Team-Up Feature Discussion

Unknown

Punter1 wrote:

Also think Onslaught TU is broken in that it uses TU AND Green AP - shouldn't be both when no other single AP colour power requires both. You could in theory fire off a 0 damage Onslaught!

I tried that because I wanted to get rid of it and it wouldn't let me fire it until I collected green. It's not broken, just a bad power for TeamUps

Unknown

I couldn't post at work after trying the update out, so everything has probably been already said...

I was looking forward to giving this a try; being able to have a "backup" clutch ability like Trickery, or the implications of Photon Blast/Technopathic Strike without clearing the board of the relevant ability, seemed interesting

However, A- for Idea, F for execution. In particular...

1)

IceIX wrote:

Currently you have to use them to get rid of them. The idea is that you should be actively managing them so they should be cycling on a regular basis. If you're hitting 20 and getting a "You're full!" popup, you're probably not playing very effectively.

Sorry to pick on IceIX (no I'm not (yes I am )) but this is going to go right up there with "working as intended" and "gentle nudge."

Most people are building teams because THOSE are the characters they have with the most "effective" abilities, and everyone has TUAP as their "fourth" skill. So, I'm playing Thor or Sentry... how is it "effective" to pick TU tiles over Yellow or Green tiles and get LESS match damage to power up a WORSE ability?? And aside from top-tier abilities, of which there are few, any TU ability over 6 AP is essentially a dead ability, and I don't consider deliberately matching TU AP instead of AP I actually need just so I can get rid of ANOTHER symbiotic snare "effective." And don't even get me STARTED on the countless murderous aims, control shifts, and sentinel of liberties I'm stuck with until I go to prologue to unload them.

2)
The lack of a better interface to more easily manage your own TU abilities and more easily view your opponent's TU abilities should have absolutely prevented this from being rolled out.

3)
At first I didn't mind when I got hit with a Wind Storm or World Rupture, because hey, turnabout is fair play. And I think having TU AP immune to steal is a nice counter to the power of OBW/Hood. But the fact that a powerful teamup ability is available throughout the entire battle, you can't stun or kill or otherwise prevent it from coming out, is a big problem.

FFS when you come to the point where you KNOW you're going to be FORCING players to have 90% of their teamup use being "use teamups they don't want to use just to 'cycle' them to hopefully get a good teamup," did that make anyone at d3p think that maybe this great new feature wasn't such a hot idea??

Unknown

Also think Onslaught TU is broken in that it uses TU AND Green AP - shouldn't be both when no other single AP colour power requires both. You could in theory fire off a 0 damage Onslaught!

Hint: IM40 red and blue TU....

Unknown

AngryHulk wrote:

Punter1 wrote:

Last night I had a World Rupture TU played against me. OBW was in front and I then killed her on the next move while there were still a few World Rupture 1 count countdown tiles on the board, they then disappeared like I'd killed the owner of the tile. Not sure if this was a bug or is the intent, at least this would provide a slight defensive option against the TUs with countdowns.

It is correct. Team-up damage is called in a similar fashion to how environment tiles were - someone on the team still has to match them. They're ranked based on character star level, I believe I read in a previous IceIX post. Thus, if AI Moonstone plays a world rupture, and you kill her before it goes off, the countdown tiles will disappear.

Oddly though, stunning the character that used a team up power will not prevent count down tiles from counting down. In a match earlier, I had beaten 2/3 of the AI team before the last member (either Venom or Juggernaut) used a World Rupture team up. I used Storm's Wind Storm to stun him but it wasn't enough to down him. After I made my match, the World Rupture tiles counted down even though the entire surviving enemy team was stunned. I was able to down him on my next turn, but the fact that stun is completely useless against team ups is crazy to me.

Unknown

Anybody know the rule of thumb on when Teamup matches count as 3 and when they count as 2? Is it cascade related?

Nothing better than trying to get rid of a 17 AP craptacular teamup, prolong the match with 14 AP, make a match specifically to try to cascade the 2 at the top of the board, get it to work and find you only have 16. Thank you and come again.

Unknown

papa07 wrote:

Anybody know the rule of thumb on when Teamup matches count as 3 and when they count as 2? Is it cascade related?

Nothing better than trying to get rid of a 17 AP craptacular teamup, prolong the match with 14 AP, make a match specifically to try to cascade the 2 at the top of the board, get it to work and find you only have 16. Thank you and come again.

It appears to still be based off the enviro tile rules where you get diminishing returns off cascades. Basically means unless they are the primary match you ain't getting the full amount. However if you match two TU tiles with a crit you get 3 TUAP, so go figure.

Ludaa

It may have been mentioned here already but I want to quote ZenMonkey from another thread,

"The team up concept could have been great if it was based on the team you selected and nothing else. You put Capt America and Falcon on a team you get a special power. This encourages mixing up the teams and using lesser chars."

That is what I think of when I hear TEAM UP! I'm pretty sure quite a few MPQ characters would refuse to work together as is....

What we got seems like a re-hash of content already in the game. Nothing new except for the tiles and boost box, right?

Unknown

I'm sure this question has been asked and answered already, but how many Team-Up abilities can you carry at one time? I just got back from Vegas, where I didn't play at all for about 3 days.

I'm too lazy to search the thread for the answer, so thanks in advance for the answer.

Unknown

And again, I fail to understand how this system works with countdown abilities. Enemy got off a TU Flame Jet. Next turn, down the front enemy (Iron Man, if it matters), Flame Jet poofs. Still two enemies left. Match continues. Someone help me understand what the rules are for this **** show, because I'm at a loss. There doesn't seem to be any consistency.

Unknown

Ludaa wrote:

It may have been mentioned here already but I want to quote ZenMonkey from another thread,

"The team up concept could have been great if it was based on the team you selected and nothing else. You put Capt America and Falcon on a team you get a special power. This encourages mixing up the teams and using lesser chars."

That is what I think of when I hear TEAM UP! I'm pretty sure quite a few MPQ characters would refuse to work together as is....

What we got seems like a re-hash of content already in the game. Nothing new except for the tiles and boost box, right?

It did get rid of the broken environment feature, too.

Unknown

I think the Team-Ups are kinda cool, but really, there needs to be a way to sell or at least delete ones we don't want. I can foresee a day when my entire Team-Up selection is nothing but Moonstone Control Shifts I can never gather the AP to use.

MunitionsFrenzy

Thugpatrol wrote:

And again, I fail to understand how this system works with countdown abilities. Enemy got off a TU Flame Jet. Next turn, down the front enemy (Iron Man, if it matters), Flame Jet poofs. Still two enemies left. Match continues. Someone help me understand what the rules are for this tinykitty show, because I'm at a loss. There doesn't seem to be any consistency.

Seems pretty simple to me, if wonky, unless I'm missing something. One person (the one with the highest team-up damage value, or higher team-order priority if team-up tile damage values are equal) is treated as the owner of Team-Up countdown tiles (or trap tiles or w/e). That character's defeat clears all such tiles. However, unlike most countdowns, those tiles don't stop ticking down when that character is stunned, which is the slightly wonky part, but honestly makes enough sense: why would stunning the character who's not even causing the ability (since it's a team-up) slow the countdown?

Unknown

EternalLurker wrote:

Thugpatrol wrote:

And again, I fail to understand how this system works with countdown abilities. Enemy got off a TU Flame Jet. Next turn, down the front enemy (Iron Man, if it matters), Flame Jet poofs. Still two enemies left. Match continues. Someone help me understand what the rules are for this tinykitty show, because I'm at a loss. There doesn't seem to be any consistency.

Seems pretty simple to me, if wonky, unless I'm missing something. One person (the one with the highest team-up damage value, or higher team-order priority if team-up tile damage values are equal) is treated as the owner of Team-Up countdown tiles (or trap tiles or w/e). That character's defeat clears all such tiles. However, unlike most countdowns, those tiles don't stop ticking down when that character is stunned, which is the slightly wonky part, but honestly makes enough sense: why would stunning the character who's not even causing the ability (since it's a team-up) slow the countdown?

Except that's not how it works. Iron Man 35 was neither the middle character nor did he have the highest TU tile damage (it was a LR seed team). Yet killing him killed the Flame Jet. Now in that case he was in front when it was used. However, if you look back for my other example when it was a World Rupture, I killed the person in front, Yelena, who was also the middle character in a case where all three enemies were the same level and had the same listed TU tile damage, but World Rupture didn't go away. It appeared to belong to Moonstone, but when I stunned her the countdown continued.

So again I don't get it. They don't consistently belong to the person in front when they're cast or the person with the highest TU tile damage/order priority. Yet sometimes they go away when you down someone, but stunning has no effect. All of that is very counter intuitive, and I'm not seeing the pattern.

Unknown

Thepenismightier wrote:

Not sure if this has been mention, but I killed the enemy character out front the turn after they'd used the TU ability World Rupture, before the countdowns had gone off, and the countdowns disappeared as if I'd killed Sentry. The same character I'd killed had been out front when they'd used WR, and he wasn't their teams highest damage in TU tile damage, so I'm guessing that maybe killing off the one in front when used will kill these types of abilities before they go off.

I was just getting on here to say that this happened to me as well.

Unknown

Just ate up two Berserker Rages in a row because of team ups. The enemy's own green backed Berserker Rage and then a team up backed Berserker Rage. They had a second Berserker Rage team up in reserve too. No way this is how this should be.

Rockabilly Zombie

Is it me or does the AI launch the Team Ups very early in the match? Only a few combined moves from both teams are made before they launch two team ups in a row.

HailMary

EternalLurker wrote:

Thugpatrol wrote:

And again, I fail to understand how this system works with countdown abilities. Enemy got off a TU Flame Jet. Next turn, down the front enemy (Iron Man, if it matters), Flame Jet poofs. Still two enemies left. Match continues. Someone help me understand what the rules are for this tinykitty show, because I'm at a loss. There doesn't seem to be any consistency.

Seems pretty simple to me, if wonky, unless I'm missing something. One person (the one with the highest team-up damage value, or higher team-order priority if team-up tile damage values are equal) is treated as the owner of Team-Up countdown tiles (or trap tiles or w/e). That character's defeat clears all such tiles. However, unlike most countdowns, those tiles don't stop ticking down when that character is stunned, which is the slightly wonky part, but honestly makes enough sense: why would stunning the character who's not even causing the ability (since it's a team-up) slow the countdown?

Based on what I've read about TUP CD behavior here, I have devised a canonical explanation for such happenings:

The "owner" character is the one who calls up the Team-Up character for a favor. That character grudgingly obliges ("World Rupture AGAIN, Moonstone? Hey grrl, I feel like this friendship is fake, and you're just using me for my powers. -_- "), and uses an ability. Killing the "owner" drops the call and wipes the countdowns, because the Team-Up character is all like "Imma show you for just disconnecting my call, ****. Ain't nobody hang up on da Sentry." but merely stunning the owner doesn't affect CDs, because the Team-Up character isn't stunned -- merely a bit confused at the sudden reticence of the character on the other end, but figures he might be going under an overpass, which, while perhaps a bit inconsiderate, probably couldn't be helped.

I give Will permission to use this explanation, provided he includes the parenthetical emotional tension, and pays me 100 HP per use.

Unknown

crisp wrote:

AngryHulk wrote:

Punter1 wrote:

Last night I had a World Rupture TU played against me. OBW was in front and I then killed her on the next move while there were still a few World Rupture 1 count countdown tiles on the board, they then disappeared like I'd killed the owner of the tile. Not sure if this was a bug or is the intent, at least this would provide a slight defensive option against the TUs with countdowns.

It is correct. Team-up damage is called in a similar fashion to how environment tiles were - someone on the team still has to match them. They're ranked based on character star level, I believe I read in a previous IceIX post. Thus, if AI Moonstone plays a world rupture, and you kill her before it goes off, the countdown tiles will disappear.

Oddly though, stunning the character that used a team up power will not prevent count down tiles from counting down. In a match earlier, I had beaten 2/3 of the AI team before the last member (either Venom or Juggernaut) used a World Rupture team up. I used Storm's Wind Storm to stun him but it wasn't enough to down him. After I made my match, the World Rupture tiles counted down even though the entire surviving enemy team was stunned. I was able to down him on my next turn, but the fact that stun is completely useless against team ups is crazy to me.

Agreed, and it sounds like that's a bug. I haven't run into that one specifically yet, but I'm sure it's out there.

On a side note, I did just fight a daken/2 goon team and killed daken. Then one of the goon countdown tiles exploded, which caused tiles to fall/match, and put their TUAP above the threshold for supernova. The goon used it, even though goons can't match tiles, and I almost lost the match.

Unknown

Ares Onslaught AP does seem conditionally useful in a couple situations:
1. You have no green uses, but might be matching it. Eg, Daken
2. You're against Hulk or another Ares.
If you've got the right level boost, 5 AP isn't that much: You could get it from cascades.

Flame Jet becomes somewhat more useful, as you don't drain 5 Green AP when you first cast it.

My biggest problem with this feature (besides the obvious bugs) is half the matches feel like TU AP denial matches now. Too many overpowered team-ups.

Unknown

AngryHulk wrote:

crisp wrote:

AngryHulk wrote:

Punter1 wrote:

Last night I had a World Rupture TU played against me. OBW was in front and I then killed her on the next move while there were still a few World Rupture 1 count countdown tiles on the board, they then disappeared like I'd killed the owner of the tile. Not sure if this was a bug or is the intent, at least this would provide a slight defensive option against the TUs with countdowns.

It is correct. Team-up damage is called in a similar fashion to how environment tiles were - someone on the team still has to match them. They're ranked based on character star level, I believe I read in a previous IceIX post. Thus, if AI Moonstone plays a world rupture, and you kill her before it goes off, the countdown tiles will disappear.

Oddly though, stunning the character that used a team up power will not prevent count down tiles from counting down. In a match earlier, I had beaten 2/3 of the AI team before the last member (either Venom or Juggernaut) used a World Rupture team up. I used Storm's Wind Storm to stun him but it wasn't enough to down him. After I made my match, the World Rupture tiles counted down even though the entire surviving enemy team was stunned. I was able to down him on my next turn, but the fact that stun is completely useless against team ups is crazy to me.

Agreed, and it sounds like that's a bug. I haven't run into that one specifically yet, but I'm sure it's out there.

On a side note, I did just fight a daken/2 goon team and killed daken. Then one of the goon countdown tiles exploded, which caused tiles to fall/match, and put their TUAP above the threshold for supernova. The goon used it, even though goons can't match tiles, and I almost lost the match.

Goon CD tiles are resolved during the pre-phase of the opponent's turn. Any White AP earned during this pre-phase is immediately considered by the AI for TU execution when their active phase starts.

The result to the player is seeing a goon's CD tile execute, followed by a Team-Up, and then if a villain is still alive, the villain can move the board or execute of their own powers if available, resulting in a potential triple whammy to the player (which is legal, according to the existing rules of the game [pre-R58] and not a bug).