Soul Gem Season Changes *Updated (6/27/17)

zodiac339

Ah, there we go. The Devil's Due (HoD day 3 mission) just reminded me of the greatest thing about the Venome update: Lethal Protector team ups for the AI. That relatively high base damage was so annoying to get hit by. Now it's a noodle. Improvement!

Borstock

Jaedenkaal said:

Maybe it's new and your device hasn't DLd the art yet? New abilities look weird the first few times for me, presumably for that reason. Haven't tried this one myself.

Could be. I used him in Nefarious Foes, so maybe it will enable/update when the new season officially starts. 

Jaedenkaal

Yeah I've used him a few time now; no animation 

spectator

When the goings tough, there's no
time for animation 

Borstock

Jaedenkaal said:

Yeah I've used him a few time now; no animation 

Weird.

Borstock

spectator said:

When the goings tough, there's no
time for animation 

Fair point, but who uses 3* Spidey on teams where time is a factor? If I'm going into a match I need to win quickly, or a series of matches, he's not making the cut.

Straycat

Jaedenkaal said:

Yeah I've used him a few time now; no animation 

Yeah, it was the only reason I tried him out.

Forbush

I appreciate that they tried to fix Spidey.
I appreciate that they specifically targeted his near-useless yellow.
I appreciate that it now does solid damage in a color that has few useful actives in the tier.
I appreciate that I'll actually use him now not just when he's boosted.

What gets me is that he's boring.  He's even less mechanically interesting than before, and I'm still stunned that they didn't take the opportunity to tweak Web tile usage, still a really underdeveloped part of the game.  (I would have been perfectly happy with a version of his 1* purple as a source of damage - it hits potentially hard, shakes the board, and places a Web tile to set up further moves.)  Though they've already perfectly implemented Spider-Sense in the game (and gave it to Spider-Woman), it's kind of boggling that his purple wasn't changed at all - no acceleration, whether AP or Web tiles, no further conditionals, no nothing?  Still passive, for the most active character in the Marvel Universe?

I genuinely thought they were holding off on reworking him until they had cool enough ideas for him to be really fun.  And who embodies the fun of the Marvel Universe more than Spidey?  He even has a defining fighting style, fast and loose and courageous.  Giving him a big expensive nuke, while it lets him fit better on teams and does allude to his bravery against unbeatable odds, seems even less in-character than him rescuing his teammates and loved ones at great cost.  (Seriously, did they have to give us another 12AP ability?  A cheap, spammable punch seems much more Spideylike, doesn't it?) 

And the thing is, I know the devs can do better than this.  They continue to astonish me with not just how they keep coming up with fascinating mechanics, but that they can do so in a way that feels so much like their actual comics counterparts.  (I'm just getting my Cloak & Dagger in a useable state, and every time I use them I am simply astonished at how perfectly they've married mechanics and character together, in addition to having a LOT of moving parts in the design, but still feeling easily understandable and tactically interesting.)  I admit - the interaction of character traits and interesting mechanics is the very reason why I play this game, and I love playing with suboptimal characters as long as they have something interesting I can mess around with.  I just wanted to see the best of MPQ's design chops reflected in the best Marvel character, but I suppose that was too much to ask.

Caprila

Forbush said:

And the thing is, I know the devs can do better than this.  They continue to astonish me with not just how they keep coming up with fascinating mechanics, but that they can do so in a way that feels so much like their actual comics counterparts.  (I'm just getting my Cloak & Dagger in a useable state, and every time I use them I am simply astonished at how perfectly they've married mechanics and character together, in addition to having a LOT of moving parts in the design, but still feeling easily understandable and tactically interesting.)  I admit - the interaction of character traits and interesting mechanics is the very reason why I play this game, and I love playing with suboptimal characters as long as they have something interesting I can mess around with.  I just wanted to see the best of MPQ's design chops reflected in the best Marvel character, but I suppose that was too much to ask.

They have several designers on the team, I assume a different designer worked on the reworks vs new characters like C&D.

mega ghost

My guess is someone decided there needed to be a Spider-Man rework in time for Homecoming, and they rushed it. It would explain the lackluster change built off of an existing mechanic, the fact that two abilities were completely untouched despite having very obvious and simple tweaks that would go a long way, and the lack of an animation for the new ability. 

I bet we see another rework in the coming months.

Akari

Took them 2 tries to get Carnage to an acceptable state, maybe Spidey 3.0 will be better.

Rick_OShay

sinnerjfl said:

Played a little bit with the new Venom, quite frankly his yellow has been nerfed for all intent and purposes.

You need to chase yellow to cast it and end up removing a lot of it off the board, you're lucky if you can keep 3 of the enemy protects in play before using it. So you end up with the same damage but you have to babysit the board and wait until you do enough damage to create the protects...  instead of having the fixed damage as before, bleh.

Change to black, +75% match damage is not even noticeable, green is basically the same.

I guess his new yellow is awesome vs protect tile creators (Bullseye, C4ge, Sam Wilson) but otherwise this is really dissapointing.

Nah, you had a bad run, or didn't pair him with a proper teammate(s).
If anything, you may need to wait 1 or 2 more turns to fire it, so that you get the requisite # of mini enemy protects out. After playing many rounds with him now, it takes very little effort to ensure his yellow hits for more than before the buff. Not to mention how much easier it is to get his green AP cost reduced, which in many situations prior, it was not easy to get it down to costing only 7.
*A lot more available yellow falls onto the board after casting green obv.

Straycat

Medusa is boosted right now, so I'm making a yellow protect every turn basically. Been running medusa venom and riri. Riri at at least 4 blue is making crazy cascades with all the yellow protects on the board. Stealth riri buff!

ZeiramMR

I don't see any other posts for this; a heads-up that the increased Sale price for Spider-Man 3* was fixed at some point. It originally was in the 60 thousand ISO and 1500 HP, and it is now 126500 ISO with 1500 HP.