Marvel's Avengers is spiralling

 It's 8:15; that's the time that it's always been.

Marvel really has been on something of a successful revival for it's brand lately, after their self-imposed hiatus following 'Endgame'. (Well, after 'Far From Home' to be fair, but we all pretend the cut-off was Endgame because that's just more neat) I remember noting it smart on their part to take such a break, before people grew too bored of the traditional Marvel formula, but coming back was always going to be an issue. How would they do it? Would it be a chance to edge their toes into new frontiers, put Marvel on new platforms? And then we got the Avengers video game, which lacked so much that the movies had in terms of continuity, charm, writing, and even actor's licenses that it might as well have been an rouge unlicensed title. And then Marvel just moved to try and conquer TV through Wandavision somewhat successfully, and I completely forgot that game ever happened. As did a lot of folk. So the Avengers game has no more draw to it as the 'grand return of Marvel'. (Quite liked Wandavision by-the-by. The last episode was pretty weak but the others were stellar) Yet I am forever interested in the gaming world, and so I do think back to that game with it's weak launch, weak content and weak playerbase in order to wonder; what's up with them?

Because as Todd Howard once famously said "Don't hate the player, baby, hate the ga-" wait a second... no, he actually said "It's not about how you launch it's about what you become." And what a concise and insightful thing ol' Todd uttered that fateful day, no really. I mean just look at Anthem. It launched as a premature mess with weak foundation propped on a decent, but ultimately lacking, combat system and just look where that game is now- dead because EA took the smart decision for once and absolutely refused to keep pursuing a pipe dream. But think of all the friends we made along the way! To be fair, Avengers might not be quite as precariously placed as Anthem right now, in fact some of the 12 active users are forever caught in a desperate loop of insisting to players that "it get's good eventually! Several hours after you've run out of content and grinded to max level, then the combat gets it's depth." Which, honestly, I've heard some informed sources actually back up, I just find it rather galling that a game literally needs to be beaten to death in order for it to become good. It makes me think: 'Or I could play another game that starts good'

Crystal Dynamics has taken this one victory of theirs, however, (in their supposedly anaemic yet solid endgame) and arguably gone to shoot themselves in the foot right before the conclusion of their first major new content update arc. For you see, the Two Hawkeye's event that feels like it has been going for the past 5 years is finally wrapping up with Clint Barton's return to the roster he should have started in. Avengers players will get this on the same day as it's next-gen release; signifying a brand new start for the game to really strut it's stuff now that it's hitting systems that might be able to actually play it at a consistent framerate. This is a genuine chance for Square Enix's Avengers to strike out at a new audience, softly reset the disaster drop-off from the launch, and maybe have a go at this 'maintaining a successful live service' thing that seems to be every single studio head's wet dream nowadays despite sounding like a total nightmare for even the top of the pack.

But they're determined, okay? They want that infinite stress with added pressure and are ready to change some fundamentals to achieve it; thus comes the reworking to the experience system which is coming to the game on that very same day. Now listen up and see if you can see why this changelog has come to be so vehemently reviled by the public, even a laymen like myself managed to spot the little oddity. So they're changing up the levelling system in order to 'fix' the amount of EXP it takes to level up. Before it was apparently a straight shot where every level required the same amount of experience in order to ding to the next level, which is usually offset by modifiers applied to enemies so that the experience they dole out is relative to your level, but I won't tell Crystal how to make their game. Instead, the team are looking to scale EXP requirements after a certain level so that it'll take longer to reach the top level. (Bare in mind, also, that in this game each character is levelled separately, including the new one which will be added by this update) Do you see the problem yet?

As they note in the blog, many RPGs have their levelling system set up in such a way that it elongates levels in late game, but this doesn't mean that they all have to subscribe to this. Square's Avengers, in particular, apparently hides most of it's impactful and playstyle defining levelling choices until the end of the road; so wouldn't it make sense to expedite that process in favour of elongating it? The general public seem to think so, and that might be why Avengers is currently getting roasted on it's own subreddit in their transparent attempt at trying to lock players into playing Hawkeye more so that they can turn around and tell their money-men about how successful their DLC has been. Folks have demanded explanations, retractions, subjugations; and through it all Biowa- I mean Activ- I mean Electroni- I mean Crystal Dynamic thought carefully and decided "Nah, you're all wrong. We're right."

In the typical way that these company's do, Avenger's team put out a note that essentially called the entire community morons for misunderstanding the simple premise they were explaining, and then proceeded to elaborate the exact same premise with easily refutable excuses. For one they did they 'Well other games have a curve' Argument which I already responded to. "Doesn't mean you have to have one". But the really funny excuse was where they claimed that people might sometimes level up twice during one mission, and all those extra level-up points might be overwhelming for their little tiny peabrains. So let's play devil's advocate and assume this is the case; some people might look at the level-up points and become overwhelmed as though they're playing 'Pillars of Eternity' or something. New players might be like that, I understand the assumption; but then why are you implementing this system which only comes into effect at later levels? That's right, an adaptive curve won't effect new players at all, which not only makes this excuse highly presumptive but just fundamentally wrong. Either the balancing team is so incompetent that they've conjured the wrong solution to the problem or they've lied and assume their audience to be so dense as to not see through it. Pick your poison.

Whatsmore, even if this does in some way benefit the newcomers to the game, it's at the cost of alienating those that have stuck out the game. The non-casual hardcore players already know where the value in the game lies, and may have gone through upto 5 consecutive levelling chains in order to scry what little enjoyment they can out of the combat. Now they're being told they've got to do that even more, for even longer, in order to play some of the new characters? It reminds me of Genshin Impact's world level issue, only that's something which MiHoYo have acknowledged as an issue and are brainstorming towards fixing. Crystal, on the otherhand, have dug their hooves into the ground and raised their horns; they wanna fight. I just cannot comprehend what for, why are these Devs so insistent on playing to their own game's weaknesses?

Of course, this is all coming from second hand accounts of those who play these games and those who make them; so maybe the general public is wrong and this game actually has a great early levelling experience and everyone's wrong. I want to try and see this from Crystal Dynamics angle, because I genuinely do love their games but here's the plain facts; we're currently in a year where two big games have been killed off for trying to launch bare-bones and fix everything later, that should be a wake-up call to this game that it needs to start thinking harder about it's decisions going forward. I actually do want Marvel's Avengers to become a good game at some point, and as unlikely as that seems; stranger things have happened. But those steps will only come if the player base and the development team can reach an accord on what these game needs to be in order to lure in new comers, otherwise it just leads to endless friction that prospective buyers see and go. "Ew, don't want none of that." Believe that, because right now I'm literally one of those bystanders scrunching his nose and turning away.