Overall Patch Summary
Today's weekly patch has a few small buffs to loot and experience in various areas of the game, a few bug fixes, buffs to a few unique items and several performance upgrades.
We are working towards our monthly large patch that will include X-Defense, Hero Synergy System, Luke Cage, Prestige System, Team Insignias, the Iron Man upgrade, more unique items and many more changes.
General Loot Improvements
Doop has massively increased loot when killed and has 30% more health. (Chase him down!)
Moderately increased chances of blue, purple, cosmic and uniques dropping. Slightly decreased chance of white and green items dropping. This will make rarity boost bonuses even more effective.
Cow level loot is significantly more epic and the zone has a much higher density of enemies. If it moves, it's a Skrull. If it doesn't move, it's a well-disciplined Skrull.
Experience Improvements
Leveling up to level 29 is modestly faster. Leveling from 29-39 is slightly faster.
Story zone experience has been increased by 10%.
Midtown Patrol experience increased slightly below level 40.
Leveling speeds are impossible to be perfect for every player in every situation. Not every person is going to be happy at any given leveling rate, but we will keep iterating to make it feel as rewarding as possible without making every level trivial.
Hero Changes
Emma Frost: Explode Minion's increased damage based on pet health has been reduced to 5% (from 10%). With the recent removal of mob defense and increase of mob health, this contribution was increasing the damage of Explode Minion beyond its intended amount.
12:52AM
Performance Optimizations
Slightly improved speed of loot dropping. Will be noticeable in zones like Midtown with lots of enemies.
Experience orbs are now dropped for a specific hero. Switching heroes to pick up orbs belonging to another hero will result in 0 exp for those orbs.
Modes and Zone Changes
All Green/Red terminals have been refactored in order to make sure the maximum amount of regions are beneficial, yet challenging to your current character at any given time.
Tiers now unlock at slightly different levels, and are more uniform in their progression.
Tier 4 Dailies are now unlocked at level 58 in order to match new progression.
Boss/Mob Changes
Most enemy damage at higher level has been increased by 5-10%.
Decreased boss health globally by 10%. Please let us know how this feels on our forums.
Added new dramatic entrance animations for several enemies.
Hydra Exolaunchers: Now deal more damage.
Shocker: Energy Shockwave attack (when red circles appear and the ceiling caves in) deals more damage
Bullseye: Mark of Death attack (when you're told to Take Cover!) now deals more damage.
Pyro, Sauron, and Venom have more HP in the Story regions.
The Freeze affix has been temporarily disabled. No enemy should spawn with it. We will be creating a new version of this that feels challenging, but less punishing.
Various enemy affixes have been adjusted for clarity and responsiveness.
UI Changes
Mission Tracker on the HUD now has a background to make it easier to read. Click the right-hand label to toggle the Tracker on/off.
Stash tabs you do not own now have a green G icon over them, instead of a dark overlay. The game will display only one "you cannot switch (hero/difficulty) here" banner message at a time to reduce messaging spam. This message has had its color changed to increase visibility.
Player name in the bottom left corner of the screen has been removed for aesthetic reasons (this was supposed to be a beta testing only UI element). We will add a toggle to turn it on for screenshot purposes.
Empty Power Slots will now display a Tooltip when you mouseover them instructing how to fill them with a power.
12:54AM
Item Changes
Gifts are now only visible for individual players, like yellow XP orbs. If you see one, no one else can pick it up.
The artifact that Black Cat can drop when defeated is now called Black Cat's Grappling Hook.
STASH Access Card (new shop item) now has a cooldown of 30 minutes instead of 60 minutes and is 700G.
Guns With No Name (Deadpool Unique): Increased base damage by 25%, added + crit chance, added + ranks to God Mode, removed bonus to max Spirit
Immortal Spirit of Kirby (Thing Unique): Formerly called "Immortal Stamina of Kirby", now is equipped in Slot 5 and provides a bonus to Defense Rating instead of Damage Rating so Thing players don't have to sacrifice damage for survivability.
Gloves of Infinite Entropy (Scarlet Witch Unique): Doubled damage on fireballs
Shadowy Mask of The Hand (Daredevil Unique): Replaced redundant Crit Rating bonus with a Crit Damage bonus
Shadowy Mask of the Hand (Daredevil Unique): Added bonus to Brutal Strike Chance.
Cape of Sigurd Dragonslayer (Thor Unique): Added bonus to Special Item Find and Rarity Boost, added rank bonuses to Asgardian Stamina and Immortal Combat
Hyper Viper Beam (Cable Unique): Added a rank bonus to Devastating Beam, Devastating Beam costs less Spirit to use. The visual for Devestating Beam will be colored red in future patch.
Daddy Deadpool Device (Deadpool Unique): Added + 1 bonus to all Powers and a bonus to Item Rarity.
Uru-Enhanced Shield (Captain America Unique): Added bonus to Quick Block and bonus health on hit
Yelena's Bite (Black Widow Unique): Added bonus to Critical Damage.
Old Painless (Punisher Unique): Added bonus to Brutal Strike damage
Apprehendroid Array (Rocket Raccoon Unique): Increased bonus to Shrewd Dude and changed the chance to summon a beetle to when you hit (as opposed to when you are hit).
Mighty Mjolnir (Thor Unique): Increased base weapon damage significantly. Fixed misspelling.
Store Changes
We've added two new costumes to Marvel Heroes! These costumes can be found in-game as drops or purchased from the in-game store.
Daredevil - Earth X Costume
After the Terrigen Mists were released on the world of "Earth X", this version of Daredevil was made impervious to harm. He used his powers to become the star attraction of a circus. His regenerative powers eventually allowed him to multiply into a troupe of Dardevils, though all but the original were killed.
Human Torch - Light Brigade Costume
After "sacrificing" himself to the Annihilation Wave in order to save Thing, Franklin, and Valeria Richards, Johnny Storm himself found himself trapped in the Negative Zone, unable to be killed. Upon escaping from Annihilus' forces, Johnny took over the "Light Brigade" and used his new army to capture Annihilus himself and attached the Cosmic Rod to his arm, giving him power over the Negative Zone.
12:56AM
Bug Fixes
Hero/Power Bug Fixes
Players can no longer kill other players with Emma's Controlled mobs.
Cow Commanders can no longer be controlled by Emma Frost.
Fixed a bug that could cause disconnects when changing areas as Emma Frost with a controlled minion.
Punisher's Cold-Blooded Crusader ability no longer stops player movement when enemies applying fear to enemies.
Fixed an issue with distance-based damage bonuses (on powers like Punisher's Shotgun Blast) that would prevent them from applying if the power was activated in a direction instead of by clicking on a target enemy.
Fixed an issue with powers ceasing to fire when the initial target dies or not continuing if you press shift after the initial press.
Boss/Mob Fixes
Enemies summoned by elites no longer have incorrect damage scaling on higher difficulties. This issue resulted in these summoned enemies often doing far too much damage in Heroic and Super Heroic.
Rhino will no longer hit players standing behind him when charging.
Mission Bug Fixes
Players currently stuck at the end of Chapter 4 or Chapter 7 will now have an unlocked waypoint that will allow access to the correct Hub next in their mission progression.
Doctor Octopus in Chapter 8 now drops the correct medal.
Missions will now give you the correct reward corresponding to your difficulty level.
UI Bug Fixes
The waypoint for Xavier's School will now correctly show as unlocked under every chapter that you have access to.
Misc.
Fixed game client performance degradation that occurred when remaining in one area for a long time.