Greetings everyone!
I'm very excited to present the next phase of defensive itemization in Marvel Heroes. I'll go over some high level information on what is changing and why, then some specifics about which items, powers, and other effects are changing.
Identifying the problems
Currently, defensive stats in Marvel Heroes form up various layers of mitigation that are independent of one another. Defense mitigation, damage negation, projectile deflection, dodge chance, reflection, block chance - all of these stats are individual multiplicative layers. The problem with independent multiplicative layers lies in that each layer is so potent that you have to have it in order to complete a well-rounded survivability profile. Everything is "feast or famine".
What this has led to in the past is the need for Damage Negation to be propagated to all heroes, as there isn't a method of itemizing for it. As a multiplicative layer, it becomes very difficult for someone without a layer to make up for in itemization methods that are not that layer. Similar situations can be described for any of the layered mitigation stats that are not easily solved in itemization, such as Block Chance or Projectile Deflection.
High-Level Plan
The simplest way to describe the new defense system is "One layer to rule them all". In practice, what this means is that each form of mitigation that a player can itemize for will still exist, but rather than be independent sources of multiplicative mitigation, each of these layers will add to one single stat that represents your total damage mitigation from all sources.
There are three layers to this new stat, which internally we are calling
Armor. This name may change before we launch the feature, but for purposes of this post, I'll continue to describe it as Armor.
Layer 1) Defense Rating- This is the familiar staple of mitigation that isn't changing mechanically in the new world. The only difference is that the result of the defense rating calculation now folds into Armor. For example, if 3000 Defense Rating gave you a 20% resistance to incoming damage, 3000 Defense Rating would now give you 20% Armor. Defense Rating will no longer be found on the 'white stats' of Slot 2-5 items, thus Defense Rating on heroes will become much more valuable.
Layer 2) Deflection Rating- Projectile Deflect Chance has been one of those 'feast or famine' affixes I described earlier - heroes who do not have it have a noticeably harder time dealing with ranged enemies, and as a stat that is very difficult to itemize for, those heroes find their options very limited if they want to itemize to solve the issue they are facing. In the new system, Projectile Deflect is now known as Deflection Rating, and acts similarly to other Ratings found in the game. This property will give a chance to absorb 50% of incoming damage from any attack, not just projectiles, while also increasing your Armor, to a lesser degree than Defense Rating does. An example of this might be that 3000 Deflection Rating gives you a 25% chance to absorb half of the incoming damage from an attack, and 12% Armor. In essence, Deflection Rating is replacing what currently is known as Dodge Rating
Layer 3) Dodge Rating- With these changes, we have the opportunity to revert Dodge to its former value, as we can tune and balance it while resolving the problems it once had. Veteran players may remember an age where a Dodge-based hero could evade a large number of attacks, but without it granting any form of mitigation, Dodge-based heroes would often be rolling the dice to determine whether or not they are defeated by attacks. This is not a world we want to return to. In the new system, Dodge Rating will provide a chance to absorb ALL damage from an incoming attack, while also giving some Armor, though at the smallest conversion rate compared to the other two layers. 3000 Dodge Rating might grant a 10% chance to completely evade an attack, while also granting 6% Armor.
Each of these three layers is intended to grant the same amount of total mitigation - Defense provides the most stable mitigation, Dodge provides some stable mitigation but some spiky mitigation, and Deflection lies somewhere in between the two.
How Will This Affect My Hero?
By condensing the mitigation layers down into a system that talks to one primary stat, we gain the ability to make some changes to both hero powers and items, in order to create a stable and balanced core survivability profile.
Hero Kits
Passives and buffs will be undergoing a full pass to convert all relevant stats to the new system. To ensure that no hero needs to heavily itemize for missing layers, each hero will be given one of three possible pairs of defensive stats. For example, as a very agile hero, Spider-Man would be a dodge/deflection hero, whereas Colossus would be defense/deflection.
As described earlier, any system that involves layers of multiplicative mitigation means that the best course of action is to always itemize for the layers you are missing. In the past, this has led to a world where, even though Spider-Man players naturally want to itemize Dodge (as it is flavorful and makes sense for him), the correct answer is to itemize for Defense since he already had a lot of Dodge. That's not acceptable! We want to make sure all avenues of mitigation are viable for heroes! To solve this issue, each hero will also get a Rating Multiplier for the two layers that they are given from passives. Spider-Man will enjoy a total Rating Multiplier to all sources of Deflection and Dodge, so he can continue to itemize those and have a noticeable impact on his mitigation, rather then being forced to go into Defense.
With this system, we also have the opportunity to hit the 'reset button' on the defensive stats in the game. By changing the core system, we no longer need Damage Negation as a global tuning value for heroes, and thus it has been removed across the board in favor of the new Rating Multipliers.
When this change does go in, a global reduction in enemy damage will accompany it.
Melee heroes, fear not. Historically we've used higher values of Damage Negation as a means for Melee heroes to have a higher survivability profile than Ranged heroes. In the new system, Melee heroes will enjoy a higher base Armor value, meaning they can also reach a higher peak than Ranged heroes. For example, a Ranged hero might start with 40% Armor and be able to itemize it to roughly 60%, whereas a Melee hero might start with 55% Armor and be able to itemize it to roughly 75% due to having a higher base. This creates a higher spread in endgame content, where Melee heroes tend have a harder time.
There will still be some cases of percent-based mitigation found in hero kits, but it will no longer be considered Damage Negation, and will no longer be a tracked stat. These cases might be temporary shields or buffs, such as Rocket Raccoon's overshield secondary resource.
Items
First and foremost, the 'white stats' on slots 2-5 core items will now provide the baseline mitigation for all heroes, by way of directly increasing the Armor stat. This will make other itemized sources of Defense Rating matter more, since items are not pushing the stat into the start of diminishing returns.
After that, many items in the game will be having their properties changed to support the new three-layer system. Although each item will be changed on a case-by-case basis, the general properties you can expect to change are:
- Projectile Deflection Chance becomes Deflection Rating
- Block/Evade Chance becomes Dodge or Deflect Rating Multipliers, depending on the flavor of the item.
- Dodge Chance becomes Dodge or Deflect Rating Multipliers, depending on the flavor of the item.
- Damage Negation becomes Defense Rating Multiplier
Additionally, we'll be taking efforts to ensure that all three layers have itemization options. This means new itemization paths could open up, and items that may have been overlooked could have new uses.
Conclusion
We're very excited about the possibilities this system update offers. A cleaner mitigation system will bring all heroes into a similar bracket in terms of survivability, while also allowing players to increase it more through proper itemization - something that is very difficult to do in the current system. By condensing the system down into fewer stats that communicate and have interplay with each other, analyzing mitigation will be a breeze for more casual players, by simply checking their character sheet to see how much Armor they have - an instant answer to the question "how much less damage do I actually take from my stats?".
This update is planned to be on Test Center as soon as it is ready. It may be as soon as late October, but may push through to sometime in early-to-mid November before we have it ready for public testing.
