Hello Michael. I had a couple questions regarding hero balance, and a couple about Emma Frost overall. I hope you take what I say in to consideration. It would be awesome to hear a reply from you in regards to these points/topics, and much appreciated.
So in the thread you posted on Test Center, you had mentioned that Emma, Spider-Man, and Rogue were getting nerfed because defensive affix to damage scaling was too high. I can understand that. People gearing for pure defense hitting around the same damage numbers that gearing for pure offense would yield. I get that.
I'm just curious though, what are these heroes measured by that determines balance? How much were Emma and Spider-Man actually over performing? You said Rogue was in a tier all by herself, vastly outperforming all other heroes, and even after her nerfs you still expect her to be #1. That is still in a much better spot that Emma and Spider-Man. I have seen her Suntank build reach 140-160k effective hp, while still achieving a 19s TTK on the small raid dummy at the same time. So she owns both the top DPS slot, and one of the top survival slots simultaneously even after her nerfs. As far as I can see, Spider-Man and Emma weren't even #1 before their nerfs. So why is Rogue allowed to exist in such an unbalanced state then?
I did some testing with Emma both on Live and on Test and the numbers were pretty disappointing. On live currently, I can reach about 27-30s average TTK on the small dummy depending on luck with critical and brutal strikes. On Test the fastest I was able to reach was 41s. That is a 52% increase in kill time, which honestly is a major blow. I'm also using almost all offensive Omegas and mostly offensive artifcats, I never went full stupid defense stacking. That is basically returning her to the state she was before her quality of life rework. Either way that is far from #1 damage. Comparing both average effective health and dps time between Emma and Rogue, there is a huge disparity that is going to be even bigger after these Test Center changes go live. Rogue is allowed to keep her survivability because it was untouched (she is practically immortal on live now unless you go super glass cannon), and still be #1 damage in the game. Emma got both nerfed, her damage more so.
While I don't care so much about the survivability, it's the damage I am more worried about. Her survivability isn't that much more than it was before her QOL, and now her damage is basically returned to that pre-QOL state as well. Other than her mental being better, doesn't that kind of make her QOL pointless now? I'm not trying to sound rude or mean about it, it just feels like we did a complete 180 and she went from feeling better than previously, to feeling worse because of all the new bugs she has and undesirable changes like: concealment on Unlock Potential, damage being tied to mobs targeting you without a reliable way to actually make them target you (concealment works counterproductive to that, and taunt doesn't seem to ever actually work), damage on Unlock Potential being pretty low, especially compared to Inspire Minion, still being forced to use a pet because the petless buff doesn't show at all and the attack speed buff from Commanding is still king, tied cooldowns between Astral Whip and Show Off, cooldown timers not showing properly for Diamond Mind and Diamond Skin, losing all Diamond Armor with nearly EVERY zone change even in the same instance, etc.
Psychic Spear is not visually appealing and doesn't feel like it has any impact at all. I literally cannot tell if I'm even using the power 98% of the time, it's just not represented well through audio or visual effects. Also, her new icons STILL do not match her old ones, and they look extremely out of place on a power bar filled with both old and new powers. Overall I feel Emma is in a more frustrating state now than she was before her rework. Her rework felt rushed and unfinished, and now only 2 weeks after it she has not had these issues worked out. Instead, she is getting a VERY heavy handed nerf that I feel like will just return her to obscurity.
Emma is the first hero I got to 60. She is my first cosmic prestige. She is the hero I started the game with, and have spent the most time playing by a pretty wide margin. Last time I checked, she had 1/3 of my total play time. This can all be easily verified by you. So I'm not one of the bandwagon hoppers that flocked to her after her QOL because I thought she was OP. She is legitimately the entire reason I started playing Marvel Heroes in the first place. I just don't want to see her left in a bugged and unfinished state, and then nerfed in to the ground after without even addressing or fixing her unfinished and bugged state. If her defensive scaling was out of line, I understand a need for change. But I would rather see scaling adjusted and her base damage adjusted along with it so you have to strike a balance between offensive and defensive gear, rather than just a flat out nerf that I feel doesn't reliably solve the problem, but just sweeps it under the rug. And also completely destroys defensive itemization in general.
Spider-Man was, to my knowledge, always regarded as the shining example of perfect balance for a hero. He didn't own a top DPS spot on any charts, but he had good survivability and good damage. I'm honestly wondering why he was nerfed? What were the numbers really showing, and what is the line that you draw using comparisons to determine if something is out of balance?
I mean honestly, melee heroes SHOULD be overpowered when compared to ranged heroes. They are always in melee range, and have to absorb significantly more damage than ranged heroes do. Most melee heroes don't have the luxury of instant teleports and free repositioning that ranged heroes do. A lot of times the fight is obscured because there are about 20+ Doom Bots and other summons shadowing the fight and damage indicators get missed. You're standing in AoE near constantly and HAVE to face tank it because otherwise you do 0 damage. These are all things ranged heroes do not have to worry about.
Now look at heroes like Scarlet Witch and Jean Grey. They are considered top tier, and have been for a while. Jean's survivability, in my opinion, for a ranged hero is completely out of line. She has more inherent tank stats and health on hit/regen and damage absorption shields than most heroes, while completely outclassing them in the damage department at the same time. Let alone even comparing her to melee heroes. And she is ranged. I mean Jean has more passive healing than Wolverine, and his mutant power IS healing. Using things like Cerebro and Mental Overload, Jean still has better survivability AND damage than my Ms. Marvel (who I play melee because Princess Sparklefists), who I have to gear more defensively and put more Omegas in to defense.
So where does the line get drawn? Why are ranged heroes allowed to be so out of line with their damage, and in some cases not suffer a trade off in survivability at all when they are rarely ever in danger? Why do melee heroes have to be tuned down survivability and damage wise to ranged heroes? Just the fact that ranged heroes can sit far away from boss fights and never have to sit in AoE damage or DoT hazards is a massive advantage that almost no defensive boosts can truly make up for. Yet melee heroes are still brought down to lower levels of survivability than ranged anyway. If ranged heroes and melee heroes are equal damage wise, then melee heroes should have VASTLY superior survivability. Because just being ranged in and itself is a pretty insane advantage and survivability boost just by itself, not even considering the tankiness ranged heroes like Jean get for free.
Honestly, if defensive scaling to offensive power affixes are that far out of line, please make a fair and equal adjustment. Please don't just flat out nerf them and then call it a day.
Then you have Loki who you admitted to being subpar in the damage deparment, so you are giving a heavy handed 50% nerf to his one and only good skill he has and then leaving him like that until an unknown later time. Why would he not get his skills rebalanced at the same time?
I guess at some point my mind wandered, but basically what I'm looking for is:
- How do you measure heroes to determine if they are balanced or not? Can you supply us with some of the metrics so we can see how truly out of line heroes like Emma, Spider-Man, and Rogue are?
- Why are melee heroes forced to be on par survivability and damage wise with ranged heroes, when ranged heroes have an already clear and massive advantage being ranged in the first place? Shouldn't melee heroes have more inherent survivability and/or damage in the first place since they is much more risk involved being melee than ranged?
- If defensive scaling was such a problem with Emma and Spider-Man, who weren't even #1 damage heroes, then why is Rogue still allowed to exist in the same state as she was pre-nerfs in that she will STILL be a #1 damage hero while simultaneously being unkillable?
- Are you guys going to get around to finishing Emma Frost's bugs, icons, and kit? Or are you done with her? Is she going to get nerfed in to the ground and forgotten about for a year or two?
- How are certain powers determined to be problematic, and what is being done to balance out the kit rather than just nerf the power and move on? Example, Loki getting such a heavy handed nerf to his one and only useful skill and being left in such a poor and under performing state for an undisclosed amount of time without having some of his other skills at least adjusted up a bit.
- Why are "small changes over time" not being done more frequently? The only small changes that seem to happen are heavy handed nerfs, and they are not small at all. You are hitting multiple things at once with relatively large values (cutting in half). I can't recall the last time I actually saw small sets of buffs handed out to heroes who under perform such as Magneto, Squirrel Girl, Venom, Wolverine, etc.
I know this is a long post and is a lot to take in, but I would really appreciate it if you have the time to respond regarding hero balance in general.
I'm not looking for a fight. I'm not looking for "us vs. them". I'm not looking for "michael ruined my lyfe! insert random empty threat or outrageous demand here". I'm just looking for legitimate feedback and insight on the hero balance and design process so that maybe I can become a source of cooperation and help to improve the experience of Marvel Heroes by giving good feedback, and proper results to help out the dev team and make their jobs easier, and make our experience better.
Please keep it civil, and please keep it on topic and don't troll. I will flag posts liberally and call in @AgentFenixion if I have to.
Anyway, thanks for your time.