Rebalancing of key champions

We've had a lot of champions rebalanced over the past few months, and I think Kabam is doing a great job with it. I don't know if they've discussed this internally, but... Shouldn't they rebalance iconic Marvel characters for marketing reasons? I'm talking about characters like Captain America, Black Widow, Deadpool, etc...
And I'm not just talking about rebalancing them; I'm talking about making them super strong, even overpowered if you will. I think that would be a great marketing move for those players who love those characters and even realize how incredibly strong they are in the game! After all, they're the face of Marvel.
With all due respect to (for example) Northstar, nobody even knows who he is. But if I go out on the street and ask about the mighty Captain America (or Spider-Man, or whoever), everyone will know who they are. That's what I think.
I know they've been doing some rebalancing and releasing characters around the time some Marvel movies premiered, but other Marvel executives will handle the promotion... Give me my OP Captain America and I'll boost him to rank 4 without hesitation. I think many players (even new ones) will think the same.

P.S.: Captain America is just an example; he's not even close to being my favorite character.

Comments

DNA3000

The premise of your comment is: some Marvel characters are more popular than others, and Kabam should lean into that sentiment by emphasizing them in MCOC. The biggest problem with that idea is that Marvel itself would oppose it.

I suspect most people assume that Marvel itself would also want to emphasize their most popular characters in the games based on their IP. But the opposite is closer to the truth. Marvel can make a Spiderman game any time it wants. Marvel can make an X-Men game any time it wants. But Marvel owns a huge IP containing tens of thousands of characters, and it is counter-productive for them to emphasize the few dozen that are the most popular. That would actually make their portfolio less valuable, not more valuable.

Any game or other work based on the Marvel IP has to utilize their most popular characters because those are the signature pieces of art: they uniquely identify something as a Marvel property. But it is in Marvel's best interests to use those works to showcase the other 49,990 characters as well. My understanding is that while Marvel doesn't directly dictate which characters Kabam puts into the game, they do strongly encourage (for some definition of "encourage") Kabam to leverage the diverse portfolio of options.

By the same token, they can't just make all the most popular characters "OP" to the neglect of the others. This would also be against Marvel's best interests to suggest there's just a few important Marvel characters and the rest are unimportant trivialities.

Once upon a time, Wolverine was some random side character; his first ever limited series comic book was in the bargain bin for 25 cents. The MCU started with Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man because Marvel didn't have the rights to make movies based on their most popular characters at the time. Marvel doesn't know who the next Wolverine or Blade or Iron Man or Deadpool will be, but it behooves them to not just focus on who's popular now.

Magrailothos

That's definitely a valid perspective, and well-explained.

On the other hand, it is those well-known characters which are the primary draw for people to play this game rather than something more generic.

The original 2014 lineup of champions was chosen for a reason, after all.

It doesn't do either Kabam or Marvel any good if players work out that their favourite characters are basically rubbish; because that might just lead them to go play some other game instead.

Whilst I concede that making the Avengers totally OP would be counter-productive, there is clearly still merit to making the characters actually useable in the modern game.

Currently, if you focus on using original champs that have never had any rework, you are choosing to become essentially noncompetitive in any PvP areas of the game.

That's not a healthy position for them to be.

Personally, I think that the buffs received by the likes of Hulk, Iron Man, Spiderman, and Storm are perfectly pitched: they're all useable and can do things for you, but aren't such glittery trophies as to out-shine modern releases.

OP, two things:

1 - there aren't actually all that many 2014 champs who have never been reworked.

2 - Rex posted very recently that reworks of old champs were continuing:

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2902191#Comment_2902191

Buttehrs

Sure, kabam could make them more useful in today's meta. But then come a year or two from now, the cycle will just repeat and champs fade into being benchwarmers again. Then theyll have to update older champs again, and again.

WednesdayLength

Captain America has lost at least 1 buff vote, possibly 2 if im not mistaken. Its easy to look past all the buffs we've gotten for og champions in the last few years but now that champion overhaul like cyclops, iron man and Dr strange are coming it makes more sense to take time to make sure that the buffs actually have an impact instead of just rushing out a quick buff for the sake of popularity.

GreedPsy

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2902977#Comment_2902977

You have an excellent and extremely valid point.

I'll start by saying the same thing I said before: let Marvel handle Marvel's marketing! If I put myself in the shoes of new players, I wouldn't really care if the game had 300 champions if the one I liked the most was useless or bad. It would be a bonus, clearly, but ultimately disappointing. In the end, I'm not saying they shouldn't add characters; I'm saying they should make the important ones strong. Isn't releasing new characters with the new movies and sponsoring them enough to help Marvel's portfolio? I mean (and with all due respect to Kabam), I don't think they're an excellent source of marketing. Of course, it's not easy to balance ALL the champions, both new and old, but the game is 11 years old, and Captain America is a joke. Add characters and make them strong; maybe one of them will be the next Captain America in 20 years. It's an excellent gamble, but don't neglect the ones that are already beloved; that's absurd.