Best environment to play

Unknown

Everyone has their favorite environments to play in, forest and desert probably being the top two on most people's lists. But I'm here to tell you, the best environments to play are LATVERIA and CITY. Shocker, right? The two weakest environments are actually the best? Yes, and here's why: the AI wastes so many moves matching worthless environment tiles and not building up any decent AP. Oh no, here comes Latverian Terrain!! An extra 9 points damage per attack?! I'm DOOMED! LOL And we all know how pointless Hot Dog Stand is. Those 50 HP you just got back are gone before you've even finished the last bite of your frank.
Hopefully when the devs stop dreaming up cash grabs they'll bother to fix the actual problems in the game, like making Latveria and City environments more useful, but as easy as it would be...well its the same old song and dance. In the meantime I encourage everyone to exploit the games flaws with me!

Unknown

I actually enjoy Latveria. Especially with LDaken/LT/Falcon. Extra strike tiles with falcons buff and dakens chem reaction makes damage awesome. But I could only run that early in the simulator since they aren't leveled as high as I would like.

over_clocked

Yup, couldn't agree more. I'm glad when I have to face a tough team on a meh environment. Winter is also a tricky environment, have been enjoying it/suffering from enemy stuns and AP steals.

user311

Did you know that you could use She Hulk in Latveria to change out those garbage tiles with 70+ tiles?

Unknown

user311 wrote:

Did you know that you could use She Hulk in Latveria to change out those garbage tiles with 70+ tiles?

Yes, I know. But she is lower than Falcon. And I usually have more than 5 blues to cancel them out anyway. Plus when she does it and they keep them, their strength goes higher than 9. So it is like a catch-22. You get something out of it, but they can also do more damage to you as well.

rixmith

I also prefer "worse" environments (City, Latveria) because they reduce the amount of luck. Nothing worse than the AI getting a lucky Forest cascade then hammering you with a bunch of abilities. Since you (presumably) are much more skillful than the AI, anything you can do to reduce luck and reward skill gives you an advantage IMO.

Unknown

Agreed. If you're playing in jungle or especially desert you're more or less obliged to exploit the environment. On the more meh levels you can just go about your usual business. Incidentally, don't sleep on the power of the laboratory. I've had my day completely and utterly ruined on more than one occasion by the AI getting a magical placement with that random crit tile.

I do feel bad for poor Hot Dog Stand though. I mean, come on, man! What did the Hot Dog Stand ever do to you? Obviously True Healing gave us all indigestion. Can't even enjoy a nice relaxing hot dog time out anymore. What a sad state of affairs.

GuntherBlobel

Gambit002 wrote:

In the meantime I encourage everyone to exploit the games flaws with me!

If you think that is an exploit, then you should really explore what you can do with the Winter stage. With the right characters, it isn't difficult to get the 102 AP needed for the awesome second tier power (Cold Snap), which the AI will never use against you. There are a few awesome combos you can set up with it. So, in terms of risk/reward, I like it the best. It also nostalgically reminds me of the "golden age" of MPQ, back when buffed characters would create crazy exploits with environment tiles.

Edit: I got the AP cost completely wrong. Thanks!

FierceKiwi

GuntherBlobel wrote:

If you think that is an exploit, then you should really explore what you can do with the Winter stage. With the right characters, it isn't difficult to get the 200 AP needed for the awesome second tier power (Cold Snap), which the AI will never use against you. There are a few awesome combos you can set up with it. So, in terms of risk/reward, I like it the best. It also nostalgically reminds me of the "golden age" of MPQ, back when buffed characters would create crazy exploits with environment tiles.

It actually only costs 102 (part of the reason it's so easy to actually get off) and is the only 2nd tier environment move I've ever bothered to save for.

Unknown

There's nothing uncertain about the AI when it comes to environment tiles. They go after it far more aggressively than any player normally would so of course they're much stronger on a strong environment effect location, unless you've someone who's extremely strong at environmental tiles like Punisher or Magneto (due to crits). Until the AI changes you always want to play on the weakest environment possible unless you're running Magneto or Punisher, and even with a 4X/4EAP character it's not that often you'll be able to drop a crit on environment without Magneto and without a crit, the AI will generally still comfortably beat you in the race to enviornment tiles just because they really like them.

Unknown

Wait they still gave the desert enviro? Thought climate change nerf had nicked that.

Katai

City. Basically you can ignore environment 100%. The AI essentially skips their turn everytime they match environment.

Unknown

rixmith wrote:

I also prefer "worse" environments (City, Latveria) because they reduce the amount of luck. Nothing worse than the AI getting a lucky Forest cascade then hammering you with a bunch of abilities. Since you (presumably) are much more skillful than the AI, anything you can do to reduce luck and reward skill gives you an advantage IMO.

Phantron wrote:

There's nothing uncertain about the AI when it comes to environment tiles. They go after it far more aggressively than any player normally would so of course they're much stronger on a strong environment effect location, unless you've someone who's extremely strong at environmental tiles like Punisher or Magneto (due to crits). Until the AI changes you always want to play on the weakest environment possible unless you're running Magneto or Punisher, and even with a 4X/4EAP character it's not that often you'll be able to drop a crit on environment without Magneto and without a crit, the AI will generally still comfortably beat you in the race to enviornment tiles just because they really like them.

I don't follow this at all... since I'm better than the AI, in MOST circumstances giving me better environments INCREASES my advantage; and if the "good" strategy is to go after env tiles aggressively then I can go after them more aggressively than the AI does!

So my env ranking is:
1. Desert, unless the AI has 1* or 3* Storm and I don't
Phantron's reasoning would make sense if the ONLY thing we cared about was win/loss ratio. Yes, it is SLIGHTLY more likely that the AI will reach a blockbuster green and cripple your team compared to playing in, say, city... but it's MUCH more likely that I'll beat the enemy much faster and with much less damage taken than in city. Even when the enemy USES Oasis it's more likely that they'll just litter the board with green tiles for ME to collect than actually reach a green ability.

Storm changes the equation a little because not only does Mistress get the env AP, it clears one "color" from the board, which just makes cascade likelihood too high

Sentry may also change the equation but I always skip Sentry

2. Jungle, unless the AI has 1* or 3* Storm and I don't, or the AI has OBW
Same concerns with Storm, but also Rose -> AR, or even worse, AR then Rose -> AR, will just completely ruin your day and isn't worth the risk

3. Mountain
I can use the stun to much better effect than the AI, and a couple of crits into the level 2 ability is an infrequent but hilarious advantage

4. Latveria
The strike tiles suck so it doesn't really matter, but still, I can use or match away strike tiles in an intelligent fashion. The AI can't.

5. City
It does nothing. And when the AI does nothing, that's an advantage for me too

6. Lab
This is the only environment where I actually feel at a disadvantage, since I'm not likely to pursue env tiles and this ability's random placement is so luck-based I'm more likely to take a big owie from a crit than use one effectively myself

squirrel1120

I spent a lot of time in the desert with 1* storm and BWM, and then BWO when I finally got her while transitioning to the 2* phase. It was just about auto-win unless i was facing the same team, and I didn't fear taking on teams 25 levels over mine if I saw it was on that environment. It was cheesy looking back, but quite fun at that level point. I'd stock up environment AP til the last guy was standing, then use the sometimes 100-125 tiles to create a board of ever-growing green. It would inevitably nuke that last guy down... I found it underwhelming the one time I used the AP for the 6 criticals instead. Only two went off... and that sucker still lived to give me a hassle for a few more turns. heh.

Also agree with the above on how wicked fun cold snap on mountain is. Only really enjoyed that while playing with 1* storm again, but the amount of blue that appeared on the screen and the fireworks that followed were eye-opening. Mountain also helps me out considerably if I'm picking a fight with or retaliating against a higher leveled hulk. that one turn stun is great for knocking him down to size without worrying about triggering 7 anger tiles if he's alive after all the nukes are exhausted.

Jungle makes me feel I should be prioritizing them anytime I have a team with a good rainbow, but the AI usually beats me too them. However, when I do have that good rainbow, I'm usually using OBW, so usually the enemy collected all that environmental tile AP so I could get 3 of every color except purple... If using a R/G/Y team, I can only hope I get enough of those colors to bring everyone threatening down before they get enough for it...

The other two always just seemed meh to me. Lab is the only one I've never gotten enough AP for to use the higher powered environment move. Not being able to get it by match end with 1* storm makes me feel like the cost is pretty darn high indeed.

Unknown

I don't know why you say Hot Dog Stand is bad. it was really good before they nerfed it with TH, when it really healed. (Not.)