So Marvel Avenger Alliance recently won an award as the best social game.
(Kinda weird that they haven't given anything to the users for voting at them, not that I did but just saying they are not building a good costumer relationship.)
I also would like to award Marvel Avenger Alliance (MAA) with an award, the very first Myrmonden’s Award for worst PvP system of this year. I would like the give it the worst in history but knowing mankind I probably have to updated when someone does something even worse. And I am too tired to update.
One could wonder how bad the other games are if MAA could win.
Well do not get me wrong, I do like the PvE system. And I think the PvP system would work if it was just actual Player versus players. Overall the PvE System is much superb over most others social games,, except the lowering of CP drop to zero which lost Playdome some million players and the constant special operations not so special anymore. So this is not the worst game ever, by any means. I am actually playing the game while writing this, the PvE that is. And I will probably still play PvP for the rewards but only the last 1-2 days(I will explain later on how this works).
What is so bad with MAA’s PvP system you might ask, well its a lot of things. And unfortunately it is not just that its a lot of small bad things that makes it a horrible game experience as a whole. No the fundamental system is a total utter shit.
1: What can we compare it to.
First let me explain where I come from, as I have played huge numbers of player versus player systems myself(and being successful in many). And I have conducted game user researcher with especially fighting gamers(who are very into PvP) I have heard a lot of different stuff. Furthermore, I am an open hater of how bad the system is in League of Legends for example, thats a bad system, for example I just had a 10.0.X as Darius and we lost because my team feed constantly. ( While I bought wards and ganked constantly etc) and this is a standard score for me in LoL. Playing that game fuels my hatred for humanity.
But, it is not as bad as most fighting games. I would say in retrospect that Marvel Vs.Capcom 3 would have won this award last year, the user can cheat in it. It lacked so many extra modes, and then in the ultimate the user still can cheat and they added that herald and heroes which can't be played in 2 player mode WTF? Thats really bad.
SO for this game to be worse than all other offenders thats says a lot. Lastly, seasoned 3 just started and Playdom changed nothing of the problems. They added some more Health, which just makes Damage over time which already is the best strategy better and made the use of Emma Frost be more reasonable (so from 90% to probably 99% again) otherwise its the same shit system with no changes.
Oh wait they changed the pvp bonus items
They further rebalanced the pvp bonus items, let me rephrase that. They further imbalanced the pvp bonus. Because of this, now its even more worth spending money. Obviously they want to make money. But, by making the game more and more unplayable for free users? Not the best idea.
Then the whole PvP game is boring like hell, its tedious everyone play the exact same team. So its just a repeat of the same thing. I truly believe I am a masochist because I can playthrough such ordeals. I think its from my childhood playing to much nintendo hard games.
And the thing is playing MAA PvP feels like its hard as Ghost and Goblins, 1985 and then 1986 to Nintendo. Not only is the game hard, its also freaking boring. So while some people wanna claim Battletoads is harder, its at least enjoyable. I sat a couple of summers ago speed running GHost and Goblins with some friends, and when I mean speed running I mean first to beat it as its hard. ANd when you beat the game you have to replay it once!
Note: This was not over rules, when the user beats Ghost and Goblins she/he has to replay the exact game once more. Without restarting the game console. THis is in the game, and its the exact boring game again, why Ghost and Goblin might be the hardest game ever is because its so boring bad controls and then you have to do it once more.
This is kinda how MAA is just 1000000x times more repeating and boring. As you can't lose(going over that soon) and its always the exact same teams, its like 4-6 played characters out of 40+ and all the user characters, Agent. Have the exact same items.
The summary could be that is really boring, but I actually have some kind of sick nintendo hard love for MAA. AS playing one battle in itself is super easy, but playing to get high in ladder(which I unfortunately have done) that is kinda like many nintendo hard games. Just repeating the same thing over and over again until you beat it(but what u beat is the ladder points---). However, the large miss is that is not very fair its extremely injustice in the system.
2: System of Injustice
First of all the system is a PvAI, the AI is the defending players character. First of all, there is huge misses in how this is designed(next point) but overall the biggest problem is the fundamental system. This system feels so outdated I don't know if I should laugh or cry, it reminds me of the free internet game people used to play back in the days. Like Nukezone and Archmage(and Archspace which was much cooler). Those games are like 10+ years old, and the emotion I get from playing the game is like ghost and goblins a 27 old game.
But really how it reminds of these old games are how the users are kinda attacking each other and you can't really defend. The AI is ridiculously stupid, especially as the game is a turn based rpg(typical Gentlemen’s boxing RPG). Its has an incredible predictable consequences. Its almost kinda funny because when you have played the game long enough you learn how the AI reacts to your team (is always the same) for example Dr.Strange always attacks Ghost Rider, by knowing this I can defend Ghost Rider with abilities e.g. (my) Dr.Strange Shield.
The summary of this is that its basically impossible to lose in attack!
So having something like a 98% win ratio how can I not be rank 1? Well the game is so stupid, that it let people attack each others and this cost them point. And as its impossible to defend, the winner is the one being attacked the least or who have spent huge amount of money ( or + 1 year of farming). Furthermore on lower levels its much easier as people don't have the bonuses form characters which negative the effort of the veteran users.
The user goal is to either place herself/himself at a good high ladder top(which I think very few care about) the real goal is for 99% of the users to reach adamantium league to get a character.
At this time I was using Hercules(because he was bugged and could protect catastrophic)
The epicly proportionally large problem is that even while winning each game I still managed to lose points. People of the games community often say “ Ugh I hate this shit game I lost 200 point this night” as they are attacked while sleeping and lose points, but this is an incorrect statement. Not that the system is shit, but that they lost 200 points during the night, if they slept for 8 hours they lost 25 points per hour (0.41 per minute). As is not like they get attacked when they are AFK, I wish the system was at least so that the user could defend somehow of they were online. Or prepare better. But, No the user constantly loses around 0,5 points per minute. Even while winning every game! However, its get even worse the last days I lost something around 1 point per minute when it was 3 days left. ANd playing I win a game in 5-10 minutes earning me 10-20 points, so at best I earn 2 points per minute. And then the user has to play each minute of the day.
So, here I had slept for around 4.5-5 hours and I was already then demoted to the next highest league.
But this is nothing compared to the last hours of the game where it just becomes 100% pure luck if the user can stay in the top league. And this is incredible bad, I have played games for example Soul-Arena when I was playing that game to become ladder rank 1 (note this game has real PvP so its actually challenging to play), this game had such bad system as well. It had a super hard “balance” for rating difference, so when the user was e.g at top 1000 players in the world and only faced lower ranked players one lose cost 600 points and on win only gave 15. Every 5-6 battle or so the win gave 100-150(and a loose was around 300). So in a normal day I calculated I needed to win with a ratio of 12.1 per game season to move forward. At one time in Soul-Arena, I was rank 1 in the world but it was still more characters to unlock ( So I needed to level, where level equals ur rank placement basically) and it was so few people close to me in level it was impossible as all games resulted in 600 loses. That was kinda frustrating, but this system is worse. As at least in that game when the user won, she/he won. And the user don't go back in points by not playing etc, what must be emphasized here is that even when a system requires the user to win 12 of 13 games constantly it is more fair than a system where the user wins but still go backwards. Because, the ultimate issue with MAA PvP system is this.
I recorded the last 2 hours of the PvP season 2 and toke images(as this one). Even do I was at several hundred points more than needed and I been playing for 10 hours straight with no break. The last 4 hours it was impossible to even stay at the current point I had. All my battles here was a fast as possible while absolutely no down time between the games. I won and pressed attack again. As this images shows I dropped 70 point(this was around 1 hour) but I won all battles. I get attacked so much that it doesn't matter.
But it was about to get much worse. The last hour I dropped something like 300 points.
While I managed to lose 1 battle(first in like 100 battles as the game has a other issues), as can bee seen here I lost 7 battles while I won 1, the last battle of the tournament.
So while the user wins each game, she/he loses 6-7 more. Epicly retarded system to be frank. If now the system has to be PvFakeplayer (which there is no reason for) at least make it so its not 100% broken. Why can it not have a maximum number of defences?
While other games have horrible systems, for example the Arena games (Naruto-Arena is the same issue as Soul-Arena) or for example the horrendous Elo hell in League of Legends, at least in those games a win is a win. In this system the user might as well go AFK at the last 6-7 hours and just hope no one attacks them as playing and winning doesn't matter.
This is the worst PvP rating system I have ever seen and then they have awards like imbalanced characters Cable who now the lucky people(and the few that deserved it has) which will make it even easier for them to win next time as he is good and he gives a PvP passive Bonus(as any other character)
While I was winning almost every game I played at almost 100% win ratio, it was literally yes literally impossible for me to get Cable. I had a large margin from the critical point as I played for 11 hours straight. I started at 1600(lost 200 on the night) and was up to 1900+ when it was 4 hours left and then this happened. Ridiculously bad system and this is just the tip of the iceberg.
3. Why is not just real Player versus player?
OK I understand its supposed to be a social game, meaning casual games. Meaning people who has to be forced to play each day. That might be the reason Playdom wants users to lose points all the time so the user has to log in, but the game already has stuff like daily reward, a low maximum for energy(used to fight) so the user has to log in anyway. And Flight mission who are all worthless after 20 minute send. Its almost a little redundant. Furthermore, the system is as explained is so horrendous fundamentally and then other stuff(other points) if anything will scare away casual players as PvP is just one ridicules grind feast of epic proportions (man I am throwing adjectives like crazy in this text).
Other parts of the game are well designed for casual players, for example the whole game is controlled by only using the mouse, this is like the number 1 rule in casual games as the users are typical not the adolescent teenage boys used to complicated controllers with game who has a learning curve. The users are often only used to the controlling with the mouse(coming from internet browser etc and not from gaming) and some experience maybe with the keyboard.
(I have actually read books about how to design for casual gamers and especially a chapter in Game Usability: Advancing the Player Experience, 2011 was really good I think it was chapter 13, something around there so I am not just saying this casual games are to be played with a mouse rule 1!)
So that is covered, but the PvP system.............For argument sake let say we cannot make it Player versus player, we can't code the network or something (or money who knows their reason, I do think its a weird misunderstanding on how to make a PvP system causal who instead made it dreadfully non causal but whatever). Then... It should still not be like this. I am not talking about the former shity rating system this is just the basic of not letting the user have any real control.
The made one improvement, comparing to the early beta to I think in season 1 actually. But, bad implemented. The change was that before, any team the user latest used would be the defending team.... So while the user plays PvE the user gets attacked and literally gets raped because that team sucks in PvP but is good on the specific PvE boss. This was changed to the latest PvP team used, a slight improvement. As someone forget to mention one thing in their requirement specification! The item the user have on her/his agent is still the same as in PvE, so if the user is running a specific item for an encounter or just mainly because many PvE items are worthless in PvP especially in defensive PvP as the AI will screw the usages. Sp still not that much better than what it was before.
Furthermore, as I showed in my game pics there when the user is playing PvP offensively, she/he is very likely not using the same team as in defence as the AI can't really use abilities correctly. So setting up a Defending team is completely different from an offensive team (not for every user but in general).
For example in my own defensive I run 3 scrappers, Agent(new scrapper suit) Quicksilver (imba) and Ghost Rider(also Imba) and when then I defend against a infiltrator they will likely lose very quickly, while bruisers are pretty shity. This team can actually win in defence as when it gets lucky and facing its counter class they can easily kill the character or characters who are infiltrators. However, in attack its not the best team, still reasonably good but not the best. So the user can't run the def team as a an attacker team. Meaning even if the user plays 24/7 or as for example those last hours when its all about trying to win as fast as possible and as safe as possible, the user can't run some crazy defence team.
Note: Its really important here to emphasize that the only chance to win in defence, is to either vastly overpower the other user (usually done by having spend a lot of money) or having farmed for a half year longer than them. This is the reason while its harder on higher levels as all user then have all characters (max bonus), while on low levels people can spend money to make an even bigger difference or forcefully stay at low level(there are some tricks) and then have a lot more characters than others at low level.
OR to have a really weird set up that hard counters certain set ups. If for example I had a unique set up, in defence I still probably would have lost 80-90% but at least I would have some fighting chance. People have been asking for this a for a long time, that the user can have one unique se defensive team. Even better would be if the user could set the hero bonus specifically for the defensive team. As that is also something the user has to swap back and forth when going into “afk mode” and playing mode.
But that is still the worst of the best system that could be used. A much more prefered system would be to give the user some way to control at least the order of systems. While there are several different ways this could be done, for example letting the user decide if a character should be offensive or defensive first etc.
The best way I can think of is something like the gambit system of Final Fantasy 12.
This system is what Dragon Age:origins later would have a downsized version of. If you haven't played FF12 is kinda like DA but better, a lot better.
This system, let the user setup If statements. Basically the user is programing the characters, if the developers can't be bothered doing a workable AI let the user do it then. The best part with this system is that the are huge numbers of item, so many different potential builds in reality only a few works, but for argument sake let sake the game was better balanced. Than I can agree its hard to program the AI for all different intelligence uses of weird item combinations. Well let the user do it then, if I want my character to always use weapon A and then only do Weapon D and then refresh to not lose game mechanic X let me. And if the user don't want to use gambit system fine, then the characters will play out with the pre developed AI done by the developers or when the characters run out of statements to follow they go to the basic programmed intelligence.
There are of course other smaller details that might have to be included, bottom line. From my design perspective the condition statement gameplay design pattern would be the best, and the game has a large issue right as it has nothing to support the player setting up any defense. These old games like Archmage let the user setup myriad of different armies to protect, was not good either really but at least the user could defend if they player perfect.
4. Turn order
Anyone who has ever played a turn based game, knows that going first is always best. Well OK, that is always not true for example the Cyber Dragon Deck in Yu-gi-oh is better if the opponent starts as then the user can special summon cyber dragon right away, well weaker now as the card is semi banned/limited(yes I know too much about games).
But, in most cases most gamers in general will agree that starting the turn is a big deal. Marvel Avenger Alliance, have taken this and made it even worse, I mean really worse. For example Yu-gi-oh balance the game by making a rule that the first person to take a turn can't attack. This means that it can actually be better being second and then do like a future fusion + dragon mirror and instantly attack with a life point strong monster. However, the other player have had 1 turn to set up traps etc.
In MAA on the other hand there is absolutely no balance to the turn order. And not only is there no benefit of going second, which is to be frank retarded. In many, many board games it's usually worse to pick last but you have more information etc or some other balance effect e.g 1 more card or something that makes it up for it. They have just completely ignored to balance the turn order.
Another good example is Naruto-Arena where it is also 3v3 as in MAA, these games are really similar. But the user in NA gains 1 chakra per character per turn but that specific turn for the first user who goes first, only gets 1 chakra. That’s a neat little way to balance it.
MAA instead goes the other way and makes it even more imbalanced.
MAA is played out with 3 character per side, and their turn order is completely random. So not only is is basically always better to get one character first, because their is 0% balance buffer in the game. The user can get a freaking 3 characters first.
This is the only real way to lose when attacking (if the user has a good team) as sometimes the opponent gets 3 turns in a row, I call this a freak accident.
Furthermore, depending on what item the Agent has this can become really imbalanced. And it literally sickens me, because when the game was new. It was 100% about who went first, because then everyone just runned 3-4 quantum jumpers. This item gives everyone in the team 1 more turn.
So the first Agent to start, could use this item 4 times and then the other 2 characters would do 4 turns and of course instantly win. This item and the whole maxing turn taking has been nerfed, but it still incredibly much better to start with the Agent. As then the user can e.g use 1 quantum jumper (which now gives only the 2 other 1 turn each) or Magnetic field generator giving everyone in the team a 25% max hp shield and when it breaks they get a turn. Its really funny to have to start against that, of course if then the other 2 characters are after this, yeah it will often be game over.
Even worse situation are if they have power of four, which give the user 4 turns but then kill her/him. However, if the user then runs Po4 + quantum jumper.. + 2 turns with massive attack weapons they gain just from the agent going first 5 turns if then the other 2 characters where after another 2 turns. So 7 turns before the other user can even do anything..... And the recent character Cable can give anyone else in the team 1 turn while having his own not be lost.... and so on.
The worst with this game is that instead of balancing the actual system, something that isn't even hard to do. Give the person who is not first some bonus... or at least for god sake. Make it so that the 3 characters of the same team can't get first turns. Really instead of doing this easy fixes, Playdom keeps “balancing” the items they find broken e.g now the user can't start with Po4 the first turn. Well is still kinda hard if they start with QJ and then next turn ue Po4 as they can still then take 2 turn each with the other character and then finish the user of with a 4 turns Agent.
Its a really easy thing to fix in the system. The users character should not be possible to randomize a 3 in a row they should even be able to do a 2 in a row.
There is no reason at all, that a team can get 2 in a row as even that is unfair. Why not just make the system do this:
Random turn 1 for each character of each team, means its a 16.6667% chance character A1 starts. Then Random turn 2, as A1 is from team 1 this means turn 2 will only be randomized of A2,B2 and C2. lets say C2 wins. Then random turn 3 from B1,C1,A2 and B2 keep doing that. Not so freakin hard. Honestly this makes me really upset, why can't they at least do this. I can only assume this would be something incredibly easy to program in the languish they are using, I think its like javascript or flash script or something. It would be a couple of If Statements.
As the system now randoms turn 1 from all characters and then turn 2 from all, the code only needs a check to see what team won, so a IF with a boolean statement checking if its object A1,B1,C1 if yes then we don't have to check if its A2 etc because we know it is not and then random gives to one of them or some other neat way to do this. I mean really, this can't be more than a couple if pretty repetitive IF statement, I am sure I could code it in for them in a few minutes if I could see their actual code. This cannot be hard to fix and its a joke that the system is still like this after almost a year of people constantly complaining on getting instantly killed by bad turn order.
Its almost like I believe they are not fixing this on purpose because they hope people will complain less as they get a defensive win now and then, which can be assumed from being a triple start order. Because I mean really, really I don't even know what languish they are using but it must be to just alter their current code very little and then repeat some IF statement to do this as its such a elementary logic thing to solve. So it would be to just look at the code and copy what I see and maybe 1-2 google search if I don't know the syntax in the specific languish.
Note: Don't get me wrong I am bad programer, that's my worst skill as a Computer Scientist I suck at detailed coding, but know the fundamental logic behind programs this cannot be much work at all to fix, except if they have the worst Spaghetti code ever.
Note: This issue exist in PvE as well but its not as crucial, still why does it exit to begin with???
5. More Luck
The next issue of the game is more luck based.
All characters with their imbalanced passive chance to do something sity. The worst offender Emma frost who can remove all debuffs. Also ruins the game a lot, While Emma is ridiculously bad designed as negates like 80% of the characters in the game.
All other characters with passive abilities have really pass the bar of not OK anymore. Basically almost any good character has some passive abilities. With a luck factor which then trigger those passive, as most passive has some kind of ratio instead of passively making the character better. Furthermore some of them are so ridiculously overpowered that it ruins the gameplay 100%.
And even worse, to balance out the shit defence design(point 3) they have made the AI proc rate, be much, much higher than for the players. Which results in a game where its just to hope that Z or V does not trigger this turn. Because the worst part is, most of these things are defence to as Emma and Colossus for example so its never that the game won't be won, I extremely rarely lose to these stuff. I can only assume no one else does either. Instead the user sits and wait as they just make the game be prolonged. very Rarely does to save anyone, it just makes it more boring.
Unfortunately other stuff affects even more which is based on luck. Mainly accuracy and evasion, that attacks can miss is horrible really in any serious game. This ruins it a lot more, because its like missing completely with 5 ultimates in a MobA game when one misses with certain attacks. For example I use the Fury weapon, gives 4 DoTs. A DoT deals huge amount of damage its like 10% per DoT(expect bleed) so hitting with Fury and they die next turn or the turn after that always. Expect when Emma Frost get lucky or then when the actual attack misses.
A example I have of this (which I found good but obscured) is Bleach Tactics. Its a game, which mirrored the Arena game a lot(carbon copy). But they changed it up, with better quests. And a more customized game characters. Which was really good on paper instead of each character having 4 abilities each character had like 6+ and the user had to pick 4 from these, that was really good. However. the game featured stats where in Soul Arena everyone has 100 hp and all attacks deal a set number of damage, e.g. 40 damage is always 40% of anyone max hp no attacks can miss etc (they can be countered). While In Bleach Tactics they added shit like Accuracy and Evasion and other stuff like Strenght etc. That work, custom dmg/def etc works. But in a game where its like an attack easily does half life as it was still mainly as Soul-Arena with 10-60% damage attack. IF the user misses one 60% attack that has huge impact.
Luck in games -- never good. One friend once asked me, why do you play Magic The gathering so much when you hate luck based games. And I answered him its all about minimizing that luck. Trading Card games works because the user can minimize the luck by building correctly, role-playing turn based games not so much.
There are many weapons in MAA that win or brakes one game, if they hit. Most classic Coulson’s Revenge. If it hit, it usually one shot anyone. If it misses nothing. I explained this earlier in another article, but thats also why items such as Digital Decoy - next 2 single attacks misses on allies is an amazingly much better than a shield. As many stuff one shot, and why characters with passive dodge is really good like Scarlet Witch for example.
There are some badass prices at the PvP tournament would be nice if it wasn't based on so much luck.
For example, picture a Starcraft 2 game where units have other unnecessary status. E.g Zealots can avoid range attacks because they are kinda asian like. So a user does an early pressure with 2 zealots 1 stalker against a reasonably early expanding terran (1 barrack to expand),this is standard opening. Any good Terran won't die from this, but hey might lose units or workers if the protoss micro well. However, lets add some random to it, so now Zealots avoid bullets from marines by 5% chance. So suddenly in a game where a lot of money on the table this early pressure kills all the marines even while they are in a bunker as they are unlucky and misses with enough attacks to make them all die.
That wouldn't be good E-sport, in game design where its a competitive environment it's important to normalize luck factors. A good example is Wriggle's lantern and the pre item madred’s razor in League Of Legends. Before the recent change of most items in the game, this item give the user a 15% chance to do 500 extra damage now its instead 300 with a 25%, which is most better as it gives a more safe jungleing. Because 15% to do high damage means the game spikes more in the damage per second instead of having a damage be more average. While they are stuff like critical hit etc. Its almost always better to have the game factors be as normalized as possible. In LoL evasion was almost removed by riot games as while having a critical can impact the battle, missing especially missing several times in a row really can have a huge impact. But,. in MAA then people don't just miss their normal attacks they miss mega impact abilities. And with all the characters or new alternative costume which almost always have passive abilities the unfortunately is just adding more and more random factors to it.
Summary: Of this point is basically, its to much random factors in the game, way too many further reducing the users chance to affect what happens in the game. I know their are people who like this Use of chance especially in casual games. But, all these factors together makes it almost unbearable. When I play I just sit and hope they won't trigger some, remove/heal/avoid passive I will win anyway but then it goes slower, much slower.
6: Game Resource: Stamina WTF happened here
This has been “Fixed” in the latest patch for PvP but not really. It has only been slightly improved, still bad.
I was planned first to write this as as single article as it such a crime to the people working at the actual company. But, as its PvP related why not put another reason this system sucks.
This issue really hurts my feelings because I can so clearly see that people at Playdom have been working on designing the characters. And then the fundamental PvP system comes and rapes them.
This issue is that in PvP the stamina the game resource used to pay for abilities is completely ignored in PvP. In other games and in this games PvE, abilities or units or whatever. Is balanced by the cost of creating or using them. For example the build time of a unit in a RTS game or the mana cost of an ability in a typical RPG. Stronger abilities cost more, or badass units cost more time to build. This is of course standard in game design because its kinda good. Otherwise the game will have a dominant strategy(not necessary but it will help creating it), as why not only build the most epic units if they take as long as the others and don't cost more.
However, since the game introduced PvP bonus from heroes. Tactician increases the Health and Stamina. Resulting in that the characters never run out of stamina. The battles has to be very long, which they rarely are to let anyone ever use a turn for recharge. And I even use fury, which gives people DoT that take both health and stamina every turn + and I drain them with singpost still they don't go out of stamina(how I wished it was mana so I could write oom)
The best example is Dr.Strange who can take 3 real turns even 4 with tactician bonus and still not go oos and can do it with ease the next turn. Thats why he is one of the new top characters, good shield which triggers from passive, but also he can always do like a double turn and come up to even 4 turns in one turn. What is important to note here is that other characters for example Gambit who have a free turn move. All Dr.Strange turn are “real turn/real abilities” these are all strong abilities Really strong actually in his case. While Gambit is a really puny ability as its designed to be just a little extra damage and set up a synergy. Gambit abilities also the cost a lot less in Stamina. So in PvE Dr.Strange goes oos all the time, where Gambit does not.
Clearly this just fucks up the games balance even more. And I feel sad for the people who designed the characters.
Someone or several designers have clearly spent hours of work time to decide the numbers of cost. E.g. character As ability is an ultimate and should cost 100 stamina while the first ability should cost 20 stamina and on Character B who is a more tanky and weaker ultimate it should cost 80 in relation to As etc.
People have been taking this decision and its all thrown out of the window.
7: Only a few character are played
This point could be put up at a higher place, but I give the game some credit as this is a very common problem in any game. And I have already mentioned this with for example about Emma Frost.
So MAA has a Top Tier, just like in Street fighter and so on. And Playdom has tried to fix this, but as mentioned in the tactician article. They do it in such a weird way, they nerf on the wrong skills for example the most obvious case was Emma Frost who went from 99.9% of each game to 90%+. Thats not enough, clearly if she is still played 9 out of 10 games thats not fixing the staple build. The are 2 main problem with this games Top tier, it's a very limited top tier. Because of characters who are clearly overpowered. Making it be just a few god tier characters and the rest are worthless. The sad thing is that, its not like the good characters are always good, but the user can make viable teams composition of lower tier characters just that they are then just a few teams they can be in.
Nope, the user literally can't play the lower tier characters especially not in defence as they will be useless. Given, that most characters can be used to win attacks because of the AI. But, still...bottom line is that is very, very limited number of teams that can be constructed.
The second problem is that the Agent is so extremely similar to each other. They are a few viable gadgets that can be used, and a only a handful of good items. Last season, I had something around 50 games in a row where the opponent Agent would use Hoarfrost mace and signpost.
The first item is a tank item, making the agent tank single target attacks and when the user dies he doesn't die and everyone gets a buff(so she/he has to die twice). Signpost is an super imba item that poisons them but reduces almost all Dot damage by 50% and then can be used as a quick action(free turn) to drain all the enemies of health and stamina and then regain that lost health + gaining a lot more health, it's also subtle so it can't be countered nor protected against and it always drains based on Max Health, so its always hurt them a lot. Those 2 items together, everyone used (not me). Tank /cant die + reduce damage / Heal, it gets ridiculously repetitive.
Wonder what item he will have, oh its signpost again + some other crap, really if anything everyone uses signpost (I have the fury build, So I got a super signpost). The game has huge problems with too many staple items, to many cookie cutter builds
While the Agent has 4 slot for weapons/gadgets. In reality its 3 at best, usually people just go with Signpost, quantum jumper, the Hoarfrost Mace now (will replaced when next imbalanced item comes) and some other imba weapon like coulson's revenge, power of 4 etc. So while in theory the agent should have huge customizability in reality its extremely limited to a handful of options that are played. The worst part is that, is not that people don't have any imagination, there is no point removing such a ridicules item as signpost from the users item bar.
While I faced those items together 50 in a row, them together were like 90% of the games of the last days of season 2 and facing an agent with signpost was around 99% of the games during whole season 2.
Even worse I guess is that only reason the users ever change their items are when either the item is nerfed hard (the mace was nerfed but people used it as much anyway...) but more often it will only be changed when a new more imbalanced item is released.
There is no variety at all, probably one of the reasons is point 6. If the game at least had a cost of using sick items.. well it would only reduce a handful of items, items like signpost regains stamina (so the users can never go out of stamina). And the mace gives a passive tank + second life. Overall I just have to say how stupid the tank for agents items are. All other tanks in the game, all Marvel Characters they tank for a specific number of rounds and then has the ability on cooldown or have to use it again at least. And they can lose their protective ability by buff remover etc. But, the agent tanks does it 100% for every round and the ability can never be removed. Its not hard to understand why those kind of items become staple.
Summary: While some of the characters are way too overpowered and need to be fixed Asap(and not by introducing a character like Psylocke to hard counter Emma because then everyone will just run Psylocke in 99% of the games). Still the biggest problem is that almost every Agent is always the same. So regardless of character B and C, A will exactly like the last A the user faced. It gets boring pretty quickly.
8: No reason to play until the last days
This issue is kinda weird, in most games it's still about where the user lands in the end of a PvP Seasons. So really if a user can play just the few days wouldn't that be enough.
The problem lays in 2 factors, 1 its really easy to win battles and they go arguably quicker than many other games but especially that its hard to lose in attack. This results in that the user can play up like 500 points in on day. A “hidden” within this is also that while the user only can store up to 5 PvP battles and if the user plays as so soon as it max out the user still wouldn't be able to play so many battles per day. However, as the user can get up to 50 free battles from friend gifts and another 20+ from visiting friends the user can first of al easily do around 40 games per day and store those 50 to do like 500 the last day. Furthermore, as its a pay to win game the user can of course use money to have infinite number of attacks.
Second the game has a requirement entering a league is ridiculously low. 100 attacks to enter the highest league. That should be like 1000+ to make any difference.
Those are the base issues. Then the whole rating creates issues, as users are attacked more normally at specific ratings. And as the user loses more point from being attacked by lower rated players. Its obviously not really usefull playing up to higher ratings, expect if the user is willing to play many, many battles everyday just to stay there.
What this results in that most people with good bonuses, can simply play themself up a to the highest league in one day. Meaning that the month of the PvP tournament is almost 100% worthless time.
I will for example not bother this season 3 playing at all, I am currently at 900 (starts at 800) because people keep attacking me with really bad bonus at this low rating. When its like 3-4 days left I play to play up 300-400 points per day and easily reach 2000 points and the critical point will be around 1600-1700 probably.
Those first 20+ days are pointless really, its only for the few people that really want to be ladder rank 1 for a day or 2 that it matters for. Or for the people playing so much that they can have like a huge margin then for potential epic loses the last days(point 1). But. especially then for everything under the highest league is the tournament time pointless. It takes max one day to play to the second highest league.
9: Cheaters + bad customer support
Lastly there of course exist cheaters and people that hack/exploits the game. This is not uncommon in game and why I put it as the last point. Still its an issue. And to make it worse the customer support is known to be notorious bad in Marvel Avenger Alliance. For example I lost something around 400-500 points the last 2-3 days from people beating me in seconds more than once (which is not possible) and with significant lower bonus. Many people have reported similar incidents and I have reported several offenders and of course demand more points as they were cheated from me, but to no effect like other users I just get an autoresponder.
For example this images.
This Narutard attacked me twice in 1-2 minutes. In the fame of course the user can attack the same person twice, but it is extremely low chance. The probably most be something like 1 in a million. Given that on really high rating that it happens as its few people. That's completely standard in any game that’s OK. Bottom line there is a lot of “strange” things going on, and this speficic cheat that happened to me is commonly happens how those attacks are extremely quick with several attacks and the users usually have really low bonuses (making it even wierder how they won so quickly) it was this user who clearly where cheating last season and even reached rank 2 of the world....which is probably the stupidest cheater I have ever seen in my life. If you are gonna cheat don't do it so everyone, really everyone can see you. But, this user was banned or something the day before the seasoned ended. So its not like they do nothing about it problem is all the cheaters who are a little smarter and place themself at a reasonable rating.
+ then what I have read at least no one ever gets any point back so for the company it seems to be more about maybe banning someone sometimes and never returning anything to poor victims. Another problem is that they also take spots in the limited room for getting the awards, its not like in other games where the spot in ladder more illustrate the users skill level and then their are outside tournaments or real tournaments like 1-2 days in the game where it some sort prices.
Anyway I don't wanna go into this part into much details etc, but this clearly is an issue as well.
Conclusion: There we go this game got a lot of other issues as well, many that I have already analyzed earlier. Mainly how some characters and how they ruin the game I could go on for 10 more pages.
This conclude why Marvel Avenger Alliance win this years Myrmonden Award for worst Player Versus player system of 2012.
