Luke Cage & Iron Fist passives are hurting MPQ

babinro

One of the most fun elements of MPQ in my opinion is the counter play that exists between characters and skills.

- Playing against Falcon, Daken, Blade or Mags? Bring in Captain Marvel, Daredevil or Loki to destroy/counter.
- Playing against a true healer? Bring in spike damage dealers or strike tile generators to compensate
- Playing against high AP power spenders? Bring in AP steal
- Spider-Man/Blade/ Doom passives? You can cut off the appropriate colour and bring in an AP spender to turn it against them.
- Hood passive? Bring a rainbow team and focus on lower numbered AP tiles so he can't steal what you're building up

I realize that all of the above is entirely optional to the player experience. You can just as easily ignore counter play and just build up AP to alpha strike. But the fact that it exists especially for players who don't have a true alpha striking team is a big benefit to this games gameplay.

Enter Luke Cage and now Iron Fist:
- You can destroy that protect or attack tile as many times as you want and they just keep coming back.
- There is no character in the game that counters this.
- No action you can take to stop this and no amount of tactical play will help you overcome this challenge.
- Your only choice is whether or not said character deserves priority to kill above their paired targets. A decision that already exists for every character in the game by default.

Please incorporate some kind of re-activation effect on these passives!

I have no personal issue with the power of these passives (at least at level 166 I don't, level 395 is another story)...nor do I have a problem at all with the tiles being generated freely to start combat. These are things that make the skills interesting and the characters compelling. But once the specialty tile is removed there needs to be some kind of player action to re-activate them. It can be something as simple as getting a red tile match as Cage or having 11+ black AP with Iron Fist (to go with his theme).

Alternatively, you could keep the pressure on the enemy by having a destroyed tile automatically generate a 3-turn CD tile that renews the effect. Destroying this tile generates another 3-turn tile kind of like a reverse take on Falcons blue. The longer you keep this tile going the longer the team is without the passive benefit. (Caution: Bagman's Snarky remark will become totes OP with this change)

Note: Patch is the exception of the rule. His self healing actually creates tactical change in the game since it impacts only himself. It forces the player to alpha strike him down or establish a sold board of strike tiles. While setting up to take down patch the player will typically focus on other characters. Compare this to Luke Cages passive which offers a universal damage reduction and leaves the player with no compelling change in how they play the game.

TLCstormz

The only common sense answer I can think of for this conundrum would be for the next set of characters getting release.....Maybe they will all have abilities that combat Luke and Danny?

Whoever the telepath is, be at Jean, Emma, or Charles, I would think that they will be able to halt the revolving passive process.

Unknown

I think Patch's healing certainly is in the same category but since you don't have to attack him first it's not as big a deal in terms of gameplay variety. It's a bigger issue with how true healing tends to dominate if everything else is equal but that's a separate issue.

I don't think abiities like Luke Cage or Iron Fist is inherently unworkable but I certainly don't think there was much thought into putting them. It's like okay you got several abilities that generate close to 1000 attack tiles for using 4 black matches so it's clearly totally fine for someone to just generate a 500 attack tile out of thin air? It takes about 3-4 match range to put down about 300-500 worth of protect tile so let's just generate about 250 protect tile for free for nothing? Who came up with these numbers in the first place?

Unknown

Loki cancels Cage very easy. Flip it once, and you are even. Flip it twice and you are ahead.

I've been thinking, and Doc Ock's black passive might be the best counter to IF passive that exists. Any other source of special tiles you have to trigger in some way to get the fodder to feed Doc's passive. IF and Cage are automatic. Just match them as often as possible to throw out the attack tiles and watch the enemy melt away. Maybe bring Loki/Doc/Daken or any other strike tile user and use Illusions, Trickery, Insult to Injury to pump out the attack tiles and whomever to throw attack tiles. I'd be boring, but effective.

fmftint

How to stop passive tile generation, STUNNED characters* don't set passives




*Exception, Doom who sets a Diabolical Plot trap even while stunned

GuntherBlobel

babinro wrote:

I have no personal issue with the power of these passives (at least at level 166 I don't, level 395 is another story)...nor do I have a problem at all with the tiles being generated freely to start combat. These are things that make the skills interesting and the characters compelling. But once the specialty tile is removed there needs to be some kind of player action to re-activate them. It can be something as simple as getting a red tile match as Cage or having 11+ black AP with Iron Fist (to go with his theme).

Alternatively, you could keep the pressure on the enemy by having a destroyed tile automatically generate a 3-turn CD tile that renews the effect. Destroying this tile generates another 3-turn tile kind of like a reverse take on Falcons blue. The longer you keep this tile going the longer the team is without the passive benefit.

Excellent ideas. Devs take note. That is all.

GuntherBlobel

TLCstormz wrote:

The only common sense answer I can think of for this conundrum would be for the next set of characters getting release.....Maybe they will all have abilities that combat Luke and Danny?

fmftint wrote:

How to stop passive tile generation, STUNNED characters* don't set passives

I guess we should expect Prof. X to have a passive one turn stun, every turn.

Unknown

fmftint wrote:

How to stop passive tile generation, STUNNED characters* don't set passives




*Exception, Doom who sets a Diabolical Plot trap even while stunned

Good luck coming up with a stun to keep someone who can do his passive every turn for absolutely nothing though.

Lloyd Christmas

I certainly wouldn't find it unreasonable to tweak these passive powers to be more on par with Falcon's blue (needs 5 blue AP) or Blade's green (10 red on the board). At least then you are given the chance to deny the opponent those colors, therefore having a fighting chance.

Unknown

GuntherBlobel wrote:

TLCstormz wrote:

The only common sense answer I can think of for this conundrum would be for the next set of characters getting release.....Maybe they will all have abilities that combat Luke and Danny?

fmftint wrote:

How to stop passive tile generation, STUNNED characters* don't set passives

I guess we should expect Prof. X to have a passive one turn stun, every turn.

SKINNER: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
LISA: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
SKINNER: No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
LISA: But aren't the snakes even worse?
SKINNER: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
LISA: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
SKINNER: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.

GuntherBlobel

Another potential strategy addition:
A special tile (e.g. Protect or Attack) that costs the team 3 AP in that ability's color every time it is matched. Still undeniable, but you could at least deny other abilities of that same color.

So, like you could work to deny X-Force's Surgical Strike by matching IF's attack tile at every opportunity. (Unless of course, IF had some insanely cheap way of generating tons of black AP and ruining the meta-game for everyone forever until the end of time.)

Unknown

babinro wrote:

One of the most fun elements of MPQ in my opinion is the counter play that exists between characters and skills.

- Playing against Falcon, Daken, Blade or Mags? Bring in Captain Marvel, Daredevil or Loki to destroy/counter.
- Playing against a true healer? Bring in spike damage dealers or strike tile generators to compensate
- Playing against high AP power spenders? Bring in AP steal
- Spider-Man/Blade/ Doom passives? You can cut off the appropriate colour and bring in an AP spender to turn it against them.
- Hood passive? Bring a rainbow team and focus on lower numbered AP tiles so he can't steal what you're building up

I realize that all of the above is entirely optional to the player experience. You can just as easily ignore counter play and just build up AP to alpha strike. But the fact that it exists especially for players who don't have a true alpha striking team is a big benefit to this games gameplay.

Enter Luke Cage and now Iron Fist:
- You can destroy that protect or attack tile as many times as you want and they just keep coming back.
- There is no character in the game that counters this.
- No action you can take to stop this and no amount of tactical play will help you overcome this challenge.
- Your only choice is whether or not said character deserves priority to kill above their paired targets. A decision that already exists for every character in the game by default.

Please incorporate some kind of re-activation effect on these passives!

I have no personal issue with the power of these passives (at least at level 166 I don't, level 395 is another story)...nor do I have a problem at all with the tiles being generated freely to start combat. These are things that make the skills interesting and the characters compelling. But once the specialty tile is removed there needs to be some kind of player action to re-activate them. It can be something as simple as getting a red tile match as Cage or having 11+ black AP with Iron Fist (to go with his theme).

Alternatively, you could keep the pressure on the enemy by having a destroyed tile automatically generate a 3-turn CD tile that renews the effect. Destroying this tile generates another 3-turn tile kind of like a reverse take on Falcons blue. The longer you keep this tile going the longer the team is without the passive benefit. (Caution: Bagman's Snarky remark will become totes OP with this change)

Note: Patch is the exception of the rule. His self healing actually creates tactical change in the game since it impacts only himself. It forces the player to alpha strike him down or establish a sold board of strike tiles. While setting up to take down patch the player will typically focus on other characters. Compare this to Luke Cages passive which offers a universal damage reduction and leaves the player with no compelling change in how they play the game.

Yeah nope disagree. They are harder to get rid of but that's the point, they can only make one at a time that is their weakness. With cage use a tile destroyer or replace first then use your other moves, or use a move that's so strong it doesn't matter. with Iron fist set the ai up to destroy it before it activates.

Characters that are anti cage passive: Dare Devil (actually makes his purple always useful), Loki (he keeps making a new one for you to turn and turning the first one neutralizes his), Any character that makes strike tiles that are as powerful or more powerful than his tile.
Characters that are anti fist passive: Daredevil (same reason), Luke Cage and other big defense tile generators.

Possible anti for both but haven't thought it all the way out or tested: she hulk, doc oc, iw (if she locks the tile does that stop them from making a new one?)

GuntherBlobel

MonkeySlut wrote:

Characters that are anti cage passive: Dare Devil (actually makes his purple always useful), Loki (he keeps making a new one for you to turn and turning the first one neutralizes his), Any character that makes strike tiles that are as powerful or more powerful than his tile.

I tried this; I love Daredevil and Loki. But I also knew ahead of time it wasn't going to go very well. 10 AP to do 500 damage and remove a 500 damage strike tile for one turn? 11 AP to create one tile that merely neutralizes a protect tile for a few turns until it is matched?

As far as I can tell, none of the current counters are well suited for dealing with these powers at the moment (and they've released a lot recently). Maybe IW or Bag-man can do it; I'm not sure. But then, you're playing IW or Bag-man. The fact that I don't know the answer to this should tell you something.

Unknown

Hmm... does locking the tile prevent LC/IF from spawning a new one? If so, stealth Bag-Man/Bag-Lady buff!

Edit: Damn, had my idea ninja'd.

Unknown

I posted this in the thread about the cage tournament. Absolutely these new politically correct, generally unknown, unpopular, low rent characters are overpowered with their perpetually re generating tiles.

GuntherBlobel

wharrrgarbl wrote:

Hmm... does locking the tile prevent LC/IF from spawning a new one? If so, stealth Bag-Man/Bag-Lady buff!

Edit: Damn, had my idea ninja'd.

A buff to locked tiles and IW could be a really nice way to deal with this. I would like that. But the Devs would have to be smart and make the power auto-magically target special tiles, so that people will be willing to play with locked tiles in PvP.

ClydeFrog76

tuscan panty raider wrote:

politically correct

konannfriends

they had the right idea, when they made daken, and bullseye( his is kinda broken), spider man, cSTORM

the only character that deserves a protect tile every turn is Susan, or any character with 5950 or less.

these powers wouldnt be that ridiculous if both this characters didnt have high health.

luke cage should have to make a yellow match to get this protect tile. or simply reduce its maximum value to something like 150,( in my opinion anything that makes my matches only do 1 damage should immediatly be nerfed.

they could keep iron frist the same if both teams got the attack tile
no but seriously a power like iron fist should only be activated whenever he takes damage so saving him for last can be an option but he still reaps the benefit.

AS YOU CAN SEE I HAVE 3 LOW HEALTH CHARACTERS, AND CANNOT PLAY THIS PVE WITHOUT USING HEALTH PACKS.

Unknown

I think a lot of these abilties are designed 'for fun'. If Iron Fist's black does 250 damage and Luke Cage's protect tile is 125 that wouldn't seem very fun, even though they'd still be very useful (250 damage basically doubles the guaranteed damage you take every turn since that's still comfortably more than most match damage, while protect at 125 cancels out more than half of match damage, including nearly 100% of all cascade damage when there are no strike tiles present). But since this game is competitive, fun comes at the expense of someone else. It might be quite fun to watch Iron Fist punch someone for 500 every round, until you face him (or better yet, in Simulator against a buffed version of him) and he's punching you for 500-1K every turn and you got absolutely nothing you can do to stop him, and then it becomes very unfun. These characters also are different from some of the previous broken characters. For example, pre nerf Magneto was mutually dominant, as in my Magneto will totally destroy your Magneto on defense and vice versa, and as long as we're not being sent videos of how our defensive teams lost terribly you can just pretend it didn't exist and keep on steamrolling teams (and wonder why you're also losing points as fast as you're getting them). In the case of Luke Cage it's more like mutual boredom akin to the old The Hood vs The Hood battles, and in the case of Iron Fist it's more like mutual annihilation. Sure, the attacker still has a huge advantage, but given how cheap his purple is and how consistent his black is, you'd also expect to randomly get blown up and that'd suck even if you have the same guy to use. If you must have broken characters, something like pre nerf Magneto was better because at least you can just ignore the part where you're getting slapped on defense and still play the game just fine. The Hood vs The Hood was an example of a terrible outcome of broken characters, as you're forced to use The Hood to deal with The Hood and since he cancels out himself exactly you end up with a fight that's about as exciting as watching paint dry. Not only does it suck if you don't have The Hood, but it still sucks when you have The Hood because you've these incredibly boring fights waiting for you at the top against your mirror.

Mawtful

babinro wrote:

- Playing against Falcon, Daken, Blade or Mags? Bring in Captain Marvel, Daredevil or Loki to destroy/counter.
- Playing against a true healer? Bring in spike damage dealers or strike tile generators to compensate
- Playing against high AP power spenders? Bring in AP steal
- Spider-Man/Blade/ Doom passives? You can cut off the appropriate colour and bring in an AP spender to turn it against them.
- Hood passive? Bring a rainbow team and focus on lower numbered AP tiles so he can't steal what you're building up

With the exception of adding strike tile bonus damage to deal with regen, none of these are automatic-every-turn counters, so I don't think there needs to be one for Luke Cage/Iron Fist. Although there's not currently any character who can automatically disable passive abilities, there are a few ways to deal with the passive itself.

Stun
Spider-man can't permanently stun the entire team into infinity anymore, but he can still work up a pretty decent stun duration - particularly if it's just a single character that you want to lock out.
Captain America gives you a twofer - being able to take out the offending special tile and stun the person who created it. After he gets his shield back you've got a protect tile all of your very own!
Daredevil can really get a good stunlock rotation going if you're able to safeguard his cooldown.

Paint the board/Special tile spam
After that it gets a bit trickier. Both abilities require a free basic tile of the right colour to be available (for Cage, it's Red; for Iron Fist, it's Green). If there aren't any valid tiles, the ability doesn't activate. And there are a few ways you can achieve this.

Surgical Strike is worth mentioning, although the colour it targets is dependent on enemy team lineup. Also it's a bit of a moot point, since XForce is basically an alpha strike character.
Grey Suit Black Widow can select where to place her green tiles, so you could use that to "paint" over all red tiles.
Daken can fill up red tiles with strikes.
Storm/Falcon/Magneto all have special tile spam, which is untargeted, but can help fill up the available tiles.

Also, it's worth noting that the abilities also require that no friendly tiles of that type are in play. Currently we don't have any abilities which give the opponent protect or attack tiles (quite a few which give strikes though), but such an ability could be used to stop these passives from firing.

So I think there are a few options for trying to deal with the passive itself using currently available abilities. Plus there are obviously a number of ways to deal with the tile that's created. I think I tend to agree that some additional tools for dealing with passives would be nice. I could very easily imagine a character like Scarlet Witch could have an ability which prevents all passives.

Arondite

babinro wrote:

One of the most fun elements of MPQ in my opinion is the counter play that exists between characters and skills.

- Playing against Falcon, Daken, Blade or Mags? Bring in Captain Marvel, Daredevil or Loki to destroy/counter.
- Playing against a true healer? Bring in spike damage dealers or strike tile generators to compensate
- Playing against high AP power spenders? Bring in AP steal
- Spider-Man/Blade/ Doom passives? You can cut off the appropriate colour and bring in an AP spender to turn it against them.
- Hood passive? Bring a rainbow team and focus on lower numbered AP tiles so he can't steal what you're building up

I realize that all of the above is entirely optional to the player experience. You can just as easily ignore counter play and just build up AP to alpha strike. But the fact that it exists especially for players who don't have a true alpha striking team is a big benefit to this games gameplay.

Enter Luke Cage and now Iron Fist:
- You can destroy that protect or attack tile as many times as you want and they just keep coming back.
- There is no character in the game that counters this.
- No action you can take to stop this and no amount of tactical play will help you overcome this challenge.
- Your only choice is whether or not said character deserves priority to kill above their paired targets. A decision that already exists for every character in the game by default.

Please incorporate some kind of re-activation effect on these passives!

I have no personal issue with the power of these passives (at least at level 166 I don't, level 395 is another story)...nor do I have a problem at all with the tiles being generated freely to start combat. These are things that make the skills interesting and the characters compelling. But once the specialty tile is removed there needs to be some kind of player action to re-activate them. It can be something as simple as getting a red tile match as Cage or having 11+ black AP with Iron Fist (to go with his theme).

Alternatively, you could keep the pressure on the enemy by having a destroyed tile automatically generate a 3-turn CD tile that renews the effect. Destroying this tile generates another 3-turn tile kind of like a reverse take on Falcons blue. The longer you keep this tile going the longer the team is without the passive benefit. (Caution: Bagman's Snarky remark will become totes OP with this change)

Note: Patch is the exception of the rule. His self healing actually creates tactical change in the game since it impacts only himself. It forces the player to alpha strike him down or establish a sold board of strike tiles. While setting up to take down patch the player will typically focus on other characters. Compare this to Luke Cages passive which offers a universal damage reduction and leaves the player with no compelling change in how they play the game.

Tl;Dr version - OP has never heard of Loki.