An Update to Balancing in MCOC!

ESF

Honestly? From where I sit?

Hardly any of us understand why the clearly weakest characters in this game haven’t been buffed when they are still available at higher rarities.

None of us understand why we get Captain Marvel (Classic) as a six-star. If the character was designed very early in the game and tuned for 2/3/4-star content — which the kit was — ok, fine.

But if you keep giving people these characters — the Iron Men/Patriots, Agent Venom, Captain Marvel (Classic), etc. — at 5/6 stars….none of us understand why this happens when these characters clearly need to be buffed, but the buffs never come.

None of us understand this. Ratings systems and cadences mean absolutely nothing to people who pull Agent Venom.

It would be nice if someone would explain to us why the characters we pull in crystals, who we all know are simply incapable of clearing tough content, are still offered at high rarities but are not of the utmost importance of being adjusted

Hopper13131

Oh, I see what's going to happen. Release a champion that accidently ends up stronger than intended on release, then players will flock for preview bundles, and then the champion ends up being nerfed. That's not going to go well at all, Kabam. I understand that it's an evidence-based balance if they're stronger than intended, but that's a really awful way to go about this. Players are going to spend real money because they see how strong a champion is, and then they are going to be outraged when that champion is nerfed. These things should be worked out before release, otherwise you're going to mislead the entire player base into thinking a champion is strong and then 6 months later, nerf them. This will make the player base lose confidence in purchasing bundles when a champion looks powerful. There's no way to know how powerful you (Kabam) intends them to be.

I have always bought preview bundles, but I am not taking that risk in the future.

I'm VERY happy to see buffs coming to champions that need it. But I can't get behind nerfs. When players spend real money, real time, and in-game resources ranking up strong champions that are nerfed later, you're just going to upset the player base. If I spend a years worth of saving up T6B and T5C to take a strong 6* champion to R4 and then they just get nerfed, I don't think I'll have it in me to continue playing. That's thousands of dollars, and thousands of hours of playing, being dumped into ranking up a strong champion. Champion nerfs don't generally benefit the player base, but they do benefit Kabam. We can only hope you're going to do this the right way, despite having an awful history with nerfs.

Cap366

I’m optimistic but I wish they kept their 2 buffs per month. They went from 4 to 3 to 2 and now buffs every other month. That’s terrible. There are still so many buffs needed and now they’re going to take their sweet time to pump out mediocre buffs. They thought that guillys buff was a good buff.

Also the game is so dry and stale right now. Without the 2 buffs per month it’s going to be even worse. I feel as though this new system is too long term and they should’ve kept steady buffs every month.

Stuch

You mentioned that champion abilities will be scored on a few categories out of five. Is there sum total score out of 20 that you aim to hit and view as balanced?

Heterminus

I'm sure this vision will change in 3 months, as it has been in every communication about the buffs

AviX

Kabam is focusing more on new champions with added uncertainty. Better not to go for new champ and invest resources. As they would still sell new champ through preview bundles.
I still have doubts, if I get a new champ which is able to clear all the contents with ease, but 6 months later this champ is nerferd. Summoner who newly acquired this champ post nerf would find it hard to clear the same content with same champ. Instead of balance act it would be in-balance act.

Really, disappointing to see buff program is on back seat instead on driving seat. I knew its going to happen when they kept changing the buff prog no. from 4->3->2->0. Kabam dont stick to their promises. All are in paper to make community happy and nothing gets implemented.

Pin_the_AvengerPGT17

Wozzle007 said:

So here’s my list of champions that are pretty useless in the game. There’s more that would ideally need a buff as well, but I have no idea why the focus is not on buffing these as quickly as possible. Then we’d start to see some balance to the game.

Abomination, Captain America, Captain America WW2, Ant Man, Hulk, Rhino, Sentry, Spider-Man, Agent Venom, Black Widow, Daredevil, Elektra, Korg, Moon Knight, Punisher, Winter Soldier, Beast, Cyclops Blue, Cyclops Red, Deadpool X Force, Nightcrawler, Storm, Iron Patriot (still trash for me), Green Goblin, Iron Man, Iron Patriot, Psycho Man (confirmed value buff), Red Skull, Rocket, Yondu, Black Bolt, Captain Marvel, Drax, Gamora (still trash for me), Groot, Heimdall, Ms Marvell, Nova (still trash for me), Phoenix, Ronan, Spider-Man Symbiote, Superior Iron Man, Thor, Dr Strange, Iron Fist, Immortal Iron Fist, Juggernaut, Loki, Mordo, Jane Foster, Unstoppable Colossus

Did you mean to say Civil Warrior when you wrote ‘Iron Patriot (still trash for me)’?

Superchampion_

I really hope this gets back to the game team. This idea is not good. We don't need a rating system, we don't need nerfs and we don't need to tweak champs who aren't in the basic pool. Maybe if we scream loud enough, they will listen. I doubt it though.

Kels_444

This is a pointless cover. Half of the stuff mentioned is useless to summoner and will make no difference in the game or gameplay.
Instead here's a thought.

We've been dealing with control issues for months with no hope in sight. Alliance wars haven't been working properly as well. How bout fixing that stuff first and foremost then work on some of the less desirable champs that could use some help in the game.

We don't need a stupid rating system of champs. As a community we generally do our own form of rating so that we don't get scammed by kabam releases. The new champs will never perform like they do as eq bosses so we just read past to see what they actually do.

Here's another thought how bout removing 3* champs from some crystals for being throne breaker. I didn't bust out a pile to continue getting crappy 3* pulls and im sure anyone else that's in this position would agree.

I'm sure there will be piles of help and availability once mroc shuts down.

Scopeotoe987

Nerfs went horribly last time. If people don’t feel safe getting new champs and upgrading champs in general in fear of nerfs, where’s the enjoyment out of that?

Bigbowlr

My main question. If I take a champion to r3/4 as a 6* or r5 as a 5* and it's determined that they're too powerful and get tuned down. Are we gonna get the ever elusive and always glorious rank down tickets. Not generic ones but specific to the champs like you did with Namor and Carl O'Cinnamon?

GHOST12339

BeroMan said:

So now we will have some official "Tier List" of champions or what? If so That sounds a bit boring and primitive. Let the community and players judge the champions and their place in the game without giving some "official" hierarchy between them. Also, all these essay sounds like a justification to slow down the champions buffing process... That buff thing was one of the most exciting things in the game now that also slowed down apparently.

My biggest concern is how often the champion spotlights don't really high light a champions strengths. To me it's pretty clear that kabam doesn't recognize the potential of champs that are released or assume they're more effective than they actually are... This new rating system seems kind of... Idk. Worthless.

Wozzle007

Pin_the_AvengerPGT17 said:

Wozzle007 said:

So here’s my list of champions that are pretty useless in the game. There’s more that would ideally need a buff as well, but I have no idea why the focus is not on buffing these as quickly as possible. Then we’d start to see some balance to the game.

Abomination, Captain America, Captain America WW2, Ant Man, Hulk, Rhino, Sentry, Spider-Man, Agent Venom, Black Widow, Daredevil, Elektra, Korg, Moon Knight, Punisher, Winter Soldier, Beast, Cyclops Blue, Cyclops Red, Deadpool X Force, Nightcrawler, Storm, Iron Patriot (still trash for me), Green Goblin, Iron Man, Iron Patriot, Psycho Man (confirmed value buff), Red Skull, Rocket, Yondu, Black Bolt, Captain Marvel, Drax, Gamora (still trash for me), Groot, Heimdall, Ms Marvell, Nova (still trash for me), Phoenix, Ronan, Spider-Man Symbiote, Superior Iron Man, Thor, Dr Strange, Iron Fist, Immortal Iron Fist, Juggernaut, Loki, Mordo, Jane Foster, Unstoppable Colossus

Did you mean to say Civil Warrior when you wrote ‘Iron Patriot (still trash for me)’?

Ah good catch. Looks like I added in Iron Patriot twice. The first one should have been Civil Warrior. I actually chose from a 6* Nexus Civil Warrior prior to his buff being announced. The other choices were awful so thought I go for him in the hope he’d get a good buff. He did not.

ctl131

DrDrill said:

So from 4 reworks/month to 2 reworks/month to 1 rework/month
and you still haven't updated a single OG champ (significantly) (OG Spiderman/Superior Iron man/ Iron man/ ALL of the Guardians of galaxy - poor Groot-) and you have no plans to update them anytime soon from the look of it in the near future...

You're right, but everyone already has the OGs. No money to be made buffing champs already available in most summoner's rosters...

Drake2078

Who came up with this needs to be sat in the corner of your office while wearing a large cone hat

Hopper13131

For a company on thin ice with the community for the past year, has been losing money, and just cancelled an entire game, you actually couldn't have picked a worse time to bring up nerfing champions. It's impressive how off the mark that is right now.

Drake2078

Does have anything to do with Kabam's new CEO?

BigPoppaCBONE

So much wasted energy. I call shens that people use Namor or Cull as much as they did before their nerfs. The only reason people call them in off the bench anymore is because the nerfs didn't totally break them, just made them worse overall, Namor still 100% reflects bs damage and Cull still stacks a ton of useful-strength easy to apply armor breaks even though his damage is worse. How often do those situations occur though? Every 6 months? Maybe?

Unless you're keeping it 100% real and giving out a ton of 0 - 1 scores, the rating system is a waste of time. What new player is going to use either Cyclops with a cumulative 1.3? At least now they might accidentally use one of the champs they've heard of before but don't yet know that they suck compared to a c-list rando. Putting a low score on them assures they won't get used.

Throw a quick value buff on some of those champs that still suck! Off the top with an obvious example, why aren't you bumping up Heimdall and Mordo's buff values? Getting some more damage on a bunch of noodle champs or some utility that won't break the game because it's within the boundaries of an existing champ would be so much easier. I don't understand why you want to do way too much no one asked for while simultaneously not enough of what we've repeatedly asked for. Re-use some of the mechanics that you worked so hard on and crank out some parity. Take a little from here and a little from there and suddenly someone might really want to use OG Cap or Iron Man.

Wicket329

Okay, I've got a warmer-than-room-temperature take here:

I am not opposed to the idea of champion nerfs. I like the idea of Kabam being able to go wild in champion creation and then dial it back as needed.

Now, where I do have an issue is that champions will be sold to the community prior to their retuning. There will be preview bundles and featured cavalier crystals and, notably, featured 5* and 6* crystal pools that run their full duration prior to the six-month review window taking place.

If Kabam wants to make a beta server for initial champion testing prior to release to catch any big or potentially game-breaking issues, that would be something I could a million percent get on board with. That sounds great! But letting players burn shards, units, or real dollars on a champion that isn't fully built yet... that does not sit well. At all. I would have to consider going back to exclusively the basic pool because the featured pool champions may be subject to negative review.

As for the deceleration of old champion reworks... I am immensely saddened by that. I know the team has finite time and resources, but the reworks were what I most looked forward to on a month to month basis. Not having that is really going to diminish my excitement with a new monthly patch. Just going to get a new standard EQ and SQ and two champions that I might see on my roster in half a year's time.

LilMaddogHT

TBuchanan24 said:

@Kabam Miike you guys should check out karatemikes video -https://youtu.be/OGHfGx6BKho. They way he rated the Champs were spot on. He even rated Champs that have value in different content in the game. I would be on board with you guys using him to rate Champs to help with balancing.

I like Karate Mike and he puts out good content, as does many others in the community but we don't need this rating system 'by Kabam'... Community already does it. Plenty of tier lists, etc out there to check out if someone wants some additional input to who they could invest in the game that they have on their roster. Kabam should focus its time and resources elsewhere.

ThatGuyYouSaw235

Didn't we have something similiar two years ago and it backfired miserably?

Kabam, nothing was wrong with the original buff schedule, why did you have to "fix" it.

Skiddy212

There is way too much negativity here. I hate when something new to the game is disliked so much. This is a neat idea, Definitly gonna be interesting how you rate the heroes.

I will wait and see it come to the game before I make my finale opinion. Looking forward to changes.

Disappointed that buffs are going down even more, hopefully you put out some really good buffs then. Hope the new champion tune ups turn out good.

Will wait and see how it turns out! Looking forward to it!

Ken1378

This just seems like a big waste of time. The rating are going to be so subjective. Maybe the Damage rating can be based on player data, but there are still so many different situations that impact it: synergies, awakened abilities, ramp-ups, skill-level required, and probably a dozen other things. Putting one number to all of that doesn’t even make sense. Let alone trying to rate utility or ease of use.

Please spend less time on all of this nonsense and just make progress buffing all the garbage champs in this game. There are way too many of them.