ISO-8 Brotherhood Aug 19 - 28

Unknown

j12601 wrote:

I'm not sure so much that it's cheating, as much as sloppy coding.

You know how when you lose a fight sometimes and the AI fires off multiple abilities long after your dead, dancing on your corpse and laughing? I figure that's because at the start of the turns it counts up it's AP, says "We can cast X, Y, Z", and fires them off, not checking if it still has the AP to do so, or if you're...you know, still alive.

So start of the turn it sees "We have 11 Green AP, we can cast Onslaught (5), and Godlike Power (6). Those abilities will be used."

So it does onslaught, which as a side effect, uses up all of the green AP, but Godlike Power is still queued to cast and a check whether there is still enough AP to fire that ability, is not executed.

It seems like it should be an easy fix. A quick check by the AI that 1) the opponent is still alive (ability spam post death bugs me), and 2) there is still enough AP remaining to legitimately use those abilities.


If this was addressed and patched, there are a number of possible ways that this could result in AI abilities fizzling and not getting cast.

AI views enough AP for Torch's Inferno, and Psylocke's Bewilder. It casts Inferno, depleting 30% of the blue, going under 10 blue...Bewilder doesn't fire.

There's enough Blue for Cmags to do Magnetic Field, and red for Psylocke (5) to fire Psychic Knife (there are 3 red strike tiles out). Mags overwrites 2 friendly red strike tiles with blue protects... Psylocke fails again to fire a skill.

I've never seen a case where the AI gets AP out of thin air. The situation you describe usually goes like this. They start with enough to do a major board shaking move (Godlike Power, Unstoppable Crash, Thunder Strike, etc), a mega cascade happens, and if you look at their AP it is not updated despite they just got 35 AP out of that move, but of course the AI does have all these APs and it then fires off every move it can use in rapid succession while still not updating the AP display. I believe if your team died from these moves it won't even update the AP display at all since the AI's AP display seems to be only updated after they moved a tile, but they wouldn't even get a chance to do that if your team is already wiped out. If it worked like you describe then whenever the AI fires off a Call the Storm it should also fire off any lesser green ability since it clearly has enough for that, and similarly for any other color where it has multiple moves on.

I think the AI's sequence of event goes like this at their turn:

1. Resolve passives, including free AP generated by goons.
2. Use all available moves. If new moves are enabled by some of the moves, use those too.
3. Check if player is dead. If so, end the game.
4. UPDATE AP DISPLAY
5. Move tile.

The AP display is not updated before the move is used. I remember seeing a lot of cases where if they have Hood and you'll see the enemy fire off a 5 AP move while the display reads 4, or if they got a goon that generates 2 green you'll see an Onslaught fired at 4 green AP. I'm not sure what's the reasoning for this, but as far as I can tell the AI really do always have all that AP to use even if it doesn't want to show you that information.

SunCrusher

I totally forgot that Onslaught empties Green because I haven't had a chance to play as Ares in a while. In which case, how can the AI go again using green?!

The 'abilities queued' scenario seems most likely coupled with a bit of lag (but that really isn't fair!).

Ares has used Onslaught twice in a row on me in an earlier match and just now, Ares used Onslaught and a goon immediately dropped Unstable Blasts right after.

Frustrating.

SunCrusher

Phantron, that makes sense (which I was thinking of - the AP count not being entirely accurate) but Ares should be the LAST to fire and end any and all green abilities because of the depletion.

In my case, he's gone first, Rags or goons with green next. If Ares goes first, then all green should be depleted. I just played as Ares in a non-Event node and his Onslaught depleted my greens.

Edit: I double checked AI Ares' abilities, his Onslaught still says it depletes so nobody using green abilities should be able to go after him.

Unknown

SunCrusher wrote:

Phantron, that makes sense (which I was thinking of - the AP count not being entirely accurate) but Ares should be the LAST to fire and end any and all green abilities because of the depletion.

In my case, he's gone first, Rags or goons with green next. If Ares goes first, then all green should be depleted. I just played as Ares in a non-Event node and his Onslaught depleted my greens.

Edit: I double checked AI Ares' abilities, his Onslaught still says it depletes so nobody using green abilities should be able to go after him.

Onslaught has a cost of 5 green so it should always be the last ability to fire because the AI always prefers ability that cost more if it is able to use them. It's also possible you have a sequence like Godlike Power (cascade) -> Thunderclap (cascade) which enabled more moves to be available compared to start but since the AP display doesn't update until the AI is done using all of its moves, it'd look like they're using moves without enough AP.

Some abilities are fired off so fast, like all goon ability, that it is possible you don't see the AI using it. I often miss a TU that has no animation like Blast Arrow.

rbdragon

I've been sitting here wondering when they were going to give me the rewards for the second sub since I had already gotten the rewards for the first one....

The second one....that didn't exist....

So yeah.....that happened.......*goes to the corner with his dunce cap on*

Bowgentle

rbdragon wrote:

I've been sitting here wondering when they were going to give me the rewards for the second sub since I had already gotten the rewards for the first one....

The second one....that didn't exist....

So yeah.....that happened.......*goes to the corner with his dunce cap on*

rbdragon wrote:

This single sub stuff is a nice change for now.....almost like taking a break....

I decided at the beginning of this event to really push myself to see just how high I could get if I timed everything out right and hit every refresh.....what I found out is:

1) I've been able to maintain 1st or 2nd for most of the tournament so far... 2) I'm tired...very very tired.... 3) Critical tiles and TU tiles look too similar when you are lacking sleep... 4) The dialogue is a bit funnier...again, with lack of sleep... 5) A single Fury yellow isn't worth it, but I've committed myself this far, so I'm not gonna quit now... 6) No one really cares, and that's cool...I just like being part of "the team"... 7) I can't believe I used to think cMags was worthless...now I realize it was

MY cMags that was worthless...
8) LDaken+HT+OBW is fantastic for goon nodes - almost never take any damage...which I realize isn't good for scaling, but...eh....
9) Wow - I got up to 9 bullet points....did I mention I'm tired???
10) I miss real life sometimes...

Off to nap until my alarm wakes me for the next refresh....

Yeah, so maybe, this playstyle is taking its toll on you, just a little bit?

I don't understand how people can grind for 9 days for a single Fury cover.

rbdragon

Bowgentle wrote:

rbdragon wrote:

I've been sitting here wondering when they were going to give me the rewards for the second sub since I had already gotten the rewards for the first one....

The second one....that didn't exist....

So yeah.....that happened.......*goes to the corner with his dunce cap on*

rbdragon wrote:

This single sub stuff is a nice change for now.....almost like taking a break....

I decided at the beginning of this event to really push myself to see just how high I could get if I timed everything out right and hit every refresh.....what I found out is:

1) I've been able to maintain 1st or 2nd for most of the tournament so far... 2) I'm tired...very very tired.... 3) Critical tiles and TU tiles look too similar when you are lacking sleep... 4) The dialogue is a bit funnier...again, with lack of sleep... 5) A single Fury yellow isn't worth it, but I've committed myself this far, so I'm not gonna quit now... 6) No one really cares, and that's cool...I just like being part of "the team"... 7) I can't believe I used to think cMags was worthless...now I realize it was

MY cMags that was worthless...
8) LDaken+HT+OBW is fantastic for goon nodes - almost never take any damage...which I realize isn't good for scaling, but...eh....
9) Wow - I got up to 9 bullet points....did I mention I'm tired???
10) I miss real life sometimes...

Off to nap until my alarm wakes me for the next refresh.... :) :(

Yeah, so maybe, this playstyle is taking its toll on you, just a little bit?

I don't understand how people can grind for 9 days for a single Fury cover.

That's just it....I'm not even doing it for the cover - well not JUST for the cover....I'm doing it because I wanted to see if I could...

In retrospect, I should have done this during a much shorter event...

But.....eh...I'm having fun...I think....I prefer the PvE model...I just wish there was more variety in the events....

Unknown

I think instead of varying the teams we face they should vary the team we have to use for these PvE events. The only substitution I made so far this event is subbing Falcon out for the required character, and subbing Daken out with a random person if he cannot be used. I think it'd be a good idea if you apply a limited roster to some nodes, like say you can only rescue Nick Fury with Avengers + Magneto MN.

simonsez

Bowgentle wrote:

rbdragon wrote:

I don't understand how people can grind for 9 days for a single Fury cover.

That's kind of how I feel about PvP when I read about people spending 8k shield hopping in an event. At least with PvE I feel like I'm playing the game, not gaming the game. To each his own.

But yeah, 9 days is way too long for any event. I wasn't even going to try that hard, but halfway through I was in 3rd, and the guy in 2nd got complacent, so I figured a 4-5 day grind was doable.

Unknown

simonsez wrote:

Bowgentle wrote:

rbdragon wrote:

I don't understand how people can grind for 9 days for a single Fury cover.

That's kind of how I feel about PvP when I read about people spending 8k shield hopping in an event. At least with PvE I feel like I'm playing the game, not gaming the game. To each his own.

But yeah, 9 days is way too long for any event. I wasn't even going to try that hard, but halfway through I was in 3rd, and the guy in 2nd got complacent, so I figured a 4-5 day grind was doable.

I was probably closer to 6K in ISO - if I dont find a high value target after 4 or 5 skips I wait 25 minutes and try again. It took 7 hops and an 8 hour shield costing me 675HP. I will take those "costs" and 4 hours of time over 4-5 days of grinding nodes probably having to get up at both 1:45am and 4:15am to get the last 2 refreshes in on the subs.

Unknown

Sumilea wrote:

simonsez wrote:

Bowgentle wrote:

rbdragon wrote:

I don't understand how people can grind for 9 days for a single Fury cover.

That's kind of how I feel about PvP when I read about people spending 8k shield hopping in an event. At least with PvE I feel like I'm playing the game, not gaming the game. To each his own.

But yeah, 9 days is way too long for any event. I wasn't even going to try that hard, but halfway through I was in 3rd, and the guy in 2nd got complacent, so I figured a 4-5 day grind was doable.

I was probably closer to 6K in ISO - if I dont find a high value target after 4 or 5 skips I wait 25 minutes and try again. It took 7 hops and an 8 hour shield costing me 675HP. I will take those "costs" and 4 hours of time over 4-5 days of grinding nodes probably having to get up at both 1:45am and 4:15am to get the last 2 refreshes in on the subs.

I'm at similar numbers I think. Didn't keep track of skip costs or ISO boosts, but I think my expenditure of HP was: 5x 3 Hour shields, most of 3 10 packs of +1 boosts. So the better part of 675 HP, of which I had 300 returned through progression and prizes. 375 for a Fury cover is a lot more palatable than 9 days of grinding. It's possible to snipe the prize in PVE by joining on the last day and getting a lazy bracket (I did that in Hulk and took first in a bracket with <280 players), but then you miss out on the tokens, ISO, HP, and progression rewards from playing casually throughout a 9 day event. The 375 "loss" of HP in Fury PVP has already been negated through rewards from the PVE subs I think. Or will have been by the end.

Unknown

j12601 wrote:

The 375 "loss" of HP in Fury PVP has already been negated through rewards from the PVE subs I think. Or will have been by the end.

I know mine has. 4 top 10's and 4 top 2 from the subs that finished at a good time for me covered the "cost" nicely.

simonsez

Yeah, if I could spend 375 and know I'd get a Fury cover, I'd obviously do it, but I prefer the guarantee offered by PvE. Plus, a slow grind suits me more than one frantic shield hop after another.

HairyDave

I got two Furies from tokens so I'm ahead anyway

ZeiramMR

Instead of using this event for Fury 1300 shield hops, I've been putting the HP toward my "Buy Covers for Daken" fund. Just got to 5/4/2 a few days ago.

Unknown

You can't say well I got 500 HP this event so that covers the 500 HP I spent to get Fury in PvP because if you didn't spend that, you'd have had 500 HP to spend on something else (perhaps on Fury), so it's at most a gain of 2000 HP (spent 500 for Fury instead of saving up 2500 HP). But HP in its raw form is more valuable and of course there's also more stress in PvP. You can of course also fail to place top 2 but the pace of PvE is considerably more relaxing. As long as you've Magneto + Daken + Falcon pretty much all PvE is trivial unless either Magneto or Daken is an opponent.

If you look at the past model for PvP, only the guy at the cutoff point is under a lot of pressure, which would be #2 and #10. The guy at #1 just keeps doing whatever he's been doing, and since he's #1 we'll assume whatever he's been doing isn't particularly taxing for him because otherwise he wouldn't have gotten #1 in the first place. Likewise the #3 guy knows he needs the #2 to have a serious slip up to catch up so he isn't compelled to grind super hard because it won't be enough if #2 didn't screw up and it'd always be enough if that guy miss the last refresh. Now, the guy at #2 probably has a lot of stress, but it's still a place most people would want to be since it's still the second best overall position.

Nellyson

Phantron wrote:

I think instead of varying the teams we face they should vary the team we have to use for these PvE events. The only substitution I made so far this event is subbing Falcon out for the required character, and subbing Daken out with a random person if he cannot be used. I think it'd be a good idea if you apply a limited roster to some nodes, like say you can only rescue Nick Fury with Avengers + Magneto MN.

I actually do this. In fact, a lot of the times, I just use the buffed characters. For example, I've been using teams of Fury, Psylocke, and Thor, and team 2 of HT, MNMags, and CrappyCap. It's been fun! Plus I'll put random teams together to take out low leveled fights. BP, Hulk, and 3rd party(sometimes mHawk) have been enjoyable. But overall, I like using random teams for PVEs.

Unknown

Nellyson wrote:

I actually do this. In fact, a lot of the times, I just use the buffed characters. For example, I've been using teams of Fury, Psylocke, and Thor, and team 2 of HT, MNMags, and CrappyCap. It's been fun! Plus I'll put random teams together to take out low leveled fights. BP, Hulk, and 3rd party(sometimes mHawk) have been enjoyable. But overall, I like using random teams for PVEs.

My latest goofy, metathemed PVE team: Captain Marvel, Deadpool, She-Hulk. Because they're the only three 3*s not in packs (also they're my three lowest-levelled 3*s).

I also like trying to beat the really low-level nodes with the worst team I can field that can actually beat them.

Unknown

You shouldn't have to invent your own fun or difficulty in a game. I saw a video of a guy beating all the guys up to Mike Tyson blindfolded in Mike Tyson's Punch Out but that doesn't mean any normal person should consider this as some kind of additional complexity/fun factor of the original game. You can't say people should be encouraged to have a wide variety of characters so that they can use totally subpar characters for fun. It might be indeed quite fun but that's not how you'd normally play the game. Ironically, back when scaling is tied to the amount of damage you take, I did often try to put the weakest team possible to ensure I took a large amount of damage to keep scaling in check and I indeed rotated through many of my characters as they each take turn dying (but still winning) to keep scaling under controlled. Now that was more of an accident that resulted in playing a wide variety of characters being rewarding, but that's in theory how the game should work. There should be a reason to not use Magneto + Daken + Falcon to just bulldoze everything whether they're level 30 or 395, and currently there isn't one.

CrookedKnight

Bowgentle wrote:

I don't understand how people can grind for 9 days for a single Fury cover.

It's those damn tokens! One fury cover is one thing, but 30+ chances to draw one is another.