Thoughts on OML and This Weeks Crash

chrisH

When it was announced that OML would be toned down I honestly was not surprised. I don't know how many are around from the early days but 2 star wolverine was nerfed for a similar reason. Then X Force wolverine was nerfed for a similar reason. Now that we have wolverines and three nerfs there is a pattern. When a new Tier opens up of course you release Wolverine as as a pushed character. He drives excitement because he's popular. If this pushed character is the best of that tier then there is no market force to drive player to new characters unless you introduce extreme power creep. The only real option is to nerf the popular pushed character to be below average where he's still playable but those in the game that want to have the most powerful characters now need to invest in the resources to acquire them. 

Right before the X Force Wolverine nerf I had just dropped about $100 in HP to buy the covers I needed for him. Then the nerf hit and he was still playable but his power level was way below the new characters that were being released at the time and there has been no effort to go back and retune his powers to match. 

The rationale that OML was 10% of all matches won could be applied to X Force Wolverine at the same time he was nerfed. Both were one of the first in their tier released and players had access to them before token dilution. Both had multiple covers in daily rewards allowing players access to them and to Xforce credit his contemporaries Invisible Woman and Nick Fury were not great. 

After playing with him mine is 4/2/2 he's still a good character and still worth having around. I think you will still see very high rates of his use mainly due to the above reason that after token dilution he's the only 5Star many players have that has enough covers to matter. 

As for this weeks Crash. It's already a very challenging fight. Falcon is already a garbage tier character that needs a rework like his 3 star counterpart got. But there is a known bug with Captain Marvel's energy absorption that causes it to trigger twice off dive bomb. My under leveled Cap has beaten this one before but even with all the buffs I can muster the bug give her too much red AP to overcome. I am not one that goes crazy asking for compensation for every hiccup in the game but if you are going to release a Crash with a bugged opponent then Either change the opponent or give the player base that attempted and failed this one a free token.  

Borstock

Just don't dive bomb until you can down her and you avoid the bug. 

Beer40

Thanks for the explanation about the bug. Crashes are usually fairly winnable for me, but I'm getting crushed bad enough in this one it felt impossible to win. Now I know why. Ugh...glad I didn't waste I SO leveling a terrible character thinking I could win ????

DarthDeVo

This just struck me as a very poorly thought out Crash. Flaptain has one offensive power, one defensive power, and a passive that buffs the defensive power. The power cost is moderately to very expensive.

Captain Marvel on the other hand has two offensive powers and a passive that boosts her offense. Her powers are cheap to moderate in cost, but the cheapest one (also fed by her passive) COMPLETELY negates Flaptain's defensive (and in turn, a good deal of his offensive) power.

So really, the only way to win is to have 5 red covers, whittle her down with match damage until you can fire the red as a finishing move. If you get lucky, you might get her to stun you and give you the black attack tile that helps with the match damage. But don't buff it too high with you blue, because that will only trigger her passive.

matthatter

It would be interesting to see if they do something similar to what they did with the Elektra bug - remember when she was still able to hit invisible X with her trap tiles? They ran two crash events on the same day. 

But to steer conversation back to the OP, I agree with what you said. Send out the most popular character, make him ridiculously over powered, and then scale him back to be competitive. 

I use him often, goon nodes with Thanos end very quickly. Even now. I however am in the same boat now as I was with X-Force during that nerf. Base level although decently covered.

byc

Didn't really have problems with her.

I focused on yellow and red, let her fire her red, then I used yellow, denied red after she fired, matched blue to build up my defense, and killed her with one Dive Bomb even though I had only 1 red cover of it.

DarthDeVo

byc said:

Didn't really have problems with her.

I focused on yellow and red, let her fire her red, then I used yellow, denied red after she fired, matched blue to build up my defense, and killed her with one Dive Bomb even though I had only 1 red cover of it.

Then my hat's off to you for winning with one red. My Flaptain is 3/1/2 Level 131 and the closest I got, she still had about 5000 health left. And that was after a desperate last attempt Dive Bomb, because she was gonna fire her red the next turn and kill me anyway. No matter how much I tried to prevent red matches, she ALWAYS got enough to fire it at least once, usually twice. 

JVReal

My Failcap is Champed, and he barely beat her with 600+ health left.  Just bad boards for me, it took forever to gather yellow and red enough to even have the option to use it, meanwhile she was cascading red and black like crazy.  Finally I was able to drop his yellow, then immediately his Red and 1 punch her.  It sucks not being able to have anything but match damage while she is pummeling you due to lucky boards... even the one punch KO didn't feel good when you're sitting with 600+ health knowing the next cascade will kill you.

JackTenrec

They really need to drop Captain Marvel's red to under 5 covers to give most players even a fighting chance. I've got a mostly-covered 4* Captain and I still need to use boosts in this fight (mainly +AP given that all of his powers are so expensive) -- and it's still a luck-based fight since you spend almost all your time denying black anyway (unless it happens right off the bat, the stun is essentially game-ending) and can only gather AP by cascades while praying that you're not killed by match damage.

Quebbster

I wish they had gone with the two-star Captain Marvel as the opponent instead. She can still blow up protect tiles, but at least you can Divebomb her whenever you want.

jredd

champed falcap: got destroyed first try. she still had over 10K health. second try, i got her. fired yellow followed by red and one shotted her.

when my falcap was undercovered/levelled i saved up enough red to fire it 2X on the same turn after his yellow. it can be done, but it might take 25+ tries to get a lucky board.

the fun of a 1v1 battle with a support character...

AtlasAxe

The bug isn't with Captain Marvel. It's with the developers' decision to split added damage into a second event. This has resulted in stealth nerfs and buffs to a lot of characters. In the Daken PVE, for example, the split reduced his damage so that Thing wouldn't jump in front. Here CMarv gets red twice.

You'd think they never played this game. Oh wait...

byc

I actually want her to use her black early so I can start matching blue and pump the strike she gives us.

It took me a few tries, but I beat her with my tactic I listed above.  I mostly play at night, I didn't mind blow 2-3 medpacks early to fight her since it'll recharge by night anyways.  Not to mention we get 4 days to figure it out.

Just keep at it and the board should fall in players' favor at some point.

Jaedenkaal

Atlas Axe said:

The bug isn't with Captain Marvel. It's with the developers' decision to split added damage into a second event. This has resulted in stealth nerfs and buffs to a lot of characters. In the Daken PVE, for example, the split reduced his damage so that Thing wouldn't jump in front. Here CMarv gets red twice.

You'd think they never played this game. Oh wait...

That's been acknowledged as a bug, not a feature.

Beer40

mexus said:

Will I by any possible chance ever in this world be able to beat the Clash with my Falcon at 2 Yellow, 2 Blue if I pump him up to the highest possible level at this coverage?

Anything is possible with the right lucky board, but my 4/4/1 Falcon leveled up to 185 was getting crushed. That's just one example of it not working, I'm sure someone has an example of it working, but I would be careful if you don't feel like you have the ISO to spare. Its only 1 cover you win.

xidragonxi

Atlas Axe said:

The bug isn't with Captain Marvel. It's with the developers' decision to split added damage into a second event. This has resulted in stealth nerfs and buffs to a lot of characters. In the Daken PVE, for example, the split reduced his damage so that Thing wouldn't jump in front. Here CMarv gets red twice.

This was REALLY apparent in Nefarious Foes with Red Hulk.  Any time strike tiles were out, moves were causing his anger to trigger twice.  He was a complete monster (moreso than usual) for that event.

broll

I eventually managed to clear this CoT after easily 25 times with my 4/3/1 (now L171) Falcon but it was pretty brutal.  The state of the games with bugs is becoming less of a joke and more of crime.  Just kinda sad.

As far as OML I don't care all that much about the fact that it was him that was nerfed.  I don't like the precedent it sets of nerfing, especially based on usage numbers.  I haven't used him enough to fairly judge, but from what I've read and seen he didn't seem overpowered.  He was probably the most available 5* which is saying something because getting any 5* is a climb.  It kills me that they stated buffing other 5* characters didn't help, well no tinykitty it's not gonna make a huge difference in a few months when it takes the average player closer to a year or more to build up a 5*.  What a joke.  

I really think they've gotten some new management or new procedures in place that are just running a muck and I hope to RNGesus they get off it and get their act together soon or it might be time to head for the lifeboats.