What is happening when a crit explodes mid-air?

The Finn

I'll probably come off sounding like a noob but something that I've only noticed with the new crit tiles is that sometimes my crit tiles are in mid-air then explode, but seemingly without a 3 match or a crit level of damage occuring.

What exactly is happening in these instances? Or are the crits actually making a match, my eyes are just too slow to pick up on it?

Cheers

Unknown

The crit is making a match with either the tiles above it or to a side of it.

The Finn

Ok thanks--so is it safe to say the mechanic is that crit tiles don't need to fall to the bottom to match? In other words, anywhere along the path of its drop, if it can match, it will?

HailMary

The Finn wrote:

Ok thanks--so is it safe to say the mechanic is that crit tiles don't need to fall to the bottom to match? In other words, anywhere along the path of its drop, if it can match, it will?

Not quite.

Once a crit is generated, it will check for matches at its origin position (in midair). If there are no origin matches, it will fall, and not check for matches at any point during its fall. It will only check again for matches when it has come to rest.

The Finn

Got it thanks for the info!

Unknown

I swear this only happens with certain characters, like OBW, as some kind of side effect of Anti-Grav Device (so the crit tile gets suspended in mid air).

Unknown

Which sucks. It needs to just fall like it used to and then if there are matches it gets used and if not you can move it if possible. I don't know how many times it has wasted making another critical because it was used up in mid air where as if it would have dropped it would have been more useful. I know it's supposed to be a wash because of all of the times if it would have dropped it wouldn't have been useable but was in mid air. I would still rather it just drop like it used to.

The Finn

Phantron wrote:

I swear this only happens with certain characters, like OBW, as some kind of side effect of Anti-Grav Device (so the crit tile gets suspended in mid air).

It's interesting that you say that because I never noticed this happening prior to getting a usable obw. I just finally got her maxed recently and have been using her a lot and it does kind of feel like these two things are related. Likely just coincidence, but still...

And I agree that I would like it to just drop down rather than matching mid air--having a chance to make a decision and control how it's used is pretty valuable when you are trying to optimize you next move on the board.

Unknown

Actually I just tested it and out of the guys I regularly use, the mid air exploding crit only happens when OBW is on the team. I have no idea why, but I was running my PvE team without OBW on the Captain required node and saw quite a few cases there should have been an mid air match but it never occurred. When you get a mid air exploding crit you'll see the crit tile get suspended for a moment before falling, even if there are no possible matches, while if not it just falls straight down.

I have no idea if there are other character that gets you a similar behavior, but this would be a weird way that makes OBW even stronger, because being able to make a match mid air gives you an extra chance to match something.

The Finn

Thanks for doing the testing, we may have just uncovered another hidden game mechanic! If it is obw specific, it would be interesting to find out from the devs why that is--her ability makes sense to have it work this way but that would be a pretty neat for them to code this specific thing in for just one skill.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

I swear this only happens with certain characters, like OBW, as some kind of side effect of Anti-Grav Device (so the crit tile gets suspended in mid air).

I thought you were trolling lol.

Unknown

Doragon wrote:

Phantron wrote:

I swear this only happens with certain characters, like OBW, as some kind of side effect of Anti-Grav Device (so the crit tile gets suspended in mid air).

I thought you were trolling lol.

The explanation wasn't serious but I long suspected it's tied to certain characters, though it sounds pretty far fetched until I actually tested it out. In this event it's easy since my team always have OBW on it unless it's a Captain/HT required node. There might be other characters that have the same behavior, but aside from OBW they're not on the list of users I play regularly.

I wonder if it's a bug or a small bonus, like how Punisher and GSBW are the only characters with 4 environmental damage and 4X crit mod.

HailMary

Phantron wrote:

Actually I just tested it and out of the guys I regularly use, the mid air exploding crit only happens when OBW is on the team. I have no idea why, but I was running my PvE team without OBW on the Captain required node and saw quite a few cases there should have been an mid air match but it never occurred. When you get a mid air exploding crit you'll see the crit tile get suspended for a moment before falling, even if there are no possible matches, while if not it just falls straight down.

Very interesting. I tested this last night, and the midair-match behavior happens even when OBW is dead. I guess her anti-grav device is still functional when she's down.

Unknown

If it is OBW specific I wonder if it is actually espionage that causes change of normal activity. Meaning it is programming rather than story reason.

HailMary

Just noticed this: crit hover also occurs when Shieldbro is on the team, but certainly doesn't occur for all team comps.

My new working theory is that crit hover occurs whenever there's a team member, alive or dead, with stun capability.

Does someone care to test this with Spidey?

Unknown

Doragon wrote:

Phantron wrote:

I swear this only happens with certain characters, like OBW, as some kind of side effect of Anti-Grav Device (so the crit tile gets suspended in mid air).

I thought you were trolling lol.

You'll know when he's trolling if the topic has anything to do with nerfing. I wouldn't say he's trolling to troll. He's being totally sincere. He's like Daken, his pheremones trigger a passionate response. His post count is a testament to his power and ability.

Unknown

I've had this happen without any of the charcters mentioned above. I don't know why it happens, I assume it's a glitch.

Dayv

I think it has something to do with the position and direction of the mid-air match. You may have noticed the game does a top-to bottom check for matches and countdown tile updates... My gut feeling is that sometimes the game notices and matches the newly created crit tile instead of treating it as inactive until completing the drop. I think this is a bug, since it's not a consistent behavior. I also think it's something they fixed around R49 and reintroduced in R51.

jaworeq

I just had mid-air explosion without OBW. It was falcon-1*storm-1*hawkeye vs falcon-3*magneto-1*storm