Why do I have to start the post this way? This is not a criticism of Kabam. Actually most of it is praise for a job well done. Please read the whole post before moderating it. :P I promise it's constructive.
So... way back when Kabam rolled out the much hated 12.0 update, they said something about their motivations behind the massive nerf to the most dominant champs in the game (and minor buff to some lesser champs); something that made a lot of sense to me even though it was an unpopular decision at the time. Their explanation was that they wanted a more level playing field, a game environment where any player could choose to rank up any character and not be significantly handicapped for doing so. Every character was supposed to be viable.
In my opinion that's an admirable, though difficult, goal to achieve that leads to a robust and healthy game environment and for the most part, with one *glaring* exception which I will get to later, I think they have succeeded. I have some evidence to back that up which I'll also get to a little later.
I agree with most of the decisions they've made since then, especially since they corrected the 12.0 overreach (the nerfs were too strong) with 12.1 and beyond.
Scarlet Witch is still awesome, she just doesn't totally dominate everything like she used to.
Black Widow is still great, she's just not broken.
Thor is still great, he's just not broken.
StarLord is perfect.
Doctor VooDoo.. meh... he wasn't so overpowered to begin with. This is the only nerf I really thought was uncalled for. He kinda stinks now. They ought to put him back to how he was.
Spider-Gwen isn't overpowered but she's not the worst character in the game anymore.
The buffs to Luke Cage and Red Hulk were great; these characters are very useful now but not overpowered. Just right. Looking forward to similar buffs for Colossus, Hulkbuster, and Carnage. (but please never buff Kamala Khan, someone needs to retain the title of worst)
So... this brings me to my main point: do any characters still dominate the way Scarlet Witch used to? Or is it the even playing field that Kabam was trying to create?
Well, by looking at the top 100 highest rated players in the game I did an informal survey of which champions these players saw fit to bring up to rank 5. Here are the results:
Of the top 100 MCOC players, this many took these characters to rank 5:
and... if that's where the list ended, I would say awesome job! Very balanced and varied field of champions with maybe the small exception of Dr VooDoo who might be a little overpowered and overrepresented but all in all 11/100 people choosing to rank up one character is not that big of an imbalance at all.
Except... I left one character out. Of course.
70% of the top 100 players in the game have taken Blade to rank 5. 70%!!!
If you were going for a balanced environment I think someone messed up here. The biggest problem might be the synergy with Ghost Rider which extends his danger sense (which is too strong) to way too many champions. It breaks the game. And I'm sure you know this already as we've seen some design choices already obviously meant to help correct it. But still. Blade is more dominant now than Scarlet Witch ever was, at least in terms of the choices players are making about which characters to rank up.
Just wanted to share the results of the survey, and maybe elicit some ideas about what to do about this. Do other players see this imbalance as a problem? What should Kabam do? Nerf Blade? Keep bringing out villains that aren't #villains? Make new characters that are just as strong or stronger? Rebalancing is going to be difficult. I posted a couple ideas for AWD in my character ideas thread already.
So since 70% r5'd Blade and all have 2 r5 champs in top 100 that means that 70/200 are blade which is only 35%. See you can double all the other champs since most likely everyone that didn't have blade already ranked would have to rank one of the other champs you listed. There for 70/200 is 35%.
DR V goes up to 22%
MS 14%
GR 12%
And you get the gist of it.
I'm not sure if that is entirely statistically valid, but it is true looking at profiles does skew the results for the simple reason that you can only see four. If you look at my profile you would see Blade 4/55, Loki 1/25, Nebula 1/25, and Archangel 4/55. You wouldn't see the very first thing I ever took to 4/55 and the champion I've played the longest at 4/55 - Iceman. In any analysis of rank ups where profiles were the only source of information, my profile would under-represent Iceman. And I have enough resources to do another 4/55 rank up in theory, if I do then there would be two champions that would be under-represented.
Which champions are under-represented across all players is not random, because different champs have different PI. Blade always shows up in people's profiles when it is ranked up because he has very high PI. So while many champions don't show up in profiles, Blade almost always does for any players that has ranked him up, no matter what else they ranked up. Among the top players it is very likely that Blade is ranked up more often than any other champion, but the spread is almost certainly much more narrow than profiles would suggest.
This is true for your account but if there are only enough resources so far to get 2 rank 5 5* no matter what they would show up on your top 4.
That's true. I wonder if there is another possible source of skew though. If you can only look at the top 100 players, is it more likely that players that have ranked up at least one Blade are more likely to appear in the top 100 than players that do not, because Blade has higher PI?
In other words, is the top 100 players representative of all players that have ranked up two 5/65 champs? I wonder how many such players there are.
I have 2 champs at 5/65 and at no point did i even consider taking up blade
By those numbers, 84 of those top 100 players have 2 R5s. Would be interesting to see how many of those 84 have r5 blade... bc if say maybe 70 of the 84 have him on their team then that means that the only reason 70% of those other characters even got ranked was because blade doesnt doesnt have a twin brother.
Blades fine, quit complaining... use non villain/bleed/ dimensional being defenders... Ice man, cable, spidey, Medusa, bpcw, av, yondu... get creative with placement.. I try to sneak magik or dormamu in.
Exactly. Thats why the "nerf Blade" threads are annoying. We all know the true root of the idea is AWD and wanting Mystic wars again. Pretty lazy excuse to nerf a character if you ask me. Use your roster. You'll be surprised how many great defenders are currently on it.
This isn't a "nerf Blade" thread and you are strawmanning me. The OP was to call attention to a serious imbalance in the value that players are putting on certain characters and an invitation to offer ideas on what to do about this. Nerfing Blade might be called for, but that would have some serious negative repercussions as well. I think there are probably other solutions.
I wasn't even considering the impact on people's Alliance War defense teams, to be honest, but that is a subject worth bringing up. For me I started building up toward 5/5 Mystic Dispersion and an all-Mystic defense team about a year and a half ago when I first started playing, and I've spent an enormous amount of time and resources building toward that goal. To have one character come along and overnight make my defense team suck is kind of a kick to the nards, now that you bring it up. and your suggestion to "use your roster" feels a little tone deaf considering that not everyone playing the game has 30 different 5* rank 4s that they can just swap around at will. It can take months or years to build toward a specific team for anything in this game, including Alliance War defense. But yeah for end game top 100 players with 1 million PI it's not that big of a deal.
People are complaining about IMIW and 38 and really, how come no one gives credit to Kabam for creating a character where Blade doesn't just steamroll him? Instead it's cries for nerf everywhere.
Let me ask this...if they release SW as a 5*, what does everyone think the % of seeing her on the top 100 profiles be? This is assuming her PI will be around Blades.
Blades fine, quit complaining... use non villain/bleed/ dimensional being defenders... Ice man, cable, spidey, Medusa, bpcw, av, yondu... get creative with placement.. I try to sneak magik or dormamu in.
Exactly. Thats why the "nerf Blade" threads are annoying. We all know the true root of the idea is AWD and wanting Mystic wars again. Pretty lazy excuse to nerf a character if you ask me. Use your roster. You'll be surprised how many great defenders are currently on it.
That's not true. Blade is just way above all the other champions. Look at what they did with GHulk. He would end Mystic wars too, but they didn't make him broken af. They made him balanced. No one is complaining about GHulk "because we want mystic wars back", people are saying nerf Blade because he's just way over the top.
Blade is a great champ. But he's also has high prestige which is a big reason he's at r5 some of the top players accounts. I remember when a 4* rr was the top champ on a lot of top players accounts they didn't rank him cause he was God tier that for sure. They only maxed him cause at the time he had the highest prestige in the game. Prestige stills plays a big role for a lot of top players when it comes to rank ups. I have blade and sparky and I would r5 sparky all day over blade imo he's a better champ
@Ivanka I’m afraid your argument is so last AW seasons. Do you have him? There are plenty of counters for him. True he is one of the better champs against the mystic, unavoidable damage champs but that is kinda intended. Does nothing against power gain or MD 5/5. That’s wrecked. While he’s a better champ do a bit of research bland gameplay before you post. Most people believed the hype and ranked him with prestige in mind as well. Now it’s killmonger, Medusa, and the like. He’s good. He’s not the best champ in the game by far. I’m sorry you don’t know that.
To be clear, I don’t want blade nerfed. I have 2 accounts and on baby account have blade at rank 5 4*. People who have him have to be honest. He is an absolute cheat code. I beat master thanos easier using a 4* with **** masteries vs beating him using rank 4 5* with solid masteries. Playing this game with a rank 5 5* blade in probably around 70% of all fights it’s astronomically easier than everything else. It’s just a fact.
People are complaining about IMIW and 38 and really, how come no one gives credit to Kabam for creating a character where Blade doesn't just steamroll him? Instead it's cries for nerf everywhere.
Creating good defenders that Blade is not a good answer for is one solution, and if you look at my original post you'll see I mention that I have already suggested doing this myself in another thread. I designed a couple characters that would not be easy match ups for Blade.
Though one of the things that makes Blade valuable is that the way he is designed there is currently NO match that he is really BAD for... just some where he is less good than in others. Iron Man Infinity War might not be an easy match for Blade but it's no harder for Blade than it is for the vast majority of champions.
Currently the only defender I can think of that Blade would perhaps be a worse option for than most other champs is Cable.
and... even *more* difficult is coming up with a defender that can't be easily handled by any member of the Trinity (Blade, Ghost Rider, Stark Enhanced Spider-Man). Forcing attackers to break up the trinity to account for certain defenders would be one way to take away some of Blade's dominance in AW.
Let me ask this...if they release SW as a 5*, what does everyone think the % of seeing her on the top 100 profiles be? This is assuming her PI will be around Blades.
I personally would rank her over blade.
I'm guessing around 1%. StarLord is at 1%. He makes lists of top champs these days more than Scarlet Witch does.
@Ivanka I’m afraid your argument is so last AW seasons. Do you have him? There are plenty of counters for him. True he is one of the better champs against the mystic, unavoidable damage champs but that is kinda intended. Does nothing against power gain or MD 5/5. That’s wrecked. While he’s a better champ do a bit of research bland gameplay before you post. Most people believed the hype and ranked him with prestige in mind as well. Now it’s killmonger, Medusa, and the like. He’s good. He’s not the best champ in the game by far. I’m sorry you don’t know that.
wow. Condescend much?
Yes I have him. On 3 separate accounts. I got him on 1 account from the first time he was in featured arena, so I'm one of the first players in the game to have him. I run or help run 3 different alliances where many of the members have him, including almost everyone in the top alliance I run. I manage defensive placements in AW and closely monitor how different champions fare vs different defenders. I'm very familiar with what he can do.
My argument was that 70% of the top 100 players in the game have chosen to rank him up, and that 70 is a bigger number than 11. I'm sorry you don't know that.
Comments
I have 2 champs at 5/65 and at no point did i even consider taking up blade
Cool! You're in the small minority.
This isn't a "nerf Blade" thread and you are strawmanning me. The OP was to call attention to a serious imbalance in the value that players are putting on certain characters and an invitation to offer ideas on what to do about this. Nerfing Blade might be called for, but that would have some serious negative repercussions as well. I think there are probably other solutions.
I wasn't even considering the impact on people's Alliance War defense teams, to be honest, but that is a subject worth bringing up. For me I started building up toward 5/5 Mystic Dispersion and an all-Mystic defense team about a year and a half ago when I first started playing, and I've spent an enormous amount of time and resources building toward that goal. To have one character come along and overnight make my defense team suck is kind of a kick to the nards, now that you bring it up. and your suggestion to "use your roster" feels a little tone deaf considering that not everyone playing the game has 30 different 5* rank 4s that they can just swap around at will. It can take months or years to build toward a specific team for anything in this game, including Alliance War defense. But yeah for end game top 100 players with 1 million PI it's not that big of a deal.
I personally would rank her over blade.
That's not true. Blade is just way above all the other champions. Look at what they did with GHulk. He would end Mystic wars too, but they didn't make him broken af. They made him balanced. No one is complaining about GHulk "because we want mystic wars back", people are saying nerf Blade because he's just way over the top.
a.k.a. OP
Creating good defenders that Blade is not a good answer for is one solution, and if you look at my original post you'll see I mention that I have already suggested doing this myself in another thread. I designed a couple characters that would not be easy match ups for Blade.
Though one of the things that makes Blade valuable is that the way he is designed there is currently NO match that he is really BAD for... just some where he is less good than in others. Iron Man Infinity War might not be an easy match for Blade but it's no harder for Blade than it is for the vast majority of champions.
Currently the only defender I can think of that Blade would perhaps be a worse option for than most other champs is Cable.
and... even *more* difficult is coming up with a defender that can't be easily handled by any member of the Trinity (Blade, Ghost Rider, Stark Enhanced Spider-Man). Forcing attackers to break up the trinity to account for certain defenders would be one way to take away some of Blade's dominance in AW.
I'm guessing around 1%. StarLord is at 1%. He makes lists of top champs these days more than Scarlet Witch does.
wow. Condescend much?
Yes I have him. On 3 separate accounts. I got him on 1 account from the first time he was in featured arena, so I'm one of the first players in the game to have him. I run or help run 3 different alliances where many of the members have him, including almost everyone in the top alliance I run. I manage defensive placements in AW and closely monitor how different champions fare vs different defenders. I'm very familiar with what he can do.
My argument was that 70% of the top 100 players in the game have chosen to rank him up, and that 70 is a bigger number than 11. I'm sorry you don't know that.