Locked special tiles do not "exist" while locked

Tiger_Wong

There's a bunch of special tiles that lead with this. But what's weird is this isn't legit. Why?

Because I'll lock the tile out and on the next turn, lol and behold, there pops up another Iron Fist attack tile. Or Luke Cage shield tile. Or scarlet Witch CD. Or TAH CD. Or Incredible Hulk The Other Guy CD. Or War Machine Aerial Assault CD. Or Medusa Entanglement CD.

Would this be a "buff" to Invisible Woman? Yeah. But isn't what I'm saying make sense? She's locking the tile up. It's still there. It "exists". It's just locked.

TheWerebison

Trust me, as a person who likes IW, I know exactly what you mean. I was fighting Switch and IF and locked her countdown and his attack tile, and thought "HA! Suckers." Imagine my surprise and dismay...

Crnch73

I never thought of this... but yea that's terrible! Basically, locking down tiles that come up as passives like Fist, cage, switch, medusa, etc... all it does is essentially reset the timer on CD's. But if they ever become unlocked later, you now have to deal with double the trouble. That's so awful

JamieMadrox

Might want to put a post about it in the bugs forum and/or submit a CS ticket about it. I don't use IW, but it does sound like that's not working correctly.

Punisher5784

Jamie Madrox wrote:

Might want to put a post about it in the bugs forum and/or submit a CS ticket about it. I don't use IW, but it does sound like that's not working correctly.

Her locked tiles have always worked this way but no one ever used her to care about it. Now that players are finally using her, this issue is arising and hoping they can fix it in an upcoming patch. I really like her, especially now that she is boosted but the locked tiles definitely need to be addressed.

Crowl

Quick fix that would avoid giving IW a buff, change the wording to active rather than exists.

tanis3303

Actually, I think this IS working correctly unfortunately...Sue's locked tiles have always sort of treated the tile like it doesn't really exist. If you match-3 with 2 blues and a locked blue, you only get 2 AP. Think of it like stasis for the tile, or Schrodinger's Tile...its simultaneously there and not there

So what you're seeing is the game locking Fist/Cage's tiles up and thinking "winner!" but the game is seeing it differently. The game sees blank spots where those tiles were when it runs it's check at the start of the turn, and since it doesn't see those tiles, it says "welp...time to make those special tiles now!"

DaveR4470

My understanding has always been that locked tiles are their own category of tile. So if IF's attack tile is locked, it no longer is an attack tile -- it's a locked tile. If it's matched, it becomes unlocked and reverts to the original status of attack tile. But for IF's purposes, once it's locked, there is no IF attack tile on the board, so he creates another one.

I've never seen it work any other way with any other character who has this type of skill, so I think I'm probably right. Which means it's working as intended, alas.

Jaedenkaal

Makes sense to me as well. It definitely works that way when tiles are being 'counted', ie, for Blade , locked Strike tiles don't count for purposes of increasing the attack tile strength, or for Big Pun , etc... You could always "use" this effect to obtain more Bullseye, Spider-Man, or Black Panther Protect tiles than the descriptions would indicate.

The game is likely doing the same thing here, "counting" the number of tiles, finding 0, and making a new countdown, attack tile, protect tile, redwing tile, etc... There are definitely arguments to be made regarding whether this is the desired behavior or not. With the ability to selectively lock friendly tiles severely diminished (just Bag Man now, I think?) the ability to abuse this effect is pretty limited I would say

Tiger_Wong

DaveR4470 wrote:

My understanding has always been that locked tiles are their own category of tile. So if IF's attack tile is locked, it no longer is an attack tile -- it's a locked tile. If it's matched, it becomes unlocked and reverts to the original status of attack tile. But for IF's purposes, once it's locked, there is no IF attack tile on the board, so he creates another one.

I understand this way of thinking and I thought this made sense and I kinda shut up about it. Except for one thing.....

Invisible Woman's locks the special tile. She then uses her to "convert all tiles in the Force Bubbles to basic" before removing the bubbles and dealing damage for each. So what is she unlocking? The special tile. So it's there. It exists. Otherwise.... what would she be "converting to basic"?

Ive never seen it work any other way with any other character who has this type of skill, so I think I'm probably right. Which means it's working as intended, alas.

Ive never seen it work another way either. Maybe because I didn't become an IW user until she got adjusted. But, this seems like something that should be looked at.

Jaedenkaal

Tiger Wong wrote:

I understand this way of thinking and I thought this made sense and I kinda shut up about it. Except for one thing.....

Invisible Woman's locks the special tile. She then uses her to "convert all tiles in the Force Bubbles to basic" before removing the bubbles and dealing damage for each. So what is she unlocking? The special tile. So it's there. It exists. Otherwise.... what would she be "converting to basic"?

Actually all it has to do is convert the locked tile to a basic tile, no matter what's locked underneath. If the tile is already basic, nothing special happens.

Tiger_Wong

I agree with that. But the point still stands that if a special tile is locked and you set off FFC, it turns basic. Which means, it exists.

And the main point of the thread is, I'm locking a special tile up. And if it's one of these.....

Luke Cage's Unbreakable
Iron Fist's Exquisite Technique
Totally Awesome Hulk's See The Math Of It
War Machine's Aerial Assault
Scarlett Witch's Arcane Incantation
The Incredible Hulks The Other Guy
5* Doctor Strange's Eye of Agomotto
Medusa's Entanglement

.... the passives/CDs that say "if one does not exist" or "if there isn't a attack/shield/strike/CD on the field" is one of those that are locked up, then those powers SHOULD NOT be able to go off again while they're locked up. It's basically breaking the rules of what's written for the power.

fnedude

So I was fighting HB+IF+Hood vs. OML+IW+Hood.

Nuked, OML, Hood, and then IW cast Force Bubble on me, putting IF's Green Attack tile in a Force Bubble. IF then cast a 2nd one.... to my pleasure...

So it seems if the Attack tile has been "bubbled" it is counting it as 'destroyed'. Is that the intention?

EDIT: I see that Force Bubbles makes the effect "paused" per the text, I guess that's why. But is that still the intent?

DeNappa

This is intentional as far as I know. If a special tile is locked away by a force bubble, it will count as if the special tile is not on the board at all.

This means that for characters with have passive powers placing special tiles if one is 'not present', they will recast it on the next turn if the bubble is not unlocked yet.

It will also not count as a special tile for other powers. For example, 4* Luke Cage that deals extra damage if no enemy special tiles on the board. (happened to notice this in DP v MPQ event where IW is boosted and 4Cage is a required node)

hesjingixen

So during the Behemoth Burrito today, I noticed an unexpected interaction. I used Force Bubbles to lock Iron Fist's Exquisite Technique attack tile, and on his next turn, he just created another one. The power reads that it should only create one "If one doesn't exist already". Granted, it's locked, but it DOES exist. I assume the same would be true for Luke Cage, Switch, and Chulk. I'm not 100% if this is a bug or a balance choice, but given that locking tiles has always seemed kinda weak, I think allowing locking of tiles to effectively "counter" these abilities would be a good boost to the mechanic.

Dayv

Merged two threads, clarified title... a little? This is hard to sum up in just a subject line.

I do believe this is working as intended, but that's just my opinion.

Tiger_Wong

I can understand if it's destroyed. But it's not. It's on the board. It's just locked. So it exists. Switch shouldn't get another CD as per the text of her power and IF and the others. It simply makes sense.

Dayv

Tiger Wong wrote:

I can understand if it's destroyed. But it's not. It's on the board. It's just locked. So it exists. Switch shouldn't get another CD as per the text of her power and IF and the others. It simply makes sense.

It could certainly use clarification of whether this behavior is intentional.

Brigby

Hi Everyone. I just received clarification from the developers over at Demiurge. This is what they said:

When a tile is locked, It does not exist from a color nor a special status perspective. The interaction you listed is intentional.

There you have it! So if you want more free special tiles, get to locking them!