Board shake

Polares

Devs overvalue board shake

In general, they are pretty scared of making those powers too cheap. I think they are SUPER scared of infinite loops, like what happened with Rags (or even Mags).

Let's look at Doom 10 yellow board shake, which for most players at 10 it is too expensive (me included).I think Devs have two main reason to have it at that cost. First of all I think Devs assume you will get three matches out of it.

- Infinite loops: 6 would be way too cheap, as it would be pretty possible to get two yellow matches and get the power fired back to back twice in a row (or maybe even 3 times). 10 is almost 4 matches, so that is inline with you getting 9 AP back, so then the power would nor produce infinite loops. But a cost of 7-8 would be far more reasonable and most probably it wont produce infinite loops either, as the AP will be from different colors (you might not even get one yellow match).

- AP produced: They still follow (in general) that this power should not generate more AP than what it costed  that is because it has other effects like the damage and the heal AND the power doesn't have delays and no extra conditions. I think with these abilities they are wrong thinking they should not produce more AP, as the added  effects like the heal are pretty bad (and no one use them because of this), and the AP you will get out of it will probably be in different colors, so it makes sense for it to generate more AP than the initial cost.This again brings us to 7-8 AP cost.

To be a bit conservative and add the heal in the cost, the cost for this power should clearly be 8 yellow AP.There is absolutely no reason for it to be 10.


Thor's green is under the 50% life condition, but it is obviously way way better than Doom's yellow. This is just the passive part of the power (it also has a pretty good active) and Doom is an active with no passive. How can these two compare? It is pretty clear this power has been valued too high by Devs. IM blue or Rescue blue are also kinda expensive, but at least they also add and destroy tiles of a particular color, so it is way easier to have cascades, but Doom's does nothing of this (the extra added effect helps getting cascades, not like the heal).

AXP_isme

I’m not entirely convinced on that logic. 1-3* storm’s green gathers more AP directly than they cost (in almost all situations) on top of that you have the possibility of cascades.

I don’t think it’s necessarily true that they expect 3 matches. If you compare it to quake’s green (with aoe damage) or loki’s purple you can see that board rearranging on its own would be approximately 6 or 7 AP. That means the extra cost is the other effect. 

Board shuffle is a difficult thing to value regardless of cost. If you think about doom’s yellow as an example. The board state is likely to be low on yellows when you fire the power since you will have been taking it off the board to gather the ap to fire it. Consequently the likelihood of it giving you more yellow matches is low. This type of board shuffle must be different from the board reset since it’s allowed, but not required, to be non-stable I.e. to shuffle into a match so it’s more like a random shuffling. Chasing yellow to fire this means there should be a higher number of non-yellow tiles so a match is slightly more likely than on a neutral, evenly distributed, board going through the same shuffling effect. 

Polares

Devs overvalue board shake

AXP_isme said:

I’m not entirely convinced on that logic. 1-3* storm’s green gathers more AP directly than they cost (in almost all situations) on top of that you have the possibility of cascades.

I don’t think it’s necessarily true that they expect 3 matches. If you compare it to quake’s green (with aoe damage) or loki’s purple you can see that board rearranging on its own would be approximately 6 or 7 AP. That means the extra cost is the other effect. 

Board shuffle is a difficult thing to value regardless of cost. If you think about doom’s yellow as an example. The board state is likely to be low on yellows when you fire the power since you will have been taking it off the board to gather the ap to fire it. Consequently the likelihood of it giving you more yellow matches is low. This type of board shuffle must be different from the board reset since it’s allowed, but not required, to be non-stable I.e. to shuffle into a match so it’s more like a random shuffling. Chasing yellow to fire this means there should be a higher number of non-yellow tiles so a match is slightly more likely than on a neutral, evenly distributed, board going through the same shuffling effect. 

Storm green doesn't have any other effects other than getting AP, the problem comes when they add another effect, then suddenly things change (Quake green makes no sense though, like Thor's green, those ones are extremely cheap compared with other similar powers).

Well, you can always wait until there is some yellow back in the board, you don't need to fire it just when you get the AP (it is like waiting for IF purple or Phoenix purple to fire them twice). And if it was 6 AP, you would not need to get that much.

And I will add, I am not saying any of this makes sense, it is just that it looks like this is what Devs think before the decide the cost of these powers. Could this be used to get infinite loops? Does this power have secondary effects? But in no universe Doom's yellow should be 10 AP, way too expensive.

The worst part of course, is that sometimes they forget about all of this and they go completely overboard (like with Quake's green or Thor's passive).

ThaRoadWarrior

Doesn't Quake's green shuffle the board in such a way that it doesn't create matches though? 

Vhailorx

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Doesn't Quake's green shuffle the board in such a way that it doesn't create matches though? 

Quake's green will never create cascades. The new board arrangement is always stable.

GED's yellow can create cascades and therefore can generate ap.

Warbringa

Devs overvalue board shake

Devs overvalue board shake and protect tiles and undervalue strike and attack tiles.  The game is all about speed and damage and strike/attack tiles (and subsequent buffers) are one of the best sources for this (along with AP generation).  

I like board shake powers but too often their costs are way overpriced. If most of those generated AP, then that changes the power considerably.  Why do you think 5 Thor is so valued, his red and yellow abilities and green AoE  are good but that green board shake plus AP gathering is why is he the best single character out there.

Kolence

Depends on the power and amount of board shake

If we're looking at infinite loops, it's not enough to look at just one board shake power but also what 2 or 3 (or sometimes even 4) can do in combination.

Polares mentioned Doom's yellow and the chance its shuffle can result in new yellow matches. Well, as an example, just a few pvp's ago there was a Magneto pvp with Sandman boosted and I was having fun playing them with Doom. That team was pretty near to infinite loop after a point you got yellow, purple and red ready to fire. Both red and purple increased the odds for extra yellow matches there. On top, even blue could result in some extra matches or line clears with extra cascades.

How much did those 4 board shake powers increase the odds for each other, or the avearage expected AP gain? Idk, I'm sure it could be calculated (even if it's not as simple  ) and certainly can be simulated when a new character is being tested, right? I can say anecdotally that it was a good chance I could keep whittling down the enemy health just with match damage (though, a champed 5*) and no firing black nuke or green (with a stun too!) most of the time.

Now, playing like that was slower than usual, because it takes some time to gather the requisite AP in 4 different pools every time, but mostly cascades and board shuffling take longer, even without animations, than simple damage powers do. For that reason, I feel teams like that are OK in pvp, where high scores are all about speed. And also, on defense, the AI will usually play such a team not as well as a player could. Unless a huge tinikitty cascade happens to begin with...   

firethorne

Devs overvalue board shake

I'd say the devs overvalue.  The problem, in my opinion, is mostly that this game's primary goal is downing the opposing team, and board shake doesn't do that.  Any ap spent on a board shake is ap you could have better spent dealing damage.  

The alternative to this is making a passive shake like RagnaHulk, which is better.  But, that's a double edged sword as it could just as easily screw up your own special tiles.  It makes it a bit more chaotic and takes away from the strategy feeling.  And, while that may be an appropriate feel for a character, for a game called Marvel PUZZLE quest, taking away the puzzle and making the results all random isn't really what you want to shoot for.

Polares

Devs overvalue board shake

Kolence said:

If we're looking at infinite loops, it's not enough to look at just one board shake power but also what 2 or 3 (or sometimes even 4) can do in combination.

Polares mentioned Doom's yellow and the chance its shuffle can result in new yellow matches. Well, as an example, just a few pvp's ago there was a Magneto pvp with Sandman boosted and I was having fun playing them with Doom. That team was pretty near to infinite loop after a point you got yellow, purple and red ready to fire. Both red and purple increased the odds for extra yellow matches there. On top, even blue could result in some extra matches or line clears with extra cascades.

How much did those 4 board shake powers increase the odds for each other, or the avearage expected AP gain? Idk, I'm sure it could be calculated (even if it's not as simple  ) and certainly can be simulated when a new character is being tested, right? I can say anecdotally that it was a good chance I could keep whittling down the enemy health just with match damage (though, a champed 5*) and no firing black nuke or green (with a stun too!) most of the time.

Now, playing like that was slower than usual, because it takes some time to gather the requisite AP in 4 different pools every time, but mostly cascades and board shuffling take longer, even without animations, than simple damage powers do. For that reason, I feel teams like that are OK in pvp, where high scores are all about speed. And also, on defense, the AI will usually play such a team not as well as a player could. Unless a huge tinikitty cascade happens to begin with...   

I would argue that if it requires a lot of preparation and getting AP in different colors, etc.and bringing a particular team then those should be kinda accepted (there is basically no difference with other combos like Okoye and Thor). You can lose before you manage to get it to work. You will also get damaged. And it is still random, you are not guaranteed to get the AP the second time, so in some cases you wont get it to work. And it is slow!

This kinda reminds me of Charlie's Angels. That team needed a lot of preparation and was slow, as ProfX's damage was not that high, so for me that team was ok, even though after a while he was basically giving you all the runs in the world. Also Coulson + HE + X (I dont remember the third).

The problem would be if Doom on his own had a power that after collection 6 AP (for example) could fire it continuously. This is basically how 3 Mags was before his rework. He could fire his blue for 5AP to add two blues wherever he wanted, so it was pretty easy to form 4-matches with another blue in the row so he was able to fire this power continuously (then of course you brought Patch to get the strikes to go faster, and you had the mythic unbeatable Patchneto team). That was obviously too much. 

Of course this is just my opinion, looks like Devs think different, and they allow damage combos like Gritty or Thoryoke, but not way more interesting and puzzlely like Charlie's Angels.

Notwen

Board shakes are mostly or entirely random, this makes them very effective in the hands of AI-controlled characters, you can't mis-play randomness. On the flip side are skills where tiles are targeted, these can be extremely effective in the hands of a human player but laughably inept under AI direction.

To me, that dichotomy makes judging the worth of board shakes tricky. They probably feel overpriced when you are using them but too strong when the AI uses them.

ThaRoadWarrior

I think that get's back to the distinction between board shake and board control. 

Vhailorx

Notwen said:

Board shakes are mostly or entirely random, this makes them very effective in the hands of AI-controlled characters, you can't mis-play randomness. On the flip side are skills where tiles are targeted, these can be extremely effective in the hands of a human player but laughably inept under AI direction.

To me, that dichotomy makes judging the worth of board shakes tricky. They probably feel overpriced when you are using them but too strong when the AI uses them.

This is a nice observation, and should always be kept in mind as a meta-criteria when players evaluate power strength.  We focus on high efficiency synergies and powers that can be heavily leveraged by hand cleverness; so our perception of effectiveness may be narrower and more selective than the dev's whole-of-the-game view. 

It often feels to me that new characters are designed with defense/ai play in mind.  I have no evidence to back up this thought.  But some changes like the "buff" to 4* KP don't make much sense unless you are paying a lot of attention to kp + goon performance.

Phumade

Vhailorx said:

It often feels to me that new characters are designed with defense/ai play in mind.  I have no evidence to back up this thought.  But some changes like the "buff" to 4* KP don't make much sense unless you are paying a lot of attention to kp + goon performance.

I am constantly amazed when the AI plays some **** char like the second coming of gambit.  Its a really smart observation that some designs really play to the AI's strengths.

Malcrof

Depends on the power and amount of board shake

Phumade said:

Vhailorx said:

It often feels to me that new characters are designed with defense/ai play in mind.  I have no evidence to back up this thought.  But some changes like the "buff" to 4* KP don't make much sense unless you are paying a lot of attention to kp + goon performance.

I am constantly amazed when the AI plays some tinykitty char like the second coming of gambit.  Its a really smart observation that some designs really play to the AI's strengths.

Which is honestly perfect. This could force us to enjoy the "puzzle" aspect, and not just use the same old stuff all the time. I dig this idea. 

AXP_isme

Maybe the new character is just thrown in to a set of random matches with random team mates and opponents. The devs run millions of simulations changing the cost of the new powers until the win rate plateaus at 50%.

On reflection there might need to be some normalising of the strengths of the teams. Assuming that you can balance approximate team strength, maybe by something as crude as star rating, you would end up with a consistent set of costs for the powers. It would also explain why costs seem wrong to players. Players want matches finished as quickly as possible but the power costing would be ambivalent to the speed of the match. 

Seems pretty far-fetched, I know, but i’m less and less inclined to believe the play testing by experts line we’ve been fed and this is a not entirely implausible explanation.