June 2017 Tuning Discussion - PRELIMINARY

[Askora]

I wonder why SSD doesn't get a nerf. 55% to taunt, decent true aoe damage. Completely debilitates the opposing team most of the time. Funny how that isn't OP, yet the removing beneficial effects from one toon is. I've had PvP battles where I went first and made one attack with one toon and then watch until the battle is over. There's also my argument about counterstrike vs void talismans.

If PvP is going to be nothing more than flip a coin to decide who wins, then maybe make it where we can just put in the number of PvP battles we want to fight and push go. Then tell us how many we won.

[Mariner-1212]

I have a very specific instance that always causes the game to fail...

On Android: When tapping the screen for the power move (*not the 3-tap) I have sometimes gone too far to the side and tapped the "back" button that samsung provides on the phones. This has caused a stutter of pausing/unpausing the game repeatedly, and everytime it guarantees that the top gameplay elements (play/pause, speed and settings) will disappear and make it impossible to finish.

It also occurs if you tap the settings icon repeatedly. You'll see everything disappear, even if auto-farming. When this happens, your team will finish the match... but it will stall at the end when trying to load up your "Victory" screen.

[Crazypants]

I have a very specific instance that always causes the game to fail...

On Android: When tapping the screen for the power move (*not the 3-tap) I have sometimes gone too far to the side and tapped the "back" button that samsung provides on the phones. This has caused a stutter of pausing/unpausing the game repeatedly, and everytime it guarantees that the top gameplay elements (play/pause, speed and settings) will disappear and make it impossible to finish.

It also occurs if you tap the settings icon repeatedly. You'll see everything disappear, even if auto-farming. When this happens, your team will finish the match... but it will stall at the end when trying to load up your "Victory" screen.

Can confirm. Has happened a few times on my back up Samsung phone.

[MrFreeze]

The acknowledgement continues to be appreciated, for sure. I definitely appreciate and have been at least somewhat swayed with some resistance in this thread... but now I just need to convince Kaz if further changes will happen

Go Kaz!

[Sparton_LOTB]

I have a very specific instance that always causes the game to fail...

On Android: When tapping the screen for the power move (*not the 3-tap) I have sometimes gone too far to the side and tapped the "back" button that samsung provides on the phones. This has caused a stutter of pausing/unpausing the game repeatedly, and everytime it guarantees that the top gameplay elements (play/pause, speed and settings) will disappear and make it impossible to finish.

It also occurs if you tap the settings icon repeatedly. You'll see everything disappear, even if auto-farming. When this happens, your team will finish the match... but it will stall at the end when trying to load up your "Victory" screen.

Can confirm. Has happened a few times on my back up Samsung phone.

Silly Android software buttons.

I've passed that along to our QA to investigate further. Probably some sensible thing we wanted to do with that in case a call came up probably shouldn't do that for certain OS button uses.

[The Educated fool]

5k would be way too much, though. There's a very short list of characters who are above the 4-6k AoE area for a basic attack (assuming 1-3 green talismans for PVP survivability), and we definitely do not want the Corrupt General to be doing even "average" AoE basic damage considering the utility of 100% MR Down and 35% chance to Stun.

Many characters will deal average damage, some will deal more, and some will deal less. Corrupt General, due to the unparalleled ability to AoE Stun and MR Down with his basic, on top of the only AoE Seal skill and a Fury which is essentially "delete one character of choice", does less than average on his basic.

Ah, but good Sparton, there's the rub! I don't mean that he does 1.5-2k max sharded without affinity with 3 green talismans... I mean he does that (and consistently) with one! And there's no way, I think, anyone would voluntarily consider putting him in the arena with less than two... and Shells at that... If not 5k, surely 3-3.5 (with 5 blue talismans) would seem more reasonable? He doesn't need to annihilate everyone he hits, to be sure, but dude... I don't know how to say this, but people are laughing at him!

[Browno]

My biggest gripe with corrupt general is that he dies too easy to make use of. I believe that if 1 blue talisman slot were changed to green he would be much more usable in pvp. That way people can use him as intended, utility with some survivability. And i would be fine with less damage if he survive to make use of his skills.

[Mariner-1212]

If PvP is going to be nothing more than flip a coin to decide who wins, then maybe make it where we can just put in the number of PvP battles we want to fight and push go. Then tell us how many we won.

Here's a thought on something that might improve PVP...

The option to set a defensive move order.

When it comes my turn in the game, it checks to see how much power I have. Then it runs down the list and hits the first item it’s able to hit. If I don’t have enough power to execute the first item, it tries the second item. And so on, trying from the top of the list each time (and removing moves from players that have already been used).

[Witkacy]

Here's a thought on something that might improve PVP...

The option to set a defensive move order.

When it comes my turn in the game, it checks to see how much power I have. Then it runs down the list and hits the first item it’s able to hit. If I don’t have enough power to execute the first item, it tries the second item. And so on, trying from the top of the list each time (and removing moves from players that have already been used).

Mariner

That would be fantastic!

[Sparton_LOTB]

Ah, but good Sparton, there's the rub! I don't mean that he does 1.5-2k max sharded without affinity with 3 green talismans... I mean he does that (and consistently) with one! And there's no way, I think, anyone would voluntarily consider putting him in the arena with less than two... and Shells at that... If not 5k, surely 3-3.5 (with 5 blue talismans) would seem more reasonable? He doesn't need to annihilate everyone he hits, to be sure, but dude... I don't know how to say this, but people are laughing at him!

Kaz did some tests with 6 Holy's, and he was already doing 3.5k (or 5k to Warriors). If you assume one or two is being swapped with greens, then that brings it probably to closer to 3k neutral, so it's already in line with your suggestion at that point. The only reason it would do substantially less than that is against high MR targets, against Sentinels, or when the General has 3 green talismans, which should surprise no one to do far less at that point.

My biggest gripe with corrupt general is that he dies too easy to make use of. I believe that if 1 blue talisman slot were changed to green he would be much more usable in pvp. That way people can use him as intended, utility with some survivability. And i would be fine with less damage if he survive to make use of his skills.

I'm not a big fan of just putting 4 or more green talismans onto every character that can fit them. Obviously we have some non-Sentinel characters with one or more green talisman slots because we want that to be an option, but we don't want the Corrupt General to be especially tanky.

Here's a thought on something that might improve PVP...

The option to set a defensive move order.

When it comes my turn in the game, it checks to see how much power I have. Then it runs down the list and hits the first item it’s able to hit. If I don’t have enough power to execute the first item, it tries the second item. And so on, trying from the top of the list each time (and removing moves from players that have already been used).

This is definitely a cool idea; reminds me a bit of the gambit system from Final Fantasy XII. However, there's a couple things to keep in mind with this approach:

• This approach loses all situational awareness that the current AI has. Yes, it's easy to make fun of the AI for doing something stupid, but it knows to do things like Cleanse if you have lots of debuffs, or heal if you're low HP, or not to use your Endure skill if you just used it last turn, etc.
• A completely predictive defense could arguably be easier to defeat, not harder. While our current measures that try to enforce some degree of not fighting the same person over and over will still have you see the same person after a few dozen battles in your attack list, if you know how someone's defense will act, you can that much more easily know how to counter it. Or if you want to make your defense less predictable, you need to constantly maintain and adjust your defense team's AI throughout the week, every week ad nauseum.
• While I absolutely love the idea of more players (hell, more of the general populous) getting their hands into what is basically entry-level AI scripting, this kind of thing is going to be baffling to a lot of people, and makes it so that if they can't grok it, they'll be at even more of a disadvantage when being stuck with the default "poor man's" AI.

While there's definitely aspects of this that I like (and we may try to implement something like this in the future), unfortunately, I'm really leery of the risks and potential bugs that could arise from that level of customization.