem like.
  • GritsNGravy
    GritsNGravy Posts: 114 Tile Toppler
    These seem like really smart changes, hopefully this will give more variety to the meta.