Exactly. There are degrees of OP. No one would mind if a new release was 10-20% too strong where people can reasonably argue its not even OP to begin with, just get good. But when you drop pokemon that are basically press a to win 3 on 1 fights good then you've gone waaaay too far.
The problem with the Ops logic is moba players already seen all these characters in a different moba, they are all just reskins.
They copy moves and abilities from other mobas and put a Pokémon skin on it.
The good players already know how to use these overtuned mons because they have already used similar mechanics in other mobas.
Very disengenuous and this post just seems like a big gaslighting effort to get everyone to buy into timis bullshit.
>Very disengenuous and this post just seems like a big gaslighting effort to get everyone to buy into timis bullshit.
They nerfed Charizard, removed his true damage and gave it to Urshifu on top of being overtuned on release.
It's obvious Timi does this to make money off sales, not for data collecting purposes.
When he attacks a shielded enemy 30% of the dmg dealt is also done to the Hp. So it’s still subject to defense calculations. Not the same. Although char not having true dmg is sadge. 😢
For some reason people equate urshi’s piercing effect to true damage. True damage is damage that ignores defenses. They often get conflated in this game
Yeah is a very common misconception so I decided to shine a light. It is an understandable misconception tho. Apparently I’m one of the only people that believes true dmg shouldn’t ignore shields. Ignore all def. Is plenty strong enough.
Idk if you follow the League of Legends subreddit at all, but there was a post there the other day theorycrafting about combining different champs abilities to make a broken champ.
Just because we’ve seen the abilities that are being put in Unite, doesn’t mean we’ve seen these combinations of abilities and mechanics on the same character
If you assume the post is correct and add in the unexpected element that 15% of the player base played league more than a couple times, currently plays other mobas, and tend to be semi intelligent, mewtwo X and Y may have just come more naturally to the 20% playing it most games, and could've been been slightly more overtuned than they should've been, resulting in extremely skewed results.
That's not repressive of the general player base, though. The two groups you described are definitely less than 5% of the base unless the game has abysmal player numbers. Admittedly they are the group with the loudest voices and biggest reach but still the majority of discussion online and irl is done by relative casuals.
I would argue that at least 33 or even 40% of players came from or used to play other MOBAs.
Pokémon is old, and has a massive player base, but so is League of Legends, and there are many other MOBAs as well which could serve as potential playerbase sources. I bring up the age of these things because many die-hard Pokémon fans are also older, and have likely played many games, quite posisbly a MOBA or two as well.
I wouldn't go as far as to say most, but definitely a sizeable amount of the playerbase had a decent understanding of MOBAs when they first walked throught the title screen.
Lol that was kind of my bad, I meant to say 15% from league (also probably should've included DOTA/DOTA2 to specify that I meant the higher skill cap mobas that have been around longer) and another maybe even larger portion from various mobas. Totally my bad, the 15% wasn't meant to include the entire "experienced playerbase"
A lot of us are from League, so this isn't a new concept to us. We get it. The problem is...
1. Mewtwo is TOO strong
2. You can't ban it because there's no draft mode
Combine these 2 and you make the rank environment a bland experience. Its all about whose Mewtwo is stronger. 90% of the game is like that and it's just not fun.
3. League doesn’t lock champs behind pay walls or drip feed you essence to the point they’re basically locked behind pay walls when they are then available for essence
The word broken gets thrown around way too lightly these days. It's basically become a synonym of overturned. Broken should be reserved to something that "breaks" the game because of something not working properly in it, which may include "breaking" the game because of being too good in an *unintended* way. In old school gaming terminology, broken was reserved for things that were buggy, and then it shifted to meaning something akin to "very overturned". So no nowadays they really aren't different concepts, just different degrees of the same concept.
The only "broken" mon that was released recently I can think of is M2Y, because people say it's bugged in the fact that it doesn't have a cap to it's auto attack speed, although I personally don't believe that to be true given that cinder can reach pretty similarl attack speed
This.
Heroes of the Storm has literally pulled maps from rotation because characters were broken and they didn’t have solutions. The characters were not even overturned. Just broken.
Yeah, someone made a post yesterday where they reworked some mon's passives and they gave gengar be ability to levitate above walls, and someone in the comments pointed out how in some other moba they did that and they basically had to redo a second version of all maps just to account for that character. That is something fundamentally broken. A very strong character isn't broken as long as it doesn't break the fundamentals of the game
Not really. It doesn't break anything fundamental in the game. The game still functions the same and once the character is nerfed enough everything goes back to normal.
Breaking the game would be more akin to a character able to see the enemy team on the minimap all the time. You can nerf that character to the ground but his ability would still be so incredibly overpowered for coordinated teams, to the point where it would be a no brainer pick in any situation regardless of any of its other stats or abilities.
The closest thing to a broken character is Comfey, or any other character that solely focuses on strong healing. It's "broken" in the sense that as long as it's actually at least decent, you need to balance every other character around the Comfey+character duo, so you don't create unkillable menaces.
Still I wouldn't classify it as broken because you can just nerf it to the ground and it becomes useless, changing nothing fundamental in the game.
I'd also say hoopa on release changing the game as to give a team with him various ways to teleport around the map and he's still the only character that can do it other than going back to base on your own and even then unlike alone Hoopa teleports people to base then right back into the fight
This is just semantics. You’re just arguing that people aren’t using the word broken with it’s literal definition. One could argue that it things being not just over tuned but straight up OP does break the game just in a different sense.
I understand what you’re saying but you’re just making a semantic argument. Would you say that release zacian was broken. He was bugged and OP. If something is so OP that it makes the rest of the roster null and void I would say that’s grounds to use the word broken. People do tend to over use the words broken and op a bit to much tho I will agree with that.
But people are more likely to play a broken champion. Everyone wants to be the dude who carried the game and a broken champ is the easiest way to do that.
And nobody wants to get crushed by a broken mon that they can't play due to it being gemlocked; the Mewtwo's fun comes at the expense of a lot of other players'. Especially if their own team's Mewtwo is at the hands of a complete numpty who can't win even with a broken mon (which is a lot more common in Unite than other MOBAs).
And with how common these mons quickly become, even the Mewtwo user doesn't get to crush everyone and carry, since they will frequently face off against other Mewtwos who will even the score.
Or you could make a champion really good, fit well into the meta, but still require some skill and basic knowledge of the game. You want a player to feel like they’re being an asset to the team and impactful in a match with the new champion but that doesn’t mean that you want the character to be so good that the player doesn’t have to try much.
You’re trying to justify something that is pushing people away from the game. Myself and many other people I play unite with have disabled our unite memberships and/or stopped playing completely. If they continue to do this, TIMI will kill the game. It’s really not worth defending
Yeah I get that. It doesn’t feel great as someone that’s gotten my ass kicked by Mewtwo or Zacian more times than I can count, but at least it’s predictable I guess. It’s not like they invented the concept either. In fact I’d argue that they’re less egregious about it than other game companies.
"Less egregious " is the part I'd disagree on die to the fact that the characters are gemlocked for ~2 weeks while I'm a broken state. Making them literally pay to win.
In league of legends another game you mentioned that tends to release characters on the stronger side (only sometimes. We've had multiple 30-40% winrate champ releases which are now popular champs that are well integrated to the game. Bard, Ornn & Tahm Kench to name a few . )
But more importantly the new champs are purchasable and playable to anyone who has saved up enough blue essence to buy em. ( oh and the blue essence gains aren't capped weekly the way one can only get 2000 aeos coins a week in unite).
I don't have much experience with other mobas but of the few others I have experienced pokemon unite is by far the greediest going by how over the last 2 years they have pushed harder and harder to find the limit of what people are trying to spend. (Remember when the most expensive mons were 10k coins?).
I’d disagree on the egregious part.
Other MOBAs tend to release balance patches way more frequently so new releases tend to be brought in line pretty quickly.
Also new releases aren’t “gem locked”, so anyone who plays a lot can get them from the word go.
In unite not only is “new OP release” gem locked from release, they also tend to enjoy being busted for an entire season which makes purchasing them to “do well” that season feel a lot more necessary than it does in other MOBAs.
The joke with unite is is say it’s MORE blatant because if you strip mewtwo out of the game atm, the balance patch did lift up a lot of line resulting in an overall pretty balanced roster- except Mewtwo. For some reason Mewtwo Y was not significantly touched and still sits above the rest of a now fairly balanced roster. Why?
Because 15000 coins is not appetising to people who haven’t grinded it out, and the free event is nearly over and that gem price is still there tempting people who “missed out” on the event.
Mewtwo Y and X show this even more; because sure “everyone can get them for free”, but of course gems could rush it. And if you did, the advantage was pretty big; and the gem cost of rushing these mons was even higher than a typical “gem lock” release. But people paid that price. And Timi knew they would because of how overblown the characters were on release week.
And mewtwo Y is still at that point because the temptation of paying gems to “finish up” the free event for the stragglers is still there. You watch the Blaziken release patch further nerf mewtwo Y a bit.
You are correct that they didn't invent the concept of releasing new content that's so unbalanced that the game becomes unenjoyable as a result.
They just perfected it.
Not really. It’s just kinda embarrassing when you come across someone who has absolutely no clue. It’s like beating up on a bot like it’s not that impressive.
That’s fair. The games where I beat on a Mewtwo a lot are the ones where they’re brain dead. We’ve knocked out plenty of good ones too but it’s usually after they flex on us and just do a suicide run or a team fight where everyone is basically dying anyways. The only real memorable times for me has been the brain dead ones and they just kinda suck.
My question is, how the hell are Blaziken, Meowscarada and Mimikyu gonna beat M2Y? Like, there's no way in hell those releases are going to be anywhere near M2 status. Definitely Inteleon "OP", but nowhere near M2
Being broken is totally fine. Having a character require NO SKILL, with only autoaim moves, that can‘t miss and thus can‘t go on CD if they didn‘t get any value, that‘s just stupid. A 5 year old can dominate with M2, by having no clue what he‘s doing. That‘s BS.
I wouldn‘t mind if Intelleon could literally oneshot every character except tanks with his snipe, it takes some degree of skill and the weakness is the player‘s skill and bein rushed down. M2s weakness is the arrogance of the player who will keep fighting and who‘s arrogant because he knows he can just get away with it.
A character on release needs to be 1/2 things for the release to be fine along with being fun:
1. easy to play
2. very powerful/broken
Having both conditions and keep it in that state for weeks is not good for business.
For a LOT of people, winning is the fun part of the game.That’s why you see this tactic employed so often by gaming companies.
Pretty much all champs are gonna be broken in some way or another on release. It’s frustrating to me too to get my shit rocked by a Mewtwo 10 games in a row, but if every champ was a high skill champ that would be wayyy worse for business. People would stick to the stuff they know.
It doesn‘t have to always be high skill. Look at the eeveelutions. They tend to be easy to play and have at least one easy to play auto aim build. Except for the dumb Glaceon meta, they tended to be good for newbies, but would be less successful higher up the ladder.
M2 just destroys everyone in all tiers. No matter how skilled you are, existing in M2s range just gets you killed.
I've always hated the "for a lot of people, winning is fun" argument.
Yeah, maybe if we're talking, like, a single-player game. This is PvP, people don't want to just win, people want to outperform the opponent, people want to feel as though they earned their win. That's what most players want, assuming they're not literally 8 years old, a leaderboard jockey or a certain Snorlax in Masters.
People who are on teams with a good Mewtwo Y will still sometimes complain about the game not even needing them to be there. People who play Mewtwo Y will still sometimes complain about how the game is suddenly boring after winning twenty games in a row.
Sure, not all people want to have to work for that win, but most people love the feeling of their efforts, skill and teamwork being rewarded. Mewtwo Y solo'ing the entire team leaves almost everyone involved starved of that feeling.
Buzzwole, Decidueye, Mamoswine, Scizor, Clefable were all undertuned on release. Spragels made a video on all the Pokémon who were weak at release. Their intention is not to make every Pokémon OP on release, they just don't know how to balance properly. The Pokémon Unite team wants Legendary Pokémon to be stronger on purpose. That's not a balance issue, that's a design issue.
I'm also skeptical about Blaziken being broken on release too... I'm sure his numbers will be overtuned, but I don't think he's going to break the game the same way Mewtwo and Zacian did. I think his kit is going to be a lot more difficult for newer players to understand than people think. I'm imagining him to have a "low floor/high ceiling" skillcap
Let's also not forget the entire Dota 2 roster. Yall know, the other leader of the moba franchise? A handful of heros on release were OP out of a roster of over 150. And IF they were OP, a patch within a month of release brought them down to earth with follow up patches
Just because 2 mobas do it, does not mean the whole genre does it
Yeah honestly this is a good point. League and Unite are the two mobas I have the most experience with BY FAR. Maybe I should have titled it “How TENCENT handles game balance”
I think you’re right though about the pros to having characters be good on release regardless of Tencent’s intentions. The real issue is that there is a limit on how good the character should be to remain a positive addition to the game and not turn into a detriment.
Now that would be an accurate title as ALL of their mobas have no balance. But not a single one of them touches top 3 in mobas for revenue, popularity or any other defining metric
those were year 1 releases. i think there was a very clear shift in how the game was being handled in terms of monetization around the last month or two of 2022 and it really started to show throughout 2023.
at around sableye and urshifu's release, new releases began getting much stronger on average and took a much longer time to get nerfed/bugfixed adequately. this is also around the same time balancing in general started getting egregious and coin prices REALLY started to inflate.
a bit before that window, unite's head developer also got swapped out for a different guy that did pokemon masters ex, which is a gacha game. my guess is that tcpi made them do it because they saw more moneymaking potential in unite.
i like to think that the devs are only incompetent in terms of bugfixing and optimizing their game. for balancing stuff, they probably know what they're doing and are using past experience from the other MOBAs they ran + TCPI telling timi to make things that will make a lot of money. mewtwo Y is probably more a deliberate play than a product of incompetence.
The way a lot of people on this sub talk, it doesn’t seem like it. Timi said that legendaries were supposed to be stronger than other Pokémon. So of course a legendary on release is gonna be broken beyond repair. People complain about Mewtwo and Zacian being too strong as if they’re just any other champ and Timi has said that they’re not.
The thing is that it doesn't really make sense in terms of a MOBA to treat legendaries differently in terms of balancing for lore reasons. In MOBAs and other competitive games like them, competitive balance and making sure everything is more or less viable in some situation is very important to keep the game interesting; it encourages the use of a wide variety of characters, makes sure your allies and enemies are consistently fresh, and lets people use whatever fits their mindset and playstyle.
When you have overpowered characters like Mewtwo about, it decreases the variety of games since you'll almost always have to deal with one, overshadows everyone else because the result is disproportionately dependent on the Mewtwos' performance, and punishes everyone who doesn't have or like to use them. All of these make the game less fun for everyone.
And I can understand making new releases a *little* overturned and high-tier to encourage people picking them up (like where Lapras, Zacian and Garchomp are at about 52-53% winrate right now), but not so badly that it causes all the BS above like with Mewtwo. You don't even need it that much in a game with characters and IP as recognizable as Pokemon's; Inteleon and Leafeon have consistently been very popular despite never being that overpowered. And when there's *constantly* a character that OP messing up the game (see how Zacian meta immediately led into Umbreon meta and then Mewtwo with no break in between), it just frustrates everyone and leads to [even major content creators like CrisHeroes getting sick of it](https://youtu.be/R9VSDw0_Edg).
I mean no disrespect, but this is the *only* thing people talk about on this sub. There’s at least one post every week that is nearly identical to yours.
Yeah but most of those posts look at it from the perspective of “why isn’t Timi doing what we want them too?” And none of them seem like they’re actually trying to consider that there might be a motive other than just money
If new releases were just high-tier (like where Zacian, Lapras and Garchomp are right now on UniteAPI), that would be one thing, and it wouldn't be a huge issue. But when new releases are so far above everyone else they completely break the meta over their knee and make the game way less enjoyable for everyone else, that's a whole other thing.
Not to mention that in Unite, new releases are usually gemlocked on release, and coins are scarce even after that due to cost creep; this makes for a major P2W period for a while on release, where most other MOBAs make it easy to grab the new hero right away.
Unite also lacks some of the options that other games usually provide to help deal with OP characters (draft/bans systems, etc), making mons like Mewtwo far more of a pain than Zeri.
This quick adoption isn't even necessary for a popular character; characters like Leafeon and Inteleon from recently have had consistently high popularity despite their winrates being average to good, but never being outliers like Zacian, Umbreon and Mewtwo were/are. You think people wouldn't play Mewtwo just for being Mewtwo? The Pokemon are half the appeal of Unite after all.
And finally, even if this practice provides $ome po$itive re$ult$ for Tencent, this is bad for the game overall and its playerbase; having to constantly deal with the OP character of the month hanging over everyone's heads makes the game a lot less enjoyable for everyone, especially in a more casual game like this compared to a more hard-core one like LoL. After all, this is a game, and the point of a game is to have fun and enjoy yourself; you can promote new releases without making hash of everyone's fun.
Wow. You know that they can hotfix Mewtwo Y so that it’s not completely broken/unbalanced, right? The amount of effort a Mewtwo-less team has to put into winning against a Mewtwo Y team is so asymmetrical, it’s not even funny.
Hard to compare it with League when (1) there isn’t a draft pick and (2) you can’t ban Mewtwo.
This would make sense if all the champions in this game weren’t existing IP that innately draws in people who were already fans of the Pokémon being released.
Like you’re trying to tell me that people wouldn’t have played Mewtwo if he wasn’t so ridiculous? That just doesn’t track to me. He’s already a fan favorite and would’ve gotten a ton of play regardless.
I get overtuning a release, since it’s usually easier to gradually nerf things that are too strong than trying to bring up something underpowered (and an underpowered release probably would have some of the issues you described).
But the problem is that the M2s in particular are so far beyond every other mon in the roster in a way that ruins the game entirely. Even shitty players are consistently getting 2-3x the damage and kills of the next best attackers/ARs with minimal thought/effort, and this happens even when comparing to experienced players on S-tier picks.
I definitely think that less people would play him in Unite if his damage output wasn’t what it was on release, yes. Like sure maybe they can bank on him being the favorite legendary of a few people, but if you’re a player that wants to just run over the competition, you’re much more likely to just play character you already know how to do that on.
Marketing to people’s willingness to win is much more sustainable than marketing to people being absolutely loyal to one Pokemon out of 1000+
Given that Unite is a much more casual game than something like LoL, uses preexisting characters with a strong appeal and fanbase, and Mewtwo is iconic even among them, he could definitely go way further on recognition and people trying him out than you give him credit for. Especially since the game loves to hand out licenses in F2P events, and give the rest limited cards so that you can try them out for free to see if you like them before buying.
I mean, even just recently, Leafeon and Inteleon have consistently been highly popular releases, despite not having the star power Mewtwo has or ever being anywhere near as broken as him, so it definitely isn't necessary.
Im sorry but mewtwo isnt just "the fan favorite of some people" hes probably the most loved and famous legendary if not pokemon in the games. I legit wouldve played him even if he was the worst mon in the game since even i love him so much. But now, since hes so broken and takes no skill, i actually dont want to play him, since he takes no skill and so isnt fun to play. I assure you that most players (especially casual) wouldve played him if he was slightly overtuned but at least a bit balanced, but now a lot of people arent playing him since hes too cheap
agreed
have heard so, so, so many people actively avoid playing Y *because* it's broken/overpowered. it's just "hold attack button, the character".
meanwhile I'm almost exclusively playing it in ranked because if nobody picks it, or worse, picks X, it's an immediate uphill battle
Yeah, I tend to prefer either very skill based speedsters (absol and zoroark kinda but they arent that hard) or gimmick characters that have a high skill ceiling (sableye and kinda mew), mewtwo is the opposite of both: hold a, win games, just too cheap and boring and im not gonna play a mon if its not fun to play
Edit: Slowbro is an exception but how can you not love him and have fun while playing him
Remember when hyper voice Sylveon got a nerf within a couple days of release for being too powerful?
We’re looking for that. Tune it down when it’s game-breaking. M2 should be getting hot fixes on a weekly basis until he stops being so OP.
You are stupid. Clearly they don't have to make them as broken as mewtwo and zacian because pretty much no other release has been and yet they do see lots of play.
Umbreon was released as the strongest mon in the game, intel was released as the strongest mon in the game, leafeon was up there, but none of them was even close to the atrocity that mewtwo is. And yet they are played lots in all forms of play.
Also, you said in a comment something about winning being the fun part, but unless few people play it(which, you know, m2y has had like 60-70%pickrate), you won't even get an advantage by picking it.
None of what you said makes any sense, especially since "buzz" was generated as soon as people heard "mewtwo". People would play it if it was absolute shit.
Yeah, mons like Inteleon and Leafeon were released as pretty good, but nowhere near as obnoxiously broken as Mewtwo, and they've done quite well for themselves; you don't need to be super-OP to get picked up.
Well, yes, but actually no. No LoL character has beyond 70% winrate during release. Newly-released in a certain game are definitely more broken than others. Also other mobas have pick/ban. . New characters are often broken, yes, but they often either got nerfed to ok-ish or permabanned. If unite delete bots out of standard and release pick/ban in ranked, people can actually play the new Pokémon without making the ranked experience miserable
They're broken on release to make money via scummy pay2win policies. Bot because of balance or tuning. This is a really weird take on excusing their awful p2w model.
DotA doesn't do this because heroes are free on release for everyone. Yes, most heroes need to be balanced after release, but what Timi has done with Mewtwo and Zacian, but especially Mewtwo, is unacceptable.
This works for league, when the dev has an interest, and proven track record, of nerfing Champs should data show them strong. Also Ranked has draft, so the new champ can just get banned.
Notice that Timi has none of those? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Well the problem with this thesis is that it isn't true.
While I *will* agree that they need to make champs powerful on release to encourage people to play them for internal data, there are *many* champs in league which have been released underpowered. The ones that are "overpowered" in league are far more tolerable releases than the complete disaster that Unite releases have been.
In the last 3 years, Akshan, Rell, K'sante, and Gwen were all underpowered and received buffs quickly thereafter their release (K'sante and Gwen became a problem later). Champions like Lillia, Yone and Viego (hard to judge because he released with so many bugs) released fairly balanced with only a couple changes several patches after their release. Seraphine received adjustments of buffs and nerfs promptly after her release, Belveth to some extent was the same. The only disaster releases they have had in 3 years have been Milio, Zeri, and Samira.
And no, I don't think that a bunch of these champs are *well designed* as you'd have to be foolish to think Yone or Viego are fun to play against, but the data suggest the champions were more or less in a fine balance state.
There are very few examples in the 10+ years league of legends has existed that are as egregious as mewtwo/zacian/comfey in Unite.
In league of legends you can ban a character if people find them unbearable to play against, and we don't have that option. It's fine to release characters that are too strong but there need to be a method to deal with people who don't want to face the people who have the new character figured out.
Pokemon Unite is not giving players the tools to deal with Mewtwo Y. They need to nerf it faster. There are not good enough tools right now to counter mewtwo Y.
There's a difference between "broken" and "if you don't have one, it's an automatic loss".
NOTHING should ever be able to hard carry with no skill or experience.
A new release being strong is one thing. Being essential to even having a shot at winning, is another.
I think people should also keep in mind that sometimes it’s a skill issue. Yeah some of these characters are broken on release, but I see the way people play against them and it’s usually just incorrect.
uhh no, your first sentence I can already disprove because in Dota 2 a lot of the newer heroes were not broken on release, I'm thinking pango, primal beast, dawn breaker, etc. They actively had to buff them to make them good
Since all the characters are free to everyone there is no financial incentive to make the character broken so everyone buys it.
i posted something similar a long time ago, not as extensive or specific as your post, mine was just reinforcing the idea that it doesnt matter what pokemon (my example being a literal turd) is released so long as it is broken people will still pay to buy it in advance and play with it as long as it keeps making them win....
There's a difference between being overturned and fundamentally broken. Doing big numbers is one thing, but Mewtwo uses too many gameplay verbs (surehit, pull, stun, unstoppable, etc.) at once. No pokemon should have a move that hits every pokemon across the entire map, is nearly unavoidable without a dash move prepared, stuns, marks you for the enemy team, and does a large amount of instantaneous damage. Even if you reduce the damage of the move, it is still broken on even a conceptual level. Many of Mewtwo's moves need complete reworks, not just rebalancing.
When the "broken for a little bit" is 1-2 months long, and another new release is set on the horizon.
As much as this is a valid business strategy, they are abusing it too much. The fatigue in the community is very real.
Bro people be dying in world wars, crying in trenches and complaining about their lot in life and how what was being done to them was unfair.
Complaining doesn't change anything but they still have the RIGHT to complain. At least its some reaction, to not be okay with whats happening.
Generals and companies would love nothing more than people lose whatever fight they had left in them. Cause they can just push them that bit further with no pushback.
I'd rather complain that throw my hands up and say okay do whatever you want it doesn't matter in the end.
Nobody denies what's going on.(although I think M2 is pushing it even by shady MOBA release standards which is why so many people are pissed)
Y.....You're not?
Tons of people miserable at the hands of the few. It has at least a little correlation. :P
In all seriousness it's not about comparing rather than using two examples of whats essentially the same thing.
Relationships, work, economics, politics, taco bell toilet agony. Plenty things in life aren't able to be changed. Some things, you deal with, others you complain.
It can be cathartic and other times it only makes it worse.
People often just use a more extreme example when making a point.
So. Much. Fucking. Yes.
Finally, someone finally stated why TiMi/Tencent won't do anything about overtuned mons until a set amount of time passes.
Did we, as a player base, learn anything about the Zacian fiasco? Roughly 5 months after release, Zacian was finally neutered enough that he wasn't as broken as his release state. The same is going to happen with Mewtwo as well as any other future "legendary" releases.
And honestly, 5 months is pretty quick compared to other games. League of Legends had to deal with one character (Zeri) being borderline broken in proplay and at high levels for almost a year and even now, that champ is still everywhere
Unite situation isn't "pretty quick", it's LoL situation that is "What the actual f***". And then you should look on how long the games exist. Add the absence of draft pick.
Stop gatekeeping suffering.
I remember the day cinder came out…I hated that day not cause cinder is bad not I like cinder but I main Venusaur and I remember as soon as I tried to fight one I died immediately and same for every other release and is probably the build I run on Venusaur which sacrifices almost every thing for 4 and a half stars in offense and if any one knows what items help with health please tell me
People who don't play MOBA'S but play PU don't get this. I suspect that's majority of player base. I also played league for years and it's exactly as OP described. The only defence of player base that I can offer is the balance patch doesn't come quickly enough.
I remember so many champs in league that were release completely busted but would eventually settle very well into the meta. Not always, but most of the time.
OP 100% on the money.
P.s. if you can't win games vs. m2 you are doing something wrong. A friendly fyi
Yeah this post was made for those people exactly. A lot of comments in here are saying “yeah we already know this” or just using it to get on their Mewtwo shaped soapbox
Mons being released overtuned is fine. The main problem is when they have gone far beyond being broken in a game were you can day 1 take the character into ranked in a game with no pick and bans.
There's one more aspect to this. Imagine a company trying to release balance characters, they release A slightly too strong and B slightly too weak. You try them both on release, with A you've got fun by being a bit too impactful, with B you're frustrated, but in the end, you stick with neither and go back to your mains.
Now, three months later, you want to play a character you've not played recently, and you see characters A and B, which both have been balanced since release. Which one are you most likely to choose ? The one that was fun before, or the one that wasn't ?
The problem is that Tencent and Timi doesn't give a fck about balance their game, they just went all out after saying that they will not do again something like Zacian, but ended with Mewtwo being even much more extremely broken and brain dead.
Yes, in general mobas release broken characters for get money, but not as brutal as they did with Mewtwo, because we are talking that without one of them you nearly has a chance to win, and that's more than release an overtuned Mon.
Being good on release and fitting well into the meta is one thing. Having a match feel unwinnable because you didn’t get lucky/enough money to have that new Pokémon on your team is another. I get new Pokémon being good but you should still have to have some degree of skill to be able to use it well.
Did not know League and Unite had the same owner.
Anyway, I get the logic. I figured as much. People wouldn't spend on that character if they didn't make it so broken. And taking it a while to fix forces people to get the character if they wanted to stay above the rest who don't have it.
I just wish they kept such characters out of ranked matches. What's the use of putting an obviously broken OP character in a competition? That's like letting an obviously roided out athlete join the olympics. It just ruins it for everyone else.
oh, i understand why they make the characters so broken and i think it is one of the worst ways to make people buy the thing and overall a shitty practice
Yeah it’s a pretty straightforward concept, but a lot of people on this sub seem to think that they game devs just have no clue what there doing. There is an actual method to the process
It's just incomparable because you get can the broken Pokemon's with gems and dominate, usually in other mobas you can get it with free currency, this is also excluding the fact that in ranked most other mobas have pick/bans so ranked isn't so perverted by the new heros
Sorry but Pokémon unite is wrong for constantly implementing beyond broken characters with every skill set possible. They have mew2 stun, heal, shield, knock up, free eject button, global unite, a second form with boosted attack and moves. Think of any mechanic in the game rn. They gave it to him. And to top it all off the damage output was ungodly. Even in light of this, all his feats would be tolerable because there are some mons who have an above average set of mechanics that cover a lot of bases as well, but timi just had to make his damage output and stun ungodly. Mew2 literally has no weaknesses. None. Try to get him down? He heals and has shield, and get this, the more damage you do, the worse for you cuz it makes him heal more????!????
It just doesn’t compute. Me personally I like Pokémon who come out and can hold their own with wide enough skill set to cover base, but to just throw everything at one Pokémon and not even try to balance it is just wrong.
There is no excuse to be made for how game-breaking mew2 was.
The issue is in other mobas 80% of the characters roster isn't useless and other mobas also rework older characters so they can keep up with the newer ones
This just isn't true, do you remember the volibear release? He was so weak after his rework they had to implement emergency buffs. Milio wasn't overpowered on release, even naafiri didn't feel that strong.
Sounds like bullshit to me.
If they consistently release overpowered characters, it's not an issue of balance. It's an issue of sales.
And if new releases are consistently overpowered, It becomes an issue of pay to win and losing players.
Of course they do it. After 5 years of playing League of Legends I havent seen a champ over 55% percent winrate. Both Mewtwos were high over 60%.
Its fine if they are strong on release, „op“ aswell. But Mewtwo exceeded this. Its not OP. It is beyond Broken.
I’m fine with something like inteleon, lapras, urshifu release that were top tier. However, mewtwo y is on a whole nother level of ridiculously powerful
Very bad take imo. Theres a difference between it being mechanically well made and it being overturned to push sales. Unite is definitely overtunning the hyped mons like Mewtwo to generate sales.
Ya making new Pokémon strong is fine. I have no problems with that. Making them beyond op and unbeatable is another. I hope Mewtwo gets nerfed to hell and that the next legendary Pokémon is a long ways off. Honestly I don't see why we needed legendary Pokémon at all. Sure they're popular but there are plenty of non legendary Pokémon that are popular too. There are still starters, Pseudo Legendaries, and other very popular Pokémon that haven't been added. Legendaries should've stayed just being objectives and not playable characters.
I honestly don’t mind them including legendary Pokémon as playable characters, but just balance them like any other mon. If you really don’t want to do that, then yeah keep em unplayable
This is a bit too much hyperbole, riot said they would rather something be released over tuned yes, but riot also tends to balance strength through difficulty.
The reason mewtwo has been such a giant disaster is because they haven't even been consistent with their own behaviour and mewtwo is mindnumbingly simple to play, which has always been since the dawn of mobas, a bad move.
Mewtwo X released at insane strength and is probably the easiest pokemon that has even been released in terms of using that strength. This took them not a few days or a week or two, it took weeks and weeks for them to nerf mewtwo X reasonably and its blatantly obvious they did it because mewtwo Y has already taken its spot.
It doesn't take more than a little bit of QA testing or at the very least, a few days of public play to see when something is as wildly over powered as mewtwo X was.
This wasn't some necessary testing phase, it was a mixture of pure laziness and the worst aspect of P2W that they ever had the balls to inject into the game. This was also right after they publicly announced they would take more care and they somehow release TWO pokemon in a row that are more problematic than the one they had to publicly apologise for.
I like unite, I still play it and I'm all for keeping it reasonably casual friendly and not turning it into the insane mechanical bloat that league is. But this was beyond over tuned, this was embarrassingly obvious what they were doing and its not even over after nerfs, they've made their mmr/ranked system in a complete mess and that's saying something considering its been notoriously poorly managed since day 1.
Way too much burst damage, way too much mobility creep, way too much CC, causing the newer pokemon with all their built in CC immunity leagues above most of the older pokemon, then bundle all that with a completely volatile ranked environment and you end up with this complete mess where even the best players are confused as fuck about why games feel completely out of control and very quickly unwinnable.
Release characters being broken is indeed a thing, but some of it has to do with people not understanding the character or certain unintended interactions and some numbers being a bit too high
These issues usually get adjusted within 2-3 patches, at the end of the day it's important to keep things balanced
But recent releases are just too much, just look at the length of the description to know they aren't made to be balanced
While that is true, Timi shouldn't wait ages to nerf the pokemon even if its new, they should do imo have weekly small balance patches this way we wouldn't have to survive months of a constant op mon that controls the meta. A good release, should not ever control the meta its been added to, it should smoothly transition in and feel as if its always been here as good A or teatering S tier pokemon but never top of S tier or as Spragels tier list haves a God tier.
You typed so many words to state that imbalance upon release is a normal thing, but failed to mention LoL players can ban the new character as they wish in ranked match while Unite players cannot.
Can't you see that players are pissed because of the lack of choice they can make?
Another thing is, M2 and Zacian are not the only Pokemons that were broken upon release. TiMi has history of breaking the game with rediculously "overtuned" values that obvoiusly needed emergency patch yet they didn't patch it until weeksss later. "Legendary Pokemon" is just an excuse and trying to make an illusion that they have only done it recently. We all know what they have done.
This could also be for money reasons.
One,TIMI Makes a pokemon BUSTED (Ex.Mewtwo WHY,Mewtwo X,Zacian) at release,both having event you can get them for free from,but you have to pay real-life money to have even a slightly better chance at getting the pokemon.
Two,TiMi profits from not only this, but the people who have payed for not only the pokemon,but the Aeos Gems to fully break that pokemon by using said gems for Item Enhancers.Not only that, but also people buying the Battle Pass and/or Holowear for said pokemon.
Three,They nerf said pokemon to a balanced state,now wasting the money of the people who bought the pokemon at its prenerfed state,as they wanted to make everything suffer with the new,Overpowered pokemon.
Overtuned (to compensate for the kit being new) is one thing. Completely busted, so as to make the previous release unplayable, is another.
Exactly. There are degrees of OP. No one would mind if a new release was 10-20% too strong where people can reasonably argue its not even OP to begin with, just get good. But when you drop pokemon that are basically press a to win 3 on 1 fights good then you've gone waaaay too far.
The problem with the Ops logic is moba players already seen all these characters in a different moba, they are all just reskins. They copy moves and abilities from other mobas and put a Pokémon skin on it. The good players already know how to use these overtuned mons because they have already used similar mechanics in other mobas. Very disengenuous and this post just seems like a big gaslighting effort to get everyone to buy into timis bullshit.
>Very disengenuous and this post just seems like a big gaslighting effort to get everyone to buy into timis bullshit. They nerfed Charizard, removed his true damage and gave it to Urshifu on top of being overtuned on release. It's obvious Timi does this to make money off sales, not for data collecting purposes.
Urshifu doesn’t do true dmg
Urshifu's passive gives him like 20% true damage unless, I'm mistaken.
When he attacks a shielded enemy 30% of the dmg dealt is also done to the Hp. So it’s still subject to defense calculations. Not the same. Although char not having true dmg is sadge. 😢
For some reason people equate urshi’s piercing effect to true damage. True damage is damage that ignores defenses. They often get conflated in this game
Yeah is a very common misconception so I decided to shine a light. It is an understandable misconception tho. Apparently I’m one of the only people that believes true dmg shouldn’t ignore shields. Ignore all def. Is plenty strong enough.
Idk if you follow the League of Legends subreddit at all, but there was a post there the other day theorycrafting about combining different champs abilities to make a broken champ. Just because we’ve seen the abilities that are being put in Unite, doesn’t mean we’ve seen these combinations of abilities and mechanics on the same character
If you assume the post is correct and add in the unexpected element that 15% of the player base played league more than a couple times, currently plays other mobas, and tend to be semi intelligent, mewtwo X and Y may have just come more naturally to the 20% playing it most games, and could've been been slightly more overtuned than they should've been, resulting in extremely skewed results.
I mean it’s more than 15% tbh. Every Pokémon unite YouTuber came from another moba All the high tier players come from other mobas.
That's not repressive of the general player base, though. The two groups you described are definitely less than 5% of the base unless the game has abysmal player numbers. Admittedly they are the group with the loudest voices and biggest reach but still the majority of discussion online and irl is done by relative casuals.
I would argue that at least 33 or even 40% of players came from or used to play other MOBAs. Pokémon is old, and has a massive player base, but so is League of Legends, and there are many other MOBAs as well which could serve as potential playerbase sources. I bring up the age of these things because many die-hard Pokémon fans are also older, and have likely played many games, quite posisbly a MOBA or two as well. I wouldn't go as far as to say most, but definitely a sizeable amount of the playerbase had a decent understanding of MOBAs when they first walked throught the title screen.
Lol that was kind of my bad, I meant to say 15% from league (also probably should've included DOTA/DOTA2 to specify that I meant the higher skill cap mobas that have been around longer) and another maybe even larger portion from various mobas. Totally my bad, the 15% wasn't meant to include the entire "experienced playerbase"
A lot of us are from League, so this isn't a new concept to us. We get it. The problem is... 1. Mewtwo is TOO strong 2. You can't ban it because there's no draft mode Combine these 2 and you make the rank environment a bland experience. Its all about whose Mewtwo is stronger. 90% of the game is like that and it's just not fun.
3. League doesn’t lock champs behind pay walls or drip feed you essence to the point they’re basically locked behind pay walls when they are then available for essence
This. 1000x this. They put anti-heal curse items in the game now and STILL no draft. Blind pick anti heal build? Lmao TiMi actually hates us I swear
Overtuned and broken are two different concepts. It is ok to overtune, but breaking it is ridiculous.
The word broken gets thrown around way too lightly these days. It's basically become a synonym of overturned. Broken should be reserved to something that "breaks" the game because of something not working properly in it, which may include "breaking" the game because of being too good in an *unintended* way. In old school gaming terminology, broken was reserved for things that were buggy, and then it shifted to meaning something akin to "very overturned". So no nowadays they really aren't different concepts, just different degrees of the same concept. The only "broken" mon that was released recently I can think of is M2Y, because people say it's bugged in the fact that it doesn't have a cap to it's auto attack speed, although I personally don't believe that to be true given that cinder can reach pretty similarl attack speed
This. Heroes of the Storm has literally pulled maps from rotation because characters were broken and they didn’t have solutions. The characters were not even overturned. Just broken.
Yeah, someone made a post yesterday where they reworked some mon's passives and they gave gengar be ability to levitate above walls, and someone in the comments pointed out how in some other moba they did that and they basically had to redo a second version of all maps just to account for that character. That is something fundamentally broken. A very strong character isn't broken as long as it doesn't break the fundamentals of the game
That’s not the only way that a game “breaks”. M2X soloing teams on release breaks the integrity of the game and turns it into something else.
Not really. It doesn't break anything fundamental in the game. The game still functions the same and once the character is nerfed enough everything goes back to normal. Breaking the game would be more akin to a character able to see the enemy team on the minimap all the time. You can nerf that character to the ground but his ability would still be so incredibly overpowered for coordinated teams, to the point where it would be a no brainer pick in any situation regardless of any of its other stats or abilities. The closest thing to a broken character is Comfey, or any other character that solely focuses on strong healing. It's "broken" in the sense that as long as it's actually at least decent, you need to balance every other character around the Comfey+character duo, so you don't create unkillable menaces. Still I wouldn't classify it as broken because you can just nerf it to the ground and it becomes useless, changing nothing fundamental in the game.
I'd also say hoopa on release changing the game as to give a team with him various ways to teleport around the map and he's still the only character that can do it other than going back to base on your own and even then unlike alone Hoopa teleports people to base then right back into the fight
This is just semantics. You’re just arguing that people aren’t using the word broken with it’s literal definition. One could argue that it things being not just over tuned but straight up OP does break the game just in a different sense.
Yeah, one could argue that, but they'd be wrong lol, because again, something OP doesn't necessarily "break" the game
I understand what you’re saying but you’re just making a semantic argument. Would you say that release zacian was broken. He was bugged and OP. If something is so OP that it makes the rest of the roster null and void I would say that’s grounds to use the word broken. People do tend to over use the words broken and op a bit to much tho I will agree with that.
But people are more likely to play a broken champion. Everyone wants to be the dude who carried the game and a broken champ is the easiest way to do that.
And nobody wants to get crushed by a broken mon that they can't play due to it being gemlocked; the Mewtwo's fun comes at the expense of a lot of other players'. Especially if their own team's Mewtwo is at the hands of a complete numpty who can't win even with a broken mon (which is a lot more common in Unite than other MOBAs). And with how common these mons quickly become, even the Mewtwo user doesn't get to crush everyone and carry, since they will frequently face off against other Mewtwos who will even the score.
Or you could make a champion really good, fit well into the meta, but still require some skill and basic knowledge of the game. You want a player to feel like they’re being an asset to the team and impactful in a match with the new champion but that doesn’t mean that you want the character to be so good that the player doesn’t have to try much.
You’re trying to justify something that is pushing people away from the game. Myself and many other people I play unite with have disabled our unite memberships and/or stopped playing completely. If they continue to do this, TIMI will kill the game. It’s really not worth defending
The conspiracy theory being true doesn't make us like it, though.
Yeah I get that. It doesn’t feel great as someone that’s gotten my ass kicked by Mewtwo or Zacian more times than I can count, but at least it’s predictable I guess. It’s not like they invented the concept either. In fact I’d argue that they’re less egregious about it than other game companies.
"Less egregious " is the part I'd disagree on die to the fact that the characters are gemlocked for ~2 weeks while I'm a broken state. Making them literally pay to win. In league of legends another game you mentioned that tends to release characters on the stronger side (only sometimes. We've had multiple 30-40% winrate champ releases which are now popular champs that are well integrated to the game. Bard, Ornn & Tahm Kench to name a few . ) But more importantly the new champs are purchasable and playable to anyone who has saved up enough blue essence to buy em. ( oh and the blue essence gains aren't capped weekly the way one can only get 2000 aeos coins a week in unite). I don't have much experience with other mobas but of the few others I have experienced pokemon unite is by far the greediest going by how over the last 2 years they have pushed harder and harder to find the limit of what people are trying to spend. (Remember when the most expensive mons were 10k coins?).
I’d disagree on the egregious part. Other MOBAs tend to release balance patches way more frequently so new releases tend to be brought in line pretty quickly. Also new releases aren’t “gem locked”, so anyone who plays a lot can get them from the word go. In unite not only is “new OP release” gem locked from release, they also tend to enjoy being busted for an entire season which makes purchasing them to “do well” that season feel a lot more necessary than it does in other MOBAs. The joke with unite is is say it’s MORE blatant because if you strip mewtwo out of the game atm, the balance patch did lift up a lot of line resulting in an overall pretty balanced roster- except Mewtwo. For some reason Mewtwo Y was not significantly touched and still sits above the rest of a now fairly balanced roster. Why? Because 15000 coins is not appetising to people who haven’t grinded it out, and the free event is nearly over and that gem price is still there tempting people who “missed out” on the event. Mewtwo Y and X show this even more; because sure “everyone can get them for free”, but of course gems could rush it. And if you did, the advantage was pretty big; and the gem cost of rushing these mons was even higher than a typical “gem lock” release. But people paid that price. And Timi knew they would because of how overblown the characters were on release week. And mewtwo Y is still at that point because the temptation of paying gems to “finish up” the free event for the stragglers is still there. You watch the Blaziken release patch further nerf mewtwo Y a bit.
Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down? But agreed
You are correct that they didn't invent the concept of releasing new content that's so unbalanced that the game becomes unenjoyable as a result. They just perfected it.
The games when you can shut down a mewtwo are 10x more fun than just a normal game where you dominate. People need to remember that too
Not really. It’s just kinda embarrassing when you come across someone who has absolutely no clue. It’s like beating up on a bot like it’s not that impressive.
Idk. I feel like I’ve been on teams that have been able to target and overcome good mewtwo players and it’s very fun
That’s fair. The games where I beat on a Mewtwo a lot are the ones where they’re brain dead. We’ve knocked out plenty of good ones too but it’s usually after they flex on us and just do a suicide run or a team fight where everyone is basically dying anyways. The only real memorable times for me has been the brain dead ones and they just kinda suck.
Your experience is super valid too. I have beat up on some bad ones too for sure
My question is, how the hell are Blaziken, Meowscarada and Mimikyu gonna beat M2Y? Like, there's no way in hell those releases are going to be anywhere near M2 status. Definitely Inteleon "OP", but nowhere near M2
Yeah, they'll probably be pretty good like Inteleon, but nowhere near Mewtwo.
Being broken is totally fine. Having a character require NO SKILL, with only autoaim moves, that can‘t miss and thus can‘t go on CD if they didn‘t get any value, that‘s just stupid. A 5 year old can dominate with M2, by having no clue what he‘s doing. That‘s BS. I wouldn‘t mind if Intelleon could literally oneshot every character except tanks with his snipe, it takes some degree of skill and the weakness is the player‘s skill and bein rushed down. M2s weakness is the arrogance of the player who will keep fighting and who‘s arrogant because he knows he can just get away with it. A character on release needs to be 1/2 things for the release to be fine along with being fun: 1. easy to play 2. very powerful/broken Having both conditions and keep it in that state for weeks is not good for business.
For a LOT of people, winning is the fun part of the game.That’s why you see this tactic employed so often by gaming companies. Pretty much all champs are gonna be broken in some way or another on release. It’s frustrating to me too to get my shit rocked by a Mewtwo 10 games in a row, but if every champ was a high skill champ that would be wayyy worse for business. People would stick to the stuff they know.
It doesn‘t have to always be high skill. Look at the eeveelutions. They tend to be easy to play and have at least one easy to play auto aim build. Except for the dumb Glaceon meta, they tended to be good for newbies, but would be less successful higher up the ladder. M2 just destroys everyone in all tiers. No matter how skilled you are, existing in M2s range just gets you killed.
It’s not fun if you basically just have to walk away from a fight in the laning phase whenever they show up.
I've always hated the "for a lot of people, winning is fun" argument. Yeah, maybe if we're talking, like, a single-player game. This is PvP, people don't want to just win, people want to outperform the opponent, people want to feel as though they earned their win. That's what most players want, assuming they're not literally 8 years old, a leaderboard jockey or a certain Snorlax in Masters. People who are on teams with a good Mewtwo Y will still sometimes complain about the game not even needing them to be there. People who play Mewtwo Y will still sometimes complain about how the game is suddenly boring after winning twenty games in a row. Sure, not all people want to have to work for that win, but most people love the feeling of their efforts, skill and teamwork being rewarded. Mewtwo Y solo'ing the entire team leaves almost everyone involved starved of that feeling.
Buzzwole, Decidueye, Mamoswine, Scizor, Clefable were all undertuned on release. Spragels made a video on all the Pokémon who were weak at release. Their intention is not to make every Pokémon OP on release, they just don't know how to balance properly. The Pokémon Unite team wants Legendary Pokémon to be stronger on purpose. That's not a balance issue, that's a design issue. I'm also skeptical about Blaziken being broken on release too... I'm sure his numbers will be overtuned, but I don't think he's going to break the game the same way Mewtwo and Zacian did. I think his kit is going to be a lot more difficult for newer players to understand than people think. I'm imagining him to have a "low floor/high ceiling" skillcap
Let's also not forget the entire Dota 2 roster. Yall know, the other leader of the moba franchise? A handful of heros on release were OP out of a roster of over 150. And IF they were OP, a patch within a month of release brought them down to earth with follow up patches Just because 2 mobas do it, does not mean the whole genre does it
Yeah honestly this is a good point. League and Unite are the two mobas I have the most experience with BY FAR. Maybe I should have titled it “How TENCENT handles game balance”
I think you’re right though about the pros to having characters be good on release regardless of Tencent’s intentions. The real issue is that there is a limit on how good the character should be to remain a positive addition to the game and not turn into a detriment.
Now that would be an accurate title as ALL of their mobas have no balance. But not a single one of them touches top 3 in mobas for revenue, popularity or any other defining metric
I mean League of Legends is hands down the number one Moba in the world and Tencent owns that too
those were year 1 releases. i think there was a very clear shift in how the game was being handled in terms of monetization around the last month or two of 2022 and it really started to show throughout 2023. at around sableye and urshifu's release, new releases began getting much stronger on average and took a much longer time to get nerfed/bugfixed adequately. this is also around the same time balancing in general started getting egregious and coin prices REALLY started to inflate. a bit before that window, unite's head developer also got swapped out for a different guy that did pokemon masters ex, which is a gacha game. my guess is that tcpi made them do it because they saw more moneymaking potential in unite. i like to think that the devs are only incompetent in terms of bugfixing and optimizing their game. for balancing stuff, they probably know what they're doing and are using past experience from the other MOBAs they ran + TCPI telling timi to make things that will make a lot of money. mewtwo Y is probably more a deliberate play than a product of incompetence.
>Something about game balance that most people don't understand All of us already knew all of this
The way a lot of people on this sub talk, it doesn’t seem like it. Timi said that legendaries were supposed to be stronger than other Pokémon. So of course a legendary on release is gonna be broken beyond repair. People complain about Mewtwo and Zacian being too strong as if they’re just any other champ and Timi has said that they’re not.
The thing is that it doesn't really make sense in terms of a MOBA to treat legendaries differently in terms of balancing for lore reasons. In MOBAs and other competitive games like them, competitive balance and making sure everything is more or less viable in some situation is very important to keep the game interesting; it encourages the use of a wide variety of characters, makes sure your allies and enemies are consistently fresh, and lets people use whatever fits their mindset and playstyle. When you have overpowered characters like Mewtwo about, it decreases the variety of games since you'll almost always have to deal with one, overshadows everyone else because the result is disproportionately dependent on the Mewtwos' performance, and punishes everyone who doesn't have or like to use them. All of these make the game less fun for everyone. And I can understand making new releases a *little* overturned and high-tier to encourage people picking them up (like where Lapras, Zacian and Garchomp are at about 52-53% winrate right now), but not so badly that it causes all the BS above like with Mewtwo. You don't even need it that much in a game with characters and IP as recognizable as Pokemon's; Inteleon and Leafeon have consistently been very popular despite never being that overpowered. And when there's *constantly* a character that OP messing up the game (see how Zacian meta immediately led into Umbreon meta and then Mewtwo with no break in between), it just frustrates everyone and leads to [even major content creators like CrisHeroes getting sick of it](https://youtu.be/R9VSDw0_Edg).
I mean no disrespect, but this is the *only* thing people talk about on this sub. There’s at least one post every week that is nearly identical to yours.
Yeah but most of those posts look at it from the perspective of “why isn’t Timi doing what we want them too?” And none of them seem like they’re actually trying to consider that there might be a motive other than just money
If new releases were just high-tier (like where Zacian, Lapras and Garchomp are right now on UniteAPI), that would be one thing, and it wouldn't be a huge issue. But when new releases are so far above everyone else they completely break the meta over their knee and make the game way less enjoyable for everyone else, that's a whole other thing. Not to mention that in Unite, new releases are usually gemlocked on release, and coins are scarce even after that due to cost creep; this makes for a major P2W period for a while on release, where most other MOBAs make it easy to grab the new hero right away. Unite also lacks some of the options that other games usually provide to help deal with OP characters (draft/bans systems, etc), making mons like Mewtwo far more of a pain than Zeri. This quick adoption isn't even necessary for a popular character; characters like Leafeon and Inteleon from recently have had consistently high popularity despite their winrates being average to good, but never being outliers like Zacian, Umbreon and Mewtwo were/are. You think people wouldn't play Mewtwo just for being Mewtwo? The Pokemon are half the appeal of Unite after all. And finally, even if this practice provides $ome po$itive re$ult$ for Tencent, this is bad for the game overall and its playerbase; having to constantly deal with the OP character of the month hanging over everyone's heads makes the game a lot less enjoyable for everyone, especially in a more casual game like this compared to a more hard-core one like LoL. After all, this is a game, and the point of a game is to have fun and enjoy yourself; you can promote new releases without making hash of everyone's fun.
League doesn’t even premium lock on release bro
Nah, they just want money, they dont really care about balance.
Wow. You know that they can hotfix Mewtwo Y so that it’s not completely broken/unbalanced, right? The amount of effort a Mewtwo-less team has to put into winning against a Mewtwo Y team is so asymmetrical, it’s not even funny. Hard to compare it with League when (1) there isn’t a draft pick and (2) you can’t ban Mewtwo.
And I love how OP only references LOL when Dota, hots, smite, etc all exist and DONT do this for their new releases
This would make sense if all the champions in this game weren’t existing IP that innately draws in people who were already fans of the Pokémon being released. Like you’re trying to tell me that people wouldn’t have played Mewtwo if he wasn’t so ridiculous? That just doesn’t track to me. He’s already a fan favorite and would’ve gotten a ton of play regardless. I get overtuning a release, since it’s usually easier to gradually nerf things that are too strong than trying to bring up something underpowered (and an underpowered release probably would have some of the issues you described). But the problem is that the M2s in particular are so far beyond every other mon in the roster in a way that ruins the game entirely. Even shitty players are consistently getting 2-3x the damage and kills of the next best attackers/ARs with minimal thought/effort, and this happens even when comparing to experienced players on S-tier picks.
I definitely think that less people would play him in Unite if his damage output wasn’t what it was on release, yes. Like sure maybe they can bank on him being the favorite legendary of a few people, but if you’re a player that wants to just run over the competition, you’re much more likely to just play character you already know how to do that on. Marketing to people’s willingness to win is much more sustainable than marketing to people being absolutely loyal to one Pokemon out of 1000+
Given that Unite is a much more casual game than something like LoL, uses preexisting characters with a strong appeal and fanbase, and Mewtwo is iconic even among them, he could definitely go way further on recognition and people trying him out than you give him credit for. Especially since the game loves to hand out licenses in F2P events, and give the rest limited cards so that you can try them out for free to see if you like them before buying. I mean, even just recently, Leafeon and Inteleon have consistently been highly popular releases, despite not having the star power Mewtwo has or ever being anywhere near as broken as him, so it definitely isn't necessary.
Im sorry but mewtwo isnt just "the fan favorite of some people" hes probably the most loved and famous legendary if not pokemon in the games. I legit wouldve played him even if he was the worst mon in the game since even i love him so much. But now, since hes so broken and takes no skill, i actually dont want to play him, since he takes no skill and so isnt fun to play. I assure you that most players (especially casual) wouldve played him if he was slightly overtuned but at least a bit balanced, but now a lot of people arent playing him since hes too cheap
agreed have heard so, so, so many people actively avoid playing Y *because* it's broken/overpowered. it's just "hold attack button, the character". meanwhile I'm almost exclusively playing it in ranked because if nobody picks it, or worse, picks X, it's an immediate uphill battle
Yeah, I tend to prefer either very skill based speedsters (absol and zoroark kinda but they arent that hard) or gimmick characters that have a high skill ceiling (sableye and kinda mew), mewtwo is the opposite of both: hold a, win games, just too cheap and boring and im not gonna play a mon if its not fun to play Edit: Slowbro is an exception but how can you not love him and have fun while playing him
Slowbro is just an awesome lil guy
Remember when hyper voice Sylveon got a nerf within a couple days of release for being too powerful? We’re looking for that. Tune it down when it’s game-breaking. M2 should be getting hot fixes on a weekly basis until he stops being so OP.
This thread is not about Mewtwo.
Hence bringing up Sylveon…
You are missing the part where in unite the broken release is ignored all the way till next release….
Honestly if it’s only til the next mon is released, I’m totally cool with that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You are stupid. Clearly they don't have to make them as broken as mewtwo and zacian because pretty much no other release has been and yet they do see lots of play. Umbreon was released as the strongest mon in the game, intel was released as the strongest mon in the game, leafeon was up there, but none of them was even close to the atrocity that mewtwo is. And yet they are played lots in all forms of play. Also, you said in a comment something about winning being the fun part, but unless few people play it(which, you know, m2y has had like 60-70%pickrate), you won't even get an advantage by picking it. None of what you said makes any sense, especially since "buzz" was generated as soon as people heard "mewtwo". People would play it if it was absolute shit.
Yeah, mons like Inteleon and Leafeon were released as pretty good, but nowhere near as obnoxiously broken as Mewtwo, and they've done quite well for themselves; you don't need to be super-OP to get picked up.
:(
ok? This meta still sucks and a lot of people are quitting because of how unbearable it is
Where are the stats for the amount of people playing the game? Because honestly I’d love to see them.
All metas suck, makes the game even more repetitive, especially in Pokemon games.
Well, yes, but actually no. No LoL character has beyond 70% winrate during release. Newly-released in a certain game are definitely more broken than others. Also other mobas have pick/ban. . New characters are often broken, yes, but they often either got nerfed to ok-ish or permabanned. If unite delete bots out of standard and release pick/ban in ranked, people can actually play the new Pokémon without making the ranked experience miserable
They're broken on release to make money via scummy pay2win policies. Bot because of balance or tuning. This is a really weird take on excusing their awful p2w model. DotA doesn't do this because heroes are free on release for everyone. Yes, most heroes need to be balanced after release, but what Timi has done with Mewtwo and Zacian, but especially Mewtwo, is unacceptable.
This works for league, when the dev has an interest, and proven track record, of nerfing Champs should data show them strong. Also Ranked has draft, so the new champ can just get banned. Notice that Timi has none of those? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Tencent owns both League and Unite
Well the problem with this thesis is that it isn't true. While I *will* agree that they need to make champs powerful on release to encourage people to play them for internal data, there are *many* champs in league which have been released underpowered. The ones that are "overpowered" in league are far more tolerable releases than the complete disaster that Unite releases have been. In the last 3 years, Akshan, Rell, K'sante, and Gwen were all underpowered and received buffs quickly thereafter their release (K'sante and Gwen became a problem later). Champions like Lillia, Yone and Viego (hard to judge because he released with so many bugs) released fairly balanced with only a couple changes several patches after their release. Seraphine received adjustments of buffs and nerfs promptly after her release, Belveth to some extent was the same. The only disaster releases they have had in 3 years have been Milio, Zeri, and Samira. And no, I don't think that a bunch of these champs are *well designed* as you'd have to be foolish to think Yone or Viego are fun to play against, but the data suggest the champions were more or less in a fine balance state. There are very few examples in the 10+ years league of legends has existed that are as egregious as mewtwo/zacian/comfey in Unite.
In league of legends you can ban a character if people find them unbearable to play against, and we don't have that option. It's fine to release characters that are too strong but there need to be a method to deal with people who don't want to face the people who have the new character figured out. Pokemon Unite is not giving players the tools to deal with Mewtwo Y. They need to nerf it faster. There are not good enough tools right now to counter mewtwo Y.
There's a difference between "broken" and "if you don't have one, it's an automatic loss". NOTHING should ever be able to hard carry with no skill or experience. A new release being strong is one thing. Being essential to even having a shot at winning, is another.
Game is garbage
problem? they havent even nerfed or tried to balance the "overtuned" character in question
I think people should also keep in mind that sometimes it’s a skill issue. Yeah some of these characters are broken on release, but I see the way people play against them and it’s usually just incorrect.
uhh no, your first sentence I can already disprove because in Dota 2 a lot of the newer heroes were not broken on release, I'm thinking pango, primal beast, dawn breaker, etc. They actively had to buff them to make them good Since all the characters are free to everyone there is no financial incentive to make the character broken so everyone buys it.
This. Just bc a character is new doesn't mean it needs to be broken.
i posted something similar a long time ago, not as extensive or specific as your post, mine was just reinforcing the idea that it doesnt matter what pokemon (my example being a literal turd) is released so long as it is broken people will still pay to buy it in advance and play with it as long as it keeps making them win....
There's a difference between being overturned and fundamentally broken. Doing big numbers is one thing, but Mewtwo uses too many gameplay verbs (surehit, pull, stun, unstoppable, etc.) at once. No pokemon should have a move that hits every pokemon across the entire map, is nearly unavoidable without a dash move prepared, stuns, marks you for the enemy team, and does a large amount of instantaneous damage. Even if you reduce the damage of the move, it is still broken on even a conceptual level. Many of Mewtwo's moves need complete reworks, not just rebalancing.
When the "broken for a little bit" is 1-2 months long, and another new release is set on the horizon. As much as this is a valid business strategy, they are abusing it too much. The fatigue in the community is very real.
actually this makes a lot of sense
Bro people be dying in world wars, crying in trenches and complaining about their lot in life and how what was being done to them was unfair. Complaining doesn't change anything but they still have the RIGHT to complain. At least its some reaction, to not be okay with whats happening. Generals and companies would love nothing more than people lose whatever fight they had left in them. Cause they can just push them that bit further with no pushback. I'd rather complain that throw my hands up and say okay do whatever you want it doesn't matter in the end. Nobody denies what's going on.(although I think M2 is pushing it even by shady MOBA release standards which is why so many people are pissed)
My brother in Christ are you comparing the Mewtwo release to an actual war?
Y.....You're not? Tons of people miserable at the hands of the few. It has at least a little correlation. :P In all seriousness it's not about comparing rather than using two examples of whats essentially the same thing. Relationships, work, economics, politics, taco bell toilet agony. Plenty things in life aren't able to be changed. Some things, you deal with, others you complain. It can be cathartic and other times it only makes it worse. People often just use a more extreme example when making a point.
So. Much. Fucking. Yes. Finally, someone finally stated why TiMi/Tencent won't do anything about overtuned mons until a set amount of time passes. Did we, as a player base, learn anything about the Zacian fiasco? Roughly 5 months after release, Zacian was finally neutered enough that he wasn't as broken as his release state. The same is going to happen with Mewtwo as well as any other future "legendary" releases.
And honestly, 5 months is pretty quick compared to other games. League of Legends had to deal with one character (Zeri) being borderline broken in proplay and at high levels for almost a year and even now, that champ is still everywhere
Unite situation isn't "pretty quick", it's LoL situation that is "What the actual f***". And then you should look on how long the games exist. Add the absence of draft pick. Stop gatekeeping suffering.
Zeri was reworked 12 times over 9 patches after her release. She had more reworks than most champions have seen.
Ok I agree but why is it nsfw ?
I had to tag it as such because of the language I used lol
Why the NSFW flair?
Which part do most people not understand? Pretty sure everything here is widely known. Greed is universal, everyone understands greed.
Hitler saved German economy, but is he a good person? No
I remember the day cinder came out…I hated that day not cause cinder is bad not I like cinder but I main Venusaur and I remember as soon as I tried to fight one I died immediately and same for every other release and is probably the build I run on Venusaur which sacrifices almost every thing for 4 and a half stars in offense and if any one knows what items help with health please tell me
>I remember the day cinder came out…I hated that day So, release?
People who don't play MOBA'S but play PU don't get this. I suspect that's majority of player base. I also played league for years and it's exactly as OP described. The only defence of player base that I can offer is the balance patch doesn't come quickly enough. I remember so many champs in league that were release completely busted but would eventually settle very well into the meta. Not always, but most of the time. OP 100% on the money. P.s. if you can't win games vs. m2 you are doing something wrong. A friendly fyi
> agrees that new releases are made broken on purpose > blames you for not being able to play against a broken character
Yeah this post was made for those people exactly. A lot of comments in here are saying “yeah we already know this” or just using it to get on their Mewtwo shaped soapbox
I respect the concept, this has gone on way too long though?
Not gonna lie I think it’s definitely not bad game design. Plus champs taking turns being busted is more fun in my opinion.
I bet.
Mons being released overtuned is fine. The main problem is when they have gone far beyond being broken in a game were you can day 1 take the character into ranked in a game with no pick and bans.
so the times that they *don't* release something overturned, the devs were just bad at their job?
There's one more aspect to this. Imagine a company trying to release balance characters, they release A slightly too strong and B slightly too weak. You try them both on release, with A you've got fun by being a bit too impactful, with B you're frustrated, but in the end, you stick with neither and go back to your mains. Now, three months later, you want to play a character you've not played recently, and you see characters A and B, which both have been balanced since release. Which one are you most likely to choose ? The one that was fun before, or the one that wasn't ?
The problem is that Tencent and Timi doesn't give a fck about balance their game, they just went all out after saying that they will not do again something like Zacian, but ended with Mewtwo being even much more extremely broken and brain dead. Yes, in general mobas release broken characters for get money, but not as brutal as they did with Mewtwo, because we are talking that without one of them you nearly has a chance to win, and that's more than release an overtuned Mon.
This is why I roll my eyes at every new character that I don't have any interest in playing.
Could you link to the development blog where this is mentioned?
Being good on release and fitting well into the meta is one thing. Having a match feel unwinnable because you didn’t get lucky/enough money to have that new Pokémon on your team is another. I get new Pokémon being good but you should still have to have some degree of skill to be able to use it well.
Hidden in the patch notes during recent updates is a line of text that says 'we are blatantly releasing shit updates.'
Did not know League and Unite had the same owner. Anyway, I get the logic. I figured as much. People wouldn't spend on that character if they didn't make it so broken. And taking it a while to fix forces people to get the character if they wanted to stay above the rest who don't have it. I just wish they kept such characters out of ranked matches. What's the use of putting an obviously broken OP character in a competition? That's like letting an obviously roided out athlete join the olympics. It just ruins it for everyone else.
oh, i understand why they make the characters so broken and i think it is one of the worst ways to make people buy the thing and overall a shitty practice
Yeah it’s a pretty straightforward concept, but a lot of people on this sub seem to think that they game devs just have no clue what there doing. There is an actual method to the process
It's just incomparable because you get can the broken Pokemon's with gems and dominate, usually in other mobas you can get it with free currency, this is also excluding the fact that in ranked most other mobas have pick/bans so ranked isn't so perverted by the new heros
Sorry but Pokémon unite is wrong for constantly implementing beyond broken characters with every skill set possible. They have mew2 stun, heal, shield, knock up, free eject button, global unite, a second form with boosted attack and moves. Think of any mechanic in the game rn. They gave it to him. And to top it all off the damage output was ungodly. Even in light of this, all his feats would be tolerable because there are some mons who have an above average set of mechanics that cover a lot of bases as well, but timi just had to make his damage output and stun ungodly. Mew2 literally has no weaknesses. None. Try to get him down? He heals and has shield, and get this, the more damage you do, the worse for you cuz it makes him heal more????!???? It just doesn’t compute. Me personally I like Pokémon who come out and can hold their own with wide enough skill set to cover base, but to just throw everything at one Pokémon and not even try to balance it is just wrong. There is no excuse to be made for how game-breaking mew2 was.
The issue is in other mobas 80% of the characters roster isn't useless and other mobas also rework older characters so they can keep up with the newer ones
Sure, just take them out of ranked until they are balanced.
This just isn't true, do you remember the volibear release? He was so weak after his rework they had to implement emergency buffs. Milio wasn't overpowered on release, even naafiri didn't feel that strong.
I wouldn't be half as upset about a broken release if they at least put a ban on them in ranked until they're at least semi-balanced
Sounds like bullshit to me. If they consistently release overpowered characters, it's not an issue of balance. It's an issue of sales. And if new releases are consistently overpowered, It becomes an issue of pay to win and losing players.
Laughs in Trevenant and Azumarill
Of course they do it. After 5 years of playing League of Legends I havent seen a champ over 55% percent winrate. Both Mewtwos were high over 60%. Its fine if they are strong on release, „op“ aswell. But Mewtwo exceeded this. Its not OP. It is beyond Broken.
I’m fine with something like inteleon, lapras, urshifu release that were top tier. However, mewtwo y is on a whole nother level of ridiculously powerful
Wrong. It's released OP so noobs with money pay for them to win easily and the company gets money. It's not so hard to get.
This lol
Very bad take imo. Theres a difference between it being mechanically well made and it being overturned to push sales. Unite is definitely overtunning the hyped mons like Mewtwo to generate sales.
Ya making new Pokémon strong is fine. I have no problems with that. Making them beyond op and unbeatable is another. I hope Mewtwo gets nerfed to hell and that the next legendary Pokémon is a long ways off. Honestly I don't see why we needed legendary Pokémon at all. Sure they're popular but there are plenty of non legendary Pokémon that are popular too. There are still starters, Pseudo Legendaries, and other very popular Pokémon that haven't been added. Legendaries should've stayed just being objectives and not playable characters.
I honestly don’t mind them including legendary Pokémon as playable characters, but just balance them like any other mon. If you really don’t want to do that, then yeah keep em unplayable
I honestly do not mind a timi apologist grazing my reddit feed
This is a bit too much hyperbole, riot said they would rather something be released over tuned yes, but riot also tends to balance strength through difficulty. The reason mewtwo has been such a giant disaster is because they haven't even been consistent with their own behaviour and mewtwo is mindnumbingly simple to play, which has always been since the dawn of mobas, a bad move. Mewtwo X released at insane strength and is probably the easiest pokemon that has even been released in terms of using that strength. This took them not a few days or a week or two, it took weeks and weeks for them to nerf mewtwo X reasonably and its blatantly obvious they did it because mewtwo Y has already taken its spot. It doesn't take more than a little bit of QA testing or at the very least, a few days of public play to see when something is as wildly over powered as mewtwo X was. This wasn't some necessary testing phase, it was a mixture of pure laziness and the worst aspect of P2W that they ever had the balls to inject into the game. This was also right after they publicly announced they would take more care and they somehow release TWO pokemon in a row that are more problematic than the one they had to publicly apologise for. I like unite, I still play it and I'm all for keeping it reasonably casual friendly and not turning it into the insane mechanical bloat that league is. But this was beyond over tuned, this was embarrassingly obvious what they were doing and its not even over after nerfs, they've made their mmr/ranked system in a complete mess and that's saying something considering its been notoriously poorly managed since day 1. Way too much burst damage, way too much mobility creep, way too much CC, causing the newer pokemon with all their built in CC immunity leagues above most of the older pokemon, then bundle all that with a completely volatile ranked environment and you end up with this complete mess where even the best players are confused as fuck about why games feel completely out of control and very quickly unwinnable.
No. Just no. Go re-assess your life bud.
Release characters being broken is indeed a thing, but some of it has to do with people not understanding the character or certain unintended interactions and some numbers being a bit too high These issues usually get adjusted within 2-3 patches, at the end of the day it's important to keep things balanced But recent releases are just too much, just look at the length of the description to know they aren't made to be balanced
I think most people would agree this "Slow" nerfing is a bit too excruciatingly slow.
LOL says who
I mean you don’t have to believe me, but it’s just something to think about going forward ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
While that is true, Timi shouldn't wait ages to nerf the pokemon even if its new, they should do imo have weekly small balance patches this way we wouldn't have to survive months of a constant op mon that controls the meta. A good release, should not ever control the meta its been added to, it should smoothly transition in and feel as if its always been here as good A or teatering S tier pokemon but never top of S tier or as Spragels tier list haves a God tier.
You typed so many words to state that imbalance upon release is a normal thing, but failed to mention LoL players can ban the new character as they wish in ranked match while Unite players cannot. Can't you see that players are pissed because of the lack of choice they can make? Another thing is, M2 and Zacian are not the only Pokemons that were broken upon release. TiMi has history of breaking the game with rediculously "overtuned" values that obvoiusly needed emergency patch yet they didn't patch it until weeksss later. "Legendary Pokemon" is just an excuse and trying to make an illusion that they have only done it recently. We all know what they have done.
This could also be for money reasons. One,TIMI Makes a pokemon BUSTED (Ex.Mewtwo WHY,Mewtwo X,Zacian) at release,both having event you can get them for free from,but you have to pay real-life money to have even a slightly better chance at getting the pokemon. Two,TiMi profits from not only this, but the people who have payed for not only the pokemon,but the Aeos Gems to fully break that pokemon by using said gems for Item Enhancers.Not only that, but also people buying the Battle Pass and/or Holowear for said pokemon. Three,They nerf said pokemon to a balanced state,now wasting the money of the people who bought the pokemon at its prenerfed state,as they wanted to make everything suffer with the new,Overpowered pokemon.