Discussion - Patch Preview: R41

Unknown

Overall a smart player nerf. Using health packs to heal and retreating were all ways for smarter players to make use of some of the less intuitive design choices, which is why it seems exploitative. Changes are good for clarity, but I wish there were more buffs to smarter players.

I'm talking about things like
- less cumbersome display of AP throughout a battle (e.g. am I going to eat a skill from the AI next turn if I don't stop him from matching reds?)
- clearer preview of opponent ability levels (e.g. do I want to fight this 5/1/0 Thor or the 3/2/1 Thor?)
- ability to swap ability levels around (is 5/5/3 better for this matchup or is 3/5/5 better?)
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Unknown

When I heard about no healing on level ups on chat first, I didn't like it initially. But reading posts here and giving it couple minutes thought, I reckon it will be good change. forgrim got it right:

forgrim wrote:

the only way it affects casuals is that you no longer have to game iso to level to heal, instead of leveling just naturally. lots of us were saving iso and not capping our characters for the end of tournament pushes, etc., so its a quality of life change altho it nerfs the healing. but now that you have 5 heals and heals come every half hour instead of hour and a half, ur net healing should increase.

Can't wait to start leveling up character how I want, but for now I will exploit level up healing to keep my high place in tournament

And since I like to use Daken from time to time as support, I really enjoy his changes.

Unknown

I was hoping for more changes to hero skills.
Loki, wolverine it will be greate when u chance skill 4 star with 2 star xD.....

Unknown

As someone who abused level heals and bad board restarts, I love the update. Definitely a step in the right direction.

Sooty wrote:

Overall a smart player nerf. Using health packs to heal and retreating were all ways for smarter players to make use of some of the less intuitive design choices, which is why it seems exploitative. Changes are good for clarity, but I wish there were more buffs to smarter players.

Can't say that I agree with this sentiment. Smart players abuse mechanics because it's good for them, but that doesn't mean it's good for the game. For me, I abused these things because I felt it helped me win, not because I wanted to or I thought it was fun. Secondly, truly smart players will adapt and find new things to abuse.


One thing, would it also be possible to list their max HP as well?

Unknown

Sooty wrote:

I'm talking about things like
- less cumbersome display of AP throughout a battle (e.g. am I going to eat a skill from the AI next turn if I don't stop him from matching reds?)

I'd like to second this. I know this is a hard problem to solve from a UI/screen real estate perspective, but every turn or so in the middle of a battle I double-check enemy AP levels in order to avoid making a mistake. If I could get this as a single button (press to preview AP levels, release to turn to regular UI), that would eliminate the most awkward part of the UI.

Unknown

The most painful thing I see in the patch notes is the 1/3 damage from minions if you retreat. Ouch. I can fully understand why, however, and it's probably a good thing for the game.

But ouch.

What I really want to see at this point is a significant change in scoring -- the two most popular ideas seem to be limiting downward progress (you cannot lose below the last progress reward) or some kind of shield preventing attacks after being attacked (ala Clash of Clans). I'm not sure how feasible the latter is without a lot of changes to how matchmaking works.

Waking up in the morning, or coming home from work in the evening, to find that you've lost 1/3 of your points and retaliation is both pointless (you gain less than you lost) and counterproductive (they'll attack back, leading to more loss and less gain) is depressing.

Unknown

ihearthawthats wrote:

As someone who abused level heals and bad board restarts, I love the update. Definitely a step in the right direction.

Sooty wrote:

Overall a smart player nerf. Using health packs to heal and retreating were all ways for smarter players to make use of some of the less intuitive design choices, which is why it seems exploitative. Changes are good for clarity, but I wish there were more buffs to smarter players.

Can't say that I agree with this sentiment. Smart players abuse mechanics because it's good for them, but that doesn't mean it's good for the game. For me, I abused these things because I felt it helped me win, not because I wanted to or I thought it was fun. Secondly, truly smart players will adapt and find new things to abuse.


One thing, would it also be possible to list their max HP as well?

Which is why I listed some non-abuse changes that will help the smart players. I know I wouldn't be playing this if it was just another casual bejeweled/candy crush if there's no incentive for playing the game smart. They also mentioned UI changes in the patch notes. So maybe some of the changes I talked about would come after all.

Taking a more detailed look at this, I think the changes to health packs is in the right direction since it gives the players something in return.

The retreat penalty I'm not too sure about. Patch doesn't clarify whether it's 1/3 of current health or max health:
1/3 of current health might make little difference because people would just beat on maggia/hammer enemies only after they're low - they just need to avoid taking even a single hit, which is most certainly doable.
1/3 of max health would make retreat mostly pointless, because the only time you'd want to retreat would be if you'd take significantly more than 1/3 of your max health in damage in all your characters who are currently alive and still be able to win the game. If it was at a value more reasonable, then retreating could be a more meaningful decision i.e. "do I want to just take 10% damage in all characters and try again with the enemy at full health and me at 0 AP, or do I want to eat this huge attack and try to win it anyway?".
Then there's also the concern of how the game will deal with disconnects or when you switch over to another app (or browser) for too long and the game automatically kicks you out of the battle. Certainly has happened to me before. Certainly won't feel fun when you're just beating up on computers and it happens to you.

Unknown

H.A.M.M.E.R. soldiers have become more aggressive when Agents and their teams fall back from combat, much as Tournament opponents do now. When retreating, damage equal to one third of each character’s health will be suffered.

Am I reading this correctly in that tournament play with the current patch we are getting hit for 1/3 damage when retreating? And in the new patch we will get hit for 1/3 damage when retreating from PvE?

Unknown

I'm neutral on the heal packs. They were feast or famine for me before since I use spidey/venom healing. I mostly only used them when spidey went down.

Any word on the state of classic storm? I'd like to know if I should jump on the exploit bandwagon.

Unknown

cepage wrote:

Sooty wrote:

I'm talking about things like
- less cumbersome display of AP throughout a battle (e.g. am I going to eat a skill from the AI next turn if I don't stop him from matching reds?)

I'd like to second this. I know this is a hard problem to solve from a UI/screen real estate perspective, but every turn or so in the middle of a battle I double-check enemy AP levels in order to avoid making a mistake. If I could get this as a single button (press to preview AP levels, release to turn to regular UI), that would eliminate the most awkward part of the UI.

I would like to third this. Really annoying to have to keep scrolling back and forth - especially on the iPad where you can see black bars on either side of the app since it is using the same screen assets as the iPhone (a bit lazy really).

Unknown

Ranzera wrote:

I'm neutral on the heal packs. They were feast or famine for me before since I use spidey/venom healing. I mostly only used them when spidey went down.

Any word on the state of classic storm? I'd like to know if I should jump on the exploit bandwagon.

Health packs, level heals and board restarts are indirect nerfs to c.Storm.

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

The first followup was Unstable Iso-8 which just ended. That was the first Episode of the story post Prologue. For the time being, we'll be continuing the story with these time based events. That doesn't preclude us from permanently adding to the story down the road, but for now, that's how it's being done.

Understood - you guys are pretty much looking at this as a PvP game even when you mix in the PvE story missions. The Prologue is a means to get heroes ready for the fight. How concerned are you guys with the impact this has on new players or the ability to get new players? A new player will have missed the first Episode(s) and be tossed into the likely harder next episodes and have to try to compete with people who have pretty buffed heroes at this point. Perhaps it would be good to move the episodes to a strictly PvE tab once the events complete with lower rewards. Another idea would be to give new players the Episodes they missed as PvE so they can catch up.

I'm thinking about starting a second game on a new account to see how the Prologue plays with the changes. It would be interesting to see if I have any chance of competing without a ton of IAPs. A big change to my approach would be that I would destroy no covers and only spend gold on slots!

IceIX wrote:

I've said it before elsewhere, but that's one of the nice things about a Live game. We can always change things if they're just not working.

You have certainly proven that since launch. So far the changes have worked and even more interesting they have so fundamentally changed the game that new strategies have needed to be developed which keep things fresh! First instinct is to regret the loss of your existing strategy but I am starting to get trained that this will keep happening. I've been successful this update by hoarding ISO and level ups for healing and retreating when I get a bad board. It is just good strategy with the way the game is right now. Look forward to finding a winning strategy for the next build!

Unknown

ihearthawthats wrote:

Ranzera wrote:

I'm neutral on the heal packs. They were feast or famine for me before since I use spidey/venom healing. I mostly only used them when spidey went down.

Any word on the state of classic storm? I'd like to know if I should jump on the exploit bandwagon.

Health packs, level heals and board restarts are indirect nerfs to c.Storm.

None of those help or harm her in pvp. One of them affects her in pve. If anything, the health packs help her somewhat. Level healing with this purpose in mind was extremely wasteful and eventually resolved itself.

Unknown

Ranzera wrote:

ihearthawthats wrote:

Ranzera wrote:

I'm neutral on the heal packs. They were feast or famine for me before since I use spidey/venom healing. I mostly only used them when spidey went down.

Any word on the state of classic storm? I'd like to know if I should jump on the exploit bandwagon.

Health packs, level heals and board restarts are indirect nerfs to c.Storm.

None of those help or harm her in pvp. One of them affects her in pve. If anything, the health packs help her somewhat. Level healing with this purpose in mind was extremely wasteful and eventually resolved itself.

How does reduced healing capabilities not hinder a team that relies on inflicting damage upon itself? It can still be effective when they give free heroes, but that doesn't occur every tourney.

Also, c.Storm is/was only a big problem in PVE.

Unknown

ihearthawthats wrote:

Ranzera wrote:

ihearthawthats wrote:

Ranzera wrote:

I'm neutral on the heal packs. They were feast or famine for me before since I use spidey/venom healing. I mostly only used them when spidey went down.

Any word on the state of classic storm? I'd like to know if I should jump on the exploit bandwagon.

Health packs, level heals and board restarts are indirect nerfs to c.Storm.

None of those help or harm her in pvp. One of them affects her in pve. If anything, the health packs help her somewhat. Level healing with this purpose in mind was extremely wasteful and eventually resolved itself.

How does reduced healing capabilities not hinder a team that relies on inflicting damage upon itself? It can still be effective when they give free heroes, but that doesn't occur every tourney.

Also, c.Storm is/was only a big problem in PVE.

The combination of poor tournament design that requires fast win speed to be competitive combined with her skill set enabling fast wins has lead to a decrease in team diversity. It's simple stuff.

As for the other, you get more heals now. Healing from level ups actually made the strategy work less the more you leveled.

Unknown

Noooo don't make Daken stronger... let's just phase out the most annoying character in the game quieeeetly

Unknown

Can we PLEASE address the broken cover slot system with the next update??

Unknown

Is the Daken tot actually a change? I see these upgrades in game right now.

IceIX

Ranzera wrote:

Is the Daken tot actually a change? I see these upgrades in game right now.

We squeezed it in data side, so I suppose yes. I guess I could make a Patch Note post for it by its lonesome.

Unknown

I don't get the Daken buff. Having just played against a level 80+ who was hitting like a truck every turn (I only won by about 180hp) I don't see why he needs improvement.

And I'll miss the heal on level up, but the reduction on the timer for new health packs is a trade-off I'm happy to make.