A thought on characters, kits and buffs

Hi, folks. Hope all is well.

Haven’t been around much because I truly don’t want to fight on message boards ever again. I don’t even want to be negative on boards anymore, really.

But how this game has been almost all of 2021…I just have to say something.

Guillotine was the final straw, but this is just as much about 2021.

To me — just my opinion — is that Guillotine was already relatively good. Seriously.

The kit was simple enough for anyone to just play. There was enough DPS against characters who bleed, with the built-in understanding that there are better kits against bleed immunes. The regen can be powerful, but it was offset by RNG. I have gone entire fights with barely any healing. It does happen.

Heal reversal is good utility in niche situations. The SP3 hits hard but is worthless without Souls.

All the character truly needed was for Soul collection to last a bit longer as part of the base kit. That could have been done at any time — any time — over the years.

My point: Guillotine wasn’t the elite. But the kit was balanced. It didn’t need a buff or a nerf.

My frustration is that there are still characters so much worse and time was spent on this.

I understand that I don’t own anything in this game. No control.

But we want to play the game and HAVE FUN.

If the answer to seriously flawed characters is to slow-walk improving them, or don’t at all, while doing fake buffs to Nova and Gamora and potential nerfs to Guillotine and Hood…what are we even doing?

While new releases like Super-Skrull and Mangog feel like they are throttled down and aren’t fun?

Is America Chavez fun to play?

Seriously.

Honest, simple question. Is America Chavez fun to play?

Am I quitting the game? No. Absolutely not.

But am I frustrated beyond belief?

YES.

It’s about having fun with these characters and the kits — to me, my opinion, there is nothing more important than the kits.

EVERYTHING FLOWS FROM THE KITS!

Crystal purchases, Arena grinding, resource grinding, content clearing…it all comes from players wanting the characters and kits!

This year has been so frustrating.

Comments

SpideyFunko

I personally find America Chavez fun to play.

She might not have the damage or utility people would like, but she can feel very very smooth at points and flows rather well.

I agree with the sentiment, and it’s always nice to see another thoughtful post from you.

ESF

I personally find America Chavez fun to play.

She might not have the damage or utility people would like, but she can feel very very smooth at points and flows rather well.

I agree with the sentiment, and it’s always nice to see another thoughtful post from you.

Ha! You’re a good dude, Spidey…miss seeing you around.

ESF

I personally find America Chavez fun to play.

She might not have the damage or utility people would like, but she can feel very very smooth at points and flows rather well.

I agree with the sentiment, and it’s always nice to see another thoughtful post from you.
Yeah there’s a difference between fun to play, and having good damage.

Champions being fun to play can be very subjective, for example, I find colossus incredibly boring to play. Parry, heavy, parry, heavy, parry, heavy, sp2, no crits, parry, heavy until death (of the opponent, or yourself). But I know alliance mates and forum members who LOVE playing colossus, throwing those massive heavies and specials to their hearts content.

I’ve messed a little with Chavez, and I think her loop is really fun. Activating all “modes” and cycling specials is super cool to me, it just does almost nothing. She has a utility and damage problem, but a “fun problem” is a little harder to pin on a champion.

I believe any champion is fun, for the right player. Some players don’t need fancy rotations, or mechanics, some are just happy to tap, tap, tap away and KO the opponent. The issue is more relevant when a champion does have much, or any, use.

I do agree with the main point @ESF is making, and while i see the buff program as a huge success overall, there are definitely flaws in some areas that can do with work. It’s not perfect, but it is great in my view.

Certainly, absolutely….your post is totally accurate. It is subjective.

You know I love buffs and the buff program. I do.

The last few months, on top of the new characters this year….it’s been disheartening, for me, at least.

Kerneas

First off, nice to see you back. Always love reading your posts.

Now, I agree with your "troubles" with Guillotine. The buff/nerf is a bit awkward and I like to see when people realise, that not all champs are great, in fact quite a lot of champs are just okay. They have some use and they get stuff done. Guillotine was a perfect example: her damage was good. Not crazy like CGR, with bleeds like Fury, but it was enough to kill enemies reasonably fast. Her regen wasn't as crazy as Wolverine or Venom, but she could get some health back. Her utility was the heal reversal. She filled some gaps in rosters of many players. She wasn't a utility swiss army knife, who'd give key to most things in-game (like CapIW), but she had value.

As much as I like the buff program, I think the "overhaul" part should focus on the absolutely worst ones. Like Ant-man. I am sorry but there is nothing to that champ. Damage is tragic and he has no utility. THAT champ needs some value added because rn he is unplayable. Guilly needed just value increase. Maybe +3% attack for each soul? Or some control over the regen, idk. It'd just put her on a better spot, from good to very good, or even great.

However one thing I would like to disagree with from your post: fun is subjective, and if we look aside from performance of champs, the devs do a great job of making champs who are entertaining imo. Not for all ofc, but for some. A perfect example is Super-Skrull or Mr. Sinister. They don't hit hard, but they look good and have unique kits that some people (in this example myself) enjoy. I like to mess around w Skrull, the bursty SP2 feels nice to throw. And Sinister's debuff pausing is fun for me, it is unique thing. I have fun playing these two, regardless of their mediocre damage output.

You said it all depends on kits. And I think that new champs have interesting and original kits. Ofc there are some patterns that champs follow (parry heavy - Colossus, NT, Prof X, CapIW or "forbidden MLLLL combo" - Prof X, Guardian, CGR). I guess it is about what people expect from the kits to contain.

Ercarret

I have a feeling that the problem is that Kabam started off really strong with the Magnetos, Falcon, Mole Man, Kingpin, Angela and Hulkbuster, and then set up a schedule that didn't allow for that amount of quality to remain consistent going forward.

I also think they maybe shot their effort a bit in the foot by beginning to talk about all of those tiers of buffs. While I think there must be a differentiation between overhauls and the tweaking of existing numbers, I don't think there needed to be a differentiation between moderate buffs and tune-ups. I think it made people confused as to what to expect from buffs (especially when they "tuned up" Angela, which was more like a moderate buff), while also blurring the line for Kabam themselves in terms of what they can tweak in a champion before calling it a day. While some tune-ups have been great (I especially like Masacre's), some have also been too small to register. No one is talking about Nova's buff except as a worst-case scenario for any upcoming buff.

I also think that one additional thing they've really dropped the ball with is to reassure people that their favorite champs are getting buffed. They did it to some extent with Miles but we have a whole roster of the most popular Marvel characters out there that they've not said a word about. It would be nice with a "Yeah, we're planning to overhaul all of the OG Avengers and Spider-Man, even if we don't have any ideas at this very moment and it therefore can take a while" statement. Just something.

Right now, if you pull OG Cap, you just sigh. There's not that "well, at least he'll be getting a buff eventually" relief that you feel when you pull a more mid-tier champ, which feels a bit backward. It should be those champs that you should really feel that way about.

It's a shame because, for the general masses, Hercules or Peni or Kitty don't matter right now. Hercules will kind of begin to matter in a few weeks when people can begin pulling him from the featured 6*s but I don't think the other two will be in those. At least not Kitty. The buffs were the "champion releases" that mattered to the general community who wasn't whaling on cav crystals, since those are the champs we have immediate access to. I honestly didn't care too much when there was a stretch of less-good new champ releases because I couldn't pull them anyway, so whatever. However, when the buffs started taking a hit, that I did feel. Especially taken alongside the other issues in the game.

TheLegend27

Speaking of Mangog and Super-Skrull, did I miss an announcement where Kabam no longer reviews newly released champs after a few months?

I thought it was policy to review a champ's performance some amount of months after they are released. Obviously, that isn't happening. I clearly missed an announcement, so when was that approach abandoned? Or maybe I'm just completely misremembering and that was never a policy?

Regardless of what I may or may not be incorrectly remembering, I think it's a bit ridiculous how little testing seemingly goes into these champs. A mediocre champ that is released today may have to wait years to be tuned correctly - which is rather disappointing. I'm not saying every champ has to be amazing, but the disparity in utility/power between some of the champs being released is quite confusing.

odishika123

Welcome back bro
I agree about the points you made for
Super skrull and mangogs kit
Hopelessly they'll tune them in the near future

I don't have any of them

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BigPoppaCBONE

I wish they would make things easier for themselves with these buffs★. Maybe slide a few proposals out and see what hits. Maybe offer some unique abilities atypical of their class like Blade (with synergy) or Ronan. Some of these changes seem ill-advised change for the sake of a noticeable change.

★Nova: they could've lifted Mordo's heavy charging fury generation entirely and leave him pretty much unchanged otherwise. It fit the criteria perfectly. Does it keep his "essence" intact? Yep. Does it fit in the class structure? Procs buffs and lots, so that's a yep. Addresses the issues that people had? That brings his damage up nicely makes clock-watching less of a thing and gives his cool heavy animation some use.

L_217

To the points made by @BigPoppaCBONE and @ESF , I wholeheartedly agree that the champion buffs alongside the crazy power creep presented in these newer kits make the game frustrating. I feel that champion balance is unfortunately forgone for a "fun and interactive" mechanic that seems fine, but is really a new way to make players feel inadequate. I feel that the original principle behind champions buffs has been degraded to the point where Kabam is afraid to pump out another Magneto. To which I agree, but making a champion "usable" with a buff should not be a status quo. Champion buffs as they first started made a underperforming champion become a standalone champion decent in the grand scheme of the Contest, but made them very excellent in a specific niche. Best example of this coming to light is in Terrax's and Kingpin's buffs.
https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/281964/champion-buff-proposal-taskmaster#latest
As to the proposal ideas, I feel that more premeditated involvement in mapping out what champs are getting buffed and why is an important question that needs to be answered. Proposals like such could be great into understanding what issues with a base kit need to be fixed in a champion.

Polygon

We were told we would get only 2 champs a month buffed to increase the quality of them, yet we received buffs like gamora, thor, and guillotine which hardly feel any more usable than they were.

Even Spider Man Miles Morales buff seems to be lackluster . Sure hes usable, but a part of his kit still feels empty

BuffBeast

Hard agree. For example, the nova and gamora buffs left a sour taste in my mouth. Nova didn’t get a single piece of useful utility and his rotation still confuses me. As for gamora, yikes. Calling it an overhaul truly feels like a crime. “Hey guys, look! She can counter miss!”
“Oh, that’s kinda cool, they added true sense?”
“Nope! You get that after ten buffs!”
You cannot be serious.
They could’ve added so much more, yet they shot themselves in the foot.
And it’s not because they can’t, it’s because they don’t feel like it.
I like to think I don’t constantly hate on kabam, but what the actual hell are we meant to do with these fake ‘buffs’? Venom pool and king groot were recent buffs, yet they turn around the next month and mess up guillotine; The COMMUNITY vote champ. And this doesn’t only apply to ‘buffed’ champs, it goes to lots of this year’s releases as well. They have the ability to make kits interesting and fun. Yet they decide to go back to 2016 and make a buff/champ for that era of the game. Sorry for a rant tone, but it annoys me that 2021 characters are being made as if they were from 5 years ago.

Rockypantherx

I’ve got to agree. As someone who increasingly finds champion kits to be the most interesting part of the game to them, the last 9 months has been...severely lacking, particularly the last couple

To me, a successful champion has to satisfy at least 3 pillars:

- A usable level of damage
- Relevant utility (whether one hyper specific piece or piece or multiple useful pieces)
- The previous two points are practical

Obviously fun should also play a role, but purely in terms of champion effectiveness, I think these are the 3 main pillars for me.

To me, the failed buffs are the ones that fail to address the problems with kits where this is lacking

Guillotine for example. Practical? Check. Usable damage? Maybe a slight bump but it’s far from the worse

The one place I would argue Guillotine lacked was relevant utility. Heal reversal could be a good hyper specific utility, but she’s outclassed by so many champs, and doesn’t even do it particularly well

So what does the buff do? Increase damage significantly. Actually reduce her practicality through a more complicated playstyle. And add no relevant utility (and even remove some through the regen nerf)

It’s these pillars the Nova/Ronin/Gamora buffs failed to address. And I still believe the hood buff was somewhat botched.

And it’s not limited to buffs either. So many new champs this year have failed to measure up as well. I think Spidey 2099 is a good example

Good damage? Potentially
Good utility? Also potentially
Practicality? God awful

And that’s where the champ falls apart. A champ can still be half decent if they fail damage or utility. But practicality is the death of a champ

I’m not even saying every champ needs to be really good. But I do think every champ should be useful in some regard to someone. I’m a really big fan of nimrod for this reason. Good damage, very good utility in the right matchup, and fairly practical. Is he the next warlock or ghost? Absolutely not. But he has his place in the game as a mutant killer, as well as being good in general matchups

I don’t know, maybe I’m talking b*ll*cks, but I just get really frustrated when I know a lot of work has been put in by so many people, from designers, to animators, to bug testers, to graphic design artists, to the marketing team, just to ultimately release or buff a champion that is ultimately going to have no impact on the game. And for the fans of the character who so desperately want them to be good to be disappointed

That’s probably what stings even more for Guillotine, people were more invested in this buff than others

Doesn’t help I really like seeing buff concepts, and I see incredible ideas in them, that are doomed to never make it to the game. Feels like such a missed opportunity

ESF

Thanks so much for keeping the thread civil, everyone — reading all the comments and will try to respond to them this evening. Promise

magnus_xix

I've quite like the new champions. They may not be the best but I certainly think they're fun.

As for the buffs, more specifically the tune ups, they, in recent months have been stinky. Which is a shame since they started off so well. Gamora was an L same with Ronin and Nova but the basis behind Ebony Maw I thought was well thought out. If they made his falter last 1 second longer against all non-science champs instead of just cosmics it would do wonders for his damage output.

Inversely, YJ and CW weren't particularly good buffs but a lot of the overhauls/moderate updates since then have been pretty good imo. Miles, KG, VP, Hood, Bishop, Diablo, War machine, Ultron, OGBP, HTD, Xbones were all worthwhile buffs. Vulture I'm still not too sure on and Guillotine is looking to be another L.

Now that the tune ups have been reduced to 1, hopefully, whoever is in charge of them can go back to making bangers like MM, Terrax, KP, Masacre, Angela and Mr F. I think Guillotine was just blip in the radar for whoever is in charge of the overhauls.

TrashyPanda

No new champ should be mediocre; it's bad for sales, which is bad for all of us. New champs should be good enough to create hype. Not many gonna drop cash on Lady Stilt-Man, the solid B- champion.

On buffed champs, well...

To me, a successful champion has to satisfy at least 3 pillars:

- A usable level of damage
- Relevant utility (whether one hyper specific piece or piece or multiple useful pieces)
- The previous two points are practical

That was eloquently put, and is how I feel the baseline should be. The problem is that it requires an understanding of the meta, which is something I feel Kabam is lacking. By a... bit.

Player outreach is a good idea. What we want, what we need, what we like. Forums are good for that. The CCP is good for that. No sense flying blind when you have so much free labor willing to light the way.

BigPoppaCBONE

Player outreach is a good idea. What we want, what we need, what we like. Forums are good for that. The CCP is good for that. No sense flying blind when you have so much free labor willing to light the way.

I think they actively avoid using novel buff suggestions that they see posted to avoid drama. If I had to guess, that's why we get weirdness stacked on awkward weirdness that no one asked for and doesn't add true value. They should re-use more of the good mechanics they've already created. Mordo's, Hyperion's, Quake's, Mutant synergies, Aegon's, etc. Just change the effects to suit. For that matter, whatever happened to root?

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Chikel

ı had the idead but never wrote in down any of the topics but ıf guillotin's special animations are changed like DD maybe she can have 15hit sp'2 (BİG STRETCH) but its a posibility. if she doesnt there isnt any change to guilly.

actualy with full synergy you can get huge amount of crit and crit dmg so critical bleeds can actualy be better at 30 souls (pre buff) with purgatory synergy rather than flat attack for half of the fight (ofcourse ı dont calculate the exact numbers). ıknow this isnt practical but guilly didnt have any practical use prior .

and yeah for me kits make a champ too. ı actualy sig200 rank 5 nova and ı dont do aw. did ı use him anything other than beating winterssoldier? no. but ı find him fun like taskmaster.

but sometimes a champ is so practical and effective at what it does, even if the kit is boring you actualy enjoy youself. when you beat a mega buffed dormamu with quake or huge degen fest omega with corvus you actualy feel awesome. and quake is so boring. you dont even use more than half of her animations. ı generaly get suprised when ı see her second medium animation.

but a champ needs to be strong to get those kit flow/fun in my opinion. like red goblin , night thrasher and mr fantastic all have an awesome kit and ı like champs in games who have other small objective other than standart throw specific sp's and hit. but they just cant seem to shine.

most fitting example can be taskmaster. he is incredibly fun, feels awesome to succeed with but he is just lacking in dmg and practicality in those utility/playstyle.

ı hope they find better balance with upcoming buffs (highly doubt it, guillotine had nothing to bother with and she still has nothing it seems) and another point considering you sad guillotine was a low priority but she was our choice which makes the problem even worse. this buff had to be good . it was 1.our choice 2.after the 2 buffs per month.

What's with the weird capital "I"?

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Rookiie

My native language is turkish and we use them both. (With some others like ö,ğ,ü,ş,ç) upper or lower case so in my head there isnt any difference in those. dont mind it, simple mistake.
But is that the only thing you want to mention

I picked up on that right away, was like that guy is Turkish for sure, or his keyboard is messed up

Colinwhitworth69

Some buffs have been lacking but most have been excellent IMO.

Shadowstrike

Speaking of Mangog and Super-Skrull, did I miss an announcement where Kabam no longer reviews newly released champs after a few months?

I thought it was policy to review a champ's performance some amount of months after they are released. Obviously, that isn't happening. I clearly missed an announcement, so when was that approach abandoned? Or maybe I'm just completely misremembering and that was never a policy?

Regardless of what I may or may not be incorrectly remembering, I think it's a bit ridiculous how little testing seemingly goes into these champs. A mediocre champ that is released today may have to wait years to be tuned correctly - which is rather disappointing. I'm not saying every champ has to be amazing, but the disparity in utility/power between some of the champs being released is quite confusing.

If you heard the Kabam Broccoli interview, he created Mangog and originally it was declared TOO OP and had to be nerfed before release.

However Broccoli also emphasized that it was necessary for the long term health of the game and after the whole Namor/ Cull tune down debacle, Kabam felt it was easier and safer for them to release a "weak" Champion and buff them up rather than release them as originally designed only for them to be nerfed, causing a subsequent uproar.

pseudosane

I've quite like the new champions. They may not be the best but I certainly think they're fun.

As for the buffs, more specifically the tune ups, they, in recent months have been stinky. Which is a shame since they started off so well. Gamora was an L same with Ronin and Nova but the basis behind Ebony Maw I thought was well thought out. If they made his falter last 1 second longer against all non-science champs instead of just cosmics it would do wonders for his damage output.

Inversely, YJ and CW weren't particularly good buffs but a lot of the overhauls/moderate updates since then have been pretty good imo. Miles, KG, VP, Hood, Bishop, Diablo, War machine, Ultron, OGBP, HTD, Xbones were all worthwhile buffs. Vulture I'm still not too sure on and Guillotine is looking to be another L.

Now that the tune ups have been reduced to 1, hopefully, whoever is in charge of them can go back to making bangers like MM, Terrax, KP, Masacre, Angela and Mr F. I think Guillotine was just blip in the radar for whoever is in charge of the overhauls.

Disagree with YJ being particularly good. I've run a campaign on here trying to show how awesome YJ really is. He is probably one of the best buffs to date.

Diablord

Is America Chavez fun to play?

Seriously.

Honest, simple question. Is America Chavez fun to play?

.

America Chavez may not be a great champ but is really usefull in a lot of matchups.
My go to hyperion counter btw.
Even mangog is not the worst.
Permenant unstoppable makes him not too bad.

Colonaut123

America Chavez has a good kit, but requires some extra tuning of her damage and extra abilities to make her competitive. Purgatory, that's a bigger issue as her soul mechanic is deeply flawed.

The_Sentry06

I really dislike Purgatory's design. A lot of her utility is so-so/niche but her main drawback for me is that if we want to use that utility, we must rely on what the Quest designers thought in terms of placing class matchups. Add to that her very lackluster damage and almost useless regen and she's really one of my least favorite champs released in recent times.