Characters aside, what POWERS would you like to see?

Unknown

So setting aside characters for the moment so we don't have to worry about tying abilities to a person (unless you want to) are there any powers that you feel would be a fun and balanced addition to the game? It could be tweaking an existing ability into something new or even new ones made from scratch.

For me, the interesting ones that I have been thinking about at the moment would be abilities that are similar to existing ones, but with an opposite effect or trigger.

For example:

Something similar to Colossus' Fast Ball Special, but randomly firing an opponent's ability against them for free. (Would be great for Taskmaster IMHO)

Take some of these new abilities that trigger when friendlies fire abilities and swap them to when opponent's fire abilities with maybe slightly different effects (Super Adaptoid, maybe playable Ultron, etc...)

I'll post more as I think of them, but what abilities do you all think would be fun to have in the game, regardless of character?

ErikPeter

Exploit Weakness (PASSIVE)
Whenever you damage a stunned enemy, deals x additional damage.

ronin_san

A techno virus or growing frostbite like attack that targets one tile and makes that color grow by X number of tiles each turn.

Unknown

Gravity Well - 8 AP
Creates a 3 - turn countdown on a random black tile. Upon activation, destroy all tiles below it, doing 60 damage per tile. If the countdown activates on the bottom row, it implodes upon itself, dealing 291 damage to the enemy team. If this tile is matched, the gravity well is activated: destroys all tiles above the countdown, doing damage.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Each tile destroyed deals 98 damage, implosion deals 473 to enemy team. Level 3: Each tile destroyed deals 135 damage, implosion deals 655 to enemy team. Level 4: Each tile destroyed deals 273 damage, implosion deals 837 to enemy team. Level 5: Each tile destroyed deals 210 damage, implosion deals 1019 to enemy team.

Max level: Level 3: Each tile destroyed deals 428 damage, implosion deals 2076 to enemy team. Level 4: Each tile destroyed deals 547 damage, implosion deals 2652 to enemy team Level 5: Each tile destroyed deals 665 damage, implosion deals 3229 to enemy team.

Unknown

ronin-san wrote:

A techno virus or growing frostbite like attack that targets one tile and makes that color grow by X number of tiles each turn.

This sounds pretty cool. Could be done as a countdown tile maybe, with it either spreading form the tile in an x pattern so it doesn't match itself, or just turning X random tiles on the board.

Malcrof

Countdown tile that increases match damage done by your team by x% damage. Countdown duration scales by covers/levels.

ronin_san

Concussive Webbing: light damage stun that locks specific tiles.

Absorb energy, eg Bishop. Absorb AP when directly attacked - OR - generate charged tiles equal to the AP cost the enemy used.

I want an expansion of Deadpool's slash. It puts a marker on the enemy health icon. Make that DO something. It could really work with Sabertooth, who gets a scent of blood after someone is injured - or slashes on him mean he does a lot more damage, because ultimately he's a feral beast.

I want Iceman to have Wanda's passive spawn blues ability.

I want a *TRUE* gravity warp that causes tiles to fall up instead of down.

Unknown

Speaking of Dealpool's slash. I'd love to see it reworked, or another ability like it that permanently lowered the HP of the target for that match. Meaning they couldn't heal above a certain amount.

Unknown

An ability that acts like a virus would be pretty cool. Activation places a CD tile that does damage and creates 2 additional CD tiles of X% the original. If left alone it would eventually cover the whole board.

ErikPeter

I'd like another (non-Bagman) power that increases any countdown tile by a large amount, to be used defensively or as synergy with Mystique, Star-Lord and Colossus. It should also do moderate damage so it's not useless in many situations.

Unknown

I'd like to see a character absorb damage and dish it back in a count down tile at either 50% or 80% of total damage done to you. Or maybe a temporary mind control that can make your opponents attack there own team or shield yours for x amount of turns. But there isn't much you can do since they will all kinda come back to still being similar.

ErikPeter

A couple ideas I was thinking about tonight that I need to jot down before I lie in bed thinking about them for an hour.

First off, I was thinking about Iceman a bit, and I thought it would be neat for him or someone else to have a defensive power that shuts down red tiles, to create an interesting board interplay. Usually when players are fighting over red tiles it's just to see who can get the most strikes/attacks onto them. So I came up with the following (loose) power description.

Extinguish 6 Blue AP
Guy lays down a defensive screen, hindering his enemies attacks. Creates 3 Red Protect tiles of Strength 40.
Rank 2: Creates 4 tiles.
Rank 3: Strength increases to 50 (200 total)
Rank 4: Creates 5 tiles (250 total)
Rank 5: Strength increases to 80 (400 total)

So it's roughly a half-strength, half-cost Bird Strike alternative, but since it only works on red tiles, it helps to cover them up (unless Daken already blocked you out).

That power got me thinking about a few powers that would fit an aggressive character who works well with others. Jumping in and out of cover, they expose the enemy and turn the battle in their favor. They form a power suite but don't necessarily have to belong to the same person. and offer damage and board shake, is sort of like Espionage, but with RYU enemy AP damping instead.

Take Cover/Break Cover 6 Purple AP
If there are no friendly protect tiles, guy takes cover, creating 3 Purple protect tiles of Strength 40. Otherwise, he breaks cover to assault the enemy, destroying up to 3 friendly protect tiles, damaging the enemy team for 300, and damaging the target for an additional 230 per tile destroyed.
Rank 2: Enemy team damage increases to 800.
Rank 3: Protect tile strength increases to 60.
Rank 4: Damage to the target increases to 400 per tile destroyed.
Rank 5: Protect tile strength increases to 80. Damage increased to 1000 (team) + 500 per tile destroyed (target).

Flanking (PASSIVE)
When this character makes a Green match, steal 1 Red AP from the enemy team.
Rank 2: In addition, when he makes a Purple match, steal 1 Blue AP.
Rank 3: Also steal 1 Yellow AP when this character makes a Black Match.
Rank 4: When an enemy makes a Black match, destroy 1 enemy AP in a random color.
Rank 5: When an enemy makes a Black match, instead steal 1 AP in 2 random colors.

Oh yeah. Rank 5 could be too much, so maybe just steal 1. Still pretty cool.

Time Bomb 6 AP
Creates a 2-turn Countdown tile that destroys 10 random tiles. (Does not generate AP)
Rank 2: Destroys 13 tiles.
Rank 3: Destroys 16 tiles.
Rank 4: ???

Basically I wanted a powerful, countdown timer version of Unstoppable Crash, because that would be fun, but that power's just crazy cheap and good as it is. So I don't know how to make that better without just being nutty. Anyway. Time for bed.

Kolence

I'd like to see more powers that swap tiles similar to Illusions or Manipulations, but less random. If enough tiles were afected, it would be hard to predict every cascade even with no randomness involved.
For instance, something like this:







You select a tile (the yellow one) and all the tiles of same color on opposite sides of it swap places. So, it swaps 8 pairs of tiles in total.

pabasa130

OBW has the only active AP drain ability. All other drains are technically passive - Loki only when opponent matches 4+, Mystique only when opponent matches, hood only when there are enough colours on the board, blade's drain is tied to countdown tile.

Really need a 3* with active AP drain.

Kolence

There is also Psylocke. But it's delayed by the CD at best if it even survives plus no guarantee which color it steals in the end.

Unknown

theme-wise this would be a cool power for Mags, or maybe someone like Polaris...

Select a tile and tiles of X color would swap to move closer to that spot...

Would probably get you a crit, so damage plus board shake, plus AP generation of a specific color.

Square

A SINGLE character (not overall update) that can play a more human game, i.e. can recognise L-shaped five tile matches, places countdowns as close to the corner as possible, won't match it's own strike/attack/defense tiles if it can. An illuminati-type super-brain, maybe Amadeus Cho. Or someone techie, like New Mutants Warlock. That would be really cool. But just one character that could do that.

ErikPeter

I know it wouldn't be a popular choice, but I would like to see another character who is good on PvP defense. E.g. Bullseye is great offensively but really unlikely to do much on defense. Contract Killer isn't going to do anything (unless he gets lucky with a purple shot), Deadly Precision is an expensive, weak Unstoppable Crash (because its effectiveness comes from the player's intelligent use of it).

Hulk's just about the best character defensively, at least requiring care or stun to take down without hosing your team. He's especially mean against Strike users. IF is a good deterrent because of the unavoidable damage and potential purple pain, but still not really 'good' like Hulk is. Capt. Marvel has a 'good' defensive ability, but in practice a couple extra AP is nowhere near as good as Hulk's bunch of CDs that destroy the board and generate a ton of green (along with a bunch of other AP in cascades). Most 4-stars have a color you really don't want them to get, but that's about it. I guess Hood is comparably good, but for different reasons. Hood can slow you down long enough to let other characters fire their powers.

So I'd like to see another AI character that restricts the player like Hulk does. He wouldn't have to be the offensively strongest character (like Hulk).

Perhaps give him a really nice, but expensive AoE destruction power (e.g. Supernova), but also an ability that significantly reduces damage from hits of over a certain strength. Basically a passive Colossus ability that only triggers against big hits. You'd have to whittle him down (or stun him) before he built up the AP to take a chunk out of your team.

Another desirable feature of a Tank is a reason to take them out first (while the fragile blasters build up AP for their novas)--Colossus has his Red, which is always strong once he's last man standing. How about an inverse of Cage's yellow--an attack that deals additional damage if there's a downed enemy on the team. Ideally you wouldn't get that benefit offensively unless things go south, but on defense, you'd be hard pressed to beat him first.

Vengeful Roar 6 AP
Stuns the target for 1 turn. If (this guy) has a downed ally, also deal 4500 damage to the target enemy and 1200 to each other enemy.

Malcrof

ErikPeter wrote:

Another desirable feature of a Tank is a reason to take them out first (while the fragile blasters build up AP for their novas)--Colossus has his Red, which is always strong once he's last man standing. How about an inverse of Cage's yellow--an attack that deals additional damage if there's a downed enemy on the team. Ideally you wouldn't get that benefit offensively unless things go south, but on defense, you'd be hard pressed to beat him first.

:

So a Thorns type damage?

Unknown

On the subject of defensive powers...

I wouldn't mind a much lower damage passive like 2* Storm's yellow that triggered off lower damage and only hit one target.

"Whenever this character is dealt damage, they deal X damage (Could be fixed amount, could be percentage of damage received) back to the enemy."

would make you have to think about how to take them out.

ErikPeter

Re Malcrof quoting me above, I actually suggested the power I was talking about immediately below your quote.

"Thorns" type reflective damage powers really make you want to save that character for last, so you don't whittle your own characters down to one-hit life before finishing off the other damage dealers. "Percentage of the damage dealt" is especially noxious; while I think that could work to discourage big hits, if the trigger value is low it really sucks to fight against unless you've got plenty of Protect tiles. There'd have to be some way to turn it off, stunning etc, or a way to turn it on (create a trap/CD tile, the reflect only happens while that tile is out).

Imagine, for a sec, a character that reflects 50% of the damage back to the enemy team. If they've got 10k HP, that means their passive is basically "do 5k damage for no cost". It'd just be a painful drain on health packs. Combine it with a healer or strike tiles and you've got even more free damage.

I think a 100% trigger could work if it was a low, static value. E.g. a version of 2-star Storm's yellow that triggered on hits of 250 (just barely over match damage) would be very strong; with a powered up character or even one strike tile out, those little retaliations would add up. Against just one of your heroes, though, it could be mitigated (and you could take them out with a big nova or two with minimal rebound.

What might be more interesting is a character that creates a weak strike (or attack) tile every time they're damaged. Against match damage and cascades they'd quickly pile up, encouraging you to finish them off as efficiently as possible, but it wouldn't be instant retaliation.