New Boss Event: Quandary Info

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  • 658_2
    658_2 Posts: 221 Tile Toppler
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    If you use Electro/Quake you don’t even have to look at Quandary. Just match a variety of colors and it will be over in 2 minutes.

  • Mike4003
    Mike4003 Posts: 3 Just Dropped In
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    Most players don’t like Quandary. I appreciate the devs looking for new ways to make the game fun but if the predominant feedback is that players don’t find a change fun, I don’t understand the strategy of having another Quandary boss event. Isn’t there concern of driving players away? I am at 1933 days, and I plan to retire if this is the new game platform.

  • Blackstone
    Blackstone Posts: 597 Critical Contributor
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    @Mike4003 said:
    Most players don’t like Quandary. I appreciate the devs looking for new ways to make the game fun but if the predominant feedback is that players don’t find a change fun, I don’t understand the strategy of having another Quandary boss event. Isn’t there concern of driving players away? I am at 1933 days, and I plan to retire if this is the new game platform.

    Calling it the "new game platform" is a bit of a leap.

    This run of Quandary was planned before the initial run. Meaning they didn't run it immediately after finding out some people don't like it. They just already had this month planned out.

    You'll see the same old same soon enough.

    Now, if they run the Quandary event again, as is, in future rotations of events, you'd have more room to speculate on them ignoring player feedback.

    Even if that happens though, you wouldn't miss a whole lot by just skipping the event.

    As for threatening to "retire" if you don't like changes... Ok. If the whole game changes to something you dislike, why would you keep playing it? But there's no reason to think one event, with major differences from everything else in the game, is an indication of the whole game changing.

    I'm not trying to be argumentative, I think you're frustrated by the event and need people to know you don't like it. Point taken.

    The positive from all this is that the event shows they're willing to do new things... Something many have asked for. Not every new thing will work, but there's no way to know until it's in the game. Hopefully they take feedback and make changes before putting it back on the schedule. Or... Just don't play it next time.

    Anyway, hope I don't sound rude. I was going for blunt/direct but there's a thin line.

  • UnityGamer
    UnityGamer Posts: 36 Just Dropped In
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    The one thing I noticed after the first Quandary run is they added a "hazard" notice of powers being fully disabled for the prep stages. The fact that Quake and Electro's passive powers are still active makes me think this could have been unintentional. Wouldn't be surprised if on the next run, the devs will change it so that not a single power will work, forcing players to really think.

    Which brings me to this one recommendation that I feel could improve the Quandary battles: damage should not be a factor in the preparation stages. They should either be win-or-lose contests, not require players to lose characters in the middle of a prep fight. Leave the damage dealing for the actual boss fight. Only Breakthrough, Dispel The Illusion and Hue Shift have damage components:

    a. Breakthrough requires the player to clear the board of fortified tiles while minding the attack tiles. A non-damage variant could involve a non-destructible locked countdown tile that is influenced by action. Every time a fortified tile is matched, you get an extra turn or two on that countdown tile. When that tile expires, you lose.

    b. Dispel The Illusion has players look for the "Deal 10% damage to enemy team" on its tile description. That can be changed to "Sends a random enemy away for a few turns." If you match the wrong illusion, a random enemy is sent away. When all enemies are sent away, you lose.

    c. Hue Shift is the only one that is impossible to fix; it can't work without the damage element. The only suggestion I could make is a one-time hidden trap tile that fully heals the entire team when matched (will not work for Downed characters). Otherwise, this is the only battle in which you have to take notes; in my experience, the associated color aspect changes per meeting. One game a Red requires a Purple, the next Red will require Blue. And so on. Unless I am wrong about this, and someone can actually confirm of a hard chart...

  • Seph1roth5
    Seph1roth5 Posts: 371 Mover and Shaker
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    Puzzle box is my favorite lol, super easy.

    Hue shift is super easy too, just takes a little prep.

    Dispel illusion can be a bit annoying but it's only one tile, and I just reset if it's in a bad place at the start.

    Breakthrough...this one and ground yourself I really hate. It's also totally up to luck/rng like dispel, but you have multiple tiles to worry about. So instead of just resetting after a few turns, it takes a lot longer to finally go "Well, I'm screwed" and reset.

  • UnityGamer
    UnityGamer Posts: 36 Just Dropped In
    edited October 2023
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    @Seph1roth5 said:

    Dispel illusion can be a bit annoying but it's only one tile, and I just reset if it's in a bad place at the start.
    Breakthrough...this one and ground yourself I really hate. It's also totally up to luck/rng like dispel, but you have multiple tiles to worry about. So instead of just resetting after a few turns, it takes a lot longer to finally go "Well, I'm screwed" and reset.

    Here's the thing with resets: if you retreat, you take damage. It's always there for Story or Versus mode. But all of Quandary's tests are not actually battles, they're challenges. In three of her challenges (Track And Destroy, Puzzle Box, Ground Yourself), you don't take damage at all. You can leave any of her challenges at any time, but you take damage as a penalty; retreat too many times, one of your characters will get Downed. I tested this once in a Quandary challenge, and actually lost a character because of it.

  • KGB
    KGB Posts: 2,962 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Use loaners and you can retreat as much as you want. You don't fire powers anyway so loaners are fine.

    KGB

  • St_Bernadus
    St_Bernadus Posts: 601 Critical Contributor
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    I am a little disappointed that they changed nothing after a lot of negative feedback. Break through especially needed a tweak to make it less annoying.

  • PorkBelly
    PorkBelly Posts: 526 Critical Contributor
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    Still terrible.

  • LavaManLee
    LavaManLee Posts: 1,295 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I thought I saw something copied from Discord a few weeks ago with the devs saying something like "we hear you and will make fixes, especially around not firing powers". Could be wrong.

  • BlackWidower
    BlackWidower Posts: 250 Mover and Shaker
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    This boss event is not only the worst boss event in MPQ history, but it is tied with nerfing as the most frustrating and annoying thing ever.

    I don't play Candy Crush or those tedious support quests for a reason and we should not be forced to put up with that nonsense when your alliance is counting on you, so you are forced to participate.

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 4,952 Chairperson of the Boards
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    If your alliance is forcing you to do something that's not fun, it's time to find a new alliance.

  • revskip
    revskip Posts: 966 Critical Contributor
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    I liked this run less than the first run. Perhaps the novelty of it wore off. Perhaps it is tied to all the other content available. Perhaps it is just burnout after a pretty fun anniversary.

  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
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    @BlackWidower said:
    This boss event is not only the worst boss event in MPQ history, but it is tied with nerfing as the most frustrating and annoying thing ever.

    I don't play Candy Crush or those tedious support quests for a reason and we should not be forced to put up with that nonsense when your alliance is counting on you, so you are forced to participate.

    You clearly did not experience boss rush.

  • crakker
    crakker Posts: 37 Just Dropped In
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    @UnityGamer said:

    c. Hue Shift is the only one that is impossible to fix;

    Easy fix - just always have the same set of replacements. Still would be a bit of a challenge to remember it and get the right tiles, and not as easy as Puzzle Box (which requires the exact moves every time)

  • Seph1roth5
    Seph1roth5 Posts: 371 Mover and Shaker
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    @UnityGamer said:

    @Seph1roth5 said:

    Dispel illusion can be a bit annoying but it's only one tile, and I just reset if it's in a bad place at the start.
    Breakthrough...this one and ground yourself I really hate. It's also totally up to luck/rng like dispel, but you have multiple tiles to worry about. So instead of just resetting after a few turns, it takes a lot longer to finally go "Well, I'm screwed" and reset.

    Here's the thing with resets: if you retreat, you take damage. It's always there for Story or Versus mode. But all of Quandary's tests are not actually battles, they're challenges. In three of her challenges (Track And Destroy, Puzzle Box, Ground Yourself), you don't take damage at all. You can leave any of her challenges at any time, but you take damage as a penalty; retreat too many times, one of your characters will get Downed. I tested this once in a Quandary challenge, and actually lost a character because of it.

    I used the loaners for the puzzle nodes so I didn't care about damage lol.

  • Zalasta
    Zalasta Posts: 271 Mover and Shaker
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    @crakker said:

    @UnityGamer said:

    c. Hue Shift is the only one that is impossible to fix;

    Easy fix - just always have the same set of replacements. Still would be a bit of a challenge to remember it and get the right tiles, and not as easy as Puzzle Box (which requires the exact moves every time)

    Yea, I don't care for the shifting colors. They should be standard, as they are listed in Magneto's blue power "Polar Coordination".

    Destroy all tiles of that color and its opposite (Yellow/Black, Green/Purple, Red/Blue)

    A little consistency would be nice.

  • ThisisClemFandango
    ThisisClemFandango Posts: 661 Critical Contributor
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    Have a like just for the rasputin dance
    What a tune, the original not the updated one, which I think is just an added snare drum