What Marvel Rivals NEEDS in Season 10 - Huge Nerfs, Role Que & Reworks | Q&A SPECIAL

Special Q&A special for the Clear Comms podcast! 

What is Clear Comms Podcast?

A Marvel Rivals Podcast hosted by Coach Mills and CaptainCoach, two creator and educators for Marvel Rivals. We discuss all things Rivals including META, balance and the future of development. We will often debate controversial topics that surround the game and plan to bring on many exciting guests from pros to devs!!!

speaker-0 (00:00.152)
Marvel rivals would survive regardless of what they do. They could say the casuals, we're doing hyper competitive. They could say the competitive players, we're gonna do hyper casual.

speaker-1 (00:07.422)
How can we hold them accountable if we don't know?

speaker-0 (00:11.342)
What are they doing? And the problem is because of all these super easy to value abilities where you can kind of rank up without ever learning any of that, you get people that are in ranks that are way too high and they don't understand basic concepts.

speaker-1 (00:22.56)
I played League, I played Overwatch. In World of Warcraft, like Keeler, same thing, support. It's a thankless role and people don't want to play it for that reason a lot of the time. I'm almost in the school where I think Hulk needs a rework, which I've never really I've never publicly s said, but I I think we're at the point now where he's different enough to his core identity.

speaker-0 (00:41.422)
What's up, everybody, and welcome to a brand new special Clear Comps episode. Today we are going to do a continuation of the Flats conversation casual versus competitive, but with a twist, we're bringing down the community themselves to talk about the topics at hand and continue the conversation and bring them on to stage, answer and talk about different questions with the community. And yeah, so we're gonna start off. First, I just wanna kinda

Kick it to you, Captain Coach. What it was your initial thoughts of the Flats episode, the conversation? How did you how did you feel about the whole interaction? By the way, right now we're sitting at our highest performing podcast by far, 120k, 120,000 viewers. I think it had more impact than any podcast we've ever had. So what are your thoughts? Yeah.

speaker-1 (01:30.904)
Well, first of all, I just want to say hi to chat. Hey guys, how you doing? we normally read your comments in the comments section underneath the videos, but now we got some of you here, but part of the episode. So appreciate y'all being here. Welcome everybody. we'll be pulling the you guys in as we get going here. But yeah, so the flats episode I think was a big I wouldn't even say wake up call, but a s a big signal that the community

Wants something of substance when they are playing this game. I think the fact that people care so much about what Flats has to say may not necessarily mean that they want the game more competitive or more casual, but now is a is a turning point in the game's trajectory where people want to find out where it goes. And I think the general consensus I've seen from people coming and giving their opinions, by the way, I feel like Flats had a lot of really based takes.

I just don't think where he wants the game to go overall, like the outcome is something we agree with. He seems kind of more hands-off or where we kind of feel like we know better and we know what's good for the game. So that's kind of the conversation we're going to have here today. Is that it seems like there's a lot of people who really care and want this game to be you know, agree with us and want the game to be more balanced or maybe not. Yeah, we're gonna find out today. But I I I I really enjoyed the conversation. I thought he made a lot of really great points, which I I'm excited to get in here.

Today. So

speaker-0 (02:58.22)
Yeah, a hundred percent. and I I think really like the crux of this argument that keeps kind of, you know, it it's still being debated about. I th I know lights just light just dropped dropped a video about this exact topic and this is the main thing we talked about, the casual versus competitive. I think it's a it's it's it's one that doesn't necessarily n need a side. Like you don't have to pick a side. I think that a lot of these people want you to pick a side, like, you need this game to be fun, we're gonna

You know, run around with dinosaurs. We're gonna have a great time. It's gonna be just a game filled with, you know, every time you log on, you're just gonna have a blast. And there's gonna be new stuff for you to ha have, and that's it. And then there's another part of the community that is like, we need this game structured. We need this game to have clear, you know, an increase in skill as you climb higher. Characters are rewarded for having that skill. and you know, the experience when you get to the higher levels of play, higher levels of play, Grandmaster, Celestial, Eternity.

Even pro play to an extent, is something that feels like it's fair. I think fairness is the thing where that's the biggest complaint, at least my complaint about this season, and I think, you know, pretty much any high-level player is that the game has felt less fair in 9.5 than it ever has. Because right now, my problem is that the meta is more cemented in like I think in past metas, and I and I

Captain Coach and I, we don't always play the most meta character. I think both of our mains are pretty bad right now, Thor and Hulk. And in the past, I think there were ways that you could just force these characters through and like make them work. But right now, the S and A tier characters are so strong. I mean, when you're, you know, fucking around on Thor and they're running Bucky Elsa in Viz with meta tanks like Magneto that can just, you know, damage you without risk, I feel like.

I either swap or lose. Like that's the that's the that's the the unfairness. So like when people talk about fun, when they talk about, we we want this game to be full of fun, we we don't care about the competitive experience. I feel like, you know, the only way I can have fun is playing this very hyperlinear style of play that the game is encouraging. And I don't even really feel like that's fun. Like that's not what I get out of a hero shooter. I don't know if that's what y'all get out of a hero shooter, but I don't wanna have to play the same characters. I don't wanna have to play Luna Snow and Elsa.

speaker-0 (05:19.406)
you know, every single game. Like I personally don't want to do that. So I kinda wanted to talk to someone in the audience. Anyone who wants to, you c I think y'all can press the button and like kind of raise your hand. If anyone wants to has an opinion about that, the casual versus competitive, the meta in season nine point five, anyone's welcome.

speaker-1 (05:39.604)
Is this something that Flats doesn't necessarily even like Flat Flat agrees with basically what you're saying? He says it's it's just too much at the top, the games become unplayable. And this lack of fairness that we're experiencing, this isn't something that it's exclusive to the higher ranks. And you can be a casual player and still be in the higher ranks. I mean he's he said it himself, right? Like you flats playing this game casually,

couple hours a day, an hour or two a day, and and he's sitting in like mid celestial, you know. So it it really is I I don't think it has to be something that's exclusive to one rank or the other. I think this is something a lot of people are fear feeling and, you know, kinda excited to hear what people have to say. So how you want to do this, Mills?

speaker-0 (06:23.136)
let's let's just hit it right off the top. Canon red, let's bring Canon Red on. yeah. Real quick before we bring you know, before we bring anyone on, you know, s hyper trolling that you're probably gonna get kicked and banned. Just letting you know. And the reason we didn't do this on stream is because we can remove parts of this podcast. So there's no benefit in trolling. If you want to troll Stream Snipe Captain Coach and troll him in his ranked games, don't do it here, okay?

All Canada, you're you're invited to speak.

speaker-2 (06:56.95)
Hello, can you all hear me hear me? nice. well, thank you for the opportunity and to give us a voice. I've been following you guys for for a long time and I've been wanting to be part of this for a while now. But I am a casual in like in general, but I think I play more than like casuals, I'd say. Like I have 3,000 hours in a game. Okay. So I like to help.

speaker-0 (06:58.722)
Yes, yes. How you doing? Yeah.

speaker-0 (07:14.072)
Glad you're

speaker-2 (07:26.806)
Maybe bring my perspective to your question.

speaker-0 (07:30.518)
Okay.

speaker-2 (07:32.43)
So can you just repeat the

speaker-0 (07:34.562)
Question real quick. So I I was I'm curious of where you're at when we when we say, you know, we should so there's one camp which is we should never balance around the competitive players because they're the minority and they ultimately don't matter for the fun and longevity of the game. You know, they they're not, you know, the bottom dollar or whatever the case may be. And and so they just largely don't matter and and except like very

you know, terrible circumstances like Flas is talking about where like on the extremes, sure you can fix it, but it doesn't matter. Versus we are like our camp, or at least my camp and somewhat Captain Coach's as well, is, you know, we want the game to be more competitively balanced and to be balanced with, you know, skill mattering, because, you know, if you balance like there's certain characters that you need to balance for those characters reaching their potential.

You know, like it like basically like as an example, if you only balance for casuals, then a character like Hella would never need to be balanced no matter how strong she was, because casual people or low rank people hypothetically might not be able to aim as well. So what we're both basically we're curious what a casual person like yourself feels, like how you feel about yeah, like what do you want what do you aim?

speaker-1 (08:49.326)
Yeah, what do want? Yeah.

speaker-2 (08:51.854)
Sure, of course. So I personally want to have a good time when I log into the game. And I understand that this is vague. Like some people really want to just play their favorite heroes and whatever. I personally want to go into a game where the majority of the people playing in that match on my team and on their team are actively trying, right? Actively just

Instead of just letting the negativity take over them, they they they try, they play. Because I don't mind like losing if it's a good match. But we don't have that happen as much in this game. Like the majority of the matches it's there's someone or multiple people that are just playing with their eyes closed, let's put it this way. So

This season in particular for me, I've been playing like since the very beginning for for a while, like a lot of matches. And this is the very first season, not 9.5 specifically, that I have felt that the meta actually mattered. For for example, I I've been in the diamond to GM range since ever, right? I and usually in the and I play console only.

Always, always, always. This has always been this has always have been the case that the meta never mattered. Like when Elsa was top one, Phoenix was top one, who else, Daredevil, Gambit, all those characters. People kept saying permaband, permaband, permaban. In my rank, I have never seen those characters played when they were open. Because I don't know why. Like maybe these characters

Took too much skill to be good at, to actually have the value that the higher skill players have been talking about. I don't know. But but this season, 9.5 is the very first one that I have actually felt this. If you don't have a Magneto, if you don't have a Gambit or Mantis or Thing, characters like that, you are

speaker-2 (11:14.978)
probably throwing the game if you're playing anything else because if the other team does you cannot win you cannot beat them unless they are playing the characters and they are very bad at and I have seen that happen a few times. So right I I I I think they they fucked up the can I say that messed up the balance so much this time around that

speaker-0 (11:38.562)
No, a hundred percent, yeah.

speaker-2 (11:44.574)
Even at the lower ranks, if you're not playing the most busted shit, you're done. And I don't like that. I like when you can like no hate to the one OTPs out there. If you're like main Wanda, you main Squirrel Girl, if you main Iron Man, those characters are very popular in c on console and on my rank, like Diamond and GM. And if you are only on if you only play these characters, you and you can make them work.

Then g good, awesome. I like to see that happen. But now it's impossible. It's impossible. So I don't like that at all. So that's my

speaker-1 (12:24.47)
I I really like what what Skenny said and and also this kind of echoes what Flats said. Being casual is is more of a mindset than it is really a rank. And I think when people would you say you're someone who actually plays the game more for fun or for competition or maybe somewhere in between.

speaker-2 (12:44.194)
I'd say a hundred percent some somewhere in between because I I have fun playing my favorite characters, sure, but I don't have fun playing my favorite characters if the comp that we are playing into doesn't allow me to do so. Like if I just go j out of spawn and die and die and die over and over again, like I'm not playing, right? So I I think I'm somewhere in between. Like I like to try to flex into something that's better or

you know, trying to help. And I have fun when things work out, I would say.

speaker-1 (13:19.448)
Yeah. I I feel like this is really too you you don't have to be someone who's trying to gig a sweat and get to top five hundred every season to be able to enjoy the competitive aspects of the game. And correct me if I'm wrong, what was your name again?

speaker-2 (13:36.128)
Kenon Red

speaker-1 (13:37.464)
Ken and Red, a certain level of like mastery over a character that you want to play is way more satisfying than having to just play like the brainless thing that's good. Like is that crazy to say? Because I feel like even in the lower ranks and or the middle ranks, kind of where you're at, that's something that's should be what they're striving for, right? Is is doing the cool plays with Spider Man, right?

speaker-0 (14:02.55)
Because people want you to be, I mean even when we talk about casual versus competitive, we we don't want people so casual that they don't actually care about the game at all or winning at all. Yes. You know, or they you know, you know, or you know, they play five minutes and they get a they get a text from their buddy and they're like, yeah, let me hop off the game mid mid mid match. It's like that's casual. I mean, i if it all doesn't care, like if it all doesn't matter, then why you know, why can't I just like

You know, really not care about like why does throwing matter? If if the game is not yep competitive in any way, why does that actually why is that bad? You know? Why does smurf why is smurfing bad? Why is this bad? Why is that so but I wanted to kind of go back to your your what you were s what you were saying, because I I a hundred percent agree with you, and I think that part of what 9.0 did, especially after people figured it out, is that the power of a lot of characters just rose up. Like they skyrocketed the power of so many characters.

But some way more than others. And so there is I think for the first time since the beginning of the game, it feels like y dim like you feel the meta down in Grandmaster, down in Diamond. And I think that the game is healthier when you don't feel the meta at all until you're like top of GM, maybe celestial. Because i if you're feeling the meta down there, it just shows that not only are the strong things so much stronger than the weak things in the game, which is true.

But also there's ways to get value that don't even they're not even tied to skill. Like in the case of execution. I mean, and when there's, you know, characters like the thing that, you know, I've I've talked about the thing a lot and I I hate the gameplay loop of that character, but there's tons of really powerful abilities and cooldowns that are just value for free. just so much value for free. Insane value for free. and and I I just I don't think that that creates a positive experience. Whether you're

Casual or competitive. I don't think that anyone wants that experience. And if if you're a casual player, you certainly don't want to be forced into metas, much less than competitive players do. Like if you're if you're like casually engaging in the game. So yeah, I mean, that's very interesting that you say that. I'm I I'm I I I like what you said. I I really I really do resonate with it.

speaker-1 (16:19.886)
Can I can ask one more thing? yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

speaker-2 (16:23.222)
I was gonna broaden up the discussion a little bit because that point that you made up, Mills, it's I think it's kind of it's very complex actually about the the low skill of a character and the efficiency of that character. Because to a lot of casuals, and I can say that you know, talking to other casuals about this, they really like having an impact on a

Match on a video game without having to be super mechanically skilled, right? But competitively speaking, you have to find a midway, right? Like you can't just make everything super easy to execute, right? Because then there is no player skill and expression. and some people find fun.

playing the game, doing the hard things, right? So you you and you what my what I'm trying to say is you can't just make the other way, right? You can't just make everybody super high mechanically demanding to get the value on, right? Right. You have to find a balance there. That's all I wanted to say about that.

speaker-0 (17:43.138)
Yeah, I mean I I I generally agree with you. I think that the mechanical skill is only one way that you can have skill, right? Like other things do matter. And and and and you know, Captain Coach and I, we you know, we made Hulk and Thor, we kind of know exactly what you're talking about. We're like we're not playing the most mechanical of characters. Although I think Hulk is pretty mechanical, just to not maybe in the traditional aim way that like, you know, there are some

speaker-2 (17:53.538)
Yeah, of course.

speaker-0 (18:10.754)
You will find some pros out there, some high rank players that think that, you know, Silock and Hella should be always the best, you know, the best of the best of the best, and aim should be the most important thing. We don't necessarily agree there. But I think that you got like you said, you have to have a balance. Like you have to be careful, especially with characters that get value, vr like simple decision making and no mechanical skill. Like if both of those things are true, I think good you go on.

speaker-2 (18:39.608)
Can I just use one example? So thing I don't hate him as much, even though he's super linear, but there's one character that I think is the perfect example of this, which is Cloakadagger. I think sure, Cloakadagger at in the hands of a very skilled player, it's absurd.

speaker-0 (18:41.378)
Yeah, go for it.

speaker-0 (18:58.924)
What do we think of Cloak and Daggerchuk?

speaker-2 (19:01.566)
The kit of that character is super powerful. But the way I I don't know, like the way that character flows, it teaches the player piloting that character to be bad at the game, fundamentally speaking, in terms of hero shooters, right? Their positioning is not great. their decision-making is not great. The way they use their abilities is not great. But that character is so powerful that using those

up their abilities and positioning badly, it doesn't matter because they can just live through it all and they can just heal everybody while doing it. That's I think it's the super like wrong way of to go about things, right?

speaker-1 (19:47.49)
Well, you you bring up a good point, right? Because we're coming from this point of view that the game has gone too far towards this direction of a low barrier of execution. But you go back and look at the game's history from the start, and you mentioned cloak and dagger, that's what healers have been since the get go. So we're already at a point where there's things that you can do that are very easy, have been very easy for a long time. Case in point.

Even in the lower ranks, as we say, like the higher rank you go, the more the meta mount matters. In lower ranks, you've always needed two healers, pretty much. I mean, more or less. Like obviously you're gonna get wins. You've always needed two healers because the value that those heals provide is so much higher compared to the amount of skill it would take for a gun healer to go shoot and kill somebody. You know, cause you'd have to land a few shots in a row. Meanwhile, healers shoot down main choke. They get insane value for free. So we're already at a point where the game is.

somewhat easier to play for certain roles. And it kind of creates this comp based meta where the skill isn't necessarily in how you play your hero, it's what you pick. I think most people in the community, from my point of view and what I've seen, just based off of like TikTok clips, people going to streams, showing off new plays, new texts, they want to be able to play their hero. How are you going to tell someone they're going to play a Marvel Rivals hero game?

And that the best thing they need to do to win every game is to swap to to someone they don't even care about. So yes, team comp and counterpicking should be a part of the game, but to me personally, it should be a very small part.

speaker-0 (21:14.366)
Yeah.

speaker-0 (21:29.346)
But

speaker-2 (21:29.816)
Think if you if you have like I'm sorry, just real quick. If you have a very good understanding of matchups with your character, and I praise magic players a lot for this, you can shine if you're good enough, right? But if the game's balance reach such a power crapped state that you can no longer do that, to me that's kind of an issue personally.

speaker-0 (21:52.78)
Yeah, we 100%. but yeah, Canon, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for coming by. Thank you again, guys. we really appreciate you. and really great, really good insight insight, yeah. 100%. Yeah. and yeah, I wanted to I kind of wanted to rewind a little bit and go back to the C and D because a whole bunch of people in chat gave their opinions on C and D. Most of the people very negative about C and D, which is kind of interesting to me. I'm curious.

speaker-1 (22:00.834)
Great conversation.

speaker-0 (22:21.74)
I know we talked about, you know, Captain Coach talked about how casual casual is more of a mindset than it is a a a skill or a rank, right? So like is there anyone in chat that actually thinks that they are casual?

speaker-1 (22:36.648)
I I would say casual more in terms of maybe your maybe skill level than it is your mindset. So like you kind of know your limitations as a player, and then you personally play heroes like cloak and dagger because that is how you're able to remain competitive. Right. This is a safe space. We're not gonna like yell at you for playing a hero like this here. Because a lot of people do that, and a lot of people find the heroes that they like from that. So I I would be honestly curious to hear that kind of

speaker-0 (23:05.16)
Here I guess here's the way that just before I get we get someone else on, 'cause I want to kind of continue what Canon was saying and and talk about it a bit before we bring someone on. But so a lot of people know that back at Overwatch, back when I first played that on console, I was stuck in silver for like almost a thousand hours. I played so much. I was desperate to to get better, and I just couldn't get better. I didn't feel casual when I was in silver.

grinding every single day to get better and watching videos to get better. I didn't feel casual in the slightest. I felt extremely competitive, like not in my skill level, but in my mindset. Like I was I was desiring to be better every day and I was doing things to become better every day. But it didn't it didn't matter that I was bad, but I was taking the game serious. I wasn't like disregarding you know, and I certainly wasn't disregarding the balanced opinions of people in the high ranks because I understood I don't know what's going on

And they they obviously do 'cause they're where I wanna be and I wanna I wanna get there. So I'm just grinding every day. That's that that was what I went through, you know. And like I would I probably would have been pissed off if someone said, so you just play casually. I would have been pissed off. Like I definitely would've been pissed off back I know that for a fact I would have been pissed off 'cause I was doing anything but taking it casually, you know, like

speaker-1 (24:18.936)
That was me in league. I I got addicted to that game pretty early on back in w around when Wukong was released. I think it was like around early season two. And then yeah, I just saw a few clips of people who I thought were good. And I don't even think they were high rank at the game. But then I went from in one summer, I went from like basically silver where I started in league to all all the way up to the highest rank in one summer. Like I just totally grinded it out and just had an improvement mindset. And yeah, I was low rank for a a big portion of that. But yeah, same as you, Mills. Don't ever

Didn't ever consider myself a casual. Pr from the moment I started playing that game, I was hardcore through and through. It's just it's just a process for a lot of people. You know, process everyone has to go through.

speaker-0 (24:59.072)
Yeah, no, I agree. but like it so we did talk about Cloak and Dagger. I like I I I think I'm curious your take, Captain Coach, because a lot of people in chat are very anti Cloak and Dagger. you know, I I I've kind of gone a record saying I think that Cloak and Dagger is a bit higher skill than people give her credit for, but she undoubtedly or or they undoubtedly get a lot of value at their floor when you give them b abilities like, you know.

I whether it's ice block or or bubble or like all these abilities that you can just kind of use when you're under pressure and they just alleviate that pressure. And y like a a player needs to be really good to overcome all of those abilities. Like even they don't like you don't really how do I put it? It's like your abilities are a wall of value that you they don't even get to touch you until they surpass that wall of value. And that wall of value is bigger now than it's ever been. It's like

You know, block into fade into into bubble and then w how long is it gonna be until they get ultimate, which is like a very long lasting we can't die effect. Like it it just feels very difficult to interact with.

speaker-1 (26:07.714)
Well, I mean, she's a heavily cool down dependent healer, which I think is a okay like that idea that niche is totally fine to have in your game. A healer whose output usefulness is more, you know, for a coup lack of a better word, based off your strategy. Where do you use your cooldowns? When do you use your cooldowns? The problem with cloak and dagger is I think her cooldowns are just too short. So there's really never any window of opportunity for

I wouldn't say all the heroes in the game, but a very many of them to even be able to reliably punish her because the choice for cloak doesn't exist. The choice is just to cycle through your cooldowns perma. You're always having doing something. And I I to me that those types of decisions are interesting. And I would rather even potentially see those cooldowns. I mean, if if you're gonna be as short as they are, they can't be that they can't be just perma keeping her alive. So

I mean, there could be a world where maybe the cooldowns are a bit longer, but maybe a bit more potent or or you know, more bursty, like in a shorter window. So bubble you could put down and you don't just stand there and are immune to dying for whatever seven seconds or whatever it is while it's up. But maybe it's it guarantees you don't die in two or three seconds, but now there's a window. I could see something like that being like a a viable balance route.

But I the reason they don't do that is because I think they want that kind of pass it blanket of safety for a lot of these heroes. They want a base level, like you said, base barrier of execution, level of being able to just not get completely outplayed. So they're basically raising the floor of the game so in some ways the worst players can compete. And I just don't agree with that. I get I get why they do it.

speaker-0 (27:51.278)
Yeah, and I Right. And and I I think I I want to ask question. I'll open it up to someone to come and talk and say their piece, but I want to ask y'all a question to the audience because this is kind of what Flats argued for. And what he argued for is that you know you want the casual experience to be one where people feel powerful and and not necessarily that skill is tied to that power, right? You want to have a great experience.

You know, now Cloak and Dagger is so strong that, you know, you're not gonna get one tap by anything. Black Panther can't even touch you because you can just go into ice block. and this is something that is a result, like the state of Cloak and Dagger right now is a result of not balancing for competitive players. Because I can promise you, there's no competitive player that argued for a cloak and dagger to be in this state with all this value not tied to skill.

This is this is a hundred percent targeted to the casual experience. That's why Cloak and Dagger is in the way she is. And regardless of the the the blowback to people in middle and higher Elo, it's it's I mean it's for it's for low rank players and casual players. It's what it really is. What do you do you disagree? I think that's why Cloakendagger is in the state.

speaker-1 (29:03.254)
Well, it it's almost like they use her being a lower win rate in higher ranks as an excuse to make her giga OP. So it's just like, well, we're doing two things at once. It almost feels like that's their justification, which really bothers me. Because their justification, in my opinion, should always be the individual interactions. But I don't think they look at the game that way. I think they're like I said, I've I've said this a lot before. I think they're very metrics and data driven and they have a lot of info on on like retention and how

things are played and don't really care about how it feels necessarily. Cause as a Spider Man trying to kill a cloak and dagger, unless you're like rank one Spider Man, it probably it just feels terrible.

speaker-0 (29:37.39)
It feels awful. I mean, I don't even really think Cloakadagger is I don't even think she's a top five tank in high elo. I think like like in the highest

Tank, always yeah, tank. That's how thank you. Top five, top five top five support in high elo. I don't think she's a top five support in high elo. But like in the highest of ELOs. But but you know, the way that they have created that character is just such an I just think she creates unfun interactions and I think she also in some ways handicaps the people that play her.

speaker-1 (30:10.04)
We should bring someone in and

speaker-0 (30:11.32)
So yeah. Yeah, yeah. I wanna a does anyone how does anyone does anyone play Cloak and Dagger in chat? That's what I want. I wanna bring someone up that that

speaker-0 (30:24.544)
Abyss, I've seen you in here. Abyss, you wanna you wanna talk? Do you have strong opinions? No, you don't have to. You don't have to. No, no one's pressured. If someone wants to.

speaker-1 (30:38.112)
This is this is peak timeline. We're we're asking for opinions of low rank cloak and dagger players on our

speaker-0 (30:43.406)
Sad Lemon does not play Cloak and Dagger. Just joking. Yeah, it I'm looking Savage, Savage Okay. All right. Okay. I'm bringing on Savage. We'll see how this goes. All right, cool.

You're invited on. Hello, hello. Hello.

speaker-1 (31:05.602)
You're on clear comms.

speaker-0 (31:08.866)
Yeah. Whoa, is that are we a radio station now? That that would be s crazy. Nine AM radio station. Savage, you are mu you are muted. Hello, hello.

All right, can you hear me now, guys? Yes. Yeah. What's up? I'm a big fan. Yeah, I play Cloak and Dagger. I got her to I pretty much one trick Cloak and Dagger and Penny and Gambit to GM one. Nice.

speaker-1 (31:34.88)
Okay. And would you consider yourself a casual or

speaker-0 (31:39.146)
No, I I'm not a rank grinder per se. I'm more a lord. I kinda like learning all the characters. Okay. I like the pretty lord icon and so I'll learn a character and get him lord and move on to another one. Fair enough. What how do you feel about Cloak and Dagger? Yeah. I like her a lot. I feel like I want to say skill issue for not being because if you jump her, then she dies pretty quick.

I play a lot of Angela and I'll push her right out of her bubble. things like that. There's there's ways to get around it. So the the cooldowns could be longer. I would say that would be a fair nerf is making that. She shouldn't be able to go from from fade to bubble to ice block one right after the other. That's insane. So maybe make the ice block longer. Make it not heal her as much, maybe something like that. Okay. Okay.

Do you do you think that how how do you did you play her before nine point Like before the team ups, or did you just pick her up recently? Yeah, I've been playing her since season one. Mantis was my first my first love, but then I moved on to like Rocket and Cloak and Dagger. Gotcha. Okay.

speaker-1 (32:56.536)
Okay. Would you say that I mean, this I'm not saying I want this for Cloak and Dagger, but if she had moved towards a direction that was more based off of like the the skill parts of her kit and less about, you know, farming till alt and staying alive. Do you do you think there there's a world where she could have the same abilities and still be fun? Like for instance, like if it maybe her bubble

had a secondary effect that maybe you don't just put it down and heal, but can be used maybe for like maybe and I g I I'm trying to think of a like a good example here. What b basically what I'm trying to get at is is the reason you play Cloak and Dagger because she's like satisfying to execute on and and like consistent, or is there something else drawing you to that character? That's I think

speaker-0 (33:52.35)
I really like the tarot capes. I played cloak and dagger and I was mostly just hitting people with terror capes. And that was what really got me playing cloak and dagger was the amount of damage and the carry potential that she had in the earlier seasons. she was always like a no aim, no skill character. So I think that put a stigma on the character.

Where people don't wanna play her because they say she's low skill, things like that. Okay. Yeah. I I think I think that did that answer your question at all or was that Yeah, you know it did, yeah, yeah. I mean yeah. It's

speaker-1 (34:38.302)
The most in impactful feeling you're gonna have on Cloak when you're not just like th isn't it funny that the thing he likes the most about her kid is the one where she actually gets to be a team, you know?

speaker-0 (34:46.838)
Be aggressive. Yeah. I hate I'm a DPS player, really. And so I'm just not that good at it, I guess. I haven't gotten to to GM yet. I'm like a diamond DPS player. But anyway, so like her ability to ult into their back line and kill the healers, like that, that is part of her kit that I really enjoy. And I don't see very many cloak and daggers.

utilizing her kit to to get kills as much as she could. Yeah, that's an interesting part because like Cloak's kit is almost it's almost like 90% like survivability, like protection, but that that you know that 10% of the the terra cape like you're talking about, like doing so much damage, ulting aggressively, like I mean that those those are definitely super impactful. I like think a lot of cloaks don't don't utilize that.

Okay. All right. Well, I I appreciate you coming. I appreciate you coming and giving you two cents cloak and dagger. This gives us a Hey, yeah, you guys are doing an awesome job in the pot. I've been listening for a while, you know, lurking. So awesome. Yeah, I appreciate you, bro. Appreciate having Well, so what what are your thoughts? What are your thoughts, Captain Coach? Any thoughts about that?

speaker-1 (36:06.092)
It's not surprising considering he's he's a D PS player. There's probably not going to be like too many like true casuals, I I think, who probably consume this type of content. Wouldn't you agree? Like

speaker-0 (36:19.266)
Yeah, that's that's that's that's one thing that we thought about is is I think that it's it's inherently like the most casual of players would probably not be watching a Marvel Rivals podcast. We probably already garner a more competitive audience or a competitive mind of people. At least people that think about balance and want you know think about the state of the game. Lemon says, I'm a casual, let me talk. So that's my mod. I feel like I should not bring him on. I I definitely know that I should not.

speaker-1 (36:49.07)
Is he telling the truth? Yeah.

speaker-0 (36:50.51)
That's that's just sounds sounds awful.

speaker-1 (36:54.518)
Easy Game says they have a good point on Clog.

speaker-0 (36:57.076)
Easy game. Okay, wait, where is let me see. is it down below? Easy game. Is he asking? Yeah, send send a new request.

speaker-1 (37:04.078)
Send a request, he's

speaker-1 (37:09.304)
Can you hear me?

speaker-0 (37:11.073)
Yep. What's up?

speaker-1 (37:12.344)
Welcome, welcome. Well, what's up, guys? Yeah, great to be here. So yeah, so I I'm not I'm not like a casual, but I'm also not like a super sweaty tryhard when it comes to this game. I I I don't even know how I would describe it. I just play for like I've I'm really competitive, I've always been competitive, I want to win. but at the same time, like if someone's kind of giving negative energy in the game, throwing and not trying, I'm just gonna match it immediately. Like I'm not gonna put my blood, sweat, and tears.

You know, when someone else isn't. And when it comes to cloak and dagger, like a lot of times, obviously, you know, everyone who plays the game knows you gotta fill if you want to win, right? Everyone knows it. You know, there's no role queue in the game. That's a whole different topic. you know, maybe you guys will get into today. We'll get there, we'll get there. I got a lot of opinions on that one, but yeah, there's no role queue. So if you want to win, you gotta fill. And most of the time, you know, the support is a thankless role. It really is. It is in every game. I played league, I played Overwatch.

even World of Warcraft, like healer, same thing, support. It's a thankless role, and people don't want to play it for that reason a lot of the time. You can do extremely well, and you're always gonna get overshadowed by a DPS who has a bunch of kills. That's just the way it is. It's always been like that. and Cloak, the reason when I feel I put pick Cloakadire is two reasons. Number one, the character is busted. Obviously, we've already we've already gone over that. So you want to pick the most busted character. And another reason is it's just the skill.

Florina is so high that it's so easy to to play that you could just focus on the other aspects of the game. You know, it's because when you're playing Luna, you have to worry about like your aim and like, you know, I gotta make sure I don't miss this shot because this guy's gonna die. Whereas Cloak, you just kind of turn your brain off and just all you have to do is worry about your positioning and when you ult and you know, the other things that are as important or more important, I would say, than aiming.

speaker-0 (39:01.44)
Okay.

speaker-1 (39:06.306)
So a lot of people who, especially people who aren't very good at aiming, it's just a really good character to pick when you're filling because you can focus on those other things that you might not, you know, be able to focus on as much if you have to worry about, you know, landing your shots on Luna, for example.

speaker-0 (39:21.048)
So do you think that you go go go ahead.

speaker-1 (39:23.86)
I was just gonna say that's what actually makes her popular though too is is and I think that's that's okay. Like that's an okay part of the game. It's just when you move too far in that direction, it's like who are you really making the game for? Because at a certain point I I feel like toxic balancing like that, where you make the game too skillless, like or parts of the hero that are skillless too good, it it I mean we've we've talked about it before. It just encourages bad gameplay and and bad habits and that's why

Cloak and dagger players have such such a terrible reputation. You know what I mean?

speaker-0 (39:57.262)
yeah, yeah. I guess I guess the question I would ask to you is do you think that the devs should keep certain characters strong just because you know it encourages people to filter them or they're easy to fill to? Or do you think that that actually could create, you know, unhealthy balance and unhealthy metas where like in like

Basically, because like what you're saying is like cloaking dagger is a character that, you know, this character's really strong. People filter the character a lot, so it makes it so you don't have to think a a lot about what you're doing and you can still get a lot of value on the character. Do you think that that is like a necessary evil that the devs should do something like that? or do you think that that that's something that actually causes more problems? So what what is your thoughts about that?

speaker-1 (40:46.39)
If that per mirror. Yep. Gotcha. so you gotta look at when you when it comes to balancing of a game, it's very easy for people to just look at it from their own perspective. And you know, some people are actually incapable of looking at other people's perspectives at all, but you often have to look at it from their the the you know the business perspective, and having every if you look at like games that have come out and failed, like High Guard just came out and flopped. And part of the reason why that game failed is because

speaker-0 (40:47.453)
No, that's for you. Yeah, that's for you.

speaker-1 (41:16.226)
The skill ceiling on that game was so high, it was hard for casuals to get into that game and play when you're when you know when you log into a game and you got some guy spinning around, flopping around, flying around the map, doing 360s styling on you. Like most casuals are gonna get they're gonna log in, play one game, and log off, right? So it is important to have kind of like this low, like a few low-skill characters that anyone can hop in, and that's that's why Call of Duty historically had so much success because.

You're really good at Call of Duty, you're gonna log in and frag out and get a bunch of kills, right? But if you're bad, you can still log in Call of Duty and get a couple kills. It's really easy to kill somebody in a game like that. It's one shot, right? but the problem with Mobile Rivals specif specifically is the balancing, it's just so bad. And like some of these characters that are really low skill, cloak and dagger specifically, they they get too much value for it. It's it's more of a balancing issue than anything. Like, I don't think cloak and tag dagger should be terrible, but it definitely shouldn't be as strong as it is.

No, I totally agree. I think you hit the nail on the head. You covered all the points. I I would have answered my answer would have been I couldn't have said it better. And and to me, where so now you get into the balance of it, it's like, okay, how do we appeal to that base that is going to keep your game alive, right? That casual base that wants to log in, play the game, and be able to not get absolutely railed by a Black Panther and Spider Man diving them off cooldown.

It's like, okay, we need to make it playable for that type of person. Okay, sure. We give them these amazing defensive cooldowns. But if you're at this point where it's just a perpetual staying alive, you know, that's when you know you've gone too far. Then you have to look at it's like, okay, so how do we keep that experience preserved for the lower rank player balance wise? But when you go to the higher ranks, make their counterplay. And for every single hero, high skill soon.

High floor, low skill ceiling, low f floor. They should be looking for that in between. So to me, for me personally, I think it's just you increase her cooldowns a little bit. I think her ice block goes to 30 seconds instead of 20, which is still insanely good. I think her her bubble you go up a little bit. And maybe maybe you actually increase her damage now. So now that she doesn't have just insane like I I don't want to change the hero's identity, but I'm saying

speaker-1 (43:39.19)
You should have a certain goal in mind when it comes to the how other heroes view playing against you. And I think that's what Netties misses a lot of the time is that how fun is it to play against? I know Mills, you've you've talked about it a lot, obviously, is the toxic designs. Spider Man's the worst in my opinion.

speaker-0 (43:58.594)
Yeah. That we we well that's actually a good talking point. The experience of playing against Spider Man.

speaker-1 (44:09.346)
And on your team too, 'cause when it's on your team they're either carrying or doing nothing. So it's like you just either sit back watching the show or losing.

speaker-0 (44:16.896)
but but I I do appreciate you, easy game. Really, really good insight. I really, really appreciate you coming on. Thank you so much. Absolutely. Thank you.

speaker-1 (44:23.86)
Of course. And by the way, to people watching, we've had already three great guests so far. This is something we're going to be doing again. So if you come on and actually have a good take, you could be a friend to the podcast just like Light is. Like if enough people agree with your opinions and like your opinions, you could end up you know, this is like the farm system, Coach Mills. You guys could work your way up to regular, right? So I mean just say stuff that I agree with, you know?

speaker-0 (44:45.666)
Yeah, yeah.

speaker-0 (44:53.134)
No, just intentionally rage bait Captain Coach and I'll want you on like as an actual guest. But it's so so a couple things, so a couple things there that I wanted to hit on really quick 'cause the the experience of both one one thing I I I wanted to say is going back to the Call of Duty example with like, you know, getting value, like it like being able to not be amazing but still be able to get value. I think like you want to kind of

You know, someone someone comes onto the game, they're more of a casual player, you wanna still preserve Okay, coach is like they're crazy. Holy sh

speaker-1 (45:34.166)
Coach is such a beautiful six nine nine Chalan chat. Cappy Coach is the goat of the goat for those of you listening in.

speaker-0 (45:44.558)
'Cause I I think like especially with the lowering of the cooldowns thing, like let's go back to the Black Panther example. Most Black Panthers in low Elo will die on their first engagement if they don't kill people. Like just being able to deny their first engagement, I think, is enough to let you play the game for the most part, unless you're up against like a Smurf Black Black Panther.

speaker-1 (46:05.134)
'Cause they're not gonna know those timing windows that go back in, which is why I say yeah, to get more into the depth, like that those cooldowns, they don't need to be so there's no counterplay. Like like a lower rank Spider Man isn't gonna know, like, my god, the cloak bubble's down, I need to quickly go back in or maybe they're just always in and they don't I no you yeah, a hundred percent, hundred percent. if you really want to get into the weeds

speaker-0 (46:20.576)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

speaker-0 (46:28.162)
So he brought up Spider Man. They brought Easy Game Spider brought up Spider Man. I thought something interesting about Spider Man is that I saw Day talking about, you know, some people were talking about how Spider-Man is like kind of unfair in some ways, being able to kind of cheat death. And even I saw Day, which is the rank one Spider Man talk about it on X. And he said that Spider Man shouldn't start with three three web swings when they come out of spawn. You start off with one and you have to build the other two.

So you build to three. So you can't just die, insta yeet back, kill someone, die instant yeet back. Like you can't like you Yeah, yeah.

speaker-1 (46:58.028)
Like that.

speaker-1 (47:06.71)
Yeah, that's a very clever change 'cause you one of the way like that's that's actually like passive Spider Man value that you're kind of taking a look at. But to me

speaker-0 (47:14.894)
It doesn't ruin the normal game to game like the normal gameplay loop of spider at all. It doesn't change it in any way. It's more most so just the death and replace.

speaker-1 (47:22.766)
And that's going to make the game feel less stressful when you, as a cloak and dagger or Luna, freeze his Spider-Man, kill him. Now he's gonna he's not gonna just be back in nine more seconds. Like you actually have a little breathing room now. Congratulations, you won the fight. No, I like that. That's see those types of changes are where the dev really needs to to like kind of parse through all the community chatter and and find the good stuff. That's a that's that's a great idea. I can't think of a reason.

speaker-0 (47:32.897)
Yeah.

speaker-0 (47:50.924)
Yeah, but but what they're gonna do, if Spider Man ever gets to the point where it needs a nerf, they're just gonna like nerf him by fifty HP or nerf his damage and fuck up all of his combos. They're not gonna do any of this like like like this stuff requires I mean, you just have to think about it a bit deeply, maybe talk to Spider Man mains, talk about, hey, you maybe we have an uptime problem with Spider Man, how do we address it without ruining your character? Like there are ways to fix these things without

I mean, one of the things we sa say a lot on the pod is like it doesn't have to be a high rank versus low rank, casual versus competitive. Like we can we can with smart balancing we can appeal to everybody, I think. I really do.

speaker-1 (48:30.08)
I I agree. I do. Cause it again, there's a certain skill ceiling that I think b benefits even casuals to where if they're able to reach that, then they they get out of the casual ranks. Like there there should still be some form of of matchmaking going on, though. So to me, like you want to encourage the good players or the players who can do technical stuff to kind of not

have to always fight against a new cloak and dagger player, right? And and that's kind of the whole idea of having a competitive game is you gotta make it competitive like no have fun.

speaker-0 (49:02.26)
Yeah, do do we do we need to have like a cause one of the things is like the ranked mode, like one of the things that Flas is arguing is that like the ranked mode is still kind of a place for casuals, right? Like that's kind of what he was arguing, is that like you like the ranked mode is still a casual mode. Like, do we need like a a hardcore mode? Do we need like a ranked two or some shit? Like one life model. Like like where like

Search and destroyed? If if if if quick play isn't the place for casuals, and according to Flats that ranked is still the place you should still cater to casuals, then where can is it too much to ask for a place where competitive or or if they make a or if they make a like a more competitive version of ranked, are the casuals just gonna jump to that and now we still have to tailor to them? Like, is there ever a place that is just, hey, this is where we want more competitive balancing? Does that ever exist or no? Is it just like

speaker-1 (49:59.534)
For fun ranked like ranked modes. Like imagine a ranked capture the flag, bro. I don't think people people would even get like toxic about that. They would just go have fun. And and they the game would kind of play itself, you know? And and you could do that. Like what imagine they just in introduced this super competitive game ranked 18 versus 18. Well, I mean that's

Pretty funny, someone just said.

I I I think I mean you could. You could, but then there'd be a meta for that, but it would be really, really imbalanced, right? So it's just like you gotta ask yourself, who are you balancing for? And to me, I always go back to the thing, like you have to have the relative power between heroes be close enough to where you could kind of plug anyone into anything and have them kind of work. Like for for me per like eighteen versus eighteen, I've played eighteen versus eighteen. If you pick a healer, you just auto-win. Like whatever team has more healers than eighteen versus eighteen wins, I feel like. Because no one's doing it.

speaker-0 (51:02.424)
So here's gonna be an interesting conversation. So I think Flats and us agreed with the idea that er like power creep is too far. Like everything is a little too strong in this game. Flats thought that we should delete the team up or revert the team up system to the old one. I was on kind of the camp of I think the team up system can work. It just needs to be scaled back dramatically in power. But I made a video on it on my channel, and I think generally

People don't like nerfs. Like no one likes the idea of their character getting weaker. How do the people here f feel about the state of power in the game compared to how it's been in the past? Do you think that we need massive nerfs? Do you think that we don't? Do you think that power creep is too far? Do you think that we don't? I like I'm I'm I'm definitely curious. Okay, all right, all right. You know what? Lemon's gonna keep asking, so let's let's let's bring Lemon on. I'm ready to kick him in like a moment's notice, but

But I'm very curious. We're we're we're talking about power creep here and the team up system.

I got the I got the tri the trigger I the trigger ready.

speaker-1 (52:06.176)
I'm I'm not no exclamation marks that are inverted, no n none of that. I'm gonna behave best behavior today, I promise. I I'm I'm also bringing KG in here too. We're gonna try two people. KG and KGE, you just got invited. We're gonna let Lemon go first here. So I have thoughts just about like

speaker-0 (52:14.594)
What's Loman? How you doing?

speaker-0 (52:19.008)
Okay, let's do it. Let's do it.

speaker-1 (52:29.558)
power creep in general and it kind of comes from a little bit different perspective because Rivals is my first hero shooter. and I would say that I'm probably more casual than most people and that like I only play, you know, four to five matches a day tops. and then now I'm not playing any hardly at all because I'm in school. But the the way like from

speaker-0 (52:53.496)
Yeah.

speaker-1 (52:56.908)
The perspective of someone who has like 10,000 hours in Destiny 2. I like the way that Bungie balanced was their general philosophy was like net fun. And it's I think it's hard to do this in it like balance around net fun in a hero shooter because you have characters who their whole kit is just made to take away the net fun of everybody around them. You know, look at Black Panther, Spider Man.

Daredevil, you know, all the dive players that everyone likes to rage post about on Twitter, you know, Smurfs, stuff like that, right? so the way like but then they're also but then, you know, as we get as we play more, we learn new tech and like tech that I think the devs didn't even intend for us to start picking up on, right? And so you can with like let's look at cloak and dagger where

She's just able to spam through her abilities and then has by the time she cycles all of her abilities to live, she's got her first ability back or the first ability she used back, right? And so there was something like this in Destiny where I can't remember which class it was, I think it was Titans, but basically they could spam their abilities fast enough in such a way that like they would one-shot everything around them and it was really just unfun to go again.

speaker-0 (54:25.836)
Yeah.

speaker-1 (54:26.656)
And so what Ryot or what the what Bungie did was they put it made it to where like when the armor piece that was equipped that had that allowed Titans to do this, what they did is like there was a cooldown to use the ability that was like the catalyst for all of this before you could use it if another ability was used right before it. Right. So like if they used an ability right before it, then there like

a half a second cooldown and it stopped that ability from being able to be used. so you couldn't just like overload bursts so when you see them use the OP ability, what you just what like use a mobility or a defensive or something like that. And that's Yeah, that that's essentially what happened. Right, right, right. and so like I think that rivals, the way that they're balancing right now in general is let's make everybody just feel super powerful no matter what they're on all the time. And their favorite care they get to play their favorite character and be super powerful.

But that comes at a cost to the net fun of everybody in the game. And so what I think they really need to look at is like what is the where is it appropriate to have someone that can come in like a Spider-Man, make delete someone and then run away, right? Like how often should that be appropriate? What is the like they need to really re like fine-tune their equation, their net fun equation?

And you know, this is weird to say in a hero shooter game, but like really look at how much uptime they want abilities to have and like or different abilities to have, right? Like Emma, as an Emma main, I don't think she made it through her f half season that sh she was released before they took away her ability to get two grabs and a diamond. Right. And so like

speaker-0 (56:10.622)
Hmm.

speaker-1 (56:21.462)
I think that there are problem ch children right now and this their statement that you know we're we're good with throwing in or we're good with doing emergency patches and then they've done one emergency patch is kind of like it reminds me of a famous quote from Bungie where it's like we have a renewed investment in PvP and then they said that and we literally went three years before they even made a new PvP map for us.

So it's like you you bring up some good points. I kinda wanna touch on the one where you said that the developers can't really foresee what a player is going to eventually figure out. Like they they can't really predict the ceiling or or the true direction characters would go. I'd say Spider Man would be a good example. I I highly doubt they thought pulling people off the map was going to be as powerful as it is

speaker-0 (57:18.579)
Yeah, there's no way. It's yeah, it's a

speaker-1 (57:20.788)
And there's no way or just the combos a lot of these Spider Man players have learned. So there's no way they can predict for that ceiling. And to bring it all back to the team ups, I think one of the things that you mentioned with with Bungie, which I I didn't know about that, so that was cool to learn about, was the fact that, you know, 'cause all games do it. You have a really annoying OP thing in the game, and instead of trying to tweak and tune the the the little mechanics of everything, instead

They just gave everybody a team up. And a lot of them, you know, look at Gambit, are feeling some weakness now that they get to choose to have. So it it it's remains this kind of rock, paper, scissors more than I think it it really should be. But to me, what choice do they have? I mean, if they're gonna have 200 plus Marvel heroes, like they said in the future, you're gonna have to have a little bit of this, unfortunately. You know what I mean? So that's kind of like my thing where it's like I could I

Definitely see the argument of removing the team ups. Like I definitely could see that. But I c also see the argument for if they're able to balance it properly and actually, you know, look at like again, Gambit Boop makes him immune to getting dove. Okay, like let's nerf this a little bit so a BP doesn't just get pinned against a wall for ten seconds like a horror movie, like just like being like he's trapped. He can't do anything. It's it's so there's there's there it comes back to like kind of where we're getting with all these conversations. It's just like we're we need to find that middle ground.

I think most people are okay with this game being somewhat casual. But we we we need to find that middle ground better because right now they're they are just failing at it.

speaker-0 (58:53.784)
'Cause t like kinda to piggyback off of what Lemon was saying real quick, is like, yeah, it it's gonna be impossible for them to know like just how far people are gonna be able to take, you know, character cooldown loops and like the ceiling of characters. So we need the devs more than anything to just be reactive in that when things are discovered, when people are pushing certain characters to the limits of their abilities, you need to then evaluate, like, okay, we need to reevaluate how like

Maybe you nerf something at one point and you're like, wait, actually I should have buffed it. Or maybe you buffed something and you're like, maybe we shouldn't have buffed it. Like it's okay to say you made the wrong decision in the past. Just make the good like the right decision now. Like don't wait and keep waiting and keep pushing it back. Like if something That's why I like generally I give the devs a ton of flack. Cause I I'm I mean I'm I'm I'm a big Neti supporter. I think they work really hard and there's a lot of things they do well. But I don't give them flack about how they treated nine point five when when

We had a whole month of 9.0. People have they already figured out where like where those breakpoints were, how far you could push cer push certain characters. We already saw characters like Mantis, which such a high win rate. We saw Gambit being immune to dive now with his with his bubble. They they did touch it up a tiny bit, but they like they didn't really like actually meaningfully change up that loop. Same thing with Magneto, same thing with so many other characters, Elsa and Bucky and whatever. We could talk about a lot of them.

And it's like it's okay if you did not foresee how nine point would affect the characters because how how are you possibly going to? But you had a month to see how players push those characters. So now you see it. What are you gonna do about what you see? and like I like that's to me, that's the biggest job of Netties is just to be, you know.

Reactive and like they said, they literally made the announcement we are gonna be quick with hotfixes, we're gonna be quick with changes, and where are the hot fixes? Where are the changes? There isn't none. They they even they had nine point five to do something, they didn't do it, and we still haven't gotten a hotfix. So like I mean

speaker-1 (01:00:57.346)
The support all charge buff hot fix. That's the one we got. And then I think I think something else too is that their kind of their philosophy on downtime needs to be shifted a little bit. I think this is where probably the major pain point is. And so let's go back to you know pick on my favorite characters to pick on, which is Black Panther and Spider Man. And like they they come in, they can do their one shot ability and whatever, right?

speaker-0 (01:01:00.856)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

speaker-1 (01:01:26.882)
But like if especially Black Panther, right? Like if he misses his combos and doesn't hit it and like doesn't get it off, he shouldn't be able to just hide for ten seconds and get that back, in my opinion. Like I think that missing loop should probably be

speaker-0 (01:01:43.361)
Your

speaker-1 (01:01:47.456)
little bit more punishing than it is right now. And not just for those specific players, but really in like in general. Like Emma, if she misses, I think as someone who plays mostly Emma, I think taking the Mantas team up, like when she's on the team, you should kind of like just take that the way that the

diamond functions when Mantis is on your team and maybe just make that apply to Emma in general and that if she doesn't blow up her diamond, then it takes her 20, 30 seconds to get be able to throw the diamond again.

speaker-0 (01:02:23.808)
Yeah. Okay.

speaker-1 (01:02:27.65)
Looking at thing looking at tuning that way, I think, would probably make people one, I think it would make people get good. But also just

speaker-0 (01:02:37.036)
What that's actually interesting because like like n I'm not necessarily saying these are the changes they should make, but what if like clo as a c let's cloak of dagger for an example? You have a different set of cooldowns whether you hit or miss your ability. And so like what that would look like with like the ice block is like you pop ice block, if you take no damage when you're in ice block, then it's on like a certain cooldown. But if you get hit for a hundred damage or whatever, it reduces the cooldown. Like there's like a way like or like

With let's say with like as an example, like Terror Cape or Blind. Like you hit nobody with it, it's this cooldown. You hit someone with it, it's this cooldown. Like just like like getting rewarded for executing your abilities properly. I don't know exactly how that would work with a cloak and dagger, but that's just the idea. It's like

speaker-1 (01:03:20.15)
And the thing like the thing with that though is don't use the base right now as what you're scaling everything off of, right? Like make the base thirty seconds and then you do good, you reduce it from there, like to get to where we are now. Don't make it more powerful than they are now if they're hitting things, because I think that would just make this whole problem a lot worse. Yeah, I I I agree. I I think, yeah, I mean like the BP one

More cooldowns means more windows of opportunity for people to make their own plays. And I think that is like a a viable way to view balancing the game is not your ability versus your ability, but your ability to execute right in your windows. I feel like currently, as it stands, everybody's window is all the time and it's just constant fighting. No, it's like, is that really what we want? Is that really the the most skillful way to look at a game? But KGE, I'm gonna

drag you in here. You said you wanted to talk about the team ups, kind of what we're talking about right now. Hey, what's what's going on guys? You hear me? Welcome, welcome. What is go what's going on? What's going on? before anything, Captain Close because we love all you guys' content for what these guys like. yeah.

speaker-0 (01:04:20.45)
yeah, yeah. Are you done on it?

speaker-0 (01:04:32.034)
We appreciate you, man.

speaker-1 (01:04:34.04)
Favorite Hope man and I I'm always up in the streams, you see me, but I'm always good vibes. Thank you. in terms, I don't know. So a little bit of background on me as a player. I I was originally on console, maybe like you probably said like six months back. I peaked by eternity eternity 60 two times on console, mate, made my switch to PC. I kind of lost.

a lot of my steam for the game, like after those eternity runs. And it really like slowed down for me. And I don't know what it was. Like I just really like like I wanted to play, but I couldn't like get myself to play. I kinda had that thing to be honest. Some sometimes. Yeah, like it in because like I like the game. I'm an FCC guy, the KG and my name is like the

kind of clan or organization that I'm in. I I I play for fighting games specifically MK Street Fighter competitively. but in hero shooters I'm a hit scan player. I don't do melee. and I just think we just really need to look at team ups and I I don't know. Like I'm in games right now. It didn't take me long to climb ladder on PC. Like I'm about G GM right now. I could

finish the left still attorney if I really wanted to, but the drive isn't there specifically, because I think there's just not enough.

I don't know if it's like the the magic or what you guys say. Specifically with team ups, there's really no reason to deviate between whatever kind of team ups you do use because one team up is specifically better. Me as a hit scan player, if I pick Elsa, like my team should and will flame me if I pick that full team up. Like why am I picking the team up?

speaker-0 (01:06:34.19)
I I do have a question for you, as someone coming from fighting games. So what is like the most like strong but noob friendly like thing that you've ever seen in a fighting game? Like I don't know, I I just remember like I haven't played a lot of fighting games, but I remember like people hated like I don't know, noob cybot cheese in Mortal Kombat, but like what is like the equivalent for you? Do you do you have any like personal experiences of like

something that was really broken or really powerful, but like really easy to execute in a fighting game.

speaker-1 (01:07:08.49)
So coming from MK, competed at MK World Combat. Didn't get too far, but I competed at a couple offlines and in the in the online scene. It was specifically a character called Havoc. Havoc specifically had a giant health pool, but he had slower frames, you know, usually typical fighting games run about 60 frames per second.

I don't know if you would particularly call Havoc extremely like cat casual friendly, but to me, as someone who's been playing fighting games long time, say, you know, since I was a kid, me, me, me, me and my brother were, you know, playing but like literally Street Fighter Alpha 3 was my first fighting game. Like we're sitting there playing that. That character was not hard, but he was the best. And he continued to be the best. And then they gave him a massive buff. So what

speaker-0 (01:08:01.132)
Reason. So so I guess I guess the best thing I can the best thing I can subs describe the current state of rivals is it feels like there are like at least nine havocs in rivals right now. Like it ha it's Havoc, right? That's the character's name. There are like nine Havocs in Rivals right now. Where there are characters that are probably not the hardest to play, definitely are not the hardest to play, but they're i insanely powerful and they're like

Like when you lose to like I bet you when you lost to a Havoc, you felt like that player wasn't better than you. They just were playing Havoc, right? I'm I'm sure you felt.

speaker-1 (01:08:39.369)
Yeah, like not to get technical about it, because most of the people here won't know what this is, but Havoc had an armor move. Armor moves typically take usually a hit. You know what I mean? You have a hit of armor to counteract whatever kind of offense that the opponent's about about to do out. You you put your armor move, you absorb that hit, it takes you out of that pressure. Havoc's armor had a four or five hit, like it took four or five five hits to break said armor.

And if you didn't break that armor, it did triple the damage. And it probably the most brain dead thing you can imagine is that armor going off anytime you try to apply a single bit of pressure. And he had a he had a base version that had only two hits of that armor. And if you didn't break that, you also did double that damage as well without using any resources. Think about that. I mean, you can kind of, I mean.

I'm a hit scan player and I'm gonna call it like it is, Alpha D's nerfs. I'm gonna call it like it is. Most hit scan are very, very strong in this game, regardless of what you think. I like, I don't think it's very fair of how how powerful my particular characters are, because if my team locks a mag, locks a hood, locks any kind of competence support with me, it's GG's.

speaker-0 (01:10:06.008)
Yeah.

speaker-1 (01:10:07.774)
If if the if the enemy team doesn't do anything about it, it doesn't matter the evil that you're in, that is the current state of rivals. It is GVs at that point. And that's not fun to me, man. And and that's the reason like I ha I want to grind. Like I feel like I still am that eternity player. that I was like, I don't you don't just get there just not not using natural cover, not

knowing how to kite, you know what I mean, not knowing the fundamentals of the game, not knowing general information, you don't get to that point. I didn't have to read that Mouth's podcast, but regardless of the point. I yeah. Yeah, it's interesting, right? Cause you say hit scan is strong. If you ask, trust me, former rank one player and a lot of the people in his scrims, the the they basically just say it's it's a brawl meta right now, which is like brawl is generally known to be bad into poke.

But then you kind of unravel it a little bit and think about it. It's like, okay, why is poke not considered hard meta? Well, it's because the brawl has enough health bar to survive the ridiculous burst damage that these range heroes have when they line a bunch of headshots on you, because support sustain in the game can actually keep up with it, right?

So it creates this arms race of now you're introducing this brainless thing. We know we talked about it earlier with the cloak and dagger bubble. I don't know how that armor worked. I find it interesting. Was the the playstyle with that armor to just like burst them quicker so it goes off? Or would it be to like wait it out?

When you're talking about the the Mortal Kombat character. Say it one more time. The armor that what was the character's name? Avic. What was what was the the counterplay to that? Did like or what were you would you just play super passively? So so the only specific counterplay in Mortal Kombat one, which is the most recent Mortal Kombat game out, is that you had the flawless blockback move. Okay. So you in and you know that's not particularly hard for say a person like me.

speaker-1 (01:12:08.93)
But getting it framed perfect every single time with the amount of times that he can do it, given that he can do it also with no resources, it it it it's it's just one on top of the other, on top of the other. I got you. So you you translate that to the game. What is what would be the equivalent of that in rivals to like you know Elsa, Elsa, hello. I have a dyno on my team now. Give me two traps. Your dive is dead. Just

speaker-0 (01:12:35.37)
Immediately.

speaker-1 (01:12:37.398)
She can get you in a trap and fold a dead you with a combo that healers can't heal through because they're standing still and everybody on the team can just shoot them. So something really broken that just counters this whole ecosystem of like health bars going up and down and everybody trying to get their their value. Right. So it's these these incredibly unfun mechanics that kind of break the game that require everybody else to be OP to compete.

And if you just lowered that that highest level and nerf and look at these team ups and kind of to tone them down a little bit, you won't have to have these healers just throwing out like full health bars every second and a half. So so as well, like this is probably the point that I genuinely wanted to make. Why why you brought me on because I wanted to talk about team specifically. I really do think this team system is a little redundant because you would always just choose the right one. We need to make team ups away.

that a tank and a tank get a team up. A tank and a support get a like you you you you guys have said this before, but this really needs to be something that's implemented so rogue doesn't come to this game. I I think g given as a person who's also played Overwatch and I I am pretty good at Overwatch main champion but that that's another that's a completely different game.

was that you have terrible positioning and that there is no sustain that's gonna keep you from you know sho trying to shoot headshots in i in the open with ash you're just gonna get hooked in by road hog and ggs like why like but tank tanks need team ups with each other things that promote a proper team comp need team ups with each other I think will be the proper thing that would help promote fun.

speaker-0 (01:14:15.158)
Okay.

speaker-1 (01:14:27.446)
Because hey, I got a proper team comp. Hey, I I got I I got a strange on my team. Guess what? Strange and Emma have a team. Give tanks multiple team ups with each other. Don't don't don't don't even just make it one. That is that will solve but but also you know lower the power level, of course, like we're we're not just saying buff everything. That that that's not my objective, but give specific team comp proper characters.

team up s together and then take it from there and adjusting the power level because I'm playing, I don't know, if I I do not like playing a 25 minute game on midtown. Like I do not like that. Like that it is so unenjoyable. I am ending 76 and 13. Like after those games, you take a breather and you're just like, do I really want to queue up another one? Like I really ask myself that sometimes coach, coaches,

Brothers, like it's hard.

speaker-0 (01:15:30.186)
Well w we really appreciate you coming on, man. I I actually really like your insight with the fighting game community and bringing it to rivals. I think it I appreciate you it really implies. I thank you so much for coming. Thank you, thank you.

speaker-1 (01:15:41.326)
Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. Thank you.

speaker-0 (01:15:43.602)
to kind of close the team up conversation, I did want to talk to you, Captain Coach, because I like I have my takes about the team up system. I'm curious about yours. just kind of just setting the record. I like I to give you mine really quickly, I mean I think that for one, I think team up should I think there's a a lot of cases of team ups where they're actually more powerful than the original abilities of a character. Like like one card use is weaker on Gambit, or like two card uses really, pop and use.

That's weaker than his team up ability. Like that's actually weaker than his team up ability. His team ability is more powerful than that. I think like there should be almost no cases where a team up should be that strong. I think they're way too powerful. I also think the cooldowns are way too low. Like I think Gambus is 12 seconds or 15 and Magnetos is 12 or something along those lines. Like just too much uptime, too much power. But like

speaker-1 (01:16:38.54)
Yeah. The the team ups should not primarily function as a min maxing tool. Those to me are all the worst team ups in the game. The team ups also the way they were introduced that you said it like the low the cooldowns are too low, mess with that ecosystem that I referred to earlier in too many ways, where i it it's now an arms race. Again, we we love to talk about power creep.

But I I I I think they need to go back and look at every single team up that actually changes the way a hero plays. And yeah, like let me make sure I get his name right. Zoe or Zo said where it it's you want to encourage that fun as as a like like you're doing something you need to to to win because it's fun. Not I'm having

to do this thing that I don't want to do just so I can win but you know getting two tanks. Well it's like, okay, yeah, like I love that idea. I still think this game would benefit from roll queue, but because, you know, you think about the situations where, okay, now you have a Magneto who wants to team up. Let's they gave a team up with Hulk where you just make some CC and Mumuth medal. Okay. That's that's in the game now. Well what if your team has it or or their team has it and your team doesn't? Well now you're even more punished.

So I you're still gonna run into the same problem, I feel like, a little bit.

speaker-0 (01:18:01.646)
Well what you what they could so I think we all agree that the I mean, or at least you and I agree that there's a power creep problem. Like things are too strong. And there's also clearly one team up that is just the best one right now. Like you look at every character and almost in all cases, this team up's better than this team up, right? Why don't we just reduce the power of the overperforming team up down to the other one and then like try to make them comparable? But that would simultaneously nerf the the power of the game. So like as an example, like the Bucky one.

I can never choose the fucking the arm one with Punisher, you know, the tentacle arm one. I'm new. You never choose. Yeah, it's the cool one. It's the one that I actually get to press it and use it like a real ability. But you can never use it because the Elsa one's too strong. So if you're gonna keep the Elsa one in the game in the current in its current state, which I think you probably shouldn't, you should probably change that team up because it's just it's just dumb. It doesn't do anything besides just give you flat stat buffs, reduce that one in power level to match like how and like how weak would you have to make it so that the other one is comparable, make it that weak.

And like if we can look at every example of how weak would you have to make this the stronger of the two team-ups so that both of them are reasonable, I think that's what we should start first. Because it just it's gonna reduce the power off the top of a lot of these characters. Bring them down. Like bring the power level down. That's what I that's what that's what I would probably do. Like that's the easiest thing to do. because but this is what I think Netties is gonna do. They're gonna buff the weaker one. Is what they're gonna do. They're probably gonna do that. They're gonna buff the weaker team-up.

to be just as strong as the other team up, the stronger version. It's gonna just add more power creep to the game. Ma I mean, that's really what it's gonna do.

speaker-1 (01:19:34.754)
The game is at a very pivotal point right now because they're they've already I mean they had pretty good balance in eight point five. I think a lot of people were pretty pleased with the divers.

speaker-0 (01:19:44.792)
Yeah, it was actually great. And guess what? By the way, chat, Dive was the best meta. Like Dive was the meta in 8.5 at the highest levels. Dive was the meta. All the pro teams were playing dive. The best pro teams were playing dive. Cap was good in that meta. Dive was the best in that meta. Everyone talks about how they would hate a dive meta. Dive does not affect casual players or low elos because it just requires too much communication. Like, trust me's team, you know, the rank one champions, they were playing dive in scrims and in tournaments and dominating.

But your average player could not do that. Even your average pro player, eternity player, could not do that. Because it requires communication. But now what is trust me's team on? They're fucking playing Magneto Elsa Pokeslop every game in pro play. They're not doing dive. Like, like I'm telling you, 8.5 was the probably the most balanced the game's been in a long time. And it was dive was the best at the top.

speaker-1 (01:20:36.366)
And which is a really telling sign considering in the normal ranked environment, those types of comps are the easiest to execute. So that should be a sign that the thing that is in a lot of ways better for the casual and lower rank players are at least more straightforward, you know, front to back. That's what I think most people understand with these types of games, right? Would you agree with that? It's more simple. if that's creeping into the highest levels of play, then clearly you have to look at

where the game is at and and view it as a pivotal point where like if we go too far in this direction, there's no going back.

speaker-0 (01:21:09.622)
This person says 8.5 was awful. Cat is broken. I mean cat's still broken right now, brother. Wait, didn't it didn't didn't cat get mad? No, cat got super nerfed at 8.5. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Cat no cat was not bad. Cat was terrible in 8.5.

Yeah, yeah, wait w what are we talking about? This is revisionary.

speaker-1 (01:21:31.148)
Also known as the best version of cat. Yeah, true.

speaker-0 (01:21:34.466)
No, Cal Cal was terrible in eight point five and then she got the team ups in in in nine point that made her meta again. Like that's that's just completely revisionary.

speaker-1 (01:21:45.004)
Yeah, see the

speaker-0 (01:21:46.154)
And if and and and yeah, I mean well you you go, you go. That's because by the way, when we talk about a dive meta, just just so you know understand chat, a dive meta is not where B P is meta. Like I think a lot of like mid to low rank players, they hate B P. B P has never been meta in pro play, ever. Except for like before the game actually came out on like zero zero or beta or whatever. Like BP is not a real dive character. He's just a gimmick. I mean real really, to be honest with you. He's just a gimmick.

speaker-1 (01:22:16.514)
Black Cat is what utility power creep looks like when met with what you wanna call it, like output power creep, throughput, where it's like, How do you balance a hero that can't shoot their gun down main choke and just farm tens of thousands of damage every game with their brain off? Well, you have to give them a utility to the point where they're basically on yeah, they don't die and they can kind of just

take fights at their lead and and that is even worse of a type of hero to have. Because at least with the front to back meta, which again I think is kind of what the game was look going for. It's just easy to keep up with and follow along. Black Cat is not and it's she's not going for

speaker-0 (01:22:47.232)
Yeah.

speaker-0 (01:22:57.643)
It's

speaker-0 (01:23:02.733)
Real quick, real quick. I have some beef to say. Because like people are saying, like I keep seeing people in chat say dive is the worst meta. Look at Black Cat. Once again, chat, I want to make this really clear. And like for people watching too, we are in a meta where people just shoot guns down main, and Black Cat is still the fucking best DPS in the game. She is not a dive DPS. She operates completely independently of DPS. Every other dive character in the game has always needed a Venom, a cap.

To engage, bait out cooldowns. So you're free to dive in. Like Daredevil needs, you know, a tank to bait out cooldowns like all these other divers. Black Cat doesn't need anything. She literally in pro play, you literally just play a black cat in pure isolation. She doesn't need anything because that character is somehow power crept to the point where she can survive in a meta where she gets zero help because she doesn't fucking need help. But like to say that, she's problematic, so dive should never be meta.

When Dive is currently the furthest thing from meta, but she is still the strongest DPS in the game, just doesn't logically make sense. Like someone in chat has to explain that shit to me 'cause it it doesn't that those those ideas do not coincide.

speaker-1 (01:24:11.689)
In a game with relative power levels for black cat to be balanced, she would basically need to not have the ability to ever kill anyone in a 1v1. I I I I truly believe that. She should never like so it would be like a damaged nerf. 'Cause if if you have that level of utility relative to the other characters in your game, other heroes in your game.

That should be the value is kind of transitioning that into like, okay, this is a hero that can kind of just do what she wants, but the trade-off is you have to time it with other people. You don't have to do that. Like I like she can perma keep a back line locked up and like pretty much cycling through their cooldowns by herself with no real like a well played black guy, you can you no real repercussions. Just stealth, get out. Like you occasionally get picked off here and there through like some crazy hook. But the window of opportunity you have on the defensive is basically

It feels it feels non existent. And I guess at the end of the day, the feel is really what matters more than anything. But to me, even if Black Cat had no damage and couldn't kill anybody, didn't have that threat, I still think people wouldn't want to play against her. I still think that.

speaker-0 (01:25:20.703)
No, she's like untouchable. She like Yeah. I don't really understand why they would ever give immortality frames on a diver. I just d to me that makes no fucking sense at all. Like absolutely none. Why would you give a shield to a diver and an immortality frame to a diver and an invisibility to a diver? So you can't st you can't track her during his her dive stages, which is like the way that you've always denied dives. You can't punish her during the dive because she can go immortal or she has a shi like it just like such a it

To me, the design of that character just makes no sense. Like it might be one of the worst design characters I've ever seen, to be honest with you.

speaker-1 (01:25:58.827)
Yeah, it's pretty bad. I I mean it's I don't know how you go back from from that. You just have to nerf yeah, like the broken parts about her. 'Cause I don't think they're ever going to take a look at her damage, which is I mean, I know it's probably not talked about a a lot because people wanna parp on the iframes and stuff.

speaker-0 (01:26:16.831)
I mean if you could you could you could a hundred percent fix so like this is my propose to fix her and light has talked about this before but like you put a time you put a cooldown on like her being able to buy certain items so she can't just like chain buy them like there's a there's actual cooldown. Me personally, I would make it so that you're not immortal during that one like dash frame. I forgot what it's called, but it's like you're not immortal, you're just unstoppable. So you could take damage, but you you're you're not gonna get CC'd.

Right now you can't take damage. You just you're just like you just don't exist. And the third thing is I would make her invisible, like like kinda like in Halo where it's like you can still see it. It's like like a like a translucent type thing. So then you you you address all of her pain points. She doesn't have unlimited shop items. Now the question is if you addressed all those pain points, would she still be strong? Like would she even be playable? I don't know, but I do know that those pain points are are too str like those

The immortality, the invisibility, the shield and the shop, like all of those are points that I think are just they're they're fundamentally unfair on the character personally.

speaker-1 (01:27:17.547)
Yeah, no, I mean those things are obviously unfun to to play against. Th reason I bring up the damage a as being so important is, you know, if if she if you can't really ever kill someone, it doesn't really matter how unplayable, uncounterable they are. You always need some element of support to be able to finish up on plays. And to me, it's like, yeah, if a character's unfun, so be it. Like whatever. Rivals wants to add their broken shit, they're they're guaranteed backline assassin that.

you know, a new player could pilot, just kind of like randomly using their cooldowns and

speaker-0 (01:27:51.745)
That's kind of the thing though. It's like is I don't even think Black Cat is pilotable for a casual player. Like the c you have to hit like it's not the e like you have to actually be able to hit your fucking grab thing. Like like she's not I don't think she's k so like I don't know who she's balanced for. Like if the game is a casual fucking game, then why is black cat this strong? Like I don't I just don't I don't get it. Like if she's if she if the game is a balanced game, then a character like Black Cat shouldn't exist.

It like and she certainly shouldn't be the strongest DPS in the game. I I just Goon creep. I don't see I don't It's fucking Goon Creep. She is, dude. She is d I don't know. Maybe, maybe

speaker-1 (01:28:25.101)
I think there's a

I mean you press a button and you're invisible. Like that's not

speaker-0 (01:28:32.695)
But you ha but you have to but you have to constantly hit hit your you have to hit like your long distance grab to keep up your your money. If you mi like I watched a clip from Light and he missed he missed his grab three times and he decided to stand AFK because he like you

speaker-1 (01:28:46.465)
There's more of a curve, a learning curve to her. But f like as far as I know I'm a lot of people are gonna disagree with me, but overall difficulty, I I don't think I I think she's like upper middle, but I don't think she's like a like a high level difficulty hero to play. I think I think it's more of like a knowledge check with her. I don't I haven't played her though, so like, you know.

speaker-0 (01:29:03.733)
It's always Goon Creep. Everyone says it's always Goon Creep. That's why she's that's why she's allowed to be strong in this meta. Coach, I promise you she is. I yeah.

speaker-1 (01:29:11.829)
The combos are hard. Alright, well I'll I'll take you guys' word for it.

speaker-0 (01:29:14.465)
Yes, the cell skins. Alright. All right. But but anyways, going back to my original point, chat, like we can we need to stop conflating. Like someone in chat said it, I forgot who said it, but like I think it was UY. I don't know what your full name is because it's not on here. I think it was UY where it's like a strong character being meta does not mean that the that what that character plays is meta. Like black cat being strong does not mean that dive is meta. Black cat being toxic does not mean dive is toxic. Now

Dive could be meta and dive could be toxic, but they're not because of one character being strong, right? and like it that it's just important to think about that when you're thinking when you're talking about balance and you're talking about characters, because you could look at black cat and like someone could be like, wow, black cat's so strong. This is why dive should never be meta. It's like, what the fuck are we talking about? Like, like, once again, she's not like no no tanks, no dive tanks are meta right now. No dive tanks, dive tanks are hardly playable, to be honest with y'all.

I don't know if you have I don't know if any there's any Celestial Plus players in here. You try to play Cap at all or Venom, you might just blow the fuck up. Like, to be honest with you.

speaker-1 (01:30:20.821)
It's so stressful to play too. You have to be so locked and and just like twitchy almost like you it it's not a feeling you you want to experience when you're playing a big beefy brawler diver like meat shield type tank is to feel like you have less time to fight than anyone in the game. Like it's it's backwards. It's it feels so terri like it's so s it's like stressful to play the character with the most most health and it feels like it shouldn't be that way. Mm-hmm. You know, not including

speaker-0 (01:30:47.593)
I literally feel like I'm gonna pop at any time I play Venom. Like I'm I'm eighteen HP or eighteen hundred HP 'cause I get my shields and I'm dead in still like like a second and a half. That's just how much damage there are in this game. but anyways.

Cap is unplayable where two seasons ago he was the best. And that's that's kind of like the perfect like barometer for like how how bad power creep has gotten. When cap in eight point five, Cap was the best tank in in high ELO plus. And like now he is borderline unplayable.

speaker-1 (01:31:23.255)
Yeah, I mean that's that's why someone like Black Cat it can can work is 'cause her you know, I like I said, her her utility is just to the max to the point where she can just override what most hero like you know, she's an evasion she she's tankier than than Hulk if you really want to think about it. But she does it through evasionary tactics. You know, but yeah, I I sorry, I'll start stop talking about Black Cat. But it it's one of those things where it just comes back to

Like level of output versus barrier of execution. Those those when those things don't match. And again, like when you press one button and you're invisible, I don't care who you are. I don't care if you're the best black cat in the world. That's not hard to do. It's just not hard to do. Like having to cause because if you had some way to like Mill said, get her out of stealth or or do something like something like that. Like but shooting a big fat tank.

That's that's not hard to do and the tank has no counterplate to that, right?

speaker-0 (01:32:22.549)
It it also really annoys me that if I like somehow hit her, when she's invisible, she just goes back to being invisible. Like yeah. Like it doesn't it doesn't break her out of invisibility. It just like but yeah, anyways, I w I know Jaw's been wanting to come on for a while. So let me bring let me bring him on to talk about Black Cat, the meta or anything else you wanted to talk about. All right, Jaw, you're I invited you on.

speaker-0 (01:32:48.813)
Yeah, and those of you who haven't talked will definitely bring you on for the next topic. So we've still got quite a few more topics to get through. Yeah. What's up, Jock? Yo. Yo.

speaker-2 (01:32:59.573)
Yeah.

yeah, what's good. How's everybody doing?

speaker-0 (01:33:05.439)
Doing good, bro.

speaker-1 (01:33:07.713)
John Chun.

speaker-2 (01:33:08.397)
I really want to come on what we was talking about the team ups and just how overpowered they are because at

speaker-0 (01:33:17.837)
How you feel about Bucky? You said Bucky, right? That's what you wanted to talk about or something?

speaker-2 (01:33:21.067)
Yes, yes, yes, cause all right, so I don't think a lot of people in chat know me. I'm I'm Mills' mod and you know, I talk normally in on the streams I talk a lot about Star Lord, 'cause I'm a Star Lord player. You know, I like that character a lot. Just 'cause like when I used I used to be a COD player and I think somebody was talking about this earlier. I used to be a COD player before Rivals came out. So like Star Lord just really feels like that game. Whereas like, okay, I just like the style of being able to

Grow around the map very fast, you know, a lot of movement, being able to shoot a fast gun and being able to kill people. Kill people. And yeah, I just like that that gameplay loop. So Star Lord really appealed to me. So I've been learning a character. And I feel like I would say Star Lord at least this season, like it's just this season, season nine and nine point five, it just feels really, really horrible because like in this experience.

in this experience of playing Star Lord this season, or at least the games that I have played. I haven't played them much this season because I've been gate kept off playing the character because Bucky's in the game and Bucky has like like her

speaker-0 (01:34:27.469)
How does it feel to try to duel a Bucky, by the way, when he has like effectively five hundred health?

speaker-2 (01:34:31.627)
There's no point in doing dueling the Bucky ever. There's never a point. Cause it didn't it's no point in even getting in the Bucky's sight line because Bucky has infinite cones that not only slow you but make it so that I can't move at all. Like it's literally no point in ever playing the character. Then let's say then let's say there's a name war in the game that just has a random squid out there too. Or whatever other BS that is in the game and like this is the problem that I want to get off. It's just like, bro, at the end of the day, it's like

I do feel like the team-up system was a very, very good idea. And I do think we should leave it in the game because it does like at least for certain characters and certain team-ups, it does give people a lot of agency, a lot of, you know, gameplay loops and a lot of skill expression with it. Like even though some of the some of the team-ups are very, very broken, don't get me wrong, like Gambit Bubble is definitely broken. But I do think that there is skill expression with that ability that, you know, that doesn't necessarily always get talked about.

And there's certain abilities like that where there's like, for example, even though everybody I'm a mag player too, I do like playing mag, even though everybody loves to talk about the sword team up, but I really, really still like using the Emma team up just because having the utility of having double bubbles. So where it's like I'm always getting getting back a what is it, the right click where I like push people always always being able to have that and like being able to let's say I'm kiting or let's say I'm pushing up and then I could throw my clone beside me.

double shield double shield so that literally nobody behind me say like stuff like that i just feel like that type of utility is really really really really cool in the game but it's like it's just the power level of the stuff really does have to get toned down and i do think there are a lot of team ups that do need to be reworked like why why for bucky why is the arm team up the team up that literally allows bucky to have a completely new combo is something that's like

very unique and very interesting for the character that's always been just like, you know, sitting down main, very boring. Do nothing. Do nothing. He has an entirely new karma now and nobody ever uses it because the other team up is just so strong. And all it does is literally just double down to what he loves.

speaker-0 (01:36:42.13)
Yeah, I I a hundred percent agree. A hundred percent.

speaker-2 (01:36:46.303)
Like, but yeah, I really wanted to get that off. And also Star Lord also feels really bad too because I feel like it a lot of people talked like it's also crazy that when 9.0 came out and we seen all of the team ups, I remember seeing Star Lord's team ups and looking at the Adam team up, looking at how he get not only got res, but also got the teleport, the rocket teleport and res on one ability was kind of cool.

was kinda cool and I'm like, okay, that'll be low key broken just to get in the game and find out. Wait, there's so many other team up that are just more broken that this low key broken team up is the y it's bad.

speaker-0 (01:37:27.853)
So I have a I have something that I want to say that piggybacks off of this, and you'll see it with the strength of all the characters in the meta right now. The problem with Star Lord is that he has to risk his life for value. Which seems weird. And it it's like there are so many characters that can get value with zero risk. So, like Magneto, as much as I think Magneto is actually a healthy character on paper in a meta, and he has been historically, the problem is his damage is so high, his sword damage is so high, and he has all these protection tools.

That he can get value without any risk to his life. He can get a kill without any risk to his life. Magneto Mains in chat know what I'm talking about, where you just randomly kill someone like like you get first pickoff on Mag. Bucky can get you could just kill someone. No risk. You're 400, 500 HP. There's not a single risk to your life. But on Star Lord, you could take an angle and get two tapped out nowhere. As Hulk, you can get randomly de-mecked for no reason at all. Even if you played it properly. As as Thor, if you make one mistake, you pop. Like, there's so many characters in this game.

that they can get value in the same way other characters can, but there's a you you actually have to potentially risk your life and that's just not okay in this meta. You just like why why would you risk your life?

speaker-1 (01:38:42.239)
I think one of the big problems we want to talk about Star Lord with the team ups is that they filled in the weaknesses rather than emphasizing the strengths of the hero. To me, you said it yourself. I mean, Star Lord's dope. He's a cool fucking character. He's so cool. Why is his team up one that throws out a bunch of C C?

on like a like a zone control C C ability. Like what how does that fit at all? Well, I mean, I probably think if I were the designers, we want to give Star Lords a way to easily line up their shots because the ones that can't aim that they're he sucks in lower ranks. That's my guess why they would have a C C ability on a hero that that's not his identity. So now you're giving him something that he doesn't really need to help bad players when you should be celebrating what makes him good to the good players.

Something like maybe a team up I mean, I hate the passive ones that give passive bonuses. I don't like that at all. But maybe I mean just spitballing off the top of my head, okay, Star Lord a little too punishing to play. Maybe give that shield back to his flip.

speaker-2 (01:39:56.051)
Yes, that's another thing. Why

speaker-1 (01:39:57.725)
On w a team up. And then maybe if you take too much damage in like a burst, I mean this w wouldn't be fun to play against at all, but you kinda get what I'm saying here. Maybe you give like a tracer like backflip, you know.

speaker-0 (01:40:10.797)
I would I would love if kind of going along along lines with what you said, like I think both of his team ups should be skill intensive, or at least one of them should. Like neither of his team ups are any they require no skill to execute either of them on a super skilled character. Why can't it be like I don't know, maybe it's a skill shot lightning ball, like you throw a like it's a projectile you throw that can, you know, help you, you know, soften a target. Maybe it's a electric stun that it like it moves fast, you hit them, it stuns them for a millisecond, but you have to aim it, or maybe it's like a

You throw something and you teleport right to that spot, like middle combat's another movement a bit. Like there's a lot of like skill things you can add. I that's my biggest criticism of all these team ups is like there could have been a skill expression team up, but in place of it we got a either no skill or flat buff thing. Like like and there's there's so many examples of that that I just think are just like just horrible.

speaker-1 (01:41:03.541)
The worst part is now when you come to balancing Star Lord, because before nine point Star Lord, I mean he got that fifty ammo clip buff. Really good spot. Now people think he was strong. Now when you s balance him down the road when all this power creep happens, he's going to lose his identity if you're not careful and recognize what made him interesting, what made him cool, which is that zip around the map quick.

speaker-0 (01:41:12.727)
He was in a good spot. He's really strong.

speaker-1 (01:41:28.521)
simple playstyle loop but requires good aim, precision in your movements, right? And now you have this ability that's just a big one button press, blanket CC. It's like, are you gonna nerf that when you're or buff that when you're trying to buff Star Lord? Is the route gonna be two seconds now? Because now all the fun parts about his kit, the reason people liked him, now you're not even emphasizing that. And then you lose this is why I said this game is at a very pivotal pivotal point. Pretty quickly after they did these these team up changes, we're losing the hero identities.

That made them cool. And then when when that happens, you got no base of reference anymore. It's just gonna get it's gonna just get way too chaotic to where it's just gonna feel random like it does. Like it's just these games just feel random. Feels like we're you y you p you pick OP shit or you lose, really. It's it's like there's really not much that you can do.

Like the the randomness is is like the the ability should be what determines the outcome of games, not like just whatever team like I got a thing player this game, okay, we win. I got a mag and and they have a Thor Hulk player, we just win. That that to me is what I feel like feels random to me about it.

speaker-2 (01:42:36.213)
My bad. I I wasn't trying to cut. I do have one more point that I want. So

speaker-0 (01:42:40.193)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go for

speaker-2 (01:42:44.491)
This kind of does add on to the point of how easy of use t easy use team ups are. But I would say so, like another another thing with Starload is at least for me. So I definitely know this probably isn't a problem for PC players, but I am a console controller player. So and I play Starload on controller. And so when the team ups came out, the binds for the team ups are very, very complicated because like there's there's skill expression in that part in the sense of like

Because let's say for the atom team up. So the atom team up, I don't know if you noticed, but both of the buttons have to be both the buttons, the teleporter and the res have to be binded to different buttons. So it's it is kind of difficult in that sense to use them. But it's like again, it just goes back to the point of why use that team up or why even play the character with team-ups that even though they like the team up doesn't even scale scale to all the other team-ups that are just

one free button that is way easier to use. And so it's like, I I feel like if there's gonna be a team up like that where it's like you have to have so much, so much skill expression to where you have to like if there's more buttons to press, make everybody's buttons hard to press. Like make there be skill expression with that sense too, where it's like there isn't a character out there that just that has a team up ability that basically

ramps up his stats and ramps up his base kit with no new buttons. But then I have this other character that has all of these all of these buttons to the point where it's like, okay, how do you press all of these we all of the buttons that you need to press?

speaker-0 (01:44:22.253)
Quick question. Can y'all still not rebind your ultimates?

speaker-2 (01:44:26.442)
No, we can't. Okay.

speaker-0 (01:44:27.401)
Okay. Cause I so so just st mini story time chat. I remember when I did the console, so w when I did the unranked to celestial on console, that was like I did the video on it. That was like my number one recommendation is like, hey, when you get a chance to talk to the devs, tell them about this the controller problem. Tell them about hey, we need to rebind the controls. and that was like right around the time that like a whole bunch of creators got kicked out of the you know, the playtest program, NDA program. So I have not been able to talk to the devs since.

but that was but that's been on like the top of my ticket is like this needs to I assume that it would get fixed by now, but I guess they they you know fuck you guys, I guess. Sorry. Yeah, they you have to double press the sticks to ult and you cannot rebind it. You can't you can't you you have to it has to be double pressed sticks. I don't know why you can't rebind, it makes no fucking sense to me, but you can't rebind.

speaker-1 (01:45:06.443)
Just the alt or all the hockeys.

speaker-2 (01:45:21.355)
And then you all like some buttons too, you can't have multiple binds on for certain buttons either. Like for example, with the s with the Starlow team up, I can't make one button be I can't make one button be both of the team ups. Like I can't throw the res out with the same button that I use to teleport to it. You know what I'm saying? Like if I use the same button, I threw the res out, it's gonna take the res away. And I have to literally bind the T P to an entirely different button. It's stuff like that. Like the binds just on controller is just like

speaker-1 (01:45:51.085)
Do you do you think cause we haven't talked to a ton of controller players? We've already talked to a few tonight, which is pretty cool. Do you think that they want a more streamlined experience? That's why they don't give you freedom to change your keybinds for the controller play brace. So it's it's kind of there's like less variance in between the best and the worst, and they're all relatively have like a similar level of like gameplay experience, I guess. You know you get what I'm saying? Like

They don't want people modding and and changing things too much because they want everything to be kind of condensed in and

speaker-2 (01:46:27.723)
I think I understand what you're saying. Yeah. I would say honestly, I would say no. Honestly, if I would just if I was to say the reason why the bonds on controller is the way it is, is literally just negligence on the devs, just like not thinking about it and not putting the forth the time to do it. Cause like

speaker-0 (01:46:48.065)
I agree. I actually agree with that, unfortunately.

speaker-2 (01:46:50.049)
Yeah, especially on like PlayStation and Console, like even though there technically are cheaters and people that can, you know, find ways to do that stuff, it's very, very hard. Like it's not as simple as doing it on doing it on PC. Like it's not as easy. So like even plugging a plugging a keyboard into the console, you more than likely are not gonna be able to use the keyboard. If you just like buy a keyboard that you plug up and plug it into your console, you could probably use it to type in the

Type in the game chat, but it won't let you actually use it in the game. Like there's systems already inside of the console that

speaker-1 (01:47:26.209)
that's it's it's by the don't you don't you think that's by design though? Or or is that like wait can you actually use your keyboard on on other for other games? Like mouse and keyboard on console for other games? I actually don't know. I'm not a console but

speaker-2 (01:47:38.123)
Yeah, it just depends on the game. But well that

speaker-1 (01:47:40.885)
That would kind of align with what I'm saying then, that they 'cause they probably have like I like I say I always say like they're very data driven. They may have just different metrics for console versus PC and they want to keep them separate. You get what I'm saying?

speaker-0 (01:47:51.701)
Because

speaker-2 (01:47:51.915)
I do think they they might have have it like that where it's like different

speaker-0 (01:47:56.973)
It's it's it's it's it's interesting, Cap. You and I like that's I like I mean we've done a lot of podcasts at this point and you and I have like a that's like the one place that we fundamentally like disagree, I think. Is I I'll I'll attribute a lot of things to to negligence. And you'll attribute a lot of things towards intentional there's an intentional reason behind it. And I you know, like we will never really know what's the truth. You know, there could be an intentional reason or there's not. But I I just I just you know

You know, I th that's just something that I just find that we I think we tend to disagree here a lot where it's like it it it it would I think it's very easy for a company to just completely overlook like like hey you know casual pe you know they are not casuals console players are still downloading the game, we're doing fine. we don't need to listen to them. And then all their content creators or are on on PC, you know, all the people that are making content, producing content are on PC, so they never get console players' opinions and they see the stats that are good on like

the console's doing fine download wise, so they're like, we don't need to Well like they they probably don't even hear the complaints of console players and they don't care to, you know, to address them. it's probably why it's good for us to bring them up here. If like console players in the comments of the video or, you know, here, if if there's any specific console problems that you want talk about, it's a really good opportunity to 'cause I do think the devs listen here and I think it's important that I mean, there's just not enough console representation in content creators, so

It'd a good idea to like, you know, voice any problems you have, console specific problems.

speaker-1 (01:49:31.053)
Yeah, I would definitely love to hear more of that type of discussion if there's anyone in chat who wants to try to try to get in here. Yeah, because it's yeah. any closing thoughts?

speaker-2 (01:49:42.411)
Yeah. I was just gonna close out with answering your questi your question fully. So coach, I will say that your perspective on like how they want to streamline the like the way the reason we can't rebind stuff fully all the time is to streamline the experience to make everybody like on the same playing field. I would say at least on the console experience, I feel like

So like playing on controllers playing on controller is very different. And I would say the thing that really is a the thing that really separates good controller players from bad controller players is like being able to being able to pressure buttons and why I think that it them not allowing us to rebind our ultimate and stuff like that, I feel like it's just a place of negligence. Cause I would say like I don't need I really don't think it is a thing of sh streamlining the experience to keep it.

simple especially because on controller and anybody that's good on controller or anybody that's like really really high rank that can really play the game well on controller all of them either play claw or they play with paddles and so it's like you literally have more buttons on your controller or you're able to press buttons more in the controller. And so that's why I'm like okay like even though there could be there could be ways to like keep it fair for everybody in a sense of

not giving people ways to just like flat out outplay everybody with so much so much more capabilities of just being able to play the game. But as far as like as far as like to the point where like we can't rebind our buttons and stuff, like nah I don't I don't think it's that. I think it's just negligence. So I would just say like overall I just I just think the balance team needs to like

speaker-0 (01:51:33.389)
Sorry.

speaker-2 (01:51:35.489)
Yeah, just full lock in as far as the

speaker-1 (01:51:37.037)
It seemed over their head for sure. That they there's a lot of stuff they seem to miss and and are like constantly trying to like plug in holes of a sinking ship if it seems like some

speaker-0 (01:51:47.597)
I've said I've said it many I mean I I think I brought this idea up wait like a long time ago. They just they needed they need a playtest team. Like other games have had a playtest team. Right, yeah. Core core design vision. This is these are the things that we're gonna do. I I I talk about it on chat, the the Ten Commandments for balance. Like what is what is their goal?

speaker-2 (01:51:56.045)
Pleasure.

speaker-2 (01:52:07.327)
I did like when you said that 'cause even if like I don't I think that the cash the game should be like it shouldn't fully be balanced in which in one direction, casual or competitive. It shouldn't shouldn't there should be elements of both both player bases being thought of in the balance. But I think that a vision needs to be in place to to give that direction. Like, okay, what do we want this game this game to be? How do we want players to to play this game? Like

That type of vision needs to be in place in order for for them to balance the game in a good and correct direction. Cause I don't think that we should always balance for competitive players because get then I do think the game will get boring at some point where it's like, okay, everything becomes a super duper fair experience. It gets to the point where it's like, okay, a lot of players just won't find fun in the same way, especially casual players, cause they have to

Put too much effort into the game. And a lot of casual players just want to play the game and have fun. And that's fine. Casual players though, at the same time, it's like, okay, we can't just give you so much free value to the point where like, you know, you can just play the game however you want and you just win games because your character plays plays themselves for you. But at the same time, I just like there needs to be a vision in place, is what I think. Like further streamline vision of what we want this game to be and how we want it to be played. And then

speaker-0 (01:53:24.545)
Hundred percent.

speaker-2 (01:53:35.819)
balance balance the game with that in mind like taking people's perspectives of course is very very fine and you know taking the community's thoughts and what they find in the game all of that is fine but you should never just like never just like flat out throw a pat like don't don't tell us that you're going to give us hot fixed patches don't tell us that you want the game to be more for the neutral more neutral more neutral in play less ultimates

then go and one day into the season buff support ultimates, not everybody else's ultimates, just support ultimates and also nerf certain nerf certain characters. Nerf certain characters in that day one hotfix patch then never nerfed anything else. Like no other hotfixes. Don't don't tell us that.

speaker-1 (01:54:21.353)
It does seem like they're kind of bullshitting us a lot of the time, especially with their reasoning for some of the changes they make. It's just like a very generic like, we wanna ignite the battle by giving Hulk's punches more fiery power plus

speaker-0 (01:54:34.849)
It's like what what does that fucking mean?

speaker-1 (01:54:37.517)
What are you talking like why why are we buff like you know a lot of that it it just yeah, it's just like I think people are starting to see through that.

speaker-0 (01:54:39.893)
Yeah.

speaker-0 (01:54:45.227)
And it it's it's interesting how you say like we want a like a like it'd be really nice for them to come out with a definitive statement about like what they want this game to be. And like let's say like as an example, that neutral. Like they want the neutral to feel like a substantial part of the game from game to game. They want your actions to have consequences, they want ultimates to have, you know, a a solid impact, but not be the entire, you know, gameplay loop. Like they like these are things that they could say.

And then whenever something doesn't meet up to what you know, their balanced philosophy, then they're like, Okay, we're actually nerfing this and changing this. So because this is our philosophy. Remember, we told you our philosophy. We're trying to bring it back to this philosophy. But it feels kinda like they say something like the neutral thing. we want neutral to be more pronounced. And then they immediately backtrack on it. And then they immediately power creep the fuck out of the game. And now new the neutral doesn't exist at all. And it's like, Did did you didn't you say this? Like what the fuck are we talking about? You know?

speaker-1 (01:55:42.325)
How can we hold them accountable if we don't know

speaker-0 (01:55:46.977)
What they're doing.

speaker-2 (01:55:49.367)
We don't know what we're doing.

speaker-1 (01:55:52.471)
So yeah, I appreciate you coming on though.

speaker-0 (01:55:54.817)
I really appreciate your job. Thank you. Thank you. No problem.

speaker-2 (01:55:57.269)
No problem.

speaker-0 (01:56:02.209)
Yeah, I that I think that'd be that'd be like the first step I want is is them to just tell us like what you know, like even if their goal is like ultimately like casual experiences, to tell us that. Like openly say we will prioritize the casual experiences over hyper competitive play, but we will still try to do, you know, this thing. Like I just I would love like a like five to ten statements about what are they gonna prioritize, what are they thinking, how are they gonna balance the game.

And then every change they do is just trying to conform the game to whatever those, you know, those five to ten things that they said that they're gonna do. would be cool.

speaker-1 (01:56:40.193)
Bis in chat says they they need clear comms. That's that's got dual meanings, I think. They need us, Mills. All of us. You too chat.

speaker-0 (01:56:43.101)
Okay, okay.

speaker-0 (01:56:50.765)
but okay so I I did wanna I did wanna we have a couple more big points to hit before we kind of get towards wrapping things up. The first one I think is a really big one actually is does the game need to cater to casuals to survive? So people like to talk about the strength of the Marvel IP and the strength of Marvel Rivals.

Is catering to casuals a necessary evil to make this game survive? Or do you think that the game will survive despite, you know, regardless of how they cater? Or do you think that if they cater to casuals, the game will die? Like what's your opinion? I'll I'll I'll give you mine and then I want to hear I'm gonna I'm just gonna give them like mine and I wanna hear Ken.

speaker-1 (01:57:36.737)
Real I want a real casual too if we're gonna bring him on. Someone who really does is like super low ranked, maybe doesn't even do ranked. So you're disqualify yourself as much as you can from a competitive standpoint if you wanna come on here. Right guys. Right. How shit you are. No, I'm just kidding.

speaker-0 (01:57:52.865)
And like God damn my my personal take is that I I honestly think that the Marvel rivals would survive regardless of what they do. They could say, fuck the casuals, we're doing hyper competitive. They could say fuck the you know competitive players, we're gonna do hyper casual. They could they could basically do whatever they want as long as they have Marvel on their title and they release a new character every month. I literally think they could do whatever they want, but I don't think that we're fine with the game. Like me personally, I think the game could be a lot more.

Than just, you know, doing good on numbers and like having good content. Like I I want the game to be deeper than that, and I think the game could be more than that. But I don't think that the game will die if they don't do what I think that they should. I just think that I like I just think the game has more potential. That's just me. And I think the game could be something far, you know, more interesting than what it is. But I am curious about y'all's opinion. So

speaker-1 (01:58:45.237)
So Abyss says they are silver too. Do we want to bring on a low rank wants to talk about casual versus competitive and then a higher rank and kinda put them against each other and we can see who wins?

speaker-0 (01:58:48.001)
Okay.

speaker-0 (01:58:55.789)
he's not silver. Okay. He's plat They're lying. I am an internal this I I I honestly feel like it's gonna be hard to find like true low rank players here. Like like the lowest okay. Is anyone in plat here? Is anyone in plat or lower? Any plat or lowers? Platt diamond? I have a plat account. okay. You're all right. It's not trolling.

speaker-1 (01:59:25.357)
scare anyone away by calling you shit. I was just joking, guys. I was just joking. no, I mean I play like other games casually. And to me, I just I mean just who I am as a gamer, I always want them to be the most balanced and competitively viable. Cause if I ever do get good, you know, I I want to be able to play that game long term. So that's kind of where I stand because I I play two games right now

rank that have ranked that I just do casually. So I I am a casual gamer as well, just not for rivals. And I know my goals are are something that are are more directed at the top. But I you know, I'd be curious if anyone doesn't agree with that viewpoint.

speaker-0 (02:00:10.061)
does anyone disagree Okay, so yeah, I who let me let me just bring on someone that's been wanting to come on for a while. T, I'm bringing you on. You're coming on because you've been wanting to come on for a while. And then ki Kakra, I'll I'll bring you on too.

speaker-2 (02:00:28.94)
Hello?

speaker-0 (02:00:29.761)
Hello, how you doing?

speaker-1 (02:00:30.881)
Hello, welcome to Q.

speaker-0 (02:00:33.025)
Yeah, well it's

speaker-2 (02:00:34.823)
Long time listener, first time caller. I'm really closer to Diamond. But you know, it's hard to find a play, especially in this, I think, in your community.

speaker-0 (02:00:40.766)
Okay, nice.

speaker-0 (02:00:45.109)
Yeah it would be that easy. Most most likely, yeah. It's a little difficult.

speaker-1 (02:00:48.438)
you know what we should say when someone comes on is all right, clear comms, we got this per you know.

speaker-0 (02:00:52.912)
yeah, okay.

speaker-2 (02:00:54.828)
yeah, I'm a tank player, tank main, diamond, DM, or peak I guess.

speaker-0 (02:01:00.841)
Okay, okay. What is what is your thoughts on on does does Marvel Rivals need to cater to casuals to survive? What is your thoughts on that?

speaker-2 (02:01:11.169)
I think so. and the reason is I have co-workers who will drop in. I work at a law office, so the oddest and and least likely to be playing video games, but they will drop in for skins. And I think that skins are something that needs to be sure to be kept in. And I think Guang Guang on his side of things, he's doing the best of his department. But Xe Yong

speaker-0 (02:01:39.272)
Okay.

speaker-2 (02:01:40.249)
Because not I don't know what that man is doing. He doesn't even know what he's doing. Like you were saying before, they need like a playtest team or some or some way of communicating with us that that tells us why they're doing the decisions that they're doing. And Lemon, I think they should take a place out of Destiny Two book because every week when Destiny Two was a thing, they had a this week at Bungie where they explain their thought process on things.

And they said, we're gonna buff this because of this, or we're gonna fix this bug here and it's every week they do it. This game is too fast paced to be going a month without hearing anything from the devs. You know? And I don't know if y'all agree with that or not. You should hear from them more often. And and like go ahead.

speaker-0 (02:02:26.743)
Hundred percent.

speaker-1 (02:02:34.263)
W one of the things that I probably didn't see eye to eye with Flatson was I I agreed with his statement that the lower rank meta, the casual, like the whatever the lawyer you said who's just like playing for skins, they don't really experience the effects of the balance chains directed at higher ranks for several months anyway.

And he I I don't think he ever in explicitly said it, but he kind of implied that a lot of it was like from the content pipe line. But like other reasons too, they're also just kind of Yeah.

speaker-0 (02:03:11.937)
Yeah.

speaker-2 (02:03:13.653)
I have other other friends outside of that like we he's more competitive, but there's also like friends that I have that will just drop in for the skins when they drop in or the or the Ultron mode or the I will say though

speaker-0 (02:03:24.074)
Okay.

speaker-1 (02:03:27.927)
Go ahead.

speaker-2 (02:03:30.621)
that I I disagreed a lot with flats because all all of his contentions with you, every argument that you tried to make, Coach Mills and Coach Cart Captain, Coach, they all all he said was, Well what about the casual? But he didn't really bring up any solutions. He just said, you can't do that because it'll hurt the casual audience. Did y'all did y'all feel that? Like every time he y'all actually Yeah.

speaker-0 (02:03:53.181)
Yeah, but we got stumbled.

speaker-2 (02:03:57.079)
Why are you

speaker-1 (02:03:58.497)
were were kind of one of the questions I actually had written down that I wanted to ask him and and I just never got the opportunity was and Coach Mills kind of you you kind of said it, but it was is a five percent sacrifice in fun for non ranked players, non quick play players worth a twenty percent increase in fun for the hardcore audience, what what it maybe like

It is like a five percent increase or decrease in fund for ninety percent of the player base worth a ten percent or twenty percent increase in fun for ten percent of the player base? If does if that makes sense. Like do we are we willing to make a slight sacrifice for the new player experience to to make a what I think what we can do is a potentially like very big gain. Because he said it himself if they're behind on these updates and these metas, they're going to experience the negative.

negative effects of these changes less. That's just kind of implicit. I I feel like that kind of just goes without saying because they're not going to be abusing stuff every game. I mean the guys, they still ban Black Panther. And and that's a character that I would say is is still like kind of hard to play to do the combos and they ban him in lower ranks because I I think to me it's more of like a they're they're just behind on the meta. I I I think black yeah they'll they'll get better too

speaker-2 (02:05:21.877)
Yeah yeah. For Black Panther, I guess specifically, like I understand why, because he forces you to play the game. You have to play the mini game of finding him before you find before he gets to you. And I don't know about Java, I don't want to trust my dive DPS to to I'm a dive my my DPS to to mark the lanes. I generally have to do it as either Angela or the thing, which are

Two of his biggest counters. I don't wanna have to play the thing every game, you know? Sometimes I wanna run it down on Thor, you know? I don't wanna have to deal with a Black Panther. So sometimes it's easier just to get out the way.

speaker-1 (02:05:52.961)
Right. So if if we

speaker-0 (02:05:58.701)
Well this is what

speaker-1 (02:06:03.021)
Right. Yeah, we just make these interactions. Yeah, it may be a little less fun for the BP player, just one shotting. Now they might have to be a little better at the game. But I think people who who truly value that type of thing will will get out of that area where it's less fun for them and break into the area where it's more fun for them because they actually have something to strive for. And and to me, I do think there is a bit of

relationship to the people who make content. I I do think that is something that we can't understate and like just clip culture in general I think is a big reason why the game is good. I'm not gonna say like content creators are propping rivals up 'cause I don't think that's the case. No

speaker-0 (02:06:43.085)
We are we are making rivals ali we're keeping it alive. Us right now.

speaker-1 (02:06:47.085)
Yeah, yeah. But like because a lot of these people don't even like like we said, don't even consume content like podcasts and stuff. They just go log on and just goof off. But it's like

their view of the game is not true, then it the f the negative effects of it not being as fun for them doesn't matter as much.

speaker-0 (02:07:08.179)
H here's what I will also

speaker-2 (02:07:12.525)
I just wanted to ask y'all when you when you say balance for high rank, what are some things that you would change that you don't think will affect lower ranks? Is it just like the numbers on the characters or is it like kits of characters?

speaker-1 (02:07:27.709)
Well, we mentioned one before, the increasing the cooldowns. I think most slow Elo players sit on cooldowns for far longer than they should. Sometimes they'll go an entire game with only popping one or two cooldowns I've seen. I've I mean I did a a VOD review of a Thor who was diamond. This was earlier on in the game, so the player base wasn't as good. didn't use two of his abilities. Only melee attacked and used his dash and just put perma chase after people and he got diamond doing that.

This was several months into the game. So guys not even like w they're playing so a lot of these people are playing so suboptimally because they have other ways to get value that it's you you you need to nerf the parts of these heroes that are like like I said, I've I I've I say a ton, like too much value.

speaker-0 (02:08:14.517)
I guess that like the easiest example I have, like, is specifically Gambit. Like Gambit in high ELO is still insane. And like the new bubble team up that they gave him covers up his biggest weakness. Like he's always been h like weak to Dive. Like that's been his weakest composition to play into. Not only has Dive been kind of pushed out of the meta, but Gambit himself has gotten strong in the spot that he was weak in.

but like Gambit is like not even I mean, we're doing our support challenge right now. Gambit is like not banned in like almost any game. He's almost never banned in these games. And the games that he's through, the Gambit players are not like they're they're not min-maxing the character. They're not dueling. Like, I mean, I I I mean, some people will watch I mean when I played Gambit, like that like people are not playing him to his potential. Like you can drop 15 plus finals, hardly ever die, get ultimates that carry fights on Gambit. Like there's so much potential in that character.

But people are not even close to reaching that potential in most ELOs. And the problem like if if we I could say something like, hey, we need to nerf Gambit, because Gambit is really strong at high ELO. And like a casual player will respond to me, that character's not even good. We don't even ban that character. That can character is not a problem. And it's like, okay, you might that might be true in your rank, but if I nerfed Gambit, it wouldn't even matter because you're not even getting the value that he currently has, even close to it. Like if I if I if I just heavily nerfed that character's, like, let's just say his ultimate.

Who cares when the average Gambit player in platinum is not playing his neutral right, ulting maybe two people, never comboing, like why does why does that actually matter? And even if it does matter, how long is it gonna take that casual player to catch up to the change in Gambit? It might take a very, very, very long time. I think the perception of Gambit matters more than the actual power of Gambit, in my personal opinion. I that's that's just

speaker-2 (02:10:05.111)
Just so a lot of like their cooldowns to ju because like you said, like there's some bronze games where they don't ult at all somehow. Beholding their ult.

speaker-0 (02:10:15.393)
Right, yeah. Yeah, and I I d I just think that it's important that we can make Gambit more like more balanced for the high Elo without meaningfully like we're not ruining the Gambit experience for a low rank Gambit player. Like absolutely not.

speaker-2 (02:10:31.373)
Why do you why do you think that the young doesn't take any of this information or it seems to be? Or he would rather minus one on blades damage versus doing anything meaningful.

speaker-0 (02:10:43.403)
I mean I mean the the only thing I can think of is that Gambit is not that strong. Like in his mind, he sees the win rate or he sees the the impact of Gambit in a casual lobby or a low I I don't I gotta stop conflating casual and low rank, but like in a low rank lobby, he sees the impact of Gambit not really really winning that much. You look at Gambit's win rate in like plat and diamond and and silver, like he's not really winning that much. And he uses that as a as a barometer for Gambit's fine or Gambit needs a buff or Gambit's healthy and it's like

Once again, Gambit has a very high he has a high skill floor and a high skill seal. Like he's hard, he's hard to play even at a base level because he's punishing comparatively to something like Cloak and Dagger, right? Like Cloak and Dagger has so many abilities that especially if you you look at how much how much survival abilities, sustainability she has for free, no skill. Gambit has to like manage his cooldowns, use multiple cards. If you're defensive, you can't be aggressive. and like you could just pop.

Because you you know, you're only you're not like a a million HP. So basically, what I'm saying is I think Xeong is because Xeon is taking the casual experience too into account when they think about a character like Gambit, they're not actually balancing the character properly. And like once again, a low rank player is not even getting anywhere near the value on Gambit. I like y'all just some of y'all tuned into the this the stream we did when we were in platinum on Gambit.

And like you can legitimately just 1v1 every DPS on that character in low ELO. I'm not joking. Like you can actually do it. It's it's not it's the character is so strong, so unbelievably strong. but people don't do that. They don't have the mechanics, they don't, they're not properly managing the cooldowns, X, Y, and Z. But if you take their skill level and you try to balance around them for Gambit, the character will never ever be balanced for high ELO. It he just won't. Like, and that's that's that's kind of my problem here, is that

If you nerfed Gambit's ultimate as an example, made the ultimate weaker, or maybe, you know, made the attack defense side that we've talked about a lot, it would a hundred percent not ruin the low rank player's ability to give value on that hero and get better on that hero because there's so much room they could already get better and get more value. That's not getting ri we're not getting rid of that giant gap that they already have.

speaker-1 (02:12:58.593)
would argue it would even help it because you bit would be able to look at other parts of his kit because Cambit Alt in lower ranks I I mean maybe you could weigh in in on this guest is kind of worse from a support alt perspective just because of the coordination barrier that you often don't get you're not gonna get a team grouped up people are gonna be randomly dying more yeah it's har harder to get value

speaker-2 (02:13:25.269)
pop it. They don't like say, hey, everybody move in or even get everybody in the alt. when I try and ev when I fill on Gambit, I try and at least get five, but like sometimes the DPS is intense.

speaker-1 (02:13:38.647)
So there there's a

speaker-0 (02:13:41.069)
Or your team keeps feeding, staggering over and over again. You can never actually get a real ult out. It happens all the time.

speaker-1 (02:13:49.569)
This this is something, this coordination barrier that I think will always be a trait of lower ranks. Where whereas I think things like learning what your hero does within a team comp and coordinating just kind of naturally because people know what their roles are, that will improve over over time. But communication is something that generally is from my experiences pretty uncommon in the lower ranks.

speaker-2 (02:14:13.045)
And and the coordination barrier is one of the biggest reasons that dive is really good in in lower rank because if you do get somebody on like it's rare and they don't often which is I still think that dive should be really good in high elo, but really bad in low elo. I just think it's just hard. It's hard to onboard a new.

speaker-1 (02:14:25.079)
Sure.

speaker-2 (02:14:42.007)
player, right? They're on their third game of quick match and you have the Lord Spidey and the Lord BP. It's very hard to onboard these nuke players to be like, no, it's actually fun, you know, but right now you're getting jumped by these

speaker-0 (02:14:54.569)
So th this might be a hot take. This might be a hot take, but do you know when dive was actually meta for low elos? Can do do you know I cause I know the two times that it was two times there was two times that it was meta for low elos.

speaker-2 (02:15:07.787)
I wouldn't say it would be season two.

speaker-0 (02:15:09.973)
So here's the two times. It was the two times is when BP could one tap supports. Cause to be honest with you, spear dash spear, not a not that's not hard to execute. I'm sorry, that's just not. Spear, spear, dash, dash. It's just not it like any Black Panther player can execute that. It doesn't really take a lot of visu visual acuity when you're just doing the combo right away. Okay. So that's like the first time when when BP was like really just lined up really, really well with the meta.

speaker-2 (02:15:12.373)
Ever devil came.

speaker-0 (02:15:39.307)
And they immediately got rid of that. They they they buffed the the HP of a lot of supports. And they like basically capped that. The second time is when it was Spider-Man Venom team up. Now, if y'all don't remember the original Spider-Man Venom team up, it overly simplified the needed combo for Spider-Man, where you could just do the normal bread and butter plus the the Venom team up and just kill. You could just kill. So what did they do? They lowered the skill floor of dive.

Spidermans did not need to do anything to bait out cooldowns or be like really methodical. They just went in with the venom, they got to one tap you, and they got out. So that is they they basically when dive was overly simple and you didn't it didn't require synergy is when it's been meta and low elo. Any other time it's never been meta and low elo. We've never had a go on.

speaker-1 (02:16:27.361)
You saying Daredevil was never meta in low rank when he was

speaker-0 (02:16:31.285)
Never. He's finally Never ever. He's never ever ever been met in low rank. I'm sorry.

speaker-2 (02:16:35.661)
I mean he has like he's able to get in and stay in. Well at least back in season ten. I think they nerfed him a couple of times. What season was it? Not season ten. What season was that? October I'm thinking of the month of October. So it would have like what, season four? When he was like the peak Daredevil.

speaker-1 (02:16:54.411)
And he still wasn't considered a a pick that you needed to ban in lower ranks. It was still B P at that point.

speaker-0 (02:17:00.215)
I mean it's it's kind of always been BP because it in Little Ranks it's more about the experience.

speaker-2 (02:17:03.901)
SBP and Spider Man really. They they have the le the low I think they have the lower barrier compared to Daredevil and Black Cat.

speaker-1 (02:17:11.679)
Is that a perception thing or is it just that Daredevil's, if you play the hero, are naturally going to climb? Because I think Daredevil is a I know he has combos and they can be a little tricky, but bro, that that hero's mostly just spamming shit. You you have instant

speaker-0 (02:17:24.941)
I see I once again I disagree I I disagree again, just like with the black

speaker-1 (02:17:30.925)
I just do not think these dive heroes are are that difficult. I really don't think You know what character in the radar? Yeah, what's that?

speaker-2 (02:17:34.675)
goes on the magic she's never she's never like talked about in these conversations and yet i i know the win rate thing is apparently like a bad argument but this character no joke has been the highest win rate character for nine seasons she's never fallen below top three i think if you check in any leaderboard she's always like one two or three

speaker-0 (02:18:00.769)
Kinda crazy. I don't ma to me magic is way more fair than a lot of these characters being meta, mostly just because there's there's moments of interactivity with her.

speaker-2 (02:18:10.775)
Yeah, I mean she's there, but she wins like a lot. Like gonna have a magic on your team, you're probably gonna win. Kinda crazy.

speaker-0 (02:18:14.337)
I

speaker-0 (02:18:18.933)
I don't know. I I kinda feel like there's a like Buck Bucky Bucky gatekeeps her so hard, but like I mean you have to hit your shots on Bucky. I we could get we could go down the rabbit hole here, but I do think I

speaker-2 (02:18:30.443)
Yeah, I won't keep y'all more. Give my man Seb up in here. He's been waiting for a minute.

speaker-0 (02:18:35.117)
Yeah.

speaker-1 (02:18:36.565)
All right. Well thanks for

speaker-0 (02:18:37.877)
Wait, thank you. I we really appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. yeah. I think wait, wait, I want to read some of these comments real quick. Sure, sure. I think I agree in terms of stats, but that was not my experience playing it, at least on console. Like dive is not meta, but in every game I play, people are afraid of these characters. Like, okay, so that this is this is a point that I wanted to this is a really important point that I want to emphasize. Uncomfortability is should be normal at times in the hero shooter.

speaker-1 (02:18:40.621)
Thank you.

speaker-0 (02:19:06.859)
You are not always gonna be comfortable, nor should you always feel comfortable at all times. But the devs, in my opinion, have made it a priority to remove any amount of of that feeling of uncomfortability. Like it is like we I the person that just was on talking about BP. Like it is uncomfortable when your DPS or tanks don't mark the lanes, and it is uncomfortable when you feel like you have to swap to something to deal with something, even though you really don't, by the way, like

hit your shot on Luna Snow and you can kill BPs every time. But that that's not the point. The point is it is okay to feel uncomfortable. Like just because you are you don't like the experience of playing in something does not necessarily mean that that thing is healthy or unhealthy or needs to be nerfed immediately. But the devs in my opinion have always just you don't you don't like the experience of playing in that? Okay, we're removing it. you don't like this? we're gonna remove it. you don't you this this feels kind of weird to play into let's let's get rid of it.

I really think that that's a bad precedent because eventually you're just gonna have like no like ever you should not be able to like vibe to tunes and like sing while you're playing the game and just have a great time and there's no there's no moment in time when you need to lock in. Like you should have to lock in, like, someone's coming after you, lock the fuck in, like

speaker-1 (02:20:19.341)
We we shouldn't be listening to people who haven't learned at least the base level matchups for certain heroes. And to me, banning BP in lower ranks, yeah, I know he gets gate kept by some heroes, but there are so many ways to deal with him that the BP would have to be an exceptional player that simply just wouldn't exist in that rank. He would climb out of it. So if you just know the matchups and actually have

A little bit of initiative to try and not just immediately go to social media and complain. I I think we we can't hold the player base's hand, even even if you're casual. Like if they're going to leave the game because they don't know how to press bubble and fade when it or or like rotate around the map when they hear a BP off to the side, then long term is that really going to be someone you're you're keeping playing your game? I mean, according to our our last guest.

Maybe, 'cause he was saying people just play for skins, which I didn't even know was a thing. I didn't know people just played games just so they could go and buy skins and look look funny. Like look look good. I didn't know that was a thing. I genuinely I

speaker-0 (02:21:22.283)
Telling y'all, I this might be a hot take. I don't think you should earn skins for playing ranked. I think that's the first step into making this game more competitive is just you play the game, you play for competitive for to to rank up. You don't play competitive to earn a skin. Why are we funneling a whole bunch of people into the competitive rank system that have no fucking they don't care at all about actually you know becoming better at the game, they just want the skin.

I d I think that that's that's just dumb. I they did the same thing in Overwatch with the like the damn golden gun system. It's like you encourage the wrong things. I really do think you encourage the wrong things. We want and and like anyone who disagrees with what I'm saying, someone who doesn't really ultimately care all that much about winning or losing or getting better at the game, they're those are the people that are way more likely to throw or leave your game. Like they don't care all that much about, you know.

The end result or becoming better than they were yesterday or anything like that. All they care about is, ooh, I just want to queue up and like I wanna unlock the skin at the end of the season. Like I like what is that?

speaker-1 (02:22:25.345)
Yeah, like I I knew skins were always a big part of liking a game, but to to me I I always viewed it as something that enhanced something I already like. From what our last guest described, it seems like that is literally the goal of these people is to collect a digital asset that they now have in this little account that they got off to the side when they want to go play. You what I mean?

speaker-0 (02:22:44.877)
This person says you should get the skins for doing your ten placements. I don't even want these people playing any placements or playing ranked. Just get the skin for playing ten hours of any mode. Quick play, whatever. Hey, you play ten hours in the season, you get the skin. How about that? So we don't like so people that just want the skins and just want to play take this game hyper casual, they can and they don't have to fuck up competitive or be funneled into the competitive ecosystem at all. I don't think so.

speaker-1 (02:23:10.387)
Yeah, I I I definitely agree. And that's why I've been preaching for separate balancing is because I I I do think that they have an experience that they're trying to get these people to into competitive. They're trying to get people who may not necessarily even want to play ranked. I mean, people were people are saying the incentives should be higher for ranked. I'm kinda in in your boat, Mills. Like I think it should be lower. Like if you want to play ranked, it should be because you want to get high rank.

And get some cool titles, some cool whatever for your account that's separate from the people who just whatever buy their skins. Like it it's it's kind of like something to show off and feel good about. So to me, like just I'm more and more just convinced every day we have these discussions, like just just balance the game separately. I I and it's not, it's again, it's not what Netties wants, because I I I truly believe, you know, I know you're gonna we haven't made it a an episode yet where I haven't

speaker-0 (02:24:04.629)
Talking about no mention. Ranked is their management system. That's why they want rank. I don't think that there's some higher conspiracy. I legitimately just think it's negligence.

speaker-1 (02:24:23.841)
We'll we'll find out. I mean

speaker-0 (02:24:25.325)
Well one ten ten years from now.

speaker-1 (02:24:28.117)
Well it we'll it we'll eventually find out.

speaker-0 (02:24:31.037)
It's not negligence, it's malice, it's incompetent. I'm getting everyone see everyone disagrees on this, but I think it's good that we all disagree, it's fine.

speaker-1 (02:24:38.682)
Love to talk to a dev. I would love to. Maybe maybe a dev with a lie detector too.

speaker-0 (02:24:43.77)
Okay, but it's goat shields. Once again, it's

speaker-1 (02:24:46.603)
Go chills.

speaker-0 (02:24:53.869)
I never got healed. You play White Fox. I don't get any heals. I don't complain because by the way, chat, if you've never played Luna with the White Fox team up, that shit is unbelievably broken. I didn't even know how broken that shit was. Because I never have played Luna with a wife. I only almost never played Luna and I never played with a White Fox. You are legit you can't you literally can't lose a duel to any DPS on Luna with the White Fox team up if you hit your freeze. It's impossible.

Im fucking possible. I'm telling you right now. Well we're gonna have an entire episode talking about the support challenge at some point in the future. 'cause I think we're learn we're we're we're we're we're becoming woke. our third eye is opening. we're we're becoming I

speaker-1 (02:25:39.851)
If anything I've gotten dumber playing support.

speaker-0 (02:25:42.337)
Hey alright. So Kerva the Frog says Kermit the Frog says, I think two players could benefit a lot by learning basic team comps. Devs could be like, hey, this team comp is good against dive, or this team comp is good against flyers, and here's some character alternatives that still fit the game role, do the same job. Give them basic understanding of the game, will help make the game more fun because they understand how to play the game. I mean I a hundred percent I agree.

You know, this is super bi I'm I'm gonna sound super biased here because I'm an educational content creator. That's all I do, even though I guess Flash didn't know about that. But I I this is this is kind of what I I I do consistently is make videos. I think it'd be really cool if I was allowed to create professional style content explaining simple concepts inside the game. You know, you click a game, you know, it's like here here what is the dive comp? What is the brawl comp? What is the poke comp? Like very simple concepts where like

A brand new player could like learn about like most casuals don't even understand the basics of the basics. Hero shooters are complicated. Like hero shooters might be one of the most complicated genres of game, just right off the bat. In the same way that if you threw someone in a in in like League of Legends and you didn't explain shit to them at all, they don't understand how mobs work, they don't understand how towers work, they don't understand how nothing.

Like you're giving them fucking nothing. They're gonna be terrible and they're not gonna understand. And the problem is because of all these super easy to value abilities where you can kind of rank up without ever learning any of that shit, you get people that are in ranks that are way too high and they don't understand basic ass concepts. They don't understand anything. Like and that should not happen. It shouldn't happen ever. sorry, I'm getting heated. I'm getting heated.

speaker-1 (02:27:22.085)
I I come from two games that just by their very design and the way they're formatted, League of Legends and World of Warcraft, they're just kind of innately hardcore games. They're games that attract a hardcore audience. And I think one of the biggest mistakes I've made in the past when talking about this game, I I've b definitely become more on the side of like, yeah, just balance the game for casuals, whatever. But I underestimated

Exactly what casual meant. Like really casual. Cause I to be honest, I've been loving the conversations we've had today, but I don't think anyone we've talked to today is a casual player.

speaker-0 (02:28:07.849)
Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

speaker-1 (02:28:09.325)
I don't think a single person we've talked to is even remotely to the the level of casual that our last talker kind of referred to with the with the people who like like and talking to Flats, same thing. I think Flats realizes

speaker-0 (02:28:24.429)
I honestly think because like our podcast is, you know, the the episode with flats is like it's like at a almost 120k at this point or like going past that. I think that's the first episode of ours that has listeners and viewers that are casual. Like most of the time when we when we fluctuate between our like our 30 and 45k, I don't really think that there are any casual listeners. Like mostly no, maybe one percent. It's like we just don't have

Like, I don't think c anyone casual is gonna be listening to a two hour, three hour podcast about the state of the game and the balance of the game. unfortunately.

speaker-1 (02:28:58.081)
Mills, I actually do have a buddy who I would say is someone he's actually a game dev for a pretty well known game that I I won't t for you know for his privacy sake won't announce unless he wants me to. I know a game dev and he is what I would by definition he doesn't even really play rivals anymore, but when he did, was a casual player. And he has some pretty

nuclear takes on the game and has a pretty unique perspective that I think the average casual player doesn't even consider.

speaker-0 (02:29:37.241)
Yeah, it's they're in the same yeah.

speaker-1 (02:29:41.619)
Yeah, what I'm saying is that there is a, and again, I like I've said I'm casual for a lot of other games that I still take seriously. There is a massive, massive audience of people who are casual in enjoyers, you could say, of this game and want it to be competitive. They want it to be something more and are casual because it's not competitive. So

While there is probably a much larger audience of people who just want to log on and play rivals once a week to get, you know, like and look cute in their skin with their friend from work, that's not gonna go away. But you are going to attract so many people to this game if you start to treat it as something more than just a leisure activity. I I truly believe that, because they're out there. Those people exist. And and I'm sure there may be some of us just in the in the in the chat now that

By that by this why we wanted to define casual, right? Because casual can be you take that's why I don't agree with the flats. It's not it's not just a mindset. You can be casual and have a very competitive mindset and play the game one hour a week and wish it was something more. That you you you can interface with the game in any number of ways and it's not defined by what you want a game to be, it's defined by your choice of how much you play it.

speaker-0 (02:30:41.84)
Yeah.

speaker-0 (02:31:02.157)
How I know I I agree. and here's here's something that a lot of people don't think about. I don't they really think I don't I don't know what Flacks has thought about this, but here's the thing about like a true casual player is that like hero shooters are typically fragmented into communities because people understand their experience, they don't understand other experiences. Like and the way to to look at this the most is like go to the rivals Reddit of certain character mains and like

Cloak and dagger mains are they're almost in like a bubble of like where they all agree about their character and they all want their character to be strong in certain ways or like they all hate Black Panther or whatever. And like you go to like a Black Panther Reddit and it's like they're all they're all kind of in a bubble. And even the Reddit communities, while they're casual, they're like more slightly more slightly less casual than true casual communities, which is just like a player that just plays the game, you know, three to ten hours a week and they only play their heroes that they find fun, and they run into like these frustrations with other people.

and none of these people will agree. Like, you could ask every single one of these casual players, and they will have completely different opinions about it based on their experience. Like, let's think about the actual casual Black Panther player. Like the Black Panther player that is in gold or is in plat, and that's the peak of their ability. And they they just play Black Panther because it's their most fun character, and they feel like they cannot do anything. They like they feel like they can't.

They can't, you know, kill cloak and daggers. They feel like they can't fight Buckies. They feel like they even like perfectly combo a Bucky. They can't kill him, and they just get frustrated and pissed off about the game. You ask them about balance, and they're gonna have a very different opinion than the Cloak player or the mag player or like whoever, like the thing that all casual players truly share is they do not think about the game holistically at all. They only think about the game subjectively to their own characters they play. Because why would they think about the game holistically if like they're not they don't

Care about balance or like the overarching like state of the game or the meta or anything like that. They just care about their own experiences. That's what makes them casual. So I I feel like it's very weird to like if you're gonna hyperbalance these players, to me, the thing that matters the most is to give them fun experiences, give them new modes, give them cool skins, give them new heroes, not the balance of the game, because once again, they don't think about the game holistically. The second you start to think about the game holistically, you are

speaker-0 (02:33:23.293)
Not in the ultimate casual mindset anymore. You're actually venturing towards the competitive mindset because you're thinking deep more deeply about the game, in my personal opinion. I

speaker-1 (02:33:30.493)
And and like what I said before, the balance is still giving them so much. Like they're they're like you to Coke and Dagger, th they they're already like they're already getting so much from the balance. Like we gotta draw the line somewhere a little you know, more towards the competitive side. Like we are making major sacrifices to the point where you are going to your competitive community is going to rot out and get replaced by people who just and then the game is lost.

Like then you're you're out in the seas with no compass in a storm. Like you you're you're just it's done. You're cooked. You don't know where to you don't know which direction is where where that go light said that golden nugget, you're it's gone. It's it's deep. It's

speaker-0 (02:34:11.687)
It's worth like you.

speaker-1 (02:34:14.135)
We are trying to keep we are like the lighthouse chat trying to keep this game alive and and and not have people get lost out to see with with the these kind of ideas that get introduced. Because we again, I come from other games, other games that use the Holy Trinity, Tank DPS Healer. I know what peak feels like, and we are just we it's very it is a very

speaker-0 (02:34:35.105)
Captain Ca taking the captain. Very pivotal. Cap Captain. Captain Captain. Captain. I I this is this comment is just a easy game. Says think about it with IRL sports. Someone who plays football on the weekends with the dads in his neighborhood still enjoys watching pro football. No, what we should do instead is we should ask that fucking you know dad w how we should balance the actual like

speaker-1 (02:34:42.869)
It's been a great conversation.

speaker-0 (02:35:00.749)
pro football. Like I yeah. Yeah let's listen to them. Let's listen to them. You know we gotta we gotta yeah if they're not gonna watch football anymore if we don't if we don't balance the the pro football game around them. Don't and you know don't worry about it. Ner nerf messy bro okay so so I think this conversation's been great. I wanna kinda open the floor up in the last you know ten to twenty minutes of the pod to just read y'all's messages and bring on people for just quick

You know, one to two minute, you know, ask a question or s or or a hot take. Give us one hot take, ask one question, and then we'll we'll talk about it. That that's that's kind of what we want to do. I see Buff Thor, I'm with you. In fact, you're getting modded. so yeah, so yeah, I I'm just gonna bring you know what the conversation I think I think I I th I think Kakara been wanting to talk, so I'm gonna let you bring one hot take or one question. You can bring it. I'm I'm I'm fighting you to the floor.

speaker-0 (02:35:57.323)
Yo, yo, yo, what's up?

speaker-1 (02:35:59.063)
Clear comms, we got Kakarov.

speaker-0 (02:36:01.171)
Yep. I would like to speak about Ultron specifically. Like the disconnect between like the normal players and the high ELO players. Like Ultron, his win rate like very high. If you want a free cli free like wins, just play Ultron all the way from like bronze to diamond. You get free wins by basically just shooting the tanks and just putting two of your drones easily. Yeah. Ultron team up is nerfed. I'm a Mr. Fantastic Man, and I was like,

speaker-1 (02:36:25.286)
Hundred percent.

speaker-0 (02:36:30.573)
Playing in like GM2 placements, like at the start of the season. With that Ultron drone, it was so hard to kill the supports, genuinely unkillable. The supports were actually unkillable. Most unbalanced, I would say he's a toxic character. Like he the only macro you need with that character is like if you put it a drone on your DPS, he uses like a specific cooldown. You can just damage boost and just insta-two-tap anyone. You just need that specific macro. And about Gambit, I would say about Black Cat, I would say specifically.

I was playing on my alt the other day. Like, if I was not there in a GM3 game there, I think the supports would have a genuinely miserable time there. Like, I would see cloak and dagger not paddy caking with my invis. My invis is like crying about the black cat. I genuinely feel sad. I had to educate her about using the Mr. Fantastic team up so she can go invisible two times. Because the cloak and dagger players they use the Luna team up and they don't paddy cake at all. And the the thing players also in GM, GM3, GM2.

They don't peel for their back line. They're just frontline punching. What's a what's what is peeling though? But this is what I'm talking about though. I'm feeling as Mr. Fantasy. I'm feeling everything. I was I had I had more damage blocked than my second tank for some reason and had the highest damage as Mr. Fantasy in like GM2, GM1 lobby. They just take infinite damage. They just don't play cover. There's too much sustain as well. I can't kill I can't do everything there.

I mean I think the game, would you agree that the game encourages people to not learn a lot of these things? They like it it doesn't force people to learn how to patty cake, it doesn't force things to to learn how to peel. It doesn't really force like Yeah, it does it doesn't force us like you have a lot of sustained tools in your ability. I would say like actually some of the invisible women players should start using the Mr. Fantastic team up, like mainly because your other supports in low ELO are not going to help you at all.

They're just going to play use the cloak and dagger ice team up and they're just leave you alone in the dust. They don't even fade any of the strange old or thing alt anything. They just save themselves and they just let their entire team die.

speaker-1 (02:38:36.075)
Yeah, I mean it seems like enough people in the lower ranks know though, at least to y you need two healers.

speaker-0 (02:38:41.931)
Yeah, they're no you gotta understand that's that's ancient knowledge passed down from the

speaker-1 (02:38:51.003)
We can't go one step further is is

speaker-0 (02:38:54.277)
No, no, it's it's you're too competitive for them. That's too far. That's too far. Yeah. I would say the triple support, I think it trickles down mainly to bad support players. Like there'll be two support players, they just die into one Spider-Man somehow. In and the third DPS the second DPS player would swap to the third support to have the supports out. So I'd say it's ultimately on the supports which is causing the

speaker-1 (02:39:01.345)
like the

speaker-0 (02:39:23.687)
Triple support as well. Any thoughts on that?

speaker-1 (02:39:25.325)
I I used to be full on on your side, but I I think more recently I've kind of come to terms with the idea that

It's not always bad players that causes the need for triple t su support because you see it the most at the higher ranks. Yeah.

speaker-0 (02:39:45.685)
You see it most of the high l high yellow, yeah, because the uptime is needed up up there, yeah.

speaker-1 (02:39:50.533)
It's the fact that it's the only way to deal with good players. That's the issue. That's the you need a baseline level of guaranteed value to be able to compete with people who can aim. And that's why it's it's becoming increasingly harder to play DPS now because the easy value stuff is just overtaking the game. And that is why triple support is so good. that's that's kind of the way I view it now, is is like to me I I I kind of hate to.

speaker-0 (02:40:16.141)
Well yeah.

speaker-1 (02:40:19.677)
I know this sounds toxic, but in my opinion, a support player in your rank is on average going to be the worst player in your lobby. It unfortunately, that's just how it is. They they're unfortunately just going to be the worst player on average in your lobby every time because they have had to do less to get to the same rank. Now they may have more responsibility, they they may have more like impact in some ways, but they have enough avenues to find value.

to where they don't have to ever be aggressive. There's a whole part of the game that they don't really need to unlock because they can play a very specific, like controlled style within and and people rely on them. So the the game kind of almost what's it called when a planet goes around the sun? Orbit the game the game kind of orbits around around these these healers to where they don't get punished for not doing anything. They just kind of exist and if they die, they die and then they so to me it's it there's so much

Even though like if you mess us up a support alt you lose, i their their responsibilities from a mechanical and and and teamwork standpoint are technically a lot less if you really 'cause they have they have more freedom than any other role, is what I'm saying. Yeah. So so it's very easy to differentiate yourself even a little bit. And just the the necessity that they have from the base level of value to begin with, what I would you just get free wins playing

speaker-0 (02:41:41.463)
Because what I would say is like this has been the first, you know, season, season nine, that I felt like DPS and tanks are feeling the same level of power that supports have felt for a while, which is like just a dead that ability wall. You're talking about hey, we play triple support because the ability wall is so high that even good players can't break through it. I mean, I think the same thing about characters like Bucky and characters to some some some extent characters like Elsa and characters like Mag. It's like this ability wall.

That it's just like you you have to do so much skill wise to overcome that ability wall. And right now it's like we're kind of pushing into a direction where like play ability wall characters or like play characters that get all this value for free. So then you only have to add in ten percent of your own skill. You don't have to bring forth like ninety percent of skill or eighty percent of skill or whatever. You just have to you just get to play the and and like like I said, like I I think I think historically it's been supports, and that's why we've seen so much triple s support and it's still supports now.

Like even more so in some cases. But there are some d tanks of D P S that I also think fit that category too. Like mostly Magneto and characters like Bucky. Yeah, I I I

speaker-1 (02:42:49.245)
exclusively say like shit on supports and say like yeah you're you're just like lol you're bad. I'm just saying on average the up until I would say somewhat recently, yeah, there hasn't been a ton of tanks and and DPS that have been able to do what they do to to have a certain level of impact over the outcome of a game.

speaker-0 (02:43:07.389)
Wait, there's one there's one take I see so by Joy Boy. Hot take Mantis is broken, but she's one of the healthiest characters in the game. I'm not gonna lie, I really, really don't agree with this. I think it could be true. It could be true. My problem with Mantis is that she is simultaneously a very strong character in 2 2 2, but then the best character in triple support. She enables the composition. I think that Mantis would be very healthy in a world where we are in like Rolock, which I don't want, by the way, but

I think that she creates a lot of unhealthy metas. Like basically every triple support in all of history has been built around her because she like triple support should be a composition that you're sacrificing damage for sustain. You're losing a damage dealer. You don't have as much burst damage, but you have more sus survivability tools. When you substitute a DPS for Mantis, how much damage are you really losing in a composition? I mean, no, I'm I'm this is actually a real like how are you actually losing any amount of damage as a team?

When you substitute a DPS for Mantis? I really don't think so. So like w where's the downside in doing that? Like w like I do you have to

speaker-1 (02:44:12.737)
Be better at Mantis to get the same level of value as a bucky. The answer is obviously no. You press one button, it's a damage amp, and you're better, you're more useful. And so I'm talking about the barrier of execution of supports is just lower because they're just stronger. And it's just like if you're gonna be able to climb, just I mean, I dude, I've done it before. You just spam damage amps and like just heal who anybody who gets low. You don't have to land shots as mantis. Like I'm telling you, it it's just too far in one direction. Also, Kakarot, I I rotated you out just to try to get more people.

speaker-0 (02:44:38.903)
Yeah, we really appre really appreciate you. Really appreciate your your insight. This is way really funny, ET Game says. Speaking of which, I need to talk about a Lord and save your rogue queue. We got heads are here just. Any questions, any hot take? What's up, bro? Hello, so yeah, I've been playing since around four point five, and I've been watching your streams ever since, so it's pretty cool to be able to become come up here.

speaker-1 (02:44:52.631)
Skenny in here now? Skinny you've been

speaker-0 (02:45:06.483)
So what I wanted to talk about, I was actually just what was being discussed just now with I think it's I'm not sure if this is a hot take. Support damage should go down like across the board. When I say like s Rocket shouldn't be able to delete tanks in three seconds, C and D shouldn't be able to vulnerable some vulnerable the entire enemy team.

Let me think of other examples. And then Jubilee just does way too much damage. No, you probably touched Luna Snow, probably is what you're thinking. Lunar Snow, exactly. Yeah. So there needs to be an actual trade-off, which is what I've been trying to say. as well. Which is funny because as soon as I came up, you start discussing it. But it has to be a trade-off in damage, which doesn't exist right now. So so it's interesting because so I have the exact opposite take as you. I'm curious what you think about it.

I think that supports should be much more damage and and playmaking oriented and far less survivability and healing oriented. I would like to see a dramatic nerf in the healing capabilities, the sustained cooldowns, and the ultimate power of supports, but it but they are allowed to have damage and playmaking. Because I like I I I know I know that people hate it when I bring up Overwatch, but I will because I think that compared to Overwatch, this game does DPS and s tanks better.

in my opinion, than like Overwatch does. I think the design of them, the gameplay loop of them, there ain't no Thor in in freaking Overwatch. There's no Spider Man or like all these crazy characters. But when it comes to supports compared to Overwatch, this game does them ten times worse. Like like undoubtedly worse. Because you don't have a lot of agency on supports because you're just like heel botting and your entire value cycle is based on just keeping yourself alive. Like like like why that's not engaging.

When I think about when I had fun back in Overwatch, I got to play Ana. I got to sleep somebody. I got to get a three man anti nade. Then I got to, you know, nano my Genji run in. You know, I I could do like all kinds of stuff and it was really fun. And you just don't get to do that. So that's that's that's my well of course supports. Supports can have agency and they can have playmaking potential, but it doesn't have to be through damage. They can have the ability to have agency on their own, other than healing, because I do agree healing needs to go down.

speaker-0 (02:47:24.287)
damage occ on supports needs to go down but we can make up for that in utility. A great example of that is with the is the invis. In my opinion, Invis should be like a shield support. So you should they should buff her shields to be more powerful and then nafe healing. I think her damage is low enough, but that can go down as well. And then she'd be a really fun support where you your goal is to block as much damage as possible with your shields, protect your tanks.

That would be really fun, but instead we just got healbar in Viz, you press Q. Supports have too much power in their primary fires. And which is why, for example, a dive DPS, a Spider-Man needs to go in, use all of his abilities, combo them perfectly to get any value, while support can literally unbind all of their keys except their primary fire and their ultimate. And then they don't have to do anything else the whole game. So you can go wrong.

speaker-1 (02:48:18.777)
You could probably get to you could probably get to celestial plane like that, no joke. I mean no damaged rocket even higher rank.

speaker-0 (02:48:25.133)
Same with poke. Same with poke. It's the same issue where you can just press left click and ult and you have to do anything else and you get value. It's kinda interesting how we both have I think we both see the problem. We just have different ways to solve it. Like my like you like l to go to like the let's just say Luna Snow. I'm guessing that like your solution would be something along the lines of like nerf the damage of Luna Snow, make the damage far weaker, make the ultimate far weaker

but like she can still, you know, maybe maybe to compensate she gets like, I don't know, two freezes or or something. I don't know. I don't know exactly what you would say. But like I would see if like sorry, I'll sorry, you I would say like with the team ups, the team ups are great way to give supports more utility. Right. But instead they just made them even more veinless, which was a bit of my problem with it. But yeah, sorry, go on. My my I would go the opposite direction, where I think her ultimate should be far weaker, maybe on a shorter time like shorter time, not as much healing, whatever the case may be.

and I think that like you should probably get rid of like the ability for her to like cleanse, self cleanse and just get out of like any C C but but like I'm perfectly fine with her having like high damage and high burst because the for me, I think it's a cool gameplay loop for Luna is like the way the way out is through. Like the way out of a situation is not I'm gonna stay here and survive everything. The way out is by winning the duel and killing the person. Like

When I'm Luna and like if if a diver comes after me and I hit the freeze and then I just get to delete, like maybe make it somewhere like you know there's a combo. It like like the equivalent I think at Overwatch is like if you hit the sleep on a character, you had time to line up your nade plus your primary, you like one shot them. But you had to hit the sleep, and like so the whole gameplay loop was like bouncing. Like you have to mechanically outplay and you can kill and win, but it's not like I'm just gonna sit here and just survive and just like be untouchable. Like that's I hate that gameplay loop. I think it's a boring gameplay.

speaker-1 (02:50:14.903)
So I I'm in the school of thought. I think if you're not going to do what I'm about to say here, then I agree with Sken that you should lower the damage of all the healers. I think that's the quickest way to just immediately level the playing field. because if you go the other route, then the he if if you if you move every healer towards that direction of more damage, less healing, it it's just gonna make the roll unpopular to to

speaker-0 (02:50:42.249)
I mean, you have to be good to play the role. I mean it increases the skill gap of the role undoubtedly.

speaker-1 (02:50:47.573)
I I agree with that, but there's there's other ways to do that.

speaker-0 (02:50:50.517)
I mean true. Yeah, yeah. This is just my preferred like it I don't think it's a perfect solution. It's just

speaker-1 (02:50:54.901)
All right. So an example would be okay, Invisible Woman does too much with her primary. I think we can all agree on that, just gets too much value for free to where you could only do that and still get the pretty high rank because it's just some OP broken easy thing that anybody can do. How about you lower her healing of her primary by an a an amount that's still okay from a casual? Maybe you lower it by 10%. And this is where I talk about that five and ninety percent like fun sacrifice. But when she lands a pull on

One, two, three people or a push, she gets a twenty percent healing buff for five seconds. So it's like, okay, now I want right and you could do that with every hero. You could go and then that's just an example.

speaker-0 (02:51:39.317)
Rewards for hitting your abilities, I love it. I love it. Yeah. Okay, okay, okay. Going well on the side. What about low damage on Luna? You hit a freeze for three seconds, you have an increase in damage or some shit like that. I don't know. That's that's just like a hypothetical. So you can follow up with your freeze targets, and that would mostly that wouldn't affect your neutral gameplay of just trading damage, but it would affect when you freeze a diver. Because you're hitting them in isolation.

That would be a lot better because then you have the you can have your neutral, which is mostly your utility, your healing output, which obviously needs to be lowered, and then you have bursts of damage when you're getting dived to deal with the dive. I mean you still have to heal. Right. And it's it makes it much more skillful. When you're getting dived, Luna still has the fantasy of being able to 1v1 them and win, but it's just less constant and more burst.

speaker-1 (02:52:32.153)
And it makes the game more punishing, but it also, in the eyes of everybody having to play against that, probably makes it a bit more fair. So I I think fun and skill and counterplay, that's kind of like what'd you call it? Like a zero sum game. Like if someone else is having too much fun, it is eventually going to be at the cost of someone else. There's a balance, right? There's a balance.

speaker-0 (02:52:41.303)
That's a good idea, actually. I

speaker-0 (02:52:56.173)
Right, right. I know, I a hundred percent agree.

speaker-1 (02:52:58.345)
If everyone's super, no one is. So we need to go back and think about like these little interactions and and reward skillful play. I mean, I I know we just we talk about it so much, but it's so important. appreciate

speaker-0 (02:53:12.951)
Yeah, really, really appreciate you coming on. I actually think that's one of the best conversations we've had on the pod. Very good. Very, very good. so I I I wanted to bring on Dog, and then after that, we're probably only gonna take like a question or two more and we're probably gonna wrap things up soon. yeah, we do. We're gonna be doing our support challenge, continuing it. We're hitting at least Celestial tonight. At least. At least. But let me let me bring on let me bring on dog.

speaker-1 (02:53:38.561)
Seven abyss and dog, 'cause seven abyss were here before him.

speaker-0 (02:53:42.221)
Okay. let me say let me let dog, what what's your hot take, brother?

speaker-2 (02:53:47.809)
you know, I've been a fan for a long time. Coach, I love you. I love you also, Uncle Nils. My hot Buff Rogue, that's my hot take. But no, my other hot take is that, yeah, Buff Rogue. She's too weak. But my other hot take is that I don't think this team up system needs to be reverted. I think the unenhanced team ups are way too strong. And I think that's the problem. Way unenhanced beforehand, like

speaker-0 (02:53:53.881)
yeah. Thank you.

speaker-0 (02:54:12.18)
Agreed, agreed.

speaker-2 (02:54:18.103)
You know what I mean? Like I think I I main rogue and I think the like the Gambit team up is like the best example of what they should do where the unenhanced gambit is like thirty second cooldown. Like it's a w we all know it's a weak team up, but the enhanced gambit is like super strong and it like keeps the what is it, the essence of what team ups

speaker-0 (02:54:41.933)
Right. You still encourage to play the the partner. Right. A hundred percent. Yeah.

speaker-2 (02:54:47.221)
Yeah, like unenhanced team ups are just way too strong. Like the Bucky Elsa team up too strong, Dino Elsa too strong.

speaker-0 (02:54:54.925)
Is the is the Scarlet Witch like having a Scarlet Witch with the Magneto team up, does that even make it better, chat? Can anyone tell me if that does that even I don't think I've ever played Magneto with a Scarlet Witch Or does it make it worse? Worse? I'm seeing some It's a wor it's

speaker-2 (02:55:09.901)
But it turns you

speaker-0 (02:55:12.159)
Lowers T TK. Okay, so like even if it's even if it gave me a five to ten percent power bump, which apparently it doesn't, I would have to have a Scarlet Witch on my team. So it'd be fucking useless. Why can't the the the normal team up be like kind of bad and then it's actually good when I have a Scarlet Witch? Then I then I have to actually like then maybe there's a w because I remember back in the old days, I loved that team up. I would actually be begging, hey yo yo, any Scarlet Witch players? Hey, hey, hey, any Scarlet Witch players? Can someone play Scarlet Witch on my team?

And that's kinda you know, that's exactly what Dog is talking about, where it's like you're encouraged to try to set up these duos, which versus right now it's like who gives a fuck? Just you know, you don't need right?

Yeah. Yeah, no, I I a hundred percent agree, Doug. That's a really, really good good good take.

speaker-1 (02:55:54.669)
W W common.

speaker-1 (02:56:00.928)
I ignore

speaker-2 (02:56:02.765)
Is that it?

speaker-1 (02:56:04.717)
You got anything else you want to add? I mean Yeah yeah, you I I kind of agree. buff rogue. That's what I get.

speaker-0 (02:56:08.909)
W Duck. W Duck. Buff Hulk. Buff Hulk. yeah, we we we can ignore that one. Not kidding. I'm kidding. I mean I think Captain Coach and I agree that it's like we both play Thor and and Hulk, both not good right now. We don't even really want buffs to our characters, we just want nerfs to every fucking thing else. It's what it's what gate keeps our characters. It has nothing to do with our characters' strengths. I think we actually generally like our character's gameplay loop when it actually works, which it fucking doesn't right now.

Does it

speaker-1 (02:56:39.177)
I'm almost in the school where I think Hulk needs a rework, which I've never really been I've never publicly s said, but I I think we're at the point now where he's different enough to his core identity from starting to where he's starting to turn in it into a different hero. Kind of for the reason I said where it's like you you become reliant on these team ups and now that's the character's identity rather than what they used to do. And and we're kind of getting to that.

speaker-0 (02:57:02.721)
Who was the two that we wanted on? We wanted seven.

speaker-1 (02:57:05.483)
Seven Abyss. They've been here pretty much since the start.

speaker-0 (02:57:08.429)
All right, both of y'all at the same time. Welcome in, welcome in. What's up, Seb? What's up, Abyss? Yep, hello. Hello.

speaker-2 (02:57:15.005)
I'm gonna give it though, so if I start fucking raging, does that's why.

speaker-0 (02:57:18.175)
Okay, all right, all right. Well w real quick, real quick, just give us your question or hot take and then we'll we'll answer it when you're at a call, probably.

speaker-2 (02:57:24.609)
I feel like I feel like Strange is just like really fucking weaker now and I know that might be like a really hot take saying like he got buffed this easy but like the amount of counters he has for his ult and his damage and like how like much worse he performs gonna like Mag or Emma or literally any other fucking shield tank. It just

speaker-0 (02:57:43.181)
My man is game. My man is game. Who you playing?

speaker-1 (02:57:46.252)
Yeah.

speaker-2 (02:57:47.017)
I'm playing right now Mantis because I'm

speaker-0 (02:57:50.025)
You're out of here. You're out here, Mantis player. You're out of here. No, I'm just kidding. That's a that's a good take. So okay, wait, wait. Real quick, I wanna I wanna hear this is the thing about Abyss. Or not Abyss, Abyss's take about strange. So here's my hot take chat that kind of plays off of what Abyss said. Doctor Strange is the sorcerer supreme, right? So tell me why the fuck does this character that is supposed to be a sorcerer that have all kinds of fucking spells gets two team ups that don't give him an ability?

Why the fuck does he have no additional button presses? It literally is just a a adjustment to an ability he already has. Black Cat gets every fucking ability in the game, but for some reason, Strange just gets to be the simplest character in the entire fucking game, even though he really should be a complex character. This I like when they announced the team up system, I was like, strange is gonna get like he's gonna get a bag of tricks. He's gonna get, you know, I mean, that that's this thing, right? Nah, nah.

No, they just give you two dog shit abilities that are just flat stat buffs to the character. So s so fucking dumb. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm I'm I'm heated about it 'cause I think they could have done more. They could have done more with them, like easily. Like

speaker-1 (02:59:02.029)
Even I mean, I wouldn't probably agree with this change, but even going down the path of giving heroes counters to their weaknesses, give him some sort of reality warp where if he gets C C'd or grabbed, he kinda like unwinds time or something like that, uses the timestone and then you know, maybe he gets like a little bit of mini tracer or echo with you, something like that.

speaker-0 (02:59:22.553)
This person That could be I agree. I agree. This person says we all knew that Strange was getting gamma and invisin, the team ups. So here's the thing, chat. A hundred percent it was because it was easy. They could just give him the team ups that he already had. I mean, that's really why. It's just like a character that they didn't have to. They didn't have to figure it out. Please get this Roku guy on. god, are we really gonna talk Roku chat? no. no, well, wait, wait, wait. Seb, you first, you first. What's your hot take? What's your what's up, bro? All right, I've been I've been holding this in since the very beginning.

So what I think is it's about the the casual versus pro prayer.

speaker-1 (02:59:57.899)
Balance it. One second, just be like six inches further away from your mic and I think

speaker-0 (03:00:04.333)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's good. Okay. So what I think about the the pro player versus casual discussion is that every character in the game needs a target audience. So basically, right, you have your characters that are easy to play, like low skill four, low skill ceiling for for the for the pet for the metal ranks, you know, maybe diamond GM. And then for for your pro players or your high yield players, you have the difficult characters, but you know, are meta viable.

because they also have a super high skill ceiling and you know, you know, their their their numbers are good enough to to be played. I think there's already examples of this in the game. For example, Iron Man versus Torch. Like I like they're both flyers. They both kind of fill the same niche a little bit. You know Iron Man's more poke, Torch is more dive, but it's a flying character that's kind of mid-range, except Iron Man's easy to play, shits on low ELO players, and then Torch is difficult to play.

And you know, can be played in those high elo matches. And I think with the support role, which kind of you know is what everyone is talking about is ruining the game, is that basically all of the supports are low skill floor and high skill ceiling and just dominate pro play and are easy to play in low ELO. Like basically all of them, with the exception of like Adam, maybe.

And gambit of Gambit 2. Yeah, I mean in even in even in some cases, what I was gonna say is they're like in cases like Cloak and Dagger, it's like low skill floor, low skill ceiling, but still competing in the highest of ranks. Like Cloak and Dagger has a high skill ceiling. You think so? She also has a low skill floor. I think I cloak and dagger specifically. I think she has a high a high skill ceiling. I think she has a high skill ceiling. I actually think she has a higher skill ceiling than most people think.

But you don't need to reach that high skill ceiling to play her in a like a celestial lobby. Like do you need to be do you need to play that character perfect to play that character in a celestial lobby? I don't I don't really think so.

speaker-1 (03:02:06.605)
What is what is this skill stealing in cloak and dagger? To me, it's mostly reaction time checks, is like what's gonna separate the good ones from the great ones. Timing, being able to live and use your cooldowns as late as just

speaker-0 (03:02:16.457)
It's just like pursuing perfection is mostly like what I'm talking about when I say like there's a lot of things that you can min max at like the highest to highest of levels. Probably it's all about hitting your blinds. Yeah.

speaker-1 (03:02:24.865)
Yeah. And then the the bull Yeah, sinking up damage, which is a lot of coordination barriers. So that's like that's her skill ceiling. To me, that's not a very high skill ceiling. That's like medium level co coordination and reaction time. She doesn't have to aim. I I sh sh you're not she's never gonna be the one a higher skill ceiling hero in my opinion. It's just they'd have to completely rework her. But I I agree that she's like middle. I think she's a middle skill ceiling hero for sure.

speaker-0 (03:02:55.337)
The the skill ceiling is using the ult without getting mag rocked. Okay. interesting. I'm skill there too. Like I'm a celestial tank player and th those cloak and daggers are hard to hit on on on a lot of maps. Yeah, I mean I I've just I've run into so many bad cloak and daggers, I'm convinced the character has a high skill ceiling just because there has to be a di like you all the things I see cloak and daggers do wrong, there has to be a cloak and dagger that does those things right. Like there there has somewhere

There has to be.

speaker-1 (03:03:29.345)
Fair. That's or or I mean their ability, yeah, I mean in that same vein, ability to dodge a

speaker-0 (03:03:34.411)
They can't always Okay.

speaker-1 (03:03:38.077)
It's like fade is apparently too hard because you have to press an extra button before you get to it. Where now they just have the ice block, you know, it's just like they just gave him an easier fade, right? So it's it's weird that they just they could have just made the fade easier or quicker or something if they wanted it to be some 'cause she already has a defensive shit button. It's just like why are they stacking more? It's just it's just very odd the way they try to balance certain heroes.

speaker-0 (03:04:07.969)
But I have a theory about why the game state has developed into something that so many people are disliked, is because on release, I think pretty much the whole character roster was like those easy to play characters that are for for your Lloe-Lo players. And that the game wanted the the devs moved to the one month or one patch every month schedule to to like

Fast track releasing the more difficult characters that are that are their target audience is high elo players. Right. So I counted a little bit earlier. Like of the last 12 characters, I think only three of them are easy to play and like are regularly played in low ELO, those being Dino, Cyclops, and Hood. Hood is, I think, a little too strong for how easy he is to play. But every other character I would say is high skill floor, high skill ceiling, like Black Cat. who else? I'm blanking.

speaker-1 (03:05:03.383)
Cyclops probably not. I would say Cyclops probably not one.

speaker-0 (03:05:04.589)
Release releasingly.

speaker-0 (03:05:08.661)
Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like Cyclops like an easy character. Elsa Elsa, black cat, white fox, she's a little bit.

speaker-1 (03:05:11.117)
high skill stealing.

speaker-1 (03:05:18.551)
Decently high skill ceiling. Yeah, I agree with that. Jubilee, I don't think Jubilee's high skill ceiling. That's I I know a lot of people have been saying that.

speaker-0 (03:05:24.333)
Angela Daredevil Gimmel. I I think Jubilee is, but yes, yeah, playing her. No, she she's like it's she's like if you combined Luna plus Cloak, where it's like you have to do like the weird tracking things of Cloak, like the min max, but then you have to have the aim of Luna. So I I think that she you would at least pair her with Luna. I don't think that you could reasonably make the argument that she's easier than Luna. I don't think so. But you you know.

speaker-1 (03:05:53.743)
just play her. Yeah, to me it's just that that the bubble, the AoE thing is just like again, like we were talking about, it's just too much value. But yeah, no, I mean I definitely see like she has an aiming element to her and she's gotta be like way more like aware what's what's happening. You know, like like you you detonating the orbs and stuff. Like there's a certain level of of like attention and and like awareness that you need to to play her and an aim that

Yeah, I'd say she yeah, I'd say she's like upper I don't think she's high. I don't think she's

speaker-0 (03:06:23.745)
I mean you have to do it. I mean it depends on what you mean by high, but I mean I she's definitely not as hard as like Gambit and Loki and Mantis. But she's she's higher than some of them, but not I middle of the pack. But but yeah, no, I I I I could I could definitely see that sub. I I definitely a hundred percent see the see what you're saying.

speaker-1 (03:06:44.173)
I hate Jubilee's design by the way, if you can't tell.

speaker-0 (03:06:46.573)
But thank thank you thank you for thank you for coming.

speaker-1 (03:06:49.995)
Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Seb.

speaker-0 (03:06:51.295)
Thank No, I love I actually love Jubilee. Playing her. I'm gonna be playing her in just a little bit, actually, when we when we pop on the into the pot. It's gonna be or pop into the support games. Like I said, chat. Plat two. We're gonna make our way to eternity very quickly. yeah, characters are characters are very strong. I'm I'm I'm telling you right now, chat. I feel gross playing Luna. I'm just I'm just letting y'all know that character is I've I told this take to Captain Coach. Luna Snow.

Is a character that is only allowed to be this strong because most people cannot aim. If you put some fucking DPS aimers on that character, she would get nerfed in in fucking two days. I'm telling you, if like every hit scan DPS player just decided tomorrow, we're just gonna play Luna Snow instead of Hella. That character would get nerfed instantly because that character is fucking broken if you can hit your shots. Broken. Like and and you might be saying, every character is broken. No, like

If you can hit your shots on Hella, you're getting way less value than if you can hit your shots on Luna. I promise you. The character's insane. But Does it have UT like other supports? Bro, I mean, the cleanse is disgusting. Quick question. Okay. Don't need to come on. How would y'all feel about triple support characters doing no healing, only buff, debuff, team, playstyle abilities? And if no to this, I think we can all agree at Blair Minimum that triple support characters shouldn't have healing ults. I mean, I I I've talked about this for I don't know. It's kind of weird where

I've thought that there was a missed opportunity where like the supports that like you would call main healers, like the supports with the most amount of healing, should not also have ultimates that are like can never die. Like I would think it'd be a really cool if like instead of Invis having the the ultimate that's like you can't die or Luna having the ultimate you can't die, they instead get the ultimates that are more utility based. Like they get the ultimates that like Jeff would have or Adam would have, right? And so like you cannot have max heal.

Plus damage plus you can't die ultimate. But I I like at this point it might be too far. Like, are they really gonna go back and just rework every ultimate? I don't really think that that's possible. to to like like that that it gets it gets too far into like imaginary land where it's like, is that even a reasonable ask? And I just don't think it's gonna happen, guys. Like I would love it to happen, but I just don't think it's gonna happen. Couldn't you fix triple support by just giving them reduced ult charge, have them build their ultimates sl super slow? I mean, we we had that for a day.

speaker-0 (03:09:15.435)
We had that for a day and they fucking half fixed it. So like, yes. Yes. The answer is yes.

speaker-1 (03:09:23.349)
It's just not realistic. what was his name? Carpet. It's just not realistic. And and that's kind of the game's identity too. Is the games revolve around the support alts. Like that's kind of where everything is decided. I I don't think that's ever really gonna go away. Cause I mean like Luna, I mean Luna should have Cloak game up as her ultimate. Like close to her for for too long.

speaker-0 (03:09:43.789)
Yeah, right.

speaker-1 (03:09:50.081)
Then like a secondary effect that's even more powerful kicks in, like enemies are frozen. And it's like, okay, well, why is that better? Well, it's because it on its own it doesn't get insane value, but comboed and paired with like a you know, the teamwork. But again, they don't want that. They they they want to keep this game kind of brainless and they they could really peek cook and and make this game peak and have the whole idea of like the heroes teaming up being this cool thing, but

Instead they just wanna have characters like Jubilee that just press one button and everyone's just immune to dying while it's moving around and and and mask it as as

speaker-0 (03:10:24.791)
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I know about I don't know about that with Jubilee. I don't know about that with the Jubilee. I'm telling you, I I I think I've died I've died like more times in the Jubilee Ole in those like ten games we played than I've ever died in a Luna Snow. I'm telling you right now, I've died a lot. But anyways, okay. We've gone for about three hours and ten minutes. This is a really long pod already. I wanna bring on I think it's easy killer or easy game. Easy game. I just want to bring you on to give your your roll cue argument.

As like kind of the closing thing we'll talk about and then we're gonna wrap things up. so yeah.

speaker-1 (03:11:02.199)
Hey, what's up again, guys?

speaker-0 (03:11:03.809)
What's up, what's up? Okay, what is your what is your role queue argument? And you're talking about roll lock here, or are you talking about

speaker-1 (03:11:11.625)
It'll be all of them. It'll be all of them. But before I get into the church of role queue, I just want to thank you guys for having me on twice. Of course. I'm not really like big into the Marvel Rivels creators. I'm kind of new to the the scene for the most part. I've been playing routes that came out, but I just don't really, you know, tune into streams and you guys are awesome. So I'll definitely be stopping by and checking you guys out. I've already checked out Coach a few times, but I'll be stopping.

speaker-0 (03:11:29.516)
Yeah, we appreciate you.

speaker-0 (03:11:33.335)
That could be either of us, but yeah.

speaker-1 (03:11:36.749)
but yeah so the Church of Roll Q, right? So you know the expression history is doomed to repeat itself. Quick look in history. League of Legends comes out. No roll Q. If you guys played that version of League of Legends, it was terrible. It was horrendous. It was the most toxic, awful environment ever. And what was their solution? And and their solution.

speaker-0 (03:11:46.48)
yeah, it's cool.

speaker-1 (03:12:04.555)
Roll queue and it worked. League is still one of the most popular games on planet Earth, right? Easy solution. And their role queue is way different than Overwatch's role queue, which proves like people hear the term role queue, and for some reason, since everyone's from Overwatch, they think that's the only version of Roll Q. But there's like 20 different versions of Roll Q, and there's so many different ways they can implement in this game. And there is the game needs it. The game needs it. And coach, you said you're from or Captain Coach, sorry.

you said you're from WoW and League as well. So we kind of have like the same history of games. I used to be a a WoW educational content creator for five years, but imagine doing a mythic plus or something in World of Warcraft or even Arena, it would be even worse. And there's no roles, and you just load in and you just like, you're a healer, you're you're playing a priest. you're and it's like some guy who plays rogue only. Like, imagine how bad that would be. each.

Each role has a completely different goal of the game. They play completely differently. And even though Rivals is not that extreme, it is still kind of similar. Because I don't know if you guys have ever had like a DPS player fill on Luna. It's horrible. They don't even heal. They just sit there and do damage. They want you to swap and they want the heroes to be easy enough to when you swap to it, you'll still have a Jubilee bubble to fall back on, even though whatever her skill ceiling is high. That they want that. And that's why every hero can never be truly great, is because they're afraid.

speaker-0 (03:13:15.945)
It's awful.

speaker-1 (03:13:30.173)
Of this idea, it's just like, why not just make sure everybody's playing what they want? So we have at least have that baseline raised a little bit. And that's that's been my main argument.

speaker-0 (03:13:39.095)
So both of y'all agree with here well because I I understand that both of y'all agree on like both of y'all probably in alignment and it's very interesting how both of y'all are in alignment and y'all both come from the same game. A game that actually implemented Roku successfully. Yes, yes, but you at the very beginning of what you said, you said, Let's look at history. So let's look at history, shall we? A a game that is a lot more similar to rivals than fucking World of Warcraft or League of Legends. Overwatch. The exact same game. Guys

speaker-1 (03:14:06.893)
Agree. I think rivals combat is way more sim similar to

speaker-0 (03:14:10.469)
You never played Overwatch. It's the same game. They're the same game. You did not. You did not play at a reasonable level. You you were you were a hyper casual in Overwatch. You were not a real ca Overwatch player.

speaker-1 (03:14:21.153)
The sustain in rivals is way more similar to World of Warcraft arenas than it is to Overwatch. I I promise you.

speaker-0 (03:14:27.017)
D I 100% disagree. Like we went through Goats Meta, which is the exact same thing. But wait, wait, let me finish my point here. The point that I'm I'm explaining is I'm not against other forms of a roll lock, like a role queue system. Like the idea that like Captain Coach has brought up like the idea that you could actually swap in. It just puts you like it softs, puts you into 222 based on preference, but you can swap. Like I'm I'm cool with trying stuff like that, but a roll lock system, which is the only true way to like force people to actually play what they signed up for.

That cannot come into Marvel Rivals. Cause that is the most anti-casual thing you could possibly have. Because people will they'll they'll be everyone will have queue time increases. Like the second you can no longer queue up in five seconds, and it takes two minutes to queue up, or ten minutes to queue up, or thirty minutes to queue up, like that is going to push more people away. And like if if we if we looked at like whatever algorithm that that Captain Coach is talking about, where they're trying to like hyper optimize engagement or whatever the case may be,

A roll lock system, they have to know that a roll lock system would would a hundred percent hurt that. Now I'm down for some other versions to be tested, but it's a slippery slope here where it's like, what is the version that is being tested? What are the rules around it? How like I think that if you sign up for like, I don't know, to play support and you swap off with for no reason. Like, like, okay, let's say like what's the stop? Like, let's say Captain Coach Q's up as a tank, he plays he plays Hulk.

And then like they're playing a penny. And like what Captain Coach normally does is he swaps to Punisher to just get through that first choke and then he swaps back. Right. Well, yeah, you could still do that. So so that so so what you're saying is swapping off is not banable. So if I if I queue up as support, because I want faster queue times, and then I go DPS, that's not banable? I just get to do that. Soft.

speaker-1 (03:16:14.423)
Rolock puts the control and dictates the community standard, puts that in the hands of the players, not the game. If currently we have nothing. We the

speaker-0 (03:16:24.127)
Okay, well I'm I'm just saying I'm just saying what's to stop me from just queuing up the fastest queue time and just being like I'm just gonna play whatever I want to play. If there's no bands there's no penalty

speaker-1 (03:16:33.325)
Team will see what you queued up for and then you'll get reported.

speaker-0 (03:16:36.501)
No, but it but he but Captain Cook is saying it's not banable to swap off. It's not banable.

speaker-1 (03:16:41.001)
If if enough people report you, there's going there's again there's data and algorithms that can track like outliers where it's like if enough people report, then it's just going to be something that if it d if it happens too much, you will eventually get punished. It's it's it it almost using the system. Yeah, it should make it easier for netties. Th this this system makes it easier because now they have more info info, but it give puts more control into the players to to like I I I you need to at least give the players some ways to deal with this, like to fight back, other than just like

nothing happens. So you just lose. You just lose.

speaker-0 (03:17:14.359)
So this have a Yeah. Like it's a little easier. But it's it's it's not like I understand like the framing of this argument, but like we've been in no roll queue for over a year now. The game is not dead. The game is doing just fine. It's actually better numbers than it probably has ever been since like season one or whatever the case may be. Like it's not like we need like roll queue, roll queue, roll lock, whatever. We don't need it to save the game. It's just a preference. Here's another one that Boger brought up.

speaker-1 (03:17:15.693)
Yeah.

speaker-0 (03:17:44.577)
He said that instead you should just lock supports to two. That's what he said. So I that's this is his new this is his new take. It's not you don't lock tanks to two, you don't lock DPS to two, you lock supports to two. what do you think about that, Captain Coach? Locking supports to two. That's all. That's the only thing you do. You don't do no roll lock system. It's just you're locking supports to two max. You cannot play more than two supports. Now it doesn't.

See, this is a high ELO specific targeting because this does not affect low elos because they're they're having trouble even getting two supports at times. But it would prevent triple support in high elo lobbies, basically. You can never play triple support. You could only play two supports.

speaker-1 (03:18:22.539)
I I think Rolock would be a disaster and it's same re yeah, to make sure you have two you can't have more than two healers.

speaker-0 (03:18:25.975)
Well that's this isn't Rolox.

speaker-0 (03:18:32.521)
Only you can only have two, but you can have three tanks, you can have three DPS, you just can only have two heal. You can't have you can't have more than two.

speaker-1 (03:18:38.861)
'Cause that would just be an excuse to make healers even more overpowered. Like there needs to be clarity.

Yeah, but I

speaker-0 (03:18:46.727)
I mean if triple support is your problem then this would just instantly solve it without changing that much about the game. It would

speaker-1 (03:18:52.215)
cause more problems though.

speaker-0 (03:18:54.669)
I know you could just completely rebalance the supporting cast just to fit around two max. Like it's not

speaker-1 (03:19:02.069)
Balance around existing that there's always going to be a certain number, which means that they get to make the power levels whatever they want, because now this is a agreed upon.

speaker-0 (03:19:10.165)
This is not consistent with what you just talked about though. Yes, it is. No, because the the problem with supports now, i the problem with triple support is they're often trying to balance for two supports. Like that's what they're trying to do. They're trying to balance the two supports because that's what you rarely get. Yeah.

speaker-1 (03:19:23.521)
No, they're they're trying to balance around making anyone be able to play support. That's that's why if they just made the barrier of execution of these support abilities a little higher so that you couldn't just go on someone like

speaker-0 (03:19:39.295)
I once again you keep talking about stuff that I agree with you on. Like we agree with all this stuff. Like every single thing you're saying. But I'm talking about specifically targeting triple support. Like you're saying that you would not want a system like that to prevent triple support. No, I think

speaker-1 (03:19:55.885)
should be in the game. I think it should be in game. It should should exist. You should have that option to go it, but it should go it you just lose.

speaker-0 (03:19:58.506)
So

that's that's why boger so because I'm just saying that's what boger that's why boger wants like a Rolock system or a no three support system is because he specifically doesn't like triple. You're asking for it for a completely different reason, which is because it's not triple you you don't care if triple stays in

speaker-1 (03:20:19.905)
Sometimes triple is a viable way to to deal with a lot of the broken bullshit in the game.

speaker-0 (03:20:26.241)
Well why do you why do you want why do you want role like a rule system? Just because so you don't get four DPS in your game or

speaker-1 (03:20:34.001)
Yeah, just to r increase the game quality. Cause I mean there's times where triple tank is good. There's times where triple DPS is good. There's times where triple healer is good. Why are we going to only pen if you penalize it so you can't have triple healer, you have to make it two two two. Or else that means everybody knows the healer heroes are just better than everyone else. And then the balance w has no base of reference and it's just going to get out of hand. That's I'm telling you that's what happened with Overwatch. That's why I quit Overwatch when I saw or I didn't quit, but like I already already quit, but I saw that and r I remember thinking

that game's gonna die. That game's gonna die. I remember thinking that. I'm just like, I can't believe that they're forcing people to play the heroes that from my experiences playing the game, nobody wanted to play the healers for the most part to anyway. They just did it because you and this is again where I agree with flats. They did it because they were just super OP and you needed one on your team. Like I again, I didn't play a ton, but when Lucio pressed Alt, that was an auto win button that I hadn't really seen in the game before, Overwatch, where you just press one butt like a healer alt in in league, for instance.

the healer hero, Soraka, you press one button, it heals everybody on your team, like half their health. And it's global, happens an anywhere on the map. And that that's an ultimate.

speaker-0 (03:21:43.947)
Yeah, I mean I w we agree on that too. Like I'm just trying to figure out where we disagree because I'm trying to I'm trying understand why you want roll lock in the first place or roll Q or whatever. You just want to increase match quality. That's all you wanna do.

So you so you don't have a problem with triple support, is what you're saying. No. Like they they don't like triple. Because they don't suffer from the same problems that you you suffer from in low ELO, where in low ELO, like you might get one tank. Like you're not really gonna get one tank in a high ELO lobby. Like, not really. And most of the you sto you you do get two two two, most of the time. Or like

You can reasonably put it together in Hyla, but what like Boger specifically hates is triple support. But under your what you're arguing for, triple support would not be solved at all. It wouldn't it wouldn't change at all. It might improve improve the match quality, but I'm just saying like that's the people are having like different systems here target different things. And like the the soft Rolock system doesn't solve triple, which is fine. I'm just letting y'all know that that's not a solution to triple. It just isn't. So

speaker-1 (03:22:52.831)
Soft Rollock. Yeah, no, no, it's not. But soft roll lock gets us closer to actual balance because now we know people are actually playing the role they're supposed to. The data is going to be more consistent. Yeah. It's it's the I think you you have to a good faith argument would be that the people are going to be playing their role more under a soft lock system.

speaker-0 (03:23:00.642)
Maybe.

speaker-0 (03:23:09.153)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's a s it's definitely a star. I I like I like Sock Lock a lot better. I'm just like I I I still the elephant in the room is triple to me. Like that's the elephant in the room.

speaker-1 (03:23:18.367)
What's this cause those hero these heroes are too strong? It's it's just it's that's

speaker-0 (03:23:23.277)
Looking at the state of the game right now, I would not be surpr I don't want them to do this, but I would not be surprised if they rip that band-aid. Like the d like they ripped the band-aid of yeah, you can't play triple anymore. Like I wouldn't be surprised if that's that actually actually happens. Because it's like the devs have found the easiest way to solve their problems pretty consistently, and that is the easiest way to solve their problems. I'm not saying it's the right way, but it is the easiest way.

speaker-1 (03:23:48.439)
Triple healer is not a problem if you don't have their alts generate whatever ten percent

speaker-0 (03:23:54.103)
Yeah, but I know but that's like that's like the hard way though. I no I agree with you, but I'm just I'm just I'm I'm trying to get in myself in the mind. What you're saying. Yeah I like I like anyways, you you you go. Sorry, sorry, easy game. Yeah.

speaker-1 (03:24:07.241)
want to talk over you guys but yeah my so it's a soft role queue system that captain coach is talking about is what i would recommend for this game because league of legends has a perfect not not perfect but it has a great role queue system where you pr you pick two roles your main role your off roll and you get one of those rolls or if if your queue time is long because the main argument against roll queue is queue times the soft role queue completely obliterates that argument it doesn't exist because if you wanted a fast queue time guess what you could press fill

And your Q would be exactly the same as it is now, except your quality would still go up because your teammates would get the roles they want. So if you're someone who can fill, your queue times are gonna go stay the same or maybe even get quicker because more people are playing and your game quality is gonna increase tenfold.

speaker-0 (03:24:50.975)
I mean it's gonna be a little scary quick. Isn't it gonna be a little scary though, just as a hypothetical, if like someone fills nine like ten games and nine of them they're on support and they win every one of them and on the tenth one they get ten. No, but I'm just saying. I'm just saying they're still on fill, but like 'cause i 'cause th this was d this is just something like in roll in the Rolex system of Overwatch, everyone had different you had different ranks for every role. Like you had to earn your ranks. That's what that's why.

speaker-1 (03:25:18.349)
That's a disaster. I feel like that's a disaster. Yeah, I don't like that. That that would definitely increase Q times. That is a terrible.

speaker-0 (03:25:23.859)
it did, yeah. I I'm I guess I I'm very curious why Overwatch never implemented a system like this in the first place. Like why'd they go straight to Rolock? I'm not sure Because I'm telling you I mean I think they were just afraid of triple, triple, triple.

speaker-1 (03:25:39.447)
They were they were trying to Did you guys play during Goats?

speaker-0 (03:25:43.317)
Yeah, yeah. Triple triple. Yeah. Two three. Yeah. I feel like

speaker-1 (03:25:46.433)
At at that point when they added it, it was to prioritize their esport. I think that and they wanted every they wanted a community standard. So they forced certain roles and then it gave them an excuse to make what I perceived as like the healer in the in the the game in Overwatch being a necessity when when they did that. Whereas before I didn't feel that way. I feel like they were trying to push the esport and they thought that that was the most viable way to do it because it created a structure where the fights were like

I don't know, what do you call it, like engaging enough, intense enough to where there w there was I I don't know how to describe it. I I I mean I didn't I'm I'd probably not the best person to speak on this. This is just kind of what my perception was. That they were they were basically forcing everybody to play hero heroes that basically you didn't want because it it was good for what it made the game feel like. Spectator. Sure, sure. But but that that's I mean, I'd be willing to hear an argument contrary to that, Mills. That's just kinda how I felt and why

I I kinda stopped playing. 'Cause w when you force when now you guaranteed to have a certain archetype on your team, you can make that archetype whatever power level you want 'cause

speaker-0 (03:26:46.221)
Is that the

speaker-0 (03:26:57.169)
I mean that one of the arguments was it was it was gonna be easier to balance the game under two two two. That was one of their arguments. Now did they succeed in that vision? No, they fucking didn't. But that's what they are one of the arguments they had when they did it is they were like, We can actually make the roles, you know, knowing that there are 'cause they they they kinda ran into this problem where like Brig as an example, like no matter how much they nerfed this character, she was always just this enabler of a triple tank, triple support composition. It didn't matter, like

They couldn't nerf her enough. But like under two two two rules, she could be like a reasonable, you know, like basically she was unplayable in two support comps, basically. You couldn't play her. Right. And exactly. Exactly like that. And so like, but she was broken in triple. and so like they kept on running to do these problems. And it's like like I I understand what you're saying about like they're gonna make these characters like even it's so once again, I don't want Rolock, but the argument for Rolock is number one.

speaker-1 (03:27:36.493)
Right, right.

speaker-0 (03:27:55.671)
The people that play support, if they had a separate rank, you could balance them for people that play the role and not people that fill the role. Cause the only people that are on the role are actually playing the role. So you wouldn't have to make them as easy. And then you could also balance supports only to play with a one other support. You wouldn't have to balance supports like, what if they're played in triple? What if they're played in double? How do I know like they, you know, I I could see the arguments there. And there's the same arguments that Overwatch make. I just don't think it's it's worth the risk. And also if they don't perfectly deliver on the balance, like

in that system, the game's just worse. Like if if for some reason you brought us into a Rolock system and the bounce is perfect, let's fucking go. It's probably not gonna be and then the game's gonna just feel terrible, in my opinion. That's our fault with Overwatch.

speaker-1 (03:28:37.399)
Can't be. It's impossible. No, no game has ever perfectly balanced their game. Yeah. It's not an attainable goal. And I and again, talking about roll lock is kind of like it's a moot point because I I think the rivals devs and most people that playing are still playing the game value Q times.

speaker-0 (03:28:53.643)
Okay, well how would y'all under y'all's system, okay, which I I y'all both have the same system, which is like like a it's a roll queue but not a roll lock, where you could you could cue for fill, you could queue for two rolls or one roll, and you're just kinda kind of expected to play that role unless the team agrees upon it.

speaker-1 (03:29:08.919)
Can I s yeah, it it's one more thing. It's it's mainly just to have this agreed upon community standard so there's no confusion. That interaction where it's figuring out comp, it's just it's not so much that we need two two two. It's just this is going to be a way that we can give players a little bit more control. Right.

speaker-0 (03:29:28.727)
So yeah, go ahead. Yeah, and so like so I I I agree with that. And I actually think that would be a great system. I think we all agree there. I I agree with y'all there. what is something else you could implement on top of that system to deal with triple support if anything needs to be? Or do you think that triple support is fine? Because I think that triple support is part of the the very unfun experience of high rank.

play. I think like everyone has kind of experienced everyone that has gotten to like eternity level lobbies has kind of experienced that where it's like all of the sudden so much of the roster is gate kept because they just have infinite sustain and like all these triple support supports and it's just like it's just it's so it's actually boring. I just think it did like games actually get boring in the highest of levels. I don't know this does not solve that, but maybe this solves a different problem that that that needs to be solved maybe with balance or something else. I don't know. But I'm just saying like

speaker-1 (03:30:25.099)
Yeah, I mean you'd still run into the problem where if the support heroes were just better than everybody else, let's say now more of your games you get two, two, two. Well, still the team who's willing to have one of their DPS swap to a third healer is going to experience winning more. Well, now all of a sudden when we see this pattern unlock, it's not under this idea that these Mantis players are getting picked in two healer because they want to play their hero. It's generally more because of

this clear n tendency for people who swap to those heroes to climb. So now we know, okay, this is a serious problem. I mean, it's already we already know it's a serious problem, but I I feel like there's just more truth that comes out of it when you look at balancing overall and win rates and stuff like that. When there's this like you want to talk about floor and ceiling when it comes to balancing. How about floor and ceiling when it comes to experience? Like that base level of quality will be higher. So

that these outliers in games that are just getting thrown are now okay, well let's see why this team got shit on so hard. Well, it's because they went ultra and they couldn't play the game. Okay. Maybe we need to do something about the power level. And I just don't think they really see the game in that way. They see it more in terms of like everybody's

guaranteed to be able to do something. And and that's what they want. They don't want people to have to make plays to have to win. They just want they want simple gameplay loops that unfortunately triple support enables in a way that

They don't I don't think I just don't think they care about it. I just don't think they care. Like to t to them

speaker-0 (03:32:05.069)
I mean it it's it's frustr I agree with you, but it's frustrating that that's the case. I I think it is frustrating.

speaker-1 (03:32:10.263)
Think I think it stems from ult charges because I don't do you remember when before they did the hot fish charges, there was not that many triple supports. And and I did see it a few times and it didn't seem that good. It didn't it felt like it was way worse because my by my punisher is getting his ult before Amantis and he's just killing them all.

speaker-0 (03:32:15.103)
Yeah.

speaker-0 (03:32:28.043)
Yeah, yeah, I mean like

speaker-1 (03:32:30.057)
That is that is the nerf like I genuinely believe that if they added a soft role queue and then nerfed the support charges back to where they were, the game would be a hundred times better overnight and people would literally wake up the next day playing like how did I play before this? How did I even play this game?

speaker-0 (03:32:46.231)
Yep. I agree with that. And then like maybe nerf some of the cooldowns of some of these bullshit team ups like the mag team up and the thing team up and the fucking Bucky team up and I think I think and then and then like I I I agree like those are steps that Bucky but see these are all the steps that I thought that they would have taken but besides the role the Q one. I thought that they would take all those other steps in nine point five and they didn't. Because like we we already felt what this was gonna be at the end of nine point So I like

I'm just not very confident that that's gonna be the case, but I do think that at least we agree that that should be the case.

speaker-1 (03:33:21.197)
How crazy do you think it would be? Like I I just feel like this is so unlikely that in the season ten patch coming up that they revert the support alt charge buff. Like what are the chances of that?

speaker-0 (03:33:31.031)
Zero. Fucking zero. I'm sorry, zero. Okay. I I I w I wish zero. I think it what once again, I mean I I've I've brought this theory to you before, Captain Coach, is like you you say they're their analytics and data driven. I just think that the data show the reason that they hotfix so fast, like almost in a panic, is the data showed support players literally free falling in rank and then not playing the game.

Like like they could see the data of support player queues up five games and loses them all into locking off the game, and they're just like, fuck, we gotta revert this shit or we're gonna lose everybody. And they did. They pressed the button. I I I think that's the only thing that makes sense is that they they got afraid. and they they because they didn't even stand by the change for longer than forty-eight hours. They literally big red buttoned the change. So like the only way that they do that

is I mean and and it's not like everyone was negative. I think a lot of people were very positive about nine point even the supports to an extent because they got new toys at least. But so it for me it had to have been something internal that they saw and they're just like, shit, we need to fix this. Well

speaker-1 (03:34:46.253)
I mean they have reverted things in the past, maybe not directly, but I mean we've seen them go back and forth on w who was it? Like like the blade changes or I can't remember. They there was a lot of flip flopping where they take take something, give it back. I mean, the alt charge season seven. Like we're already back to the old alt charge rates with how fast you know, alts are coming in now with supports and supports get them quicker than everybody else for the most part. Like

They are willing to kind of just design in the direction they they feel like they need to. It's just we need that commitment, really. I mean, that's at the end of the day, we need that commitment to say, like, hey, we're gonna worry a bit more about true balance if there is such a thing.

speaker-0 (03:35:32.877)
Gakarot killer. he said this. Wait, wait, where did he say? he said, Hello, Ze Yong here. Season 10 will save Marvel Rivals. We are buffing dive and nerfing supports. We heard your cries and sorry for not making hot fixed patches. Ze Young better say this in eight days. And I said it's fucking fantasy, bro. He said, smoking high on that cope copium. but easy easy game. Thank you so much.

speaker-1 (03:35:56.087)
Z buffs.

speaker-0 (03:35:59.805)
And and guys, I think we've reached the end of the pod. This has been an extra long pod, but honestly, this has been a lot of fun. I think this is something that we could do again, run it back. it was definitely interesting to talk with a lot of y'all. Yeah, a lot of y'all had really great takes. I mean, what can we expect from the Clear Comms community? The best fucking takes. We need to open this up to some other community and just just so we can just, you know, hear all the dog shit takes, you know, at some point. But no, I really appreciate y'all coming by. this was this is a lot of fun. This is good shit. I think we actually

Kind of dug into a lot of the stuff we wanted to talk about. yeah. any other lasting thing you want to say, Captain Coach, before we wrap things up?

speaker-1 (03:36:37.857)
just to thank you to everybody in chat. Thanks for showing up, showing out, being a part of this episode. I'm excited to see how it does. Be sure to share it with your friends. Like the like the video, like the stream and let's keep this conversation going into the future and really try to make some change on the game that we all really love, you know?

speaker-0 (03:36:57.483)
Yeah, I appreciate y'all. Definitely, you know, thank y'all guys for coming by. smash that subscribe, like, check us out on Spotify. We appreciate you, and we'll see you next time. Peace.