Lowered Cascade-Damage?

tizian2015

I recognized something odd (for me):

In a match I had a "mini-cascade" 258 for a 3match of red and 39 for a 3match of black. The sum is 297 but it was only 287 damage. The same with a then-controlled double purple 3match (2x255=510) it was only 448 damage on target.

Isn´t the damage of cascades the sum of all its parts?

MrCrowley

I remember reading that it is diminishing returns. Each match in the cascade makes a bit less damage.

I am not sure if it affects strike tile damage added, or only the match damage.

bpcontra

This is common

madsalad

This might help, though I haven't found actual info posted by a mod/dev: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=13905&p=202605&hilit=cascade+diminishing#p202605

Lemminkäinen

See FAQ question #43:

43. How does match damage get lowered in cascades (if you make more than one match in a move, match damage per match goes down but I'm not sure of the formula)?

It goes down 20% per match, like first match does 100 damage, second does 80, third does 64, and so on. However, this does not effect strike tiles, so a long cascade with them out can really destroy a player. If you got a strength 100 strike tile out, that 3 match combo above would do 200, 180, 164, and so on, never going below 100.

answer b: Why do subsequent matches in a cascade do less damage than the initial match?

This is primarily an issue of game balance: if every match in a cascade did the same amount of damage as the initial match, one good cascade could wipe out a team. Under the current system, it still can, but it's much more unlikely. After the initial match, each subsequent match in a cascade has its damage discounted by 20 percent. So, a match that would have done 100 damage would instead do 80 damage if it were the second match in a cascade, the third match (if it would have done 100 damage as an initial match) would do 64 damage, and so on. In the unlikely - but still possible - event of a cascade of 18 matches or more, additional matches will do just 1 damage.

While this seems to limit the effectiveness of creating cascades, large cascades are still potentially game changing because they allow the team to quickly accumulate large amounts of Action Points, allowing for the use of character skills. Additionally, any strike tiles on the board apply to all of the matches in a cascade. So, in the earlier example of a three match cascade doing 100, 80 and 64 damage (for a total of 244 damage), the existence of a 100 point strike tile would lead to damage of 200 +180 + 164, effectively reducing the discount on damage, and resulting in 544 damage.

morph3us

It's always been the case that cascades have diminishing damage per subsequent match. As pointed out in the excellent link from Salad, the damage decreases to 0.80 per subsequent match. It's been designed as such so the player doesn't get totally wrecked by a bad cascade. Of course, that goes both ways.

If there are strike tiles out, the strike damage does not diminish per cascade (which is one of the reasons why a cascade from Phoenix purple can wipe the opposing side, if there's a strike tile out).

tizian2015

Thanks to all for the answers!

JVReal

Also any Defense tiles out there reduce damage by their tile strength.