A game design question

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Unknown
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edited July 2014 in MPQ General Discussion
Trying to put myself in a game designers mindset. This teamup business should be a goldmine of new features, fun things to try, new strategies, new metagame, new everything. It should be making everyone super excited and digging even deeper into the game.
It is not doing that.
Based on the forums the responses range from 'this is kinda fun but has a rough implementation and needs some work', to people dying everywhere in new and creative ways and hating every minute of it.

My question is this. What is gained by letting defensive teams have access to team-ups?

Is it just so the enemy team will have something to do with all that white AP it is programmed to collect like candy? That reasoning seems weak, and I am sure we can find something else for the AI to use white on, (or tell them to ignore it)
PvP doesn't need defensive team-ups, it is balanced out on the other side by everyone having them available on offense. Everyone the same = balanced
I don't so much mind them showing up in PVE those fights are often supposed to be challenging and the powerset seems limited to dark avengers (though maybe should be limited to ~featured~ enemies, if Ares and Sentry don't show up anywhere maybe they can stay out of the team-ups too)

Why give us a new feature to play with and make it so that we spend more time trying to avoid getting hit by random powers than actually using and enjoying our new found tools? If everyone has the same access to team-ups they should come pre-balanced from a competition point of view but allowing every opponent an infinite number of random team-ups un-balances things. It makes some people lose fights they would have won based on a resource the defending team never even had in the first place.

Why take what should be a glorious moment of fun and strategy and awesome, and use that moment to make the game harder to predict, harder to defend, harder to enjoy and simply put harder. I don't get it.

Edit: P.S. And if someone replies saying so D3 can sell more healthpacks I will smack them with a trout, beating that horse is getting annoying lets let it die for a little while.

Comments

  • Unknown
    Unknown
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    It's still all about the Benjamins.

    It may not be to increase health pack sales, but individual cover purchases or iso purchases. At this point, if I want to play this game for longer than 5 minutes, it is all hands on deck. Does that mean I pour iso into a extremely flawed Moonstone? God help me, but if my season 10pack tomorrow is useless, I might do it. Play a 4 cover Loki - only to Trickery Patch's Berzerker, but sure - that is where my game is at now if I want to play.

    True Healing cut my playing time for virtually unlimited to a fixed point. Team Ups have cut that time in half. I either work around it, or I pay to add a couple of covers to my 3 stars that are almost useful.
  • wymtime
    wymtime Posts: 3,757 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I am putting my Dev hat on here and thinking about the game. Right now we have top 10 in PVP regularly over 900 points sometimes over 1000. We have this great idea for team ups where everyone can have an extra power instead of complaining about Hot Dogs. What do we do a bout Defense?
    a) Don't give Defense the TU. consequense: Dumb AI plus smart players and 3 166 teams are bein killed by 2* teams becuase of TU and people will be getting attacked like before true healing. People will be dropping hundreds of points and the complaints will fly in.
    b) let people set Defensive TU. Consequense: The rich get richer. The top team players get the top team ups and set the best TU on defense= worse than it is now!!!
    c) as it is now 3 random TU different levels. Consequense: See the forums
    d) Have defense select the same number of random TU as the player does. Consequense: Players select no TU and they are not used as part of the game.

    By setting 3 random TU the Dev's are wanting the game to go to having players use 2-3 TU as part of their regular lineup with maybe 1 AP boost. Right now top players pay a couple hundred ISO for AP boosts and fly up the board in extreme fashion then shield. If players are needing to use TU instead of Boosts the game will last longer, scores might go down, and the game will be more even but still slanted to the player since the AI is still dumb.

    This is my Dev hat thinking, not a fix, not a complaint, just what I think the Dev's were thinking when they set the Defensive TU.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
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    After more thought, my personal ideal would look like this:

    -PVE each node always comes with the exact same set of enemy team-ups. Nice consistent level of challenge for everyone each time. And the devs can watch all of us squirm when they give us a Daken node loaded with world ruptures.
    -PVP Each match comes with a set of *only* the featured hero's powers as team-ups. Or if this goes too far against the grain of no overlap between team-ups and active characters then assign each featured hero a buddy and only use that hero's team-up powers. But the same set of defending team-ups for everyone, every time. Again, nice and consistent level of challenge but the competition comes from chosen team/boost/TU compositions as it is now instead of your ending rank being based on hoping the enemy doesn't chance into powers that would stop you in your tracks.

    Enemies having team-ups is cool, them having random team-ups gives some people a pass and volunteers other people for a cavity search. That doesn't belong in such a competitive arena. Yes it may average out over time but if that unfortunate lineup hits you while making a shield hop in the last hours of an event and wrecks your placement then in that moment the average means nothing.

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