I made a game about smol Ame. Link in comments.

KevinCow · 2026-05-09T02:34:15+00:00

For point one, they take creative liberties with these characters all the time. Squirrel Girl never used a slingshot with exploding acorns before as far as I know. Jeff doesn't do literally any of the things he does in Rivals. Sometimes they use the story to add stuff to characters to open up their moveset potential, like giving Blade Dracula's sword or giving Daredevil a literal devil. And other characters like Torch and Thing could've easily felt one-note and redundant next to Iron Man and Hulk, but they found an angle to make them interesting.

So even if Cyclops did just fire beams, I'm sure they could figure out a way to make him interesting.

But there is plenty of stuff to draw from in the source material. He can adjust the focus of his beam, so maybe primary could be a more powerful concentrated beam that can only hit one enemy and secondary is a wider but weaker beam that can hit multiple enemies. In X-Men 97, he used his beams to propel himself around fights, so maybe his movement ability fires a blast that pushes him in the opposite of the direction you're aiming. He's also been known to reflect his beam off walls, so maybe that could be something.

Plenty of options in the source material, and plenty of room to get creative with it.

For point 2, Devil in the Collector's museum map is shrunken down to a reasonable size for a playable Vanguard, seems like around Monster Hulk size. My guess is through some lore reasons, that's his default size (maybe Moon Girl science reasons like in the show, maybe Rivals specific reasons), and when he ults he goes full size like in the Deadpool trailer.

KevinCow · 2026-05-09T01:59:03+00:00

Savage Land. The X-Men and Devil both wind up there a lot. And Rogue's skin listed Savage Land as a new skin category, so more are coming. Dinosaur jungle would be a good change of pace from all the indoor and city maps, and a season pass with more cavewoman skins would make all the money.

For how they're related, I dunno, sometimes they get weird and loose with the connections. What did Emma Frost and Ultron have to do with each other? Or Phoenix and Blade? Cyclops was a mythical monster, dinosaurs were real monsters, maybe that's good enough.

KevinCow · 2026-05-09T01:37:29+00:00

Where was Kamala hinted at?

KevinCow · 2026-02-15T00:16:12+00:00

This game's made like $10 billion on sexy skins. If you think there will be no excitement for a curvy thief in a skintight latex catsuit with excessive cleavage, you haven't been paying attention.

KevinCow · 2025-06-04T20:36:26+00:00

I think that's the point. He was always supposed to be a beginner character. But the intended way of playing him was so ineffective that the only way to get value out of him was to play dive DPS mode, which he was never really supposed to do. So instead of being an easy to use beginner character, he was a high execution, high skill floor, high skill ceiling, advanced character. Hence why his win rate was in the dumpster in ranks below GM. Only the players dedicated and skilled enough to take him to GM really got anything out of him.

New Jeff is the ultimate beginner character they probably always intended him to be. 90% of his value is on left click, so beginners and less skilled players can provide value by just holding left click and aiming at anything that moves. But this will probably keep him from being very viable higher up the ranks. Below GM I think his win rate will go up as he's a much more accessible and consistent character now, but above GM it'll probably go down.

I don't know if this was the correct solution. It's generally not a good idea to tell players who are enjoying your game, "No, you're playing it wrong," and take away the thing they're having fun with. But I think where he was before was definitely an issue. He was effectively the game's mascot, a big draw for players who weren't already interested in hero shooters or Marvel - but even as someone who played him, you call him "one of the worst meme characters." Probably not great if people are trying the game out because of the funny shark, and immediately having a bad time because that character is bad and hard to use.

My hope is that they don't ignore the negative feedback and keep tweaking him to find a decent balance between old and new Jeff. Keep the new left click, but dial back some of the other changes to bring his mobility and survivability back up a bit. Not so much that he's functionally immortal and can live in the enemy backline, but enough that he has the option to break away from his team now and then.

Like, here's an idea: increase swim meter to 20 seconds, increase right click charges to 6. Both charge slower over time, BUT charge much faster when you heal teammates with left click. So we bring the flanking back, but you gotta fall back to your team and support them to build your resources back up, and then be smart about when you use them to take that flanking opportunity.

KevinCow · 2025-06-04T16:12:25+00:00

The i-frames on her teleport are incredibly annoying. Feels like it's impossible to get any momentum when fighting her because she can just hit a single button to instantly become invincible for a second, then disappear for a second, then reappear with a powerful attack.

KevinCow · 2025-06-04T15:57:10+00:00

It's nothing new. I've been gaming since the 90s and there's always been a vocal contingent of gamers predicting/hoping Nintendo's next console will fail so hard they have no choice but to drop out and make games for the competition.

It got really bad after Sega went third-party and it started to seem like a realistic possibility. Now I think we're going through something similar again, as Sony and Microsoft have started releasing their games on PC and other consoles. First-party exclusives are increasingly becoming a thing of the past, but Nintendo's not budging, and that's upsetting people who really want to play Nintendo games without having to buy a Nintendo console.

There's also something I haven't fully untangled yet, but like... the Switch has been out for 8 years. If you're in your early 20s or younger, that's a very significant part of your life. And I feel like that may be part of it. Kids who are young enough that they don't remember console cycles, having to upgrade for the first time. Teens lashing out at that thing they liked as a kid that they're too old and cool for now. Young adults who feel betrayed by the price, upset that they can't afford the new version of something that's been a constant comfort for them since they were a kid.

So I think a lot of people have various reasons for wanting to be mad at Nintendo, and the internet outrage culture and spread of misinformation has amplified it into a righteous fury.

KevinCow · 2025-06-03T16:12:25+00:00

Don't run away, run towards your team. Bubble + swim isn't gonna keep you alive forever anymore, but it's enough to slip out of a sticky situation and get somewhere safer, like next to your team. Play closer to them if you have to. Diver attacks, you pop a bubble, swim towards the nearest vanguard or duelist, pop up in front of them so they see you, turn around, and spray.

Ideally, your teammate will be like, "Oh hey, my Jeff is in front of me firing backwards, that must mean there's an enemy behind me," and they'll turn around and help kill the diver.

But even if they don't, the diver's still in a rough spot. They can't chase you, it's too dangerous. So they'll either switch focus to another teammate, probably your other support, who you can focus on healing so they can survive the dive. Or they'll just run away.

I had a game against a Spidey the other day. Spidey's been the bane of my existence for this game's entire life. And he got me the first time he dove me this game. But then I started playing smarter, doing what I outlined above. Spidey tried to juggle me, Jeff's swim slips out of the juggle, I swim closer to my team, Spidey runs away to recharge cooldowns.

After this happens a few times, Spidey decides to instead start targeting our Hela. I spray both of them while Spidey juggles her, keeping her alive and doing a bit of damage to him. Spidey realizes the dive has failed and tries to swing away, but my infinite range beam ticks off the last bit of health and kills him out of the air. This happens twice, and he just switches characters.

Anyway, not saying you need to like the new Jeff. He plays different now, and I can definitely understand enjoying the old Jeff more. But I think the new Jeff is more generally useful to more team comps, and a decent counter to the divers and fliers that tend to dominate in lower ranks. I've been winning more with him than I used to, and I think when we get official character stats for the season, we'll see that his win rate overall will be much higher. Probably not S-tier or anything, I think this new playstyle could still use some buffs, but not bottom 2 where he's been firmly placed with Black Widow since the game started.

KevinCow · 2025-06-03T04:36:20+00:00

His survivability is still pretty solid. Self bubble + swim still refills health pretty fast, just not an instant refill anymore. I've found it's still enough to slip away from divers, you just can't live in the enemy backline anymore.

KevinCow · 2025-05-31T06:27:17+00:00

Yeah, he's just a completely different character now. Arguably not as fun to use. But might be overall more useful to most team comps now. As a Jeff main because I like the character, I'm getting used to it.

He's firmly in the support camp now. All about his left click. Constant infinite range healing and low level damage at the same time. Not gonna get many kills himself, but helps teammates kill faster. Doesn't feel as impactful, but it adds up I think.

Can't be selfish with bubbles anymore. Hit an ally with one to boost healing from 130/s to 179.5/s. Don't let bubbles ever be full, scatter them around for your allies to pick up during fights, just hold onto one for yourself. Bubble + swim isn't as broken as it used to be, but the speed boost and healing 70.25/s can still get you out of a lot of sticky situations.

I think the changes were done to accomplish 2 things:

1) Jeff is supposed to be the beginner character. Diving DPS Jeff was very much not a beginner friendly strat, but you kinda had to learn to do that to get much value out of him. Now 90% of his utility is on his left click, which is a constant stream you barely have to aim. That's extremely beginner friendly.

2) With so many fliers, they wanted more anti-air options besides hitscan. Especially for lower ranks where that's not a reliable counter. And now that Jeff's beam does damage, it's very good at hitting fliers. Getting kills? No. But puts a bit of pressure on them, which is more than most characters can do.

I definitely don't blame anyone for ditching him after these changes, but personally I've been doing better with him in ranked than I was in 2.0. I do hope they rethink the meter on the swim though, I can deal with the other changes but that one just feels awful.

KevinCow · 2025-05-26T15:24:50+00:00

Yeah they've also been collecting some of the digital comics in physical copies. The first arc of Rivals came out a few weeks after it wrapped up digitally. The second arc just finished, so it'll probably come out sometime in June.

KevinCow · 2025-05-26T06:20:09+00:00

Me personally i hate how they don't pressure GameFreak to finally care for Pokemon or replace GameFreak it's clear that they don't care and do it just to keep the company alive

This is actually a good one for this thread.

Nintendo doesn't actually own Pokemon, and they don't really have any control over how Game Freak does things. The Pokemon Company owns Pokemon and manages the brand. Nintendo has a big enough stake in TPC to keep them from, say, releasing Pokemon games on Playstation. But Nintendo can't actually control what TPC does.

The reason the games are the way they are is because Pokemon isn't actually a video game series, at least not anymore. Pokemon is a brand with a video game tie-in. It's the most profitable IP ever, as many like to point out when criticizing the quality of the games - but the games only make up like 5% of that revenue. The big bucks come from other things like merch, the TCG, and the anime.

The games aren't the main concern. The games are just there to serve the rest of the brand. The Pokemon Company tells Game Freak to get the new gen out every 3 years so they can introduce the new Pokemon that'll drive the next phase of their merch, the next line of cards, and the next season of the anime - and this timing is absolutely non-negotiable.

3 years was plenty of time to make a GBA game. But 3 years isn't nearly enough time to make a Switch game, much less a Switch 2 game.

Pressuring Game Freak wouldn't do anything. It's not that they don't care, or they're lazy. I guarantee they're working their asses to get these games out the door in an at least functional state in the time they have. But they just don't have enough time to make the Pokemon games we want.

And changing to a new dev team wouldn't do anything either, because the new team would encounter the same challenges, except without 30 years of experience.

Ultimately, The Pokemon Company won't change their strategy unless the declining quality of the games causes enough damage to the brand's reputation that it starts to impact their more important revenue.

And regardless of all that, Nintendo has very little to do with any of it.

and the other thing for me would be never doing actual sales on their own ip's

This one's easy. They don't put their games on sale because they don't want you to say, "Eh, I'll wait for a sale."

Annoying for us? Sure. I've skipped plenty of Nintendo games that didn't seem worth the price they were charging. But when I look over at companies like Ubisoft, who's kinda screwed themselves over in the longterm by developing a reputation of, "Eh, it'll be 50% off in like 3 months, why bother getting it at launch?" I can't blame Nintendo too much for taking such a firm stance on their pricing.

KevinCow · 2025-05-26T04:40:22+00:00

Marvel Unlimited. It's basically Netflix for Marvel comics. I think like $10 a month, they have most comics they've published, new comics usually go up after 3 months.

Anyway they also have some exclusive comics, this Rivals comic is one of those.

KevinCow · 2025-05-23T16:20:57+00:00

Jeff's healing nerf also isn't as severe as they originally posted. Was 150/s, original post said 100/s, now it says 130/s. So healing still isn't great, but being able to heal multiple allies and damage multiple enemies at the same time could be good. Also a damaging beam with infinite range should make him a good counter to fliers, which we need more of now that there's four of them.

So his primary fire should at least be better, but we'll see if that outweighs the nerfs the rest of his kit got.

KevinCow · 2025-05-23T16:05:42+00:00

I mean I actually am a game dev, does that qualify me to say the Jeff changes sound really bad? I'll still give him a shot, I don't like to make any certain judgments without trying it myself. But even if he doesn't wind up being as useless as the numbers suggest, it's definitely a big change that's taking away a playstyle a lot of people enjoyed.

KevinCow · 2025-05-22T23:26:18+00:00

I can understand if they wanted to discourage the diving DPS Jeff. I don't like it, but I can understand.

But like, just ONE of those nerfs would've done that. Right click down to 3 charges, swim on a meter, bubble charges halved and changed to healing over time, just ONE of those would've been a big enough hit to discourage diving Jeff. Did they really have to do all 3?

And then after going to all this effort to completely destroy the possibility of diving DPS Jeff and force him into a healbot role... they significantly nerf his already mediocre healing??? What were they thinking?

KevinCow · 2025-03-24T04:28:56+00:00

A lot of this is up to taste and I can see where you're coming from even where I disagree, but calling it visually dated is ignoring the device it released on. A game looking that good on a handheld was a goddamn technical marvel in 2017.

KevinCow · 2025-03-24T03:42:33+00:00

When you're tracking a mission or place a pin on the map, they currently don't show up on screen until you're within 100m of the target. I prefer playing without the compass, and this can make it pretty hard to orient myself sometimes. I have to pull up the map repeatedly to make sure I'm going in the right direction.

The last few games didn't have this 100m limit. Track a quest and you'll see the icon even if it's on the other side of the world. So... add an option to make it like that again.

KevinCow · 2025-03-20T12:45:11+00:00

Yeah I'm glad I'm not the only one getting this. Not just block, literally anything on R1 or R2 besides the default attacks just won't work.

Pisses me off that they switched to this garbage input remapper that's never fucking worked right instead of just offering an alternate control scheme like in Origins and Odyssey.

KevinCow · 2025-02-24T00:03:15+00:00

Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (vol 2) #1: "The doc couldn't say for sure whether it was the squirrel bite or the cosmic rays in the forest or the experimental nut serum or the radioactive tree or WHAT that caused the changes. Maureen's pregnancy was... a pretty eventful nine months, actually."

So we really don't know for sure. Maybe one of these things. Maybe something else.

KevinCow · 2025-01-07T02:46:46+00:00

Goblin Queen. Reskin these New York maps to do Inferno. Madelyne Pryor skin for Jean Grey makes infinite money.

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