The Simulator - Nov 11th-18th

xequalsy

Vankysher wrote:

Just need to vent.

Effing node 5 in normal destroyed my team of Hulk/Thor/OBW.
The multiple cascades and critical tiles generated made short work of my team that my phone went to sleep several times as I waited for the AI to finish its bonus moves and firing off powers.
Watching over 10k of total health go down to nothing in a span of over a minute is rage-inducing and depressing.
Wasted 3 health packs and a bunch of boosts just to take make sure I took that node.

Even though the devs say the AI doesn't cheat and the number of lucky cascades is pretty even, I've never had that many lucky cascades that go on that long to generate enough AP to power everyone on my team during this entire event.

Next time that happens, retreat out of the battle once they get an insane cascade. Obviously if they already queued up abilities for that turn you'd still take damage from them(plus the health penalty for retreating), but I don't think the AI actually uses the AP it gets straight away from insane cascades (might be wrong on this one I guess?). Either way retreating probably will save you time from watching the AI do stuff.

Seasick Pirate

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

I'm well past mystique at 192k now, and my last pass through the normal nodes netted 12k. At 112k I'd assume yours is closer to 16-18k, which means three passes through the normal nodes should do it. Concentrate there, and use the hard to supplement if you have the health packs to spare.

Don't miss a node or a refresh in the normal between now and the end, and you should be fine.

I'm only doing around 12k per run. I'm so close but don't think it's going to happen. Probably could have used one more pass through to do it. That'll teach me to ever not play this game. Good news is grinding these out so steady recently has made me #1 in both subs. Might as well keep going to maintain those seeing as I don't even want the Falcon covers.

Unknown

xequalsy wrote:

Vankysher wrote:

Just need to vent.

Effing node 5 in normal destroyed my team of Hulk/Thor/OBW.
The multiple cascades and critical tiles generated made short work of my team that my phone went to sleep several times as I waited for the AI to finish its bonus moves and firing off powers.
Watching over 10k of total health go down to nothing in a span of over a minute is rage-inducing and depressing.
Wasted 3 health packs and a bunch of boosts just to take make sure I took that node.

Even though the devs say the AI doesn't cheat and the number of lucky cascades is pretty even, I've never had that many lucky cascades that go on that long to generate enough AP to power everyone on my team during this entire event.

Next time that happens, retreat out of the battle once they get an insane cascade. Obviously if they already queued up abilities for that turn you'd still take damage from them(plus the health penalty for retreating), but I don't think the AI actually uses the AP it gets straight away from insane cascades (might be wrong on this one I guess?). Either way retreating probably will save you time from watching the AI do stuff.

The AI doesn't use any ability after it mades its match even if that moved results in 5 consecutive match 5 and give it 30 AP in every color. You'll still take any damage from the cascades they would've made because that's already queued up.

Unknown

I like how the hard/normal brackets work out in Simulator. It's easier to climb the hard bracket for a strong roster, at least relatively. However I suspect it's easier to climb hard because other players with good roster get wiped out scaling. This is only anecdotal evidence but 4 out of 5 on top 5 have no character higher than level 94 in my sub (I'm #3), though 6-10 all have character in the 166 range. So maybe it's still easier for the strong rosters to do well in hard, but you can't match the 2* guy who has favorable scaling and is willing to boost. Normal of course is pretty much a grindfest but that's acceptable given how long the levels of the nodes are in normal, though some of them can be surprisingly hard even if it's just level 120-140 max.

GrumpySmurf1002

Ended up 3rd in the main. Took over top 2 for a bit, but I've got XForce maxed so I backed off once I had the 200HP from the subs locked up.

Love this event. In the non-Gauntlet edition, this is easily the most fun event for me. It just never feels like a grind, probably because it's not just 6 dark avengers ad nauseum.

Wobby

Well I ran out of time and missed the Mystique cover by 4,000 points. Damn...

lukewin

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

Ended up 3rd in the main. Took over top 2 for a bit, but I've got XForce maxed so I backed off once I had the 200HP from the subs locked up.

Love this event. In the non-Gauntlet edition, this is easily the most fun event for me. It just never feels like a grind, probably because it's not just 6 dark avengers ad nauseum.

Classy move. Something similar happened in my bracket, except #3 with less than 30 minutes to go, with a 247 5/5/3 Xforce, leaped #2, highest 102 3/2/3 Patch, all others 94 2*s or below, including a 86 2/0/0 Xforce. Feel sorry for the guy, they had held #1 for the most part, and ended up only missing 2nd place by 1,767 pts.

ScrubJay

I was at #10 on Saturday. I was going to stay there but as I kept hitting the essential nodes the gap shrinked, until I got into #2 pretty solidly yesterday. I needed that Black cover bad, glad I got it. With my event tokens, my streak continues of getting Daken non-purple covers. Think I'll have to use HP to get him past 2 in that color.

CrookedKnight

I ended up at 7th in a very stratified bracket: I was just 6000 over 10th place, but there was another 11K separating 10th from 11th. And I was even farther from second - that was a 33,000 point gap.

I got my purple Mystique cover and finished Falcon at 5/5/3, though, so I cannot complain one bit.

bdksni1

Made 7th in my bracket @222k. Very happy for reaching 3 falcon covers.

user311

Wobby wrote:

Well I ran out of time and missed the Mystique cover by 4,000 points. Damn...

Same here.

ZeiramMR

After a lot of grinding, I succeeded at getting 1st place and the last X-Force Black cover that I needed.

Trisul

Finished comfortably at #4 with 161k, about 60k ahead of #10, at a fairly leisurely pace.

The key for me this event was entering a fresh bracket near the end of the sub (second sub this time). A good head start before a sub transition means I have a huge advantage against my bracket opponents that enter at the beginning of the next one.

Did anyone else experience the normal sub getting easier and easier? By the end I think almost all the nodes were "Trivial" for me.

Vankysher

user311 wrote:

Wobby wrote:

Well I ran out of time and missed the Mystique cover by 4,000 points. Damn...

Same here.

The last wipe of my useful characters and having no health packs, I calculated that by the time I would have enough health packs to revive a team my rate of play wouldn't earn enough points to close the gap.

So imagine my surprise when I managed to get the 4,000 points I needed with about 3 minutes to spare in the event.

lukewin

Trisul wrote:

Finished comfortably at #4 with 161k, about 60k ahead of #10, at a fairly leisurely pace.

The key for me this event was entering a fresh bracket near the end of the sub (second sub this time). A good head start before a sub transition means I have a huge advantage against my bracket opponents that enter at the beginning of the next one.

Did anyone else experience the normal sub getting easier and easier? By the end I think almost all the nodes were "Trivial" for me.

They were getting easier in the Normal sub. I was keeping track.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

The AI doesn't use any ability after it mades its match even if that moved results in 5 consecutive match 5 and give it 30 AP in every color. You'll still take any damage from the cascades they would've made because that's already queued up.

I disagree. I find that it is 50/50 whether the AI will cast powers after a match-5 during a long cascade. They don't do it every time, but they definitely do it some of the time.

Unknown

papa07 wrote:

Phantron wrote:

The AI doesn't use any ability after it mades its match even if that moved results in 5 consecutive match 5 and give it 30 AP in every color. You'll still take any damage from the cascades they would've made because that's already queued up.

I disagree. I find that it is 50/50 whether the AI will cast powers after a match-5 during a long cascade. They don't do it every time, but they definitely do it some of the time.

I've never seen them use a move after they made their match. If they used a move that caused a match 5, that is not the same as making the match. The AI seems to scan its abilities in a predetermined order, something like:

check if Thunderclap can be used
check if Godlike Power can be used

So if Godlike Power created a mega cascade they still won't use Thunderclap because they already decided they won't use it (because not enough AP at the time of the check), but if the opposite occured (Thunderclap created a cascade) they'll use Godlike Power because it hasn't been checked yet. I don't know the exact order they check their abilities, but there's definitely one.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

papa07 wrote:

Phantron wrote:

The AI doesn't use any ability after it mades its match even if that moved results in 5 consecutive match 5 and give it 30 AP in every color. You'll still take any damage from the cascades they would've made because that's already queued up.

I disagree. I find that it is 50/50 whether the AI will cast powers after a match-5 during a long cascade. They don't do it every time, but they definitely do it some of the time.

I've never seen them use a move after they made their match. If they used a move that caused a match 5, that is not the same as making the match. The AI seems to scan its abilities in a predetermined order, something like:

check if Thunderclap can be used
check if Godlike Power can be used

So if Godlike Power created a mega cascade they still won't use Thunderclap because they already decided they won't use it (because not enough AP at the time of the check), but if the opposite occured (Thunderclap created a cascade) they'll use Godlike Power because it hasn't been checked yet. I don't know the exact order they check their abilities, but there's definitely one.

Just had yesterday it in whichever essential had Thor. Needed about 3 matches to finish him. Checked his AP, 5 Red, 10 Yellow, 9 Green. Hoping to get out of Dodge without significant damage. Thor made a match3 Red, cascade, yada, yada, match5 green. Cast Mjolnir, Thunder Strike, Call the Storm. Make another match3. Then I finished him and used some healthpacks I was hoping to avoid.

I agree that they check abilities in a set order, but some of time (not consistently every time), they restart the checklist after a match5.

Unknown

Weird, I'm pretty sure I have a lot of games where the AI made some absolutely monster cascade on their turn but still graciously gave me another turn to do my last rites.

Carnage_78

The AI also sometimes seems to wait for a certain character to be in front or not in front before casting the power attack...

It happened to me a few times while fighting recently...the AI matches a colour that gives it enough to trigger a power attack...so I decide to match a colour that puts Daken in front thinking that I will heal the damage over the next few rounds...the attack is not used by the AI & it matches some other random colour without any cascade or anything...hmmm...maybe I miscalculated or the AI waiting for something else to be a more powerful combo...I match a colour that puts Thor back in front...

BANG! The power attack is used although the AI did not match that colour in the previous round which mean it had enough to trigger it before but did not...and waited for Daken to get back behind Thor.

So maybe there is something about the character getting the damage as well in the AI decision to use a power or not.