The Hunt: Jan 21 - 26

Oldboy

Just tried Patch/Mag.stique combo for the Ares/Venom/Bullseye node ...

... And. It. Rocks.




Would've used Ldaken but Buffed mags tanked his colours

Unknown

ark123 wrote:

Phantron wrote:

If you don't have enough for 2 Infiltrations you can't always loop back to a Polarity Shift with just Mystique + Magneto, since the first Polarity Shift probably removed a significant number of purple tiles from the board.

At any rate I think this proves that the number of colored tiles you should be able to selectively place on the board for the game to still be balanced is 1. 2, of course, was still way too much (Magnetic Field), and requiring 10 to place 4 or some similar ratio doesn't work either. Deceptive Tactics would obviously have the same problem if there was a way for green to generate some other color's AP. Basically if you can go 1 AP of some color -> 1 AP of another color, then the ending color can never be able to generate another AP's color that somehow loops back to the original color or you get an infinite loop, but obviously at some point whoever designed these abilities forgot. It's probably just a matter of time before someone made a green ability that directly generates another color and then we'd be seeing the same thing with GSBW too. They really need to clean up this conceptually because it's frankly pretty embarassing to see a two step infinite loop in something that's supposed to be competitive.

That's true enough, at least the combo needs a human pilot, so it's garbage on defense, and it's also slow, meaning you can't abuse it in pvp.

It should be said that both the combo pieces are support guys with low health, so when only red/green/yellow/TU tiles drop after you started the combo, the AI can annihilate you pretty damn quickly. This isn't like the old hood/goddess combo where the AI didn't do the same you'd do but still crushed. But you're right that at times it does feel pretty broken - I did entire simulator/hard sweeps losing almost no health on my characters, even on essentials with my 2 cover sentry.

Well, the DAs are even easier to pull this combo if you're running X Force since they always generate purple or green via Surgical Strike (Ragnarok gets priority over nobody for strongest match). If it's green you just do X Force which will likely replenish whatever color you just depleted, and if it's purple, well, that's your infinite loop right there with Mystique + Magneto. The recent change to the high level matching made it even easier to pull this off because Magneto only has about 4000 HP normally and that's an amount that's relatively easy for ultra high level opponents to burn through with just match damage but now this isn't as big an issue. The ability damage of high level guys don't really matter because they usually hit you for something nobody can possibly survive so it hardly matters whether you have 4K or 10K HP most of the time. Unless the enemy has Daken/Blade/OBW who basically generates ability damage on just matches via their passives, it's actually not that hard for your support to survive against match damage.

I think they really need to take a month where they're not doing anything else and just clean up existing stuff. For example you shouldn't have abilities that generated 1 to 1 targeted AP from one color to another, because that means you can never make another ability in the opposite direction. Since we have Deceptive Tactics, green cannot generate purple. Since we have Thunder Strike (which isn't technically controllable by human but is so powerful that it might as well be nearly guaranteed green AP), green cannot generate yellow either. But eventually someone's going to forget like what happened with Mystique. I'd also like them to clean any ability that grossly mismatches whatever budget for AP/damage they're shooting for. For example, I'm pretty sure Dr. Octopus, Beast, and IM40 are all greatly running under budget, and X Force is certainly running greatly over budget. I don't necessarily expect huge changes but I don't want to see a guy that just does twice as much damage as someone else for the same cost, because that just can't be right.

Unknown

dr tinykittylove wrote:

ark123 wrote:

dr tinykittylove wrote:

The reward structure of this game is cruel... I was originally content to play for sub hp and my last green LThor, but found myself advancing up the top 5 and decided to try for top2.

But I've been trading 2/3 place with a tiny 2* roster most of the weekend and I feel bad for how hard the 2* is fighting with their very limited roster. If they can grab 2nd, it would be their first T4or cover, even if unusable. But my T4or is 2/1/1 and I would really like to get it too.

How is that cruel? You have a 2* roster and you can comfortably win an event? That's cruel? How **** should a roster be and still be capable of winning thousand people events? One cover 1*s?

It may be unfair for us, but that doesn't mean I can't respect that they're grinding their butts off against overscaled dark avengers with a much more limited roster. I was never that motivated to grind in my 2* days.

Heck, I'm not motivated to grind now. It's just that being able to make complete clears semi-regularly pretty much makes a mockery of all the effort they are putting in.

I'm the guy that's been trading places with tinykitty.

Not that I've been playing perfectly, but I'm inbetween jobs and have a very understanding gf, so I've been hitting almost every refresh, and double clears before I sleep. This will probably be my last hardcore run for a long while.
Was going for the 4*thor, hoping to get a headstart on 4*s/trophy and also helping my alliance reach T100, since we keep getting edged out each time at the end. Went hard until this morning, when I slept in on the 2nd last sub ending.

I think it's more of a luck thing and also strategy. I've been apply all the forum strategies and opening tokens with my iso rather than leveling 3*s, since we aren't even allowed to get the useful ones (3*thor, bp, daken and until recently, patch), to keep scaling in check.


My A-team has been boosted 2*Thor, 2/4/3 mystique (lot of lucky standard token draws and lots of iso) and boosted 2*mags. Mystique is 88 so my 2*daken tanks everything.
It takes awhile to grind down lvl 200 nodes, but I tend to be able to strategize and punch above my weightclass in many games.
B- team is 2/1/1 squirrel girl (which I grinded for), 2*wolv (revive wait and prologue heal) and OBW. I definitely am not breezing through the overscaled nodes and I wipe out often and am pretty burnt out after that triple sub overlap.


I'd say this is pretty hardcore play, not just semi-regular, and I'm making as much effort as anybody else.

By keeping my team 94, I've been knocked out of PVP T100 and have only made it in useless covers like yellow hood, so it's not without sacrifices that I get 3*thor, which has been vaulted forever and will still be useless for a long time.
The 2*->3* transition has been a pretty futile experience.

If this is unfair, I'm not sure how you expect newer players to advance in the game, when PVE is supposed to be where 2*s are supposed to get some useful covers, at the expense of 5-7 days of hardcore play. We can't even join good alliances because it's been impossible to consistently get 550 points. Even if I found a way to do it, which I haven't, I would need to play at every pvp end time, basically a full-time slave to the game.

Also damn you tinykitty and your uber roster My gf even asks me if I beat tinykitty today, because I keep telling her this damn tinykitty has been nipping my heels for the last week.

Trisul

Kriegerbot wrote:

I've been ... opening tokens with my iso rather than leveling 3*s ...

Noooooooooooooooo! Don't do it! Save your iso, you'll need it in the long run!

Umm, maybe try to reach an iso goal to help you conserve it... like banking a cool mil?

Oldboy

Personally, and for selfish reasons, i hope they dont make any changes to Mag.stique for a long long long time, if ever. The AI already gets an 'advantage' with cascades and cheap AP abilities and over levelled characters. Just when i got classic Mags to 5 Blue (pre nerf), he got nerfed and i'm stuck with him at 5/1/2. I missed tbe Sentry boat cos my Hood and Sentry was undercovered where it mattered and i missed out on all the other Spidey/Rags/Astonishing Wolvie sagas before they got nerfed.

I just want my cake and eat it too...

Unknown

Trisul wrote:

Kriegerbot wrote:

I've been ... opening tokens with my iso rather than leveling 3*s ...

Noooooooooooooooo! Don't do it! Save your iso, you'll need it in the long run!

Umm, maybe try to reach an iso goal to help you conserve it... like banking a cool mil?

Unfortunately, my progress would be at a standstill and there would be no point in playing, if I couldn't rank anywhere.

I literally got 80% of my useful covers from standard tokens, around 3 mystique blues, 3 hood blues, 4 of 6 patches, 5 deadpools, 3 nick cage, 3 yellow nick fury (not great, I know), a loki green and a 3*thor yellow, a black bp before vaulting.

Without getting my blue mystiques, I would not have been able to compete for 3*thors or hit 50% of my limited T100s.


I usually open a heroic, then don't stop standards until I get a gold (to a limit of 15k iso or so). Usually it happens by 6-15.


Edit: If it's any consolation, I will be saving most of my iso for leveling, when I get 2-3 playable 3*s with enough covers to compete for pvp T100, without screwing my pve scaling.

Trisul

Oldboy wrote:

Personally, and for selfish reasons, i hope they dont make any changes to Mag.stique for a long long long time, if ever. The AI already gets an 'advantage' with cascades and cheap AP abilities and over levelled characters. Just when i got classic Mags to 5 Blue (pre nerf), he got nerfed and i'm stuck with him at 5/1/2. I missed tbe Sentry boat cos my Hood and Sentry was undercovered where it mattered and i missed out on all the other Spidey/Rags/Astonishing Wolvie sagas before they got nerfed.

I just want my cake and eat it too...

If the players are too good at clearing nodes via infinite combo, the scaling gets all weird and players without the combo get scaled out.

Infinite combos are the most broken mechanic of the game and are (rightfully) the most likely to be nerfed.

Unknown

Trisul wrote:

Oldboy wrote:

Personally, and for selfish reasons, i hope they dont make any changes to Mag.stique for a long long long time, if ever. The AI already gets an 'advantage' with cascades and cheap AP abilities and over levelled characters. Just when i got classic Mags to 5 Blue (pre nerf), he got nerfed and i'm stuck with him at 5/1/2. I missed tbe Sentry boat cos my Hood and Sentry was undercovered where it mattered and i missed out on all the other Spidey/Rags/Astonishing Wolvie sagas before they got nerfed.

I just want my cake and eat it too...

If the players are too good at clearing nodes via infinite combo, the scaling gets all weird and players without the combo get scaled out.

Infinite combos are the most broken mechanic of the game and are (rightfully) the most likely to be nerfed.

The game used to have code that tries to detect infinite combos (like Spiderman's stun locks) and it'll magically raise all your enemy levels by a crazy amount if it detected you doing such a thing. It was pretty dumb but probably necessary and I think they got rid of it when Spiderman got nerfed, and it'd be really bad if they decided to bring it back but it'll happen if this becomes common. As MPQ is inherently competitive there's no way the game can remain competitive when you can pretty much defeat arbitarily strong enemies. The whole reason enemies went from level 230 to 395 is that they felt this is probably enough to even defeat anything they may not have forseen, and that's just to deal with cheap but not infinite combos.

I seem to recall MPQ devs quote something from Blizzard that went something along the lines of "We want you to feel overpowered when you play the game" but they seem to miss the fact that when Blizzard said this they mean that you might feel overpowered because your basic ability involves summoning sharks that shoots lasers which looks totally cool but still doing the standard DPS expected for your class. Blizzard certainly doesn't mean they want you to feel overpowered so that you can solo a raid boss when you summon your shark with lasers. If you look at the earlier designs for MPQ, it's literally like 'Thunderclap makes you feel overpowered by usually ending the game on turn 2' or "Spiderman makes you feel overpowered by never letting the enemy take a turn" or "Magnetic Field makes you feel overpowered by allowing you to take approximately 25 extra turns before your enemy has a chance to do anything". Even in the non blatantly overpowered cases, I don't think they really think about this through. You shouldn't even have a 1 to 1 expected ratio of converting 1 AP of one color to another, because that's already an infinite loop. If I have just these two abilities:

10 green AP - generates 10 red AP, does 1 damage
10 red AP - generates 10 green AP, does 1 damage

Those two abilities put together can defeat any enemy of arbitarily power, and these two hypothetical abilities are considerably worse than abilities we can use. Sure there's some randomness involved but when you've two abilities that converts back and forth at roughly 1 source AP to 1.25-1.5 AP destination it's virtually impossible to fall behind after enough cycles.

Unknown

Trisul wrote:

Oldboy wrote:

Personally, and for selfish reasons, i hope they dont make any changes to Mag.stique for a long long long time, if ever. The AI already gets an 'advantage' with cascades and cheap AP abilities and over levelled characters. Just when i got classic Mags to 5 Blue (pre nerf), he got nerfed and i'm stuck with him at 5/1/2. I missed tbe Sentry boat cos my Hood and Sentry was undercovered where it mattered and i missed out on all the other Spidey/Rags/Astonishing Wolvie sagas before they got nerfed.

I just want my cake and eat it too...

If the players are too good at clearing nodes via infinite combo, the scaling gets all weird and players without the combo get scaled out.

Infinite combos are the most broken mechanic of the game and are (rightfully) the most likely to be nerfed.

I agree, but I think there also needs to be a decent refund/exchange mechanism for a nerfed character.

It's not the most ethical thing to sell packs by advertising, that they give an increased % chance to get OP character du jour, then turnaround and nerf or change its synergies with other characters.

Unknown

Kriegerbot wrote:

I agree, but I think there also needs to be a decent refund/exchange mechanism for a nerfed character.

It's not the most ethical thing to sell packs by advertising, that they give an increased % chance to get OP character du jour, then turnaround and nerf or change its synergies with other characters.

This is a universal problem with games where you can change the content later. I've noticed virtually every game just skimps out on testing because they figure they can change it later. While it's impossible to expect perfect balance, it shouldn't be that easy for something that can infinite to slip through. If you simply adhere to a rigorous set of rules say either all AP conversion ability cannot convert targeted AP better than 1 to 0.75 AP, or that all AP conversion ability that are more efficient than 1 to 0.75 AP ends the turn, then it'd be okay. If either Polarized Shift or Infiltration (or both) ends your turn, we wouldn't have this problem here. Now people would probably be complaining about how the ability is useless in that case but it's still better than having to fix an infinite combo later. For an example of an AP conversion ability that works, check out Chemical Reaction, which isn't even going to give you half of your 5 blue AP back in green on average, but that's okay because it does other stuff so the AP conversion is a bonus and sure there are plenty of times where you see Chemical Reaction lead to a big payoff, but it simply cannot be chained indefinitely even if there is another ability that can convert AP from green back to blue.

Dartmaster01

Daver321 dont worry, i'm going to push til the end but I dont need the cover. If its close at the end, I'll let you have it

Oldboy

Trisul wrote:

Oldboy wrote:

Personally, and for selfish reasons, i hope they dont make any changes to Mag.stique for a long long long time, if ever. The AI already gets an 'advantage' with cascades and cheap AP abilities and over levelled characters. Just when i got classic Mags to 5 Blue (pre nerf), he got nerfed and i'm stuck with him at 5/1/2. I missed tbe Sentry boat cos my Hood and Sentry was undercovered where it mattered and i missed out on all the other Spidey/Rags/Astonishing Wolvie sagas before they got nerfed.

I just want my cake and eat it too...

If the players are too good at clearing nodes via infinite combo, the scaling gets all weird and players without the combo get scaled out.

Infinite combos are the most broken mechanic of the game and are (rightfully) the most likely to be nerfed.

My head agrees with you. My heart doesn't...

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Kriegerbot wrote:

I agree, but I think there also needs to be a decent refund/exchange mechanism for a nerfed character.

It's not the most ethical thing to sell packs by advertising, that they give an increased % chance to get OP character du jour, then turnaround and nerf or change its synergies with other characters.

This is a universal problem with games where you can change the content later. I've noticed virtually every game just skimps out on testing because they figure they can change it later. While it's impossible to expect perfect balance, it shouldn't be that easy for something that can infinite to slip through. If you simply adhere to a rigorous set of rules say either all AP conversion ability cannot convert targeted AP better than 1 to 0.75 AP, or that all AP conversion ability that are more efficient than 1 to 0.75 AP ends the turn, then it'd be okay. If either Polarized Shift or Infiltration (or both) ends your turn, we wouldn't have this problem here. Now people would probably be complaining about how the ability is useless in that case but it's still better than having to fix an infinite combo later. For an example of an AP conversion ability that works, check out Chemical Reaction, which isn't even going to give you half of your 5 blue AP back in green on average, but that's okay because it does other stuff so the AP conversion is a bonus and sure there are plenty of times where you see Chemical Reaction lead to a big payoff, but it simply cannot be chained indefinitely even if there is another ability that can convert AP from green back to blue.

D3 probably skimps out on QA, but there are games that do content change, but allow for skill refunds, like guild wars.
They embraced it and made it a feature of the game, where part of the challenge of the game, is that you have to respec skills to specific builds, before a fight, to defeat specific enemies.

While we can't expect perfection, and there seem to be persistent issues that D3 is failing to address, nerf refunds, transition timeframes, vaulting stealth-handicapping select players and token buyers, etc.
Unfortunately, pitchforks are the only thing that show, what players think, their priorities should be.

dr tinykittylove

Kriegerbot wrote:

dr tinykittylove wrote:

ark123 wrote:

dr tinykittylove wrote:

The reward structure of this game is cruel... I was originally content to play for sub hp and my last green LThor, but found myself advancing up the top 5 and decided to try for top2.

But I've been trading 2/3 place with a tiny 2* roster most of the weekend and I feel bad for how hard the 2* is fighting with their very limited roster. If they can grab 2nd, it would be their first T4or cover, even if unusable. But my T4or is 2/1/1 and I would really like to get it too.

How is that cruel? You have a 2* roster and you can comfortably win an event? That's cruel? How **** should a roster be and still be capable of winning thousand people events? One cover 1*s?

It may be unfair for us, but that doesn't mean I can't respect that they're grinding their butts off against overscaled dark avengers with a much more limited roster. I was never that motivated to grind in my 2* days.

Heck, I'm not motivated to grind now. It's just that being able to make complete clears semi-regularly pretty much makes a mockery of all the effort they are putting in.

I'm the guy that's been trading places with tinykitty.

Not that I've been playing perfectly, but I'm inbetween jobs and have a very understanding gf, so I've been hitting almost every refresh, and double clears before I sleep. This will probably be my last hardcore run for a long while.
Was going for the 4*thor, hoping to get a headstart on 4*s/trophy and also helping my alliance reach T100, since we keep getting edged out each time at the end. Went hard until this morning, when I slept in on the 2nd last sub ending.

I think it's more of a luck thing and also strategy. I've been apply all the forum strategies and opening tokens with my iso rather than leveling 3*s, since we aren't even allowed to get the useful ones (3*thor, bp, daken and until recently, patch), to keep scaling in check.


My A-team has been boosted 2*Thor, 2/4/3 mystique (lot of lucky standard token draws and lots of iso) and boosted 2*mags. Mystique is 88 so my 2*daken tanks everything.
It takes awhile to grind down lvl 200 nodes, but I tend to be able to strategize and punch above my weightclass in many games.
B- team is 2/1/1 squirrel girl (which I grinded for), 2*wolv (revive wait and prologue heal) and OBW. I definitely am not breezing through the overscaled nodes and I wipe out often and am pretty burnt out after that triple sub overlap.


I'd say this is pretty hardcore play, not just semi-regular, and I'm making as much effort as anybody else.

By keeping my team 94, I've been knocked out of PVP T100 and have only made it in useless covers like yellow hood, so it's not without sacrifices that I get 3*thor, which has been vaulted forever and will still be useless for a long time.
The 2*->3* transition has been a pretty futile experience.

If this is unfair, I'm not sure how you expect newer players to advance in the game, when PVE is supposed to be where 2*s are supposed to get some useful covers, at the expense of 5-7 days of hardcore play. We can't even join good alliances because it's been impossible to consistently get 550 points. Even if I found a way to do it, which I haven't, I would need to play at every pvp end time, basically a full-time slave to the game.

Also damn you tinykitty and your uber roster My gf even asks me if I beat tinykitty today, because I keep telling her this damn tinykitty has been nipping my heels for the last week.

aw man. I think you're fantastic. I meant myself when I said semi-regular clears, because I work funny hours and can only grind sub end times for most of the event.

I'll pm you later when I'm not sneaking a peek at the forum at work. If you get thorina today, great job and no hard feelings.

Unknown

dr tinykittylove wrote:

aw man. I think you're fantastic. I meant myself when I said semi-regular clears, because I work funny hours and can only grind sub end times for most of the event.

I'll pm you later when I'm not sneaking a peek at the forum at work. If you get thorina today, great job and no hard feelings.

My bad on using your wording lol, was reading too quick to get back to my nodes. My rant was more in response to :

ark123 wrote:

How is that cruel? You have a 2* roster and you can comfortably win an event? That's cruel? How **** should a roster be and still be capable of winning thousand people events? One cover 1*s?

It was a crazy run, and you need the cover for your 2/1/1 thorina, no hard feelings whoever comes out ahead! Yeah, a lot of my work is seasonal, so mpq is a good distraction, when nothing's going on.

Unknown

Kriegerbot wrote:

Trisul wrote:

Kriegerbot wrote:

I've been ... opening tokens with my iso rather than leveling 3*s ...

Noooooooooooooooo! Don't do it! Save your iso, you'll need it in the long run!

Umm, maybe try to reach an iso goal to help you conserve it... like banking a cool mil?

Unfortunately, my progress would be at a standstill and there would be no point in playing, if I couldn't rank anywhere.

I literally got 80% of my useful covers from standard tokens, around 3 mystique blues, 3 hood blues, 4 of 6 patches, 5 deadpools, 3 nick cage, 3 yellow nick fury (not great, I know), a loki green and a 3*thor yellow, a black bp before vaulting.
You can find my roster at MPQ Italia, Kriegerbot9000.

Without getting my blue mystiques, I would not have been able to compete for 3*thors or hit 50% of my limited T100s.


I usually open a heroic, then don't stop standards until I get a gold (to a limit of 15k iso or so). Usually it happens by 6-15.


Edit: If it's any consolation, I will be saving most of my iso for leveling, when I get 2-3 playable 3*s with enough covers to compete for pvp T100, without screwing my pve scaling.

3 hood blues? maybe i should do this too....

Unknown

what is the best combination of characters to deal with snipers at 200 ???
the lethal blow off 8000 .. is absurd!

Unknown

I've completely given up on getting a 3* from any event token. It's impossible for me.

At least I have an easy bracket where top 10 will be easy without trying.

Unknown

Finished in the top 20, despite fairly minimal effort, but didn't get a single gold from any of the event tokens, which really annoys me, since I needed covers for all the boosted 3*s.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

They really need to clean up this conceptually because it's frankly pretty embarassing to see a two step infinite loop in something that's supposed to be competitive.

Almost as embarrassing as calling for a nerf on a 2* MnM and 3* Mystique combo. Is it infinite loop? Can you do it 10 times in a row without using boost and no health packs?

PS.
Can we get a mod to move all this whining to the proper thread.