Thor killed by cascades on turn one

Nonce Equitaur 2

So I go into PvE with Maxed, Buffed Lazy Thor.

I make a match. Juggernaut makes a match, which drops down endless clumps of similar colors. Saw my first 8 in a row, and one large clump of at least 12 yellow. Juggs takes one free turn after another.

Thor dies, and both Hawkeye and Storm are badly hurt. Just from the tile matches.

Whenever a full health character is taken down by tile matches on turn one, the game should just offer a redo. The cascades are enormously more gruesome than I can recall seeing.

EDIT: A line of 8 of the same color dropping down should only happen once in 279936 games. I saw it twice this weekend.

homeinvasion

I had several of these on the weekend but with max Patch, I take a turn AI just cascades to about 80 AP, no joke, then just cycles through abilities till dead, I had many games where I took a turn then the AI just killed my max 166 team at full health. I actually had 3 first/ second turn wipes in a row. As in wipe me out, use three health packs, wipe me out, buy 5 more, wipe me out, then a third time. I just switch the game off when the AI decides to be a tinykitty.

I also had about 5 games where I did world rupture that never went off because the AI expertly matched away all of the countdowns.

I also noticed a new feature where the AI uses abilities after my whole team is dead, as in last member of my team dies to Rage of the Panther so the game should end then the AI just keeps using abilities after the game is 'over'

Unknown

I had one that looked like that after 3 turns into the first fight with the level 30ish Juggernaut. I think I took 2000 damage from the cascades and that's from a level 30 Juggernaut. Good thing it was only a level 30 Juggernaut so that was no big deal.

I think there should be an option of "I swear that was a good move", when you activate it the enemy cannot get more than 16 AP on their next move. If they would've gotten more than 16 AP, the game would magically stop it somewhere before 16 (so it'd turn into say a match 4 that immediately drops another match 4 and then stop). Of course, if they were going to get less than 16 AP, then nothing would happen for activating it. Make it a consumable that costs some iso or something.

homeinvasion

Or as Nonce intimated a 'shenanigans' button. You can hit once a day for a do - over

Unknown

I thought I was the only one

Can someone explain to me how a level 75 Jugg can kill a level 200+ Lazy Thor???

Vitalbird

homeinvasion wrote:

I had several of these on the weekend but with max Patch, I take a turn AI just cascades to about 80 AP, no joke, then just cycles through abilities till dead, I had many games where I took a turn then the AI just killed my max 166 team at full health. I actually had 3 first/ second turn wipes in a row. As in wipe me out, use three health packs, wipe me out, buy 5 more, wipe me out, then a third time. I just switch the game off when the AI decides to be a tinykitty.

I also had about 5 games where I did world rupture that never went off because the AI expertly matched away all of the countdowns.

I also noticed a new feature where the AI uses abilities after my whole team is dead, as in last member of my team dies to Rage of the Panther so the game should end then the AI just keeps using abilities after the game is 'over'

That is no new feature. That has been going on long before the season format even started. I feel you though. Three weeks ago I had six moves(no exaggeration) used against me after my team was dead. That is not counting the eight used against me in actual game play.

Oldboy

Which brings us back to the old "AI gets the ridiculous cascades" much more often than players. And i dont mean from the current tile placements. The cascades come from the replacement tiles. This happens way more often for the AI than players. Not saying i dont get the cascades but it happens much less that for the AI. Case in point, the Juggernaut heroic pve, Jugs crash generates ridiculous amount of cascades and ap. This also happens to AI Rags and Hulk's clap and basically anything the AI uses that shakes the board. Plus when you put AP generating goons into the enemy team...

homeinvasion

I have been trying a technique with strangely positive results, I have no quantifiable data but it seems to work. Yes this is all bias, I am probably seeing the results I want but I like to test things out.

If I have a team that requires no Purple AP I use my first turn to match purple, which then seems to get me more cascades and more green and red that I do want.

or

Randomly match an off color mid game which seems to generate big cascades often.

Try them out and let me know if you see something similar.

Unknown

homeinvasion wrote:

I have been trying a technique with strangely positive results, I have no quantifiable data but it seems to work. Yes this is all bias, I am probably seeing the results I want but I like to test things out.

If I have a team that requires no Purple AP I use my first turn to match purple, which then seems to get me more cascades and more green and red that I do want.

or

Randomly match an off color mid game which seems to generate big cascades often.

Try them out and let me know if you see something similar.

That is true but not for the reason you think (e.g. the game somehow knows what color you don't need and put better cascades on off colors). In the absence of board reset or board shaking ability, the quality of the matches steadily goes down as you matches are taken off the board. Further, there's a roughly inverse relationship between the quality of any two consecutive matches. If you made a great match, the next match for the opponent is likely pretty bad. On the other hand, if you made a very bad move your opponent is likely to get a pretty good move after that. Let's say you need red and green, and there are 4 available matches on the board. Assuming you have any ability to evaluate the obviously good moves, you'd always take them. This means you probably left a lot of bad matches for both your opponent, and on the board in the long run. By the time you're down to the last move of the color you need, by the process of elimination it's likely a very bad move for reasons you do not quite comprehend. On the other hand, picking a random color you haven't touched for a while is likely to result an average quality move, and an average move is a lot better than a bad move (e.g. one that hands your opponent a match 4).

homeinvasion

Phantron wrote:

That is true but not for the reason you think (e.g. the game somehow knows what color you don't need and put better cascades on off colors). In the absence of board reset or board shaking ability, the quality of the matches steadily goes down as you matches are taken off the board. Further, there's a roughly inverse relationship between the quality of any two consecutive matches. If you made a great match, the next match for the opponent is likely pretty bad. On the other hand, if you made a very bad move your opponent is likely to get a pretty good move after that. Let's say you need red and green, and there are 4 available matches on the board. Assuming you have any ability to evaluate the obviously good moves, you'd always take them. This means you probably left a lot of bad matches for both your opponent, and on the board in the long run. By the time you're down to the last move of the color you need, by the process of elimination it's likely a very bad move for reasons you do not quite comprehend. On the other hand, picking a random color you haven't touched for a while is likely to result an average quality move, and an average move is a lot better than a bad move (e.g. one that hands your opponent a match 4).

I love Phantron's posts, always good, always thought out in a positive analytically way.

Phan, yes there are diminishing returns, I match green away ergo there is less green available by percentage so less green match possible. There is a few things to that, firstly I seem to get many games with no green match available at all. Like turn 20 and neither the AI or myself have any green, Secondly I tried my match purple a few times and the AI also ignored green and followed suit to match purple, I switch to green and it follows suit, I think either the AI is trying to counter match, predict match or proceedurally generates the board in some predictable way. I have often moaned about the AI matching off colors which makes a match 5 of the color it wants drop out of heaven. The AI will always have some sort of predictable behavior we just need to work out what it is... mwahahahahaa FTW that's also the grand conspiracy why purple is under represented.

Unknown

I will say that there's something seriously wrong when I can go into a fight involving three mid/low tier characters a good 30-100 levels below my team and come out limping and bleeding. For this to happen consistently... Yeah. It's not like I'm playing poorly; there's only so much strategy involved in this game. It's sheer dumb luck, match 5 after match 5, scoring 9 red AP in a single turn...

Unknown

homeinvasion wrote:

Phantron wrote:

That is true but not for the reason you think (e.g. the game somehow knows what color you don't need and put better cascades on off colors). In the absence of board reset or board shaking ability, the quality of the matches steadily goes down as you matches are taken off the board. Further, there's a roughly inverse relationship between the quality of any two consecutive matches. If you made a great match, the next match for the opponent is likely pretty bad. On the other hand, if you made a very bad move your opponent is likely to get a pretty good move after that. Let's say you need red and green, and there are 4 available matches on the board. Assuming you have any ability to evaluate the obviously good moves, you'd always take them. This means you probably left a lot of bad matches for both your opponent, and on the board in the long run. By the time you're down to the last move of the color you need, by the process of elimination it's likely a very bad move for reasons you do not quite comprehend. On the other hand, picking a random color you haven't touched for a while is likely to result an average quality move, and an average move is a lot better than a bad move (e.g. one that hands your opponent a match 4).

I love Phantron's posts, always good, always thought out in a positive analytically way.

Phan, yes there are diminishing returns, I match green away ergo there is less green available by percentage so less green match possible. There is a few things to that, firstly I seem to get many games with no green match available at all. Like turn 20 and neither the AI or myself have any green, Secondly I tried my match purple a few times and the AI also ignored green and followed suit to match purple, I switch to green and it follows suit, I think either the AI is trying to counter match, predict match or proceedurally generates the board in some predictable way. I have often moaned about the AI matching off colors which makes a match 5 of the color it wants drop out of heaven. The AI will always have some sort of predictable behavior we just need to work out what it is... mwahahahahaa FTW that's also the grand conspiracy why purple is under represented.

Imagine this scenario. You want green, so you see that there's the folowing green matches on the board:

1. A green match 4.
2. A green that cascades into one more obvious chain.
3. A green at the bottom of the screen that doesn't seem to chain into anything.

You'd obviously take 1 & 2 before the 3 and in that order. So some number of moves later you only have #3 as your available green move. Well, your initial intuition to not take that move immediately is most likely right. Chances are this move is indeed very bad which is why you also left it for a while. What is likely to happen is that you were correct this move doesn't cascade into anything, and since it's a move at the bottom of the screen it creates a large change in board state, which gives AI a much better potential chance to get something good. Now, the AI isn't avoiding this move because they've determined that this move is bad. The AI picks its move fairly at random when no obviously good moves (match 4 or better) are available, and it doesn't try to deny any particular color or beeline any particular color, so the fact this bad move is on green doesn't influence the AI's chance of picking it. They'll still pick it with a chance roughly equal to random, so you're more likely to take the bad move and then regret it. But, if you're going on a color you haven't been touching (like purple), then moves of that color haven't had all its good moves eliminated. Yes, the AI will always eliminate the match 4+ quality moves, but so should you even for off colors, and the match 4+ quality moves usually get eliminated rather quickly. Once they're gone, the AI is not in a hurry to take something as simple as a guaranteed 2 chain.

In general, it is better to try to maximize the number of total AP you gained regardless of color and if an off-color clearly has potential then you should go for it.

Unknown

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

I will say that there's something seriously wrong when I can go into a fight involving three mid/low tier characters a good 30-100 levels below my team and come out limping and bleeding. For this to happen consistently... Yeah. It's not like I'm playing poorly; there's only so much strategy involved in this game. It's sheer dumb luck, match 5 after match 5, scoring 9 red AP in a single turn...

What do you mean? I'm certainly cleaning up against anything without a top 5 character in PvP with my standard team. Yes any fight against Sentry or X Force can often end up with bodies on the floor but that's not exactly surprising. If you're talking about PvE, the quality of the AI teams in PvE are incredibly high. I'd certainly like to use some of the teams I faced in heroic Juggernaut even if they're limited to level 150 or so. Ares, Juggernaut and Daken 2* at level 150 would make a very formidable PvP team.

homeinvasion

Phantron wrote:

In general, it is better to try to maximize the number of total AP you gained regardless of color and if an off-color clearly has potential then you should go for it.

My favorite team is Patch/ Daken/ BP I just like playing without health packs every other game. So with any team I always work out my color priority before starting, with this team it is:
For Berserker and Daken's passive
for Rage
for BP strikes
Patch Best there is (14 is a little too high for priority)

If there are more than 7 on the board for Daken, or BP defense so situation-ally moves up and down.

No need

Now don't get me wrong I will always look for simple cascades and can usually see a 2 chain or 3 chain even. To prioritize over a straight color I want, I will also change priorities based on the opponent, like Hood needs more strikes, Hulk needs less. What I am getting at is there are few viable rainbow teams, because of the purple situation, sometimes you just end up with a stack of the color you don't want, shouldn't I with this team Always take green and black whenever they are available? It seems there are times when 3 green is a better option than 4 red or a blue/ team up cascade. I guess there is some sense in that the more often the board is being refreshed the more you are re introducing the color you want, rather than make the board more and more cluttered with the tinykitty color you don't want. Apart from match damage why wouldn't I prioritize colors?

I guess also if you are cluttering the board with the same not used color then an ability comes along that wipes out one of the few colors on the board you are setting yourself up for a big counter cascade.

Unknown

The issue I see with cascades is that no game can't possibly be balanced over multiple, different occurrences if those are too widely spread.
No matter how the game design may try to balance match damage and powers, you can't really work on anything if Player A gets 3 Red + 100 dmg, and Player B (that lucky bastard) gets 5 of each color because of a single cascade + 1k dmg.

My suggestion would be to reduce match efficiency as more matches are made. Yes, that's the exact opposite of how cascades usually work.
So first match nets you full colors + damage, but the more matches you automatically get, the less you gain from them. That way, cascades resulting in 10+ matches are not as game breaking as today.

I have been on both sides of that ( one character killed by one single match, or pwning my opponent with just one move ) and it feels silly, regardless.

h4n1s

rocketh wrote:

The issue I see with cascades is that no game can't possibly be balanced over multiple, different occurrences if those are too widely spread.
No matter how the game design may try to balance match damage and powers, you can't really work on anything if Player A gets 3 Red + 100 dmg, and Player B (that lucky bastard) gets 5 of each color because of a single cascade + 1k dmg.

My suggestion would be to reduce match efficiency as more matches are made. Yes, that's the exact opposite of how cascades usually work.
So first match nets you full colors + damage, but the more matches you automatically get, the less you gain from them. That way, cascades resulting in 10+ matches are not as game breaking as today.

I have been on both sides of that ( one character killed by one single match, or pwning my opponent with just one move ) and it feels silly, regardless.

To my knowledge - every other match within 1 cascade is less effective (grants full amount of AP, but deals less damage). Don't know precise mathematics, but from observation I conclude this is the case. The only difference is strike tiles and Espionage, which still deals full damage - I may be wrong - but this is based on my experience