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Please be aware, there is a known issue with Saga badging when observing the AW map.
The team have found the source of the issue and will be updating with our next build.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
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How exactly is Herc bad for the game?
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@Mr.0-8-4 Psycho buddies!!!
What's your favourite Psycho man mode and why 🤨?
I think that’s the argument some of the people here are making.
"LOL. Skill issue. Git Gud."
Loads of games nerf broken mechanics all the time regardless of how long such broken mechanics have been in the game. It may be lazy game development to you but from a video game standpoint, it's simply not healthy to leave something broken for the rest of the game's existence. So, if you don't want a nerf, then the only other option is Hercules will die with the 6*. If that's the route you want Kabam to take that's fine, I just think it's dumb personally. Why would I rather he be completely useless once 7* stats are too strong for him to handle, when they could just tune him down to Ghost level so he can eventually be a 7* and not be completely forgotten the same way Quake and Magic were forgotten.
First, he's ludicrously powerful. A lot of people try to claim he isn't really all that powerful, or that there are plenty of other powerful champions, but those arguments rest on a presumption that you include in your post. That stuff isn't really all that difficult in the game anyway, and there are lots of other champs that can do what he does.
There's no other champ that can do what he does, and to understand why you have to understand who this game is made for. It isn't made for the top 1%, or for that matter the bottom 1%. It is made for a very wide range of players, most of whom reside in between the top 20% and the bottom 20% of players. That's where the vast majority of the players live, and that's where most of the game is designed for. Monthly EQ is not easy for most players. For almost all the players in the game, there are some easy tiers, but at least one very hard tier, because they are still progressing in this game. For most players the story Act content is not easy. For most players the variant content is not easy, side quests are not easy, AQ is not easy.
Every player has a certain strength, which includes their skills and their roster, and while both of those are moving targets, at any one particular moment in time there's the stuff they can do easily, the stuff that is very challenging, and the stuff that is basically impossible. Progress is moving up the ladder to higher or harder content, moving that challenging point upward.
Hercules has a relatively low skill threshold to unlock most of his potential. Certainly, higher skill helps, but every champ has a certain skill threshold below which the champ is more trouble than it is worth. If you can't quake and bake with Quake, she's more trouble than she's worth. If you can't master the playstyle of Ghost (and most players can't) Ghost is not worth it. Back when Sparky came out, he was probably getting most players killed more often than he was giving them high damage. You have to take risks with Sparky, and if you aren't good enough those risks will hurt you more than they would help you.
On top of that, once you've unlocked Hercules, he starts making everything easier. Infuriate makes intercepting vastly easier most of the time. His stun immunity counters a lot of effects that otherwise require significant skill thresholds, like encroaching stun. True sense all but deactivates auto block and miss mechanics. And of course, his indestructibility means he can defeat many opponents even after he would ordinarily be dead. And he can do it over and over and over and over again.
For veteran players with significant skill and large rosters, Hercules is not a linchpin champion. Take Hercules from us, and we can adapt. We don't need him, so it is easy to claim he isn't important enough to nerf. But for the vast majority of the playerbase, Hercules is a swiss army knife answer to a huge chunk of the game that doesn't take long to learn how to use.
That's a gigantic distortion in the game. A lot of players have known nothing but a game in which Hercules is the answer to 80% of it. They aren't prepared for a game where you need to use more than one champion. It is a repeat of the days when perfect block teams ruled, or everyone was ranking up Star Lord, or Blade. He sets the wrong expectations for the players, and he also makes it difficult to make content that is meaningful at all levels.
Sure, you can make content that creates problems for Hercules. But how do you do that consistently for all levels of play in a way that is still challenging? It is easy to make content that just removes Hercules from your roster by making him impotent. But that's just as bad as making content that ignores him and lets players steamroll with him. The devs don't want to make all the content in the game stuff that makes Hercules useless, but with Hercules there's very little daylight between awesome and useless.
All of this falls into the single category of "too powerful for too many players that makes too much content too easy." And it does so in meaningful ways for the vast majority of players. If you're a player that thinks EQ is easy so Herc doesn't matter, you are living so far above where the game is designed that Hercules' impact on the game is the tiny ant people you see from the top of skyscrapers. This is a street level problem.
If all of that is the first problem, what's the second? This is the second. We're going to be dragging this debate around for months, if not years, if not forever. We're not all here still talking about the Namor nerf, because that nerf was not just justified, it was, in the grand scheme of things, a relatively small adjustment. It wasn't game changing, it was just balance affecting. We're talking about Herc because even the people who don't want to admit it understand he is so far above the curve that a lot of people are frightened about just how far down he'd go if he was nerfed for balance. That's the problem. No champ should be so far above the curve that players are worried about how low he could go. No one could possibly be nerfed as hard as Hercules *could* be nerfed, because no champ, not Kitty, not Ghost, not even Magik or Quake probably, has that far down to go. His very existence gives people the idea that that level of power is normal.
You have people saying "well, the game's not dead yet, so he's fine." That's not how this works. No balance problem kills the game, until it does. Balance problems force developers to make increasingly worse decisions, makes it harder to keep the entire game appealing to a wide enough audience, until it slowly spirals downward. Game developers know this. Players often don't. They see the game as a thing that should cater to what they want and if the short term benefits lead to long term problems, that's not a problem because they can just go find another game. They would rather have as much fun as possible in a year and then move on than a more managed experience that could last much longer. Which is fine, but don't expect game operators to feel the same way.
Hercules exposes this dichotomy in a way that would have been better if he had never existed. By existing, he gets to be the poster child for "who cares about balance anyway?" Because players don't care about balance, at least not most of them. Game operators who want a long lived game have to care. And as long as Hercules exists in his current form, this will always be the source of friction. Until it exists, players can't ask for it. But once it exists, players can demand more of it. Hercules proves to the players Hercules can exist, all the while proving to the developers that he should never have existed.
And that's going to be the long term cost of Hercules, that the current existing generation of MCOC players will never be able to escape. If he gets rarity locked, we will be arguing about this until 2028, when a whole generation of players grows up in the game having never had Hercules be as meaningful to most of the game as he is now. Just like most of the players playing today have never seen pre-12 Dr Strange or Thor, and so have no idea what they are missing, and so can't miss it or really demand to have it.
I wouldn't have an issue with the timer being set at 10 seconds or whatever it is and then it expires or something akin to Morbius where he has to be struck for the immortality to be removed. Makes sense and brings a skill component back into play there.
With that said, I don't want to see another Dr. Strange situation where a champ goes from amazing to a meme. They still haven't made it right as he has been passed over countless times for champs that didn't need a value increase or a buff. I don't blame the base for thinking this may happen with a champ they voted for.
Kabam is in a difficult situation. We ask for them to be transparent, and we get situations like this. As long as their message is consistent, we'll adjust to it. They have work to do on that front. They should keep in mind transparent doesn't mean a democracy or debate. If they make a decision, own it, put it out there, and move on. If they want feedback, then open up a convo for that with clear expectations on what that feedback is supposed to accomplish.
Two things I have learned when working with human beings, you don't waste their time or mess with their money. If you have to, it has to be justified and clearly communicated. We'll see where it goes from here.
Show me you, yourself beating all this content so easily with Herc and making it look easy or like a cheat code.
Show me.
One of the best players in the game went through EoP.
Another best player in the game went through Necropolis item-less. We should probably nerf Shuri, Kate and Wong.
Just cause you can't do the content doesnt mean Herc is not broken...
Edit: if you keep scrolling there's more lmao.
In my view, needing or not needing some resources is not the definition of trivialising content. Being able to use champions that allow you complete content that is designed to be beaten with a higher level of skill than yours is.
They've made that point clear before. They spend time designing content that people are done with in a month.
However, is it not apparent that the primary driver pushing this game forwards is champion development and release? Thus pushing players to acquire the next, most desirable champion?
One of the fundamental financial building blocks of the game is making new champions that are desirable, either because of their own abilities or to counter new and challenging content. By being desirable, these new champions sell crystals, bundles, and arena refreshes; and keep people interested in the game.
If Herc makes almost all new champions redundant because you don't need them to counter new challenges, then he threatens the long-term durability of the game just by existing.
Given that he also reduces use of AW/AQ revives & healing potions; and largely negates the need for newer players to develop skills/strategies to overcome obstacles, personally I think the threat is real.
Frankly I'm amazed they introduced Ascension before changing him.
Your massive Paragon/Valiant accounts took advantage of Herc now he’s too strong. Let new players also get the benefit of Herc as well.