Long Post: The Curse of Being First -- Why Iron Man Struggles
Hi, folks! Long post incoming about my experiences with Iron Man as a playable character over the years in various games, including MCoC and now MRoC.
As always, for those who don't want to read all the way to the end, the TL: DR version is this: Iron Man is usually among the first playable characters in Marvel-based games, and his kit is usually among the least powerful characters because developers typically don't scale Iron Man's burst damage and utility very well in early builds. The character almost always starts behind in basically every meta I can recall and usually never catches up, and sadly, we have seen it in both MCoC and now MRoC.
Iron Man has the speed and destructive capacity of a fully armed fighter jet, the raw power of a tank, and the durability and sustainability of a battleship. Repulsor rays and the Uni-Beam punch through stone and metal. Onboard missiles destroy vehicles and tanks. The armor can punch through walls and stone, lift tons of weight. It can withstand high-caliber bullets and explosions, being punched by Thor and the Hulk. That's base stuff; never mind the targeting systems, onboard computing and various other things.
Now, answer this question: Does that sound like any Iron Man you've played in most video games? Especially on the first build?
Now answer this question: Isn't that the description of an Iron Man you WANT to play?
Why is there such a discrepancy -- dating back decades -- between the Iron Man of comics lore and the Iron Man we get in games?
What drove me to write is that if you've played MRoC, Kabam's newest release, you already probably know that the Iron Man kit is...well. The SP1 is...not great. The SP2...literally fires multiple projectiles that might not hit a single thing. While the SP3 is very good, it takes forever to charge and, once used, recharge.
No force field or energy absorption. No stun. No knockback. No AoE (area of effect). No all defense down. No armor break...yep.
That's just Iron Man upon new game release AGAIN -- not only not in the meta, but somehow doing nothing well enough to even come close to being in the meta.
Iron Man in MRoC needs a rework...on Launch Week.
This is not surprising for those of us old people who have played Marvel video games for years and years.
Anyone remember Avengers Alliance? It took basically four uniforms to get an Iron Man that was usable.
Marvel Future Fight? I think he had five uniforms before his Endgame uniform made Iron Man usable.
Marvel Heroes? Basically the same amount of uniforms and rebalances.
OG Iron Man in MCoC? Well. Every single person who has one desperately wants a monstrous rework...because it is basically unplayable.
Even Iron Man IW, while a very solid kit, was the defensive character upon release while Captain America IW hit harder offensively and has significant utility.
But why? Why is that?
Iron Man: Armed like a fighter jet, powerful like a tank, sustainable like a battleship. The pinnacle of military might.
Why doesn't Iron Man ever feel that way?
I think it's because early releases of games try so hard to make everything balanced, they actually eliminate almost every good thing about Iron Man that should make him stand apart.
In early builds of games with leveling systems, yeah, it's ridiculous, but a 3/30 Hawkeye, a 3/30 Thor, a 3/30 Black Widow, and a 3/30 Iron Man all hit almost exactly the same.
No matter what you do, in early builds, the DPS of early character releases is almost exactly the same.
I have called it "The Curse of Being First" for basically 35 years now.
In almost every game, characters like Hyperion, Ghost and Aegon come 12-18 months after the game drops.
Most of us have heard of "power creep" before, because it's real. The only thing worse than being among the first releases in a comic=based video game is not being released at all.
Medusa gets Armor Shatter and multiple furies when awakened. Vision (Aarkus) gets Armor Shatter and immense power gain.
OG Iron Man gets an RNG-based chance to have a short Armor Break and Armor Up.
See what I mean?
So, yeah.
I am hoping that a StarkTech massive overhaul comes to MCoC. I have been hoping that for years, written about it before.
Sadly, I am gonna have to expand my hopes that a StarkTech overhaul in MRoC doesn't take that long.
That's it! Thanks for reading!
