Boomerang Flash

 

Ye, first finished Starcraft 2 Hots map.

I of course went with one of the new map planets. ICE! As there was no ice worlds before.

This map got a lof of features and it's pretty cool if I can say so myself.
 I also did a LE version with no "extra features" on.

Is a 1v1 melee map. Where the player have to move in a Boomerang shape to attack in the beginning.

It's a Batwing shaped map nuff said.

The player has a decently easy defended expansion, a ramp less but a small choke. Outside this choke a larger area is, which leads to 1 ramp that takes the player to the large middle part of the map or a down to a smaller path way which lead to the third and the fourth.

The expansion also has a backdoor entrance which is blocked off by Ice Rocks. Behind this Ice is a curtain hidden secret area where player can hide Barracks etc.

This path also leads to the third, so the user can forcefully open the backdoor path to make it easier to defend the third.

The third, is at start harder to mine at. As the mineral line is blocked off by mineral shields! This shields will eventually die out from time. But, the player at most times will have to destroy them to use the expansion.

There is a large open area close to in between the third and the fourth, which overall is a very hard expand to defend. The fifth is in the middle of the map close to a pathway that can be opened by destroying 2 Ice Rocks.

In between these Ice Rocks a Xel’Naga Tower is locked which the units cannot reach before the Ice rocks are destroyed.

There is a last expansion in the middle down path which connect the side paths this path also leads down to the 3 and the 4, creating many several attack paths.

Lastly on the map its a huge broad ledge connecting the main bases.

This ledge is not blocked off by anything like Ice etc.

Instead this ledge is guarded of by several Lurkers! The user can micro and lose a low number of units to pass this ledge and attack the opponent. 

http://sc2.nibbits.com/maps/view/138042/boomerang-flash

http://sc2.nibbits.com/maps/project/78015/boomerang-flash-le 

http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/boomerang-flash/

 

Epic lose: The gameplay Experience of Marvel Avengers Alliance

In this article I will try and explain the absolute meaningless and futile gameplay experience of playing Marvel Avengers Alliance, aren't games meant to bring the player enjoyment?


This article is not to actually further point how bad Marvel Avengers Alliance is. But, more like a game researcher stand point on that this game’s gameplay experience is unparalleled to any other game I have played in the recent 20 years at least. Maybe if I would go back and play a game released way back like E.T or something but this game features Multi-player etc so it really feel like an unique type of gameplay experience. Of course it will end in how much stuff could be improved in the gameplay experience.


Note I do this as a two articles one explaining the disgusting pay to win breaking the game and one explaining it more from the gameplay perspective.
Note2: I always try to sound mature and civilized when I write about game and game design etc as I of course respect my own profession. And I am civilized even in this text even while I might sound like I am using harsh words. This is me being nice and self censored. This game is horrible and I hope no one will start playing it and that the people who are playing it stops playing it. Really, because it had a lot of potential and i was fun when it was new but every month it just gets worse and worse I already rewarded it was the worst system of 2012 and this last season well every last season is just worse and worse, so it has already won the 2013 award as well more or less I think it will be had to beat this game in shear failure. So I hope people stop buying into Playdom’s ideas so they have to change and fix the game finally.

Also anyone interested in game design and how to not do it should go and read my article on the issues of Marvel Avengers Alliance PvP System.

I don't think I ever hated a game as much as this game.
To explain how much I dislike this game, mainly as it become worse and worse which is also probably why I feel this way.

I would like to spit in the face of the people working at the game. I truly hate the persons behind the game. I wish them fired ( I even wrote a ticket mainly just explaining all the faulty coding and game design and asked them to fire people at Playdom....).

The biggest issue because of this is how powerless the user feels playing this game.

One thing that I always say when I design a game(usually the level) or when talking about it with people is that the worst feeling the gamer can have is when she/he feels they died and its the games fault.

The player should always feel its their fault. The most basic example of this are old good platform games where its slippy ice and the user cannot control the character, or rather the user can control but its very poor. Overall platform games has this when they are simply bad made and has really bad controls. Which of course lead them to be bad games. Its definitely obvious in platform games or similar gameplay.
Note: My favorite example of this is the trail and error craziness of some games, for example Kid Chameleon where the player e.g jumps down a hole and will land on enemies and die if she/he don't preemptively move in the air before seeing the enemies. This are those borderline cases in old games but, fun when u know it but frustrating at least the first time.

The issue is because the person feels they got cheated. “How was I supposed to avoid that enemy”. This kinda works in trial and error games who has the gameplay of a more classic hardcore retro style. Today in modern action games for example it is kinda bad.

But its even worse then when its simply just bad controls.

However, Marvel Avengers Alliance. its the ultimate experience of a game where the user gets fucked over and over again. The game is so broken its just disgusting. As I mentioned in my previous articles about the gameplay is so heavily based around Use of Chance it is almost impossible to play 1 single match without something stupid happening.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. First of all, the company behind the game playdom. Constantly introduce new characters and new items, which first of all in a very stupid way as the newest character is basically almost always made to be better than the rest(which I explain in my different class articles).
But, to make it worse they have a habit of releasing stuff in the end of the Player versus. Players time(an gigantic issue I will set aside for now). Not only does this of course means the user hopefully have game resources stored but mainly it means a lot of broken ass shit.
This tournament we saw the ridiculously broken Captain Britain. Note now that I am not saying I couldn't beat him, actually I beat him every single time I faced him. A free win more or less. But this is only since I had to change my setup. I had a team with 100% win rate as always up to around 0.2-0.1 % of the world. And here when people with perfect money empowered crazy status teams runed with Cap B he will obliterate most teams in an instant. Not because he is overpowered but because he is broke. However, I then changed my Agent items and he was easy to beat. Still that I had to change my whole agent set up just because of 1 single character that says a lot.

There are 2 major mistakes in the game production of Cap B.

First of all he is new so he is made overpowered. Almost all old characters are useless if they haven't received a recent boost kinda how the game is(which is really bad).

This still does not make him automatically overpowered actually, I would put him around Tier A if he would work as intended. Which means he is still one of the best as most characters(35/50) are in some sort of Tier Unplayable shit.

However, then comes the second mistake. The people who work their cant program, and I seriously mean this as an Insult take it personally if you codes Cap B or if you worked as a Tester, well I seriously doubt the game has any tester at all. It took me one game to realize Cap B was bugged. So probably just lousy code.
 
I won't go into the details on all the faults I find in the game which are from lousy coding....as they are many. But, in Cap B case its very likely the IF statements of his attacks are done incorrectly. he is supposed to have a chance to proc an extra turn if he attacks a target with some specific debuffs. But, he very, very often gets this away right of even when the target does not have any debuffs. This is probably because he also applies some debuffs.
The intention is that he is supposed to turn 1 attack and then turn 2 has a chance of extra turn. But I am pretty sure they code is written that it checks if the target is hit or not, by calculating evasion vs. accuracy and other stuff and then simply the turn check must be later in the code. So instead of checking if the target had debuffs on before, it is written that first he applies the damage then the debuff and then it checks. Which is something they seriously should have realises after 1 game of testing with him....sadly not.
Then there is some other questionable stuff, for example that he can proc extra turn by doing coordinate attacks(extra attack triggered by others) that he many times seemly take zero damage. He just take no damage for some reason sometimes(it seems very random) and so on a lot of broken factors.

What this bring is the issue of many other new characters. So he is intended to be an A Tier character but as he is broken as most others he becomes a super S tier. Further, making all other characters worthless.

It was exactly the same with new blue quicksilver when he was released in the end of last PvP tour a character that already before his buff was clearly the best scrapper and a constant counter to most teams played got buff,,, so they could cash out in the last days. Unfortunately he is also broken and as many others still not fixed.

QS issue is that his retard passive can trigger from anything. While it is said to counter attacks he can  counter anything not just attack in his blue costume another retarded bug. Which not only is clearly not how it should work, it cannot be solved by the users playing smart. As even recharging can kill the character. This has been for long enough time and still not fixed.
But they rather add more broken things further adding the frustrating for the players.

The season before it was exactly the same, Phoenix was boosted by a HUGE MARGIN! into an definite S Tier character. However, she was also broken..... and already being S tier ye she become GOD S Tier or something. Well that broke was mainly in how if there was 2 Phoenix as soon as anyone died the other one would also be able to use the ultimate ability and the people who got resurrected was very.. iffy. The characters are supposed to be revived with 25% but if two phoenix was in the game it was usually to 50% but many times 0% the character stayed at 1 hp. And if several characters was killed on the same time they would all revive and this could be very varied some got 75% some 1 hp it was very random.
But the main issue was that the other phoenix could use Phoenix fire, so it was very helpful bug for the attacker as the AI was ridiculously stupid(it was even dumber back then). The user could easily kill one of any enemy character preferably their Phoenix and then use her/his own phoenix fire to kill all.

While this phoenix thing was fixed after a while it was still there in the end of that season, so every time Playdom buff or introduce a new character they try to make them “imba” but managed to make them VERY IMBA.

There are a lot of example of this, but the main issue is still the powerless state of the player. For example the phoenix still has a bug sometimes people are resurrected with 1 hp. Sometimes it resurrect more then 1 people many times it can save characters retroactively and heal them,,,,, which is something happen to me a lot when my character is supposed to be saved by hoarfrost mace thereby not triggering phoenix passive especially if its on cooldown. Many, many times for me my Agent is not dead as of hoarfrost then I use phoenix fire which I had unrelated from phoenix or the other character death. This attack will almost always win the game more or less but still what happens is that my agent is then healed from around 1 hp to the river heal and her passive is again used right away...... Which is just epically retarded. He did not die, her passive did not same him she actually got the passive back 1 turn+ later but still lost the revive right away....

So while its almost a sure win anyway as using the phoenix fire(and you have all possible Blasters on level 12) is huge damage deal and buff/debuff etc. Its very annoying and ruins my strategy,

And the game is so full of this. The user has so little control of the game.

This is coming back to what I was talking about in the beginning. The game is a lot like playing a platform game with a very faulty controller. Sometimes your character uses his ability correctly sometimes not.

But, especially is enormously frustrating on how you as the player cannot plan very much on how the enemy will play out as so many random broken things can happen. Its just a lot of unknown stuff.

Furthermore, any possible loss is from the combo of facing the absolute counter team(which you seem to do constantly) and they getting a ridiculous turn order start(something I have described last year how easy it would be to fix and its disgusting a game of 2013 has this issue) + often ridiculous pro attacks. For example QS AOE stunning everyone. Which also cannot be stopped as he always goes first....

But, QS mainly bring a good example as I mentioned earlier with his temporal punch. That’s a typical Use of Chance gone to far. As I have talked about last year, its a casual game to Facebook I know so some use of chance is ok. But a character who the user in no way can plan for.... its just completely random when ever he triggers and its on everything(broken) so the user cannot even just take it safe and not attack.

Furthermore, the worst part of this is that while he almost always triggers right away he dont always. I would prefer if he did, then I could forcible attack with my Agent. Take the damage and then use my phoenix fire. Instead he might decide to not trigger and then kill phoenix fire she can set the passive again. It would be 10x times easier if he always triggered on attacks(even if he trigger on always everything) as then at least the player can have some control over who will take the attack. But nope.... more random bullshit.


And again the game comes back to having a gameplay which has such lack of control and a player feeling powerless. Really when I play the game I very, very often feel powerless I have every character in the game(except Hank, will have him in 1-2 days) and I got an amazing status and I have some gold items(so a decent armory even when I have never used money in the game. AND I NEVER WILL!!!!) I find myself not being able to control the battles. Sure I did have a 100% win ratio until at the top level of play people with super wallets and Captain B could not be beaten so I had to change(if he was not broken I would probably never have lost any game). And then that team was good, same as I used in season 3 end(which ended in high adam so) but sometimes they face a hard counter team.... and its all back to feeling so powerless. If I press the battle button and get into a hard counter team. Which I for some reason seem to do a lot of times(and its not gambler fallacy more on this later).
I really have to just hope for luck. Because, it is not like any team can just 1 shoot a player with my stats and my team. But if they get a good proc rate or some broken shit happens(like every game) it is nothing I can do. I should be able to win but the amount of luck based factors are just astonishing. Because clearly, the AI is the worst in a game since the Commodore 64 games. I mean Seriously the AI is disgustingly bad designed for example Wolverine is like the most worthless stealth attacker in defence ever. He is a scrapper who is stealthed and can instantly kill an infiltrator but he only focus on trying to turn of the tanks tank ability... instead of just ignoring it and kill the glass cannon right away. Basically he is worthless if you can remove buffs or avoid the attack.
This makes it even worse, I wish the AI a million times better so the could remove al the shity proc rate etc and it would be a more fair game( or obviously remove the AI all together and make it a real PVP).
Because as it is now it is really out of pure bad luck one can lose. I don't lose often with the team I had to use but when I do I know 100% it is not because I haven't figured out how to trick the AI it is not because my characters synergy don't work, it is definitely not because of my stats I can run most characters and win. It is out of pure uncontrolled bad luck. The enemy procing everything, the enemy dodging 10 times in a row. The enemy critical hitting with every attack. Or of course a lot of wied broken stuff can happen, e.g enemy reviving 5+ times with hoarfrost mace. My Phoenix passive not triggering.
And of course all the number shityness. The game also features such a huge difference in one turn, so it is always funny how many games I lost today when one enemy has like 1% hp left. My favorite when they have 1% and use power of four gaining 4 turns and then killing themself.

Even better is that mental tap from Emma Frost is removed when someone does power of four... something I use myself when i learned this. Another example of huge game design mistake. The enemy is supposed to lose 50% hp if they attack after a tap. And it is not removed by using quick action moves. However, Using power of four does not count like a quick action so, if the enemy emma or the modok weapon has been used on the agent. The agent can use power of 4, gain 4 turns and remove the tap.....and then do 4 attacks. Clearly it should stay on so if the agent has 50%+ hp and do 1 attack fine no difference she/he will die after those 4 if she/he has 10% after 1 attack dead, well if the agent don't use the first turn to remove the debuff of course.

And this come to the last issue, if you can't beat them join them. As the has has one of the worst character balance I have ever seen. Furthermore, its is based around stats and paying makes it easier to win. In the end the free players only chance is to use the best characters.  However, even the paying user won't get enough bonus(at least not compared to a player like me). And they also have to use the best characters. And as explained its a few characters who are either S tier by intention (or bad game design) or characters who are S tier by broken factors.
It is pretty clear what happens the game has 50 characters and the user picks 2(which is stupid, another issue) that should be a lot of different possible teams. I am pretty sleep deprived now so my math is not the best but I guess it becomes, 50x25 + 25 = 1300 different teams.
But at the top its like max 10 teams who are played. And very unsparingly they almost all consist of the same team. Phoenix is in like half of them. At lower ratio it might boil down to around 20 different teams but that is usually just still the same 5-6 characters who are used combined in other less good ways or maybe, maybe an outsider. But that outsider is still very likely combined with one of the S Tier.

The game is so ridiculous broken when it comes to working characters. For example I tried using Shadowcat for the last day a little with her scrapper suit. Which she can avoid all attacks and counter everything, for the first turns. However, apparently the suits counter ability is a buff that can be removed....so as around 80% are going with scroll of bologna(an item that makes around half of the characters worthless) her buff will always be removed before it does anything. The weirdest with this is that Black Widow also has an unique buff from her suit that makes her counter but it cannot be removed, sure her is supposed to last for all turns but its still a buff from a suit. Because of all this broken character things, placing a few in S tier and a few workable A tier, while basically all character designed to be B tier are broken in a negative way for them placing them in E Tier and then of course all other characters who are C or lower are useless or also broke and land in F tier and so on.  
The result of this is clear, there is always always the same team the player faces. It is not strange to have mirror matches, it sound strange thinking about the amount of characters but the rest have no value whatsoever except for stats, so its disturbingly repetitive and truly feels like madness playing the game as its doing the same thing over and over again.

There is a pretty famous book about games, Reality Is Broken. Written by Jane McGonigal(2011), where she talks about an Epic win and how we should make people experience that in ordinary life outside games etc, its a good ted talk with her which i recommended.

Playing Marvel Avenger Alliance makes the player experience one hell of a powerful EPIC WINS. However they are kinda faulty.

I think I must be masochist because while MAA give a lot of EPIC WIN feelings when you somehow wins a 3v1 or a super anti matchup(which is like very battle at 0.1%) the game also gives you constantly weird situation which are epically frustrating. Making it constantly create EPIC LOSES, which is not necessarily a lose(of the battle) but a character dying for no reason etc or an enemy character resurrecting for the 5 time because item x is broken.


Funny enough I never think I have had a game with such super Epic Wins. Because will the game constantly gives the player disgusting Epic Loses as their honestly are not a single loss which feel justified. I have sat many games and managed to win from a super hard position with 1 character left. And that sure feels like an Epic Win. However, it is very noteworthy to realize that all those Epic wins are from pure luck.
When I from my position for once get super lucky and everything is in my favor. My last character might be able to dodge 3-4 times in a row and out live them as they die by dots. Or the perfect AOE attack that criticals everyone and just exactly wins etc. While this epic wins are amazingly strong as you know what an upset they were. I actually find myself constantly laughing at how bad they were

Because the thing is that either the game is horrible unfair and match you up with the ultimate counter team. Or its a total snoozefest where you can do whatever and its impossible to lose. And when you win most ultimate counter battles is because of the ridiculously broken shit in your favor. So in the end its a Fake EPIC WIN. I sat there laughing my ass off from the shear magnitude on how ridiculously that win was, how my their phoenix fire didn't  trigger and I was save. Or for example I had one game today where both our character died on the same time, my character died from attack with mental tap on killing that character but before my opponents characters got killed. However, as we both were running Phoenix neither died, and but got their ultimate off. I was in a massively bad position with basically no health on everyone but I had the turn first, this part was planned I then used my phoenix fire getting them all to moderate low health around 30-40% ye... thats it. And I knew my only chance was to critical and instantly kill the other phoenix basically. But it was my only outcome from that position really, bad turn order etc.
I was to die, but miraculously the other phoenix did psi-blast instead. And then I could kill her next round and win. Of course at this time I was like “OOOMG I won how could I, I win ooo” an Epic Win. But, only for a few brief seconds then I just laughed at the retarded AI as I knew I didn't deserve to win that, my plan was flawed.
But then I condoled myself by saying, well he got a imbalanced turn order so I guess its fair. Otherwise I would not been to that mess in the first place.

And then you realize how shity the gameplay experience is. For example last season when it was dreadful full of cheaters. I was definitely considering cheating as well. But, I never went there I could never life with that myself --- Using only broken characters and item is were I draw the line.

So like I mentioned earlier this is actually the absolute biggest issue, the mental image of that its OK to use broken shit and it is actually just fair, when the AI goes buggy or whatever and does a mistake. Its fair to for example use scroll of bologna(or other removal) to lock Phoenix AI in a Mind link loop or Lock Thor in a Strength spam Loop.

There are so many abusive thing one can do towards the faulty AI. But, its justifiable as any loss is always true broken, proc rates etc. Never is a loss from the user playing bad. Of course it is arguable not actually justifiable as the main reason the AI has chance to win by retarded broken shenanigans is because otherwise they can't win at all, true because they are so bad at programing AI, I am very serious when I say I could do a better job with any of the characters horrible AI. And I am not bragging about my programming skills I am lousy coder and I didn't even take the AI course that most other of my graduate class toke.
But, there are so many obvious IF that should always happen the most prominent one if phoenix can cast phoenix fire she should always do that always. There is only once time you don't wanna do that and that’s when Quicksilver has his preemptive strike(or the agent with the new weapon) but as hes broken and kill if she recharges as well its a 100% best option at any given time there is never a reason not.

There are many other similar situations. Another good one, if Singpost is equipped always use it. Its just ridiculous that the AI agent don't spam a quick action(free turn move) weapon which not only has no cooldown so it can be used every turn. Its a weapon that cost no resource to use as it drains the opponent's stamina so it actually just give stamina, it also drains hp and its subtitle move so it hits all enemies and can't be countered etc. I would say that singpost is the most imbalanced weapon in the game, its a roughly 10% max hp/stamina each turn healing the user further it reduces the users dot damage by 50% from all dots and it can be used for free each turn and can't be countered etc. There is never a reason not to use. Never!!! as then the agent can do something afterwards it has absolutely no drawbacks. The one and only drawback is that the agent can be hit by QS..again with his epic broken attack however the agent will heal afterwards and again as its broken not doing anything might still kill you. So there is NEVER a reason not to sue signpost.
Still the case with the AI is that they use it maybe around 50% of the timel


So not only is the top games repetitive madness of basically almost always a Phoenix team, but a few other is played as well as the game only has one a few character that can compete and again. You have to join them, especially if you are not paying any money as then you will be even more limited.
But the victories are either meaningless as how trivial they are. Or the game is won with a huge upset creating a Epic win, briefly as you realize how it was only from the power of broken shit. Furthermore, you used this broken shit and justifiable by something.

In the end it just show how how Hollow the game is. As the wins are far too easy and repetitive. You know exactly how the AI will screw up attacking the wrong target etc this might sound crazy but really most good teams are good because you know that most common teams have stupid AIs who will be harmless, that's obviously how you achieve a retard win ratio like I have.
However, the games horrible match making system which I haven't touched on at this article (Because it should need no further explanation how retarded it is, Also I wrote like 23 pages on how bad it is here). Summarized it is horrible, you win 1 game and lose 2 games even if you won at a 2-3 minutes. Which further fuel the feeling for justification of using broken shit, almost that this could be the first game I am cheating in as I feel cheated by the system. And then games where you should lose, but get lucky gets a fake Epic Win as of broken.

Really the game is meaningless and will this might sound like something you hear a lot from grumpy old people say. This is something I never thought I would say about a game. But there's truly no enjoyment playing Marvel Avenger Alliance as I definitely have repeatedly tried to explain, wining has no value. It is too easy or won by some bug or at least won by exploitation a bug or exploitation the AI. A hollow victory.  


Which bring us back to the first statement in this article. Of course it is kinda obvious for anyone already playing the game as no one in their right mind really plays in a PvP tournament until the very last days. That this game has a truly meaningless gameplay and why I recommend people to stay very, very far away from this game, until it is hopefully fixed. Unfortunately as Playdom is handling it I assume the game will be canceled before that happen.

NOTE: That I don't go into this at all, but as a new player you certainly should stay away if you don't plan to ever level, this is from my experience with every character in the game and with every good farmable weapon and with most limited weapons sets. By starting now a player has like 7-8 of just time spent in training to level all characters.....not only is the game totally broken the higher level you are(another issue I am too tired to go into) it is also basically impossible to catch up if you don't plan to spend a lot of cash. Which is not worth it as the games PvE has become very repetitive (and extremely too easy with new character added in who are far too good) and an meaningless PvP system which will only leave you with major unsatisfied urges to do something else.
Worst part is I am pretty sure Playdom knows this, no one would ever play the game PvP tournament for not the rewards its an utter pointless gameplay experience I only play it the last 2 days since season 1 to get the rewards.
If they didn't have the character and armor reward no one would ever bother.
Side Note: I also find it retarded that the character is locked for a month. While it benefits me as I been the one having Psylocke before people, having Punisher(OK that did not help) and so on. There is no reason to do this, it only fuels the bad circle. The rich get richer, Psylocke has been so far the only game breaking reward x-23 seems nice vs Phoenix I guess, otherwise she seems rather weak actually since they super boosted Wolverine, oh yeah they aimed for A and landed on S as he is also broken he get free turns when people are coordinated attack...(and other bugs). Anyway, another faulty game design part, the money spenders or super farmers like myself we get the reward we can then easier get the next reward. And really last season when so few had psylocke man it was sooooo boring she is so good, I rolled with psylocke and Phoenix, played the nothing before the second last day was at adamantium(highest league) in pure defence... until they released broken QS and many had him in the last days.
But yeah, another way of making it easier for money spenders but also making the game even more meaningless as its even more imbalanced tx to that. People get better stats and maybe some good character combos, hmm a character weak to phoenix (a lot) teamed with x-23 for example will only be open to like 6000-7000 players. Making it even harder for the other people who were not one of them to get into the next high league.
But on the same time it also means the battles are even more trivial for people with stats. As the stats are even more uneven and the possible “imba combo”.   


I don't know how I can emphasize it more, but just playing this day and yesterday. Feels like such a an Epic waste of time. Sure I got the rewards. It almost feels like I should just have spend that time PvE farming for the Cp, well Ok I would still want the armor but I was in vibranium by pure AFKing wins. So really, because don't get me wrong I had to fight to stay in Adamantium now when Playdom wisely decided to scare more people(other article). So yeah I had to still play like the whole day maybe 8+ hours the last day to keep myself at safe distance from the border. Which spend farming would probably give me 135 Cp, much more I believe I spend like roughly 20-40 min farming each day which results in around 8-10 Cp per day. However, I would not be able to farm for 8 hours straight I guess.

Because just playing this horrid games PvP for one day feel like one day too much. That was 8 hours I could have done something else with,. Some quick math on farming, when I calculate the worst scenario. 135/8  = 17 days and in time 340 min = slightly less than 6 hours and I would guess I played to keep my rating probably around 10 hours + 2-3 hours the day before. So half the time spent to get the character. Still I would even if not aiming for the character have played some to keep myself at a distance for a safe armor as thats the most important reward. And probably just tried the last hours to gain the character anyway. If we are to do some sort of time saving scheme here.

But the thing is we shouldn't, I did it now as repetitive farming seems as fair comparison to repetitive PvP shit. But no actually Farming is kinda, you do it while reading or watching something. While in PvP you get frustrated at how the opponent is using healing team who prolong the inevitable (If you have to duress yourself too this game, do not use healing teams they never, never win in defence as they do zero damage sure it makes the opponent win slower but don't actually affect you positively as you will have a zero% win ratio at defence..). Or of course you get frustrated on all the broken weird stuff or the 10th time in a row someone avoided etc.

They are both kinda meaningless and super easy but the PvP farm comes with a lot of retardation.

Oh yeah my actually point was not to say PvE Repetitive Farming  > PvP (while its true....)

But to say well we shouldn't be doing this number crunching as, is this not a game? Don't you play game for a fun time. Marvel Avenger Alliance is anything but fun to play in PvP.

The only reason are the rewards and even after doing this math, and I have consider it many times before I have to admit its just my pure perfectionist completeness behavior, I want all characters. And when I have 49/50 characters yeah-_- then I definitely want to get x-23 as soon as possible to complete my set. I am definitely not playing that part of the game because its fun.  Because it is not fun its just a meaningless hollow horrid experience which I honestly regret now. I would rather have done anything else than playing those hours and instead let those hour be played out in the more enjoyable repetitive for the millionth time farm resource game time. Still sadly while saying so, knowing myself I probably will do it again as I will have every character...except the new otherwise. Hmm I also used my last gold to invest in extra pvp armory bonus to easier win, something I regret slightly but mainly I wanted to do the math for what the difference would be adding a few and some more etc so that was ok. What I mean is it kinda strand me on a place where I am clearly extremely strong in PvP from just characters and then having a decent(not maxed by far) armory it would be like wasting that gold if I didn't use it more than once. Hmm Another reason why you should not play Marvel Avenger Alliance especially not the PvP system or even worse set money in the game so they think they got a good system.

In the end this horrid gameplay is not even worth the rewards. Especially now when the game has released one of every class as a power suit, there will be little no none incitement to play the game anymore at all (they might release a power suit of generalist which would be really stupid but not surprising and it would very likely be overpowered).

I will try my absolute best to not waste one second playing Marvel Avengers Alliance. I will probably make sure I get whatever reward they have at the power level I guess, or try a quicky towards adamantium as I usually am around their in defence I guess. But then it will be for just a few hours and more of the novelty of not having played the game for some time and laughing at the new broken stuff, that is actually a very good point to note. I would never have bared to play this epic constant lose fest if I had played any PvP during the time of the tourny. Taking a 4-5 week break between playing the game is the only way to stay sane(this is not even a joke it has been like this for each tourney for me, the first one I did play it during the whole it and was kinda funny, retarded hard to get deadpool but then the pvp battles were still slightly fun then after like 2 weeks it got dead as Emma Frost was in 100% of the games and since then a month break and then the last 2-3 days for a rush up is the only thing I would bare in this epic boredom. )





Summary:

Don't play Marvel Avenger Alliance especially not the games PvP.
I hope that as many players as possible quite so that they finally fix PvP, hopefully making it actual Player vs Player that has huge potential and right there all proc stuff etc can be removed.
A win would matter.

Like it is now, the gameplay experience is either a complete utter meaningless charade where the player can't lose. Or its a very frustrating uncontrolled game where the player is very powerless. Whatever the player does she/he will still lose as there are no strategies options or the game literally cheats and ignores what strategy that should have worked.  

SideNote: Also remove the need for an Agent. The user should have the option of going with 3 Marvel HEROES! I always hated the agent(most people will still run agent as the agent is the best character). But make the Agent always gain Experience even when not in the team for both PvP and PvE which will prevent users from killing themself etc to gain lower exp as it won't matter they always get full.
- OMG just always giving the agent full exp would help prevent another broken issue,,,This took me like 5 sec to come up with and I am 100% sure it is better than how it is now. Come on Playdom try to fix stuff for a change before adding in more untested broken crap. .

The final nail in the coffin that Killed Marvel Avengers Alliance

Marvel Avengers Alliance will die shortly, let me take some of your time to explain why.


There has been many moves made by Playdom that will ruin the game Marvel Avengers Alliance. And I find what I will discuss in this article very intriguing. Because while other design parts as I have brought up last year has been more about balance or lack of fixing usability etc. All those things can still seen as just low on the priority, they shouldn't but for argument sake we can say that.

However, what really kills any free game model. And I really want to emphasize how I am really talking about the free 4 play model now in general and not just, this game sucks because of X or Y. Its when the game can't actually be played for free,,, yeah not much of a P4F anymore.

Slightly over a month ago Playdom let the users unlock the first villain in the game and they also changed the PvP system to a much worse state. I was sure right away this would kill the game, but I waited to publish this until I could truly test the effect in the time of the PvP tournament, which I also have written an article about how the gameplay is.

The key factor for a casual Free 4 play is that everyone can compete pretty easily, it doesn't take too much skill but also that the money the user spend cant make them better than any other user. This is normally why most games go for a cosmetic appeal on what the users can buy.
The second paying users can get is usually time. Ye Time. In Marvel Avengers Alliance this is given factor as the user can buy more energy for battles both for PvE and PvP. The user can also just convert the gold and buy CP instead which would be much more effective than paying for more PvE battles(if farming for characters) more worth while in the game is to buy more Isos to do more special operation missions as those are limited.
Already here the game becomes kinda funky on the play 4 free as the drops from special operation usually features a lot better items than the normal PvE. At normal PvE any user can farm endlessly given that she/he plays the missions over and over again. So if a paying user pays to do it more in one day, or use the latter introduced respin feature. The respin is a mechanic letting the user get another drop basically. The user keeps the first drop and gets another drop with the same % chance on the items the specific boss can drop.
I actually think the respin is one of the really good microtransaction models in the game. It means the paying user can much easier get a wanted item. While the free user can still get the item just has to replay the mission.
However, as the special operations are limited number of tries. It turns into already here a Pay 2 Win. From my own gameplay experience I have manage to get most good Special items but still even perfectly using the ISos to farm a specific stage I have missed out on items.
While I can agree on that use of limited time to farm mission that clearly makes it harder for new users(an huuuuge problem of the game) but that a current playing user get the the item...that’s outright just stupid. So even if you spend 1000 hours a day on this game you can't farm for the new items as you got a limited number of special mission tries... with a really low drop chance.


The big issue with this game is that the user can't farm every resource, that is kinda the issue in an nutshell. The user can't farm gold its an infinite resource the user can gain when leveling and completing a mission to level 4 then gold income stops. I haven't earned a gold in like 3 weeks(expect the 10 gold for pvp award). The only way to earn gold at higher level is to do free offers, which have stopped existing. And to what I have read this offers have never existed in the first place for some countries so I guess they ended it were I life. So zero gold.

But this was OK. Until the game royally fucked itself by introducing characters and breaking the pvp system even more in favor for P2W users.

So even before this the game had the for many users impossible to get special limited weapons/gadgets. And even worse the buy able weapons which are far better than any dropped item. For example Rocket Pistol is an upgrade of Dark Sigil(the best dropped premium weapon). This was never Ok. But would be if the user could farm gold, it would not have to be that the user could easily farm it but lets say 1 drop from the boss could be 1 gold. Then the user could get some gold now and then instead of zero per day.....

However this was still all “acceptable” its this 2 last changes who truly will be the last nail for the coffin for this game.

Characters that has to be bought by using Gold

PvP armory(gold) vastly boosted while pvp bonus vastly nerfed


The first issue is a very, very important one. Because this game boils down to a very simple type of gameplay. The collecting gameplay, the perfectionist goal of having all characters, gotta catch them all.
The major point(basically the only and getting the suit, which is also a collectible) why anyone plays the dreadful PvP system(read the other article on that) is to get the new PvP hero award.
Why do people play the game in general? To farm Command points to unlock more characters.
So when a character is introduced that can't be farmed,,, that only can be won by luck or if the user is unlucky(like I was -_-) you have to buy the character. Then its a huge fail in a play 4 free model.

To get Magneto and latter characters through this system(announced it will be a new one in Special operation 8). The user can get these lock boxes on luck from boss drops or deploys. Note that is by playing special operation only, which as I mentioned the user only get a limit tries of. So while they let the user get some boxes through tasks they are not close to enough to get the comic books which the lock boxes. From my experience I did the perfected farm(yes I am serious I never lost one battle, I took the 50 allies gift each day and got all the free isos and older links for isos) This landed me on 7 out of 8 comics.
The system works like this, each lock box has a 7% chance to drop a comic book if its open. But if the user opens 10 on the same time, the user get 10 items and 100% chance to get 1 comic book. However, it is not the goal to get 80 boxes but to get a lot more. I think I got around 200 before I got him.
Because, the game gives the users duplicates. So clearly when the user has 7/8 it takes another 80 boxes when using bad math. so 150, but also the chance of getting the a duplicate when the user only has 1/8 and so on. Hmm I guess I could do the math for the average value to get the comics how many tries it would take (using some fake math as I don't have access to a good markov theory program at home, I would like to use math program to calculate the chance of average of number of times to reach the absorbing state for getting all 8, the rest of the states are kind whatever as it doesn't make any difference having 2 magneto is not a hero(a specific comic) as having 3 as long as the user reach 1 of each comic that is the only important state).
Anyway I get it to 18 tries. This is just an average number(and I know I used “cheap math” to) meaning it can still take 8 tries(the best possible outcome) or more. I don't know the normal distribution of this value but obviously 8 is to the far the lowest and and extreme number while the user can of course have bad luck and need to do like 40 tries. But, it should be something around 2-3 +-, so 15-21.

So the average user still needs an 15 tries at least. Meaning 150 boxes, so what is important now its of course how many boxes do the average user get.
But actually I would say that regardless, just having a system where luck is the big factor of getting the new character means even if the user gets 200 boxes she/he can still miss is retarded.

Anyway, the number the user got for sure was 88. So if the user gets no drops(which is possible) its a basically impossible. But ok, the user will get lock boxes and get around 50 boxes from doing the missions as good as possible using the Isos. This is another major random variable as some users might get lucky and get 100+ boxes some might get 10.
Its important to note, first of all  the number 50 is from doing the game perfectly in PvE. While not hard it is increasingly harder for new users and the epic bosses are made intentionally harder so the user will fail and waste resources on them and so on. And even then it can become lower than 50.
Also when I say 50 I am generous I think the average is lower 40 maybe. But like I said for people not playing each day not milking each free stuff etc to get max number of isos getting the possibility to farm is reduced so already there many users probably only get like 20 extra boxes.

Lastly this special operations ends and then the user can't even get more boxes to unlock the hero. They had the daily spin give them at a low chance and the new special operation have them as deploy drops at a very low chance.
Another fun note is that when the user has Magneto, getting boxes afterwards instead of weapons etc at the spin/deploy feels really worthless.

In the end the user will have to buy more boxes with real money to get a character.

All that math was just to clearly point out how the game is almost impossible to get the character by luck. From the reasoning that the user cannot. What the game accomplish is a play 4 free model which already was so, so unfair for the free users. To a game where the user can't even unlock all characters. And this is truly a death sentence. Especially in a game that is built around a licence a very powerful licence of Marvel comics. Where the incitement to get all characters is the strongest if not the only real pull effect the game has.
Sure this also means that people will be more willing to pay as otherwise they can't get these lock boxes characters. But, clearly it also means losing even more users as they cannot get all characters.

Lastly, on this first issue I want to also note again how this perspective is from veteran users. I cannot fathom how hard it will be for new users. Sure they get gold(as they haven't diminished their infinite gold resource yett) but they then have to buy at least 80 gold for Magneto. And given the average math they have to buy actually 180 gold for each lock box. And then of course the game has a 1000 others hardship for the new user...like training characters for 7 real life months.

SideNote: Another epic fail is that even if the user decide to pay money. They can actually be unlucky and not get him. I just found this disgustingly stupid, if I were to ever pay real money. I would like to be able to play for the missing comics not the gold and then later still failing to get them. Again you can argue and say, well then people pay more. I would say the contrary. The user knowing she/he might not get the character anyway is less likely to then use real money. Only the people already paying large sums are the people who will fall for this. Furthermore, users who do and it's a lot of people who complain about this on the forums about magneto and respins etc usually have very bad stories of “I paid X dollars” did Y tries still didn't get him” which will lead them to never spend money in the game again. And also scare away other potential customers for the game.  
Enormously short sighted game design.



This was just the first issue, the second issue. I do think affect the gameplay like 100 times more as it comply ruined PvP which already was horrible. The end result of PvP is still to get the new character,m this character can at least be bought very expansively with command points later in the game so this issue is not as killing as characters that will require real money(as that is the definition of not play4free). However, this issue instead is the epic PAY2WIN problem.
While the PvP was already a huge Pay2Win they did 2 major changes to PvP  both which destroyed the game even more for the users.

Ok I repeat again, the PVP system is already broken like hell. Almost everyone at the top is using the limited items, which only payers get or the free user has like 4-5 at best of the total pool of 20+good limited weapons(But wont be able to get any new ones and so on). And really they are a lot better than what the free user can get. Already here the game was broken but bearable.

In the pvp system the user has bonus stats from each character they have. Blaster heroes being the most important as they give attack boost, a lot of high level heroes can be attained by farming a lot of Command points and using flight mission in the game or getting exp from PvE. So the free user has some chance, but it still takes months to level everyone up. So already the paying user has an enormous advantage.
Furthermore each character can be equipped with isos that increase their stats. Here the player can equip them with 4-5 gold isos(they cost a freaking 4 gold each) to further get more stats on her/his heroes. And last the user also have the PvP armory. Where the user can put in item to get an increased stats. These items are permanently used.

For a long time this was an factor that didn't matter so much, but if the user spend a lot of money and put a 64 gold items in they would have a noteworthy stats over the others. Which of already was a favourable Pay2Win factor.
Over the last months the Playdom has added more and more better 2 gold items which are still far away from using 64 gold items but still a lot better than the one the user can farm. And these 2 gold ones are improved each month. Here it was already clear the game would eventually die. Realising items that with a low pay the user could get slightly better than the non paying user. I never understood why the user could not farm these ones.
Clearly it would reach a point even do the armory was not that big of a deal where the difference would be far too big and the non paying users literally could not pay the game anymore.

However, Playdom did the smart thing any company that wants to keep their customer would do. They halved the effect of Hero bonus, while they more and doubled the effect of the PvP armory bonus. Which resulted in a 4 times harder game for the non paying user. At least they introduced a pvp spin so the user could if they got lucky(seems to be a low chance) get an old weaker PvP item bonus item.

I waited to see the effect of this change. I was 100% sure PvP would be even more unplayable and yes. While I still placed recently high, its only because I already had all characters in the game and almost all on level 12. And while I am decently high level nto everyone has it on my level still (180) so it gives some chance. But at higher ratings everyone has huge bonus over me and with better items as they also got the latest broken Limited weapons.

I cannot see at all how a new user would have any chance or a user at my level who haven't been farming Command points like crazy and don't have all characters can even damage them. From my own experience of PvP defence I have like 80% win ratio up to 1-2% of the rating as I got all characters and I have spend my last gold for the PvP with pvp items. So I a lot better than the average user and people don't seem to be able to touch me at all. Of course then I get into the top of the top. And then everyone has huge wallet it seems and defense wins becomes like 10% at best while every attack i still easy everyone got a huge stat difference to me.

This was such a ridiculous unnecessary nail. The game was clearly moving towards this result in the future, after a couple of more pvp item increase they would have this effect. But to also lower the hero bonus is just to screw what people have been paying for. If I had used money in the game one of the things I would pay for its to get all characters and have all on level 12. Suddenly that is not worth much anymore.
Really a last ditch attempt to get some last dollars.

And as the PvP items are still increasing in difference, PvP limited items are still released more broken than the last one so people will buy them. It is 100% obvious the games PvP system will be completely unplayed in the near future.

To top it of, Playdom also removed PvP battle energy game resource. The system as many free games requires the user to login several times per day. For PvP the user can only attack a specific number of times. 5, which is really low.
For the first year of the game the user could send daily gifts of 1 PvP battle the user could store this was also removed with this change and the user cannot longer find battle energy to visiting allies. This change eventually will make it literally impossible to play PvP.

Only being able to do 5 battles and then wait 20 minutes per battle, its epicly stupid. I had like 500+ battle energy stored so it didn't affect me and if it wasn't for their horrible overall system where the user only has to play like 100 games the last day to place this would have epicly fucked me to even compete. As the user has to do like 100+ games the last day or at least in the days before to place oneself save at top. Or overall then play a lot more games over the month. This change is truly will make most users not even being able to start the game.


I just don't understand Playdom’s logic. The users who pay large amounts will still pay large amounts and those energy battles are not the biggest deal (you can get what you need from free links etc). So it won't affect them, the other changes won't affect them either. The other changes will as they get a free pass to the highest league with their wallets.

But the change of removing energy, halving hero and doubling armory. Will absolutely scare away potential low spenders the people who spend sometimes or people who spend consequently but low sums. They have to pay large sums if they wanna compete another problem there is that the user has to pay more per level, as at 150 the user has the most pages to fill meaning it is even less likely a veteran consequently payer will pay then. But, now they cannot even compete without paying.

This change will make the game lose all the money spenders expect the ones who already spend huge sums and obviously it will die in popularity as the normal user has 0% chance to compete, actually she/he can't even compete as it cost money to play more than 5 battles in a row.




To set this in perspective to another game, which is much more successful.

Lets look at if this changes would have happened in League of Legends another game that I know very well and a good pick as most of my readers are here for the League Of Legend reviews (which I am after on Quinn I know).


The similarities for changes for LoL would be as follow.

1: The user loses at least half her/her champions because why not.
More or less as each new character basically breaks the old ones and the hero bonus made owning 90% of the heroes useless.

2: New Runes are released who are exactly like the current ones. However they give double that stats. For example a normal IP runes gives 1 AD, while a new rune would give 2AD. These new runes of course cost RP instead of IP so no user can get them unless they use money,
This would kill the game, simple as that.

3. As our other fixes didn't work as intended, we also change so that playing rank cost money. The user is only allowed 1 rank game per day then they have to pay 5 dollar per game.
Whoops a lot of more user left.

4. Trying to fix whatever the users did wrong at 3. We Make playing other game modes than normal game be more limited, the user now has 1 free dominion game per day 1 free twisted treeline and we remove draft normal as draft are for rank games and that shouldn't be free.
Let’s try and get some last money from the few users left gogo.








There is a third issue that I have seen growing in the games usability as well.




This issue actually disturbs me the most as Playdom seem to add or remove feature of the game to trick the user to lose gold... its outright an despicable behavior towards their users.

The other 2 major stuff are illogical and therefore disturbs me. But this thing is just mean spirited towards the user.

Third issue - The game becomes more deliberately miss put user control features to make the user press wrong and take their money.

The first thing is how the respin button is as close as it can be to the leave button is. This have caused numerous user to accidentally respin. Clearly anyone who know how to do UI would not do it like that.

The second thing are tasks who cost more to complete then what buying the object would cost.
This issue is the absolute worst to me, its a horrible way to try and trick the user. I honestly feel this game design alone should make everyone stop playing the game.

For example when the user had one task in special operation 6 that was to gather 10 magnetic lock boxes. The user could do this by having luck in the drops, or by doing the task list for the other task( it was 2 task on the same time at SO6). The user can of course also buy these lock boxes. They cost 1 gold each, so the user could pay 10 gold to right away skip the task.

But instead of offering the user this option the game always offer a task skip for gold. On each task the user can skip it to go on faster. To skip this task it cost 20 gold???  Truly a WTF? moment. Why would it cost 20 gold when the user can buy them for 1 gold each which result in a total cost of 10. Furthermore, if the user pays at the skip task button(which appears right away when the task is unlocked) they don't actually get any boxes either(is what I have read I have not myself fallen for this trap, but I definitely think it is true).  
This kind of game design is just despicable. I would never design a system do act like that I don't think anyone who seriously cared for their user at all would. The skip system is fine, the players get the hero quicker sure. That is totally Ok. But, how it should be is that the game should offer a task skip, which would ask if the user truly want to buy 10 boxes right away. Not ignore explain to the user she/he can buy them instead and actually get the task while getting more boxes.

There are other example of this, for example in SO7 one task was to get 10 isos, which is fairly easy. But, the user could also pay 20 gold to skip it. 10 isos cost 1 gold, not 1 gold each but buying isos is a 10 per 1 gold. So 20 gold is worth 200 isos....but if the user press this skip button they will get no isos and simply skip it instead of giving the user 200 isos....
There is a lot more of similar trickery as this.  I seriously wonder why anyone would put real money into this game as the game seems to be full of features to steal your money away.

This issue is really a lot more complex and different examples of which ar not exactly the same etc, but I won't bother going into them its so obvious. For example, when the user had deployed heroes she/he could not leave the mission before picking up the loot this was changed so the user now can,,,,which I assume is just another way of trying to screw the user instead of helping them and giving the user a good gameplay experience. However, this thing seems to be working like it 2 months ago or something but it might change back to how it has been for the latest month I guess.

The last issue I  bother to point out for now its the ignorant of fixing all the UI Crap that for example I mentioned like 5 months ago. Like the list of flight mission rearrange itself each time. How irritating it is to set isos as they cannot be ordered, sorted whatsoever and how they also change their order(and they all look the same). Also when the user press an iso they cannot afterwards unpress it... a lot of this crap usability that seems to just get worse and worse. I mean instead of fixing this Playdom seem to make an effort introducing features to make it worse for the user.

Then yeah, the game will also die on parts like. Constant reuses of old boring enemies with never anything new game mechanic wise from the environment perspective. While heroes have new mechanics the enemies stay the same and are dreadfully boring making PvE die. At least they changed Dr.Doom for SO7, but all other bosses were just a repeat. Newest Chapter 11 was just a repeat except Red Skull which was incredibly easy, Dr.Doom at least features some challenge.






Actually I would like to highlight this as another new change with the latest patch. Which happened while I was finishing writing this. All the barely useful pvp armory items has been made 100% worthless in the game(in both pvp and pve) some of these items are
Widow's Kiss ,Fistborne Defibrillator, Capacitive Impeder, Teleological Suspender and Damage Amplifier

Not only is the item the user can loot in the game ridiculously inferior. They even nerfed the items just a few days ago making it even worse. I noticed this today and I think it happened in the patch of chapter 11. There are only 2 items who are decently to get for pvp bonus at my level. widow kiss and damage applier(a bugged item or something) widow is more for attack and damage for defence.

This is truly a disgusting patch move from them, the game is already unplayable for the free user and now they nerf the only farm able item which already took like 10 runs to get 1 of.

I don't remember the exact value but Widow Kiss went from 12XX to 580 so half its power,,,,

damage amplifier had 13XX in defence it now has 563,,,more than half its power.


Not only does this further make it impossible for free users. And please NOTE I was basically finished writing this article when I saw this nerf of loot items and it was clear for me that the game is broken already over a month ago, now this another fail from Playdom....I mean seriously wtf haven't they ruined it for the majority of their users already.
Aso these items are not only weaker now,,,by a lot. They Are worthless, as the silver pvp bonus items give more stats. Both of these items had around the same value of silver pvp bonus item and then their favored stats, but now as they got 50% cut in both. They are 100% worthless. These loot drops are around half a 2000 silver(indifferent sum of game resource) in their lower stat while their top stat is now at around 80% of the silver item. So I know have to remove them from my armory and removing of course means destroy permanently.

Just another douche move from Playdom,,,really those items were still half as good as the gold ones. But they were still really hard to farm I only have 4 of each but at least it gave the user a slight edge over other users who did not farm them or some chance against a massive paying users.

Hmm at least Damage applier seems to work now as an Item in the game but....really.... I am wil keep mine for a time and hope to god that Playdom realize they “mistakenly” changed the bonus of these items when “fixing it”.


But the most important point of this is again WHAT IS THE POINT HAVING THEM IN THE GAME???

Before the patch(super recent one) these items were still shity versions of the gold ones. As I described very thoroughly that makes the farming and playing the game kinda pointless. But now with this nerf,,,it further amplifies my point. Such bad game design.

Now when these items are even weaker than the PVP bonus items for silver, which I can buy a million of. Why in would I ever play the PvE in the game, there is absolutely no use to do that. The only thing the user can loot are items who are unusable in pvp and in pve and now they cannot even be permanently sacrifices to increase ones bonus as they lowered their stats for no  reason....
Note: The user can still play pve....to farm epic boss lots and premium, and farm cp. But all other stages are 100% worthless to play as all drops from bosses and deploys are now weaker than what 1 20 minute flight mission  gives. It is not more important to do flight missions to gain items then to actually play the game (given that the user already has all items(they are not many to farm which are useful) and all characters)
Note2: some of the nerfed items Damage Amplifier, Teleological Suspender, Widow's Kiss, Capacitive Impeder

-Oh I just opened 10 lock boxes(I already have magneto) and I got another widow’s kiss and the rest of the 9 items were around 100 levels less than me. What is the point of this now... widow's kiss is epically weak. And the rest were epically weak on their level,,, so I don't know they are like epic epically weak now.

...Jesus Christ when I started writing this a month ago. I already foresee that the game was dead. As the nerf of PvP bonus from heroes was halved... and the armory bonus was massively boosted. + The more important fail of having heroes who you have to buy, E.G Magneto.

I really want to emphasize how the game has become worse and worse the last 8+ months and the introducing of gold heroes and almost impossible pvp is the last straw.

But then when I am to publish this I see the nerf of pvp items...which already were almost worthless. Truly Jesus Christ, god dammit. Playdom, I have absolutely no respect for you employs.
This is this situations when you don't know if you should cry or laugh.
Anyone with half the brain could determine that Items dropped in the game are almost completely useless in PvP, only a handful of the premiums/epic boss(arguably “premiums to as both requires specific heroes unlocked) are useful and all other items in the game is basically worthless. Expect the items which are limited from special operations, which are also hard to farm as the user who dont pay cant farm it how much he/she wants.
In PvP its like 2 item people use from premium Dark Sigel and Face Punch(Because its broken?). And Some uses the Modok Epic boss weapon(which is useless in defence..)

All other items are limited - costing money. Or were special drops which for the most uses never got even if they tried their hardest as they have a very limited amount of tries.

This is crystal clear, and when the user got any worthless weapon from a boss drop at least some of them were slightly better than the PvP bonus items. This was their only redeeming quality.

I mean the game was already dead for the free user(which is like 95% of the users normally in this kind of games, a higher number maybe 10-15% at most in this game has spend low sums a few times but they will of course be less inclined to pay for anything when the game is becoming worse and worse (and their friends quits etc))
That was something I already had finished writing about,,, then this extra nerf haha its just such a bad game design.

I know I becoming like a broken record on this last point but.... I just don't understand the Logic behind it.
The other decision while bad I can still understand, especially if the game would let the users farm PvP items, which with this latest change are actively fucking up. But if they user could(which clearly won't happen poorly) that could be OK. And there’s logic in that as the user will pay money for the villains then and because they are to lazy/don't have time to farm they will pay money for Pvp items.

But this change,,, I am seriously considering if someone working on that game hates his boss or the company etc. And its sitting there looking at the reports on what items the user uses etc. “Hmm no one is using these drop items at all, it seems all users hate getting them. How can I make these items be even less useful”.

Even from the standpoint that its about making money, so lets nerf the all the loot items to utter shit. I could understand this if those items at least was playable, if they had any use.

As they are 100% worthless in all regards now what's the point of having them in the game?
When the user defeats a boss, all the boss drops are useless(excluding the Command points as those are a game resource all others are Items or weapons, actually if you have all characters like me CP are kinda pointless to,,,, so all boss drops are useless - and I have all the premium items so... all epic bosses to).

Thats just such a faulty game design, I don't think I have ever played any other game. Were all the bosses in the game drops only 100% useless items. Like I mentioned earlier, in the pvp regard doing flight mission gives better bonus...and only a handful of premium bosses has 1 item which the user can farm but when its dropped what then?

So the game was already killing itself and this last change further will make it die faster. Now there is no value in doing deploy mission for the user and if the user has the item she/he wants which is very likely as its like 3-5 worthily to farm. There is no incitement to play the game at all.

It’s such a weird logic.. they must have these users who did not pay before (which are almost all users as thats how these free games function) they probably won't pay now. This move only further removes users from the game, if anything those users that paid small sums and played the game to farm etc I am sure of are more likely not to pay smalls sums anymore, as they now see they have to either pay a large sum or its kinda pointless to pay money at all. So this last extra nail probably did not just make the game less playable for free users but lost Playdom some paying users as well.

Its also noteworthy how this was not mentioned in the patch notes. Its like Playdom want to do everything they can to scare away their users. And then not even mentioning this change is further insulting to the users, I was 1 click away from putting in another window’s kiss when I saw the others and was like “waaait a minute”.
Kinda how the other part I mentioned earlier to, how they removed the lock of not being able to miss deploys for the users. Now users can miss deploys because thats an Improved of gameplay right-_- And now this patch they also made the deploys useless...well at least the first part is kinda indifferent now(but still an insult towards their users)

-- For the fun of it I have written a ticket to them. If a games items are to be so vastly nerfed and we are talking about items that is hard to farm(which already was stupid) the user should get those items back out again, so she/he can at least use them for their pointless damage or shity effects in battle. And get the silver to buy PvP items...as they are stronger now I want that indifferent 20K silver, I Mean come on it takes me like 1.5 Flight Mission to get that.

This is the response
“
Dear Playdom Gamer,
Thank you for contacting us with your game inquiry. The issue you reported was a temporary problem in our application and your account should be working correctly now. Please let us know if you are still experiencing any problems in this regard. We appreciate your cooperation in this matter and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Playdom Game Services Department.
“

I wish what they say here is true and that they changed back the items to have some worth and give the free user a slight change. However, this is unfortunately other issue of the game a constant auto response from the customer service ( I also sent a ticket on how Dr.Droom bug cost me 60 isos, while the fixed the bug they never refunded my isos), further making the customer feel like they have no worth. They just lied to my face here, I takes me a second to go and see that this is not at all a temporary problem my account still have lost a huge pvp bonus points.    
Well hopefully they will change back the items or even more hope boost them so the free user can have a chance to win.




Summary: The game is dead, this is now 100% a pay to win game.