Team-Up Feature Discussion

NorthernPolarity

Figured that we should have a dedicated thread discussing this feature since the stickied posts arent completely focused on it and are cluttered with the distaction that is deadpool. I havent actually downloaded the patch given how new patches tend to either completely mess up scaling or make the game more difficult in one way or another, so i was wondering what the people who've downloaded the patch think about it.

scottee

I'll cut and paste this from the other thread:

scottee wrote:

Thugpatrol wrote:

scottee wrote:

To people complaining that the storm change was a nerf, you were letting your ideas go off prematurely.

I just played one match, and team up AP is the single most color in the game for almost every match. You will have to deny it as #1 priority pretty much constantly. Storm taking it off the board is an incredibly important role. Team ups certainly just changed the game.

That may be overstating it somewhat. So far the Team-Ups given to the AI seem to be highly variable. First fight I jumped into had a very nasty looking Fury Demolition TU. Next one was a Snarky Remark and an undercovered Juggy green. Definitely going to be something you want to check when you start a battle, and sometimes it's going to be a deny at all costs situation. But I think there's going to be a lot of times where you'll be perfectly happy to let the AI grab them and throw some weak powers at you instead of their main ones.

And I also had a battle where the AI had a Team-Up for a character that was on its team (Captain Marvel and and extra Photonic Blasts, and no I didn't mistake Moonstone's red for hers). Pretty sure this isn't supposed to happen, since we can't take a power for a character we're using. Another victory for quality assurance? Or...wait on it...working as intended!

Yeah, that's definitely a bug.

As to TUAP's importance, I was thinking through the math. Any given color usually has one, maybe two powers that it fuels. TUAP always fuels three active abilities. So yes, there will definitely be matches where it's ok to not deny it. But there's a higher likely hood than other colors that letting the AI have that color will wreck your team. Just went up against a level 3 7AP Aggressive Recon. You better be sure I was denying that at all costs.

orionpeace

So far, it feels clunky and cobbled on.

The interface and explanation is poor. Outside of a "Fight" window you can't even review the Team-Ups you have. No way to delete unfavorable TUs. You have to use them to lose them.

And there is a new whisper of fear, wondering what grab bag of horrors you are going to open when you enter a PvE or PvP fight.

Fun all around.

scottee

Also, for those who wanted more game difficulty, fights against purely goon teams can carry defensive Team Ups, though the fight I'm in right now, the AI only has one.

EDIT: Though now that I think about it, they have no way to generate TUAP except for cascades.

Unknown

So far, it's a fun feature. It does make "routine" fights far less routine. The AI within the fight screen is pretty nice, but it is lacking a sort of inventory management system outside of the fight screen (but that's always been true of all your boosts).

And as always, I regret patching mid-event as that means everything I knew about the event suddenly changed. Good thing I don't care about this event (don't need Hood) and it just helps me further tank my scaling for the deadpool event.

Unknown

I'm wondering about two things-

1. How can we see what team-ups are being run by the opponent before starting the match?

2. How do we know what team-ups are being used by our defensive teams on PVP now?


The theory I've heard so far on #2 is that it is randomly chosen from your roster, which supports what Ice said about the devs wanting us to have a well rounded roster.

People like Flo who have 2-3 maxed 3*s and little else would be SOL under such a mechanic.

NorthernPolarity

Does anyone mnow how defensive team ups work? If your opponents team is say storm, sentry, daken, and they have an im40 tu, is the tus power level based off of that guys im40 level or just the current levels of the current team? Can an enemy team have tus of characters not in their current roster?

scottee

Teke184 wrote:

I'm wondering about two things-

1. How can we see what team-ups are being run by the opponent before starting the match?

2. How do we know what team-ups are being used by our defensive teams on PVP now?


The theory I've heard so far on #2 is that it is randomly chosen from your roster, which supports what Ice said about the devs wanting us to have a well rounded roster.

People like Flo who have 2-3 maxed 3*s and little else would be SOL under such a mechanic.

You can't and you can't.

Defensive team ups are random.

Unknown

scottee wrote:

Teke184 wrote:

I'm wondering about two things-

1. How can we see what team-ups are being run by the opponent before starting the match?

2. How do we know what team-ups are being used by our defensive teams on PVP now?


The theory I've heard so far on #2 is that it is randomly chosen from your roster, which supports what Ice said about the devs wanting us to have a well rounded roster.

People like Flo who have 2-3 maxed 3*s and little else would be SOL under such a mechanic.

You can't and you can't.

Defensive team ups are random.

I guess this is a stealth nerf to tanking, then.

Even a lineup with a bunch of 1*s can win if they miraculously get enough teamup points to cast Rage Of The Panther with 5 covers.

scottee

I've seen defensive teams carrying 1, 2, OR 3 team-ups. So it also looks random whether they always equip three.

(I've also seen too high a frequency of World Ruptures for my liking, but I know that's a coincidence.)

The good thing that makes defensive team-ups not too bad, even though they're random, is that the levels are random as well. I saw a Supernova and nearly tinykittied myself, but then saw it only did 700 damage.

Edelkin

My brief experience this morning in PVE was less than encouraging. Each fight had a Sentry power. You guessed it, the gross ones. World rupture and Supernova. Went off every fight and consequently shortened my already shortened play window by 50% (restricted roster and less than optimal teams after only two fights due to running through the healing tokens sooner than usual). OBW is powered up but can't stop the TU tile pain. Looks like another way to shorten my play window further.

Question: What happens on defense for PVP? Does it use the TU tokens you used in your last fight, or "randomly" assign them for you?

Unknown

Well this is unfortunate. I finally hit 20 team ups and won the next fight. Got a message about how I would have earned one but I'm full and need to use some first.

That's all well and good, except the bulk of the ones I have right now are utter rubbish. I will need to at some point stock up TU AP in fights just to clear low level loaner Marv team ups. And I'm not looking forward to having to save up 17 to clear that Bullseye one. Ugh.
Please let us sell off or just delete extraneous Team-Ups.

Other than that, I'm quite liking the new feature.

Unknown

Two immediate issues I see (other than the previously mentioned bug) are lack of display info on the Team-Ups and lack of delete function. Right now there's no display at all for what the team-ups do. Some people may not be familiar with all the powers, not to mention powers at weird numbers of covers at weird levels. Again, not enough information which should have been very easy to include.

And I get that we're supposed to use these things up and not stockpile them, but I can foresee times when it's going to be difficult to get rid of some of these, since you actually have to use them to get them out of your inventory. I already have a Control Shift that's going to be a pain to unload, and with the amount of time we spend fighting DA it's not going to be the last. I don't want an inventory full of 15-20 cost powers that I can't use up fast enough that are preventing me from getting better powers.

SnowcaTT

I've asked and someone else asked in R58, how do you get rid of these aside from using them?

I was stuck with a low level moonstone 17 cost ability. I want to dump it so I don't waste getting something better and not being able to put it in storage.

Marty17

Just updated the game, so how is it determined what characters are available as team up? :-s

Edit: OK, finally got what was meant defeat your opposition for possibility of drop. Did find it confusing to wrap my head round at first.

DrNitroman

orionpeace wrote:

The interface and explanation is poor. Outside of a "Fight" window you can't even review the Team-Ups you have. No way to delete unfavorable TUs. You have to use them to lose them.

^This. Poor explanation. Outside the fight himself, you can't know how many AP are required (between 5 and 12 it seems) and you can't read the effect of the ability. Yes, it's the same effect that the character ability but you should be able to read it when choosing team-ups I think.

Riggy wrote:

So far, it's a fun feature. It does make "routine" fights far less routine. The AI within the fight screen is pretty nice, but it is lacking a sort of inventory management system outside of the fight screen (but that's always been true of all your boosts).

^and this. A bit of novelty in this game it's fun and atm my main opinion is that I am happy to have a new feature to play with

...A new feature that will bring fights with a lot more damage and much faster... because faster death!

TheHueyFreeman

SnowcaTT wrote:

I've asked and someone else asked in R58, how do you get rid of these aside from using them?

I was stuck with a low level moonstone 17 cost ability. I want to dump it so I don't waste getting something better and not being able to put it in storage.

You have to use it to lose it. It creates an odd burden of getting off abilities that you dont want which is unfortunate but so far my only complaint.

Also (nit-pick) all active ability animations seem to take longer in general.

scottee

Thugpatrol wrote:

And I get that we're supposed to use these things up and not stockpile them, but I can foresee times when it's going to be difficult to get rid of some of these, since you actually have to use them to get them out of your inventory. I already have a Control Shift that's going to be a pain to unload, and with the amount of time we spend fighting DA it's not going to be the last. I don't want an inventory full of 15-20 cost powers that I can't use up fast enough that are preventing me from getting better powers.

This is the new mini game. How to use up the tiny kitty team ups so I can save the real ones for PVP.

(I'm sure they're going to put in the delete feature soon now that everyone's pointing it out.)

Unknown

I'm finding that some of the more "niche" abilities out there are more useful thanks to teamups.

For example, Technopathic Strike is now good to run if you are going up against Laken because it denies him Chemical Reaction as well as nerfs his healing until he gets 7+ blues back on the board.

Nonce Equitaur 2

The current Team-Up implementation will nerf diversity. Rarely used characters will attract even more attacks than they do now, further discouraging their usage.

Some of the most useful Team-up powers are
Demolition -- Nick Fury
Avengers Assemble! -- Nick Fury
Rage of the Panther -- Black Panther
Sniper Rifle -- Black Widow
Trickery -- Loki
Twin Pistols -- The Hood (Collect 18 AP)
Call The Storm -- Thor
Wind Storm -- Classic Storm (Long stun and nuke)
Hailstorm -- Storm Classic or Mohawk (Fill up the board with strike tiles)
Bird Strike -- Falcon (Lots of defense tiles)
Force Bubbles -- Invisible Woman (Lock down all tiles of some type)
Symbiote Snare -- Venom (Stun entire team)

Who will be attacked first -- a Hulk/Patch/Mags team, or a Fury/Panther/Hood team? The second team would have better team-up drops, so they would be attacked first.

I expect to see a lot more Hulk as the Team-up effects ripple through, even more than now. Characters that are rare in PvP will become even rarer since many will covet these harder-to-find drops.

Then again, Tanking has been made a lot easier. Put up a Hood/Loki/Storm team, give them Rage of the Panther and a few other good Team Up powers, win mostly via the team-ups, and then watch as 20 people attack.

scottee

In case anyone was wondering, matching TU tiles does not not utilize strike tile damage. So in that regards, they work the same as Enviro tiles did.