Getting bored

@Scofie said:

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@DAZ0273 said:
Bringing this back round to the OP's complaint which centred on Polaris and Jane, I would again say a solution is to implement in PvP a limit on how many cascades the AI is allowed to have exactly the same as in PvE. That way there is less chance of the "unfair" wipe outs from Jane triggered Polaris cascades. I know they are the reason I will avoid a Polaris team if Jane is attached far more than any other type of Jane team. Just a thought.

In the Winter Soldier PvP, I used ascended 4Juggs5 with Chasm. Polaris occasionally lasted more than two turns but even when Invisible, the AoE damage took her (or the person with Leapfrog) down pretty quickly afterwards. Never got close to losing.

I mean yeah, I Juggernaut'ed everything to death too but I was just trying to get this back on topic which is your job, Mistah!

I haven't seen anyone go off topic and I'm particularly observant.

@Scofie said:

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@DAZ0273 said:

@Scofie said:

@DAZ0273 said:
Bringing this back round to the OP's complaint which centred on Polaris and Jane, I would again say a solution is to implement in PvP a limit on how many cascades the AI is allowed to have exactly the same as in PvE. That way there is less chance of the "unfair" wipe outs from Jane triggered Polaris cascades. I know they are the reason I will avoid a Polaris team if Jane is attached far more than any other type of Jane team. Just a thought.

In the Winter Soldier PvP, I used ascended 4Juggs5 with Chasm. Polaris occasionally lasted more than two turns but even when Invisible, the AoE damage took her (or the person with Leapfrog) down pretty quickly afterwards. Never got close to losing.

I mean yeah, I Juggernaut'ed everything to death too but I was just trying to get this back on topic which is your job, Mistah!

It went off topic?! I saw a wall of ascended Juggs with either Sam or ascended 1Spidey5 or 1Yelena5s. I think each level of playing has its wall of "meta" and they might be different but for some it's boring, for others it's an easy win. Guess it comes down to "what do you find fun about the game?"

So we didn't take a detour into F1 racing then? OK no probs - I guess I am more drunk than I thought!

@Grantosium said:
If pick 3 and pick 2 are stale, restriction breeds creativity so why not a pick 1.5?

1st pick is your essential character, 2nd pick must have a particular affiliation, 3rd pick is free choice. Eg. Pick 1 must be Bucky, pick 2 any Thunderbolts, pick 3 anyone. It gives you space to search for synergy but means you're not seeing Sam/Juggs or Polaris/MThor in that event at all.

Judging by how the time they did the restricted Dark Avengers Boss Event I suspect this would go down like a lead balloon which is a shame as I would play.

@KGB said:

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@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:
The problem with 'year ofs' is that a huge section of the player base is locked out. In a 10 plus year old game even players who've been playing for 5 years might not have anyone meaningful to use in years 1-5 and now that supports are in PvP they can't even use loaners unless they'd also allow loaners to use supports.

KGB

I don't see any difference between this and PvE essentials. In the current PvE, 3* Iron Fist is essential, and he's ancient.

The real problem with roster restricted PvP (or PvE, for that matter!) is that a ton of players don't even know how to play the game unless they're using the handful of most popular characters.

Well in those class of X you could ONLY use characters from that year. That's far different than a PvE where you have to use Fist but you get 2 other character of your choice (unless the suggestion just meant you needed the middle character to be from the year in question which would actually broaden team choices by adding dozens of characters per PvP).

You are not wrong that tons of players don't know or even want to know how to play without their meta characters. But that's part of this games appeal, that 'roster building / collect them all' is a perfectly viable reason to play even if the match 3 part is just an inconvenience for players who play for that reason. Similarly there are players like you who play for the fun of making team combos and crushing people in PvP. In other words they need to keep the game interesting for all types of players.

KGB

The problem is that the things we want are directly in conflict -- there is no way to make both sides happy. The weekly boosts should accomplish this, but the "meta" characters are SO strong, and many of the boosted characters are SO weak, that they often don't do the job.

We're left with a situation where building a narrow roster and using a few of the very best characters always works and always wins, and building a wider roster sometimes works and sometimes wins. One alternative and one perspective is clearly superior.

Well in theory they are supposedly working their way through the list such weak characters and giving them a rebalance so that at least when boosted they are usable. I say 'in theory' because it's a very slow process (currently halted while we await a new engine), much slower than we'd all wish. But lets say they do get through the 30 to 40 worst 4/5 stars to rebalance them so they were at least semi-usable when boosted. At that point things would in theory be fine between the 2 competing factions.

Also the 'always wins' statement need a bit of clarification. Are you meaning 100% of the time meta wins a fight vs the useless boosted characters no matter what you do? Or more like these boosted useless characters only win 75-25 vs the meta instead of the 95-5 that regular characters do when boosted? I'm genuinely asking since obviously I'm not in 550 land to experience it.

KGB

When I say "always wins" I mean leaderboards, generally. If you have a few of the best characters maxed out, and one cover of everyone else, you've got all you need to win everything forever.

In a match, the useless guys at 672 will usually lose on offense to 550 "meta" characters, and will obviously always lose on defense. The non-"meta"-but-not-useless boosted characters will almost always win on offense and almost always lose on defense.

I don't think the Devs care about leader boards, nor should they. In the same way they shouldn't care about defensive wins etc. Those are things players care and worry about when formulating strategies to be on those leader boards.

The only time they'll really care is if it affects revenues.

KGB

Why on earth shouldn't they care about leaderboards??? Every single mode in this game was purpose-built to be competitive. If they don't care about leaderboards why do they give out rewards for placement?

Let me clarify a bit. The provide leader boards and rewards for being on them as incentives for players to play the modes (PvE, PvP, Lightning etc). But they don't care HOW/WHAT strategy / character wise is required for a player to be on the leader board (minus via cheating their set of rules of course).

It's not really much different that how say Formula 1 works (as a sports metaphor). F1 provides the rules just as the Devs have the MPQ rules. The individual race courses are like the various essentials required in PvP in that each one is slightly different. Beyond that, the various teams compete to be on the leader board (for each race and the end of the year - season in MPQ) by building / testing cars and training drivers. But F1 itself doesn't really govern or care what the teams do strategy / driver wise so if a dominant car / strategy etc arises that's something the teams have to deal with, not F1 (again within the legal rules).

My point is the Devs shouldn't care whether or not there are 1-2 dominant teams/strategies or 10. They only care whether players keep playing and revenues keep flowing.

KGB

The comparison doesn't make sense, because the developers create these characters. Imagine F1 themselves made each car, and the drivers could choose which one to run. One car is m'Thor and all the other cars are 5* Hawkeye. How much would fans like that?

The cars are in a way created by F1 because they are regulated as to a whole host of things (way too many to list here). The teams using those regulations create custom cars and pair them with drivers in the same manner we create teams of characters. The essential is the course which is different in each race.

Some teams have vastly more amounts of money (MThor vs Hawkeye) to spend on their cars and drivers. Doesn't seem to affect F1 popularity one bit even though certain drivers and teams dominate for years at a time.

Every single competitive multiplayer game ever has some degree of balance between different strategies. Esports rebalance characters constantly to create a fun metagame. Collectable card games ban. Please find one example of a competitive multiplayer game where the game makers do nothing to promote balance.

Monopoly, Risk. If you want to consider 2 player games you have Chess etc. Essentially board games never change and yet they don't seem to have waned in popularity even if the optimal strategies are well known.

Even in the computer games world, early releases way back in the 90s like Command and Conquer never really changed because there was no realistic way to put out updates.

And yes, my answer is pedantic but you did ask. Sure, many computer games these days change things up regularly. Doesn't mean it's required (See my examples above for games that survive just fine) and since this game is still going after 10 years it would seem they've made the right choices.

I think things are stale at the very highest end of the game for sure because it's been capped for a very long time now (550 has been the cap for what, better part of 6+ years now ever since champions has been introduced) with no place to go once you get there. It's also stale because it's a 10 year old game and how many other 10 year old PC/Mobile games are still going strong? The answer is next to none. Let's see if any of these games making all these changes are still going in 10 years time.

KGB

Monopoly, Risk, and Chess are popular precisely because they are balanced. Imagine playing chess where one opening set of moves is the best, and wins you the game every time no matter what your opponent does. What would the point of that be? There are a million diverse strategies, which is why it's fun. It's not about changing the rules over time if the rules already work.

Those games are absolutely NOT balanced. Not even close. In Chess, Black always moves 2nd so would you be OK always playing Black? In Risk its very well known which continents are key to obtain and which aren't. Same with Monopoly and their properties. The are very limited strategies in each of those games if you are playing competitively.

Instead I'd argue what makes those games fun and successful is because everything is well known and nothing changes. Even though I haven't played a competitive game of Risk or Monopoly in 20 years I could sit down tomorrow and play again knowing that nothing has changed in terms of rules / strategies etc. People LOVE routine and HATE change if even they won't admit to it.

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Command and Conquer was actually quite well balanced for its time. I'm not asking you for examples of games that change, I'm asking for examples of multiplayer, competitive games where the developer or maker makes no effort to balance the metagame between various strategies -- where there is clearly "one best way to win."

League of Legends came out in 2009 and is still going strong. Team Fortress 2 came out in 2007. Magic: the Gathering was first released in 1994. I can keep going. Every competitive multiplayer game does this stuff. Heck, MPQ does this stuff (when they get around to it, anyway).

Yes, MPQ does indeed fix OP stuff and has forever going back to Rags and Sentry Bombing etc. They just did a few weeks ago again with Sidewinder.

But that's OP stuff. There's really no reason to do anything with useless stuff (ie those useless characters you continually advocate for) since there is an infinite amount of new stuff coming out to replace it and it's easy to ignore useless stuff (Steve Fawkner the creator of the original PQ once told me in person that the biggest fear as a designer as OP stuff because it could wreck game but useless stuff could be safely ignored because it didn't matter).

At the moment there are some dominant characters, but no single OP character (or team) like a Bishop / Gambit / Chasm etc so there isn't really any need to do anything. Eventually something new will displace some characters in the current Meta.

Note: The original complaint was about a stale meta and unable to use all characters. That's like complaining in Chess that you can't compete by just randomly moving pieces because you are forced to use well known opening lines (meta teams) or that you can't win in Monopoly by being a railroad tycoon instead of a hotelier. All games require using optimum or close to optimum strategies.

KGB

The stuff about chess etc is honestly so far beyond wrong it's not worth justifying with a response. Popular games have more than one way to win. Tic tac toe is a great example of the sort of game you might prefer -- as long as you're X, you win every single time. Sadly, competitive tic tac toe leagues are difficult to find.

You hate change and love routine. That's ok. If you want to play the same fights, with the same teams, at the same time, every single day for the rest of your life, more power to you! Other players might get bored with that after 10 years.

And again, if the devs are purposely creating useless characters, why are they still given away as rewards? Bagman was removed from tokens because he's a joke character. If 5* Hawkeye or Heimdall are meant to be useless, why are they still in tokens and rewards? Why are they essential in PvE sometimes?

@will7612 said:
Back to basics, any NEWS, TIMELINE regarding the new Engine?????

Being worked on now, first quarter 2025. Please enjoy this Vampire Cow and Emo "Soldier" while you wait.

Supports need to go first in PvP, it just makes the meta that more ridiculous. If you don't have certain meta characters and the exact supports that make turn 0, 1 or 2 kills, it is just not fun. The fact that ascended characters are just broken is the next problem. Why are some 4* just OP when ascended and others are just nerfed to hell? Ascension was a good overall idea, but they way the executed the randomness of each character is terrible.

Never play my wife at Monopoly and let her be the banker, she cheats.

"If you don't like it, just quit"

Player counts and revenues go down

"Wait, not like that!"

One thing is for sure, the game needs NEW PVP and PVE stories, as well as new features all around
Hopefully Unity will provide some of that, I guess we are all betting on that, but......, it has taken longer than expected