@Polaris
This was originally meant for the Q&A response thread, but as it got closed so I decided to make it an own post.
This is something I came to think of in regard to the question of whether or not to refresh/buff tutorial characters and I wondered if you could forward this to Leaf and the others as feedback.
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Player: Why some of the earliest heroes released with poorest stats as Ralph, Yax, Vanellope or Woody never were refreshed, and heroes like Dr. Facilier received full refresh, even if his situation wasn’t like Basil’s or beta heroes? It doesn’t help with balance at all. Is there a way for you guys to buff ALL old (first edition) heroes of this game at the same time? I don’t talk about changing their skill set or anything, just some basic stat and friend disc stat buff are fine. This will help a lot of players as we all have our bias so every time there are polls to decide who gets refreshed, it all leads to no-need argument and disappointment.
[Leaf] We’ve looked into refreshing the heroes everyone gets access to at the very beginning of the game, like Vanelope or Ralph, but we keep coming to the roadblock that it will throw off the balance and the play of the early game. Players who are new to Disney Heroes will have a more confusing experience, and will be less likely to keep playing and join our community. We’ve decided to hold off on refreshing Vanelope and other very early heroes like her until we can come up with a better solution.
Counter Question/Answer: Actually I would say your response Leaf kind of contradicting itself depending on how you look at it. If you mean specifically in the tutorial in the beginning I suppose I can see the point there, but if so mainly increase the Blue skill and up if not the Green skill as well. The higher rank skill could give bonuses to the White skills to have it not fall behind.
I can say that I in server 5 actually help new players choose the best characters they can based on what they have gotten. Like a person got Shan Yu at around White rank if not green rank, I recommended them switching out Ralph as Shan Yu is newer and better, overall will help the player progress faster. When they get Maximus I will recommend switching from Shan Yu to Maximus, since Maximus is overall newer and better.
By recommending newer characters I prepare the new players for the future, that way helping them have more fun in the game most likely. Most people I help are usually really grateful and overall something I recommend people doing in other servers as well if possible :-).
The Most Important Points:
A new thing I realized thanks to Musketeer/ChristmasKimtasticSeason earlier comment here is the fact that all the non-tutorial characters in the first chapters as a part of the tutorial have likely been refreshed or buffed when the characters got buffed, as in The Incredibles, Judy and Yax.
As such the first chapter tutorial wise and early chapters overall are likely harder than originally intended as the creep versions of the characters have been refreshed or buffed along with the actual characters. Mr.Incredibles and Dash are likely the most dangerous out of them. (If the Tutorial versions have special made stats for the tutorial it is another thing kind of, but still after the tutorial the characters will still be affected).
Another thing is the fact that like Musketeer/ChristmasKimtasticSeason mentioned in the forum is that the characters you select from like Mr.Incredibles, Bogo, Nick, Felix and Woody have all been refreshed or buffed at some point, beside maybe Woody. So you are relatively early introducing a new and better character to them, as well as the early game crates you can get and actually get meta characters from them.
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So yeah, I think it is best to refresh/buff the tutorial characters given that one: If you don’t buff the tutorial characters and all the other early chapter enemy characters, new players may not actually be able to progress at all as the refreshed/buffed enemies are too strong in the early part of the tutorial. (This of course won’t happen if the tutorial stats are specifically scripted, but otherwise this may eventually become a problem).
I also imagine that this situation of not refreshing/buffing the tutorial characters and only refreshing/buffing most other characters will and maybe have caused disbalances in terms of the intended experience in the early chapters from how it originally was, since the refreshes and buffs leads to stronger enemies I assume.
Second point: Even at White rank new players from what I understand can easily get new characters from the Diamond Crates that got added to the early game, so there are no real reason not to buff the tutorial characters as more early players get more powerful characters quickly anyway.
Beside I think they are likely more confused by why their starter characters seem so weak overall, compared to getting good characters early that can actually be useful for a long time.
To combat new player confusion people in other servers can do what I have done and basically be server 5’s community helper and kind of community manager as well.
While not every day maybe always, I frequently in server 5 help people by recommending what characters to use based on what characters they have gotten, that way reducing their confusion in terms of who to use.
Another way to combat new player from the developers side would be to update tips to recommend using newer characters, as well as adding a sort/filter that lets you search/check characters by launch year, that way new players can more easily know which characters are likely stronger.
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I hope this can be forwarded as feedback as I think this is an important discussion and something that really need to be done something with, since it would likely overall improve the new player’s experience and more likely have a long lasting good impression, as well as of course a good time.
As for other players like myself I hope you all find this post interesting and hope it is fine that it is a bit long :-).
It is overall important for us players to get the best start we can which is why I made this post, and hopefully we can get an answer even if we have to wait for a more complex answer to over new year if PerBlue close today for Christmas. (On that, hope you all at PerBlue have a good Christmas break as well).
So yeah, hopefully we players can get a small answer today if possible, even of course a full answer would be the most appreciated :-).
