Now I will analyze a game warm to my hearth
Marvel Avengers Alliance, developed by Playdom.
Why?
The thing is that I am usually not a huge fan of the different facebook games or in general social /casual games as I am super hardcore gamer if anyone ever was. This is why I like this game so much, because its genuinely a good game. It do have a lot of issues....and it do get repetitively so.... but still its an actual joy able game especially the begging of the game the first 20 levels.
I will go into mainly the issues of the game, because its kinda easy to explain the games system.
First of all the games gameplay is a typical Turn-based role-playing game. This is something I am a out most expert on (my master thesis is about RPGs). So take my word for it--- its a very common system. And to the games defense, it do reuse a lot of enemies...find me an RPG that does not do that. FF13 has like 10 different wolfs with different colors/backfangsthingy.
The player takes the role of an agent, with 4 slot of equipment, the player do start with lower slot and then unlocks more after character development for a while (also standard in many games). The player also have a suit, which can be 1 of the 6 different classes. And the player can set Isos in it, working similar to for example gems in Diablo 2. So its a customizable pattern, the user can have a suit that gives 2.4.6 or 8 slots. Obviously better suits will also be unlocked as the player progress in the game. And there are a lot of different Isos, so the user can customize + with that the 4 equipment is truly equipment and why I don't use the word Weapon. The user can have 4 weapons but more commonly the user will have different gadgets that grant different buffs, and 1-2 weapons.
This is a good part of the game the user have a lot of freedom. Furthermore, the user will have 2 heroes with them. Mainly the heroes are Avengers (given by the name) but some other characters from the Marvel Universe is playable, surprisingly not its mainly X-men characters.
I am not gonna discuss what characters that should be or not be playable (an extremely common thing user do on the games forum), well Ok maybe in another later post but not right now. But I found many users kinda funny, in their for example hatred for the newest released character. Beast, who is both an Avenger and an X-man and he toke the Avengers side in the recent Avenger vs X-men storyline, like Wolverine btw. So for me they are both more Avengers then X-mens, in the current story of the comics.
Back to the game, the user has 2 heroes from the Marvel universe.
For example Captain America here, this is my Cap on level 12, the max level of the game.
Then the user gain access to also suiting a hero with 8 isos. So a lot of customizability as long as the user character develop the characters. I have my Cap with 8 all round isos. Because he got the most even statistic in the game, so this makes him be really super all around.
(I am not given an example of my hero as I don't wanna show my PVP items coming to that later)
The user do have to unlock the champions something that is way hard now days and level up with them, I will cover the issues soon-_-
The game is still have some really good design, each character has 1 of 6 (5 originally) classes. Captian America is a tactician. While he also have a alternative costumes making him a Bruiser.
Each class their own strength and weakness and most importantly the game has a heavy Rock-paper-scissors gameplay design pattern. Each class is strong against one other class while having a huge weakness to another one.
Its a very interesting part that it is not the triangle that is common to find. But it looks like this
Meaning its is way more complicated. This gives for many interesting battles against the enemies in the game as its not a straight Rock-paper-scissors but a more complex on.
Note the 6 class is the generalist, which have no weakness nor strengths and in the begging of the game only the player could be this and it was not so common to be it anyway, now however there are 3 generalist characters as well so its starting to become a class.
This of course also affects the meta game in PVP by a huge margin, well at least in theory.
I like this system a lot, first of all. The user has to think about class synergy and then about character synergy. Lets not forget that the user has to also consider what he/she should have equipment as well. So its a lot of customizability, while still being a super ordinary turn based rpg system.
Another function of the game is the research system, the user can research stuff and then buy them mainly. Usually it is not many things that actually is worth researching expect Isos and gadgets. But at least it does feature a version of a crafting system in a game, typical to have in an RPG so why not.
The user needs to gain some different game resources to unlock heroes or buy items etc. And here of course is where the monetizing for the developers comes in.
the + is of course where the user can either ask their friends or convert their gold to the resource. Or then buy gold for real money. Gold is the important resources as it can convert to the others, expect Silver,,,but Silver is kinda easy to get anyway so....
The meter is my current Energy, of course the user can only do a certain amount of battles per day. 60 energy is the max and 1 battle cost 10. 10 energy is regiand per hour. In theory the user can do 24 battles, the user can also gain gifts. Where 50 is the max and that can be for example energy items, giving another 100 energy(they are worth 2 energy each), and the user can loot other peoples town, given something like 20-60 energy per day. Meaning it is way important to have friends. Most people will probably play the game 2-3 times per day. So that's like 15 battles I would say. And by visiting friends and by gifting the user then get another 15 battles.
Issues
Ok lets get into the dirty issues, first of all the game is a pay to win, clearly so pvp is kinda --- but normally its total fine because people really need to spend a lot of money to get ahead. I haven't spend a dime, but I got the best gadgets etc, as the user still earn gold in the game so I think its decently OK.
The silver on another had is weird.
First of all the user gains silver by doing flight operations. This is sending away a hero on a timer. The user has 1-8 flights, and it cost huge amount of silver to uppgrade them and then it cost 1 gold per level of the plane or 1 friend has to accept, another reason having friend is a big deal.
This is such a big deal I started getting fake friends to be able to upgrade flights, because its enough to have 1 friend which you can send back and forth gifts with. But he/she can only fill one spot per flight, so for example 6 persons are needed for a level 6 plan x 8, meaning it would be a lose of 40 gold (which is a lot!) if I didn't have 100+ fake facebook friends.
As I mentioned the user cant transform gold to silver, I don't get this. There probably is like no one that ever buys silver. Furthermore the items in the game that the user can buy, cost way to much. Which has been a problem that made many users quite, when in the early stages of the game was reveled that people had different silver prices, some had for example 100 silver for a medic pack, while others had 400 etc. So it was big difference.
Consumable items are very costly, isos are expansive but you don't need to buy so many. This leads to for example in my images I have 1million silver, I can buy a lot of isos they cost around 8k. The only thing money leads to is when leveling up characters, which cost a lot at higher levels. 300k to level from 11 to 12(the last level) Research also uses a lot of silver but its rarely anything worth researching. And it takes time to gain the needed experience to level up.
This leads to that silver is kinda pointless, it is easy enough to earn the silver to be able to level up as it don't happen to often on higher levels, normally a user is probably leveling up 2 characters and the user can only train one at a time. If the user would buy a lot of items, fine then silver would be empty and I guess Playdom earn some money from Silver buyers.
Another silver issue is the weird timing mission in itself
As can been seen in the first flight operation image. There is something seriously wrong with the games balance to the time the user spends. Obviously the system is to make people log in, several times per day to send the heroes or stay online constantly to send them on shorter. In theory this is a good way to keep the user. So why does the 20 minutes mission give more money then the 10 mission??? Someone fucked up simple said. Then the 1 hour mission is horrible just slightly better then 20 minutes. 1 more EXP? 50 more silvers a negligible difference.
Then on the later 12 and 24 hours they give so little its almost pointless. As I said I do understand the design, but the long ones should be able to give a little more. And obviously the difference between 10min, 20min and 1hour is wrong.
Furthermore the system is so annoying. Before the user had to read a message that they shouldn't send if the characters are full on exp. Luckily this have been taken care of, so the user only once have to click in don't show me this message again. However, its once per game session....really weird why cant it save this. This is the same when trying to battle with heroes that are full on experience.
But the worse offense is the list of the heroes that the user can send. OK. I don't know what programing languish is used. But why is the game creating a new array each time the user wants to send someone. OK it has to work like this, the game check the users current available heroes, they will be stored as an vector, commonly addressed as an array (or a 1 dimensional matrix to complicate stuff), each element in the array should be 1 hero. Which probably is another array having the statics etc or an object at least.. and son on. The important part is that the game should already have a stored list of heroes. And the game sorts them after highest level, which is a good in a max money gained way. Because higher the level, the more bonus the flight gains. However, the experience from sending is actually huge, its the best way to gain experience to the characters. What do I always send? My lowest leveled heroes so they can experience, currently for me its Quicksilver. So first of all, why cant the user decided how he/she wants the list to be ordered. Or even better why cant the user set up a list by them self.
But the biggest problem, is that it randoms a new list each time. Its very confusing, say I am training character A. B. D. E, G, in my current list. Each character is level 9, so they all are on the same level, so we cant sort it after something like levels. That’s fine then to randomize a list I agree with that, but......it changes each time. So on my first operation I get the list I had as an example. I send A right away, as I want A to get experience. I know now that I want to press A again next time as the B should be moved to A in the list. But no,,,,,,it has randomized a new list again. This makes no sense what so ever, suddenly its H,J,R, T I have to train so I have to scroll the list. When the user has maxed a couple of characters, the first pages will be full of level 12s. So its natural to try and remember the order to make time. Another problem I have with this is that....the computing is just unnecessary. The first time the user is pressing flight op, the system should have a able list of heroes. When the user has send one hero just move all the heroes right from the send hero one step to the left, to make a new list just cost computing time.
This should be improved needles to say.
Lastly, the system only let the user send 1 hero a time. I don't get this either. Because the user will regardless log in to the given time, for example for me its 20 minutes mainly (as its imbalanced good) and send them all again. But this just take time for me, to press each plane 8 times press one hero etc. The system should have an easy send button, simple said all the 8 first heroes in the list, currently this would be the most money given heroes. This would not make people log in less, just make it less tedious for the user. Actually I think some users would log in more, as the game well, would be less tedious.
Shield Points
Is the purple resource, a completely worthless resource. Nothing more to say really when the user have 50+ friends the user gains way to much to spend. However, it has to be traded or looted so its in the game to force the user to get friends.
Command Points
Command points or as often called by the users, CP. Is the blood of the game, gold gives the user some badass weapons or gadgets, but is mainly the CP people want. 1 Gold only becomes 2 CP so its not cheap to buy them. CPs are used to unlock heroes, or to unlock costumes for the heroes.
Ok that is all fine. I don't say that resource system is a problem. The problem is how the user is to acquire the CP. Before a dreadful patch -_- The user could farm CP by dieing at Epic Bosses, because Epic bosses would always drop 1 CP after a while. This made CP actually be very easy to acquire. I have at least 1 avenger suit per movie avenger + 2 on the better ones e.g Cap, Thor. This was bad, so Playdom removed that. I think that was the right thing to do, it was kinda silly and the gameplay got boring, because even do it was easy to gain CP. You still want the freaking CP. So I farmed like around 500 on Dr.Doom. This made all my interaction with the game in PvE, 1 boss which I died to on purpose to make sure I gained 1 cp per 10 energy. So that was bad, but the “fix” created another issue, its way to hard now to get CP.
The user have always been able to gain CP after defeating bosses, a win means a roulette spin which can grant items, gagdets, weapons or CP. A 5 staring a mission is also 5 CP. 5 Staring is done by beating the same stages over and over again.
The roulette thing is completely luck based, so it don't produce much CP. The 5 staring is not possible more then once per stage so its an finite way to gain CP. After playing the game for some time the user can now only rely on the share luck of the roulette.
So its a really tedious task to get CP now. I would say, make it a little easier, not much I understand they cant just give away CP. My solution to this is simple, make CP drop from fights, even in PvP again but with a low chance. That would result in maybe 1-2 extra CP per day. The thing is that its a solid 2 CP per day. I have played for like the last 5 days without any CP. Sure bad luck, but of course I get frustrated and think about quiting and starting to play less and less. This would still be a random luck, so people would play more to trigger it.
The Classes
Ok before I go into PvP the biggest issue in the game, lets look at the classes as their imbalanced is a large part of the issue in PvP.
The clear problem is that the rock-paper-scissor is edged. It is not as simple in the game that a rock always crushes a scissor, of course that would make the game boring so that's good. But, the paper crushes a rock harder then it crushes a scissor there we got trouble.
Then there is a lot of problems, with some character bypassing the weakness or that it is an uneven number of character per class + that while the classes started out as a thematic to the marvel characters fighting style, 1 of them now is broke away from that.
Scrapper
Let start with Scrappers, because they recently gained a buff making them way stronger. Most people think other classes will gain buffs in coming patches, probably but this game don't really run so smooth on buffing one class at a time. IT would be one thing to improve a class that is clearly underpowered, like for example infiltrators was(coming to them after this). But, this felt kinda weird. But the biggest problem with Scrappers are: First of all the theme, Scrappers are supposed to be the martial artist of the game, the close combat fighters. Characters like Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Daredevil and Wolverine. But now characters like, Magik and even worse Ghost Rider was put in there (also unreleased Deadpool which should be a tactician,,,). This is funky, but worse it messes with the gameplay. The first scrapers where better designed, because they where focusing on just, that fighting. They have attacks granting the enemy debuffs that increases damage from attacks that are done with bare hands etc. They work a lot better together then as well in PvE taking 2 martial artist. Later added characters are kinda....not fulfilling the requirement of being a Scrapper. This leads to bad synergies both with heroes and with the users own character the “agent”.
Furthermore, the actual class boost, is sick. They attack twice into a Infiltrator. And then gain a second attack on any target for 1 round. This is way, way better then for example Bruisers (clearly the weakest class) And arguably better then tactician. Tactician gains another turn instead, which is usually a lot better but it cost stamina, but now when they can keep their buff to attack others...
Infiltrator
Have high evasion and are the stealth characters in the game. I like most of the characters that is this class it suits them. However, their newly added boost is so bad.
The thing is that, while its a good boost as it grants 30% more attack damage, makes them counter(this was the original boost and why they sucked before) it also grants them stealth on all attacks. The problem with this is so clearly to me, but seems to have been ignored by most people. This is retarded... the 30% fine that's good. But the stealth boost, most of the Infiltrator have already stealth attacks so for a character like Sue Storm, this boost is solely a 30% attack boost. While for a character like Spider-man or Gambit its a huge boost as they have zero stealth attacks. Thing is, those are also the best Infiltrator in the game, and now then even better. While the absolute worst Infiltrator Nightcrawler, is now even worse as all his attacks are stealthed. Sue at least have shields etc, Nightcrawlers whole deal was that he could bypass protection and don't get countered, that was his only redeeming quality.
Very weird, very imbalanced boost.
Blaster
Are the Damage guys. They are glass canons and freaking instantly kills bruisers. Their class boost is the one that crushes the most, and is truly like a paper against rock. They can often 2 shoot a bruiser or 1 shoot if the users PvP difference is big.
Far too good.
Brusier
First of all, the game has far to few bruisers. Which is even more funny, when the game now have way to many Scrappers. And none of them can be played in PvP.
Bruiser is such a bad designed class. They are tanks, they have a lot of defence. Their counter Blaster ignore defence and kills them right away. Given that blasters should do more damage to them its jut becomes ridiculous as the better bruisers are not just tanky, they tank. By covering the allies. This means they die faster as they will just get instantly killed.... the best tank in the game has always been Captain America and hes a Tactician. He do have a bruiser change, but is shit as then he will just die.
This class needs a buff so bad, also their bonus is the worst in the game. Then engage stack is often nothing as their increase defence don't help them against Blasters, their damage can often be mitigated by avoidance. 2 attacks are much better then 1 strong attack in this game by far.
Tactician
The last class, I think they are the best balanced class right now. They gain 2 turns against Blasters a big bonus, but they usually have AoE attacks which mean they get heavily countered by Infiltrators.
Heroes
Yes of course there are overpowered heroes that is to be expected, the problem is heroes that kinda ruins the game, mainly by going against the meta game to much of the classes.
I just mentioned Tacticians getting countered by Infiltrators, well Emma Frost does everything in mental attack or a stun, where stun turns of counter attacks. So....she 100% bypass the Infiltrators.
Emma Frost deliver a lot o problem in the game one other problem is that she is hard to kill but not hard to beat, this means long games. Long boring last part of battles.
I will go into each hero in detail, so I leave this for now but just another example then. I usually beat her with Annihilus Human Torch. Hmm that's right I beat her with a Blaster that should be weak to tactician, he can just stand still and win the game with his passive abilities.
New heroes are clearly stronger then old ones, new Beast counters all protectors. Scarlet Witch is ridicules stronger then all other Blasters in Defence and so on.
Costumes / Suits
Follow the same issue, of power scaling out of proportion. Is the same as in Magic the gathering, modern 1-2 mana drops are sickly better then old cards for the same cost. All new heroes are better and then costumes have to be released that make old heroes good again. Also costume number 2 is better then 1 and so on.
They have to go back and rebalanced many, many of the older characters. The thing is that I kinda like the idea with costumes still, as FF got their costumes they where playable again. Still it makes an old character cost a lot then to make it playable, the unlocking cost + the best current costume. This is ok I guess for cheap heroes, but with shit heroes like Wolverine who cost full price of 90 CP, he will hopefully be buffed by his standard form.
Side Note: Human Torch, sick passive of regain HP each turn is the same as Wolverines ultimate(4th skil) but Torch is also immune to fire damage attack(which is amazingly good in pvp) and he deals fire damage back to people and make them burn. So wolverine is like a super bad human torch.
Player versus Player.
Lastly PvP or rather Player versus AI controlled users team in defence. Ye the games PvP is actually the user setting up a defend them. But the user cant do anything about it.
Its horrible, I have played many browsers game before, for example Naruto wars and Soul arena (which I was the best player in the world in) and those games are very similar to this game. Turn based strategy game with a 3v3 set up and each character had 4 moves so really similar,. But it was a real PvP where the users would only face other users. I don't get why they cant program this. They clearly have enough users so it wouldn't be a far to long waiting time.
OK Given that they game might have to have a huge amount of Use of chance, so its casual. Why not at least let the user set a up a Gambit System like in Final fantasy 12 or in Dragon age: Origins. That would make the user programate their AI defence, meaning the programmer at Playdom don't have to work so much -_-
The really big problem with this is that the system is set up, so that defending is done with a really crappy AI that instead then have amazing luck. Clearly the AI don't have luck but the probability is changed for the AI. For example Mockingbird has a 50% chance to gain a turn when she changes class. This trigger at around 90% of the time, this might sound like I have a huge gambler fallacy now but trust me anyone that have every player this game now its riddled with sick probability right for the AI.
The biggest issue is then that probability based abilities, such as the Phoenix 5 customs triggers constantly. Making some characters be way better in defense then in offense, and it becomes a ridicules PvP games, where the attacker have to simply hope stuff don't trigger to often.
Furthermore, costumes as I mentioned are better and better new characters are better and better. Many of them trough passive abilities, all alternative costumes grants passive abilities. Many that are then probably based. Meaning that PvP becomes worse and worse.
Another issue, is the % to gain the rewards now in the Tournament,. First of all the tournament is just fucked up to me, when its not real PvP. The other problem is how its soooooo badly implemented
First of all I am in the 1% top of the world and just below gaining Deadpool, or was at least I actually usually win in defence so I might make it. Anyway my point is that I have experienced this games PvP a lot.
When I started in the tournament I was level 95 this made me, face 100+ people which have 1 more PvP armory tablet.
In this tablet the user can add in items to gain more PvP power. Its a joke that a tournament lets people at different number of tablets of PvP face each other. I have a very low chance beating them. I then instead power leveled up to 100, and then stoped leveling at best I can. So currently every 50% of my battles I have 1 more tablet then my opponent whichusually grants me a free win.
That's one large issue, that they don't have brackets.
Secondly, they pretty recently added in PvP bonus for number of heroes and their level. This fucked me so hard, I still cant sit. I had so few heroes. I had invest all my CP even thought I had farmed a lot when it was possible to get alt costumes to everyone I had. The only reason I have trouble getting to adamantium league and wining Deadpool is that I got so low base stats on my characters during PvP. If I had knew that would happen I would of course instead now have every hero.
A good system to make people play less wanted heroes( gotta catch them all) but a really annoying system to release without many warnings before and then a tournament before the user have time to unlock many more heroes.
Thirdly - The imbalance is just way to off, I face Emma Frost at least 50% of the games. I still win, but it gets boring. TO have a PvP tournament with good rewards the PvP have to be actual fun. The game has to much of an optimal Path as everyone knows their is only a few characters that works. The addition of beast is a good step in countering the super common Captain America, however he is still countered by Emma Frost,,,,,so I assume it will become even more Emmas as people are afraid of Beast. A common issue when releasing new playable content in a complex meta game, they might have solved one issue but empowered another.
Summary:
I enjoy this game, but it has a lot of issues that I have presented here that I hope will get fixed.
+ I will soon analyze each character, which will point out mainly how many are worthless.
