OK there is always a bunch of issues in Marvel avengers Alliance. For example the fist thing I saw when I logged into the new special operation messages. Was overlapping texts....its the same ever7y freaking time so I did not even bothering taking a picture of it this time. But yeah classic.
Another thing that often happens is the dam map ally bug. Or not bug.
So this time like many others we did not gain Isos for the new special operation the first 3 days or so.
The thing is why Playdom usually screws up the ally map, I was unsure if this was a bug or not. Because from the hope that players would pay for isos they might have removed. As it toke them several days to turn it on(yes it is back now) I actually assumed it was an intentional decision.
Of course I was wrong it was just another blunder. Which I find so weird, I am sure they just have a turn on button really for if isos are to be dropped or not. Because all the other items are the same and they have had red isos before. This means the code most all be there. And they simply just forget it...for a few days.
There is 2 ways this bug happens, well I guess its 2 bugs which are related. The other bug is that they forget to remove the Iso gain after the Special operation. This happens pretty much ever season. And it means the player is missing out on mainly sheild points(purple resource) which is even more needed now with the 2 training rooms ( another bad implemented mechanic but not a bug just badly done...)
I am getting quite annoyed about this ally map iso bug. This season it meant I missed out on at least 100 more isos which than means I will get Anti Venom 2 days later which can be a huge thing depending on when the PvP season ends.
And the next season it might be a week before they solve it which would of course mean even worse. Really annoying how this 2 bugs always happens and bottom line is that these bugs are likely just 100% human errors. Someone forge to change something from false to true and then later switch it back.
Friday, May 23, 2014
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Marvel Avengers Alliance: Best Team PvP season 15, review of new character: Falcon and Gamora
Falcon
Ag ag ag. This is another Rescue character. Anyone who have talked to me or read my anything I ever wrote even about any other game or move or females in general. Knows that I hate Rescue. I despise how meaningless she is, 100% defense, Does nothing. Just makes the match take longer time to lose.
Falcon....is the new Rescue. He got no offensive moves really. While all his moves are attacks. they do zero damage mor or less but gives great boost to the team (except the third ability which is just useless.
We can start with the third. Its Falcon's only move that does not buff the team. Its a stun + exhausted(cant get extra turns) attack. SO thats shit. Everyone is stun immune and if they aren't they got ton of removal. Stun has become almost absolute something I been analyzing and predicting for months (since last year right?). Exhaust is actually a great debuff but most will remove it. SO its only good vs the agent. And he still deals like almost zero damage. So its spending 1 turn of Falcon to prevent the agent to be able to use Quick action that is pretty much what this move does. I have used it like once. The second move is great actually and the ultimate is ok, I don't know when this third would be prioritized really.
Don't get, me wrong now. Falcon is not as bad as Rescue hes actually quite better then her but he is still a bad character (shes very, very bad). What works for Falcon is that he gives offensive oriented buffs. Buff that makes the team deal more damage. While he himself practically does nothing, the only thing he do is buffing the team. The Agent and the other character has to stand for the damage. It still better then doing nothing and just healing.
Before I go into what his moves do then - I just want to say dam he is so ugly. I know that they made Falcon fugly in the movie. But oh god his sprite in Marvel Avengers Alliance is hideous.
His first move is an Angel combo. Buffing people and giving the other 2 1 turn each while he loses the next turn. Its a combo if Angels 1th and second move. But As Angels second move has Quick action its actually just exactly the same as Angels move but Angel got other options as well. Bottom line is that its a very unimaginative design.
And well a bad move really. What happens if Falcon is left alive last? Well he won't do anything. This is the fundamental problem with Angel and of course Rescue as well. Leave them for last and they cant win.
This move cost him a turn. But Falcon can be played pretty efficient with his second move. This one gives the cyclops buff that everyone gets a counter. This will make him counter with his first move which will buff without him losing a turn. There is pretty much no reason to use his first move. Giving everyone counter is better and then often buffing them anyway.
He also gains nimble (wasp move) so he will avoid a lot + it has wild shoot so it misses a lot....yep It deals zero dmg. Have I mentioned Falcon alone cant do anything.
I mentioned Cyclops before with the counter ability (combat awareness) another character that has that is Beast, which as the original user of that but no one plays him. Another original Beast ability was the Epiphany that the next attack is critical this is what Falcons ultimate gives everyone.
SO...hes just a freaking combo of Angel x Beast.
2 really weak characters.
His passive makes all allies take lower damage at over 80% life so like the first hit. But more importantly it comes again as a 100% support character ability and its useless when hes alone.
Bottom line is that one removal e.g a scroll and just like Rescue all what he has done is removed.
0/10
Gamora
SO apparently not only Jennifer turns green when angry but also Elektra.
The Gamora design is so boring and bad. Really? Just copy Elektra and make her green that is what it seems like.
I am not a huge cosmic marvel reader but I do like Gamora. I like Thanos a lot so that is probably why.
I do agree that Gamora is an assassin type of character. So to give her some kind of assassinate attack is fine. But really playdom, just take Elektra's passive right of and then you also take Elektra's ultimate right of. Yeah not gonna cut it.
There are a bunch of characters with fatal blow (kill target if its left with 30% or less hp after the attack damage). And Elektra's ultimate original was a copy from Laura (X-23) where Elektras was the same but with Stealth. We already had Satana with a vampiric fatal blow attack and Archangel with just a fatal attack (so that was 100% just like Laura). Then my favorite is Thane with his Fatal blow on his primary attack so he can counter with it and coordinate with it etc. Thats a very strong ability to have + it has an interesting other debuff as well.
Its not that the game cant have more fatal blow based attacks, its that she has the exact same move as War(suited x-23) and Electra (-minus internal bleeding which never made any sense, really indifferent to put bleed on a character that dies.). For example their is a bunch of different passive effects with avoidance mechanics, these are similar but different. So that works fine, for example Loki avoidance and counters. Fantomex give everyone avoidance, Domino avoids and give everyone higher critical chance and so on.
So first they just took Elektra's passive 100% very, very boring. Then its just Elektra's ultimate as well. Really bad done.
The thing is that they have to be creative. Do something new.
IF I had done it I would give Gamora a weak AoE attack with Fatal Blow a type of spinning blade attack that could kill everyone that would be unique first attack with Fatal Blow that affects more then 1 but the programmers etc would not have to create a new mechanic just a reuse of the same but in a new way.
This is just 100% copy paste and its so blatantly done.
That being said, Gamora's ultimate is her real issue and well her other passive too. (PvP strength wise, shes boring regardless of how strong she is of course)
Its not that Gamora is weak shes actually kind of a mediocre decent character. Its just hat like with Falcon shes not power creeping at all. OK Falcon is a much worse case and as mentioned the warrior 3 standalone are super weak. So like I said at the stat all the 5 new characters this seasons are surprisingly weak (excluding the specific team of Hogun + Fandral).
First of all her passive sounds cool, you cannot miss. It gives everyone true strike on all attacks so no abilites can miss. But you still can!
As with all sure to hit attacks they can still mis avoidance characters or the CUBE. What this means is that in this game Marvel Avengers Alliance pretty much all misses that happens are because of the Cube. That is why I always advocate to ignore accuracy and evasion, you always need to have some basic value or else you will of course miss and with no evasion people with critical you all the time. But after a certain value you practically never miss except then from Cube or when attacking Loki etc.
Sounds good in Theory but it does nothing more or less. It do counters characters like Fandral and Mr Fantastic with their distraction (accuracy decrease debuff) spam.
Her ultimate is really utter crap. I often say, a good move should do damage + some kind of debuff and why I always denounce that Thor is a good character. Well Gamora is the otehr way, no damage only debuff and not even good debuffs. One of them is Despair prevent healing and resurrect effect not so important when she already has a fatal blow. Just like with Archangel it becomes Redundant, with Thane he at least can do it as a Quick action towards someone. Archangel with his A-iso actually can give all enemies nanoplauge that is worth ur while a great debuff despair is a decent one.
It also gives cower a 20% chance that the attack will fizzle. Not a very good debuff. Just compare it to disoriented which is a great debuff it makes them not just fizzle but hit an ally instead and it has the whooping chance of 50% to happen. Really Cower is utter shit compared to disoriented . Only reason cower was created was clearly to have it as a passive for Dr.Doom and there it makes sense as having something at 50% each turn from start is to strong so 20% a good number in line with avoidance effects.
When you think about it Cower with Dr.Doom is just like Fantomex misdirection same effect and both is 20% chance.
But Gamora..having to use 1 turn to put it one the enemy and they can remove it righ away. Horrible.
So its a shitty move. Really shitty.
Worst thing,..... its not even subtle. This is one of those abilities one would assume should be just a subtle unblockable move but it is not.
SO not only is it generally bad but it can be blocked by tanks and it triggers counters.
Putting 2 mediocre debuffs out there on everyone to get massive countered as shes a tactician too.
Really one of the worst ultimate in the game by far.
Her redeeming qualities are that its generally good to have an assassin attack and she does damage with it so she can kill someone at 40% at least.
Her second attack gives everyone mangle which can prevent a lot of abilities to be used so t hats actually strong.
It also triggers doom which her first moves put on a target. Not super good actually because Doom always get trigger eventually (if removed it triggers). That is not very meaningful.
But vs Blaster she can first doom the blaster and then mangle everyone and triggering the doom effect then its pretty good.
Shes a character with a good 3 third move and 2 decent moves and 1 decent passive. Pretty good stats. But she has no ultimate. (And a useless passive, I am just ignoring that it exists)
2/10 super unoriginal and a mediocre pvp cahracter which wont get buffed in like a year at least. I do not recommend buying her thats for sure.
I really hope Playdom will buff her ultimate add + 1-2 debuffs and make it subtle.
Ag ag ag. This is another Rescue character. Anyone who have talked to me or read my anything I ever wrote even about any other game or move or females in general. Knows that I hate Rescue. I despise how meaningless she is, 100% defense, Does nothing. Just makes the match take longer time to lose.
Falcon....is the new Rescue. He got no offensive moves really. While all his moves are attacks. they do zero damage mor or less but gives great boost to the team (except the third ability which is just useless.
We can start with the third. Its Falcon's only move that does not buff the team. Its a stun + exhausted(cant get extra turns) attack. SO thats shit. Everyone is stun immune and if they aren't they got ton of removal. Stun has become almost absolute something I been analyzing and predicting for months (since last year right?). Exhaust is actually a great debuff but most will remove it. SO its only good vs the agent. And he still deals like almost zero damage. So its spending 1 turn of Falcon to prevent the agent to be able to use Quick action that is pretty much what this move does. I have used it like once. The second move is great actually and the ultimate is ok, I don't know when this third would be prioritized really.
Don't get, me wrong now. Falcon is not as bad as Rescue hes actually quite better then her but he is still a bad character (shes very, very bad). What works for Falcon is that he gives offensive oriented buffs. Buff that makes the team deal more damage. While he himself practically does nothing, the only thing he do is buffing the team. The Agent and the other character has to stand for the damage. It still better then doing nothing and just healing.
Before I go into what his moves do then - I just want to say dam he is so ugly. I know that they made Falcon fugly in the movie. But oh god his sprite in Marvel Avengers Alliance is hideous.
His first move is an Angel combo. Buffing people and giving the other 2 1 turn each while he loses the next turn. Its a combo if Angels 1th and second move. But As Angels second move has Quick action its actually just exactly the same as Angels move but Angel got other options as well. Bottom line is that its a very unimaginative design.
And well a bad move really. What happens if Falcon is left alive last? Well he won't do anything. This is the fundamental problem with Angel and of course Rescue as well. Leave them for last and they cant win.
This move cost him a turn. But Falcon can be played pretty efficient with his second move. This one gives the cyclops buff that everyone gets a counter. This will make him counter with his first move which will buff without him losing a turn. There is pretty much no reason to use his first move. Giving everyone counter is better and then often buffing them anyway.
He also gains nimble (wasp move) so he will avoid a lot + it has wild shoot so it misses a lot....yep It deals zero dmg. Have I mentioned Falcon alone cant do anything.
I mentioned Cyclops before with the counter ability (combat awareness) another character that has that is Beast, which as the original user of that but no one plays him. Another original Beast ability was the Epiphany that the next attack is critical this is what Falcons ultimate gives everyone.
SO...hes just a freaking combo of Angel x Beast.
2 really weak characters.
His passive makes all allies take lower damage at over 80% life so like the first hit. But more importantly it comes again as a 100% support character ability and its useless when hes alone.
Bottom line is that one removal e.g a scroll and just like Rescue all what he has done is removed.
0/10
Gamora
SO apparently not only Jennifer turns green when angry but also Elektra.
The Gamora design is so boring and bad. Really? Just copy Elektra and make her green that is what it seems like.
I am not a huge cosmic marvel reader but I do like Gamora. I like Thanos a lot so that is probably why.
I do agree that Gamora is an assassin type of character. So to give her some kind of assassinate attack is fine. But really playdom, just take Elektra's passive right of and then you also take Elektra's ultimate right of. Yeah not gonna cut it.
There are a bunch of characters with fatal blow (kill target if its left with 30% or less hp after the attack damage). And Elektra's ultimate original was a copy from Laura (X-23) where Elektras was the same but with Stealth. We already had Satana with a vampiric fatal blow attack and Archangel with just a fatal attack (so that was 100% just like Laura). Then my favorite is Thane with his Fatal blow on his primary attack so he can counter with it and coordinate with it etc. Thats a very strong ability to have + it has an interesting other debuff as well.
Its not that the game cant have more fatal blow based attacks, its that she has the exact same move as War(suited x-23) and Electra (-minus internal bleeding which never made any sense, really indifferent to put bleed on a character that dies.). For example their is a bunch of different passive effects with avoidance mechanics, these are similar but different. So that works fine, for example Loki avoidance and counters. Fantomex give everyone avoidance, Domino avoids and give everyone higher critical chance and so on.
So first they just took Elektra's passive 100% very, very boring. Then its just Elektra's ultimate as well. Really bad done.
The thing is that they have to be creative. Do something new.
IF I had done it I would give Gamora a weak AoE attack with Fatal Blow a type of spinning blade attack that could kill everyone that would be unique first attack with Fatal Blow that affects more then 1 but the programmers etc would not have to create a new mechanic just a reuse of the same but in a new way.
This is just 100% copy paste and its so blatantly done.
That being said, Gamora's ultimate is her real issue and well her other passive too. (PvP strength wise, shes boring regardless of how strong she is of course)
Its not that Gamora is weak shes actually kind of a mediocre decent character. Its just hat like with Falcon shes not power creeping at all. OK Falcon is a much worse case and as mentioned the warrior 3 standalone are super weak. So like I said at the stat all the 5 new characters this seasons are surprisingly weak (excluding the specific team of Hogun + Fandral).
First of all her passive sounds cool, you cannot miss. It gives everyone true strike on all attacks so no abilites can miss. But you still can!
As with all sure to hit attacks they can still mis avoidance characters or the CUBE. What this means is that in this game Marvel Avengers Alliance pretty much all misses that happens are because of the Cube. That is why I always advocate to ignore accuracy and evasion, you always need to have some basic value or else you will of course miss and with no evasion people with critical you all the time. But after a certain value you practically never miss except then from Cube or when attacking Loki etc.
Sounds good in Theory but it does nothing more or less. It do counters characters like Fandral and Mr Fantastic with their distraction (accuracy decrease debuff) spam.
Her ultimate is really utter crap. I often say, a good move should do damage + some kind of debuff and why I always denounce that Thor is a good character. Well Gamora is the otehr way, no damage only debuff and not even good debuffs. One of them is Despair prevent healing and resurrect effect not so important when she already has a fatal blow. Just like with Archangel it becomes Redundant, with Thane he at least can do it as a Quick action towards someone. Archangel with his A-iso actually can give all enemies nanoplauge that is worth ur while a great debuff despair is a decent one.
It also gives cower a 20% chance that the attack will fizzle. Not a very good debuff. Just compare it to disoriented which is a great debuff it makes them not just fizzle but hit an ally instead and it has the whooping chance of 50% to happen. Really Cower is utter shit compared to disoriented . Only reason cower was created was clearly to have it as a passive for Dr.Doom and there it makes sense as having something at 50% each turn from start is to strong so 20% a good number in line with avoidance effects.
When you think about it Cower with Dr.Doom is just like Fantomex misdirection same effect and both is 20% chance.
But Gamora..having to use 1 turn to put it one the enemy and they can remove it righ away. Horrible.
So its a shitty move. Really shitty.
Worst thing,..... its not even subtle. This is one of those abilities one would assume should be just a subtle unblockable move but it is not.
SO not only is it generally bad but it can be blocked by tanks and it triggers counters.
Putting 2 mediocre debuffs out there on everyone to get massive countered as shes a tactician too.
Really one of the worst ultimate in the game by far.
Her redeeming qualities are that its generally good to have an assassin attack and she does damage with it so she can kill someone at 40% at least.
Her second attack gives everyone mangle which can prevent a lot of abilities to be used so t hats actually strong.
It also triggers doom which her first moves put on a target. Not super good actually because Doom always get trigger eventually (if removed it triggers). That is not very meaningful.
But vs Blaster she can first doom the blaster and then mangle everyone and triggering the doom effect then its pretty good.
Shes a character with a good 3 third move and 2 decent moves and 1 decent passive. Pretty good stats. But she has no ultimate. (And a useless passive, I am just ignoring that it exists)
2/10 super unoriginal and a mediocre pvp cahracter which wont get buffed in like a year at least. I do not recommend buying her thats for sure.
I really hope Playdom will buff her ultimate add + 1-2 debuffs and make it subtle.
Thursday, May 8, 2014
Quality Maniac: Marvel Avengers Alliance Part 5 Taskmaster
ooooo Taskmaster why can't they ever be nice to you,
You might have read my take on the Taskmaster game design
And while it sucks what Playdom have now. They of course had to also make him bugged. There are 2 bugs with Taskmaster I have seen so far and I haven't even gotten him to level 9 yet!
One of them is, well I don't know to be honest. Its either a bad game design if its intentional (which would not surprise me as hes is horrible overall) or its a bug. The effect is regardless that I have found an easy way to beat him in AFK defense at least.
Taskmaster can only have 1 class at a time. Note he stays generalist and don't swap classes like Mockingbird. Instead he do gain the class bonus if attacked by them.
But this means jack shit unless its infiltrator or bruiser. If he gets attack by a scrapper he gains the scrapper bonus - 2 attacks. But if attacked by a bruiser before his turn he gains the enrage instead losing the 2 attack bonus.
He can only have 1 class during his turn as that gives him his current abilities. But there is no reason he cant keep the counter from infiltrator etc. This means that when attacking him just force him into whatever you want as is the attacker who pick his class. The player with him (or the AI) cant swap.
Also his level 9 do give the team the class bonus while great, if you keep only forcing him to have 1 class when its his turn he cant really spread around the bonuses.
For me its either really bad designed that he wont keep the bonuses. Its one thing that only the latest decides his abilities but no reason why he loses counter etc. OR its bugged...seriously I don't know with Playdom.
Ok.
Here a real bug( 100% bug) which is a classic copy paste laziness.
You might have read my take on the Taskmaster game design
And while it sucks what Playdom have now. They of course had to also make him bugged. There are 2 bugs with Taskmaster I have seen so far and I haven't even gotten him to level 9 yet!
One of them is, well I don't know to be honest. Its either a bad game design if its intentional (which would not surprise me as hes is horrible overall) or its a bug. The effect is regardless that I have found an easy way to beat him in AFK defense at least.
Taskmaster can only have 1 class at a time. Note he stays generalist and don't swap classes like Mockingbird. Instead he do gain the class bonus if attacked by them.
But this means jack shit unless its infiltrator or bruiser. If he gets attack by a scrapper he gains the scrapper bonus - 2 attacks. But if attacked by a bruiser before his turn he gains the enrage instead losing the 2 attack bonus.
He can only have 1 class during his turn as that gives him his current abilities. But there is no reason he cant keep the counter from infiltrator etc. This means that when attacking him just force him into whatever you want as is the attacker who pick his class. The player with him (or the AI) cant swap.
Also his level 9 do give the team the class bonus while great, if you keep only forcing him to have 1 class when its his turn he cant really spread around the bonuses.
For me its either really bad designed that he wont keep the bonuses. Its one thing that only the latest decides his abilities but no reason why he loses counter etc. OR its bugged...seriously I don't know with Playdom.
Ok.
Here a real bug( 100% bug) which is a classic copy paste laziness.
Playdom just took Mockingbird tooltip text and slapped it onto Taskmaster.
First of all this makes the user thinks that it works teh same as Mockingbird which is dont as she changes to the attackers counter class while Taskmaster donteven change he gains new move set and teh class bonus of the attacker.
Here here lies the other obvious issue the text says "when changing classes" but he never do change class he just gains class bonuses. And he can trigger a turn each time he gain bonus(which are lost later one) and who then don't affect his move set.
So bad UI Design just taking it and even more bad as the abilities are not the same the text don't correspond to what actually happens in the game.
Friday, May 2, 2014
Quality Maniac: Hearthstone, UI Bug
So this bug----- GOD it has annoyed for months. Not only is it happening in a live version of the game: Hearthstone but it is also hard to reproduce.
That is the worst kind of bugs, you know its bugged you have seen it bug but its hard to know why the it happens. For example when I was working on a game last year, there was a bug that in game Audio from cut scenes would start if you were AFK at the title screen for like 5+ mins. I found that bug as I noticed since I left the game at that place and went to get food. yeah not so easy to reproduce afterwards. It did actually also happen on the NDS(or 3DS one of those) if you closed the handheld device that would trigger an "AFK" effect for the game ( I actually think this bug never got solved and is in the released version).
Anyway this bug is funny enough similar to that bug. First of all its been bugging me for months because I have seen it since I got into the close beta(I was one of the first in the world so way back last year). And it has never been solved that is of course annoying by itself. But also then I have been trying to create it my self and it has taken me some time to find when it happens.
The thing is I have found 3 ways to cause this UI bug.
And to make it worse they are not 100% occurrence rate. Sometimes doing X causes bug Y :)
This bug is that the class ability pop up. It stays instead of going away then the user moves the mouse coursers. It even stays while on other classes.
The first way to get this bug is simple but it has a very low chance.
If you have read my Black Widow bug in Marvel Avengers Alliance. I am all for Detail and Detail and efficiently. Really I don't want to brag (yes I do) but one think that makes me really good at Quality Assurance is my eye coordination of level of detail. Probably something I picked up from my years of observing my surroundings (for fun/paranoia) + years of martial art to tell how people will move and lastly a few years in user research. Its all about quickly spotting weird details with ur eyes,.
SO I noticed that this Class ability pop up was stuck and I quickly realized why it had happened and here comes the tricky part(and why I wrote the last humbrag paragraph). It happens at like a 10% of the time. Yeah really easy to get it but hard to reproduce this way.
So what I noticed is that my mouse courser was at the location of class ability button. If you think about were the end turn button is as its located on almost the same place and they cross each otehr a little, I was to end my turn when my opponent surrendered.
This means to try and get this bug again is easy I simply always end my mouse courser at that place. And through this I seen it happens very rarely -- yeah so one annoying bug.
Notice I dropped rank here (nah this images are actually from the day before I just decided to go trough this bug in the wrong chronological order...)
The other way to do it goes back to what I first talked about.
AFKing :)
If you go afk and come back the heroes class ability will get stuck like that. This happens a lot actually. Its not a 10% occurrence like the otehr thing. But, its dam tricky to reproduce.
When I said this bug is annoying I really meant, its really really annoying.
Because as Blizzard has made the game kick out players who are afk for to long. Nothing wrong with that, but it makes reproducing this task a handful. I have not found the exact time when it happens, it might not exist an exact time even (looks like not right now). And trying to reproduce it many times I get kicked out of the game;)
Well the third sure way is to tab out of the game and eventually it happens. BUUUUUT (image above) yeah the game has always had a lot of UI issues with tabbing out so that is another bug really.
I actually think there are other ways to get it. I have other ideas but all of them like the 2 I went over are % chance of it happening so its hard to say really.
That is the worst kind of bugs, you know its bugged you have seen it bug but its hard to know why the it happens. For example when I was working on a game last year, there was a bug that in game Audio from cut scenes would start if you were AFK at the title screen for like 5+ mins. I found that bug as I noticed since I left the game at that place and went to get food. yeah not so easy to reproduce afterwards. It did actually also happen on the NDS(or 3DS one of those) if you closed the handheld device that would trigger an "AFK" effect for the game ( I actually think this bug never got solved and is in the released version).
Anyway this bug is funny enough similar to that bug. First of all its been bugging me for months because I have seen it since I got into the close beta(I was one of the first in the world so way back last year). And it has never been solved that is of course annoying by itself. But also then I have been trying to create it my self and it has taken me some time to find when it happens.
The thing is I have found 3 ways to cause this UI bug.
And to make it worse they are not 100% occurrence rate. Sometimes doing X causes bug Y :)
This bug is that the class ability pop up. It stays instead of going away then the user moves the mouse coursers. It even stays while on other classes.
The first way to get this bug is simple but it has a very low chance.
If you have read my Black Widow bug in Marvel Avengers Alliance. I am all for Detail and Detail and efficiently. Really I don't want to brag (yes I do) but one think that makes me really good at Quality Assurance is my eye coordination of level of detail. Probably something I picked up from my years of observing my surroundings (for fun/paranoia) + years of martial art to tell how people will move and lastly a few years in user research. Its all about quickly spotting weird details with ur eyes,.
SO I noticed that this Class ability pop up was stuck and I quickly realized why it had happened and here comes the tricky part(and why I wrote the last humbrag paragraph). It happens at like a 10% of the time. Yeah really easy to get it but hard to reproduce this way.
So what I noticed is that my mouse courser was at the location of class ability button. If you think about were the end turn button is as its located on almost the same place and they cross each otehr a little, I was to end my turn when my opponent surrendered.
This means to try and get this bug again is easy I simply always end my mouse courser at that place. And through this I seen it happens very rarely -- yeah so one annoying bug.
Notice I dropped rank here (nah this images are actually from the day before I just decided to go trough this bug in the wrong chronological order...)
The other way to do it goes back to what I first talked about.
AFKing :)
If you go afk and come back the heroes class ability will get stuck like that. This happens a lot actually. Its not a 10% occurrence like the otehr thing. But, its dam tricky to reproduce.
When I said this bug is annoying I really meant, its really really annoying.
Because as Blizzard has made the game kick out players who are afk for to long. Nothing wrong with that, but it makes reproducing this task a handful. I have not found the exact time when it happens, it might not exist an exact time even (looks like not right now). And trying to reproduce it many times I get kicked out of the game;)
Well the third sure way is to tab out of the game and eventually it happens. BUUUUUT (image above) yeah the game has always had a lot of UI issues with tabbing out so that is another bug really.
I actually think there are other ways to get it. I have other ideas but all of them like the 2 I went over are % chance of it happening so its hard to say really.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Marvel Avengers Alliance: Best Team PvP season 15, review of The Warrior 3.
This is what you get if you google Warrior 3 thats how popular marvel characters they are.
Really who wants to play anyone of these unknown failures?
Worse so, they have to be played together. I feel I have to write this review a little different than others. I really have to stitch together them as a 1 team review more then as individual characters.
AS they are 3 and the player picks 2 its a 3!/2! = 3 different team they can be in.
Arguably there exist a few other teams with them, well first of all not with Volstagg is the weakest by far on his own. Hogun got a few other teams because of his skirmisher buff from his elixir which boosts his 2 classes, scrapper and infiltrator = follow up attack and counter attacks. Obviously Hogun then can be combined with other scrapper mainly and a countering tank for example Captain America.
Well, that all being said to play any of them in any team the player need the tankard. Without the Tankard the Hogun + X won’t work. As the Agent has to give the scrapper bonus to both of them. Really Hogun is unplayable without Tankard on Agent 100%. Fandral is the same as the player need 2 turn to set him up and he cant use the Snappy Service iso, both of them need the Tankard. Volstagg needs it less both as he is only playable with either Hogun or Fandral clearly he will also only appear in a team with Tankard.
SO TANKARD
Worst item ever to farm in the game, good job Playdom, truly atrocious design there.
But ignoring that what is so bad with Warrior 3 is clear. Not only do they have to played in pair. The agent will lose 1 slot to play them.
If there has ever been a limited character who should be cheaper to buy game wise it’s these 3.
Some games balance the cost of characters based on their option and freshness. Ok this guys are fresh(but super unknown so shouldn’t count) but they got the worst option in well I would go so far and say maybe the most limited characters ever in a RPG.
Suikdon for example have a bunch of characters who have to be played together to be really strong (out of 108 per game) but at least any character can still fight on their own
OK, so what does this mean? I am only sitting here and hating on a limited costly design approach?
Well it means super bad pvp team. Super bad trust me.
For a game that is heavy on the Meta like all these kind of games are of this genre. It’s really bad being so easily countered.
For example, Iron Patriot a good class canon AoE dps character. He is good with Emma, Magneto, War, Iceman etc. He’s good with a lot of characters. So if you have issues with him it’s much harder to anticipate what kind of team will I have to counter. If he was very popular you would have to maybe have a specific character just for him.
If the warrior 3 team would become popular (they are decently right now) its soooo sooo easy to counter them.
They are all weak to removal. They are all weak to X and Y etc. Right it’s not like you have to say, well I got issues with Hogun but if has played with Z and W its 2 completely different issues. Nope it’s the same strength. Already from here they make for bad team in PvP. Then that the Agent has to use tankard further limits of the variation of the team.
(can they at least make him look the same in different series...)
Hogun is a massive class canon with high damage but no defense. He also support the teams damage both with his skirmish and with his second move that gives all enemies flanked (follow up attack) and fumbling (counter attack) with a Quick Action move.
Hogun is truly strong so he can be used with other characters because of this. If his second move had not started with a 1 turn cool down he would easily be one of the best character in the game damage wise at least. Because even do he can many games kill someone turn 1 he is still only doing damage he got no debuffs(well he has both they do damage-_-) and so on.
Another big drawback he has it’s the same with all the warrior, let say the agent goes first to use Tankard. This will give everyone their elixir buffs. But if it’s then an enemy remover in between he won’t get to utilize it and has an almost useless performance turn 1. Volstagg is the same, while Fandral will get a turn so it’s depending on if Fandral is the first one to get a turn and so on.
While we are on the subject of Elixir they are good but also bad.
For Hogun most of all this really bad if he is the first to get as turn as you want him with Elixer buffs his first one. But another issue with the Elixir which is a huge issue for all of them and the agent is:
HEAL+ Cleanse is almost useless as well.
When any of the characters uses the Elixir (tankard for the agent) they all drink right. When this happens they also heal them self and cleanse all bad stuff.
That should be pretty good but, as the player has to do this as soon as possible to get any effect from the characters. First of all Agent need to have Tankard so all get their class bonus and then someone has to do ASAP. This will mean that the heal is useless as everyone will 50% of the games be at full life, or maybe someone has lost some life. The cleanse will 50% be useless and the other 50% of the time usually do nothing.
Then it gets 3 turn CD, running a Hogun team the game is over before the Elixir can be used again.
Ok so Hogun got some options but they the other 2 I won’t even bother going into.
Fandral - Bleeding team don’t work limited to use of Preemptive and follow up guys like Union Jack.
Volstagg - Completely useless except with another warrior.
Instead let’s review how the 3 different team composition works in the game.
Let’s start with the weakest team. Volstagg and Fandral.
This team is actually the best one to go with if you have bad stats. Because the team is both focusing on Damage over time and healing/reducing damage taken.
So in a way it’s the safest team to use, but the wining is slow and it’s only efficient when you lack enough power to use Hogun.
It’s also really bad in defense.
And I really want to emphasize on that, because it’s a pretty popular AFK team right now. Which is not weird as: 1 new characters 2 people don’t have Hogun.
But like all other DoT teams they work horrible in AFK. The longer time your team takes to wins the more the AI will screw you with their horrible decision making.
I been saying this for years and I went over why Pestilence is bad in defense and why it made no sense that he was so overall used and how he was not used by anyone over 1600 rating pretty much. Same with Fandral AND Volstagg this team is slow wining heal and got reduction from Dots and from attacks. So yeah hard to kill them but their damage is measly. Measly damage means the AI can’t get lucky and win. Anyone with good stats won’t lose to this team as with a Pestilence team.
The team strength is that it actually uses Fandral Bleeding in a good way, by giving everyone 3 bleed stacks and then attacking with Volstagg who has 2 attacks from the agent Tankard(scrapper bonus) he will trigger hemorrhaging 6 times and give them ravage.
Meaning it’s a very stable damage based on their level not on their defense / your attack power.
Then Fandral gives reduces damage taken from follow up attacks etc. and Volstagg reduces dot damage(which is a shitty thing as Agent can already do that but w.e) You won’t die easy and can then chip the enemy down.
However, this is not just horrible for defense AFK but also for attacking. Like I have writing many times before when attacking especially on the last day wining fast and efficient is one of the key factors for Adamantium. Wining slow should only be used when you lack stats.
To the Hogun teams.
Hogun AND Volstagg.
Only good thing with this is that Volstagg gets the Scrapper double attack from Agent and the Skirmisher from Hogun so he does deals some high damage. That’s it pretty much. Sometimes this team does kill them faster than Hogun AND Fandral but it’s in almost all cases it’s the weaker team.
Hogun AND Fandral.
So this is the Money team.
They do not immediately kill the enemies sometimes like with Volstagg. But Fandral with Skirmisher deal really high damage to as he will counter attacks. Because he gains Infiltrator bonus, also well I could have noted on this earlier but. Fandral is Tactician with Stealth as he always get Inf Stealth from Agent Tankard that pretty nice as well
--- And this is also true for Hogun. Hogun deal huge damage can often 1 shot (2 shot but with 1 attack) someone at turn 1 and he got Stealth too. So you can always get the right target.
Having both Fandral AND Hogun doing high damaging counter attacks and Fandral doing preemptively attacks. This team does the highest damage in the long run(which is like 2 turns I just mean they can’t always insta kill someone)
So this team got 2 stealth attackers easy to kill anyone, they counter AoE attacks and kills them.
At turn 2 when Hogun has used his presence move(second) having 2 infiltrator counters with extra damage on that its very massive(this is the same for Volstagg as well but less damage in total but more controlled). Anyway its awesome damage, this team wins at turn 2 always.
MY main point is that Agent NEEDS to have Tankard!
And
Hogun is the Key character.
So Meta wise its horrible get a character/item that counters Hogun counter 3 characters/teams.
But well The Hogun AND Fandral is a strong team I just can’t see it ever being strong in a PvP Setting as the more popular it gets the worse it gets.
Bottom line is that all these characters have an amazing shitty game design behind them. They are just Double class with abilities that boost classes. Making them super straight forward with no real brain behind it. And the game already runs on the point on how overpowered removal is. All their skills can be easily removed making them be useless. And everyone is already running removal so.....
Side Note: 0/10 All 3 Creative design wise.
Gameplay Design wise: Horrible as well most limited characters in a game ever with no bearing to affect the game.
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