***** Ultron (Age of Ultron) *****

revskip

BlackBoltRocks said:

Sekilicious said:

If Ultron is making people question whether they want to continue playing the game it is because they are bored. It won’t hurt to take a break from grinding daily, in this game anyways I haven’t found a mobile game that doesn’t have some sort of grind unless it can be beaten in a short time. If you have meta characters, then you will still have meta adjacent characters if you decide to return since nerfs are pretty rare in this game.

Exactly. I've lost track of how many times certain posters have "threatened" to quit the game whenever an allegedly dud character comes out. And yet here they still are, matching coloured tiles and posting on the forums, waiting to thrash the next meh character. Words are wind eh.

If you don't like a particular character, then just skip them. If you keep threatening to quit, honour your words and quit. Constantly claiming that you're going to quit the game whenever a character who's not to your fancy comes out, and yet still continuing to play it, speaks to issues or problems about yourself far deeper and more worrisome than in-game character design.

If a game starts to make you no longer enjoy playing it please stop playing it.  I walked away from MPQ for 2 years when it started to feel like a job.  

Picked it back up early this year.  It is fun again.  If it gets to be a chore I'll walk away again.  What Sekilicious said is dead on.  It took me maybe 3 months to "catch up".  I don't have every meta 4 champed yet but I managed to transition to the 5* game and it holds my interest again without feeling like I "have" to play.  Taking a pause isn't really that big of a deal.  Taking a long vacation is fine too.  Permanently walking away is fine too.  

Jacklag

A possibly more interesting approach to Ultron's Hive mind ability might be adding to his tile duplication the following passive:
"Ultron takes 3% less damage for each friendly Attack, Protect and Strike tile on the board. When a friendly Attack, Protect or Strike tile is matched away or destroyed, Ultron takes X (roughly 3% of his max health) damage.

ThaRoadWarrior

Got to love a 5* so bland their character thread is a nuanced conversation about when it's time to stop playing the game mixed with "what if they had THIS power instead?"

For me Ultron feels somewhere between Havok and Kingpin for being simultaneously boring and innefectual, but I still try to champ everyone so there is a chance my opinion will evolve over time.

Sekilicious

There is a little 'he might make a decent solo 5* with Polaris and Grocket', 'all y'all have no clue how to evaluate characters without playing them', and 'he might play well with BRB and Kitty' sprinkled in there.

In his PvP, his synergy with Polaris and Grocket is there but he does not share enough colors so my weak-tinykitty 4*s end up tanking more than I would like. He has better synergy with Sabertooth in that respect. It was nice he added protect tiles for BRB as well so they might indeed play well together in a pick 3. On defense, if you make four special tiles surrounding his SAP in non-diagonal directions, then he cannot make more and his blue stalls out. This is very much a weakness in his design, though very much rng dependent.. 

Also, I somehow died to a Polaris cascade with Polaris and Morbius vs. Polaris and Medusa. I'm still not entirely sure how, but she lucked into an early stun (on Ultron) followed by unending match-5s. Whatever. 

HoundofShadow

Here's another way of looking at Ultron's powers:

R4G has been on the nerf wishlist for years. Some also wanted Kitty and Polaris to be nerfed. 

If we were to combine Kitty and Polaris together, we get a nerfed version of them called Ultron.

Can you imagine Ultron is a combination of the three characters above where he puts a strike tile at the start of the game and at the start of each turn (capped at 5) followed by buffing the strike tile immediately? Do you think this is broken?

ThaRoadWarrior

Rocket + Kitty is strong because there are a buffable number of strikes in play from battle start. Adding a single strike per turn until you are at best 5 turns in (assuming none are matched, stolen, or removed by any of the myriad powers that do this) and THEN buffing them one at a time is a very weak power. You are essentially describing Knull's power, of which the strikes themselves are basically a non-factor - that is all about having enough of them on the board to trigger the AOE that can't be blocked.

entrailbucket

That's the problem, right?  Ultron's power may be a "fair" version of those others, but why on Earth would anyone use him when we have access to the "unfair" versions?

(Please don't fixate on the words fair and unfair, I'm borrowing descriptive terms, not making a judgement)

ThaRoadWarrior

I also feel it's kind of a wild comment on the state of this character that nerfing two 4*s and adding in a hamstrung version of an old 5* = this brand new release...

entrailbucket

It's the same reason SW's power boost is bad.  If she was the only booster in the game she'd be great!  But the other two boosts are way way better than her, so hers looks bad by comparison. 

Ultron would be great if those other characters didn't exist, but they do, so he looks bad by comparison.

LavaManLee

In his PVE, Ultron/Kitty/BRB is annoying to play.  Beatable now, but curious to see how annoying this will be when he is champed.  He's not the best 5* out there but I really believe he won't be at Banner or Wasp level either.

ThaRoadWarrior

THat's why I put him somewhere between Havok and Kingpin, the place on the list of quality that is full of uninteresting to actively bad characters who aren't quite Banner or Wasp.Though I am actively working on my 4/3/4 Banner so that I can evaluate just how bad he actually is. I feel like I'd prefer him to Kingpin.

Captain_Trips88

As someone who has Banner champed I can confirm he is terrible. At least last time he was boosted hulk also got the boost so he was usable for a laugh. 

HoundofShadow

Knull takes 3 turns to put a strike tile.

My version would be:

Start of game: create one 1028 strength strike tile followed by buffing it by 1028. Total strength = 2056

Turn 1: create one 1028 strength strike tile followed by buffing it by 1028. Total strength = 4112

He will stop creating strike tiles at the 5th one, and buffs a random one.

Or, instead of creating one strike tile, he creates a random strike, protect or attack tile. The, he creates a copy and buff them.

ThaRoadWarrior

If it worked like Ronan, where every SAP produced a single duplicate every turn, that would be something.

HoundofShadow

Wouldn't this power be broken? The strength is 1028. 

entrailbucket

What you're describing is probably too strong, assuming that Kitty, Polaris, and Beta Ray Bill exist in their current form.  If those 3 suddenly didn't exist, it's probably ok.

Borstock

HoundofShadow said:

Wouldn't this power be broken? The strength is 1028. 

Yes. You'd have to lower the number. But at that point, it sort of becomes like Carnage, only without limits. You'd have to either cap it or have it also add enemy tiles of % strength. That would be consistent with the way certain villains have powers that do team dmg on top of offensive dmg.

ThaRoadWarrior

It would be a modern 5* power in my opinion lol. But yeah, probably overpowered.

HoundofShadow

We could reduce the created tile strength by half to 514 and allow the buff to remain at 1028. However, it would mean seeing Kitty/Ultron?

ThaRoadWarrior

We'll see I suppose; I don't anticipate too many "nerf ultron!" threads showing up once he hits latest though.