Riri's Magnetic Repulsors: effects do not resolve as written

JSP869

For my Riri (level 270 5/5/3), the text for Magnetic Repulsors says: "Deals 2543 damage and attracts 4 random basic or enemy special tiles to the center, then converts the center 4 tiles to Red Charged tiles."

What actually happens is 4 random tiles are attracted to the center and any matches are resolved, the center 4 tiles are then converted to Red Charged tiles and any matches are resolved, and then the 2543 damage is dealt.

According to the way the power's text is written, the 2543 damage should be deal first or immediately after the 4 random tiles are moved to the center, but most definitely before the center 4 tiles are converted to Red Charged tiles.

If this is "Working as Intended" then the text needs to be rewritten so it's clear the damage is meant to occur after all match damage is resolved.

Blindman13

I came to post this very same thing.  not sure about the swapping of 3 or 4 tiles, only because I haven't watyched closely enough. However, I definitely agree on the damage and ability wording.
Description reads like the damage will happen first followed by everything else, but actually the damage happens last.

Jaedenkaal

And the AP cost is removed even after the damage is done.

I don't disagree that the damage is done in an odd order, but... does it really matter in this case?

I guess it would if you were counting on the power listed damage downing a character, and any cascade damage being applied to the next target. Which could result in the target character taking all the cascade damage, not dying, then also eating the full listed damage, and then finally being downed, leaving no spill-over damage.

I guess that would be worth fixing. Although Magnetic Repulsors isn't really a high-damaging power. I get more damage from the cascade itself than from the power some significant amount of the time.

Blindman13

It is more of a nit-picky type complaint. Technically, the ability does everything in the description, just not in exactly the same way. The end result is less efficient use of the damage.  
As @Jaedenkaal describes, I used it expecting the base ability damage to down the opponent in front, then have the cascade damage hit the next guy, but instead I just really killed the first guy good and dead, and the second one stepped up to bat with full health.

JSP869

Blindman13 said:

It is more of a nit-picky type complaint. Technically, the ability does everything in the description, just not in exactly the same way. The end result is less efficient use of the damage.  
As @Jaedenkaal describes, I used it expecting the base ability damage to down the opponent in front, then have the cascade damage hit the next guy, but instead I just really killed the first guy good and dead, and the second one stepped up to bat with full health.

Boosted for Meet R&G, my level 270 Riri's Magentic Repulsors does 5083, which isn't a nuke (like her Red) but it's still a respectable amount of damage. And yes, until I realized the effects were being resolved in the wrong order (according to the text) I was using it expecting the 5k+ to hit first and down my current target, with the next target taking match damage from the Charged Red tiles, because that's how the effects are supposed to resolve, according to how it's written:
"Deals 2543 damage and attracts 4 random basic or enemy special tiles to the center, then converts the center 4 tiles to Red Charged tiles." (bolded for emphasis)

The use of the term 'then' means the center tiles should not be converted to Red Charged tiles until after the base damage has been applied. There's nothing nit-picky about it. Either this a bug, in which case it needs to be fixed, or it's working as intended, in which case the power's text needs to be rewritten akin to:
"Attracts 4 random basic or enemy special tiles to the center, converts the center 4 tiles to Red Charged tiles, then deals 2543 damage."

Jaedenkaal

JSP869 said:

The use of the term 'then' means the center tiles should not be converted to Red Charged tiles until after the base damage has been applied. There's nothing nit-picky about it. Either this a bug, in which case it needs to be fixed, or it's working as intended, in which case the power's text needs to be rewritten akin to:
"Attracts 4 random basic or enemy special tiles to the center, converts the center 4 tiles to Red Charged tiles, then deals 2543 damage."

You can be right and still be nitpicky

JSP869

Jaedenkaal said:

JSP869 said:

The use of the term 'then' means the center tiles should not be converted to Red Charged tiles until after the base damage has been applied. There's nothing nit-picky about it. Either this a bug, in which case it needs to be fixed, or it's working as intended, in which case the power's text needs to be rewritten akin to:
"Attracts 4 random basic or enemy special tiles to the center, converts the center 4 tiles to Red Charged tiles, then deals 2543 damage."

You can be right and still be nitpicky

That's a fair point

Jaedenkaal

JSP869 said:

Jaedenkaal said:

You can be right and still be nitpicky

That's a fair point

Also, welcome to the forums, if I haven't mentioned it already.

JSP869

A few updates later and a simple "text fix" that would take all of 10 seconds still hasn't been applied.

Attracts 4 random basic or enemy special tiles to the center, converts the center 4 tiles to Red Charged tiles, then deals 2543 damage.

That's it. Just copy & paste, and the Magnetic Repulsor's effects will resolve in the order they're written, instead of backasswards like they currently do.

Jaedenkaal

We'd be here all day logging the list of "simple" fixes that have yet to be implemented

madoctor

As a reference we could also look at 2*/3* Daken's blue. It now functions in a way exactly as written, so Riri blue would probably be fixed/reworded in the near future.

Funny I mention this during Daken's PvP and Riri PvE essential events

JSP869

Jaedenkaal said:

We'd be here all day logging the list of "simple" fixes that have yet to be implemented

Sadly, you're not wrong! Wait. If it's "sadly", why is the smiley grinning like the cheshire cat?

JSP869

madoctor said:

As a reference we could also look at 2*/3* Daken's blue. It now functions in a way exactly as written, so Riri blue would probably be fixed/reworded in the near future.

Funny I mention this during Daken's PvP and Riri PvE essential events

Cool. I know how to account for the order in which the power's effects resolve, but it will be nice to see the damage being reported as occurring at the end of the move instead of the start, or to throw me for a loop, actually fixing it so the damage does occur at the beginning, leaving me scratching my head wondering what happened to the mini-nuke that was supposed to come at the end of the move

DeNappa

Jaedenkaal said:

[snip]

I guess it would if you were counting on the power listed damage downing a character, and any cascade damage being applied to the next target. Which could result in the target character taking all the cascade damage, not dying, then also eating the full listed damage, and then finally being downed, leaving no spill-over damage.

I guess that would be worth fixing. Although Magnetic Repulsors isn't really a high-damaging power. I get more damage from the cascade itself than from the power some significant amount of the time.

This, to be honest. As someone who has fairly recently champed Riri, I was expecting this based on the description. I fired this power on someone who I thought would be downed by the 'damage' component, fully expecting the match/cascade/crits from the tile shenanigans to hit the next character.

So I agree either the description should be changed, or the order in which the different parts of the power are executed.

JSP869

So I ran across a post just now which brought this issue to mind, and coincidentally I made this post 2 years ago, almost to the day, August 1, 2017.

2 years ago. And it's still not fixed. You fixed the bug where it only moved 3 tiles to the center, and Orion only knows how long that took to fix, but you never corrected the incorrect wording, even though I've provided it for you on multiple occasions.

Just copy & paste:
Attracts 4 random basic or enemy special tiles to the center, converts the center 4 tiles to Red Charged tiles, then deals 2543 damage.

Is that too much to ask?

JSP869

KGB said:

But as I mentioned earlier in the thread, the 2 minute copy/paste has to be done in every language (so all the translations have to be checked for consistency). So it's more than 2 minutes worth and definitely going to cost money to get translators time for all the languages. Still, I wish they would just do a whole bunch of language fixes all at once (say 2x a year) to save costs of translating ad hoc.

KGB

Good Lord! That's very astute of you, and horribly English-centric of me. You're absolutely correct that fixing this by changing the wording of the power would require numerous translations into multiple languages, and not just the simple copy & paste of the English text that I've always suggested.

Maybe the easier fix actually is to have the power's effects resolve in the order they're written, and that's probably not an easy change to make either.

JSP869

Hi there Devs & Devettes! So I had cause to be reminded of this again today, so I checked my game and saw the wording of Magnetic Repulsors says it deals damage at the start, moves 4 random tiles to the center, and then converts the center 4 tiles to red.

And I checked the Bug Status List thread to see whether or not this was listed in there, which it's not.

And it's been a while since I've used Riri so instead of taking Thanos, Star-Lord, and R4G into The Big Enchilada I took in Riri, SWitch, and 2* Magneto. Just to make sure I could get the Blue to fire Magnetic Repulsors and check whether or not the damage is now done immediately when you fire the power, which is how it's worded.

But nope. Tiles were moved to the center, tiles were changed to red, matches were made, cascades were resolved, and when the dust had finally settled...Riri dropped the hammer and the damage component kicked in. Even though the damage is supposed to be dealt before the center tiles are converted to red. Because that's what "...and then..." actually means.

This happens...and then that happens.

So I'm really curious. Is this a bug, or not? If it's a bug, maybe you could add it to the list. I mean it's only been 2-1/2 years since I brought it to your attention. That should have been plenty of time to add it to the list, right?

But you haven't added it to the list of known bugs, and it's not like it's not a difficult "bug" to test/reproduce and confirm its presence. So does that mean this is not a bug?

So...if it's not a bug, and if the damage component is supposed to resolve at the very end after the tile conversion and after any matches and cascades resolve...then fix the wording.

And if fixing the wording IS too difficult because you'd have to change the phrasing in every language which MPQ supports, then just fix the power so the damage is dealt at the very start of the move, being in the order in which it's currently phrased.

Failing that, just add it to the list of known bugs and I'll stop bugging you about it every 6-8 months.