Moderate are when they have a few abilities with potential, but are missing a little extra
To me, Guilly falls in the second one. It’s not about how much damage or utility a champion has per se. Although that’s is linked to how many abilities they have.
if healing and an heal reversal can pas as a
"Moderate are when they have a few abilities with potential, but are missing a little extra"
than yes we indeed disagree on the need of an overhaul. Im not trying to attack or offend you but guillotine if far from a moderate update.
you cant already bump up a %200 (was it ?) heal reversal. and heal was already nice, just linked to an awakened ability high sig. guillotine was bare bones with no actual use other than her heal reversal. any kind of potential ups for her dmg and heal would just felt cheap (altough this one feels like that too). she lacked hard on multiple fronts.
ı get that we arent on the same page about this but guillotine and all others who kinda feels same as her. (old champs with very simplistic kits who just happens to hold on with their last breath) should get an overhaul even if they do "passable" dmg".
I don’t mind disagreeing on something, no attack or offence taken
You say Guilly needed an overhaul because of her abilities, but have you looked at what gambit and ultron had before their moderate updates?
Gambit had prowess, a slight % bleed resistance and concussion and stun on specials. He is objectively worse than Guilly pre buff. Doesn’t mean he needed an overhaul.
Ultron had regen, and a slight power gain from energy damage. He had less than Guilly.
These champions didn’t need overhauls, and neither does Guilly.
That's debatable. The two things Guillotine had going for her were the Heal Reversal, and the Life Steal. Outside of that, she was mediocre in terms of Damage. Bleeds helped, but nothing outside of that. This could be seen as a more well-rounded Champ. I think there's too much emphasis on the Regen when it was kind of the only thing going for her. Now she has more Damage, same Heal Reversal, Degen, a bit of sustainability, etc.
She had all of those before. Her sustainability has actually been nerfed and her damage is only more without synergies. Nothing of value was added except her damage without synergies and some things even nerfed. That's a problem.
With Synergies is not really the goal.
Not really but ok.
Either way, an entire overhaul only for her damage to be increased and some her stuff to actually be nerfed is bad.
The definition of an overhaul means new abilities.
Are you saying The Hood buff wasn't good? I use him a lot now. He's awesome.
These buffs are for champs that people were not using, so either you like the buff and start using them, or you hate the buff and continue not using them.
Managing expectations is of paramount importance, so better Communication is necessary.
First: The vast majority of players probably hear Buff, and make no distinction between Moderate/Value and Overhaul (and that's not even counting when there were three categories). Even those that are aware of the categories are confused as to what they mean (As Champions that had received a Moderate buff seemed to be more drastically changed/improved compared to some Overhaul champions). So, there needs to be some clarity as to what level of Buff we can expect as players, and what the categories actually mean.
Second: Community Fan Vote Part 1 - This ties into my first point, but seemingly a lot of reasons people posted about wanting Guillotine buffed over Antman was related to them liking Guillotine but wanting a little more from her. Conversely, Antman people argued that he has much less in his kit, and thus needs the buff more. These arguments are related to the word 'Buff', but are arguing for different categoryies of Buff. If Kabam made the category of buff more explicit, would that have impacted voting? (ie. Would more or less people have voted Antman if they knew it was a Moderate or Overhaul buff planned?)
Third: Community Fan Vote Part 2 - There seemed to be an expectation that Community Fan Vote Winner = God Tier champion. This is based solely on one data point (Hercules), yet that seemed to be the expectation. (We also saw this type of thinking after the Magneto/Colossus buff; players expected that buffed champion = god tier; Most people were rapidly disabused of the notion, and Kabam also later stated that explicitly). Some clarity is probably needed - that the winner just means that the champion/buff will exist in the game sooner rather than later.
The second issue, also related to communication, is response or lack thereof, to feedback. As people have mentioned, more beta testing or more response to CCP would be beneficial. Even if Kabam doesn't do more beta testing, communication that they are listening, would be better.
The definition of an overhaul means new abilities.
Are you saying The Hood buff wasn't good? I use him a lot now. He's awesome.
These buffs are for champs that people were not using, so either you like the buff and start using them, or you hate the buff and continue not using them.
No, the definition of an overhaul is not new abilities.
If overhaul meant new abilities then every moderate update is now an overhaul. Gambit didn’t used to have reduction of passive damage on his mediums, is his an overhaul?
Hell, even gamora would be considered an overhaul. She didn’t used to have a miss counter. It’s a new ability, therefore by your logic it’s an overhaul.
I’m not saying the Hood buff wasn’t good, I’m not sure where that inference came from but I’ll set it straight now. His first buff was bad for removing the fate seal, but his second buff was good. He’s not my personal cup of tea, but a good buff nonetheless.
“either you like the buff and start using them, or you hate the buff and continue not using them” What about people who liked them before the buff, but no longer like them after the buff? I’ve seen someone with an r3 Guilly who ranked her up before the buff was announced because they liked the abilities. Now, they don’t like the new mechanic, heavy playstyle or anything else.
I also think something else that could work would be to announce a tentative lineup of upcoming buffs and ask players for suggestions of what they would like to see. That doesn’t mean they need to actually do what we say, but at least they can use any suggestions to generate ideas for what they want to do.
That is a brilliant idea in my opinion. Even if it gets a slight better idea for Kabam to see what players want addressing it would be helpful. It could even be done on a poll where you have to vote your progression level, so Kabam can get feedback from TB, Cav and UC or lower players specifically.
@DrZola you are absolutely right, it really shouldnt be necessary, but I feel at this point it is desperately needed. It just seems like there’s such a disconnect between what the community wants/expects from the buff program and execution of said buffs. I just feel that working with members of the community is the best way to improve the program and produce buffs that are of better quality more relevant to the current state of the game, while potentially reducing instances of frustration and outrage regarding the buffs.
I don't think that's the problem. Even if the overhauls don't equate to the full some of tune-ups + moderates, you could still do an overhaul and a tune-up/moderate each month for years before you ran out of champs in need of an overhaul. If Kabam, in three or four years time, says, "Hey guys, now that we've overhauled the worst of the worst of the worst over the course of several years, we'll scale back those types of buffs and focus on smaller tweaks for the remaining champions", I don't think anyone would bat an eye.
Having that type of schedule does not present a problem, especially not in the here and now. Right now, there are more than enough champions who could benefit from a complete overhaul to fill out those spots for (most likely) the rest of the game's life.
So how did we, despite this, end up in this mess? That I cannot answer. We shouldn't have landed here. I think Kabam simply was out of touch with why people liked Guillotine and what they wanted from her. Even if we look past what was needlessly taken away, I don't think anything was added that was in line with what people wanted from her. One of the complaints I've seen the most is that she didn't receive any sort of utility - especially any mystic utility. She has no way of dealing with buffs or power-controlling the opponent. The only thing in her kit that has to do with buffs is that her chance to bleed is increased for each of the opponent's buffs, but even that was nerfed so she only reaches her previous level of bleed chance at 3 buffs (and even then, those bleeds are weaker than they were before because...reasons?).
I was looking forward to a mystic brawler that would place lots of bleeds on the opponent while at the same time having more mystic utility. There were so many things they could have done with the soul mechanic that would have been really cool. Maybe the duration of the opponent's buffs is decreased by let's say 5% for each soul she has? Maybe their potency? Maybe the opponent is unable to gain buffs while they are bleeding? Maybe her critical hits could remove a soul, nullify a buff and place a bleed?
Just something to make her more of a mystic. But no. Instead, they both kind of doubled down on who she was pre-buff while simultaneously removing a lot of what was her most popular features pre-buff. It's such a weird buff design.
I don't think that's the problem. Even if the overhauls don't equate to the full some of tune-ups + moderates, you could still do an overhaul and a tune-up/moderate each month for years before you ran out of champs in need of an overhaul. If Kabam, in three or four years time, says, "Hey guys, now that we've overhauled the worst of the worst of the worst over the course of several years, we'll scale back those types of buffs and focus on smaller tweaks for the remaining champions", I don't think anyone would bat an eye.
Having that type of schedule does not present a problem, especially not in the here and now. Right now, there are more than enough champions who could benefit from a complete overhaul to fill out those spots for (most likely) the rest of the game's life.
I appreciate the response, but I feel like my point was missed a little. I’m not saying there is an inherent problem with a schedule like this, I’m saying that because there simply aren’t that many champions that need overhauls, it is not a good thing that Kabam seem to have so many champions they think need overhauls.
Let me ask you this, if you go through every champion right now, how many do you think need overhauls? I understand this may take a little while, but even just a rough number.
I don't think that's the problem. Even if the overhauls don't equate to the full some of tune-ups + moderates, you could still do an overhaul and a tune-up/moderate each month for years before you ran out of champs in need of an overhaul. If Kabam, in three or four years time, says, "Hey guys, now that we've overhauled the worst of the worst of the worst over the course of several years, we'll scale back those types of buffs and focus on smaller tweaks for the remaining champions", I don't think anyone would bat an eye.
Having that type of schedule does not present a problem, especially not in the here and now. Right now, there are more than enough champions who could benefit from a complete overhaul to fill out those spots for (most likely) the rest of the game's life.
I appreciate the response, but I feel like my point was missed a little. I’m not saying there is an inherent problem with a schedule like this, I’m saying that because there simply aren’t that many champions that need overhauls, it is not a good thing that Kabam seem to have so many champions they think need overhauls.
Let me ask you this, if you go through every champion right now, how many do you think need overhauls? I understand this may take a little while, but even just a rough number.
I landed in roughly the same ballpark as you did. 44, I think.
However, my point is that I don't think we should necessarily read too much into how Kabam schedules things as an indication regarding how many champs they think will ultimately need any specific type of buff. Even if they only consider 24 champs to be in need of an overhaul, having one overhaul and one tune-up/moderate buff per month might just be a workable pace for the next couple of years. After that, they could just switch out the overhauls in favor of other types of buffs.
With that said, I do agree with you that there are definitely safer bets in terms of which champions could receive a complete overhaul. Ignoring the champs that people really want to see overhauled the most (like the OG Avengers) only to instead overhaul those in lesser need of it is...weird. I absolutely think OG Abomination needs an overhaul but I think it would benefit the game immensely more to overhaul OG Captain America before him. They have some strange priorities when it comes to buffing champs. I generally try to not lower myself to those silly "Why would you allow this buff to take the place of that buff!?" arguments/rants, but I do think that certain obvious buff candidates' absences are becoming quite noticeable.
With all of that being said, I've been having a headache this whole day so I feel like I'm maybe not quite as sharp as I normally believe myself to be.
@GroundedWisdom I agree with you. Stay within the existing kits, maybe add something that updates a champ against the newer meta, and/or make value updates. Add synergies that make someone more effective.
I’m fine with it. I realize resources are finite and it takes a lot to produce new content every month. Redesigns may be too much to ask right now, and I 100% understand that.
I don't think that's the problem. Even if the overhauls don't equate to the full some of tune-ups + moderates, you could still do an overhaul and a tune-up/moderate each month for years before you ran out of champs in need of an overhaul. If Kabam, in three or four years time, says, "Hey guys, now that we've overhauled the worst of the worst of the worst over the course of several years, we'll scale back those types of buffs and focus on smaller tweaks for the remaining champions", I don't think anyone would bat an eye.
Having that type of schedule does not present a problem, especially not in the here and now. Right now, there are more than enough champions who could benefit from a complete overhaul to fill out those spots for (most likely) the rest of the game's life.
I appreciate the response, but I feel like my point was missed a little. I’m not saying there is an inherent problem with a schedule like this, I’m saying that because there simply aren’t that many champions that need overhauls, it is not a good thing that Kabam seem to have so many champions they think need overhauls.
Let me ask you this, if you go through every champion right now, how many do you think need overhauls? I understand this may take a little while, but even just a rough number.
I landed in roughly the same ballpark as you did. 44, I think.
However, my point is that I don't think we should necessarily read too much into how Kabam schedules things as an indication regarding how many champs they think will ultimately need any specific type of buff. Even if they only consider 24 champs to be in need of an overhaul, having one overhaul and one tune-up/moderate buff per month might just be a workable pace for the next couple of years. After that, they could just switch out the overhauls in favor of other types of buffs.
I would love to agree with this and feel like my concerns have been addressed, but reading this from Kabam’s dev diary when this program was started feels like it backs up my idea:
“we’re going through the whole roster, and we’re putting all the Champs into 4 categories:
Balanced – Champions that are “Good Enough for Now”, or better. Tune-Up – No ability changes just tuning up numbers (Torch or Sentry) Update – Numbers and Minor Ability Changes but largely the same kit (a la Red Hulk, or Carnage) Overhaul – Whole new kit time. (Think Hulkbuster or Colossus)”
I mean, they actually say they’ve put all the champs into those categories. Meaning, they still have enough overhauls by which they could get through 1 tune up or 1 moderate update per month and they’d still have overhauls to go through.
Again, there may be a link in the chain that Kabam haven’t informed us of. But as of the current information, Kabam have more overhauls than tune ups and moderates combined, which makes me think they’re a little over-eager to put a champ into the overhaul category
The issue therefore, is when Kabam select a champion for an overhaul that could do with just a moderate update. I don't think this has ever happened before, if you look through the list of previous overhauls none of them have been really that useful, or conducive to a moderate. We've even had it the other way around, when champions could have been up for an overhaul, but have been made much better with just a moderate, look at Yellowjacket or Ultron. They could easily have had an overhaul, but didn't. And I think that's a good thing.
But with Guilly, her heal, Sp3 and heal reversal were actually good abilities, they just didn't quite come together in the best way without full synergy teams, and she needed that last little bump of utility. If you ask me, that sounds like the perfect description of a moderate, or even a tune up update.
The problem is, or was, her soul mechanics. The way they were acquired and decayed meant that Guillotine could easily end up with no souls in fight, which neutered most of her meager capabilities. But changing core mechanics in any significant way demands an overhaul, because the overhaul process allows for analyzing and revising mechanics and balance testing changes that affect how the champion's abilities interact.
If you take a champ and increase their chance to bleed from 12% to 15%, you're not going to radically change how they play. You are unlikely to make qualitatively dramatic changes in their performance. Your changes are likely to have "linear" effects. But when you change how things work and interact, you can get strange amplifications, you can get strange interactions, you can get dramatic changes in performance. Just the possibility of this demands a completely different update process.
Take Guillotine. Let's start with G1.0, and just add G2.0's enhanced bleeds to her. What happens next? Her sustainable healing drops severely. Why? Because her heal was a life transfer, and that only worked on damage from attack hits. If Guillotine shifts her damage from strikes to bleeds, her healing drops substantially. That's why people who say the devs should have left her bleed exactly as it was before are actually wrong: doing so would have reduced her healing about as bad or worse than G2.0 nerfed it. Doing nothing would have been just as bad of a nerf.
That's why mechanical or interacting changes require the full overhaul process. You're going to start breaking things when you change mechanics or radically change things that interact with each other, and once you open that door, everything unavoidably ends up on the table. That's why you need good design rules that guide the developers in terms of what they should avoid doing in the net result, and what they should be aiming for by default. Guillotine is what happens when those rules don't exist or are not followed.
The overhaul process isn't explicitly intended to make champions unrecognizable. The overhaul process is intended for when a champion has to be taken apart and put back together, either because the devs want to add things that won't just bolt onto the champion from the outside, or because the champion is put together in a way that the parts can't be changed without globally affecting the whole in unintended ways (or in extreme cases, when there's basically nothing to take apart). Guillotine was always going to have to be taken apart. We couldn't have protected her from that. The rules have to make sure she gets put back together the right way.
Long and short of it is this, is she better or worse ofter the "overhaul‽" Most would say worse, I happen to agree. Should not an overhaul make it better; better kit, more utilitarian, more niche, etc.... I dont think there is anyone that plays her as a character that believes that happened with the overhaul.
Well said! Overhauls definitely have a great deal of risk when a champion has useful abilities already. I usually say it as a joke, but groot actually has an interesting kit. The problem is the values need a massive bump for it to even be noticeable. Ant man has zero kit.
I think we need to better differentiate between champs who have absolutely nothing going for them, and those that could probably do with one or two extra abilities and just a tune up of existing ability values.
Yes. Champs with a manageable kit I’d like to see get incremental value upgrades or have an added effect or ability. But not rewritten.
I’m not even sure if it’s still in the thread, but I suggested earlier that the Cage/Rhulk/Venom buffs were great examples of more or less working within the kit. All of those champs already had something they did, and their updates capitalized on those things and added to them to make them better (and arguably still relevant today).
Study those kinds of champs and understand them. While I’d love for a champ like Dr. Strange to get a Mags level update, I think I would be even happier if batches of okay champs got the Cage/Rhulk/Venom treatment.
I don't care honestly and I'm pretty sure most of the community is also complaining for the sake of complaining. Seriously where did you guys use your Guillies???
I think there's too much focus on buff categorization by the community. It's Kabam's fault for introducing the categories, but we take it a bit far.
Now that we're down to 2 buffs a month, all buffs should just be "buffs". No tweaks, no overhauls, just buffs. The exact buff that the champ in question needed. Categorizing them just puts unneeded scrutiny on something that should be simple.
I think there's too much focus on buff categorization by the community. It's Kabam's fault for introducing the categories, but we take it a bit far.
Now that we're down to 2 buffs a month, all buffs should just be "buffs". No tweaks, no overhauls, just buffs. The exact buff that the champ in question needed. Categorizing them just puts unneeded scrutiny on something that should be simple.
This is something that I wholeheartedly agree with and forgot to mention earlier. The problem with the categories is that it seems like it’s used to determine how much change a champ needs. Based on past buffs and responses we’ve gotten from the dev team, it seems as if they sort the champs into the categories before actually deciding what changes to make. Personally, I feel like it should be done the opposite, sit down and figure out what changes need to be made to a champ, then sort them into different categories later if they want to.
I just think that removing these categories as a whole and just referring to them all as buffs would be a very beneficial move. I feel that would allow them to really help organize their buff timeline without having to worry about rushing champs just to say they buffed someone.
I don't care honestly and I'm pretty sure most of the community is also complaining for the sake of complaining. Seriously where did you guys use your Guillies???
While Guilly may be the most recent fumble, the point of the thread is the update program overall, not just one champ. While there may be some griping, there’s a lot more reasoned argument on this thread about what’s gone wrong with the update program.
As for my Guilly, I duped my 6* just before the buff announcement and debated ranking her versus my 6* Tigra. I wound up choosing Tigra (although I’m not as proficient with her mechanics). I had not used the 6* version, but my 4* and 5* versions were frequent members of my team for Act 4 and Act 5. She’s always been a smooth champ and easy to play—I was optimistic a community choice buff would make her 6* someone I’d want to rank up.
I know it's a four letter word on the forums, and I don't make a habit of asking for them, but would a simple solution to this be RDTs?
Before disagreeing, hear me out.
Kabam can obviously pull data to find out who has champs at what level.
Why not have part of the program be to query that data prior to announcing a buff and give champ specific RDTs to anyone who had the champ ranked up.
@BitterSteel I'll use you as an example since you started this thread. You love Mr. Negative, and I think have him as a 6*R3, so you obviously like him as is.
If a year from now Kabam gives him a tune-up that for whatever reason nerfs his degen ability, you would get to decide for yourself if you want to keep him at R3, or take him down if you think the tune-up was actually a tune-down.
It would obviously still suck for you, because you liked his kit, but you likely wouldn't feel as bitter (sorry....pun intended), because you could get back those resources.
I would suggest contingencies be applied to these hypothetical RDTs.
1) RDTs are only given to those summoners who had the champ ranked up prior to a buff announcement, so if you heard "Guillotine won the summoner's choice!" and immediately ranked her up, you don't get an RDT, cause you jumped the gun.
2) RDTs are only valid for 30 days. That gives time to thoroughly test the new kit yourself and decide. You don't get to wait a year, pull a shiny new champ, then decide to use the RDT simply cause you want to rank up the new champ, and haven't used Mr. Negative in eight months.
3) Sig stones are only returned if the sig was explicitly changed (I'd be open to debate on this).
Ultimately, as I laid out at the beginning, I know the sheer mention of RDTs creates a ton of backlash, but I think it solves a major problem associated with the program, which is the risk of alienating some, if not all, of the community who already had the champ ranked up for some reason.
In the end, every individual gets to decide for themselves if the buff was good or bad for their roster, cause if I've learned anything reading and posting on these forums, the only way to please the entire community is to make every champ a God.
I don't care honestly and I'm pretty sure most of the community is also complaining for the sake of complaining. Seriously where did you guys use your Guillies???
This ironically seems to be a complaint for the sake of complaining. Since you claim not to care but want everyone to know how much you don't care.
Based on past buffs and responses we’ve gotten from the dev team, it seems as if they sort the champs into the categories before actually deciding what changes to make. Personally, I feel like it should be done the opposite, sit down and figure out what changes need to be made to a champ, then sort them into different categories later if they want to.
That's workflow impossible. First the developers have to allocate time and resources to a champion update, and that then determines the scope of what is on the table and what is not. If you decide the champ is going to be in the numbers-tweak pipeline, you're locked in. You can't just change your mind later, because that pipeline can't just be arbitrarily shuffled around. Everyone is working on multiple things at multiple times. Champion updates require coordinated resources. If you say numbers-tweak and then you later decide that won't be enough, actually you're wrong. You decided numbers tweak, so by definition it *will* be enough. Or you won't be working on champion updates.
I did a contract job for a game studio once. I said the system in question required X, Y, and Z. I was told they could give me X and Y, and if I needed Z it just wouldn't happen at all. I made it work with X and Y.
Comments
Either way, an entire overhaul only for her damage to be increased and some her stuff to actually be nerfed is bad.
Are you saying The Hood buff wasn't good? I use him a lot now. He's awesome.
These buffs are for champs that people were not using, so either you like the buff and start using them, or you hate the buff and continue not using them.
First: The vast majority of players probably hear Buff, and make no distinction between Moderate/Value and Overhaul (and that's not even counting when there were three categories). Even those that are aware of the categories are confused as to what they mean (As Champions that had received a Moderate buff seemed to be more drastically changed/improved compared to some Overhaul champions). So, there needs to be some clarity as to what level of Buff we can expect as players, and what the categories actually mean.
Second: Community Fan Vote Part 1 - This ties into my first point, but seemingly a lot of reasons people posted about wanting Guillotine buffed over Antman was related to them liking Guillotine but wanting a little more from her. Conversely, Antman people argued that he has much less in his kit, and thus needs the buff more. These arguments are related to the word 'Buff', but are arguing for different categoryies of Buff. If Kabam made the category of buff more explicit, would that have impacted voting? (ie. Would more or less people have voted Antman if they knew it was a Moderate or Overhaul buff planned?)
Third: Community Fan Vote Part 2 - There seemed to be an expectation that Community Fan Vote Winner = God Tier champion. This is based solely on one data point (Hercules), yet that seemed to be the expectation. (We also saw this type of thinking after the Magneto/Colossus buff; players expected that buffed champion = god tier; Most people were rapidly disabused of the notion, and Kabam also later stated that explicitly). Some clarity is probably needed - that the winner just means that the champion/buff will exist in the game sooner rather than later.
The second issue, also related to communication, is response or lack thereof, to feedback. As people have mentioned, more beta testing or more response to CCP would be beneficial. Even if Kabam doesn't do more beta testing, communication that they are listening, would be better.
If overhaul meant new abilities then every moderate update is now an overhaul. Gambit didn’t used to have reduction of passive damage on his mediums, is his an overhaul?
Hell, even gamora would be considered an overhaul. She didn’t used to have a miss counter. It’s a new ability, therefore by your logic it’s an overhaul.
I’m not saying the Hood buff wasn’t good, I’m not sure where that inference came from but I’ll set it straight now. His first buff was bad for removing the fate seal, but his second buff was good. He’s not my personal cup of tea, but a good buff nonetheless.
“either you like the buff and start using them, or you hate the buff and continue not using them” What about people who liked them before the buff, but no longer like them after the buff? I’ve seen someone with an r3 Guilly who ranked her up before the buff was announced because they liked the abilities. Now, they don’t like the new mechanic, heavy playstyle or anything else.
Dr. Zola
Having that type of schedule does not present a problem, especially not in the here and now. Right now, there are more than enough champions who could benefit from a complete overhaul to fill out those spots for (most likely) the rest of the game's life.
So how did we, despite this, end up in this mess? That I cannot answer. We shouldn't have landed here. I think Kabam simply was out of touch with why people liked Guillotine and what they wanted from her. Even if we look past what was needlessly taken away, I don't think anything was added that was in line with what people wanted from her. One of the complaints I've seen the most is that she didn't receive any sort of utility - especially any mystic utility. She has no way of dealing with buffs or power-controlling the opponent. The only thing in her kit that has to do with buffs is that her chance to bleed is increased for each of the opponent's buffs, but even that was nerfed so she only reaches her previous level of bleed chance at 3 buffs (and even then, those bleeds are weaker than they were before because...reasons?).
I was looking forward to a mystic brawler that would place lots of bleeds on the opponent while at the same time having more mystic utility. There were so many things they could have done with the soul mechanic that would have been really cool. Maybe the duration of the opponent's buffs is decreased by let's say 5% for each soul she has? Maybe their potency? Maybe the opponent is unable to gain buffs while they are bleeding? Maybe her critical hits could remove a soul, nullify a buff and place a bleed?
Just something to make her more of a mystic. But no. Instead, they both kind of doubled down on who she was pre-buff while simultaneously removing a lot of what was her most popular features pre-buff. It's such a weird buff design.
Let me ask you this, if you go through every champion right now, how many do you think need overhauls? I understand this may take a little while, but even just a rough number.
However, my point is that I don't think we should necessarily read too much into how Kabam schedules things as an indication regarding how many champs they think will ultimately need any specific type of buff. Even if they only consider 24 champs to be in need of an overhaul, having one overhaul and one tune-up/moderate buff per month might just be a workable pace for the next couple of years. After that, they could just switch out the overhauls in favor of other types of buffs.
With that said, I do agree with you that there are definitely safer bets in terms of which champions could receive a complete overhaul. Ignoring the champs that people really want to see overhauled the most (like the OG Avengers) only to instead overhaul those in lesser need of it is...weird. I absolutely think OG Abomination needs an overhaul but I think it would benefit the game immensely more to overhaul OG Captain America before him. They have some strange priorities when it comes to buffing champs. I generally try to not lower myself to those silly "Why would you allow this buff to take the place of that buff!?" arguments/rants, but I do think that certain obvious buff candidates' absences are becoming quite noticeable.
With all of that being said, I've been having a headache this whole day so I feel like I'm maybe not quite as sharp as I normally believe myself to be.
I’m fine with it. I realize resources are finite and it takes a lot to produce new content every month. Redesigns may be too much to ask right now, and I 100% understand that.
Dr. Zola
Luckily, I've got all of them in their 5 and 6* versions.
“we’re going through the whole roster, and we’re putting all the Champs into 4 categories:
Balanced – Champions that are “Good Enough for Now”, or better.
Tune-Up – No ability changes just tuning up numbers (Torch or Sentry)
Update – Numbers and Minor Ability Changes but largely the same kit (a la Red Hulk, or Carnage)
Overhaul – Whole new kit time. (Think Hulkbuster or Colossus)”
I mean, they actually say they’ve put all the champs into those categories. Meaning, they still have enough overhauls by which they could get through 1 tune up or 1 moderate update per month and they’d still have overhauls to go through.
Again, there may be a link in the chain that Kabam haven’t informed us of. But as of the current information, Kabam have more overhauls than tune ups and moderates combined, which makes me think they’re a little over-eager to put a champ into the overhaul category
If you take a champ and increase their chance to bleed from 12% to 15%, you're not going to radically change how they play. You are unlikely to make qualitatively dramatic changes in their performance. Your changes are likely to have "linear" effects. But when you change how things work and interact, you can get strange amplifications, you can get strange interactions, you can get dramatic changes in performance. Just the possibility of this demands a completely different update process.
Take Guillotine. Let's start with G1.0, and just add G2.0's enhanced bleeds to her. What happens next? Her sustainable healing drops severely. Why? Because her heal was a life transfer, and that only worked on damage from attack hits. If Guillotine shifts her damage from strikes to bleeds, her healing drops substantially. That's why people who say the devs should have left her bleed exactly as it was before are actually wrong: doing so would have reduced her healing about as bad or worse than G2.0 nerfed it. Doing nothing would have been just as bad of a nerf.
That's why mechanical or interacting changes require the full overhaul process. You're going to start breaking things when you change mechanics or radically change things that interact with each other, and once you open that door, everything unavoidably ends up on the table. That's why you need good design rules that guide the developers in terms of what they should avoid doing in the net result, and what they should be aiming for by default. Guillotine is what happens when those rules don't exist or are not followed.
The overhaul process isn't explicitly intended to make champions unrecognizable. The overhaul process is intended for when a champion has to be taken apart and put back together, either because the devs want to add things that won't just bolt onto the champion from the outside, or because the champion is put together in a way that the parts can't be changed without globally affecting the whole in unintended ways (or in extreme cases, when there's basically nothing to take apart). Guillotine was always going to have to be taken apart. We couldn't have protected her from that. The rules have to make sure she gets put back together the right way.
I’m not even sure if it’s still in the thread, but I suggested earlier that the Cage/Rhulk/Venom buffs were great examples of more or less working within the kit. All of those champs already had something they did, and their updates capitalized on those things and added to them to make them better (and arguably still relevant today).
Study those kinds of champs and understand them. While I’d love for a champ like Dr. Strange to get a Mags level update, I think I would be even happier if batches of okay champs got the Cage/Rhulk/Venom treatment.
Dr. Zola
Now that we're down to 2 buffs a month, all buffs should just be "buffs". No tweaks, no overhauls, just buffs. The exact buff that the champ in question needed. Categorizing them just puts unneeded scrutiny on something that should be simple.
I just think that removing these categories as a whole and just referring to them all as buffs would be a very beneficial move. I feel that would allow them to really help organize their buff timeline without having to worry about rushing champs just to say they buffed someone.
As for my Guilly, I duped my 6* just before the buff announcement and debated ranking her versus my 6* Tigra. I wound up choosing Tigra (although I’m not as proficient with her mechanics). I had not used the 6* version, but my 4* and 5* versions were frequent members of my team for Act 4 and Act 5. She’s always been a smooth champ and easy to play—I was optimistic a community choice buff would make her 6* someone I’d want to rank up.
Hope that helps.
Dr. Zola
Before disagreeing, hear me out.
Kabam can obviously pull data to find out who has champs at what level.
Why not have part of the program be to query that data prior to announcing a buff and give champ specific RDTs to anyone who had the champ ranked up.
@BitterSteel I'll use you as an example since you started this thread. You love Mr. Negative, and I think have him as a 6*R3, so you obviously like him as is.
If a year from now Kabam gives him a tune-up that for whatever reason nerfs his degen ability, you would get to decide for yourself if you want to keep him at R3, or take him down if you think the tune-up was actually a tune-down.
It would obviously still suck for you, because you liked his kit, but you likely wouldn't feel as bitter (sorry....pun intended), because you could get back those resources.
I would suggest contingencies be applied to these hypothetical RDTs.
1) RDTs are only given to those summoners who had the champ ranked up prior to a buff announcement, so if you heard "Guillotine won the summoner's choice!" and immediately ranked her up, you don't get an RDT, cause you jumped the gun.
2) RDTs are only valid for 30 days. That gives time to thoroughly test the new kit yourself and decide. You don't get to wait a year, pull a shiny new champ, then decide to use the RDT simply cause you want to rank up the new champ, and haven't used Mr. Negative in eight months.
3) Sig stones are only returned if the sig was explicitly changed (I'd be open to debate on this).
Ultimately, as I laid out at the beginning, I know the sheer mention of RDTs creates a ton of backlash, but I think it solves a major problem associated with the program, which is the risk of alienating some, if not all, of the community who already had the champ ranked up for some reason.
In the end, every individual gets to decide for themselves if the buff was good or bad for their roster, cause if I've learned anything reading and posting on these forums, the only way to please the entire community is to make every champ a God.
I did a contract job for a game studio once. I said the system in question required X, Y, and Z. I was told they could give me X and Y, and if I needed Z it just wouldn't happen at all. I made it work with X and Y.