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[chickdigger802]

Thing is surprisingly good lol. Starts with regen. enemies go flying from even his normal attack, and he freaken gets a taunt at like lvl2 (comeon capt!).

 

[Wallach]

ironman unibeam change is quite big.

And his groundpound move is finally an AOE!



Anyone here play Thor? Any good? Seems like a more melee ranged Storm.

I really like Thor's skill set, though his damage and survivability are both not where they need to be right now. That said, pretty much all of the relative hero balance in this game is going to turn on its head fairly soon just between the defense and DoT scaling changes, so I'm not all that concerned about it. My biggest issue with his skills themselves is that many of them are pretty slow - either having a lot of startup or a lot of recovery - but they're slowly addressing that too.

 

[BattleMonkey]

Nice changes, now just need them to add some new content to get me to want to actually play

 

[Bonethug]

Are any of these spare trinkets worth hanging on to or could they be safely used to level crafter. I really need to hit lvl 14 so that I can upgrade some lvl 37+ blues.

Ringed Ruby of Raggadorr - 3s Invuln +35 Spi 7% Chance
Ringed Ruby of Raggadorr - 3s Invuln +40 Spi 8% chance
Ringed Ruby of Raggadorr - 3s Invun +32 Spi 10% chance
Starktech Cybernetics
Hellfang of Zarathos - 5% chance
Tome of Oshtur - 786 Regen on Use +247 Health +50 dmg above 95%
Amulet of Quiox - +40 Tenacity +195 Defense
Super Soldier Serum - +444hp/min +684 hp
Terrigen Crystal - +420 dmg on use
Wundagore Clay - +24% pet health +21% pet duration
Latverian Regalia - +21% pet dmg 3% summon
A.I.M Robot Dispenser - +13 Energy Dmg
A.I.M Robot Dispenser - +14 Energy Dmg
A.I.M Robot Dispenser - +16 Energy Dmg
Oculus Oroboros +78 health hit with energy, +353 Physical Def, +1 all powers
Flames - Visual Only (Flaming head)
Repulsor Field - +426 Phys Def, 19% Deflect Projectiles, Visual (Glowing Orbs)

 

[Xevren]

Thing is surprisingly good lol. Starts with regen. enemies go flying from even his normal attack, and he freaken gets a taunt at like lvl2 (comeon capt!).

His damage is great. If you cap aggressive aura+guardian aura (+3% synergy bonus!) you get so much damage added, and it's a group buff.

 

[KePoW]

Thing is surprisingly good lol. Starts with regen. enemies go flying from even his normal attack, and he freaken gets a taunt at like lvl2 (comeon capt!).

I don't play Thing myself, but from what I've seen he's one of the better end-game tanks

 

[Moondrop]

I like this game and I will continue to check in with it. But attempting Limbo with the current community is detrimental to my health.

 

[Wallach]

Another day, another huge amount of news for this game to go through. I wonder how long they can keep working these kinds of hours.

Anyway, first off is the new dev blog post that has all kinds of new info, you should read this one: https://marvelheroes.com/community/dev-blog/dev-blog-doomsaw-update-1

Some of that stuff was known, but there's a date given on Heroic and Superheroic story difficulty modes (late August PTR), some info about raiding, and a lot of small details about other things they've not talked about with specifics.

I also noticed that they re-launched their web store to start selling those hero bundles again. So I guess if you really wanted to spend $200 on this game and get all the heroes you can do that again. They aren't as good as the pre-launch packs, though. There's also not all the heroes available yet in packs, there was only like 7 on the individual hero packs.

They also permanently lowered the price of the highest priced heroes without saying anything. The ones that were 2,000 before are now 1,450. So I guess if you bought one during the last sale, stay free.

 

[GManDH]

I thank Wallach for the link but here is everything

Hello there! I’m Doomsaw, a member of the design team on Marvel Heroes. In this blog I’m going to give you an update on some of the things the development team has been working on recently. We want to make dev blogs a regular event and would love to hear your feedback in the forums.
Fixing the Defense System

We are almost completely reworking the defense system to scale better into the late/end game. This is taking a decent chunk of time because of the wide-ranging impact it has to powers, items and enemies, but it will get done, hopefully in time for the big July patch. Our plan is to lock down everything by next Tuesday and test, test, test until it is rock solid.

We have been talking a lot about ensuring we don’t do anything that punishes melee too much more than ranged. That’s why we pulled out Ignore Defenses from the game and tried buffing the heck out of Defense from items. But, none of that solve the issues of scaling into end game. A percent based system will fix a lot of that, along with astute use of avoidance and other mitigation powers based on the heroes’ powers.

By the time we are done, melee characters will be able to melee as expected and characters won’t get one-shotted unless they are bad at moving from the fire on the ground.
Difficulty Levels – Heroic and Superheroic

Difficulty modes are one of the highest priorities for us. There is still engineering, enemy tuning and item work to done for Heroic and Superheroic difficulty modes, so they will not be on the test server next week, but will make an appearance shortly after the big July patch.

One of the best things about Marvel Heroes compared to other games that I’ve played are the number of fun little ’discoveries‘ that occur throughout the game (like two HYDRA guys getting a crate with a dinosaur in it or killing a bunch of muggers and rescuing a civilian). The other thing I love are the ’treasure rooms‘ that are all over the game (the orange doors). Having difficulty levels means players can encounter those things and not just grind the same terminal missions or Limbo over and over. (Everything can be fun, but it’s nice to have variety.)

We wanted difficulty levels at launch, obviously, but just ran out of time and felt we should launch when we promised. My best guess is that these make it to the test server in August and release shortly after, assuming nothing gamebreaking.
Player vs Player

The goal is to make an extremely robust PVP system for Marvel Heroes. As we polish content, fix bugs and get all of the heroes and systems into solid shape, we will introduce a full tournament system for PVP with some MLG style elements, prizes, rankings and so on.

Modes in development include modes that are more casual and more serious. For each of “casual” and “serious”, there will be a quicker map and a more in-depth map. The quicker maps should always take less than 30 minutes to play and the “in-depth” maps could take up to an hour to play.

The casual PVP modes will have more adventuring and PVE content included in the maps. Think Alterac Valley from World of WarCraft as a rough example of something you’ll see for our casual in-depth map.

The serious PVP modes will place more emphasis on individual skill, hero selection, power selection and PVP tactics. The first mode is in the late stages of development and should be on the test server in a week or two. The mode is based on the ARAM mode from League of Legends, with two teams competing to get past turrets and destroy the enemy base. It’s a 5v5 map with a full queuing system built in. The map gets tested and adjusted daily. Just 10 minutes ago the team was naming and planning out the PVP rewards associated with this map. The PVP items are particularly good for PVP and won’t be needed for high-end PVE encounters but they will still be decent in PVE.

The existing PVP “Beta” map will be pulled out soon along with the team/faction system that is currently in game. It’s being replaced by a full-fledged queuing system similar to LOL/WOW. There is an engineer entirely dedicated to the system who is super smart and sitting just 15 feet away working on this system every day.

We know not all players care about PVP (maybe even less than 50%), so we are keeping PVP as a super-high priority, but also keeping PVE, difficulty modes, end-game raids, item hunting and other stuff as super-high priority as well. PVP will be an option for people who dig it, but will never be needed to get the best gear.

For people who do love PVP, there will be some items and likely an emblem system beside your name based on PVP ranks (replacing the current icons beside player names). We will likely do some kind of cosmetic rewards as well.
Note that we have technology to adjust powers while a hero is in PVP, so we will never have to nerf a power in PVE because it’s “too good in PVP”. I wish other games had that tech!
Items

The items team is currently working on a few things:

Removing or changing affixes that just aren’t fun or are actually bad (example: We are getting rid of +attack speed on a certain tree)
Adding in more affixes that are fun, powerful or allow customization of your builds
Adding new levels of rarity and new item types. These will sometimes just be more powerful and sometimes be powerful in certain circumstances or with certain builds. As an example, we are releasing Cosmic Items with the next patch (may even be live by the time you read this).
Adjusting how items scale to make sure every level of upgrade is a noticeable upgrade. This is an extremely high priority for us.
Adding new artifacts each week that will support different build options for players.
Adding items to support new heroes (Human Torch items were worked on today)

Raids

We will be introducing raids into the game. Mostly just 5-man raids to start with. Doctor Doom will be retooled for level 60 players with changes to his mechanics, difficulty and rewards to support raiding. We have a ton of guys with top tier raiding experience on the team and will make sure this is as fun as possible. We haven’t done a ton of work on this, but we have discussed the strategy for these this week. This is something I’ll be creating a feedback thread on when the time comes (likely after July).
Free Retcons When Needed

Our policy is to give a free respec (retcon) to every hero whenever any of their powers has increased or decreased in power. We manually set this for each hero when the Hero Design team adjusts anything significant. This was not as clear at launch of the game, but is super clear now.
Hero Reviews

We have a hero design team that is continually reviewing heroes nonstop for improvements. We take the feedback from the forums, from internal sources and add our internal plans for how these heroes will be awesome.

Right now, we are mainly concerned with keeping everyone fun and powerful. As you know, our philosophy is not to nerf unless there is something truly gamebreaking. Nerfing a person’s fun is the opposite of what game design is intended to do.

Today the team worked on some Wolverine adjustments, Storm and Black Widow along with some adjustments of other characters. Every character will continue to have iteration passes and get better and better each time.

The new hero design team (tasked with working on new heroes!) has done a lot of work on Human Torch this week. The old Ultimate Power was moved to a regular power and an epic new Ultimate was created. Four other new powers were created to support multiple build options and playstyles for Torch. That gives Human Torch 25 powers, more than any other hero. (Note that other heroes will have new powers added periodically as we determine they are missing important options).

The animation team has some insane Torch animations which you’ll see on test server soon. He is always flying and always on fire and looks smooth and fun.
Test Server

Next week we are opening the test server to the public. This is huge for us and will speed up our development time pretty significantly. Everyone will be allowed to play.

When the server launches, you will see hundreds of bugs all over the place and may even have trouble getting your accounts set up. Be patient for the first few days as things get ironed out.
Hero Synergy System

We have done some work on a new system that rewards players for having other leveled heroes. This system would reward you for having a hero of level 25, 50 and eventually 75 and 100 (if/when we go there). The reward would be a small bonus to every other hero you own. Example: Leveling Spider-Man gives all your heroes a small boost to dodge. Leveling Deadpool gives all your heroes a small boost to rarity find. This list of buffs isn’t finalized yet, so feel free to suggest which bonuses should be associated with each hero, especially if you have something creative in mind.
Hero Prestige System

Once the endgame has a lot more content, we will allow players to restart their characters if they wish. Like Call of Duty, there will be a cosmetic indicator if you are doing one of 5 prestige levels.
Many DOTs

The engineering team is working on the tech to make Damage Over Time (DOT) crit and also get rid of the bug that has DOT damage not being reduced in groups.
Limbo and Groups

We are updating the design for Limbo to make it more fun and less of a slideshow. We may end up reducing the number of players at the same time as we improve the flare and threat scaling system. If we actually make the zone challenging and appropriate for 5 people, we could put special unique zone rewards on the zone. This is something we really need to think about and iterate until it’s fun and actually interactive. We intend to keep buffing other zones until they are equal or slightly higher exp than Limbo, since Limbo is not really how the game is intended to be played.
Feedback

We spend a big chunk of our evenings reading and digesting feedback. Keep it coming. I personally read almost every post in every forum. I love the feedback, whether it’s polite, rude, angry or happy. Everything is fair and everything matters. If someone is unhappy, we figure out why and figure out what we can do to improve their player experience. We have a big group of smart, experienced people here in every department, so we can solve almost anything with a little time. The company is a real gaming company and not a corporation. Because of the quality and dedication of the people here, I know this game will be around for a long, long time and will get better every week.

I am constantly impressed by the quality of the engineers, artists, animators, producers and designers. Even the management team is top notch. It doesn’t matter if they are in marketing, development, finance – they are all gamers who care about the game more than anything. Not to mention we are lucky to have Brevik as the president. He is a real gamer and a smart man. I’ve never had a company where even the president has smart lists of game improvements after playing a hero over an evening or over the weekend. He is constantly pushing every department to do the right thing and make Marvel Heroes solid and fun.
Next Blogs

We’ll try to get other folks in the company to write blogs. Most days are nonstop working, but we will find some time. There are many issues I didn’t cover, but rest assured we know about them. Our list of priorities is long and it gets done. If there is anything you want me to cover, let me know. I will keep answering stuff on the forums and doing an occasional blog to cover big stuff.
Other Quick Hits and Teasers:

We just had a playtest for a new patrol mode that was great. I think it will be set in Manhattan and feels very heroic.
We are working on a new mode called “The Breach” (AKA the Kobayashi Maru mode!)
There is a new level of costume cores being made
It’s not my department, but there are some very cool new costumes underway
The engineering team is working on some very promising improvements to performance
A big upgrade to crafting will roll out after defenses and heroes have been all fixed
Scarlet Witch is getting a new resource system and Ultimate
We are allowing people to use “U” to use their Utimate (Social will be moved to “O”)
Legendary items, Relics, Superteam items
Halloween stuff
Christmas stuff
Ragnarok

Thanks as always for playing Marvel Heroes! I’ll see you in-game or around the Forums.

Doomsaw

 

[Wallach]

They also lowered the bottom end of hero prices to 450g. All the starters, and Black Widow for whatever reason. Probably so they could get some heroes in the five dollar bracket.

 

[DrBo42]

ironman unibeam change is quite big.

And his groundpound move is finally an AOE!



Anyone here play Thor? Any good? Seems like a more melee ranged Storm.

It's a big change but still doesn't top the constant repulsor ray or whatever his lvl 30 ability is called. The DPS on that thing is fantastic.

 

[Nokagi]

It's a big change but still doesn't top the constant repulsor ray or whatever his lvl 30 ability is called. The DPS on that thing is fantastic.

Agreed. Channeled Repulsors are great.I tried the new Unibeam and still don't like it.The damage on it just doesn't seem worth the charge time and a possible miss if your target moves before you release.

Another day, another huge amount of news for this game to go through. I wonder how long they can keep working these kinds of hours..

Awesome updates. Thanks for posting that.

 

[chickdigger802]

It's a big change but still doesn't top the constant repulsor ray or whatever his lvl 30 ability is called. The DPS on that thing is fantastic.

really wished channel wasn't lvl 30 :/

 

[hamchan]

Some really great changes. I can feel how hard the dev team are working and really appreciate it.

I'll be back in August when the new difficulties are added.

 

[DrBo42]

really wished channel wasn't lvl 30 :/

Yeah, should be somewhere in the 20's if not 20 exactly. Unibeam should be a later tier ability with a passive effect that it goes through a certain % of defense but has a long cooldown. The problem with most of the powers in the game is that there's no downside for most of it. It's either "Okay this is the furthest down this synergy list and is the optimal ability." or it's a stand-alone bad ass ability. There's no in-between and rarely if ever is there a situational power other than an aura or CC breaking ability. At the end of the 30 levels with a character it's either you did it the right way or not. There's no way to tailor anything to a play style you find entertaining. Keep in mind I main Iron Man so this might not be true for all characters but it seems to be true for most.

 

[Xevren]

So happy retcons can be stacked now. Just need unstable molecules to be stacked and my stash will wont be so cluttered.

 

[DrBo42]

I wish I could work for these guys. I was a testing lead on X-Men Legends II and worked on Marvel Ultimate Alliance, I want to make changes so badly.

 

[beyond_death]

The best change is now the Mission Log tells you what mission rewards you've earned for each character. Finally.

 

[chickdigger802]

thinking of getting 1 more toon.

hows jean grey? Looking at her tree and forums, lack of dash a problem? And kinda crappy phoenix mode is kinda disappoint.

Cable is all around good stuff?

 

[DrBo42]

thinking of getting 1 more toon.

hows jean grey? Looking at her tree and forums, lack of dash a problem? And kinda crappy phoenix mode is kinda disappoint.

Cable is all around good stuff?

Cable is rock solid. Jean has great AoE like you'd expect but the mobility is lacking. Luckily she has a manual deflect to knock back any CC projectiles like in those horrible Savage Land rape caves.

 

[GManDH]

thinking of getting 1 more toon.

hows jean grey? Looking at her tree and forums, lack of dash a problem? And kinda crappy phoenix mode is kinda disappoint.

Cable is all around good stuff?

wait a lil longer. you will be able tobuy them using in game currency

 

[GManDH]

Unplanned downtime - overnight tonight, 7/13 at 12AM PDT - downtime est. 2 hours

 

[chickdigger802]

hows collosus? He seems fun bodyslamming around. Seems to have a halo regen shield thing that might be op especially when they change def?

 

[DrBo42]

hows collosus? He seems fun bodyslamming around. Seems to have a halo regen shield thing that might be op especially when they change def?

Bodyslam isn't viable later on. He's great for grabbing mobs and setting them up for DPS to slaughter while taunting/dancing to regen armor and then back to tanking.

 

[inanutshell]

Guess the unplanned downtime is starting an hour early since everyone got kicked off the server and I'm getting an incorrect login/password prompt.

 

[Hoya Destroyer]

I found my first 2 Cosmic items today...

These were the only decent items Ive had from both red and green terminal runs, over the last few days.
The 7% chance for invulnerability is wasted a little on Storm, as she doesnt take too many hits in the first place. If I could get a similar piece of gear for Ms Marvel, along with the Juggernaut medallion and that artifact that also gives random invulnerability, she would be amazing. I guess any melee character with those items would be.
The cosmic beam that randomly shoots down from the sky, from the cape, looks pretty nice too. I was worried it would look tacky.

 

[Xevren]

Only question I have, is do you plan on getting your ass kicked so much that you need to bring 150+ med kits? lol

 

[Hoya Destroyer]

Only question I have, is do you plan on getting your ass kicked so much that you need to bring 150+ med kits? lol

I always plan for the worst
Its just a hoarding habit, really.

 

[DrBo42]

So apparently a bug has stopped my endgame progression entirely. Can't unlock anything past Green T1 A.I.M. Guess it's time to uninstall FFS.

 

[J-Tier]

One thing this game needs: Being able to set AFK status. Man, I get so many messages while I'm gone...

I guess I should just turn off the game when I leave, I feel bad for not being there to respond to ya'll.

 

[AdawgDaFAB]

Got my first yellow today:

I thought all yellows were supposed to have 5 green affixes.

Oh and I finally got a Grim Reaper Medallion too. Seems super useless. +31 health per kill at lvl 31 ain't gonna matter much.

 

[Wallach]

I thought all yellows were supposed to have 5 green affixes.

It's probably doubled up on low crit rolls.

 

[AdawgDaFAB]

Reading over the patch notes, this has me really concerned:

Note that we have technology to adjust powers while a hero is in PVP, so we will never have to nerf a power in PVE because it's "too good in PVP". I wish other games had that tech!

Unless we can have completely different builds for PVP vs normal play this could suck. Imagine if one plays Iron Man and finds themselves using his lvl 30 beam all the time in normal play. Now imagine that move is nerfed bad in PVP. All those points allocated would be wasted if the player wants to efficiently do PVP.

 

[Nokagi]

Finally! After playing every day since launch I finally got my first hero drop today(Ms. Marvel) also got cosmic boots for Wolverine. It was a good morning!

 

[BattleMonkey]

Reading over the patch notes, this has me really concerned:


Unless we can have completely different builds for PVP vs normal play this could suck. Imagine if one plays Iron Man and finds themselves using his lvl 30 beam all the time in normal play. Now imagine that move is nerfed bad in PVP. All those points allocated would be wasted if the player wants to efficiently do PVP.

Really that's no different than how it normally is with mmo style games where you pve build ends up being useless in pvp or such. Difference here is that they are making it so that pvp changes don't end up screwing with PVE balance which is always a problem with mmos, where they nerf based on pvp feedback yet it has a negative effect on pve. This way is much better at least as they can make changes to one and not affect the other.

 

[AdawgDaFAB]

Really that's no different than how it normally is with mmo style games where you pve build ends up being useless in pvp or such. Difference here is that they are making it so that pvp changes don't end up screwing with PVE balance which is always a problem with mmos, where they nerf based on pvp feedback yet it has a negative effect on pve. This way is much better at least as they can make changes to one and not affect the other.

Hmmm, well I've never played any MMOs, so I wasn't aware that it was a problem like that. However, from what I understand, in those games one can make different versions of the same character / class. So, a MMO player can have a pvp focued version of their character and a pve focused one (albeit, they would need to level em up from scratch twice). Here, if someone plays Thor they cant have 2 different builds of him.

It's not something that affects me personally anyways, because I'm not into PVP. However, it was the first thing I thought of when I read that part of the patch notes.

 

[GManDH]

I believe they need to let us have 2 versions of each character because its hard to use the same guy to pve and pvp.

 

[Scirrocco]

I believe they need to let us have 2 versions of each character because its hard to use the same guy to pve and pvp.

Duql specs would be nice but im not sure theyre absolutely needed. Since we have more then one character, you can just use one guy for each.

 

[GManDH]

Duql specs would be nice but im not sure theyre absolutely needed. Since we have more then one character, you can just use one guy for each.

understandable but what if you want to use your character with 2 diff builds??

 

[BattleMonkey]

Hmmm, well I've never played any MMOs, so I wasn't aware that it was a problem like that. However, from what I understand, in those games one can make different versions of the same character / class. So, a MMO player can have a pvp focued version of their character and a pve focused one (albeit, they would need to level em up from scratch twice). Here, if someone plays Thor they cant have 2 different builds of him.

It's not something that affects me personally anyways, because I'm not into PVP. However, it was the first thing I thought of when I read that part of the patch notes.

Yea dual specs are in some games, but lot of mmos don't offer the option still sadly. And lot of people use the dual specs for pve elements like running dungeons in different modes, but still you want another pvp spec option. Believe RIFT lets players have a sole PVP spec option.

 

[Moondrop]

Did someone say separate PVE and PVP builds?

Spoiler

GW2 ftw

I still haven't gotten sick of wrecking entire rooms with Jean. Just realized that the Valentine's Day promotion I've been waiting for should've already happened, so I filled out a ticket to get my 90's costume.

 

[AdawgDaFAB]

Off topic, yet somewhat relevant:
Torchlight 2 is the current flash sale on Steam. $5 or $15 for a four pack.

Both teams behind Marvel Heroes and the Torchlight games are made up of by devs who made Diablo 1 and 2, so if anyone who likes MH hasn't tried TL2 then I highly recommend it.

 

[Xevren]

Off topic, yet somewhat relevant:
Torchlight 2 is the current flash sale on Steam. $5 or $15 for a four pack.

Both teams behind Marvel Heroes and the Torchlight games are made up of by devs who made Diablo 1 and 2, so if anyone who likes MH hasn't tried TL2 then I highly recommend it.

You just got yourself a sale! I have been wanting to try it anyway, so it works out.

 

[Hoya Destroyer]

Im done with solo-ing red daily challenges. I get nothing but blue items and the daily shard, when I do.
I dont even know if its possible to get hero or costume drops, when you play by yourself.

 

[J-Tier]

I get cosmic gear...but it really sucks when they're worse than your purple gear by a good margin. Statistically, I expected them to be significantly better, as they're supposed to be a "higher tier".

 

[Nokagi]

I dont even know if its possible to get hero or costume drops, when you play by yourself.

Yeah it's definitely possible to get heroes\costumes by yourself.

 

[Hoya Destroyer]

Yeah it's definitely possible to get heroes\costumes by yourself.

You've got a hero or costume when you've been by yourself?
Ive gotten Fortune Cards, Retcons and artifacts whilst alone, but never a hero or costume.

 

[Bonethug]

You've got a hero or costume when you've been by yourself?
Ive gotten Fortune Cards, Retcons and artifacts whilst alone, but never a hero or costume.

I had Black Panther drop for me on Saturday questing alone in the Savage Land.

Fended off the Raptor and T-Rex attack on the village and didn't even notice that it dropped. Wondered off and just happened to notice the purple text on the ground when I wondered back past it a while later.

 

[inanutshell]

You've got a hero or costume when you've been by yourself?
Ive gotten Fortune Cards, Retcons and artifacts whilst alone, but never a hero or costume.

I've gotten a costume from the chapter 4 green goblin fight when playing by myself. I've also gotten tokens to upgrade ultimates when playing by myself. Every time I've gotten a new hero token I was in a group.

 

[Xevren]

You've got a hero or costume when you've been by yourself?
Ive gotten Fortune Cards, Retcons and artifacts whilst alone, but never a hero or costume.

I've gotten costumes/hero's by myself in terminals so it's definitely possible.