Marvel Heroes - Teaser Notes for Game Update 1.2
Expected Release Date
The patch will be ready Thursday of this week or early next week. It will be released when it is ready and has no significant remaining issues or bugs.
Overview
This patch represents a major step forward in the combat and item system for Marvel Heroes. With a complete retuning of survivability and defense across the board.
As our design philosophy suggests, we concentrated on identifying the most effective powers and buffing all the rest of the powers and heroes to that top-damage range. Several weeks of testing, with an increasing number of external testers have got us to a solid spot.
Here are some of the highlights of the patch.
Relics
A new item type, Relics, has been added to Marvel Heroes.
Relics are powerful fragments of epic civilizations in the Marvel universe.
Relics have their own new item slot.
Relics can be found on any enemy type and are affected by Special Item Find.
Relics can stack up to 999 in the new Relic slot. Once stacked together, they may not be unstacked.
Relics may not be traded and are bound to a hero once used.
Each relic in a stack confers two advantages: +1 health for each relic in the stack, up to +999 health for a complete stack, and a bonus to one additional stat - with gradual diminishing returns as you add more and more relics.
There are currently 7 different relic types in the game, including crit damage, move speed, melee damage, ranged damage, thorns, lifesteal and spirit.
Getting a full stack of relics could take weeks or months but completing a full stack will end up granting 999 health and an extremely large bonus to another stat.
The first player to get a full stack of 999 relics (of any type) will be invited to work with the design team and create a new artifact or unique item to be added to the game. They are welcome and encouraged to also involve the community to help shape their design ideas.
Artifacts
Two new artifacts have been added to the game: Pluvian Superconductor and Serum of the Seraphim.
All artifacts have received a design pass to work under the new defense system. They will continue to receive design adjustments after patch 1.2 to ensure they are at the appropriate power level befitting their special status in the game.
Unique Items
Unique items have been added to Marvel Heroes!
Unique items can appear in the 5 basic item slots for all heroes. They are extremely rare and powerful.
Unique items have a dark brown item name.
Unique items can appear at any level, with scaling abilities based on the level of enemy from where they are found and a random for each bonus on the item.
The rarity boost stat affects how frequently unique items drop.
Unique items are bound to account when found and cannot be traded to other players. This means uniques are truly "self-found".
Many new unique items will be added every month for all existing and new heroes. We do not plan to ever announce or list which unique items are in the game.
Some unique items can be used by multiple heroes. Example: Anti-Metal Ammunition can be used by all heroes with guns.
Emma Frost
Emma Frost has joined Marvel Heroes!
Emma Frost features several unique game mechanics, including the ability to mind control others permanently as "minions" and instant changing Diamond Form combat powers.
Enjoy walking through Avengers Tower with a T-Rex or mind-controlling interesting champion enemies (complete with buff auras) or even enslaving Cyclops from the Mr. Sinister encounter!
Emma has many build options. Players can focus on Telepathic powers, tanky melee powers, minion-focused builds or various combinations.
Emma Frost is available from the G store (1100 G) or using the free-hero-system from the Eternity Splinter vendor (400 splinters). She will likely have a starter pack option as well.
As promised, Ultimate pack owners will receive Emma Frost, her default costume and two additional costumes for free. Thank you for your support!
Performance Upgrades
Launcher optimizations will now load the game about 20% faster.
Lower quality items now have a shorter expiration time before they disappear from the world than higher quality items, and special items like Costumes, Relics, Artifacts and Eternity Splinters now have a much longer expiration time in the world than other items.
Hundreds of small performance improvements, lighting adjustments and texture optimizations made throughout the game world.
New performance options for players to choose in the options menu.
The patching system has received further optimizations to increase speed and efficiency.
The Marvel Heroes registration page has been completely redone for improved efficiency.
Post edited by Doomsaw at 12:59PM
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Heroic and Superheroic Modes
Players may unlock Heroic mode by defeating Doctor Doom or reaching level 30.
Players may unlock Superheroic mode by defeating Doctor Doom on heroic mode or reaching level 45.
Ultimate Pack Owners
5000 ultimate pack owner names have been added to the credits section. Thank you very much for your patience!
Improved Costume Core Scaling
Crafting a Costume Core into a costume now produces a costume of the same level as the Core, and the bonuses from any affixes crafted into the costume scale based on the costume's level after crafting. This means players with higher-level cores will have stronger affixes.
To help players upgrade their core to a higher level, the cost of adding a costume core will be reduced to less than 100 credits for one week after the patch releases.
Mission Changes
Added Spider-Woman to Secrets of Madripoor mission.
Symbiote Police Station Encounter chest now drops much better loot.
Freeing Bishop from the clone tank in Sinister's Lab should give all players in the party and on the map credit.
Slightly increased the time between Venom Symbiotes spawning in the Venom supervillain event in Chapter 2.
Moderately increased time between supervillian spawns in Midtown.
Increased Midtown Mega Sentinel loot by 250%.
NPCs
Clea is now known as the "Cube Shard Collector" since she sells more items than just Bloodstone Totems.
Item Functionality Improvements
Darkhold Scroll has new visual effects to indicate when a hero is revived.
Experience orbs from bosses will last 3 minutes before decaying, allowing you to comfortably watch all cut-scenes and get orbs afterwards.
Maht's Arrowhead has dramatically reduced cooldown so it will trigger more frequently.
Many artifacts and medallions have improved tooltips to increase clarity for players.
The Plandanium Graft now gives a bonus to maximum health instead of increasing the max percentage of damage your armor can absorb, which is an outdated concept with the new defense system.
The Promethium Splinter costume core is now called a Promethium Fragment. This will help differentiate it from the Eternity Splinter.
A STASH has been added to the SHIELD training room.
Pets
Player-summoned allies (pets) have received a full tuning pass. In general they have higher defense, higher health and higher damage.
Pet AI and behavior has been improved.
Loot
Enemies drop loot in a tighter level range. The chance of finding an item that is much lower level than the enemy has been reduced.
Miscellaneous Changes
Red Terminals are now soloable by well-geared, skilled players.
Red Terminal bosses have an increased chance to drop unstable molecules.
Added a small chance to gain "higher level loot" from enemies. Up to 3 levels higher for very lucky rolls.
The "Defeats" stat for all players is being reset to zero.
"Blue" aura enemies are more difficult and have improved loot.
"Yellow" aura enemies are even more difficult and have improved loot.
Juggernaut Unstoppable Charge power increased in damage.
Living Laser teleport range reduced.
Reduced volume and quantity of Brood creature voice-over in Midtown.
Hood uses his Double Tap power more frequently.
Shocker uses his Knockback Power Punch more frequently.
Controls and User Interface
Escape now skips all intro movies.
Tooltips for items on ground are layered by rarity. The rarest items now always appear in front of lesser-rarity items.
Fullscreen, windowed and fullscreen windowed modes all available.
Experience bar coloring changed to yellow to match experience orbs.
Massive changes to floating combat numbers, including many size and display options.
New interface display for buffs and debuffs in lower right corner. Can be clicked to switch between various options.
Minimap zooms with + or - keys.
Minimap border indicates current difficulty (green, orange, red) for Normal, Heroic and Superheroic.
Improved many tooltips throughout the game, including stats section of character sheet.
U key now activates Ultimate power. (Expect to trigger this accidentally while looking for social panel)
M key activates a Medi-Kit from inventory.
O is the new social panel.
Move speed bonuses from items now display to one decimal place for additional precision.
Removed the term "Force" from character sheet as it currently can never be modified or interacted with in any way.
All aura buffs apply to all nearby allies - even outside your group.
Damage affixes on costumes now work properly.
Post edited by Doomsaw at 12:33PM
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Crit Rating
Players have a critical hit rating that converts a critical hit chance against an equal level enemy. Player critical hit rating will remain roughly equal unless using items much too low for them.
The critical hit artifacts in the game have been significantly buffed in one or more ways to keep player numbers roughly the same or better in many cases. This replaces the golden-age artifacts plan (for simplicity).
Defense Rating
All players have a defense rating that converts into % damage reduction from enemies.
This system greatly reduces the "1-shot" effect when facing bosses or very tough enemies.
Gearing for defense is now a very solid plan for any type of hero (ranged or melee).
Enemies also have defense ratings, making defense penetration a useful stat, particularly with certain combinations of attacks against certain enemies.
Dodge Rating
All players have a dodge rating that converts to a dodge chance against an equal level enemy.
All dodge levels in the game are scaled down proportionally (both enemies and players) to properly accommodate the new defense system. Players no longer need to rely solely on dodge to stay alive, but may still gear for dodge, defense or health as they desire to accommodate their build choices.
Hero Powers and Stats
Players can now see the stats for a power's first level, even if that power has not been unlocked.
Players now have a critical hit, dodge and defense rating. (more details to be added)
Damage-over-time powers have been re-engineered completely. They now behave more consistently with other powers for things like defense application, criticals and damage multipliers. The net result is a very large buff to almost all DOT powers.
Each DOT now does significantly more damage over time, but the same DOT will not stack multiple times on players or enemies.
Most power synergies were removed and the affected powers buffed significantly. This frees up points for many heroes to have more build options.
Many prerequisites were removed from powers to allow heroes to have more flexibility in their builds.
Most item and hero powers that provided invulnerability or % damage reduction now provide Defense instead. Invulnerability was needed under the previous defense system to keep players alive in extreme boss fights, but is no longer a crutch for player survivability.
Defense penetration is completed reworked along with enemy defense and health. It will be much more powerful for boss fights, although the raw numbers on the character sheet will be lower.
Many hero powers have improved animations to make them responsive. Too many to list.
Many power bugs were fixed. These included issues of poor scaling with items (damage multipliers), incorrect targeting behavior or general functionality. Every hero will quickly notice improvements in many powers.
Several heroes (example: Black Panther) have had tooltip reworks to divide the tooltips into sections with additional specific power information. This upgrade will be applied to all heroes over the next month.
Power Scaling
All powers now scale up to level 60 perfectly. The 20th rank in every power is now unlocked at level 60. This has significantly increased the damage on powers that were given out starting at low levels.
This opens up many more viable build options for players and removes the concept of earlier powers being weaker.
Note that this greatly increases the value of +1 to all skills and +bonus skills to a power since every bonus rank does much more damage than previously.
All items granting +skills have been automatically adjusted to accommodate the new system, taking into consideration how much damage each rank provides. An item that buffed a power by +5 ranks, might now buff it by +3 ranks but the buff may have significantly more impact on the actual damage.
Post edited by Doomsaw at 12:34PM
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Specific Hero Changes
Every hero has received a full damage rework resulting in increased damage on any power that was not doing enough damage to be competitive with the best powers.
An extreme amount of analysis and testing was done to determine the top of the power curve and bring all heroes to the top of the curve - this buffed 95% of powers.
Black Panther
In addition to a full pass of power damage, Black Panther has received two quality-of-life improvements. A design review of Black Panther is planned for the near future.
Panther Grace now grants Tenacity against all crowd control types.
Vibranium Trap now explodes 1.5 seconds after use (down from 2 seconds) in order to be more responsive and flexible in fights.
Black Widow
Black Widow has received a full design pass for damage, durability, build variety, responsiveness and overall fun.
Agile Strike Attack spread increased 25%. Agile Strike has gained a chance to deal bonus energy damage and stun your target.
Red Room Reflexes The damage bonus now affects all powers, not just those in the Agility tree.
Escape Roll now gives Black Widow crowd control immunity for a short duration after rolling.
Elusive Kick Now drops an explosive upon performing the flip kick.
Sudden Slash Attack speed increased 20%, and hits a wider area of effect.
Painful Precision Reworked, and is now a part of the Weaponry tree. The passive now grants critical strike chance, and reduces enemy defenses when you critically strike.
Roundhouse Kick Now gains bonus crit damage with power points. No longer causes knock back.
Acrobatic Assault No longer requires a power point in Evasive Roll.
Snap Shot Now gains bonus crit damage with power points.
Timely Reload Has been reworked, and renamed to 'Master of Munitions'. Master of Munitions grants passive spirit regeneration, and restores a small amount of spirit when you critically strike.
Deadly Shot Now deals bonus damage based on how far you are from your target.
Stinging Barrage Now gains base attack speed with power points.
Rolling grenades Rolling grenades now throws in a straight line pattern. The grenades will detonate in sequence, causing damage to enemies at all ranges.
Widow's Kiss Now reduces enemy damage for a duration.
Superior Intel Now passively increases Black Widow's defense penetration.
Timed Explosive Now places a group of mines, and has a short cooldown. The mines no longer knock back.
Remote Detonation now guarantees all mines exploded via the remote detonator will critically strike.
Micro-Drones tooltip has been clarified to demonstrate the drones work as pairs.
Widow's Bite - Increased the damage and damage scaling, reduced the knockdown duration scaling.
Coup de Grace - Attack speed increased 15%.
Rolling Grenades now scales up with power points.
Cable and Colossus
Damage and toughness upgrades only. No major powers changes until next patch.
Captain America
Heroic Charge and Dynamic Charge now always knock down targets.
Cap's Shout powers now scale their temporary boost effect in addition to the aura effect and boost duration.
Shield Toss damage increased greatly.
Shield Bounce damage increased greatly.
Cyclops
Trained Punch now grants Cyclops a defense buff for a short duration.
Cyclops' Optic Blast now has an attack rate of 3.0 instead of 2.5
Cyclops' Piercing Blast now pierces through some amount of energy defense.
Daredevil
Daredevil's Whirling Club can now be channeled from one activation into the next.
Man Without Fear: Power now also grants a tenacity bonus.
Elektra's tooltip no longer displays health or defenses. Elektra was made invulnerable in a recent patch and this information is no longer necessary.
Radar Ping - Tooltip clarified to state the effects only apply to Daredevil.
Daredevil's Restorative Trance no longer reduces Daredevil's defenses while active.
Club Strike damage increased.
Taser Club damage increased.
Club Throw damage increased by 33%.
Rebounding club damage increased.
Animation speed of Triple Strike's third attack sped up by 35%.
Opening Lunge now does damage in a circle around Daredevil's impact point (improved from a narrow wedge).
Post edited by Doomsaw at 1:08PM
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Deadpool
God Mode and Power Ups now display more information about their effects in the tooltip.
Removed Deadpool's secondary resource "Pain".
Stabby Flip no longer requires pain to stun enemies - it does so automatically.
Stabby Flip spirit cost reduced to 10 (down from 17).
More Bullets no longer uses pain.
Spirit return on More Bullets increased by 100%.
Swift Kick animation time sped up by 24%.
Swift Kick no longer uses the Pain secondary resource.
Swift Kick damage increased.
Swift Kick spirit cost reduced to 10 (down from 12).
Stop Drop and Roll no longer uses the pain secondary resource.
Stop Drop and Roll spirit cost reduced to 10 (down from 15).
Bodyslide by One no longer uses the pain secondary resource.
Get Better Fast no longer uses the pain secondary resource.
Get Better Fast healing increased by 50%.
Li'l Deadpool no longer uses the pain secondary resource.
Li'l Deadpool damage increased greatly.
Flesh Wound area width increased by 100%.
Flesh Wound reach increased by 30%.
Deadpool's Pirate Costume now has Flintlock Pistols!
Hawkeye
All damage increased significantly.
Volley Spirit cost now only increases when the number of projectiles fired increases.
Hulk
Hulk's Ultimate's now automatically stuns so it can also hit with second impact.
AOE Ring added to Hulk's Ultimate power to display enemies being sucked in towards Hulk.
Added cooldown equal to duration on Unbridled Rampage to eliminate buggy behavior.
Converted Hulk Tough and Hulk Mad to use the new crit/defense rating system properly.
Hulk's Unbridled Rampage now properly shows heal over time with "Next Rank."
Earthquake Leap can now be interrupted by voluntary movement
Added 2 second cooldown to Hulk's Earthquake Leap to offset allowing it to be animation cancelled.
Human Torch
Blazing Retribution spirt cost reduced to 10 (down from 40).
Added stat progressions to Human Torch.
Increased cast speed of Bouncing Fireball.
Cleansing Fire now grants crowd control immunity instead of a large amount of tenacity.
Iron Man
Death From Above can now be interrupted by voluntary movement
Iron Man's Jet-Assisted Slam is now correctly keyworded as a movement power and will respond to movement power triggers properly.
Added 2 second cooldown to Iron Man's Death From Above to offset allowing it to be animation cancelled.
Iron Man's Death From Above damage has been massively increased. The power now has a brief cooldown.
Jean Grey
Major changes, notes in progress.
Ms Marvel
Ms Marvel's Haymaker VFX revised to match new animations.
Roundhouse Kick now knocks down enemies rather than knocks back.
Punisher
Punishers Quick Escape is now a forwards tumble, not a backwards roll.
Rocket Raccoon
Increased damage dealt by Energy Turret.
Increased hit box size of Tactical Destruction significantly.
Increased Gravity Mine damage significantly.
Groot no longer has a long delay between his attacks.
Blaster Turret's rate of fire has been increased. Pew pew.
Suppression Turret now deals AOE damage in addition to stunning.
Scarlet Witch
Increased damage and spirit cost of Implosion by 90% and 66% respectively.
Converted Menacing Hex to be a powerful homing shot with spirit cost.
Removed Crit Chance debuff from Chaos Magic. Added max spirit buff to Chaos Magic.
Increased Scarlet Witch's ranged powers' hit boxes for increased playability.
Spider-Man
With the new defense system, Spider-Man is much less dodge reliant than he was in the past and can take a few hits. Because dodge levels are lower across the board, we added always-on passive Tenacity to Spider-Man to help him avoid crowd-control effects.
Spider-man's slowing and immobilizing powers now tag enemies as "Webbed" even when the slow or immobilize is resisted or prematurely ended. This allows Sticky Strike to deal double damage against bosses or other characters with high tenacity.
Amazing Bagman costume has a sign on his back now.
Tumbling Assault's stun duration has been increased to 2 seconds (up from 0.8).
Post edited by Doomsaw at 12:39PM
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Storm
Thundering Maelstrom's lightning strikes are now flagged as Area powers.
Thing
Rocky, Crippling and Bruising Punch's attack speeds have increased.
Backhand Smash and Brickyard Headbutt attack speed has increased.
Bash attack speed has been increased moderately.
Bash and Headbutt have had their area of effect range increased by roughly 25%.
Crushing Leap now deals significantly more damage and has a brief cooldown.
Bashful Benjy has been removed from Thing.
New passive for Thing's Brawler tree. This passive increases Thing's damage against targets that are currently attacking him.
Directed Shockwave's travel speed has been increased by 30%, and its width has been doubled.
Hindering Hide has been merged with Jagged Defender. Jagged Defender now has a 100% chance to deal damage and slow melee enemies that attack you.
Rockslide Charge now deals aoe splash damage at the end of the charge. Enemies you collide with are stunned, and enemies hit by the splash damage are knocked down.
Backhand Smash now deals +50% damage against stunned, and +50% damage against knocked down enemies. No longer has a chance to stun.
Yancy St. Taunt's duration now scales with power points.
Clobbering Time now has an attack/move speed buff and defense buff (in addition to damage), and grants crowd control immunity during its duration. Clobbering Time now has a cooldown which scales down with power points.
Guardian Aura now increases the party's maximum health in addition to defense.
Offense Aura now increases the party's defense penetration in addition to damage.
Stability Aura now increases the party's spirit regeneration in addition to tenacity.
All 3 auras now affect all allies on screen.
Endure Assault's recurring endurance cost has been reduced to 10 (down from 12) per second.
Directed Shockwave's attack speed increased significantly.
Thor
Thor's Call the Lightning now delivers all of its damage in a single powerful lightning strike. This change is to differentiate Call the Lightning from Bring the Thunder and make both powers viable under different situations.
Thor's Bring the Thunder now has a chance to stun during its entire duration, not just during the initial cast of the power.
Increased bonus damage and crit rating from Odinforce on God Blast by 50%.
Thor's Asgardian Smite damage has been massively increased. The power now has a brief cooldown.
Wolverine
Bloody Sweep is now red and Eviscerate is now orange.
