Controversial Ultron Topic #348742098: Is Ultron Fun?

Unknown

Ultron seems too grindy for me after the first 20 battles.

That said, after I go back (or take a break) to regular PVE, everything seems to have the volume turned down. Regular PVE seems way less intense and I have to slow my moves down.

So yes. Ultron, or at least the sentries are fun because they're actually a challenge and heavily skill based (not to say they aren't roster based). Ultron himself is a tinykitty. How often is he going to 5-crit on the top row?

JVReal

I do really enjoy the Ultron event. I'd have enjoyed it less with 5 health packs and 16K bomb damage.

The sentry nodes are frustrating, but challenging because the board is always changing, you can't set up your moves ahead of time, you know you're going to take a hit, so do you clear enemy tiles and take the 5 destroyed tiles hit or risk 2 crits appearing by trying to maintain a balance between 5-7? Do you destroy the crit tile maker and then let the board fill up with enemy tiles while collecting AP, then round 2 shows up and 4 crits appear because you were careless? Do you spread out the damage between two Flyers so that neither hits <50% before you can get rid of enough enemy tiles so they don't heal themselves or do you focus on one so that if the enemy tiles hit 4 (despite the fact that its supposed to be 5) only one of them gets healed?

So much strategy involved and thinking on your feet with ever changing boards in both the Sentry nodes and the Bomb Ultron mode. I do enjoy it, though I do think they are over-board with the bomb damage... but that makes it ever so much deadlier and longer because of studying the board for optimal moves. I sometimes have to stop my phone from going to sleep from studying the board so much and counting tiles because the board is always changing.

Fix the bugs, bring the bomb damage back down so you can survive at least one hit and some match damage, and it'll be just perfect for my taste.

IlDuderino

Generally I think it is fun but the essential characters in this run make battles ssssssllllllooooowwwww for me. Refuse to put iso into Vision and Panther is still level 40 as I only have 3 black covers

I like the idea of an Ultron PvP

GrimSkald

The current Ultron Bomb damage is way off the scale - I don't rembember being this high last time and I'm pretty sure it wasn't. At round 7 it takes out any non-boosted character in one shot, boosted characters in two. That's less of an "interesting puzzle" and more of a "hey, lets see if I can escape unscathed or need three health packs again."

The Sentry nodes are also really tedious. With a good protect tile generator (welcome to the team, Luke!) they're not exceptionally dangerous, but they take so damn long and it feels like a real grind. They should either remove the waves or else reduce their hit points.

If those two things were corrected, it would be a great change of pace from the usual PVE. As it is, I don't think I can muster up the will to do this for very much longer - the center node is just so damn deadly.

GrumpySmurf1002

daibar wrote:

Ultron seems too grindy for me after the first 20 battles.

Repetitive maybe, but grindy? Nah, it's nothing like regular PvE. Doing 54 nodes at the end only to have another sub right behind it, every 24 hours? That's a grind.

famousfoxking

I love the Ultron event. I love DDQ. I love the Gauntlet. Those are literally my favorite events in the whole game, and by far my favorite PVE events. I like PVP well enough that it's what I'll play when there are no *good* pve events on, but I'm far more frustrated/disappointed/angered by the usual PVE events than by Ultron.

famousfoxking

GrimSkald wrote:

The current Ultron Bomb damage is way off the scale - I don't rembember being this high last time and I'm pretty sure it wasn't.

Yeah, we're only up to round 6, but I seem to remember taking bombs as late as round 7 last time and characters still surviving, which I don't anticipate being possible this time around. I don't remember the timing of things, the health increase came after the last run of Ultron, right? I wonder if his damage has been scaled up to take that into consideration? It seems to have been scaled up a leeeetle too high for my tastes, but not enough to put me off the event.

(I also wonder if their metrics from the last two runs showed too few team wipes on the boss levels.)

firethorne

It is a fun idea taken too far, especially in terms of the wave nodes. 2 waves * 5 nodes * 4 days, likely with nodes being repeated if your whole alliance isn't all playing at full speed. That is just to much repetition of essentially one match lineup. There is a lot of burnout in our alliance by the end. An army of robot goons may fit with the theme of the movie, but in the movie, the avengers were one shot killing bots. Not the case for mpq waves.

As for Tetris Ultron, still fun, but damage seems way higher this time. Did the devs leave him on gauntlet mode?

Malcrof

firethorne wrote:

As for Tetris Ultron, still fun, but damage seems way higher this time. Did the devs leave him on gauntlet mode?

Yes, and it appears to be the sentry's from the gauntlet as well. It looks like they buffed them for gauntlet, then forgot that 90% of the people whaled the Ultron node..

Chief270

I like the event. Would rather all new characters funnel through it.

MarvelMan

Unknown

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

daibar wrote:

Ultron seems too grindy for me after the first 20 battles.

Repetitive maybe, but grindy? Nah, it's nothing like regular PvE. Doing 54 nodes at the end only to have another sub right behind it, every 24 hours? That's a grind.

At least in PVE there's some play style variation between nodes. I like Cap, but having to use him every Ultron battle gets boring.

GrumpySmurf1002

daibar wrote:

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

daibar wrote:

Ultron seems too grindy for me after the first 20 battles.

Repetitive maybe, but grindy? Nah, it's nothing like regular PvE. Doing 54 nodes at the end only to have another sub right behind it, every 24 hours? That's a grind.

At least in PVE there's some play style variation between nodes. I like Cap, but having to use him every Ultron battle gets boring.

I change my team nearly every node here. Little more consistent with Ultron, but I use different teams to fight early Ultron as opposed to late.

When I'm grinding a node/nodes in regular PvE, it's set and forget most days.

Unknown

daibar wrote:

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

daibar wrote:

Ultron seems too grindy for me after the first 20 battles.

Repetitive maybe, but grindy? Nah, it's nothing like regular PvE. Doing 54 nodes at the end only to have another sub right behind it, every 24 hours? That's a grind.

At least in PVE there's some play style variation between nodes. I like Cap, but having to use him every Ultron battle gets boring.

^This,^ plus I would add that at least the PvE grind has some degree of "expected challenge for expected reward" to it.

Most definitely an illustration of my relative roster strength, but even factoring that in, I'd much prefer grinding known battles for known rewards as opposed to dying repeatedly for more tokens, or worse, 20 ISO in battles I don't stand much chance of winning beyond the level 2-3 stages.

Granted I feel a bit foolish actually arguing about which of two totally and equally grindy events is somehow the "most grindy," but yeah.

DBC

Unknown

raisinbman wrote:

Tetris Ultron is actually one of the most "Puzzle" types of fights in MPQ. I would even call it the biggest(and maybe only) puzzle in all of MPQ.

Why wouldn't puzzle quest players want more of Ultron? He's the holy grail of Puzzle Quest.

I agree that it's the best puzzle in the game, but it's also extremely limited once you get to higher levels. If one bomb hitting bottom means one guy dies, you really don't have a lot of wiggle room on the teams you can use to face him. I've found a team that makes him child's play and so there is not a lot of satisfaction in winning (especially when I keep getting 20 ISO as a reward). Am I ever going to use another team? Heck no. At best I'm glad I found a team that works and now the challenge is gone.

But that's not my primary complaint, my complaint about ultron is simply that it's one more grind fest. Everything about this game is a grind fest. You are not rewarded for playing smarter, you are rewarded for playing MORE. MORE MORE MORE. If you're not playing right before bed, and right when you get up, and in the middle of your workday.. you're gonna have a bad time. Ultron is more of that, except now I have to depend on my alliance also doing that in order to progress. And the rewards suck this time around, I was hoping for another crack at Scarlet Witch now that I'm in a good alliance. At least I'm getting lots of HP...

Oh, and to answer your question, I would say that due to the repetitive nature and compulsory grinding, no it's not very fun. At best it is definitely a nice change of pace from the usual PVE stories they keep recycling.

Buret0

I've been loving the Vision mandated goon nodes. Doesn't matter that Vision is there, he's unnecessary.

Boosted Cage tanks all of the match damage and almost all of the attack tile damage. Wipe the non-gunners first, then let the gunners have their special tiles... they can't hurt you.

Then treat them like goons in DDQ and save up your AP to do a big finisher on Round 2.

famousfoxking

Buret0 wrote:

Wipe the non-gunners first, then let the gunners have their special tiles... they can't hurt you.

Uh, Gunners will destroy you with Core Meltdowns if you let them get too many special tiles. At least they'll destroy me, because the crits always seem to be right next to each other and in the middle of a bunch of similarly colored tiles for nasty damage.

Unknown

I like the Ultron bomb drop mode. Im not really a fan of the drone waves requiring essentials to reunlock him, and would prefer being allowed 5 straight attempts, but I suppose that's just my own wishes speaking.

Buret0

Buret0 wrote:

I've been loving the Vision mandated goon nodes. Doesn't matter that Vision is there, he's unnecessary.

Boosted Cage tanks all of the match damage and almost all of the attack tile damage. Wipe the non-gunners first, then let the gunners have their special tiles... they can't hurt you.

Then treat them like goons in DDQ and save up your AP to do a big finisher on Round 2.

In response to the upvote question:

My SG is really well covered and sitting at level 160, so I've been throwing her in as the third. Her purple does a nice chunk of damage when the goons put tiles out, her green builds up my AP and does decent damage, and her yellows are each stronger than Cage's single shield. I don't usually put those out though because righteous uppercut can oneshot the first goon in the second round... generally the one that makes crit tiles.

I try and time it so that SG's nuke will go off on the first turn of the second round. I down the first goon with Uppercut, stun anyone else that makes crit tiles with Jab, leave the swarmers alone, then let the SG nuke go off and clean up whatever remains.

I've only got blue and red covers on vision, so he's just there to throw out a density tile and make the occasional blue match. Cage tanks red, which fuels Vision's Blue to Red AoE.

If you don't have a well covered SG... looking at my roster there are a few options. PX, IMHB, 2*verine, KK, GSBW, Gamora, Daken, Blade, SW, DP, Hood, or Patch in 3/4* land.

KK is commonly sought after, so if she's available I would use her for her nuke acceleration and healing (if you even take any real damage... more likely it is just used to keep used characters from getting more damage than they were at the start of the battle).

PX with Vision and Cage makes for a good time. Vision's density changes keep activating PX's special tiles. Blind Spot will quickly make your special tiles into nukes. Master Plan isn't going to activate except by accident, but it can fuel yellow if Cage is the strongest color.

Buret0

famousfoxking wrote:

Buret0 wrote:

Wipe the non-gunners first, then let the gunners have their special tiles... they can't hurt you.

Uh, Gunners will destroy you with Core Meltdowns if you let them get too many special tiles. At least they'll destroy me, because the crits always seem to be right next to each other and in the middle of a bunch of similarly colored tiles for nasty damage.

Sorry, I think I meant flyers. The swarmers.