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.

 However it is not very great so he is limited to synergy like him and Quicksilver is pretty decent. Fandral can be combined with other preemptive teams, with evasion teams (bad but ok its possible) and bleeding team (also bad because he only applies bleeding). Really if anything doesn’t try bleed with Fandral I see this 1 game per day roughly, not only am it easy to remove bleeding but as he got no moves that exploit bleed. He can’t actually use the bleeding he set up with his ultimate (which is what people like with him) so when facing a Fandral + Bleed character. By killing the Bleed first Fandral is left pretty useless.

 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...)

Team wise, both Hogun team are much stronger then without him.
 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.

Quality Maniac: Hearthstone logical rule issue, Molten Giant

First of all, I am cool okey, I was playing deck X before X was popular.

 Really, in this case I was actually playing the Molten Giant Warrior deck, with charge when you have no life. I was running azure drake and Sylvanas etc. I was seriously one of the first with that deck.
 I played Molten Giant a lot ( I am super original/creative). And still I did not see the issue with the text on Molten Giant.

I might have realized this as I have been playing a lot of Super Street Fighter 4 (Arcade Edition) lately. And when you think about it the way Molten Giant text rule says is that it become easier to play as the player take damage, this is the same as with Ultra attacks in Street fighter and a lot of other fighting games.

 So what is the issue with Molten Giant?

If you look careful you can see Deathwing and Nozdormu in the background the 2 best Legendary Dragons.

Well the text of Molten Giant is describing an effect that is the exactly the same as gathering Ultra Energy in Street Fighter.

I main Adon these days, and I like how the guy who made this video took Sagat as the Uke, Great RP.

There is a difference between Ultra and Super Energy in the game. Super is gathered by pretty much everything, while Ultra is only gathered by taking damage. Just like with Molten Giant. I guess Sea Giant is kinda similar to Super energy, if the opponent gets board control /attack you a lot in Street fighter or if its you who get board /or  you deal a lot damage. Either way you can play Sea Giant easier / you get Super energy.

The thing is, in Street Fighter 4(this is a new mechanic for SF4 and it is actually kinda semi unique to Street Fighter 4 and its expansion. Does not exist in Street Fighter X Tekken for example).
 Its the focus. My personal biggest weakness is actually that I rarely use Focus in Street Fighter which is bad by me because it has some great effects.

 The important mechanic in this case is that Focus has the increased defence mechanic which means that the player can take 2 hits before they are canceled(it also has unblockable attack if its charged long enough, well it has charge mechanic as well -_-, slow take down etc).

What happen in the game is that if the player takes an attack with increased defence, this effect is also granted by some EX(using a quarter super meter) attacks etc. Is that the player get gray life instead of the normal yellow.

Gray life will regain over time. Unless if the player is damaged during before it has finished. IF damaged the player loses all gray life right away + loses yellow life based on the damage of the attack.

What this means in regarding to ultra attack is very important(at least on higher levels). Normally a person can use 1 ultra attack after losing  50% health and if they use it at that health they can gather enough ultra for another one when at 0%(character is a live but with no Health shown).
 Its also possible to not ultra at 50- and then later at when one hit left, do an extra strong ultra move not a double in damage wise but it indicated as a double energy bar filled.

 That all being said. How does it work.

Damage taken 1 = 1 ultra energy

Damage taken 10+20+15+5 = 50 = 50 Ultra Energy = 1 Ultra attack. Something like this(character do have different total life and so on).

SO back to Molten Giant it says the same right.

"Cost (1) less for each damage your hero has taken "

So Molten Giant starts at 20 mana and after the player has lost 20 life it cost 0.

However, this is not how Hearthstone work. 

In Street fighter it works exactly like the text on Molten Giant. If the player uses Focus or an EX move, to take an attack but then get gray life. What happens is that this life will be regained, but it will still record the damage.

So the actual situation can look like this.

10+20(gray)+15+5 = 50 damage taken, but only 30 life lost.

Which will leave the player at 70% life and still be able to do an Ultra attack. The player can also then use a "double ultra" at higher life then at the 0% border etc.

Following that Molten Giant has the same rule text.

What should happen in Hearthstone is that each time the player takes damage this is recorded and after taking 20 damage or more Molten Giant is free (the player can of course play it after losing 10 life for 10 and so on).

But how the game actually is, that if the player is healed they cant play out Molten Giant!!!

I even had games as Priest back before Warsong Commander was nerfed were I would heal my opponent warrior who was trying to lower their life to play Molten Giant.

 If the card text was followed exactly restoring life would not matter as it would be 20-3-3-5-6-3 =0 But as I was healing him it went like 20-3-3-5+2-6+2+2-3 = 6 so it still cost him 6 mana to play one and he could not to the Molten Giant one turn kill combo.
 If the card followed the text he would have been able to as he had taken 20 damage. So what the card should say is lack of health not damage taken.

 Given that this card is not very easy to spot.


I would suggest the card text change from

"Cost (1) less for each damage your hero has taken "

to

"Cost (1) less for each health your hero lacks "

Quality Maniac: Candy Crush Saga

OK so I have not played Candy Crush Saga for like 2-3 weeks so maybe this bug is fixed. I to god hope it is, because this bug is on every stage after stage 20+(around there). I have sent a bug report with images etc to King.com about it. I even mentioned it briefly last time I talked to the producer of Candy Crush Saga.


So I have played the start of the game a lot .... because I had this consulting design thing I did for a company(which I cant name) that simply wanted me to copy Candy Crush Saga and design a knockoff for them. Which is why I cant name what company :) Not that Candy Crush Saga in itself is super original but yeah that job felt a little weird.  Mainly because its so boring, when someone tells you watch X change 10% of X and create Y. Yeah that don't feel very worth your time.

Anyway so this bug is something I have seen a lot and its really annoying because its the fundamental help mechanic that is bugged. That is also the reason why I write this now even do it might have been fixed (I doubt it because its been live for a like a year), because it is so prominent if you think about it. This is something any developer should think about is my point.

SO what is the bug?

When the player waits for a while without doing a match(move) in the game. The game will indicate movable candies to create a 3 or sometimes a better combo.
 So this is a very important user friendly mechanic. And the problem is that it can give indication of tips that cannot be done, really bad bug.

In this image. The indication is that the player is supposed to move the orange candy to the right. If the player moves it one step to the left it would create a 3 match. This is true, but the player cannot move the bottom right as its stuck behind bars.
 Given that the game is not to hard but still this bug nullifying the games supposed user friendly mechanic in some situations. Because right now the player gets no help.

But ok, that image it was just a small hiccup one candy could not be moved.

Its not so easy to spot this bug in an image. And is also freaking hard taking an image of it as its only for a second. Its a little easier with the classic red marking:

Those 3 purple candies are flashing indicating that they should be moved.

When it act like this...OOOOOK the player cannot move a single of the proposed candies.

In the first example is a kinda annoying and overall bad that this has existed in the game for so long.
 But in the second example........... all the candies are stuck in bars so the game clearly take no consideration how the play-field is. I always thought it was obvious the hint help mechanic was bad from the start as it don't really say good matches. It does sometimes by random luck but it almost like it go for the worst(I am probably just experience a illogical fallacy but still).
 The game might give some almost possible matches, that would still be a bug and decently severe. But then the player can come to this kind of situations its truly something that should be fixed in the code(its clear its a code issue and nothing else, they need to add a conditional statement that checks if the candies can be moved or not, which is a little tricky as it can be that the 2 others can be moved and by that be moved into a stuck candy creating a match. I guess thats why they ignored to have a check from the start. So they need 2 checks actually 1 that check if a match can be made and then a second that checks if the specific proposed candy(so they have to find what candy is to be moved should have that when they search for matches) and if it cannot be moved search for another match instead)

Yeah the game really need to check the available of the candies and not just search for 3 candies close to each other. 

Quality Maniac: Hearthstone logical rule issue/inconsistencies part 2 Shadow Madness

Shadow Madness has an added effect on what it says on the card. This is actually both a rule issue because if I had played the game IRL like with freeze I would not play it like the game does. And its also inconsistence with other similar cards in the game.

I have actually had several friends ask me how it works, meaning does it add charges

In other card games for example Magic the gathering card who take control of cards and make them be able to attack right away will say that it gives them haste. Usually it says untap(so it can attack/block) and give it haste.

And yes yes, Hearthstone is not magic. But Priest do have 2 more take control over cards. Cabal Shadow Priest and Mind Control

So when a player take controls with Cabal Shadow Priest can they attack with the minion right away? Yes if its a Bluegill Warrior as it has Charge. Otherwise no, same with Mind Control

Here for example a Priest toke control of my King Krush and attack with it right away as it has Charge otherwise he could not have done that. (He also managed to kill himself doing it ;)

So Cabal nor Min Control has that they add charge.

However, Shadow Madness does add charge to the minion the player takes control of.

 Its not cut clean that it has to do that, sure it would be a pretty shitty card otherwise but given priest has a lot of bad cards would anyone be surprised? It woulds still has some use for e.g removing a taunt to win the game etc.

But yeah I am not debating that Shadow Madness works like it should but the text is incorrect.

And like I said in the start, really a lot of people has asked me how it works as most of them come from a magic the gathering background and then they would not expect it to give charge on the same time they are intelligent enough to assume that a 4 mana temporary control with no charge seems of.

Lastly

The card text is pretty long on Shadow Madness so one might argue and say how can they fit this added text. Well I compared my change to the card text on Void Terror card, will still have 5 more characters in its text even after my suggested change to Shadow Madness. As one can see on Void Terror they can just use smaller font.

Change from:

"Gain Control of an enemy minion with 3 or less Attack until end of turn"

to

Gain Control of an enemy minion with 3 or less Attack, it gains Charge until end of turn

Quality Maniac: Hearthstone logical rule issue, Freeze vs. Windfury

Ok so this is a tool tip bug. Because while it is not hard to get what is happening in the game based on the animations and so on.
 If I was to play Hearthstone for the first time IRL with cards. I would read the Freeze ruling and then the Frozen status on a character as it can't attack once, but what about windfury it gives 2 attacks?

Freeze says that Frozen character lose their next attack.

Windfury says can attack twice each turn.

If this 2 effects would be on the same character.
 That should result in the character having 1 attack.

1 -1 + 1 = 1.


This however is not how the game acts it out.
 So its another bad wording issue in Hearthstone

Freeze tool tip should be changed from:

Frozen characters lose their next attack

to

Frozen characters cannot attack


Cannot versus next implies a huge difference.