Luke Cage & Iron Fist passives are hurting MPQ

Unknown

Arondite wrote:

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

I'm pretty bad at this game, but saying a 10+ AP move counters a free passive strikes me as a bit odd. Seems like even that move matchup is in Cage's favor until 20+ AP have been dumped into countering a move that costs nothing. A lot of people are mentioning it, so maybe I'm missing it. I guess it could be worthwhile if you were going to flip tiles anyway (i.e. you're running Patch/Loki), but otherwise it seems like a sink of resources on your end. I'm not saying it doesn't work, just that it's a rather limited recourse.

Also Loki doesn't do anything against IF, so that really doesn't address his point there. The snarky tl;dr isn't really warranted.

Oldboy

I think the main problem here is that there is no activation cost (AP or time or matches) to generate those tiles.

Denying them means spending AP to do something to prevent or counter it. But generating them requires, literally, no effort.

At least with Daken or Bullseye you have make a green/purple match to activate it so you could just avoid those colours. With IF and Cage, you can't avoid it without stunning them permanently. Of the 2, the attack tile is worse (in my opinion).

Oldboy

One possibility in a future ability
- randomly converts an enemy special tile to a basic tile
- with more covers it converts to a friendly special tile
Or
- randomly converts a special tile from enemy to friendly or from friendly to enemy
- enemy to friendly - increase strength by X amount
- friendly to enemy - decreases strength by Y amount
- doesnt distinguish between friendly or enemy tiles
- (it will just keep swapping special tiles each round)

0 activation cost such as for IF/Cage. Occurs at the beginning of each turn

Unknown

Oldboy wrote:

One possibility in a future ability
- randomly converts an enemy special tile to a basic tile
- with more covers it converts to a friendly special tile
Or
- randomly converts a special tile from enemy to friendly and from friendly to enemy
- doesnt distinguish between friendly or enemy tiles
- (it will just keep swapping special tiles each round)

0 activation cost such as for IF/Cage. Occurs at the beginning of each turn

It's possible to counter anything when you get to design whatever you want, but an ability like Luke Cage is just so foolproof that you might as well make an abilit like: "Passive: counters Luke Cage's passive" at that point, just like how people talked about maybe a new character could counter for Sentry but there really wasn't one unless it's: "Passive: slaps a guy silly if his strongest color is red, green, and yellow (in that order)". And what's going to happen is that eventually this skill probably will be overpowered and you'd need: "Passive: counters an ability that randomly swaps tile ownership, activates every turn" and then there's going to be the counter to that and so on.

El Satanno

So far it seems that we're not really addressing several of the problems with countering these passives.

I'm really surprised that no one yet has mentioned that in order for any of these counters to work, you need to get the AP up to do so. Loki can swap a single instance of Cage's defense tile...for the paltry sum of 11 black. Cage will poop out another one lickety split, so you're really just breaking even at very best. Mind you that Loki does sweet FA about Fisting Fury's attack tile. Did I mention that you need to scoop up eleven black to even get that far?

Spidey can, in theory, stun lock either of those two pests. But even he needs at least 5 blue to get going. And if you really want it to work, you gotta keep those web tiles on the board. I don't know about you guys, but I have never seen any more than 2 web tiles on the board for more than one or two turns. Even assuming you do manage to keep them stunned for more than a single turn at a pop, that's just stopping the re-emergence of those tiles. You have to worry about getting rid of them in the first place and keeping the offending tile producer locked and dealing with the effects until they are gone and keeping the AP to keep that lock and coping with the other two enemies...it's a bit much, isn't it? Daredevil is somewhat better off than Spidey, in my opinion, but he needs even more AP to get going for the stun and/or the tile elimination. Oh, and lest we forget: You're being forced to bring either Spidey (who is basically a punching bag) or Daredevil (who I like but isn't exactly a consistent heavy-hitter) along instead of your top-class heroes.

The problem really boils down to the fact that these guys are dumping these tiles on you for frickin' free. There's a big can of worms over there that reads "Both guys feed into one another's already beefy powers," too...

Oldboy

Phantron wrote:

Oldboy wrote:

One possibility in a future ability
- randomly converts an enemy special tile to a basic tile
- with more covers it converts to a friendly special tile
Or
- randomly converts a special tile from enemy to friendly and from friendly to enemy
- doesnt distinguish between friendly or enemy tiles
- (it will just keep swapping special tiles each round)

0 activation cost such as for IF/Cage. Occurs at the beginning of each turn

It's possible to counter anything when you get to design whatever you want, but an ability like Luke Cage is just so foolproof that you might as well make an abilit like: "Passive: counters Luke Cage's passive" at that point, just like how people talked about maybe a new character could counter for Sentry but there really wasn't one unless it's: "Passive: slaps a guy silly if his strongest color is red, green, and yellow (in that order)". And what's going to happen is that eventually this skill probably will be overpowered and you'd need: "Passive: counters an ability that randomly swaps tile ownership, activates every turn" and then there's going to be the counter to that and so on.

I dont disagree with you. Designing any new ability has the possibility of it being overpowered and, in my opinion, any new ability should have a comparable (not necessarily an opposite) counter to it so that it doesnt become overpowered from being unable to deal with it. Just throwing out suggestions or maybe possibilities devs might be toying with.

The way things stand now, it's either nerf or 'balance' their abilities or have new abilities that could counter special tiles other than denying AP (which sadly don't work on IF and Cage). Only thing i can think of that would work in mitigating damage from IF? Have your own Cage with comparable or better protect strengths to their attack tiles. That way it ends up doing 1 dmg each round. But that also means everyone racing to get their own Cage and IF, like what happened to Sentry and Hood and now, 4hor and xforce.

Just to digress, does it mean IF can also stand for Iron Force? (Iron fist + X-force wolverine)
X Fist sounds... wrong

dkffiv

Another problem is their tiles persist even if you do down them. On the simulator nodes I was rushing IF down and then praying the random Xforce cleaves would knock the tile out.

One clunky solution would be to make them CD tiles that spawn at 2 and get stuck at 1 (like HT's green). While its at 1, Cage reduces damage by x (turn 1 he spawns it, turn 2 it ticks down to 1 and starts working), when IF's black ticks down from 1 it goes off (turn 1 he spawns it, turn 2 it ticks down to 1, turn 3 it pulses at 1 and does damage). At least then the tiles are guaranteed to go away when they die, there is a minor level of counter play, and OBW Bag-Man and Moonstone have abilities that affect them. The downside is protect tile wipes + Trickery would no longer work and they wouldn't be buffed from Inspiration.

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.

I have to disagree with you because like you said there are always counters and these characters are a great help for 2* transition players. Cage is great for any low health player (hood,obw,custorm,torch and so on). There are many characters that can counter cage and iron fist like stunners ap stealers characters that place strike tiles and protect tiles. The best counters I would say are captain America and patch Loki, but I think that you are only thinking about quick hops which in that case the truth is that in the end you will only see x-force and thora which both are great counters for them.

dkffiv

Teno1 wrote:

I have to disagree with you because like you said there are always counters and these characters are a great help for 2* transition players. Cage is great for any low health player (hood,obw,custorm,torch and so on). There are many characters that can counter cage and iron fist like stunners ap stealers characters that place strike tiles and protect tiles. The best counters I would say are captain America and patch Loki, but I think that you are only thinking about quick hops which in that case the truth is that in the end you will only see x-force and thora which both are great counters for them.

Luke Cage maybe but IF is terrible for 2* players, depending on your definition. If every 2* player has 2x 94's and a 166 ?/?/5 IF they're going to be taking 500+ damage a turn from match + attack tiles alone. Health packs are going to get eaten like crazy.

I think CapAm is a terrible counter for IF, he's too slow. Without boosts you're probably taking close to 4200 damage before you can get your first Peacemaker off and if your CD tile gets destroyed you're really screwed.

Patch is a decent counter but IF's tile completely negates his healing until its removed. If you're weaving him in and out every other turn to let him catch his breath your other characters are going to take a beating due to how slow most Patch matches are (remember that you cannot use your green or you will kill yourself *unless you have all the purple tiles covered with Dr. Doom or something). Patch Daken +1 (underleveled Loki would be ideal) is a good counter but it will be very very slow.

Unknown

dkffiv wrote:

Teno1 wrote:

I have to disagree with you because like you said there are always counters and these characters are a great help for 2* transition players. Cage is great for any low health player (hood,obw,custorm,torch and so on). There are many characters that can counter cage and iron fist like stunners ap stealers characters that place strike tiles and protect tiles. The best counters I would say are captain America and patch Loki, but I think that you are only thinking about quick hops which in that case the truth is that in the end you will only see x-force and thora which both are great counters for them.

Luke Cage maybe but IF is terrible for 2* players, depending on your definition. If every 2* player has 2x 94's and a 166 ?/?/5 IF they're going to be taking 500+ damage a turn from match + attack tiles alone. Health packs are going to get eaten like crazy.

I think CapAm is a terrible counter for IF, he's too slow. Without boosts you're probably taking close to 4200 damage before you can get your first Peacemaker off and if your CD tile gets destroyed you're really screwed.

Patch is a decent counter but IF's tile completely negates his healing until its removed. If you're weaving him in and out every other turn to let him catch his breath your other characters are going to take a beating due to how slow most Patch matches are (remember that you cannot use your green or you will kill yourself *unless you have all the purple tiles covered with Dr. Doom or something). Patch Daken +1 (underleveled Loki would be ideal) is a good counter but it will be very very slow.

First you are probably talking about when cage and iron fist are buff, which I am talking about when other characters are buffed and you pair cage or if with obw, hood and feat. If a transitioner has a 166 like you say , obw or c storm who will you go first for? I would try and get rid of the wall first in this case cage or if by that time the 2*s will have collected enough ap to do some good damage which any hopper hates and if you try to play it the other way around you will take more damage and the fight would take too long.

I do agree the capt is to slow but he has great health and since this is a 3 on 3 with a bit of help he can do some good damage but again I assume you are only talking about when they are buff. Actually now that I think of it grocket would be a great counter too he's regeneration and strike tiles can finish them pretty quickly.

I was talking about a trio like patch,Loki and feature it'll take a while but once you buff ap and get enough ap to trigger both berserker rage and trickery at the same time it's pretty much it for the opponent. I'm talking about offense not defense by the way.

Unknown

As major premise in billing game, Basically should not be nerf.
if to improve, Should be buff other characters.
Billing the user away and MPQ is go out of fashion.

Unknown

A nice counter could be expanding Elektra's DDX ability to cover Protect and Attack tiles as well. "Oh here's a small special tile, I'll just be taking this large one thank you very much" Could work.

If Switcheroo does in fact lock the tile and prevent new ones from spawning then it's time to roster a 4/0/0 Bagman and start exchanging TUs with your alliance.

Mawtful

Just wanted to chime in on the locked tile discussion from page 1.

Ran a team of Cage, 2* Magneto, Bagman (5/4/4). I dropped a Bagman web-lock onto my own Cage protect tile and the next turn he created a new one. Bubble-locks probably work the same way, so no hidden secret strategy there. Interestingly, Bagman's web-locks count as webs! I was almost certain that they didn't. Perhaps they count as webs for snarky remark, but I clearly remember that they don't/didn't work with Venom's Devour. Anyway, the point is that using Snarky Remark on your own Jab, Jab, Cross is not really as exciting as I thought it would be. It mostly just used up yellow AP that I could have used on Righteous Uppercut.

Moral of the story: it's still not worth using Bagman for anything. Why do I still have him taking up a roster slot?

Unknown

No mention of blades free tiles each turn with just requiring slightly more than average number of red tiles on the board? In all honesty these guys are annoying but not overpowered and bring a nice new mix to the table. They aren't hard to counter but do basically guarantee you will take some damage.

A nice change to healers to counter this would. Be to allow healing atleast up to the amount you entered the battle with.

Anyone atleast the last several characters are fun and not duds

Unknown

Perhaps I'm a bit off topic here, and this might be a bit odd, but I must say I agree with the title of this thread in one different, but literal sense: Both IF's black and Cage's red use animations that, though they are great art, can be quite irritating. Sometimes you'll end up watching these animations over and over every couple turns, and sometimes twice in a row if both teams have IF/Cage (or both teams have both!).

IF's attack tile generation animation is particularly irritating for me because it has a bright flash during the animation, and especially if you're playing the game in low light or the dark, it can end up giving you a headache. I've started to habitually close my eyes during his animation as a result.

I've observed this trend towards using flashes, white and bright light in more games than MPQ. Some other games like Little Big Planet (If I remember correctly) love to for some reason use a nearly pure white screen background when loading levels - and loading can last for over a minute in some of these games. I seriously have to just close my eyes for the duration. Flashes and slick animations are great, but are better when used sparingly. White backgrounds look clean and crisp, but are extreme on the eyes.

I'd love if they limited the animations for Cage and IF to just the first tile generation, and subsequent generations just generate a tile without the animation (like MMN's red, but with a sound of some sort to clearly signal the event).

Unknown

IMO it's a sad state of affairs that the AI is SO bad that ppl expect to win matches without ANYTHING meaningful happening to their team and as soon as a character is sufficiently idiot proof to guarantee an effect even in the incompetent AI's hands the cries for nerfing come.

It was exactly the same with Daken. His strike tiles were perfectly reasonably balanced BUT because the AI couldn't screw up passively gaining tiles he took a completely unjustified nerf and is now mostly used as a seed killer and/or a body that fills a space without requiring health packs. His threat (more an irritation) on defence was neutered.

As far as Cage and IF go...

I have no idea why anyone is complaining about Luke Cage's passive since it is nothing more than a speed bump. It's countered by strike tiles (why the hell are we talking about needing Loki when ANY decent strike generator counters it) but no-one uses strike generators much at all outside Patch for Hulk bombing (Maybe Blade but more for his attack tiles. Shame his health is meh and no regen) cause there really isn't much in the way of decent strike generators for PvP. Blame the ppl whining about every strike tile generator being OP and needing a nerf.

IF's attack tile is pretty annoying though. Hard to counter with protect tiles because of it's size and unless you stun him out there's no point in removing it. On the OTHER hand, his health isn't anything to write home about, his green is meh and denying a single colour (purple) isn't all that onerous (although his purple is pretty damn cheap). On the OTHER hand, the damage his attack tiles does, over the number of turns it takes to kill him (with his so-so health total) is no more than one decent damaging ability from another hero and if the AI didn't suck so hard other heroes would get an ability off before you downed them.

It isn't that it's overpowered, it's just that it's reliable in the face of stupidity whereas all your other defensive heroes are not.

AlphaNik

They kind of... counter each other?

Unknown

The asymmetrical nature of those two abilities disturbs me. Protect tiles are weaker than attack tiles. Generally speaking, when you put effort into a protect tile, you're going to get less return on your investment than you would on an attack tile of the same strength. The fact that Iron Fist's attack tile is over twice the strength of Luke Cage's protect tile is just absolutely bonkers. He's already getting a better ability than Cage's, and it's stronger. The math just doesn't make sense.

Iron Fist is the first character in a long time that has felt like a dangerous power creeper. His attack tile and ridiculous purple ability are head and shoulders above the competition in terms of cost and efficacy, meanwhile he has more health than both the super-squishies and the standard squishies in his rarity tier. He's not in line with other 3* characters.

Luke Cage I have no problem with. He has a protect tile ability that is both reliable and relevant, and those are rare. It's a neat hiccup in your strategy; you have to play around heavy defenses. Note that playing around crippling automatic damage every round is not what I would consider a hiccup in your strategy. It's just a lazy way to make fights harder and costlier.

h4n1s

Moon 17 wrote:

The asymmetrical nature of those two abilities disturbs me. Protect tiles are weaker than attack tiles. Generally speaking, when you put effort into a protect tile, you're going to get less return on your investment than you would on an attack tile of the same strength. The fact that Iron Fist's attack tile is over twice the strength of Luke Cage's protect tile is just absolutely bonkers. He's already getting a better ability than Cage's, and it's stronger. The math just doesn't make sense.

It perfectly makes sense... While attack tile deals damage only once per turn, protect tile protects every single damage during that turn (that includes countering match-3 damage, ability damage and atack tile damage). Strike tile are similar to protect tiles, but attack tiles are not.

Unknown

LoreNYC wrote:

No mention of blades free tiles each turn with just requiring slightly more than average number of red tiles on the board? In all honesty these guys are annoying but not overpowered and bring a nice new mix to the table. They aren't hard to counter but do basically guarantee you will take some damage.

A nice change to healers to counter this would. Be to allow healing atleast up to the amount you entered the battle with.

Anyone at least the last several characters are fun and not duds

Blade's free tiles often don't fire, and he's very manageable by matching red. The problem with Cage and Iron Fist are their tiles are free and unconditional. If there was some restriction like IF only generates an attack tile when he has at least 5 black AP, it'd make it a lot more fair. Similarly if Cage only made an attack tile if the team has at least 5 red AP, that'd also similarly be fair.