New Fortify Tiles & Ability Changes

David [Hi-Fi] Moore

With Green Goblin on the way the team at Demiurge would like to provide some info on a new gameplay feature and a few ability changes. Here's word from the devs:

"Hey all, Green Goblin introduces a new feature called

Fortify Tiles. Tiles that are Fortified cannot be destroyed. Because of this, a few heroes were able to gain an unfair advantage when using a power that destroyed friendly tiles. To address this, we have changed a handful of abilities from destroying tiles to converting them to basic tiles. These abilities are:

-Punch A Snowman (Iceman) -Fisk Gambit (Kingpin) -Master Stroke (Mystique) -Density: Heavy (Vision) -Density: Light (Vision)

More on Fortify Tiles:

- Fortified tiles give the player a unique ability to protect tiles that are valuable to them. - When a tile is Fortified, it has a neon border around it. - Matching or destroying a tile that is Fortified removes the Fortified effect leaving the tile on the board. - Any kind of tile can be fortified with the exception of Locked tiles and already Fortified tiles. - Fortified tiles, unlike locked tiles, continue to function normally. This means that countdown tiles continue to tick down, strike and protect tiles continue to contribute to match and power strength and attack tiles will continue to do damage at the end of the turn. - Tiles that are Fortified can move/fall or match like any other non-locked tile."

mega ghost

"David wrote:

Moore"]Any kind of tile can be fortified with the exception of Locked tiles and already Fortified tiles.

But can you lock a fortified tile?

Unknown

What happens when a Fortified countdown tile resolves?

Most of these ability changes seem to be along the lines of "Destroys a countdown tile". When most countdown tile resolve, they get destroyed (like, say, Redwing, Recharge or many goons and junk). What happens when one of these gets Fortified?

Also, these characters just got a huge nerf! Lost one whole tile of boardshake.

spectator

What happens when a little birdy (redwing) wants to play with a fortified tile

Raffoon

Maybe all of those abilities should destroy 1 random tile now, instead.

Random tile destruction is generally worse than known tile destruction, since you can't plan around it, but it's still better than the straight up nerf with no offset seen here (however small that nerf might be).

Even if it's just 1 tile, board shake is board shake.

Because of this, a few heroes were able to gain an unfair advantage when using a power that destroyed friendly tiles. To address this, we have changed a handful of abilities from destroying tiles to converting them to basic tiles. These abilities are:
-Punch A Snowman (Iceman)
-Fisk Gambit (Kingpin)
-Master Stroke (Mystique)
-Density: Heavy (Vision)
-Density: Light (Vision)

MaxxPowerz

Question: are galactus tiles considered fortified?

turul

"David wrote:

Moore"] a few heroes were able to gain an unfair advantage when using a power that destroyed friendly tiles. To address this, we have changed a handful of abilities from destroying tiles to converting them to basic tiles. These abilities are:

-Punch A Snowman (Iceman) -Fisk Gambit (Kingpin) -Master Stroke (Mystique) -Density: Heavy (Vision) -Density: Light (Vision)

There are still some characters who benefit from fortified tiles. Could you please remove all the fun&useful aspect of what fortified tiles could bring?

Heartburn

Great work develop a new lackluster ability that forces you to makes changes to multiple existing character that are affected by it, i never understand why they choose this route.
just make a better feature that doesn't break other heroes. you can only fortify one random special tile each turn waiting for all the special tiles you be set back enough turn not to make it worth it.

maybe a new ability like ability "up the ante" 8 make a copy of a random(specific? it is a 5 star after all) friendly special tile and enemy special tile. increasing the amount copied by 1 each cover to 5 which then becomes all special tiles. prior to maxing skill the mechanic of the skill could be designed as
1)if i had only only special tile then i could only get a max of one copy where it depends on the number of special tiles i start with. maybe with the words "up to X copies"
2) i get x new copies of my one single special tile. i fine either way because the enemy gets the same benefit so it balances and either way has a certain strategic value when picking a partner.

some questions on the glider.
1)his glider has a remote control it should be auto fortified? is there any other benefit to the glider to return? just to fire it again? it would be nice if it healed him or got half the ap cost back. will need to see the damage on the black to see if the risk is worth the loss cause any freak cascade could stop him in his tracks even with the fortification.
2) what happens to his skill when his glider get taken down cause it may be worth it to have a juggernaut team up, or a 1 BW to stun him, to play once it gets unleashed just to try to counter him. would be better if it becomes "calling in back up glider" that takes X turns to get there this is the first character to be able to lose a skill. otherwise it should only be a finisher. ( it would be fitting to give the Punisher the ability to target just for this skill interaction, if he survives)
3) when is the damage done? casting the skill, when the countdown completes, after each tick on the cd tile
4) can it be double cast? what happens to the glider if one is matched if able to double cast?

ammenell

uhm.. fortified cd tiles cant be overwritten by caps red or blue, right? so... not ANY tile anymore?

will there be other characters - existing or to be released - who can create fortified tiles or will that ability stay gg exclusive?

Platzy

Not sure... - The changes read like it is intended that fortified tiles can be converted into basic tiles just fine, so it would not be too far-fetched to assume that they can also be overwritten (depending on whether Cap's overwrite counts as a destruction+replace or something else?).

Monged4life

Platzy wrote:

Not sure... - The changes read like it is intended that fortified tiles can be converted into basic tiles just fine, so it would not be too far-fetched to assume that they can also be overwritten (depending on whether Cap's overwrite counts as a destruction+replace or something else?).

I don't believe Cap's overwrite can target a locked tile, and this seems to just be a variation of locked tiles.

Moon Roach

"David wrote:

Moore"]

Tiles that are Fortified cannot be destroyed. Because of this, a few heroes were able to gain an unfair advantage when using a power that destroyed friendly tiles. To address this, we have changed a handful of abilities from destroying tiles to converting them to basic tiles. These abilities are:

-Punch A Snowman (Iceman) -Fisk Gambit (Kingpin) -Master Stroke (Mystique) -Density: Heavy (Vision) -Density: Light (Vision)

This reads as if tile destruction has been completely eliminated. I don't understand why unfortified tiles cannot be destroyed as normal.

Obviously it's a shortfall in my comprehension rather than the way it's been explained.

smecher

Moon Roach wrote:

"David wrote:

Moore"]

Tiles that are Fortified cannot be destroyed. Because of this, a few heroes were able to gain an unfair advantage when using a power that destroyed friendly tiles. To address this, we have changed a handful of abilities from destroying tiles to converting them to basic tiles. These abilities are:

-Punch A Snowman (Iceman) -Fisk Gambit (Kingpin) -Master Stroke (Mystique) -Density: Heavy (Vision) -Density: Light (Vision)

This reads as if tile destruction has been completely eliminated. I don't understand why unfortified tiles cannot be destroyed as normal.

Obviously it's a shortfall in my comprehension rather than the way it's been explained.

My understanding is that, for example, the way it was set up Mystique's Master Stroke would deliver the damage but not destroy the purple countdown tile. That means that she could Master Stroke over and over without the need to do another Shift, that is what they felt was "unfair"

By converting it instead, it would remove it even if Fortified, since Fortify does not protect from conversion.

I'm not certain, but that's the only thing that makes sense to me.

Moon Roach

smecher wrote:

Moon Roach wrote:

"David wrote:

Moore"]

Tiles that are Fortified cannot be destroyed. Because of this, a few heroes were able to gain an unfair advantage when using a power that destroyed friendly tiles. To address this, we have changed a handful of abilities from destroying tiles to converting them to basic tiles. These abilities are:

-Punch A Snowman (Iceman) -Fisk Gambit (Kingpin) -Master Stroke (Mystique) -Density: Heavy (Vision) -Density: Light (Vision)

This reads as if tile destruction has been completely eliminated. I don't understand why unfortified tiles cannot be destroyed as normal.

Obviously it's a shortfall in my comprehension rather than the way it's been explained.

My understanding is that, for example, the way it was set up Mystique's Master Stroke would deliver the damage but not destroy the purple countdown tile. That means that she could Master Stroke over and over without the need to do another Shift, that is what they felt was "unfair"

By converting it instead, it would remove it even if Fortified, since Fortify does not protect from conversion.

I'm not certain, but that's the only thing that makes sense to me.

Carrying on with this example, the shapeshift countdown is converted into a normal countdown instead of destroyed. And that happens even though it's fortified. Makes sense. But my kind of question was, why isn't an unfortified shapeshift countdown tile destroyed, why always convert these tiles to basic tiles instead of destroying them if they are not fortified?

I've come up with an answer; distinguishing between fortified and unfortified tiles when resolving powers is in the "too hard" basket. So for the sake of a 5* and a game mechanic that may never be used again, they're removing something that sometimes had a good side-effect with extra matches and even cascades.

smecher

As long as the AI Elektra will keep throwing her Double Double Cross at me when I don't have strike tiles, I'll assume that this game is quite adverse to the "if" statement

madsalad

My guess is they have more designs down the road for Fortified tiles or they would not have introduced the mechanic or made these changes in the first place. I'm usually the dude who likes to point at things and call **** but let's give the devs a little credit and a little bit of time to roll out other characters using the Fortify ability.

I mean, look how long it took us to get more than two dummies who generated web tiles. (Of course, as soon as we got a viable way to create more than 8 web tiles easily, the nerf Venom, so....)

Malcrof

Can fortified tiles be destroyed by a match 4? SS's black isn't supposed to be matched away, but a match 4 can wipe it off the board, will this work the same?

Raffoon

madsalad wrote:

My guess is they have more designs down the road for Fortified tiles or they would not have introduced the mechanic or made these changes in the first place. I'm usually the dude who likes to point at things and call **** but let's give the devs a little credit and a little bit of time to roll out other characters using the Fortify ability.

I mean, look how long it took us to get more than two dummies who generated web tiles. (Of course, as soon as we got a viable way to create more than 8 web tiles easily, the nerf Venom, so....)

Yes, yes indeed. Just look how gamebreaking charged tiles were, too. They just HAD to nerf them.

We couldn't have Thor running around smiting people with her red ability after you cast Silver Surfers's red Cosmic Beam ability twice. THAT WOULD BE GAMEBREAKING. Oh, and imagine if Rangarok made more charged tiles for Thor? Why.... people might actually USE Ragnarok.

"Unacceptable. Alfred, the charged tiles must be nerfed!"

mpqr7

So they can't just do logic where an unfortified cd tile is destroyed, and a fortified cd tile is turned into a basic tile?

A little if/then statement, perhaps? Coding 101?

firethorne

mpqr7 wrote:

So they can't just do logic where an unfortified cd tile is destroyed, and a fortified cd tile is turned into a basic tile?

A little if/then statement, perhaps? Coding 101?

I suppose it depends on the result, and they don't want to make too many special rules and exceptions. For example, Vision. Casting heavy destroys light. If you cast heavy, fortify heavy, then cast light, vision is simultaneous heavy and light, which would be obviously confusing for attack protocol.

pheregas

Two questions:

1) Will Surfer's Black Hole be able to eat a fortified tile? If so, does it grant the original AP the tile was before it became fortified?

2) Is there a plan for what happens when a fortified tile causes the board to be unresolvable? I would assume, like IW, or QS, if the placing of a fortified tile makes the board have no valid moves, then it would cause the board to shuffle. However, if there are enough fortified tiles out there, it may take more than one reshuffle. Or does the reshuffling process guarantee a minimum of one valid move? A Goblin versus Goblin matchup could make _a lot_ of fortified tiles.