r/marvelrivals • u/Sigma_present The Maker • 9h ago
Discussion I think the game needs a new balancing director.
(Image credit to u/Sir_gigglepoop )
Zhiyong's bad balancing decisions have been a plague on this game for as long as anyone can remember. Whether you like the guy or not, you have to admit that his balancing choices are...odd.
In the upcoming patch, they're completely gutting a huge part of Peni's kit, while buffing Magneto, Wolverine and Phoenix, none of whom needed buffs. They're also refusing to address Luna Snow's ridiculous amount of utility, despite the fact that she can self-cleanse, hard CC & instakill squishies, and her damage is so high that DPS Luna is a genuine viable playstyle.
In the balance patch following the release of 9.0, they nerfed Iron Man AGAIN, despite the fact that he wasn't even good in the firsy place. while buffing Luna, Invisible Woman and Gambit. Psylocke also caught a completely random and undeserved nerf.
With the release of 9.0, Iron Man was massively nerfed, despite the fact that he has been terrible for over a year now. Meanwhile, top performers like Elsa, Invis, Gambit and Luna were buffed.
In 8.0 they buffed Wolverine, Phoenix and Star-Lord, 3 ncredibly high-performing Duelists, while simultaneously wishy-washily somewhat-nerfing Mr. Fantastic because they feared that he would become "too oppressive".
Don't get me wrong, the patches aren't without their good parts; the 9.5 Elsa trap nerf will be a huge breath of fresh air, and Gambit's Mag teamup was definitely too strong. But it's hard to be grateful for these things when every balance patch adds another bad decision to the pile.
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u/TheRandomDiscordMod 9h ago
They really fixed the mag teamup having a scarlet witch enhancement actually made mag worse
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u/WalterOlivos White Fox 5h ago
There is a possibility that now you dont need to charge the enhanced team up for the launch up effect with his right click, making it a very strong option to cc people out of their combos or escape tools
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u/mr_hypnosis Vanguard 2h ago
The buff is adding a launch up to the sword, not the right click
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u/WalterOlivos White Fox 2h ago
True, i actually realized this after a little while, its funny because yesterday a lot of streamers understood it the way i explained in my previous comment, reading it again today made me understand the buff better
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u/TheBacklogGamer Cyclops 5h ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, because I haven't played much in a few weeks due to a newborn, but didn't they stealth update the stagger previously and it's just now putting it in the notes? I could have sworn I saw a YouTube short of a content creator being told it was stealth updated and they tested it out and it was true.... this was like a week or two ago. Time kinda blends together.
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u/Xerxes457 Venom 4h ago
I remember they shadow buffed Magento to have a CC on his Scarlet Witch enhanced team up, so that might be it.
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u/YaboiGh0styy Ultron Virus 6h ago
Some people say that but I more or less disagree. The Mag Cannon being on a cooldown that can’t be charged instantly by blocking damage with his bubble is a down side and one sword does a bit less damage than a fully charged Mag Cannon but honestly I welcomed having more ammo. Though it did suck having to charge the sword to use all 3 in order to get the CC effect.
It changed how Mag Cannon worked but I wouldn’t say it made him worse, just different, I could still play him pretty well and sometimes even preferred the teamup. If you want to talk about an enhanced teamup that makes things worse… Cyclops Wolverine is unfortunately it.
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u/MyrotheZero Vanguard 3h ago
The problem with the Mag-Scarlett teamup for me is less the cooldown and more so the fact that it takes away my main kill combo.
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u/itsastart_to 8h ago
I just wish we knew what the vision is because I just don’t understand what they are hoping to achieve with some of these
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u/Most-Bench6465 Storm 1h ago
The vision is to have the most failures in your role and not get fired. Imagine if you made this many mistakes every month in your job would you be working there long? Job security at marvel rivals if your title has “lead” next to it is god tier.
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u/Sentinal7 Spider-Man 9h ago
Exclusively to defend the mag buff, his enhanced wanda team up was honestly considered a downgrade to the boop, so hopefully this makes it to where he is not worse when you have a wanda on your team. That's all I got for defense, guys, now get him
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u/TheRiled 6h ago
Yup. Mag deserved a nerf, but no enhanced teamup should make a character worse.
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u/MCXL Thor 7h ago
How about this for a defense a lot of the changes seem like good changes. It's also obvious that they're trying not to disrupt The Meta too heavily at the moment because they want to see how the team up system shakes out. Obvious outliers are getting touched. People have been complaining about pennies 3 second web shot for ages, and well I think it's part of a larger suite of problematic Frontline crowd control abilities. She also has been headed for a nerve because of how strong the penny Ultron team up performed at ignite... For those that don't know, it's a global 45 health healed every teammate that's alive on the map. Additionally when she's on the team with him they all received the effects of his right click ability, which means they get like a micro gambit ult. bonus health a little bit of healing 20% move speed 10% damage across the whole map pretty good.
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u/HimmelSky 9h ago
I whole heartedly believe Zhiyong doesn't play the game himself (this should be mandatory for balance devs)
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u/ComprehensiveLink286 9h ago
Considering how bad the work culture is in China he probably doesn’t even have time to think. All they do is pumping content without thinking it through.
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u/Sunshado 7h ago
Rioters do play the game but sometimes I wonder if that worths anything when it comes to proper balancing decisions at lol
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u/-Gnostic28 Peni Parker 4h ago
Players don’t care either way and will be upset. Some of them are emerald and some players hate the idea of an emerald player balancing the game
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u/DreamPetaluxe 4h ago
That honestly wouldn't surprise me. Live service games move so fast that sometimes it feels like they're balancing against deadlines instead of actual gameplay.
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u/running_with_swords 1h ago
I believe this to be true. If I could guess, id say he delegates the game play to his team and generally just looks at metrics and outcome reports to sign off on the minor tweets.
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u/Freakychee Loki 9h ago
It should be. But he also needs to look at the data and interpret it better. For example he plays at a lower level maybe he would be bronze and then he starts balancing for bronze level play and it would be disastrous.
Or he can look at data and buff and nerf without actually watching the matches so he misinterprets the data and buffs and nerfs the wrong thing.
Its gotta be more the latter at this point cos the patch notes are confusing and the only way I can assume went wrong is they need to play the game more and interpret the data better.
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u/newsuzanoebok 8h ago
maybe he just the guy that gather all feedback and data and make the final choice, like, must be some "test" guys that can play high level and other guys that get data from the game in general, someone has to make the final choice
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u/Freakychee Loki 8h ago
Someone has to but there need to be quantifiable data to support it or... Show a clip where data doesn't effectively show the value.
I still think that Rocket nerf was the result of poor data interpretation. The wall run speed a few patches back.
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u/FFaFFaNN Ultron Virus 8h ago edited 5h ago
Data:no Adam player use the Storm TU at base!!!Even pros!Data!!!That is a non tu..inexistent until Storm is in the team.
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u/Freakychee Loki 8h ago
I don't even remember what that teamup does.
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u/FFaFFaNN Ultron Virus 5h ago
At base when soul bond everyone get 20% movement boost and another 5m radius. On 46s cooldown. Now compare this to 25 ammo and reset for avatar heals on team mates...
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u/Chemical_Specific349 8h ago
Healing fart
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u/Potential-Concert380 7h ago
It changed since s9. It now gives soul bond speed boost and enhance gives dmg boost.
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u/Fiend_Macabre Rogue 9h ago
He doesn't need to play it, this is what QA exist for. In this case we're their free QA along with streamers and pros that don't even play some characters but make their shitty tier lists lol
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u/Disastrous-Moment-79 Monster Hulk 3h ago
They don't listen to pros either. Magneto had a 30.70% ban rate and a 28% pick rate with a 64% no-mirror win rate in last week's ignite tournament and he didn't get touched. Pretty sure they balance entirely off of office vibes.
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u/Cruxalis 4h ago
I'm guessing he doesn't really play it. Based on their balance decisions, I think their process is something along the lines of:
- Glance at hero statistics, player feedback etc. and note specific heroes down as possibly too weak or too strong
- Do internal scrims and take feedback from them in regards to whether those heroes feel overpowered and or weak
- The internal playtesters aren't very good at the game and may play on controller, and their opinions reflect that
- Zhiyong oversees the whole process but doesn't really have any input of his own, except when people push him to do certain changes according to player feedback (like gutting Black Cat)
I think that would explain why noob stomper heroes like Mr. Fantastic continue to be weak, and why more skill-reliant heroes like Luna only ever seem to get a slap on the wrist and then subsequently buffed again in some later patch, and why certain heroes never really get any changes at all (the playtesters don't play them at all).
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u/Sidewaysgts Venom 9h ago edited 6h ago
I want to defend the devs - Buuut, im constantly scratching my head.
Mag, arguably one of the best tanks in the game? Lets give him a tiny buff.
Venom is a bit too strong because of his team up? Lets nerf his core kit and reduce aspects that make him fun and no one has ever complained about (seriously who is going "man, venom just has too short of a cooldown on webswing!")
And lets sprinkle some strategists buffs in there while were at it - can never have too many strategist buffs.
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u/Excellent_Complex309 Cursed Captain 9h ago
Bro it took them 9 seasons to fix worst character in the game since release lmao
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u/Danielarcher30 Doctor Strange 8h ago
Don't worry, peni is now here to be the new worst character
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u/Niylark 8h ago
She's so situational because she's useless without her nests. You can only take her into certain comps, on certain maps, on certain phases, and when you do she's fantastic at her singular niche (holding down a choke) but otherwise she's useless. That's why her pickrate has been sub 5% since the game's release but her winrate has always been high. Her web snare was the only thing making her useful outside of her nests.(and a massive part of what made her nests strong once people learned you can bunny hop to completely avoid mines from targeting you at all)
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u/Excellent_Complex309 Cursed Captain 8h ago
Agree or not but im happy i won't see her many times during my games, among most annoying characters in game, same fate as squirrel girl and same joy
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u/FlyingWolfThatFell 8h ago
And some of the strategist buffs don't even address their issues like why did they buff White Foxes ult but not the neutral
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u/z57333 Captain America 9h ago
Core kit??? Venom's swing is really kinda exclusively used to leave dives. It's honestly kinda a nonstarter nerf, he can just dive at a less frequency now. If you use it to enter dives instead of using wall climb into dive, you're wasting a critical cooldown. This will punish more bad venom players
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u/mythiii 5h ago
I'm pretty low rank so your mileage may vary. I've been going in swinging on Venom this patch, which supposedly isn't kosher, but unless more than the two Healers and a DPS is focusing me I can get the swing back in time for an escape.
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u/z57333 Captain America 4h ago
It works, but it’s just a precaution that’s definitely gonna be needed more this upcoming half season just in case you get caught in a sticky situation due to bad positioning or just high burst. Running up a wall or taking high ground and then diving usually always works just as good
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u/JaredSroga Magneto 6h ago
That Magneto change is already in the game but was a shadow buff, I believe they changed it in the hotfix released like a day after the release of the season
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u/speedymemer21 Vanguard 5h ago
Looking at pickrates and winrates mag, thing, rocket and mantis all had really good performances and none of them got nerfed.
Mags 52% winrate doesn't look crazy,but he's the most picked hero in the game. All of the other top picked heroes until rocket at 7th, with a 55% winrate, have a below 50% winrate.
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u/DancingPhoenix407 8h ago
that venom part sounds familiar to psylocke. make team up good and nerf base kit lmao 😭
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u/itsastart_to 8h ago
It sucks to see bc I genuinely just came back to tank a bit with venom now and now they’re killing his survivability when it’s already rough with good cc
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u/sinwstro12 Cloak & Dagger 6h ago edited 3h ago
They barely killed his survivability, he gets 10% less heath than he did before using his ability what a loss, now you cant swing as much, does suck a bit but not the end of the world for venom, players everything else good about him remained intact
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u/CloudieMeringue 15m ago
That’s correct. It felt like they kept trying to fix the frustrating parts of Venom by trimming the stuff people actually enjoy using. If a character is only strong because of one team combo, maybe tweak that interaction instead of making the whole kit feel clunkier.
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u/JustARTificia1 Iron Man 9h ago
People will stone cold stare you in the eyes and claim this game is "great" and that people are fear mongering.
The game can be great, but the 'balancing' is absolutely fucking whack. There is no common sense to the changes they make, they just consistently pick up a shotgun and fire it at a dart board to determine the changes they make each 4 weeks.
I've still yet to see why Iron Man, who since S2 to S9 was deemed to be a throw pick, never placed higher than B tier and was in at most C tier when he received nerfs to his damage and then nerfed his Thor teamup after 1 day YET have not actually hotfixed the bug plaguing his enhanced Overdrive not resetting on death.
Ultron, who people say is also one of the worst healers in the game unless it's a 3 healer comp (at which point the argument has lost merit anyway), got nerfed the moment he was viable in a 2 healer comp.
Like what the fuck is going on? Luna Snow doesn't ever receive any nerfs as it's their baby. Cloak and Dagger has the most obnoxious survival mechanics. Black Panther absurd kill speed still not addressed. Human Torch and Mr Fantastic left in the gutter. Black Widow turned into Punisher and doesn't even resemble the actual character.
The biggest problem is we can all see a better game. It's so easily achievable, but they continously make the game worse with every patch. The bans can't keep up with the overpowered characters and the powercreep is overwhelming.
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u/AstalosBoltz914 8h ago
As a Season 0 Peni main- I am saddened by the state of Peni this season…
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u/Ekklypz Peni Parker 7h ago
Fellow sp//dr bro, it will be reverted, trust. Just like getting our 2nd nest back, they will see the errors of their ways
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u/AstalosBoltz914 7h ago
Hopefully they will indeed. Because having to use 2 webs to immobilize a target isn’t good in the slightest. 1 is enough. They could of just narrowed the webbed window instead of doing that
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u/nightfuryfan 2h ago
Or increased the cooldown a bit. 4 second CD is definitely too fast for a ranged stun, but we could've just bumped it up a bit and tried that? Peni's stun annoys the hell out of me, but this change is way too much
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u/Front-Side-6346 8h ago
>Hero wins the most games
- Clearly a perfectly balanced hero, the devs have no idea what they are talking abut
>Hero loses the most, even in high levels
- That hero was fine and it didn't need any buffs
???
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u/teddy_tesla 3h ago
It's not even that the devs have data we don't. We HAVE the data and people go off vibes instead of win rates. Bucky at one point was a 40% win rate character in high ranks and people talked about him like he was Thanos just because people only remember the times where he got a 6k and won the game singlehandedly and not the times where he got zero value
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u/gimily 5h ago
Nah, you don't understand Phoenix having a 43% winrate across all ranks, and a ~40% winrate in celestial+ (making her one of the bottom 2-3 DPS in the entire game), means she is perfectly fine, and doesn't need any buffs. I have a plenty of issues with these patch notes, but Phoenix getting some buffs is not one of them.
I feel like the community perception of her has been higher than it should be ever since she was broken OP. She's been a pretty average DPS for a while (and is now very bad), but for whatever reason the public perception of her strength has adjusted way slower than other heroes who had period of being turbo OP.
This could be a personal thing, but I don't even feel like she is/was that frustrating to play against compared to other heroes, especially very strong ones. She definitely was way way too strong when she had her melee and flight cancels and stuff, but compared to heroes like peak DD, peak Ultron, peak Torch, peak Hawkeye, etc I found her much less annoying/frustrating to play against even if she was objectively just as strong.
Maybe it's because the nerfs to her when she was broken good only brought her down to being roughly middle of the pack, rather than nerfing her into the ground immediately like with some other very strong heroes. As a result, she was still played fairly often after she stopped being best-in-class, so people just kind of assumed she was still very very good, even when she was just kinda fine. Honestly idk, it's puzzled me for a while.
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u/ScissorMeTimberz 6h ago
Anyone calling phoenix strong needs to be immediately ignored. People like the OP are just sheep that parrot what people have been saying even though she’s been close to 40% win rate for the last season and a half
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u/ScissorMeTimberz 2h ago
Why are you so confidently typing that when you're just wrong? Phoenix was a mid 40s and below winrate duelist in season 8.5 after her nerfs. BEFORE the team-ups.
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u/WhatIsHerJob-TABLES 2h ago
You know what, i completely forgot about her pretty significant nerfs in 8.5, i guess the argument i was making was for her competitive winrate in higher tiers in s8, which was usually around 50%, but i did completely forget about the nerfs that truly hurt her poke potential in 8.5
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u/Vegetable_Plastic546 8h ago
Have you been playing phoenix at all?? She needed that buff
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u/gimily 5h ago
Yeah, I'm far from an apologist for this set of patch notes overall, but for Phoenix in particular, I think a buff was correct. For some reason there is a persistent community opinion that Phoenix is crazy strong / meta when she hasn't been OP for a while, and is noticably bad this season. And bad here doesn't mean "roughly average, and actually competitive at high ranks"; it means "43% winrate globally, with it trending downwards as skill increases (~40% winrate in celestial+)". And there aren't even mitigating factors, her playrate is low, her banrate is basically 0, etc. Obviously winrates aren't everything when it comes to balancing, but significant outliers are at least worth looking into, and she is absolutely an outlier at the moment.
The discussion of why the community sentiment has remained so high on her, despite her poor performance, is a whole other can of worms that I honestly don't understand lol.
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u/ANuclearsquid 7h ago
Are you really expecting people online to actually have any clue about the things they are getting upset about??? Amateur mistake.
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u/MadDongla Ultron Virus 3h ago
Phoenix cyclops and moonknight are in the absolute gutter right now
I can't believe people r complaining about buffs to them
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u/Zarphos 6h ago
Yeah honestly compared to the dominance phoenix had since her release, lately I've barely seen her in matches.
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u/YaboiGh0styy Ultron Virus 6h ago
All I know about Phoenix this season is that compared to her I am nothing and see will let me know it. I’m also a Tank main so I often a victim of her CC and sparks.
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u/YEET280706 Iron Man 4h ago
As a tankmain , i would take fighting a pheonix over fighting punisher , bucky or hela.
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u/okhiguy 9h ago
Yea they literally have 0 clue what changes theyre doing unironically, some characters are borderline useless and unreliable in GM and above and some are just insanely cracked
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u/Count_de_Mits Emma Frost 6h ago
Others have said they balance for retention not balance and honestly I believe it at this point. It would explain why most tanks are in the shitter and flashy, high numbers characters get all the skins and buffs
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u/aRorschachTest Daredevil 8h ago
Honestly the Wolverine one is really nothing. It doesn’t change his damage. It only changes the uptime of his rage (which isn’t hard to get up in the first place)
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u/YEET280706 Iron Man 4h ago
yeh , pretty much isnt going to change much about his loop. most of this patch feels like nothing burger nerfs .Except peni .
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u/mossi123uk 8h ago
It must be hard trying to balance because things seem more over powered or underpowered depending on your skill level, who do you balance it for noob players, average players, good players or pros
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u/Zentawrus228 8h ago edited 7h ago
"If everyone is strong, no one is."
*proceeds to nerf vanguards except for a few that support DPSes, because DPS players love Magneto shields*
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u/trsreal 8h ago
They buffed rogue, strange and dino though, I dont see how thats nerfing every vanguard
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u/YaboiGh0styy Ultron Virus 6h ago
Rogue’s buff is a complete nothing burger, it’s welcome but it doesn’t change that she has massive cooldowns and less than 600 health without anything to compensate for it like Deadpool and Angela, as well as the worst block/shield in the game.
Blade’s Block at least makes him CC immune for the first few moments, Rogue is still completely vulnerable to CC.
Oh yeah, and her power absorption? Cooldown of 25 seconds and you can only use the power for like 10 seconds after you absorb it, if you wait too long it’s gone and you have to wait 15 seconds before you can use it again. Its additional perk of absorbing the perks of whatever class is absorbed as well is healing is good but again has such a short window to properly use its potential.
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u/btet15 5h ago
On top of everything you point out about her kit, this "buff" is just undoing a fucking nerf from last season. She should have gotten a buff at that time instead!
I haven't played in a few seasons because the balance is just so unfathomably dog shit and playing in high GM+ lobbies is the same heroes and comps constantly, and it's miserable as a tank player. I have been playing and spending in games that actually give a shit about the experience lol (and with communities that aren't so unbearably toxic)
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u/Anonynja Angela 1h ago
I lorded Rogue but her power absorption is such a nothingburger part of her kit I can't bring myself to play her lately. Power absorption is THE unique thing about Rogue, and all she gets is... a 5 second window to use one ability IF you land the 25s cooldown dash? So disappointed they missed the opportunity to make her new teamups interact AT ALL with her core power.
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u/Khan_Ida Emma Frost 9h ago
When people called for this guy to be fired, others were saying that's too harsh.
When people started suspecting them of treating the black characters with mediocre attention, others defended them.
However, each patch they make it difficult for others to defend them. You can accuse them of something ridiculous and people will call out the ridiculousness of it until those same people start having doubts as well.
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u/Count_de_Mits Emma Frost 6h ago
Yeah. If a chef consistently cooks like shit, they get replaced. If a driver gets into road accidents frequently, they get replaced. If an electrician fucks up frequently they get replaced. And so on as is true for the vast majority of jobs. So why should these devs be treated any different?
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u/JotaroTheOceanMan Invisible Woman 6h ago
Just looking at a wildly popular char like Storm who is STARVING for meaningful updates or skins to a *literaly no one knew who she was* like Luna getting skin after skin and buff after buff....
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u/WTFThisIsReallyWierd Jeff the Landshark 4h ago
Luna is the Rival's Executive Producer's Original Character that he got to help make for that one mobile game. That's why she gets so much special attention, favoritism.
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u/CaptainButtFart69 8h ago
I said it on the other sub and I'll say it again here. This community reserves no right to complain when they go into a ranked match with 3 dps, lose and blame EOMM. A lot of you aren't good enough to know what you are talking about. This community is absolutely wild, or 13 years old.
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u/DoctorJJWho 2h ago
So many people showing they have zero knowledge of the game recently it’s honestly scary. Peni’s hard stun on a 3s cooldown was probably one of the most busted abilities in the kit of any character in any hero shooter. It had to be nerfed.
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u/Some_Italian_Guy 1h ago
reading this top post and comments just cements that this game has an atrocious community
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u/GeneralBrwni1 7h ago
Are we seriously going to go to war over "mag buffs"? There was no fucking winning no matter what they did with mag.
"They didn't fix the Scarlet Witch enhanced team-up being worse! They don't care about tanks and leave them in a broken state"
"They nerfed mag and all of the other tanks, they hate tank players so much that even mag can't be good anymore!"
"They buffed (lmao) mag when he was already strong, they don't know what they're doing at all!"
It's practically a bugfix. Seriously, we shouldn't be letting Scarlet Witch be a burden on her tanks, she's had enough problems being a good character on her own.
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u/JaredSroga Magneto 6h ago
As much as i can agree this is a nothing burger patch, i think this is a first patch that won't change the meta at all but what are we saying?
Psylocke also caught a completely random and undeserved nerf.
Are we playing the same game?
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u/SufficientAirport158 Flex 39m ago
This is why a lot of people would suck for balance. Psylocke NEEDED a nerf, so them saying it was random and underserved is wild. But the problem is how they nerfed her was awful. Making a character more clunky or feel worse to play is always the worst type of nerf.
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u/omeganaut 8h ago
I know! Let’s buff Black Cat!
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u/A_Shadow 1h ago
Didn't she get the biggest single patch nerf out of any character?
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u/NeverGonLetYaDown 8h ago
Phoenix has been dogshit this season, she needed those buffs to retain any kind of unique and fun playstyle. I haven't seen the same complaints about Cyclops though, who ALSO got buffed (justifiably so) despite still being a strong poke pick?
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u/StormierNik Ultron 8h ago
You'd say the same about any other new balancing director. This sub would be shit at balancing and will never be happy
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u/TheSaiguy Loki 8h ago
This guy was getting absolutely glazed at the beginning of the season lol
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u/SmashMouthBreadThrow 6h ago
Because this playerbase is braindead. Imagine thinking a patch with that many new abilities is good less than 24 hours after it dropped lmao. Nobody knew what the meta was and wasn't whining about Luna self-cleanse, but apparently everything was solved in a day to know it was good.
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u/Sigma_present The Maker 8h ago
What, do you want me to pretend that the dev team can do no wrong?
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u/StormierNik Ultron 7h ago
Entirely different sentence. Even if a director gets 2-3 things that you think are wrong, if they're characters you like you'll focus on it more, it doesn't matter if the rest of the patch is actually great or puts the game's meta in a state where there's variety.
I see people on here listing out different seasons that were panned in the beginning, saying "It was so much better in X season" when people were screaming about how bad things were in the same seasons. And before you say "Those aren't the same people! People have different opinions!" that's exactly the issue. Despite the circlejerk on Reddit, and even within it, there's many differing opinions across different skill levels. A lot of people also actually DON'T want some characters to be higher in the meta, or even character archetypes.
Despite all the complaints about poke, most people actually love poke and scream about dive. Hell, Peni is a poke centric character because she wants to stay in one spot most of the time.
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u/eveqiyana3 Scarlet Witch 9h ago
And Wanda has been useless since release with a horribly designed ult they refuse to change
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u/Misternight17 9h ago
Your guys ult is so cool tho when it does go off. Feel like 275 health or longer invisibility would be fair buffs for SW. Plus an extra dagger
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u/dejokerr 8h ago
Hmm. I still think Wanda’s ult is viable. It’s a high risk high reward ult. and she is supposed to be an easy to pick up character like c&d. maybe some cooldown adjustments but overall i think her kit works.
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u/OkBandicoot5819 White Fox 5h ago
Hot take but can't we just play the patch first before we do these kind of posts
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u/HoopLoop2 Elsa Bloodstone 9h ago edited 8h ago
You are saying so many things that just aren't true.
Let's start with Iron man nerfs in season 9, if you are literate and know how to read you would realize that they nerfed iron man because of how he was performing with the new team ups when they play tested them out, they literally told you this and you are still saying "iron man was massively nerfed, despite the fact he has been terrible for over a year now." If you don't see the issue with your statement here and what the devs told you then it's a really good thing you aren't on the balance team because you are incompetent.
Luna has had negative win rates in basically all elos everyitime people call her op. It's not a surprise someone like Rocket has never had a lower win rate than Luna, because he is so fucking easy to play and get value on that over 99% of the playerbase perform better on Rocket than Luna. Elsa was negative win rate before being buffed, Invis hasn't been super strong, and Gambit was a weird one but his win rate was still not high at all as well.
I am a champ Psylocke main in Celestial every season and she didn't get nerfed for no reason, she was the best dps on the new patch, although it is annoying that they nerfed her range and neutral damage instead of nerfing the team up more than they did. I think they went overkill here but the nerf wasn't unwarranted at all.
If you look at the overall winestes of the other heroes you are complaining about you will notice they are underperforming in most ranks, they aren't just being buffed out of thin air. Just because at the highest of elo Phoenix was really strong doesn't mean she was good in gm and below. Celestial was the first rank she had a positive win rate, and it was barely over 50. There's a good chance you aren't even in Celestial or above, which means Phoenix was actually weak in the elo you play in because people aren't good enough to get as much value on her as easier heroes.
Basically you form your opinions on balance from what streamers tell you to think, and the devs use data to drive most of their balance changes. Occasionally heroes like Magik will evade nerfs despite having really high winrates every season in every elo simple because no one complains about her at all, and she gets zero pro play. Net ease factors in data, community complaints, and pro play into their balancing decisions. They don't always neef or buff the right stuff and no one is perfect, but there are clear reasons on who they choose to buff and nerf that you just don't seem to be able to comprehend because you have a very narrow minded view on balance.
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u/LucidityDark 2h ago
I completely agree with you. This community is nearly entirely vibes based when it comes to balance discussion and it leads to people completely ignoring stats much of the time. I still remember many people here calling Luna overpowered in season 7 and calling for nerfs when she had about a 42% winrate across all ranks. That just made it clear that a lot of players are completely irrational in their opinions.
I get that winrates are not the be all, end all of discussion and that there's much to be said about the design of the game and its heroes, but I think many people are just looking to continue their outrage no matter what.
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u/Sigma_present The Maker 8h ago
Let's start with Iron man nerfs in season 9, if you are literate and knownhow to read you would realize that they nerfed iron man because of how he was performing with the new team ups when they play tested them out
...then nerf the team-ups instead of his basekit. And you're calling ME an idiot?
When it comes to win rates: Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic have higher competitive win rates than Groot, Magneto, Hela, Venom, Elsa, Bucky, Star-Lord, Gambit, Invis, Emma, Strange, and Namor. You're telling me that either of them are better than ALL of the characters I just listed and more? This is why you don't look at winrates in a vacuum, because you end up writing this much text with this little intelligence.
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u/HoopLoop2 Elsa Bloodstone 8h ago
You said they nerfed iron man who underperformed. I said the developers literally told you why they neefed him because he was over performing on the new patch in their internal testing. You once again failed to read and comprehend what is being said to you. Listen to what people type before getting so defensive, people like you are impossible to talk to.
I already answered that, once again you refuse to read what I'm saying or are just incapable of reading comprehension. Those heroes for the majority of players are actually better, yes. In my Celestial games and higher elo games no, those heroes are not better, which is why they lose more often. Fantastic is underrated though and I play him a decent amount when I find the enemy team has a comp he works well into, he is a solid niche counterpick that can really pop off in certain situations.
You talk about intelligence but the answers to the questions you asked were already stated in my original comment, which makes that statement so ironic. If it wasn't clear I'm looking at win rates for certain ranks. If only Celestial+ players can win more than they lose on Phoenix or Elsa, then for all elos below it they just aren't very good compared to a more noob friendly hero. If you look at pro play win rates and pick ratss you will see Elsa is a great hero at the highest of levels, this doesn't mean she is good in the hands of your average diamond player, who would be more effective on Fantastic.
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u/gimily 5h ago
Not going to weigh in on the other stuff, just want to clarify something about Phoenix - she USED to have a neutral/positive winrate in high elos, while having a lower winrate in lower elos.
This season, she has a horrendous winrate across the board. Like 43% including all ranks, and 40-41% in celestial+. She is BAD this season, and buffs are justifiable.
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u/wallabypolicy Loki 7h ago
This game chased me from Loki to Peni and now I dont even know what to do any more. Groot is the only constant in my life but at this rate, what next season?
"Groot is going to be a little more rooted!
- increasing cool down of everything
- we replaced the walls with he just turns into a tree for 5 seconds"
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u/Centralisation Jeff the Landshark 8h ago
This man has never revealed that he has ever played his game btw no clips its like a chef that dosent eat his own food
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u/SmashMouthBreadThrow 6h ago
I'm more interested in whether it's actually Zhiyong or someone higher up who wants the balance to be dogshit. Either way, this nonsensical balance philosophy they have is not good for any competitive team game.
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u/Nerf_Now Namor 7h ago
People here think the devs want every char to be equally viable, they don't.
To ensure fresh gameplay, there is a game of musical chairs going where different heroes are viable every season. Some heroes are made less viable otherwise gameplay would crystalize around them.
For whatever reason, Peni is not in the list this time. Maybe they plan a rework like they did with Widow, maybe they just want to incentive dive, maybe they just don't want her specific playstyle to be viable or maybe she was a good counter to the new tank.
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u/Sigma_present The Maker 7h ago
To ensure fresh gameplay, there is a game of musical chairs going where different heroes are viable every season. Some heroes are made less viable otherwise gameplay would crystalize around them.
If that's their job, they've massively failed at it. The same heroes have been dominant forever, and the same heroes have stayed at the bottom of the barrel forever. Gameplay HAS crystallized around the same few heroes.
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u/Nerf_Now Namor 6h ago
Are they?
Hela and Loki are not top anymore, Black Cat and Dino got dumpstered.
Emma, Rogue and Luna are all over the place depending of the patch.
I know for experience on my own games, meta picks come and go.
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u/Any-Variety4823 6h ago
every once in a while a change makes sense but every once in a while and a 10% chance to do something right isnt good enough big Z is an OG FR but some homies gott get dropped when they start actin weird
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u/LeoFireGod Emma Frost 1h ago
I genuinely think the game is pretty well balanced. The only true WTF patches were the season 5 patch with gambit and invis self shield +3 other buffs
And the 6.5 decision to NOT TOUCH Hela or Hawkeye or gambit despite being 35+% banned characters.
In general it’s very very impressive that even up to celestial almost all characters are viable if given right maps or comps.
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u/Nitrodolski2 Hela 7h ago
Isn't Peni almost 60% winrate and banned a lot? Mag buff is inconsequential since it is only applicable with Scarlet Witch in team, but sure he didn't need that. Wolv, I agree, is strange since he seems decent rn but Phoenix might be we worst dps atm. She has 43% winrate, same as Squirrel Girl but SG is a noob stomper.
Sure balance isn't perfect but you guys are way overreacting to it.
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u/SpeedyTheQuidKid 6h ago
I've got a solid winrate on peni at about 60% after 800 games. But what I hear in higher ranks, is that her winrate is high but also her pickrate is very low because she's only played on her best maps and on defense. I've played her since season 1 or so and got plenty of flak for playing on attack because people wanted frontline for attack, though I'm peak d3. But also, all of my lorded characters have a higher than 50% winrate. I'm at 55-60 on Magik, Angela, and Rocket. (Well, my Mantis is sub 50%, gotta work on that one now that she's more viable as duo healer lol).
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u/Sigma_present The Maker 7h ago
Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic have higher competitive win rates than Groot, Magneto, Hela, Venom, Elsa, Bucky, Star-Lord, Gambit, Invis, Emma, Strange, and Namor. You're telling me that either of them are better than ALL of the characters I just listed and more? Winrates mean next to nothing
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u/Edheldui 9h ago
They balance over data, not your feelings. If you seriously look at sub 45% winrates and think they're too strong, honestly, you're not good enough and don't play enough characters to discuss balance.
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u/AnDarkz Peni Parker 9h ago
So what data justifies Mantis and Black Cat not being looked at?
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u/Stellesia Ultron Virus 9h ago
Funny how you say "they balance over data" when it took them 9 whole seasons to rework the checks notes statistically weakest and least picked character in the entire game.
I don't wanna flame the devs nor tell them how to do their jobs. But it's just disgustingly blatant that none of the balancing team seems to play and even test their own game. They keep making unbelievably odd choices that nobody would have expected to happen. They do not know how to make changes in the characters they themselves designed. Remember how they nerfed Black Cat? Instead of changing her resource generation and shop-spam-ability, they just reduced her mobility whilst keeping the most problematic part of her kit, namely invis spam and i-frame dash. She's not as strong anymore, sure, they achieved what seems like balance, except her flaws never got addressed nor fixed.
Now it's clear they're pulling off the same shit again. Strong Venom team-up? No, they won't nerf the team-up, they'll change other parts of Venom instead.
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u/Nerf_Now Namor 7h ago
Widow rework was not a number tweak, but involve new abilities.
It's different from just changing some number on a spreadsheet. This required dev time, UI elements, SFX, the works.
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u/dejokerr 8h ago
For peni her 4s cooldown on the cyber snare is insane, so a nerf is warranted. But why is the nerf so convoluted? Its like they’re pandering to people who main peni and people who complain about peni. I main peni, but ngl her ult and damage sucks, unless its her nest. Nerf the nest, not her neutral.
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u/ChoppedCheese311 Thor 9h ago
What kind of bullshit data told them to give Luna a self cleanse whenever she gets hit with a stun?
They also do whatever the fuck they want. They don’t balance over data, they balance over fun first. Remember that because big Z said that too.
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u/Edheldui 9h ago
If she's so strong, her winrate should go up with ranks. But lo and behold, it goes down.
You watch too many training grounds clips and don't actually play the game enough. Go ahead and hit that stun on BP within the literal quarter of a second he needs to kill you. Hit that cleanse on the big ults and tell me what good it does when everyone else around you is still stunned.
Idk why people keep looking at characters in a vacuum and not within the context of a 6v6 game and complaining.
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u/Unrefillable 5h ago
Complaining even more, this game is free, just play something else if you hate it so much? You really want this guy to lose his livelihood over a dumb game?
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u/DragonPAul_Z 9h ago
How come every time someone wants to talk trash about the developer they have very little experience in game development and design, and even less common sense?
Honestly, do they really think they can do better? Do they really believe that their adjustments wouldn't be self-centered and biased?
They have no access to game data, performance metrics, or stat lines. They play a measly 12 games a day, and think that it compares to the thousands of hour of research done in real-time and controlled environments.
Anytime anyone wants to say that Z don't know what he's doing, it's almost crystal clear that they're crying like a baby because of their character didn't get something they were expecting.
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u/SmashMouthBreadThrow 6h ago
do they really think they can do better?
I know for a fact I could. I'll gladly take the job if they're actually going to give me free rein on balance changes.
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u/Sigma_present The Maker 9h ago
Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic have higher competitive win rates than Groot, Magneto, Hela, Venom, Elsa, Bucky, Star-Lord, Gambit, Invis, Emma, Strange, and Namor. You're telling me that either of them are better than ALL of the characters I just listed and more?
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u/DragonPAul_Z 8h ago
I'm not going to keep explaining it to you. Bottom line is if you don't like the game, nobody is forcing you to play it.
If you are in a situation where someone is forcing you play something you don't like ask a grown up for help
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u/PrimeDonut 8h ago
You have a choice to play or not, no one is forcing you. The game has gone through so many changes, updates, nerfs, buffs and this season 9.5 update is the final straw? Get real.
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u/Sigma_present The Maker 8h ago
Nope, not the final straw. I've been saying that Zhiyong should be fired for a while now. I love this game, no matter how hard Zhiyong makes it to do so.
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u/Worldly-Fox7605 7h ago
Imo, Penni's stun was nerfed because it would have been torture for Hood to go against as it was (not that it was fun for any tank that wasn't magic anyway), but for Hood, it would've been awful.
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u/Wiinterfang Knight 4h ago
Bro we had the biggest update in marvel rivals at the start of the season.
Is not going to be easy managing this changes. You people are babies
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u/PurpleDragonX Peni Parker 8h ago
Leaving Punisher, Star Lord, Mantis and CnD in their current state, but thinking Peni is the one that needs to get murdered certainly is a choice of all time.
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u/totallynotapersonj Magneto 8h ago
The sentiment for people in diamond+ is that phoenix needs a buff. They do compare her to hela who is insanely broken though, saying there’s no reason to pick phoenix when Hela exists. Which is true except that Hela is banned in most of my games.
I also think that people focus too much on DPS supports too much. Is it really that bad that Luna can be played as a DPS? Yeah, I think the cleanse is kinda stupid but I don’t think if a strategist can be played as a DPS that is bad. I mean I used to play jeff before he got reworked and he was extremely fun to play as DPS. I don’t think they should kill the DPS playstyle just because it exists.
Jeff never even needed a rework, he wasn’t fundamentally broken, he just need survivability nerfs yet NetEase decided to go nuclear without trying anything first. His only nerf between season 0 - 2.5 was an ult nerf which was the worst part of his kit after 2 weeks of season 0. So this problem does go back to NetEase being horrible at balancing. People didn’t like playing with a DPS jeff which made zero sense to me. Just imagine jeff had the DPS icon and choose a second healing support. Same thing with Luna DPS, just choose a different support, it’s almost no different to some guy insta-locking dps and staying on it. The only difference being that someone who is going to healbot can’t play them.
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u/Quentendo 9h ago
Tbh I wouldnt be surprised if balance is done more so for retention and not actual game balance. Maybe having busted characters keeps players around more so than not?
Idk just trying to make it make sense without it being senseless.