Marvel's Avengers' latest patch brought with it a slew of matchmaking improvements and bug fixes, but a balancing update has left many players feeling more upset with the game than before. While the game has seen its fair share of backlash from players over various issues, such as Marvel's Avengers' inaccurate Kate Bishop MCU skin, the recent update has become the center of controversy due to its dramatic nerf of the game's collectible comic books, which provide passive stat boosts for players who spend the time grinding for repeats in order to increase the Comic Books' tier ranking. In particular, the update nerfed the Comic Books that provided a boost to armor, which gives players damage reduction. The initial tiers for the armor boosts were 1.1% / 12% / 13% / 14% / 15%, but have since been reduced to 1% / 2% / 3% / 4% / 5%.
This is a pretty significant reduction in stats and is especially frustrating for players who play tank type characters, such as Marvel's Avengers' Hulk, as armor is an important part of how they stay alive and pull damage off of their teammates. While players reaching 100% armor and becoming unkillable does throw off the balance of the game, the nerf to comic books has damaged the builds of many players who don't have the specific gear and setup that gave them 100% armor. The comic books were only a small part of the build that allowed players to reach 100% armor, but the stat boosts they provided were vital to the survivability rates of players who chose to focus on other stats in their gear and champion points.
While Crystal Dynamics has assured players that these balancing changes are vital to Marvel's Avengers' upcoming 2022 plans, many players have been left wondering if there was a better way the game could have been balanced. According to the official patch notes released on the Marvel's Avengers website, this nerf was introduced in order to "prevent players from obtaining 100% armor, which negated all damage". Ideally, Crystal Dynamics would have come up with a solution that allowed most players to keep their builds intact without allowing them to break the game's balance. Many stat based games employ a stat ceiling, which limits the number of stat boosts players can stack, ensuring that they don't push over a limit that damages the balance of the game. This tactic might have worked well in Avengers' case, limiting players from being able to hit 100% armor while not reducing the boosts from the comic books for players with a lower armor stat.
Why The Nerf To Armor Has Hurt Marvel's Avengers Players
While Crystal Dynamics has been frustrating players with inaccurate hair designs in Marvel's Avengers, the balancing issue is likely to have a more damaging effect on the player base in the long term. In Marvel's Avengers, Comic Books can only be obtained through a random drop chance from strongboxes, or via limited-time Priority H.A.R.M Room Missions. That means that maxing out a particular Comic Book's trait (which requires 100 duplicates of the same Comic Book) requires a lot of time and dedication on a player's part. Nerfing the effects of the higher-tiered Comic Books has left many players feeling as though the time and effort they put into grinding them has now been a waste and could leave some players to wonder what other high-level Comics or gear might be nerfed in the future. In addition, since Marvel's Avengers only features co-op play, the high levels of armor don't provide a competitive advantage to certain players over others.
Luckily, the recent release of Spider-Man's first MCU suit in Marvel's Avengers (from Spider-Man: Far From Home) has been well received by PlayStation players for its onscreen accuracy. While many players are still upset over the 2.2.2 patch's nerfs to armor, many others are looking forward to the game's upcoming 2022 content. Fans are hoping to see Crystal Dynamics release a roadmap for Marvel's Avengers 2022 lineup in the coming weeks.
Source: Marvel's Avengers