Monday, November 5, 2012

Marvel Avengers Alliance: The Scrapper

Scrapper is the most common class in Marvel Avengers Alliance. Probably because Playdom seems to have lost the touch on what a Scrapper should be, the first was all marital artist, while newer characters are kinda meh in that regard. And they don't really work well with the others.   This is mainly because they have put characters like Ghost Rider and Magik as scrappers so that they could build them around their normal primary attack, as scrapper do 2 attacks against infiltrators as their class ability.

Let me tell you why most Scrappers are shit, and why there is only 1 playable Scrapper for CP.

Daredevil:

Funny that he was never that great, sure he was the best. But more importantly everyone else was shit..wolverine was ok but the rest....
Ok the thing is that many of the veteran users of Marvel Avengers Alliance. They have this super nostalgic view on how good Daredevil is, the thing is he is pretty much worthless right now. I have seen him in less then 100 games, one game I have faced him the last 2 weeks. The thing is that Daredevil got his radar sense ability making him counter attack everything. Before and he had super evasion and accuracy and so on. That got nerfed, and in the meta now counters in general is harder to pull of. So he is pretty shitty, but more importantly is that all the original scrappers, while most of them made a lot more sense then some of the ladder additions they where all shit and still are, expect as I mentioned wolverine which was decent. Thing is that wolverine cost max amount in the game (90 Command points) and because he wasn't overpowered like e.g Captain America people hated down on wolverine and still does. So Daredevil was the only playable scrapper in pvp (and wolverine for the few people that could see past him not being OP).

He do have a small synergy with this own first and third ability, and gives the enemy some debuffs. Not a very good character today. He got one of the worst ultimates in the game, it does decent damage to 1 enemy and gives that one enemy exposed. Not a good debuff, not a really strong attack etc. Daredevil clearly needs to be improved.



Wolverine:
 

Wolverine is such an interesting game design evidence and I guess a problem. Wolverine cost max amount as I mentioned but was pretty balanced when the game was new. All the costly characters when the game was released are as anyone could figure out the popular characters, Wolverine, Captain America, Spider-man, Hulk and Thor. Everyone had their own movie. But they where also all pretty badass, expect wolverine. Well as I mentioned wolverine actually wasn't that bad because he was clearly better then every other Scrapper (excluding Daredevil). But he wasn't overpowered, and the class in itself wasn't as strong as they are now(scrappers  got a big buff). So people have hated down on him ever since. The thing is that a expansive character is perceived to be better in many games, I think that's an awful design. For me, the expansive characters should just be characters you want more, like the more famous characters. However, I think that new characters can be more expansive they are new after all, and old expansive characters should have more usages, be able to be set in more groups etc. While a cheap character (15 CP) should be more 1 dimensional.

However, costumes after costumes have been released and new characters. Wolverine was balanced at the release, but after all the avengers that are in the avengers movie got new badass costumes. Suddenly they all truly where imbalanced, and Spider-man had always been the only playable infiltrator at the time( And he has gained 2 new costumes with different buffs as well).

Wolverine today really need a boost. Worst part is that is that he is so easy to compare to Human Torch. Human Torch(which I will talk more about later), could heal himself with his third ability, this healed a lot and gained him stamina, so he could always do this instead of recharge. Wolverine can and still got the ultimate that makes him gain an huge regen. This two skills are very comparable as Human Torch’s version clearly where worse but it was an third ability while Wolverine is using his ultimate. It made sense, then Human Torch got hugely boosted. Now he heals each turn, what he did before because he always (more or less) got Flame on. Wolverine is also immune to fear????? Only Spider-woman got a fear related ability and she is probably the least played character in the game. Human Torch is immune to fire damage which is the most common damage, and he is of course immune to burn. While Wolverine can remove bleeding. Yeah he can remove bleeding and be immune for 3 turns.

Needless to say Wolverines ultimate is a bad version of Human Torch’s passive.
Note: Human Torch also got a new costume making him even better....

Wolverine needs to get a new ultimate. To make him playable today, he should get the regen constantly and be immune to bleeding and immune or at least half poison damage.
I would not be surprised to see him get a new costume that makes him start with the ultimate for the first 3-4 turns.


Quicksilver:


Best Scrapper for Command Points. Simple as that.

Quicksilver got the best Passive ability in the game!
Which is that he gets 2 turns instead of 1. Not only once in a while, no he always gets 2 turns. There is no probably on it, its a solid 2 turns. I will explain why taking extra turns in a turn based game is the best thing you can do, and trust me I spend 7 months researching role-playing battle systems a ability that lets you take more turns are almost always the best. Other examples are for example several of the best cards in magic the gathering is the cards that grants 1 more turn, for example the pretty new release Temporal Mastery. In Civilization the board game, the player can research a level 4 technology (the highest tech in the game) which let the player use uranium. The player can only find uranium twice in the game all together shared by the players and it might be less then usually its zero. This technology lets the user either nuke a city or take another turn once per uranium. Its a huge deal taking another turn. OK these games a turn is better then what it is in Marvel Avenger Alliance as one turn per  less of a ting, but still what is the most commonly used item in the game? Quantum Jumper, which gives each character in the users team 1+ turn.

The easiest way to describe Quicksilvers overpowering passive is to compare him to She-Hulk. She-Hulk, which first of all is the best 15 CP heroine. She is better then 23 CP Colossus and better then 33 CP the Thing. Sure give them their costumes and they are better, but for a very low cost She-Hulk is a very good Bruiser, well the 3 90 CP are better. But she is one of the best in the early part of the game. Why? Well as you can guess, she has more turns.

She-Hulk’s second ability Burst of speed which grants her 2 turns the turn its used. And then it has a 2turn cooldown, so its like having 1.3 Turns with her. Which is really good, in PvE she can use 2 rounds for healing, she can combo her stun into her ultimate which exploits stun or just deal a lot of damage, as she is a Bruiser she gains stack attacking Scrapper so she can do 2 attacks the second one with the Bruiser class enrage and exploiting stun. Good Stuff.
Quicksilver always takes 2 turns, which is amazingly better. Not only do he act a lot more and can for example in PvE use first distress call and then deal out 2 attacks he is also sick in PvP. One thing that is a big difference even is that even if She-hulk could always take 2 turns she has to use her ability. This means that 1: Quicksilver has 4 abilities she has 3, 2: what happens if she get stunned? Well she losses her turn and cant use her double turn. while in Quicksilver’s case, he just loses his first turn. This is freaking good, so if you have a low health character and think well if I only could stun him/her before I can heal my character, think again you cant prevent Quicksilver from getting 1 turn. No ability in the game deals a double stun, so he will always get at least 1 turn.
I really, really have to emphasize how good a double turn is. And please not its not a probability passive like most others no he always gets 2 turns.

OK Quicksilver is pretty imbalanced solely from always having 2 turns and cant be stunned(arguably). But, the thing is that he got some really good abilities as well.

First of all he always acts first (99% of the time) as with Captain America. So he will always attack first in PvE. In PvP if the both players got him or Cap, well then its 50% chance who goes first of them but otherwise he will go first almost always. And its not like a chance to go first its an extremely low chance to not go first.

He is by far the best PvE Scrapper in the game. I would go so far and say he is the best character all together in PvE. Going first always and having 2 turns means you can almost always take out the first moving enemy. This will result in almost every game be a perfect win. The only character that is better then Quicksilver sometimes is Captain America as he also goes before the enemy and can use shield guard if it would be that all 3 enemies go after. However, of course the only reasonable synergy today is both of them. Quicksilver also protects captain America from infiltrators, also why this is one the new popular PvP defence teams. Together they are sick as they will go first and probably kill one character before the enemy can even move.

OK remember we are still only analyzing his passive abilities...ye pretty good guy.

Well he got 1 last passive ability, basically. As his first ability (Blinding Punches) grants him a stack of his own unique buff Quickness.  This buff gives him 10% more accuracy and Evasion per stack. Up to 5 times and as a last passive if he is attacked he will counter with his second ability consuming 1 stack. So really he got like 3 passive, all of them which are really good, as he gains 2 turn each turn he can attack twice gaining 2 stack each turn. He got super high evasion so he is pretty hard to kill as well.
Oh yeah, the Blinding Punches are also stealthed. So he can attack trough protection and cant be countered. Because he wasn't good already.
Then his second ability is Tag team, his him attacking everyone and giving them the unarmed combo debuff. Where all his attacks are unarmed and his third attack that does sick damage exploits.Well the third attack is pretty bad, it consumes all the quickness stack to deal more damage, it can many times one shot enemies.
Lastly his Fourth ability is an AoE stun, which is weak but it gains more stun chance per Quickness. And it does not consume quickness. (In defense PvP its almost always a complete stun on all the enemies)

Well his primary attack is not his normal first ability which most other has, which I honestly don't know would be better. So instead of doing a 4 Blinding Punches on a infiltrator, he does 1 Blinding Punch and 1 tag team and then again Blinding Punch and 1 tag team. If he did 4, he would gain more stacks and do more damage to a single person. But as it is now, he deals 2 full turns to 1 person and 1 full damage to the team (2 tag team is like 1 Blinding Punches) so it becomes 3 full damage turn on the infiltrator, which has lost a lot of hp and the rest has also lost some. Not that this is all stealthed as the first attack is and tag team is just a bonus, tag team also gives everyone the debuff so the next first attack on the infiltrator deal more damage and then the other 2 take more damage from the next tag team, leaving everyone with the unarmed debuff on them, which anyone else in the team can use (if they use unarmed combo moves) or himself with for example the forth ability.

Well he do have an awful low attack power, one of the lowest in the game if not the lowest( I haven't checked but it could be). So that's they way he is balanced, not. As of course anyone with half a brain stacks 8 isos with attack(+ something else as that gives more total stat) on them. Sure he don't get up to the power of a blaster with 8 attack. But as he do 2 turns, he will deal more damage. And he goes first,,,,and he is stealthed and he can stun everyone and he can do a massive finish attack...

Well I actually really like Quicksilver I think he got the best design in the game and he is really fun to use. And really do not listen to some nostalgic loser, Quicksilver is the hero you should buy asap. He also one of the heroes to get Ghost Rider, so he is a clear no brainer to get. His attack is really low, so he wouldn't be that overpowered if he just didn't always take 2 turns. Because otherwise he got a great design so I would not wanna see his move change.

I would say if not the probability was fucked up, that he should have a 50% chance to get a second turn each turn. That would balance him, but in defence he would probably always trigger that as the AI cheats. So if Playdom is not to change that, I would say let him have a passive where he starts with 2 turns and then automatically gets a second turn every second turn after the first turn. That would make him still be playable in PvP as he can still deal huge damage at the begging but he can still be stunned because the second turn triggers after completing the first turn. . And in PvE it wouldn't really matter as you should have won before the second turn most times and in the next wave in PvE would reset him so he would get his 2 start turns again.


Limited edition:

So Playdom 3 latest limited characters are all Scrapper for some reason, no one of them actually make sense being a Scrapper. As I mentioned I think its all about that they have designed the character to heavily around their first attack. Well in Deadpools case it just seems like they didn't know what to do with him.
Note: I am counting in Deadpool because he will be locked for a month.

Well, obviously all these characters are imbalanced.




Magik:


Well I don't really feel she should be a scrapper, its to make her first attack work.

Magik is really good, but I actually think shes just slightly overpowered. Magik gains a stack from her normal primary attack, which she later can use to power her other abilities. This is the reason she is a scrapper as she then gain 2 stacks right away if she faces an infiltrator.

I want to note something important here. Stop using her in defence you noobs. Seriously, the person that programed her AI, fucked up so hard. Magik is meant to get those 2 stack and then use her ultimate for the most part, the computer only does her first attack. In the last 20 games I faced her I have never seen her do anything else then her first attack. Everyone knows she is worthless in defence, sure she will instantly kill an infiltrator but that’s because of her other abilities.
Another reason she is a Scrapper is because she can trigger that Ahriman's appears from hell. She can also make anyone trigger a fire attack after they are attacked or after they attack, this is one of the Phoenix 6 abilities. For the other 4 (where the fuck is Namor???) they got costumes which gives them a passive chance to trigger for anyone in the team, this is Magik’s default passive.

What this means is that she, can attack twice trigger 2 demon attacks and trigger 2 fire attacks. She is built around this very heavily. And like the other Phoenix powers, for a weird reason they still can trigger after she is dead.

I actually think she is just slight overpowered, because she is a glass canon as she dies very easily in defence. I usually just instantly kill her before she can move most games. Even when I play with Spider-man(infiltrator, as the scrapper class don’t take much less reduced damage. Which will usually trigger some of her demon attacks. And that is what I would say should be nerfed. She is ok, if her AoE Ahriman loses their poison, an AoE dot triggering all the time is kinda sick. Its really good. Her summoning and fire deals a lot of extra damage, its many small attacks resulting in a big chump of health on everyone. And then that one of them can do DoT everyone, sure it can miss but usually it will DoT at least 1 person often 2. And as it will trigger usually 2 times per game (for me as I usually kill her of first) that is enough to get everyone poisoned. And I can see how for other users it most be worse if they cant kill her fast enough she will of course trigger this many more times.

Remove that, or at least changes it so that he single target Ahriman gives a DoT and the AoE just deals damage.



Ghost rider:
 
First of all,,..............................why is he on the freaking Bike!!! I guess I am to used as him from Ultimate marvel Vs. Capcom (where he is my main character) that he stands on his legs. But, I mean come on, this just looks ugly. And his model in the game is so huge. I wouldn't be surprised if people have miss clicked on him when trying to attack someone else. That's why I always attack people using their portrait in the action bar.

Horrible design, his passive will trigger constantly in PvP defence. First of all his defence against no magic triggers all the time and then he cant die if hes lucky. The AI is always lucky, people haven't played him enough yet. As they have not unlocked him or as I have seen a lot have him at to low level. Shortly people will complain a lot on how he resurrected 10 times in a row.

Secondly he should not be a scrapper, this is again just like with Magik to support his first primary normal attack.

Ghost Rider got his own debuff going Sin. This will lead to people stacking sin creating items. A good design to get people to buy Sin items, bad design in that sense it removes any intelligence from the user it actually removes customizability. Everyone will run the same Ghost Rider boost items pretty much.

The problem that both Magik and Ghost Rider has is that they are both build around stacking with their normal attack. Ghost Rider goes away from this a little by adding Sin on defence when him or his allies is attacked as well. However, this point in that he exactly like Magik grants a trigger passive effect, which is also true for Human Torch and Gambit, and all the Avenger Suits. So the game is going more and more towards passive trigger effect to further make characters good. Beast the newest character also have a passive trigger effect....
But the main problem with these two is that if they don't fight a infiltrator. It will be hard to stack. What  this means is that in PvE both characters are great. Especially together. Both in PvE they will be “imbalanced” when fighting against infiltrator because then they can build their stack etc get all their mojo going.
This is a big issue because that just makes them game even more uneven, either you have a character that is OK maybe even little weak on the side (if we Ignore that the AI probability is wrong) but when in the right position way to powerful.
Another issue is that they are both Scrappers so is Deadpool. This leads to that playing a Infiltrator then is less and less good.


But mainly I don't like how they are built way to much around their normal attack it will make them really hard to play in PvP as the user has to face the right enemies, if it weren't for their overpowered passives they would not be used much.

Here's comes all the unplayable Scrappers:


Spider-Woman:


Has always been like the worst scrapper in the game. I have never seen her in pvp. I have played like 3000 games in pvp so she cant be played much-_-

Weak ultimate it debuffs the enemy team, compare that to for example scarlet witch the debuff all enemies and buff your own team (with random buffs, but all of them basically better then Spider-womens).
However, I would like to note that actually many characters ultimate is also their weakest ability. Which is really weird.

Only thing she got is a decent counter ability as it dots them. But she don't have any synergy with biofeedback(the dot) which again can be easy compared to Human torch, who always “counter” melee attacks and give them burn. But he got a great combo with burn so, this is of course then true for her normal attack that then grants biofeedback. And Human Torch gives burning automatically, she has to pay one turn to get a counter attack for 2 turns.
The thing is when the game was new, the only good thing with Spider-women was that she was the only character that could give enemies biofeedback so then at least she had a unique dot and she could potential be played. But now that dot can be applied with weapons etc, especially as the very, very popular weapon Fualteater gives both burn and biofeedback, making her pretty useless.
Second ability is the actually dot attack. And her first ability is a basic attack that is weak have no utility at all and don’t synergy with herself at all or any other character.

Spider-Woman is the weakest and worst Scrapper by far. Don't waste your Cp on her, she needs a big boost to maker her playable,
Again I could see a costume that makes her start with her counter ability, however it wouldn't be enough for her it would end to soon and she got no synergy with anything. She needs a remodel. 






Luke Cage:
 
+ good that Danny and Cage have a synergy, well its kinda needed. Luge Cages strongest attack gets a bonus from exploit combos like many other scrappers but he cant create that debuff himself.

Luke is a tank, but he is a scrapper. So hes like the only scrapper tank in the game (excluding alternative costumes). Does that make him good? Unfortunately he got one of the worst protect abilities in the game, his ultimate is a protect for 4 turns that's a long time. But it don't do anything, other characters who tank with their protection get for example reduced damage he don't. He can get a counter attack ability on, by doing his first ability. But then that ability has to be used. Furthermore, he only protects against single target attacks.
And his second and third ability are really shitty, they are just bad.  Hes the worst tank in the game, at the game starts he was arguably good because there wasn't any tanking scrapper expect him.


Sif:
 

Only good ability she got is her passive, Asgardian. Which actually is a really good passive. But all her abilities are really bad, they do combo will with each other but hey are still so lack lusting. She got a new costume that grants her first 3 attacks a guaranteed critical. She is still bad, and the costume looks ugly.
First of all shes like a bad Wolverine, as she is based around getting them to bleed and then comboing that with ravage. Bleed is the dot that stacks the highest (of the original dots in the game) up to 5. However, 1 stack does half damage of what burn,chilled etc does. Ravage makes a bleed dot do as much damage as the others. So Wolverine who has a double bleed attack, and when attacking infiltrator he then gives them 4 bleed, Sif has a single given bleed as her normal primary attack.
Basically shes like a half wolverine, both with a better passive.
Then she can give everyone forty (25% more increased defence) while Thor give everyone strengthened instead(25% more damage, much better). This also gives her a buff making her next attack a guaranteed critical. Well as she now start with that for 3 turns anyway(obviously we player her with costume) that's a redundant double stacking next critical that wont do much. This leads to that if the user is playing her he/she waits for 3 turns to use the third ability, as other wise it would be more or less like wasting 1 turn.
Her second ability is the primary damage attack. As it exploits critical and exploits tenderize (bonus damage from slashing attacks), which it creates by itself. So its also a pretty boring character, using her with the costume the user will just spam the second ability, first time as it do deal more damage with critical and then it leaves the tenderize on them. Then next time its used it will deal a lot more damage, use it again, and use it again. Use the team buff, use second ability again.
I don't even know when its planned that the user should aim on using that half ass bleed attack or the ravage attack. Against infiltrator she will do the bleed attack for free, but in almost all cases it will never be worth using her ultimate to land ravage over a much stronger attack(second ability). + Dots are not that good in the current meta


Iron Fist:
 
Is  pretty much the best of the low cost cp guys. Because his heal is sickly good, his first and second ability combo together. However, he got pretty much the worst ultimate in the game.

Iron First 2 first two abilities work well together, one gives unarmed combo debuff, the exploit combo set up. Then the second ability of course have exploit combo and it got deadly critical so if it critical with a 35% chance they can very often instantly die.
Then he got a heal, that can be used on anyone in the team to restore them to full Health(Depending on his attack but it heals a lot so just below full Hp normally).
These are 3 good skills, especially for PvP.
But then....he got hearth of Shou-lou. This is one of the absolute worst ultimates. It gives Iron First a buff that boost every stat, very little. It do last for 100 turns, so its possible to stack Hearth of Shou-lou very high. But, obviously that cost huge amount of turns. There is absolute no room in this games meta in PvP to stand and cast a self buff that grants so little each time. It if at least was to everyone it would maybe be usable. Or if it granted a lot more stats. Another way could be that when he uses it, he removes all debuff from himself. Then he would at least be really good in 1v1.

-He is getting a new costume so I think he will be really good in pvp, well depending on what the costume will give. I could see something like getting a hearth of Shou-Lou per turn.




Deadpool: (unreleased both 100% revealed)
 

What to say really, hes Imba! He has been nerfed in damage already before his release. The thing is that Mockingbird does so sick damage from her mocking blow, which has paragon exploiter. Deadpool’s ultimate also has this and he can create so many debuffs on the opponent, which increases the damage of a paragon exploiter attack.
He probably will be really bad in defence because he need to be used in sequence order meaning first ability-second-third-Fourth. But In offence he will one shoot kill anyone with the last ability(given they have some debuffs on them)

This will create a bad loop 1000 winners will have him, now in the next coming days. Then another PvP tournament will start (I assume) where they will have him and no one else until the next PvP tournament ends. Which he will be released to the general public. This means they will have him to win easier, he will be a really good offensive character. They will again and get to the top 1000(or hopefully a higher number next time).

That he is a scrapper don't make sense at all, am I the only one who have read a Deadpool magazine.  I have read each number of Cable and Deadpool, and the newest Deadpool solo, deadpool corps etc. And I started reading Deadpool at the around Cable and Deadpool 9-10. When you think about it I been reading Deadpool monthly for around 9 years, man I liked Deadpool before he was popular. Which honestly made him a lot worse, now its to much mainstreaming. I love Uncanny X-Force, but Deadpool is not much acting as Deadpool in it. Hes there thanks to popularity. Spoiler alert
In the newest Deadpool comic (63) he clearly outwitted T-Ray with using a bomb in the detonator. he is a tactician clearly. 




Summary:

Scrapper are shit-_- Of the CP unlockable Scrappers only really Quicksilver is worth having, the are a lot better Scrapper trough alternative costumes. However, the limited edition Scrappers work very good as anti-infiltrators.

Friday, November 2, 2012

Marvel Avengers Alliance, most enjoyable social game, but with a lot of issues.




Now I will analyze a game warm to my hearth

Marvel Avengers Alliance, developed by Playdom.

Why?
The thing is that I am usually not a huge fan of the different facebook games or in general social /casual games as I am super hardcore gamer if anyone ever was. This is why I like this game so much, because its genuinely a good game. It do have a lot of issues....and it do get repetitively so.... but still its an actual joy able game especially the begging of the game the first 20 levels.

I will go into mainly the issues of the game, because its kinda easy to explain the games system.

First of all the games gameplay is a typical Turn-based role-playing game. This is something I am a out most expert on (my master thesis is about RPGs). So take my word for it--- its a very common system. And to the games defense, it do reuse a lot of enemies...find me an RPG that does not do that. FF13 has like 10 different wolfs with different colors/backfangsthingy.
The player takes the role of an agent, with 4 slot of equipment, the player do start with lower slot and then unlocks more after character development for a while (also standard in many games). The player also have a suit, which can be 1 of the 6 different classes. And the player can set Isos in it, working similar to for example gems in Diablo 2. So its a customizable pattern, the user can have a suit that gives 2.4.6 or 8 slots. Obviously better suits will also be unlocked as the player progress in the game. And there are a lot of different Isos, so the user can customize + with that the 4 equipment is truly equipment and why I don't use the word Weapon. The user can have 4 weapons but more commonly the user will have different gadgets that grant different buffs, and 1-2 weapons.
This is a good part of the game the user have a lot of freedom. Furthermore, the user will have 2 heroes with them. Mainly the heroes are Avengers (given by the name) but some other characters from the Marvel Universe is playable, surprisingly not its mainly X-men characters.
I am not gonna discuss what characters that should be or not be playable (an extremely common thing user do on the games forum), well Ok maybe in another later post but not right now. But I found many users kinda funny, in their for example hatred for the newest released character. Beast, who is both an Avenger and an X-man and he toke the Avengers side in the recent Avenger vs X-men storyline, like Wolverine btw. So for me they are both more Avengers then X-mens, in the current story of the comics.
Back to the game, the user has 2 heroes from the Marvel universe.



For example Captain America here, this is my Cap on level 12, the max level of the game.
Then the user gain access to also suiting a hero with 8 isos. So a lot of customizability as long as the user character develop the characters. I have my Cap with 8 all round isos. Because he got the most even statistic in the game, so this makes him be really super all around.
(I am not given an example of my hero as I don't wanna show my PVP items coming to that later)

The user do have to unlock the champions something that is way hard now days and level up with them, I will cover the issues soon-_-

The game is still have some really good design, each character has 1 of 6 (5 originally) classes. Captian America is a tactician. While he also have a alternative costumes making him a Bruiser.





Each class their own strength and weakness and most importantly the game has a heavy Rock-paper-scissors gameplay design pattern. Each class is strong against one other class while having a huge weakness to another one.
Its a very interesting part that it is not the triangle that is common to find. But it looks like this







Class.png

Meaning its is way more complicated. This gives for many interesting battles against the enemies in the game as its not a straight Rock-paper-scissors but a more complex on.
Note the 6 class is the generalist, which have no weakness nor strengths and in the begging of the game only the player could be this and it was not so common to be it anyway, now however there are 3 generalist characters as well so its starting to become a class.

This of course also affects the meta game in PVP by a huge margin, well at least in theory.

I like this system a lot, first of all. The user has to think about class synergy and then about character synergy. Lets not forget that the user has to also consider what he/she should have equipment as well. So its a lot of customizability, while still being a super ordinary turn based rpg system.

Another function of the game is the research system, the user can research stuff and then buy them mainly. Usually it is not many things that actually is worth researching expect Isos and gadgets. But at least it does feature a version of a crafting system in a game, typical to have in an RPG so why not.

The user needs to gain some different game resources to unlock heroes or buy items etc. And here of course is where the monetizing for the developers comes in.


the + is of course where the user can either ask their friends or convert their gold to the resource. Or then buy gold for real money. Gold is the important resources as it can convert to the others, expect Silver,,,but Silver is kinda easy to get anyway so....
The meter is my current Energy, of course the user can only do a certain amount of battles per day. 60 energy is the max and 1 battle cost 10. 10 energy is regiand per hour. In theory the user can do 24 battles, the user can also gain gifts. Where 50 is the max and that can be for example energy items, giving another 100 energy(they are worth 2 energy each), and the user can loot other peoples town, given something like 20-60 energy per day. Meaning it is way important to have friends. Most people will probably play the game 2-3 times per day. So that's like 15 battles I would say. And by visiting friends and by gifting the user then get another 15 battles.


Issues
Ok lets get into the dirty issues, first of all the game is a pay to win, clearly so pvp is kinda --- but normally its total fine because people really need to spend a lot of money to get ahead. I haven't spend a dime, but I got the best gadgets etc, as the user still earn gold in the game so I think its decently OK.

The silver on another had is weird.

First of all the user gains silver by doing flight operations. This is sending away a hero on a timer. The user has 1-8 flights, and it cost huge amount of silver to uppgrade them and then it cost 1 gold per level of the plane or 1 friend has to accept, another reason having friend is a big deal.
This is such a big deal I started getting fake friends to be able to upgrade flights, because its enough to have 1 friend which you can send back and forth gifts with. But he/she can only fill one spot per flight, so for example 6 persons are needed for a level 6 plan x 8, meaning it would be a lose of 40 gold (which is a lot!) if I didn't have 100+ fake facebook friends.
As I mentioned the user cant transform gold to silver, I don't get this. There probably is like no one that ever buys silver. Furthermore the items in the game that the user can buy, cost way to much. Which has been a problem that made many users quite, when in the early stages of the game was reveled that people had different silver prices, some had for example 100 silver for a medic pack, while others had 400 etc. So it was  big difference.  
Consumable items are very costly, isos are expansive but you don't need to buy so many. This leads to for example in my images I have 1million silver, I can buy a lot of isos they cost around 8k. The only thing money leads to is when leveling up characters, which cost a lot at higher levels. 300k to level from 11 to 12(the last level) Research also uses a lot of silver but its rarely anything worth researching. And it takes time to gain the needed experience to level up.
This leads to that silver is kinda pointless, it is easy enough to earn the silver to be able to level up as it don't happen to often on higher levels, normally a user is probably leveling up 2 characters and the user can only train one at a time. If the user would buy a lot of items, fine then silver would be empty and I guess Playdom earn some money from Silver buyers.

Another silver issue is the weird timing mission in itself






As can been seen in the first flight operation image. There is something seriously wrong with the games balance to the time the user spends. Obviously the system is to make people log in, several times per day to send the heroes or stay online constantly to send them on shorter. In theory this is a good way to keep the user. So why does the 20 minutes mission give more money then the 10 mission??? Someone fucked up simple said. Then the 1 hour mission is horrible just slightly better then 20 minutes. 1 more EXP? 50 more silvers a negligible difference.
Then on the later 12 and 24 hours they give so little its almost pointless. As I said I do understand the design, but the long ones should be able to give a little more. And obviously the difference between 10min, 20min and 1hour is wrong.

Furthermore the system is so annoying. Before the user had to read a message that they shouldn't send if the characters are full on exp. Luckily this have been taken care of, so the user only once have to click in don't show me this message again. However, its once per game session....really weird why cant it save this. This is the same when trying to battle with heroes that are full on experience.
But the worse offense is the list of the heroes that the user can send. OK. I don't know what programing languish is used. But why is the game creating a new array each time the user wants to send someone. OK it has to work like this, the game check the users current available heroes, they will be stored as an vector, commonly addressed as an array (or a 1 dimensional matrix to complicate stuff), each element in the array should be 1 hero. Which probably is another array having the statics etc or an object at least.. and son on. The important part is that the game should already have a stored list of heroes. And the game sorts them after highest level, which is a good in a max money gained way. Because higher the level, the more bonus the flight gains. However, the experience from sending is actually huge, its the best way to gain experience to the characters. What do I always send? My lowest leveled heroes so they can experience, currently for me its Quicksilver. So first of all, why cant the user decided how he/she wants the list to be ordered. Or even better why cant the user set up a list by them self.
But the biggest problem, is that it randoms a new list each time. Its very confusing, say I am training character A. B. D. E, G, in my current list. Each character is level 9, so they all are on the same level, so we cant sort it after something like levels. That’s fine then to randomize a list I agree with that, but......it changes each time. So on my first operation I get the list I had as an example. I send A right away, as I want A to get experience. I know now that I want to press A again next time as the B should be moved to A in the list. But no,,,,,,it has randomized a new list again. This makes no sense what so ever, suddenly its H,J,R, T I have to train so I have to scroll the list. When the user has maxed a couple of characters, the first pages will be full of level 12s. So its natural to try and remember the order to make time. Another problem I have with this is that....the computing is just unnecessary. The first time the user is pressing flight op, the system should have a able list of heroes. When the user has send one hero just move all the heroes right from the send hero one step to the left, to make a new list just cost computing time.
This should be improved needles to say.

Lastly, the system only let the user send 1 hero a time. I don't get this either. Because the user will regardless log in to the given time, for example for me its 20 minutes mainly (as its imbalanced good) and send them all again. But this just take time for me, to press each plane 8 times press one hero etc. The system should have an easy send button, simple said all the 8 first heroes in the list, currently this would be the most money given heroes. This would not make people log in less, just make it less tedious for the user. Actually I think some users would log in more, as the game well, would be less tedious.


Shield Points
Is the purple resource, a completely worthless resource. Nothing more to say really when the user have 50+ friends the user gains way to much to spend. However, it has to be traded or looted so its in the game to force the user to get friends.


Command Points
Command points or as often called by the users, CP. Is the blood of the game, gold gives the user some badass weapons or gadgets, but is mainly the CP people want. 1 Gold only becomes 2 CP so its not cheap to buy them. CPs are used to unlock heroes, or to unlock costumes for the heroes.

Ok that is all fine. I don't say that resource system is a problem. The problem is how the user is to acquire the CP. Before a dreadful patch -_- The user could farm CP by dieing at Epic Bosses, because Epic bosses would always drop 1 CP after a while. This made CP actually be very easy to acquire. I have at least 1 avenger suit per movie avenger + 2 on the better ones e.g Cap, Thor. This was bad, so Playdom removed that. I think that was the right thing to do, it was kinda silly and the gameplay got boring, because even do it was easy to gain CP. You still want the freaking CP. So I farmed like around 500 on Dr.Doom. This made all my interaction with the game in PvE, 1 boss which I died to on purpose to make sure I gained 1 cp per 10 energy. So that was bad, but the “fix” created another issue, its way to hard now to get CP.
The user have always been able to gain CP after defeating bosses, a win means a roulette spin which can grant items, gagdets, weapons or CP. A 5 staring a mission is also 5 CP. 5 Staring is done by beating the same stages over and over again.
The roulette thing is completely luck based, so it don't produce much CP. The 5 staring is not possible more then once per stage so its an finite way to gain CP. After playing the game for some time the user can now only rely on the share luck of the roulette.

So its a really tedious task to get CP now. I would say, make it a little easier, not much I understand they cant just give away CP. My solution to this is simple, make CP drop from fights, even in PvP again but with a low chance. That would result in maybe 1-2 extra CP per day. The thing is that its a solid 2 CP per day. I have played for like the last 5 days without any CP. Sure bad luck, but of course I get frustrated and think about quiting and starting to play less and less.  This would still be a random luck, so people would play more to trigger it.


The Classes

Ok before I go into PvP the biggest issue in the game, lets look at the classes as their imbalanced is a large part of the issue in PvP.

The clear problem is that the rock-paper-scissor is edged. It is not as simple in the game that a rock always crushes a scissor, of course that would make the game boring so that's good. But, the paper crushes a rock harder then it crushes a scissor there we got trouble.
Then there is a lot of problems, with some character bypassing the weakness or that it is an uneven number of character per class + that while the classes started out as a thematic to the marvel characters fighting style, 1 of them now is broke away from that.


Scrapper



Let start with Scrappers, because they recently gained a buff making them way stronger. Most people think other classes will gain buffs in coming patches, probably but this game don't really run so smooth on buffing one class at a time. IT would be one thing to improve a class that is clearly underpowered, like for example infiltrators was(coming to them after this). But, this felt kinda weird. But the biggest problem with Scrappers are: First of all the theme, Scrappers are supposed to be the martial artist of the game, the close combat fighters. Characters like Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Daredevil and Wolverine. But now characters like, Magik and even worse Ghost Rider was put in there (also unreleased Deadpool which should be a tactician,,,). This is funky, but worse it messes with the gameplay. The first scrapers where better designed, because they where focusing on just, that fighting. They have attacks granting the enemy debuffs that increases damage from attacks that are done with bare hands etc. They work a lot better together then as well in PvE taking 2 martial artist. Later added characters are kinda....not fulfilling the requirement of being a Scrapper. This leads to bad synergies both with heroes and with the users own character the “agent”.

Furthermore, the actual class boost, is sick. They attack twice into a Infiltrator. And then gain a second attack on any target for 1 round. This is way, way better then for example Bruisers (clearly the weakest class) And arguably better  then tactician. Tactician gains another turn instead, which is usually a lot better but it cost stamina, but now when they can keep their buff to attack others...

Infiltrator


Have high evasion and are the stealth characters in the game. I like most of the characters that is this class it suits them. However, their newly added boost is so bad.

The thing is that, while its a good boost as it grants 30% more attack damage, makes them counter(this was the original boost and why they sucked before) it also grants them stealth on all attacks. The problem with this is so clearly to me, but seems to have been ignored by most people. This is retarded... the 30% fine that's good. But the stealth boost, most of the Infiltrator have already stealth attacks so for a character like Sue Storm, this boost is solely a 30% attack boost. While for a character like Spider-man or Gambit its a huge boost as they have zero stealth attacks. Thing is, those are also the best Infiltrator in the game, and now then even better. While the absolute worst Infiltrator  Nightcrawler, is now even worse as all his attacks are stealthed. Sue at least have shields etc, Nightcrawlers whole deal was that he could bypass protection and don't get countered, that was his only redeeming quality.
Very weird, very imbalanced boost.

Blaster

Are the Damage guys. They are glass canons and freaking instantly kills bruisers. Their class boost is the one that crushes the most, and is truly like a paper against rock. They can often 2 shoot a bruiser or 1 shoot if the users PvP difference is big.
Far too good.

Brusier


First of all, the game has far to few bruisers. Which is even more funny, when the game now have way to many Scrappers. And none of them can be played in PvP.
Bruiser is such a bad designed class. They are tanks, they have a lot of defence. Their counter Blaster ignore defence and kills them right away. Given that blasters should do more damage to them its jut becomes ridiculous as the better bruisers are not just tanky, they tank. By covering the allies. This means they die faster as they will just get instantly killed.... the best tank in the game has always been Captain America and hes a Tactician. He do have a bruiser change, but is shit as then he will just die.

This class needs a buff so bad, also their bonus is the worst in the game. Then engage stack is often nothing as their increase defence don't help them against Blasters, their damage can often be mitigated by avoidance. 2 attacks are much better then 1 strong attack in this game by far.

Tactician


The last class, I think they are the best balanced class right now. They gain 2 turns against Blasters a big bonus, but they usually have AoE attacks which mean they get heavily countered by Infiltrators.


Heroes

Yes of course there are overpowered heroes that is to be expected, the problem is heroes that kinda ruins the game, mainly by going against the meta game to much of the classes.
I just mentioned Tacticians getting countered by Infiltrators, well Emma Frost does everything in mental attack or a stun, where stun turns of counter attacks. So....she 100% bypass the Infiltrators.
Emma Frost deliver a lot o problem in the game one other problem is that she is hard to kill but not hard to beat, this means long games. Long boring last part of battles.
I will go into each hero in detail, so I leave this for now but just another example then. I usually beat her with Annihilus Human Torch. Hmm that's right I beat her with a Blaster that should be weak to tactician, he can just stand still and win the game with his passive abilities.

New heroes are clearly stronger then old ones, new Beast counters all protectors. Scarlet Witch is ridicules stronger then all other Blasters in Defence and so on.


Costumes / Suits

Follow the same issue, of power scaling out of proportion. Is the same as in Magic the gathering, modern 1-2 mana drops are sickly better then old cards for the same cost. All new heroes are better and then costumes have to be released that make old heroes good again. Also costume number 2 is better then 1 and so on.

They have to go back and rebalanced many, many of the older characters. The thing is that I kinda like the idea with costumes still, as FF got their costumes they where playable again. Still it makes an old character cost a lot then to make it playable, the unlocking cost + the best current costume. This is ok I guess for cheap heroes, but with shit heroes like Wolverine who cost full price of 90 CP, he will hopefully be buffed by his standard form.

Side Note: Human Torch, sick passive of regain HP each turn is the same as Wolverines ultimate(4th skil) but Torch is also immune to fire damage attack(which is amazingly good in pvp) and he deals fire damage back to people and make them burn. So wolverine is like a super bad human torch.





Player versus Player.


Lastly PvP or rather Player versus AI controlled users team in defence. Ye the games PvP is actually the user setting up a defend them. But the user cant do anything about it.
Its horrible, I have played many browsers game before, for example Naruto wars and Soul arena (which I was the best player in the world in) and those games are very similar to this game. Turn based strategy game with a 3v3 set up and each character had 4 moves so really similar,. But it was a real PvP where the users would only face other users. I don't get why they cant program this. They clearly have enough users so it wouldn't be a far to long waiting time.

OK Given that they game might have to have a huge amount of Use of chance, so its casual. Why not at least let the user set a up a Gambit System like in Final fantasy 12 or in Dragon age: Origins. That would make the user programate their AI defence, meaning the programmer at Playdom don't have to work so much -_-

The really big problem with this is that the system is set up, so that defending is done with a really crappy AI that instead then have amazing luck. Clearly the AI don't have luck but the probability is changed for the AI. For example Mockingbird has a 50% chance to gain a turn when she changes class. This trigger at around 90% of the time, this might sound like I have a huge gambler fallacy now but trust me anyone that have every player this game now its riddled with sick probability right for the AI.

The biggest issue is then that probability based abilities, such as the Phoenix 5 customs triggers constantly. Making some characters be way better in defense then in offense, and it becomes a ridicules PvP games, where the attacker have to simply hope stuff don't trigger to often.
Furthermore, costumes as I mentioned are better and better new characters are better and better. Many of them trough passive abilities, all alternative costumes grants passive abilities. Many that are then probably based. Meaning that PvP becomes worse and worse.

Another issue, is the % to gain the rewards now in the Tournament,. First of all the tournament is just fucked up to me, when its not real PvP. The other problem is how its soooooo badly implemented

First of all I am in the 1% top of the world and just below gaining Deadpool, or was at least I actually usually win in defence so I might make it. Anyway my point is that I have experienced this games PvP a lot.
When I started in the tournament I was level 95 this made me, face 100+ people which have 1 more PvP armory tablet.
In this tablet the user can add in items to gain more PvP power. Its a joke that a tournament lets people at different number of tablets of PvP face each other. I have a very low chance beating them. I then instead power leveled up to 100, and then stoped leveling at best I can. So currently every 50% of my battles I have 1 more tablet then my opponent whichusually  grants me a free win.

That's one large issue, that they don't have brackets.
Secondly, they pretty recently added in PvP bonus for number of heroes and their level. This fucked me so hard, I still cant sit. I had so few heroes. I had invest all my CP even thought I had farmed a lot when it was possible to get alt costumes to everyone I had. The only reason I have trouble getting to adamantium league and wining Deadpool is that I got so low base stats on my characters during PvP. If I had knew that would happen I would of course instead now have every hero.
A good system to make people play less wanted heroes( gotta catch them all) but a really annoying system to release without many warnings before and then a tournament before the user have time to unlock many more heroes.

Thirdly - The imbalance is just way to off, I face Emma Frost  at least 50% of the games. I still win, but it gets boring. TO have a PvP tournament with good rewards the PvP have to be actual fun. The game has to much of an optimal Path as everyone knows their is only a few characters that works. The addition of beast is a good step in countering the super common Captain America, however he is still countered by Emma Frost,,,,,so I assume it will become even more Emmas as people are afraid of Beast.  A common issue when releasing new playable content in a complex meta game, they might have solved one issue but empowered another.



Summary:

I enjoy this game, but it has a lot of issues that I have presented here that I hope will get fixed.
+ I will soon analyze each character, which will point out mainly how many are worthless.