April 19th 2017 Update Discussion

[mjmxiii]

Maybe it was the animation not keeping up with the calculation. I've seen that a number of times, where things seem out of order. Still should have gotten the 3 points added, and I don't have any explanation for a possible cause for that.

I don't recall doing revenge on you. I almost never revenge, as I'd rather clear a list to get the free SoW then worry about playing the revenge game. You do show up on my lists pretty often when I'm in the same rank. So, maybe just looked like it was revenge and was just me clearing a list. Despite the changes to level attacks/defenses, it still seems it's always the same names that show up.

I dunno man ...It was a bit choppy in the arena last night. Had about 10 fights where the game just couldnt catch up or run smooth. Haven't been running through arena too much since last update but with the new month I've been trying to catch up on iron coins for the legendary. Noticing a bunch more random weirdness now.

Thinking what happened was more buglitch than anything else. No worries on the attacks bruh, was wondering where they went this week... Was at 20 defense now I'm up there around 60-70

Btw... Just how hard is that Sentinel Harpy hitting? Anyone lol

[HomemLivre]

Btw... Just how hard is that Sentinel Harpy hitting? Anyone lol

Depends on the toon you face and the talis that both harpy and that toon have. Varies btw 4x00-9x00

[Tritium]

Sparton, are there any plans to buff some of the weaker 5* toons to be true 5* caliber like some of the other recently buffed toons (VE, Nomad, COTD, etc.)? I know that many players would like Vampire Hunter Eddie and Aces High Eddie to receive a buff due to their relatively weak current states right now when compared to some of the other 5* Eddies. As it currently stands, someone may actually be a bit disappointed when they pull one of those two toons over something like a Rainmaker or Cyborg. The character discussion threads for these two eddies also have some interesting feedback regarding how they could potentially be buffed.

[Sparton_LOTB]

Sparton, are there any plans to buff some of the weaker 5* toons to be true 5* caliber like some of the other recently buffed toons (VE, Nomad, COTD, etc.)? I know that many players would like Vampire Hunter Eddie and Aces High Eddie to receive a buff due to their relatively weak current states right now when compared to some of the other 5* Eddies. As it currently stands, someone may actually be a bit disappointed when they pull one of those two toons over something like a Rainmaker or Cyborg. The character discussion threads for these two eddies also have some interesting feedback regarding how they could potentially be buffed.

There's not usually any explicit plans, just stuff that we appraise and adjust when we have the space cycles.

Looking over the (still being compiled) preliminary tuning notes, Vampire Hunter Eddie will have a change for a skill to make it stronger, and Ace's High Eddie will have a fix for his Fury skill level scaling based on a bug report from a player, but we'll have a look at usage and win rates for various underused Eddies and see what we can do for subsequent updates.

[MrFreeze]

Don't forget to buff the sentinel pumpkins! I'm not even joking, I really want to build a pumpkin defensive team.

[HomemLivre]

Agreed with you Tritium! We have some really nice 5* and 4* chars to that deserves buffs, I dont have a Vampire Hunter but hes one of the Eddies that I like most and will be awesome to see he shining in the arena!

[Ezz]

Love Aces high but cannot bring myself to skillshard him up for use in the arena. Maybe fury scale fix will help but it seems one of his shield moves needs to have the skillshards needed removed. Sacrificing 8 skillshards for a couple shields that get rare use is insane. And to be honest I can't even figure out how those skillshards are used to improve these shields?

[Sparton_LOTB]

Don't forget to buff the sentinel pumpkins! I'm not even joking, I really want to build a pumpkin defensive team.

Hah, yeah, Sentinel Pumpkins will always have a close place in my heart, even if they're not the most viable things in the world.

Sadly, we're not too big a fan of making the limited time holiday allies super viable (since they're not widely available), but I've been kicking around ideas with Kaz to make them "seasonally powerful" or something.

Hm, that requires some guessing since there a few of them that come to mind deserving that

Since you explicitely name him some thaughts on him and his abilities (having finished, this got more than I aimed for, sorry...):

[Mucho dealios about Vampire Hunter Eddie]

A lot of solid points, that's for sure.

I think you're underselling the value of having two ways to revive allies, though (Power and Fury). Obviously, that'd be a bit more reasonable if Rouse was at least more consistent, so uh... good guess on that part.

Overall, there's definitely a lot more smaller things we could probably do to push him into the limelight a bit more. I think, based on the way his data is set up, he was one of the earliest characters created in the game, so there does seem to be stuff designed for a slightly different combat system/meta in mind. I don't think we want to overdo it with tuning him, though, and we definitely want people to consider building team compositions to help make characters shine.

Maybe the Devs could open some threads similar to the PvP suspect discussions, which received a lot, and in my mind a lot of constructive feedback, for characters they or the player base aren't quite happy with. I like the preliminary Update threads a lot, but discussions there are sometimes hard to follow because of all the different changes to different characters all at once, the threads are gone or at least irrelevant once the corresponding update got released and the discussion that came out of nowhere is brought to an abrupt ending.

Hm... I do agree, that does sound like an interesting idea. For the most part, we've been just taking suggestions as they come in and making notes for future reference, but I'll have to follow up with Kaz about if and how we could schedule that. Sadly, we're been pretty swamped with tasks this week (we thought we'd get preliminary tuning notes out by the end of the week, but too much was coming up, so hopefully early next week).

Totally unrelated: The game still doesn't run on Bluestacks again. The error message that showed up since the 19th is gone, but the loading bar on the start screen just doesn't move (and no loading text is shown either).

I'll have to triple check when I'm back in the office what the situation is there. I know we have more comparability fixes for the next update, but I don't recall the full scope of what the fixes are.

[Nine]

Vampire Hunter Eddie will have a change for a skill to make it stronger

Hm, that requires some guessing since there a few of them that come to mind deserving that

Since you explicitely name him some thaughts on him and his abilities (having finished, this got more than I aimed for, sorry...):

Before going into detail just let me start by saying that I like him and the concept behind him a lot - he is one of the few characters that even on his own can be played quite strategic. On the other hand it means that be basically needs to played in certain ways to shine. Which admittedly he already can. I actually think at least in PvE he performs quite well after the last tunings. Even there are some problems, though, one certainly being that at least 3 of his abilities are basically never used. A bigger one might be that there is an Eddie for almost every situation that is better than him. Which is ok if that is intended and balanced but feels not only strange for a 5* but also given his (supposed?) role. This fact becomes severly more important in PvP.

Being overshadowed by other Eddies is most obvious when comparing him to Rainmaker I guess. The two are highly comparable and after Rainmaker got the abilities from VH that basically made him unique (mark and claim) one strongly feels compelled to do so.

Additional to that I think it is due to his rather unique way of playing with which the AI simply cannot keep up that he basically useless on PvP defence. I haven't tested him since the last AI tweaks, but the reliance of debuffs and buffs as well as a judgement about risk vs reward required are just too much. Since that is the core of that character I wouldn't change it, though - except for the luck element but I'll come to that. Most other Eddie's aren't made for defence either and that's ok.

So, let's talk abilities:

- Stake: The only power that is truly unique to him and there is nothing to complain here. It basically makes the character who he is at the moment. Marks on the target are a mere bonus on this ability, even without them the pure damage makes it worth using. Power costs are fair, the crit buff is just the icing on the cake.

- Claim: Might be my favourite ability of his. Not because it is the strongest (although it definetely is strong) but it is all around useful. For damage as well as for heal (the latter actually useful now). It requires either set up or thinking and it is quite interesting that it is a heal that can be countered in an unsual way.

This is a time to stop and point out: these are the only two abilities one will usually use (exceptions to be named later on).

- Mark: making our way down in usefulness we arrive at this interesting power. And it really is. I mentioned elsewhere that the initial damage calculation is weird at the moment, so depending how that is fixed that might chance its usability a lot (first candidate for the mentioned buff, yay!). As it is it is quite simple: If you get another turn it's great, if you don't it's really "meh" except for two cases: it obviously is great on high health targets that cannot be cleansed; otherwise it is needed to set up a heal in the following round. The latter case is quite restrictive because it again requires no cleanser and more importantly has to be used at the end of your turn because your allies will consume the mark (you can of course choose to not hit perfect which I actually do from time to time...). As I said, an "interesting" ability, mainly due to its synergies. If it becomes a "decent damage with a mark on top and chance for another turn" instead of a "mark with marginal damage" ability that wouldn't make the character too strong.

- Scream: we come to the first ability that basically no one, not even here, will know by name. I have to say, most of the time I use it I forgot I am in the past zone and click it accidentally. However, it is not as bad as that sounds. It certainly has a use in PvP where Immunity is of high value, but I am not sure if that is enough. I will test the fury gain again, but the buff is basically the only reason to use it. 20% chance of an extra turn (we require luck again. That's not only poison for PvP but will become a pattern for this character) is waaay to low in my opinion. I know it cannot be spamable or an automatic use every turn. And of course there are a lot of Eddie's who have highly situational and often questionable defensive powers of this kind (Hi there, Tailgunner and Aces High) but I have to wonder if that was intentional. All around this one could see a buff, but it doesn't hurt the way it is now.

Now we come to those that I wouldn't even notice if they were gone:

- Strike: If it hits crtitical and if the extra strike triggers it can do ok damage. But the chances of that happening... Especially when compared to Rainmaker this ability feels very lackluster (yeah, not easiest benchmark to reach, but again: the similarity of the characters provoke this). RttH shows that this ability can actually do damage, but of course there is not much left of it when only half of the relevant attributes of a character are taken into account for its damage. It is usually not the biggsest problem because, as stated above there are enough alternatives to it, but even as basic ability this one is neither fun or helpful (usual logic: are there multiple enemies?->use claim, do you have power?->use stake, with some cases overlapping where you have an option). The main problem with this might be that the damage when taunted can be extremely low (no class advantage against sentinels doesn't help), which is really strange for an usual high hitter. All in all we have a second contender for the buff worthy ability.

- Rouse: To me this ability is honesty completely useless in its current form. The damage is kinda ok, but if we wanted damage we would use stake. At the heart of this ability is of course the revive, which is supposed to justify its power cost. Well, it doesn't. Mainly because it's not a revive, it is the small chance of a revive. 35% are just a joke (good luck by the way coming up with an accuracy buff at the stage of a battle where the ability is needed). Seriously, if the chance was increased to 100% - take away the damage if you have - it wouldn't be too strong. I know it is hard to compare abilities from different chars because of the roles they play but when Pharao's has a 100% chance for all (!) characers with an extra heal, the rescuer's has 100% chance for all (!) characters with one of the strongest buff in the game this just is way off. One character is fine, but the gamble is basically never worth taking. Even at zero power cost you would still sacrifice either a huge amount of damage or some certainly highly needed heal (because you are in a situation where an ally is already dead that is guaranteed). So even then I would not use it, just to get a 65% of nothing worthwhile happening. So if I had to chose I would definitly chose this one for an overhaul and your wording of "making it stronger" gives me some hope, since it is not implying purely increasing damage.


Some concluding remarks: Luck is way to prevelant to make him useful in PvP. Marks are also needed for an efficient use and are hard to set up by VH himself (mostly, of course, again due to chances and luck). Both of these facts make the Warrior Bomber Boy a great addition to him and, in my mind, bring him to the level he should be without him. While I love the fact that there is a great synergy between them that of course makes everything regarding balancing much more complicated. If you tune him to be great without accuracy buffs and a mark supplier he will likely be overpowered with one in your team. If you tune him to be great with one in your team you risk of him being highly limited in its usefulness due to a static team composition and basically unlucky people (yay, we are coming back to this one on a whole new level) who doesn't have the BB over similar toons (and now you will need two, because just a troll for the passive is not enough) are ... well, not to go into profanity: unlucky. It is no coincidence that his decent abilities are the ones not depending on chance.

So my first step would be to make the element of chance much less important and a flat revive and an overhaul of Strike (you showed in the case of Rainmaker that you are not afraid of exchanging abilities, so I have some hope) would be a good to that. I guess I would still keep the BB around but the dependance on him would greately decrease.

Well, this became more than I thought. Would have put it into his thread, but here will do I guess.
(Since it really got more than expected I am sorry for any spelling mistakes, I don't have the concentration to read through everything again, I hope it doesn't hinder understanding at any point...)

[mjmxiii]

^^Damn bro, that post was epic!