Passives are ruining the game

GrumpySmurf1002

No way, it's Milennials.  They ruin everything.

spatenfloot

GrumpySmurf1002 said:

No way, it's Milennials.  They ruin everything.

I've heard that Millennials are very passive.

Vhailorx

Orion said:

The 5* meta is currently Panther/Thanos, which can kill champed 5* teams without firing a single active power.

Passives have become very powerful.  A passive counter would be very interesting, but it would have to be a passive itself to stop characters like Grocket or Medusa.

How is Panthos especially different from Hulkbombing?  Both techniques used one character's abilities to leverage another character's passives to punch way above their weight.  Panthos is a strong synergy.  But it doesn't seem much more dominant than some of the other meta teams that have existed in the game.  (and they are also fairly easy to fight on offense, since the ai can't play them well). 

Dormammu

How is Panthos especially different from Hulkbombing?

The Hulkbomb strategy consumes an amount of AP.

DyingLegend

I feel the people who complain about passives don't have those teams readily available or keep getting beaten by those teams. 

Dormammu

DyingLegend said:

I feel the people who complain about passives don't have those teams readily available or keep getting beaten by those teams. 

The former definitely isn't a problem for the OP.

Vhailorx

Dormammu said:

How is Panthos especially different from Hulkbombing?

The Hulkbomb strategy consumes an amount of AP.

hulkbombing requires collecting 9 green ap.  panthos requires killing 1 character to start the cycle rolling.  The easiest way to do that quickly is to collect 9 black ap for BP.  It's unlikely that any meaningful enemy could be dropped (even by 5* match damage) faster than one can collect enough ap to cast one abilitiy.  It's a distinction without a difference. 

(and if you are really concerned about no-ability teams, then I think carol + wasp + Grocket4 is a better example. 
Step 1: collect 6 blue
step 2: win.

But even that team isn't OP, since it's not available in most PVP events, and would require the use of squishy 4*s even in Simulator). 

SpringSoldier

We definitely need a character that destroys special tiles without activating Medusa's passive- like Falcon 3*, but for more tiles at once.

A character that locks all tiles completely for a number of turns would be useful too. 

Even better, a character that deals damage for all the special tiles you place- it would definitely
make a lot of the older characters useful again.

Another tile stealer and health restorer would be a good addition. Maybe also one that steals bombs- it would be an instant Carol killer.

A character that "mind-controls" other characters and makes them use their power on their own team-mates would be fun too.

They could make someone like Kaecilius (?) a permanent character as well: indestructible, unless you match away the special titles it creates.

irwando

DyingLegend said:

I feel the people who complain about passives don't have those teams readily available or keep getting beaten by those teams. 

Oh, I have those characters because the only way to fight them is with them.

Look, when I am carefully making matches to avoid activating Carol's passive, and then a random cascade activates it 2-3 times and does 6-8k team damage to me?  That just isn't fun.

It's also not fun when it happens facing JG due to random 5* match during cascades, but that is much less common. I still hate it there too though.  Same with Prof X.  I hate it when it happens, but it is somewhat rare.

When Medusa is healing every turn while Carnage / R&G / Whoever feed her every turn and it makes the match drag on forever? That isn't fun.  

When Medusa matches her own special tile multiple rounds in a row while you're carefully avoiding it? That isn't fun.  Not to mention even if you stun Medusa another member of her team can match it 

When you have cheap powers like 5* Hawkeye and he and Coulson together can pretty much feed it to fire evey round? That isn't fun.

At least with characters like Strange you can't accidentally trigger them.

Jarvind

"Is ruining the game" has become the Betteridge's Law of gaming forums. Any post with "is ruining the game" in the title can be answered with "No, it isn't."

DyingLegend

irwando said:

DyingLegend said:

I feel the people who complain about passives don't have those teams readily available or keep getting beaten by those teams. 

Oh, I have those characters because the only way to fight them is with them.

Look, when I am carefully making matches to avoid activating Carol's passive, and then a random cascade activates it 2-3 times and does 6-8k team damage to me?  That just isn't fun.

It's also not fun when it happens facing JG due to random 5* match during cascades, but that is much less common. I still hate it there too though.  Same with Prof X.  I hate it when it happens, but it is somewhat rare.

When Medusa is healing every turn while Carnage / R&G / Whoever feed her every turn and it makes the match drag on forever? That isn't fun.  

When Medusa matches her own special tile multiple rounds in a row while you're carefully avoiding it? That isn't fun.  Not to mention even if you stun Medusa another member of her team can match it 

When you have cheap powers like 5* Hawkeye and he and Coulson together can pretty much feed it to fire evey round? That isn't fun.

At least with characters like Strange you can't accidentally trigger them.

I always fight the Medusa carnage combo. There are teams that dismantle them rather quickly, people just don't talk about them. I can't really complain about people building teams that are efficient like Hawkeye and coulson as if characters work well together its a no brainer to pair them up. As for random cascades and other things, it happens, not a big deal, sometimes your on the receiving end, other times you are dishing it out. 

There are cheap combos out there left and right and there are counters. Passives are perfectly fine in my opinion. 

Straycat

irwando said:

DyingLegend said:

I feel the people who complain about passives don't have those teams readily available or keep getting beaten by those teams. 

Oh, I have those characters because the only way to fight them is with them.

Look, when I am carefully making matches to avoid activating Carol's passive, and then a random cascade activates it 2-3 times and does 6-8k team damage to me?  That just isn't fun.

It's also not fun when it happens facing JG due to random 5* match during cascades, but that is much less common. I still hate it there too though.  Same with Prof X.  I hate it when it happens, but it is somewhat rare.

When Medusa is healing every turn while Carnage / R&G / Whoever feed her every turn and it makes the match drag on forever? That isn't fun.  

When Medusa matches her own special tile multiple rounds in a row while you're carefully avoiding it? That isn't fun.  Not to mention even if you stun Medusa another member of her team can match it 

When you have cheap powers like 5* Hawkeye and he and Coulson together can pretty much feed it to fire evey round? That isn't fun.

At least with characters like Strange you can't accidentally trigger them.

I agree that Medusa and Carol are annoying, but I don't have a problem with passives in general. Bad cascades can happen any time. It wouldn't "be fun" if the enemy gets a cascade that gave them ap to hit you with either. Its also not fun going against goons and not being able to match away a countdown before it hits. That's just part of the game. I remember taking a Carol Wasp team against Moonstone in pve, forgetting that she her control shift, and really hurt myself. Planning for your enemies is part of the game, passives are just part of it.

The only issue I have with passives is that you can get conditioned to them and miss them when you switch teams. I hate using boosted prof x and not getting any match 5s, then switching him out and making a bunch of them.

irwando

DyingLegend said:

irwando said:

DyingLegend said:

I feel the people who complain about passives don't have those teams readily available or keep getting beaten by those teams. 

Oh, I have those characters because the only way to fight them is with them.

Look, when I am carefully making matches to avoid activating Carol's passive, and then a random cascade activates it 2-3 times and does 6-8k team damage to me?  That just isn't fun.

It's also not fun when it happens facing JG due to random 5* match during cascades, but that is much less common. I still hate it there too though.  Same with Prof X.  I hate it when it happens, but it is somewhat rare.

When Medusa is healing every turn while Carnage / R&G / Whoever feed her every turn and it makes the match drag on forever? That isn't fun.  

When Medusa matches her own special tile multiple rounds in a row while you're carefully avoiding it? That isn't fun.  Not to mention even if you stun Medusa another member of her team can match it 

When you have cheap powers like 5* Hawkeye and he and Coulson together can pretty much feed it to fire evey round? That isn't fun.

At least with characters like Strange you can't accidentally trigger them.

I always fight the Medusa carnage combo. There are teams that dismantle them rather quickly, people just don't talk about them. I can't really complain about people building teams that are efficient like Hawkeye and coulson as if characters work well together its a no brainer to pair them up. As for random cascades and other things, it happens, not a big deal, sometimes your on the receiving end, other times you are dishing it out. 

There are cheap combos out there left and right and there are counters. Passives are perfectly fine in my opinion. 

I'm not complaining at all about the people using them.  Heck, I use them to stay competitive.  I'm complaining about the power creep in combination with moving from active->passive making things much less enjoyable.

DyingLegend

irwando said:

DyingLegend said:

irwando said:

DyingLegend said:

I feel the people who complain about passives don't have those teams readily available or keep getting beaten by those teams. 

Oh, I have those characters because the only way to fight them is with them.

Look, when I am carefully making matches to avoid activating Carol's passive, and then a random cascade activates it 2-3 times and does 6-8k team damage to me?  That just isn't fun.

It's also not fun when it happens facing JG due to random 5* match during cascades, but that is much less common. I still hate it there too though.  Same with Prof X.  I hate it when it happens, but it is somewhat rare.

When Medusa is healing every turn while Carnage / R&G / Whoever feed her every turn and it makes the match drag on forever? That isn't fun.  

When Medusa matches her own special tile multiple rounds in a row while you're carefully avoiding it? That isn't fun.  Not to mention even if you stun Medusa another member of her team can match it 

When you have cheap powers like 5* Hawkeye and he and Coulson together can pretty much feed it to fire evey round? That isn't fun.

At least with characters like Strange you can't accidentally trigger them.

I always fight the Medusa carnage combo. There are teams that dismantle them rather quickly, people just don't talk about them. I can't really complain about people building teams that are efficient like Hawkeye and coulson as if characters work well together its a no brainer to pair them up. As for random cascades and other things, it happens, not a big deal, sometimes your on the receiving end, other times you are dishing it out. 

There are cheap combos out there left and right and there are counters. Passives are perfectly fine in my opinion. 

I'm not complaining at all about the people using them.  Heck, I use them to stay competitive.  I'm complaining about the power creep in combination with moving from active->passive making things much less enjoyable.

I think the devs got better at making characters and the older characters need a rework or retooling. 

Warbringa

I think that passives have become too prevalent myself in the game and I don't even play PvP that much.  There are two counterbalances to this.  Make active powers simply far better going forward or generally start limiting passives to one per character instead of multiple passives per character (ie Medusa/Carol).  I do think the design of three active powers with three much more limited passives (ie Coulson) seem fairly balanced and really help provide that active component that the game seems to be losing.  I know that Dr. Strange was brought up earlier and he is fine as he is mainly a PvE character with only one passive and a very small health pool.

Anon

I vaguely remember when I was new to MPQ and there were Dakens everywhere. I thought he was the most **** character there was. Sure other characters were "better", but the fact the guy farted strike tiles and healed every turn was ridiculous.

Fast forward many years and I look forward to fighting him with my roster and wiping him out.

Moral of the story is, the passive might seem daunting now, but in time characters will be released that may overcome these powers. After all, when Peggy was released, her yellow was terrifying. Now, she's not quite so scary.

fmftint

Passives ensure characters take damage and require healing either via time or health packs, sorry they're not going anywhere

Scouseroy

Do we need something that reacts to the passives causes damage steals ap maybe reduces their power temporarily so 2nd or 3rd hits in a short span of moves are less effective? May r an energy absorber like Sebastian Shaw

BoyWonder1914

Your issue isn't with passives, it's with passive synergy. Passives aren't hard to find counters for: 

• IceMan's purple made him anti-Bl4de before there was a Bl4de
• Doc Ock's blue and passive black made him anti-Medusa/anti-Carnage before they both existed
• OBW's blue and purple, and black passive can turn C4rol into a hushpuppy

However, there really isn't a whole lot you can do once you have to deal with all of these passives simultaneously. Focus on one of them too long, and someone else gets the conditions they need to start going to town on you. Putting together a team to counter passive synergy is EXTREMELY difficult. The counter you need may also not be owned by a character in the appropriate tier. Although OBW's powers work great against C4rol, you're not gonna sick a 2-star on a 4-star. Even harder then, to design a good team around OBW because her real strengths rely on her tanking her colors.  The developers design these characters from the perspective of USING them, not fighting against them. So for a team of people that don't even really play or test this great game, all they really have to go off of is this "data" that they collect behind the scenes on usage rates and the teams people put together. This is a game after all, and people want to enjoy it, so their priority in designing characters is going to be creating someone that people would love using....."theoretically". Lol

Jaedenkaal

The funny part is, for a while, powers were seemingly designed to NOT synergize particularly well. The well-publicized "nerf" of Kingpin + XFDP being only one example. 

Not funny-ha-ha, I suppose