The conversation after majors always turns to balance patches. And honestly, they should. This game has some pretty obvious problems, and when the commentators are talking about what nerfs they think Morrigan should receive while watching Morridoom on stream, I really hope SOMEBODY at Capcom is listening. After FR was over Twitter was blowing up about how the counter to Morridoom is Morridoom and how there are simply things in this game that need to be addressed from a balance perspective. FChamp's Tweet rings pretty true too, the best of the best still can't find out how to beat this.
My opinion on it is this: UMvC3 is quickly moving toward an end game where there is a small amount of viable strategies, and those strategies aren't interesting to watch or play against. Don't get me wrong, if you want to WIN, you need to make better choices at the character select screen, as Yipes said. Unfortunately, in the sense of actually having a game that's fun to watch/play, those choices are: Zero, Vergil, Morrigan, and Doom. As the game's life progresses those teams are going to become really stale really fast from both a spectator perspective and a "well I'm gonna have to use one of these 8 characters if I want to win" perspective. Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 is an extremely popular spectator game, but will it remain that way as more and more people start switching to Morridoom?
In my opinion for a fighting game to have longevity as a competitive game it needs one of two things: a large pool of viable characters, or a great amount of diversity and playstyles in a small pool of viable characters. Marvel 2 had the latter in spades, although there were only 10 or so viable characters, the different amount of team compositions and playstyles they enabled was huge and it remained a huge hit and well respected game even if half of the roster was useless at high level. Not so much for this game. Morrigan and missiles plays the same across the board, as do how you play Vergil with Missiles optimally, or Zero optimally. The good shit is there, either use it or win, or continue trying to make a interesting unique team work and lose. A lot of the most interesting characters are competitively irrelevant at this point.
There was a pretty good amount of character diversity in finals, but then we saw Morridoom vs Morridoom it was pretty anti-hype, it reminded me a lot of the Phoenix vs Phoenix EVO finals the first year of MvC3.
At some point Capcom is going to have to acknowledge people aren't really happy with the state of this game and do something about it. Its not going to remain as popular as it is when everyone and there mother is running Morridoom because it simply is just the best and anything else is a waste of time. Games that have only one or two viable endgame strategies are rarely remembered very fondly.
I know people like to think there is some magic counter to Morridoom but let me ask you this: if it turns out there really isn't, and Morridoom really is the end all be all strategy of UMvC3, are you still going to play, or be as interested in developing tech for your team?
UMvC3 greatest strength is how much it encourages creativity and developing good team synergy, but as time goes on, its quickly losing this asset.
In an ideal world this game will get a balance patch and Capcom will bring top Marvel players on board to help with the process, similar to how ComboFiend helped with SFxT2013 and is going to be helping with the new SF4 update.
Well, that's quite a bit off my chest, but I really think its in Capcom's best interest to develop an update for this game, and I don't buy for a second that they can't do one because of contract obligations. If that's the case why did they even waste time nerfing Phoenix Wright's invincible assist, fixing the throw bug, and fixing the DLC costume glitch? If they could patch that shit they can certainly patch this game.
I want a patch because I really like this game and I think the direction it is heading is pretty boring and terrible.
