Time to revisit the argument between board movers & NPCs re: auto AP generation

jredd
jredd Posts: 1,387 Chairperson of the Boards
in MPQ General Discussion

This was brought up on here awhile ago i believe. i think it died because cl9 wasn't really much of a challenge so the issue was really a non-issue. with 5* characters you could plow through most nodes before ap accumulation got you blasted. cl10 however is a challenge and some would argue is maybe a bit too much of one. and with the increase in health pools there is little chance of getting through a node without getting hit, and with the levels involved, one hit usually means characters are downed.

so i figure it's time to bring up the discussion of mixed team nodes where there are board movers teamed up with auto ap generators.

in a lot of ways the player has the advantage in this game, and i know that a straight cake walk makes for a boring game but a team that gets free ap and a turn to move the board is a bit too much to deal with in some cases. it's the reason why gambit was nerfed into oblivion.

so, what is the solution? playable characters powers are locked up in colours NPCs generate? auto generation is turned off if there is a board mover in the group? cl10 rules and i should shut up??

Thoughts?

«1

Comments

  • DeNappa
    DeNappa Posts: 1,396 Chairperson of the Boards

    This has always been (and never ceased to be) a peeve of mine, because it's a broken gameplay mechanic.

    In the past the devs sometimes battled the symptoms by taking away an active enemy's power (for example, Carnage red in some of the venom bomb event nodes)

    Solutions have been offered in the past by the community (e.g. simply not mixing characters with goons; stripping goons of AP generation but make them able to move tiles; make goons generate 'colorless' AP that can only be used by them).

    But to be honest, I don't think the devs will ever change this.

  • jamesh
    jamesh Posts: 1,600 Chairperson of the Boards

    The tile movers taking advantage of the goons' match damage is also a bit weird.

  • Borstock
    Borstock Posts: 2,733 Chairperson of the Boards

    I think it's fine.

  • Reecoh
    Reecoh Posts: 210 Tile Toppler

    Perhaps if the game setup a way for passive AP generation to somehow only apply to the character that generated it and not to the team's AP pool. That might make for some interesting new power options. I doubt it would be very practical however.

  • tiomono
    tiomono Posts: 1,654 Chairperson of the Boards

    Yeah just slap the goons with gambits "allies may not fire" passive. Once the goon is dead the movers can fire away.

  • StevO-J
    StevO-J Posts: 751 Critical Contributor

    I am not a CL10 player (I stick to CL8), but there's a node in Cosmic Chaos (I think, correct me if I'm wrong) where one of the essentials is GED with 2 Doombots that is a huge annoyance on CL8. Never tried that on CL9, and never ever will try that on CL10. I hereby wish everyone the best of luck when that event comes around again... GED receiving free black AP is not fun.

    Along with the sub of Enemy of the State where Wolvie and Gorgon get 4 free red AP every turn, for instance, those are some of the worst cases where goons generating AP gets out of hand in my opinion.

    But since the problem is not a new one I don't expect anyting to be changed about this. unfortunately for the players.

  • Warbringa
    Warbringa Posts: 1,299 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited February 2020

    In general I have always found goon nodes to be much easier than nodes with three enemy tile movers. Just my own personal opinion of course. I know the feeder goon nodes are sometimes difficult and I imagine roster options make a big difference. For me, on the sub 4 BSSM node, I simply brought 5* Infinity Cap to shut down the entire team. Make it so they can't use green with his purple and the only thing BSSM can do is 1 turn blue stuns with damage, something that can be mitigated with Okoye. 5* Thor and Strange also really help in these nodes. In SCL 10, I think 3 enemy tile movers is so difficult because of the ridiculous match damage they do and you can't stun them as easily like you can with one or even only two AI movers.

    I do understand though that without some of the above mentioned options, those nodes can be a huge pain. Sometimes I will be skipping or doing minimal clears of these goon feeder nodes too in SCL 10, just from a time vs. reward perspective.

  • Polares
    Polares Posts: 2,643 Chairperson of the Boards

    In some cases, It is strait up cheating. I have always hated it, it is just an artificial way for Devs to make nodes harder. And yeah in scl10 it is crazy.

  • Jacklag
    Jacklag Posts: 316 Mover and Shaker

    I imagine this topic surfacing the day after Venom Bomb reached the Sub with the dreaded Venom+Carnage+Minion node is no coincidence. I used to hate that node (still do, somewhat) back when I used to do all my PvE with IM40+Dr. Strange+WhateverGreenUserIsBoosted.

    Later I discovered the awesomeness that is 3*DocOck+3*Hawkeye+Prowler on that node.

    Now, I'm not a 5* Player, but I imagine there should be an apropriate 5* team to do those nodes with ease. I think the point is exactly to build your roster until you have strong enough characters to do those tougher nodes.

  • jredd
    jredd Posts: 1,387 Chairperson of the Boards
    https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/comment/914446#Comment_914446

    With all due respect, if you're not a 5* player, then i'm guessing you don't yet have a grasp on how hard it is to get 5* covers. and beyond that the amount of $ you need to drop to get them leveled beyond a handful of champ levels.

    While there are some combo's that work better than others, there's no sure things when you're going up against level 650 toons.

  • BagPuss
    BagPuss Posts: 73 Match Maker

    Not when it's two or three 5*, doing 10k+ damage on any colour just for match 3!

    They don't need to fire AP colours, basic steamroller will do.

  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited February 2020
    https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/comment/914446#Comment_914446

    Remember that character health and power strength does not scale linearly. So the gap in strength between a level 70 and a level 270 character is MUCH smaller than the gap between a level 450 and level 650 character.

    The carnage/BRB/goon [correction: 3* Thor was the third wheel in this node.] challenge node had in excess of 900k total enemy health, passively generated AP and could do 30k aoe damage for just 6 red. For reference, a very solid 5* team of BRB, Kitty, + carnage would have just under 200k total health at 450 (~70k more in this event with carnage boosted), and would have no nuke capable of doing more than ~13k damage without strike tile buffing (or 8k x4 for 12 ap from BRB).

    Also, remember the extreme difficulty of covering classic 5*s if you didn't get 8-10 covers while they were in LTs. So mixing-and-matching team combos is a challenge for anyone who wasn't a top tier player in 2017 or taking out a mortgage to whale up on buy clubs in 2018 and beyond.

    Goon AP gen for enemy teams with tile movers has always been a dangerous combo (because it effectively forces the ai to play more efficiently and is harder for the player to deny), and to the extent that is a problem at all (a debate able topic to be sure) the issues are all exacerbated by the huge numbers that go with level 650 opponents.

  • dkffiv
    dkffiv Posts: 1,039 Chairperson of the Boards
    https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/comment/914446#Comment_914446
    Screenshot_20200220-185217_Puzzle Quest.jpg

    Goons are generating 4 AP a turn. Outside of him hitting a champed Carnage (150k+ HP) you are effectively losing 2 chars by turn 5, turn 4 if the ai makes a single green match. If the AI gains 6 blue AP Spiderman also becomes invisible for a turn making it that much harder to deal with him.

    It's almost impossible to do 217k damage in 4 turns so unless the ai decides to spend ap on goon CDs you must find a way to stun BSSM or its a wipe.

    Vets have been a round a long time. We remember limited roster heroics where every node was a high level Juggernaut, Hood nodes where you weren't allowed to bring your own Hood because mirrors were banned, needing Hulk/Professor X winfinite because the boss had a cheese mechanic. This is another one of those lose by turn 4 unless you're extremely lucky fights. Last time I recall a similar node was that 1v1 cannot be stunned mechanic from the (Far from Home?) event.

  • thedarkphoenix
    thedarkphoenix Posts: 557 Critical Contributor

    Of all the things to complain about....

  • jredd
    jredd Posts: 1,387 Chairperson of the Boards
    https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/comment/914471#Comment_914471

    thanks for your input. very insightful.

  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards

    What you described sounds like playing with half-health Thor. I wish the dev could make a node with the AI using half-health Thor with whatever good 5* teammates.

    If you want to remove ap generation from goons, you need to allow all of them to have the ability to jump in front to take damage. That's the main purpose of goons.

  • Kojubat
    Kojubat Posts: 142 Tile Toppler
    https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/comment/914480#Comment_914480

    I'm not sure I understand how you got from Point A to Point B in the second paragraph.

    Or are you using the general concept of a 'goon', as in the mooks who get roughed up by the heroes while Named Villain monologues?

  • Sm0keyJ0e
    Sm0keyJ0e Posts: 730 Critical Contributor
    https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/comment/914459#Comment_914459


    Well this is just flat out wrong. The Carnage/Beta Ray Bill/3* THOR node had no goons or auto-AP generation.

    I guess count me in the camp that doesn't have any issues with this. In fact, it makes for even more interesting game play. There are strategies and teams to consider now. It's also not as simple as "Oh this goon generates green and now BSSM is gonna use it." You can stun BSSM to force the goons to use it. If the goon's powers are the most expensive to fire, you can set it up so that the team gets to that threshold and the goon fires it over the hero(s). There are all sorts of teams to counter AP use and gain.

    I'm not going to list the plethora of abilities out there as those have (mostly) been covered in other threads about using interesting teams for these challenge nodes. But I've been enjoying considering the team I use, strategizing and trying different teams to see which best counter what I'm fighting. We chat about this frequently in our alliance, too. Much more engaging than Thanos'ing everything to death in 15m.

Categories