Poll: To boost, or not to boost?

GuntherBlobel

Hi all, I'm just curious what you all think about AP boosts given where things were with Sentry a while back. And now. Are they good for MPQ?

What about for UNO? Seriously, there's an UNO App that lets you boost cards before going into "battle" with other 5 yr olds. I refuse to let my kid play it.

rixmith

I only use boosts right near the end of PvP events, to get that one last win in before the end of the event (or before I shield, though that is rare for me). So I don't depend on them, and usually have 30 of most of the boosts. 95% of the teams that beat me would win with or without boosts, so there is no major skewing of the meta there. For the most part, they're okay. I don't rely on them, if they went away I wouldn't really miss them, but since they are there I will occasionally take advantage of them.

Unknown

Never use them, but I don't disagree with the general idea. I like offense having an advantage over defense; I like the idea of skewing the game towards the player interacting with the match. I'm not a huge fan of the AP+ boosts, since those, historically, seem to catalyze some of the more broken combos in the game.

Unknown

This game must have a mechanism that favors the offense. Otherwise, suppose the game is totally fair and offense wins 50% of the time against equally strong teams. That'd mean you can play at most 4 games before you run out of health pack on average (you're supposed to lose 2 out of 4 games, which would be 6 health packs). This ignores the fact that if games are that fair you probably need to use health packs even on the fights you win since you'd be starting the next fight crippled and then almost certainly lose that. Obviously if MPQ played like that most people would probably immediately uninstall the game. So while boosts are indeed cheaty, they're currently built into the game because this game cannot support a scenario where you only win 50% of the time in PvP. I'd much prefer they've other ways of favoring the offense. For example, I think in PvP all teams should begin the fight with a temporary burst of healing for some % of their health (but not over max). This would give the offense a significant edge without needing to resort to boosts (going first is still a huge advantage) but you'd still have to be careful as long as the heal isn't something greater than 50% of your health (I'd suggest 33%, seems to be a reasonable amount of damage to take in a fight under control). If they want to do some 'help the little guys' mechanism they can even have this healing be higher or go over 100% for extremely weak teams.

Unknown

In my view, the problem is the game designers have to take boosts into account when designing characters, else remove boosts. And to remove boosts they may have to redesign other aspects of the game (ie why take carry-over damage at all in PvP - if someone is knocked out put a timer on them being in use again that a healthpack can negate, but else let em fully heal) else as others mentioned its a pretty short and low scoring PvP game.
So to keep boosts as they are, they may need to design with more awareness that +3 is common and +6 is semi-common. Presently they seem to assume a 5point move is half the strength of a 10point move (two matches versus four), but when boosted it can the difference of starting the fight with that move versus needing two matches.
Anyway i think the current implementation of boosts is a bit broken but to undo it would require a re-think so its just safer for them to think through their characters a little better with boosts in mind.

Unknown

AJRooke wrote:

In my view, the problem is the game designers have to take boosts into account when designing characters, else remove boosts. And to remove boosts they may have to redesign other aspects of the game (ie why take carry-over damage at all in PvP - if someone is knocked out put a timer on them being in use again that a healthpack can negate, but else let em fully heal) else as others mentioned its a pretty short and low scoring PvP game.
So to keep boosts as they are, they may need to design with more awareness that +3 is common and +6 is semi-common. Presently they seem to assume a 5point move is half the strength of a 10point move (two matches versus four), but when boosted it can the difference of starting the fight with that move versus needing two matches.
Anyway i think the current implementation of boosts is a bit broken but to undo it would require a re-think so its just safer for them to think through their characters a little better with boosts in mind.

A 4 match move is more like 4 times the strength of a 2 match move (Luke Cage's Jab is an excellent example of this if you compare the two versions). This is because it is exponentially more difficult to get X+1 matches over X matches in the absence of AP accelerators. Of course, this is where AP accelerating characters and boost come into play and why they're a staple in the high powered teams. If you look at the design, all 5 match moves seem to be designed to be able to kill just about anyone (TBTI, Full Blast, Righteous Uppercut) and this level of power is appropriate in a world without boosts or easy AP accleration. It is not unusual to never have 13 or more AP of a particular color before a game is over and even with a powerful AP generator like Loki or The Hood, you still can't always count on being able to use a 5 match move. There's no way to incorporate boosts into your character design. If you assume +6 in one color is common then you'd have to just add 6 to all the ability costs and that'd lead to a hopelessly slow game whenever boosts aren't used, so this makes it even more important you need boosts. For example, in this world Surgical Strike would cost 17 black AP, X Force would cost 14 green AP, and Smite would cost 16 red AP. That wouldn't be a playable environment without boosts and you'd either always run boosts or your team is always going to be somoene like (Daken or Blade or Iron Fist) + Falcon. It'd also make the 2-match ability characters even more useless, even though they're already pretty bad right now. Instead of 6 AP for Psi-Katana you'd now need 12 AP! I suppose you can do something like just take all costs and multiply it by 1.5 and that'll probably be more in line between characters (Psi Katana would be 9 versus 15 for Smite and 16 for Surgical Strike) but that'd still be an incredibly slow environment that likely favors Falcon + friends under almost all circumstances.

Unknown

Boost. The End.

It's one of the advantages a player can gain over the AI on offense. It's available to everyone, and it costs very little. You can either save rainbow boosts for that 4* you really want (it should only take about 12-18 of them), or you can pony up the HP to use them more frequently. I prefer boosts and short game times to shields for HP. The +3 / +3s are only 20 ISO each. Just use them.

Mikaveus

As someone who doesn't field a 4* character, I ABSOLUTELY endorse boosts. They give me a chance to beat the maxed out X-Force/4hor/WhoGivesAHoot teams out there. And even then, it's only a chance.

And I know 2* players need them to have a chance at our 3* teams.

Boosts are the most non-issue with all the issues plaguing this game.

End transmission.

KrazyKeylime

i started off not boosting until recently. but if you are not you should it used to make it about even with a slight iso gain when going through the pvp events, with DDP the iso cost is insignificant. the main ability of boost have is that i can take on high character teams max xthor with 180 xf 551 and able to pull a win 75% of the time, it makes my health pack last longer cause i take less damage by ending fighter earlier before they do more match and ability damage, and i can play around easier at the end to try and pop off an xforce heal before ending the match. this all allows me to play about 2-3x longer then without boosting. it is kinda tricky to know when to start boosting, it usually becomes time when i noticed i took too much damage in a fight or the fight dragged on too long. it doesn't seem broken right now but if it does one fix is to have it be reward only so it can truly be a temporary boost that has to be carefully managed.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

This game must have a mechanism that favors the offense. Otherwise, suppose the game is totally fair and offense wins 50% of the time against equally strong teams. That'd mean you can play at most 4 games before you run out of health pack on average (you're supposed to lose 2 out of 4 games, which would be 6 health packs). This ignores the fact that if games are that fair you probably need to use health packs even on the fights you win since you'd be starting the next fight crippled and then almost certainly lose that. Obviously if MPQ played like that most people would probably immediately uninstall the game. So while boosts are indeed cheaty, they're currently built into the game because this game cannot support a scenario where you only win 50% of the time in PvP. I'd much prefer they've other ways of favoring the offense. For example, I think in PvP all teams should begin the fight with a temporary burst of healing for some % of their health (but not over max). This would give the offense a significant edge without needing to resort to boosts (going first is still a huge advantage) but you'd still have to be careful as long as the heal isn't something greater than 50% of your health (I'd suggest 33%, seems to be a reasonable amount of damage to take in a fight under control). If they want to do some 'help the little guys' mechanism they can even have this healing be higher or go over 100% for extremely weak teams.

There is PLENTY of advantage on offence in the AI being terrible. I only use boosts when i'm hopping OR towards the end of my climb before first shield. I use them for speed, not because I can't win (easily) without them. Remove boosts and there isn't even close to a 50% loss rate.

Even when i do use boosts vs mirror teams in my pre-shield climb it's only generally +2 green/black to speed XF up a bit. using more than that is reserved for hopping which is AGAIN only for speed.

As far as the OP's poll I personally only have an issue with +all AP boosts and even then only because it makes it tougher to have any ability that is impactful and 6 or less AP without ppl theorycrafting that it is totally OP AS LONG AS you are willing to use HP every fight .

Unknown

I think it might be better if using +3 All locked out other AP boosts so that you could only have max +3 AP in any color through boosting.

That said, don't see changes happening any time soon.

simonsez

daibar wrote:

I think it might be better if using +3 All locked out other AP boosts so that you could only have max +3 AP in any color through boosting.

There'd be no reason to ever use the All boost if they did that.

simonsez

bonfire01 wrote:

There is PLENTY of advantage on offence in the AI being terrible. I only use boosts when i'm hopping OR towards the end of my climb before first shield. I use them for speed, not because I can't win (easily) without them. Remove boosts and there isn't even close to a 50% loss rate.

Looks like another boost discussion is ignoring PvE again. Please guys, keep in mind that if you're grinding PvE, a 50% loss rate is nowhere near an acceptable benchmark. Anything close to 5% is going to cause you to run out of health packs before the grind is over.

Unknown

bonfire01 wrote:

There is PLENTY of advantage on offence in the AI being terrible. I only use boosts when i'm hopping OR towards the end of my climb before first shield. I use them for speed, not because I can't win (easily) without them. Remove boosts and there isn't even close to a 50% loss rate.

Even when i do use boosts vs mirror teams in my pre-shield climb it's only generally +2 green/black to speed XF up a bit. using more than that is reserved for hopping which is AGAIN only for speed.

As far as the OP's poll I personally only have an issue with +all AP boosts and even then only because it makes it tougher to have any ability that is impactful and 6 or less AP without ppl theorycrafting that it is totally OP AS LONG AS you are willing to use HP every fight .

So you don't use boosts, unless the opponent is as strong as your team (a mirror), in that case you do to lower X Force to 2 match and Surgical Strike to 3 match instead of 3/4 matches. And you don't see the problem with your reasoning? In the X Force dominated PvP world getting X Force or Surgical Strike before your opponent is the entire game. If you fail you'd take at least a health pack worth of damage and sometimes outright lose the game. That's why you boost in the first place so you need one less match to hit it before the other team does. Most teams in PvP aren't really that strong so you can get away with not boosting at all but you just said you'd do it if they're as strong as your team (mirror).

rednailz

daibar wrote:

I think it might be better if using +3 All locked out other AP boosts so that you could only have max +3 AP in any color through boosting.

That said, don't see changes happening any time soon.

Why though? If i'm wanting to supercharge my way through a tough battle or say battle a hood team and be able to get an ability off I double up. + 3 AP aren't cheap, so I wouldn't see a reason why change anything with them.

Trisul

Apparently I'm in the minority, but I would prefer to see all AP boosts removed from the game, but also accompanied by a much higher limit of regenerating health packs.

(Obviously, some skills would have to be tweaked for balance, i.e. Hood blue would need a nerf because it's too strong in longer games)

IMO, the possibility of losing gives tension to the game that sorely lacks it in any given match. MPQ is already speed-and-offense-heavy and favors players strongly (via tile selection, color priorities). AP boosts tilt the playing field WAY too much to the player.

Marty17

The way I see it, I don't generally use them however when faced against oppositions that are overly scaled, I feel it's only fair for me to equip boosts to even the playing field a bit.

Vankysher

I field a mix of lvl 75 2* & 3* teams for pvp and in PvP start boosting once I start seeing lvl 94 teams or if I'm trying to push a wounded team through an extra match to save on health packs (same goes in PvE during those final grinds).
I used to not use any boosts to better gauge my match-3 skill (if there is such a thing) and try to beat nodes straight up regardless of the level disadvantage I faced. Once I started iso-boosting after realizing they only cost 200 iso, I haven't stopped using them...well except for those trivial/easy matches where it makes no sense to burn boosts.

Unknown

There have been plenty of times where I attempt a node once without any boost, and if I get manhandled I boost up the next time. Scaling is the biggest reasoning behind this. I almost always boost with OBW to get the aggressive recon that much quicker. This allows me time to gather AP for more other heroes and start my assault.

Unknown

Trisul wrote:

Apparently I'm in the minority, but I would prefer to see all AP boosts removed from the game, but also accompanied by a much higher limit of regenerating health packs.

I'm thinking if a health pack healed all 3 people to full that'd offset the loss of boosts at least in PvE. I'm not sure how PvP will work, because in PvE you can rotate guys to make sure you get more mileage out of your health pack under this system, but PvP you wouldn't due to how defense team is determined which would make it extremely dangerous to change your team, and that the featured character can never be rotated out so if he's taking significant damage he alone dictates you have to use health pack at a certain pace, which might be too fast if there are no AP boosts in the game.

rednailz

Phantron wrote:

Trisul wrote:

Apparently I'm in the minority, but I would prefer to see all AP boosts removed from the game, but also accompanied by a much higher limit of regenerating health packs.

I'm thinking if a health pack healed all 3 people to full that'd offset the loss of boosts at least in PvE. I'm not sure how PvP will work, because in PvE you can rotate guys to make sure you get more mileage out of your health pack under this system, but PvP you wouldn't due to how defense team is determined which would make it extremely dangerous to change your team, and that the featured character can never be rotated out so if he's taking significant damage he alone dictates you have to use health pack at a certain pace, which might be too fast if there are no AP boosts in the game.

seems to be an approach of overcomplicating the issue.