PvP: The Mummy Age has Returned

[Nicko]

Felt like hitting the keyboard because last week was quite the performance. Many, many thanks to Mjmxiii for keeping this thread going - and stole your revolving title idea . Very much appreciated!

But the real story of the week was the battle for Eternal. Kamuz – an amazing player who’s had some of the nastiest defenses around – darted up towards the end of the week and established a commanding lead. But then Carlos – a beast of a climber – began his ascent and never looked back. Weeks like this are what PvP is about. Kamuz has said before he works some Saturdays – and that may have come into play – but both players deserve huge props for a truly spirited competition.

The arena itself? Yawn. We’re back in Mummy Eddie days. The defense of the day?

VHE – Red Buzz – SSD – Wrath

Over. And over. And over.

Obviously it’s working – cause people are leaving it in – but I can’t believe another meta change isn’t in order. We saw the start with the release of the Valkyries. There’s always one difference maker – and this time she’s purple. My losses this week were generally trying to figure this Purple Valkyrie out. She’s not easy and not I’m not convinced I have her figured out – and that’s a good thing.

People ARE mixing in other toons – but the above defense is far too repetitive.

I have many 5* Eddies – and right now I use one. There’s something wrong with that.

Forum members have said on another thread “Please don’t nerf VHE – he’s too much fun – make the other Eddies better”

I’m fine with that – but honestly? – I can’t see it happening. Too much work for an already overtaxed NF team that has a lot on it’s plate. Pulling out Shaman Eddie – Aces High – Mystic – cause they’re as formidable as VHE would be so cool – but the odds are almost zero. I see NF either releasing another Eddie or two as competition – or making an adjustment on VHE. I’d love to be wrong.

I have a friend who is a great player – very smart and often top 10 – and until yesterday he had a 100% win rate. He ended up losing one battle yesterday – but point being that VHE is making things too easy. We should not be seeing 100% win rates. A new character like the purple Valkyie may get quickly labeled as overpowered – but if she’s taking your wins from 99% to 98%, I think that’s a tough argument to make. We need some challenge. I personally hope more like her come along.

I’m not commenting on bugs – plenty of threads for that though I know it’s affecting people’s experiences. I’d much rather hear thoughts on the current PvP environment.

Should VHE’s dominance be handled?
Are you finding the defenses repetitive?
Suggestions for NF?

Thanks everyone and see you in the arena!

[Silentknight]

Kinda remember NF saying they wanted diversity at the top when the Prisoner was actually useful??? Funny, cuz I don't see it! Worse than ever in my opinion! Nice 2 c NF finally learnt how 2 nerf a toon, 2 bad they already nerfed 95% of the other toons into dust collectors!

[MrFreeze]

Yeah the VHE, wrath, SSD and WUR combo is out of hand. My defense isn't much different, but I refuse to use my WUR in an attempt to be slightly different. I still would rather they leave those characters alone and make others better though. Bottom line for me is, this is an rpg. Granted the story has been stalled for over a year but it's a turn based rpg. Final fantasy was never built for a pvp mode. No rpg is ever going to really work flawlessly with any kind of player vs player. Even if it was live, someone would still have to go first, so there's really no way to make it 100% fair in my opinion.

If they nerf those characters it makes them weaker in the part of the game I care about, pve. Plus it just leads to another set of four characters who take over down the road. I'm really sick of the current meta too, but if they nerf these guys, we just take another step back in an endless cycle of retunning. I don't know what the answer is. Pvp is messed up in a lot of ways in my opinion, but it always will be. Too much emphasis is put on pvp for a game that's a turn based rpg. But that's just my opinion, and I'm probably in the minority on this one. Call me old fashioned.


Congrats to both Carlos and Kamuz! I only payed a little attention to what was happening, but it's the first time I've seen an actual competition on Saturday.

[slauki]

great to see you making threads again dear nicko

i agree with your analysis in many points. yeah VHE is the only usefull eddie at the moment. i haven't used another eddie for weeks in the arena. he is fun and great. but he is the only eddie we see right now, which is really bad for the diversity.
most fun is to adjust to different teams, but everyone who has VHE, wrath or purple valkyrie will use them. so diversity is out of the window again.

another important detail is we have the same talismans over and over on VHE. guards and immortality, maybe somethings wrong with them too make immortality a normal buff and VHE will loose a lot of his usefulness without directly affectig his skills.

no way NF will buff other eddies to the same degree, since the balancing is taking very long. maybe they pick one or two eddies to buff, but easiest would be to balance VHE and the other chars or the immortality talis which leads to another problem.

we need more competition you say and i agree. but let's look at the situation.
right now we have 3 chars which are and which will be dominating the arena. VHE, wrath and purple valkyie, who is prolly the most broken toon of all.

all other defenses will have a hard time. so only the guys who are lucky enough to get the good pulls can create competition. that's what i dislike. we should have the opportunity to build up creative offenses and defnses with more options than three chars. we need something that is able to make average defenses better. like additional buffs which will appear if your party costs are low.basicly some intelligent and creative adjustments are needed but always releasing new broken chars is not the solution imo. (why not giving defenses a 5th char if party costs are low for example, that would be a way to create competition in multipleways for everyone and not only for the lucky ones with the rare chars)

but i doubt, we will ever reach this point. maybe there will always be the one most effective defense which will kill all diversity. and to balance that NF will release new broken chars who shuffle everything up again, like the horrible balanced purple valkyrie. stealing buffs, stunning for two turns and giving decent damage...comeon guys this is horrible. and a powermove with nice damage and permadeath and heal block for 5 power???

the intention of NF is clear, "chase, chase, chase and pay, pay, pay" if you want to compete.they have to generate money but new metachanges every two-four weeks is somewhat ridiculous. the game and the balance are in a horrible mess. and i think this will stay this way as long as the game exists.

[Chaosego888]

Congratulations to Carlos. I was completely oblivious that there was an epic battle going on this week but that had to be awesome. I have gotten burned out on PvP because of the same defense over and over and a points system thay is just plain stupid.
All the nerfing in the past has killed the experience, so many characters that were once great are collecting dust now. I haven't had any issues with the purple chick yet but I never use any of the main 4 characters most players use. Vampire Hunter is one of the two Eddies I am missing and I haven't skill sharded that Undead Rescuer yet because I hate the way the thing looks. In my opinion there are only 3 characters in this game that truly make any kind of difference for a defense and that is the counterstriking sentinels that disable the player. Eddie is the star of this game and with the exception of Vampire Hunter, he is often the weakest link on the defense, especially paired with Wrath or Beelzebub because they typically waste the fury before he can use it. All the Eddies need to be at the level of Vampire Hunter and the great characters of the past need to be restored.

[Silentknight]

Jofer: insert Ozzy-The Almighty Dollar here

[Blacksteel]

Once you go above 50, especially by the end of week, you can expect VHE and Wrath on almost every team, Buzz and SSD close second.
This makes the game look like there are no other Eddie/characters worth having and that's an issue, it becomes too repetitive and boring especially if you are grinding your way to Eternal.

Predictability also becomes an issue, while those teams are dangerous, you can beat them without even having to switch your attack team from match to match.

The new purple chick was the one other character that made me actually switch my attack team a little, she is very powerful, but not invincible, I think she was a bit of a risky move for NF because of their effective abilities, but also seems to have played well in adding some variety to an otherwise stagnant meta.

Solutions: (one can dream right?)

1. NF style ( Nerf VHE or sell the new OP Eddie/character):

   "chase, chase, chase and pay, pay, pay" if you want to compete.

   Jofer: insert Ozzy-The Almighty Dollar here

   And A big problem with this is the creation of the 'next Op toon' to push sales, this goes in detriment of general balance and degenerates on 'the next Op char to be nerfed'.
2. Buffing of other Eddies.
3. Make the other characters more relevant, many characters could be made useful just by changing some costs or switching of existing abilities which would require the least effort from NF or Bring new or expanded abilities.
4. The talisman way, change or bring new ones i.e. a random passive cancel for 'n' turns (prisoner style), or random permadeath (ofc they need to make permadeath work first, as it's bugged).
5. Using the special talisman slots (each character has 2) new 2/3 set could bring additional abilities.
6. Stasis, Reverse Time, Ability Switch/Steal, Clone, Turn skip, Side Decks, Tag Team, Stack build, all could be applied and make for great opportunities.

Sadly NF's struggle to keep up even with the most basic bug fixes that have been plaguing the community since launch is somewhat uninspiring.
For all the faults the game has it also offers a great base for improvement and growth, but will they take the chance, will they be up to the challenge?.

[Ancient Mariner]

I've also noticed lately how most of defenses use pretty much the same chars, in particular the VHE.. and i'll tell you i'm one of them; but the thing is, that i lately started to use him aswell, only because i got him recently! So unless everyone got him in the last days like me, i don't get why suddenly everyone is using him...was he enhanced or something?

Anyways, i think that what makes you win in defence is not mostly the characters you use, but rather the talismans you put on them...

I often find no difficulty in beating even hard teams, which yet don't have those talismans that make retaliate or give endurance.
On the contrary, i often lose against any kind of team when they are full of buffs coming from those talismans, and especially i lose when the enemy spawns the void shield: man, that damn thing often destroys any my attempt to win :S

[Silentknight]

I've also noticed lately how most of defenses use pretty much the same chars, in particular the VHE.. and i'll tell you i'm one of them; but the thing is, that i lately started to use him aswell, only because i got him recently! So unless everyone got him in the last days like me, i don't get why suddenly everyone is using him...was he enhanced or something?

Anyways, i think that what makes you win in defence is not mostly the characters you use, but rather the talismans you put on them...

I often find no difficulty in beating even hard teams, which yet don't have those talismans that make retaliate or give endurance.
On the contrary, i often lose against any kind of team when they are full of buffs coming from those talismans, and especially i lose when the enemy spawns the void shield: man, that damn thing often destroys any my attempt to win :S

Buffed & nerfed! Still OP a f! K, maybe all the other Eddies just suck! Anyone who knows what they're doing has proper talismans on him.

[Blacksteel]

I've also noticed lately how most of defenses use pretty much the same chars, in particular the VHE.. and i'll tell you i'm one of them; but the thing is, that i lately started to use him aswell, only because i got him recently! So unless everyone got him in the last days like me, i don't get why suddenly everyone is using him...was he enhanced or something?

Anyways, i think that what makes you win in defence is not mostly the characters you use, but rather the talismans you put on them...

I often find no difficulty in beating even hard teams, which yet don't have those talismans that make retaliate or give endurance.
On the contrary, i often lose against any kind of team when they are full of buffs coming from those talismans, and especially i lose when the enemy spawns the void shield: man, that damn thing often destroys any my attempt to win :S

VHE popularity increased after the August tuning (IMO) because of the mark skill guaranteeing 100% extra turn, claim skill being fixed and BNW's addition of immortal talisman.
You are right talismans are extremely imnportant, but so is team composition the trick is to balance it all out
On defense to test see how the AI uses the team, there are some combinations that should be winners but sadly AI doesn't know how to handle.
On the offense if you have problems with counter talismans there are characters with options to steal or remove or absorb damage, you can use true damage for those void.