New season, new global, old problems: xmagica/magic thief bad design and broken node
Amms90
Member Posts: 359 ★★★
Hi,
so once again I have to come to this forum to complain about alliance war globals.
Back when last global was introduced, after some testing, I made a long forum post about the nodes being unbalanced and the tactics being borderline unplayable (especially some defenders). I explained long and hard why the attack tactic wasn't enough to deal with the defense tactic and how the defense tactic was too harsh on us players, especially considering the items we were bound to consume to deal with it. At first Kabam's position was "devs are happy". We decided to play that season and we pushed, with a ton of difficulties and a big amount of resources invested. As a consequence of that, we were bound to basically take the next season off. Kabam decided to "adjust" the tactics for the second season of "crush/sturdy" but the changes were minimal to the point that when I was playing I barely noticed.
All that pain could be avoided by just testing the nodes properly and realizing that they needed some tuning and a few adjustements to become viable. I recall I suggested to just improve block proficiency as a bonus when succesfully activating attack tactic. While still keeping the defense tactic just as harsh and punishing if you were to fail at that. That observation was ignored and so we were just bound to lose a ton of health to block damage. When we weren't just diying to eating a single special to the face, that is.
I was hopeful that kabam would work better on the new tactics, but oh was I wrong!!!
The new defense tactic: magic thief
This defense tactics says the defender keeps piling up indestructible effects, 1 every 5 seconds, up to 7. Not just that, but the defender also gains 1 additional effect for every dodged/dexed/missed hit. You need to parry to remove 1 effect. But that single parry action and the consequent stun for the defender already uses up part of the 5 seconds window so while you remove 1 indestructible effect the defender is about to gain the next one. But not just this. Blocked hits give power to the defender, so it's not even like you can parry 10 times in a row because after a few parries the defender will throw a special. And don't you even think about dexing that! Dex a single multi hit special and you are doomed. Dexing nova's sp1 makes him gain 4 charges right away. And you can't hope to go back to 0 for the rest of the fight, so there you have it. Time out, fight loss. So much fun. No way you can deal with this WITHOUT attack tactic, right???!
The new attack tactic: x magica
This attack tactic says the attacker will gain 1 prowess effect for each parry (well timed block), up to 7. Striking the defender will also pause the indestructible timer for the defense tactic (a bigger window to deal damage). But most importantly, when the defender will gain the next indestructible effect, 1 prowess from the attack tactic will be consumed to instantly remove this indestructible effect. This is the most important part of the node. On paper, piling up prowess effects could make you think the node can somehow be managed. Well... I hardly think this is enough to counter the defense tactic but... well this is just broken. I just tested the node and this part of the tactic doesn't work. I pile up to 7 prowess effects and they just do nothing. The defender eventually gains the 7 indestructible charges and I time our or die.
So what can I say? It's really the same story as last time. Terrible design, no testing... Broken tactic that is probably unplayable even when fixed... I'm apalled really.
so once again I have to come to this forum to complain about alliance war globals.
Back when last global was introduced, after some testing, I made a long forum post about the nodes being unbalanced and the tactics being borderline unplayable (especially some defenders). I explained long and hard why the attack tactic wasn't enough to deal with the defense tactic and how the defense tactic was too harsh on us players, especially considering the items we were bound to consume to deal with it. At first Kabam's position was "devs are happy". We decided to play that season and we pushed, with a ton of difficulties and a big amount of resources invested. As a consequence of that, we were bound to basically take the next season off. Kabam decided to "adjust" the tactics for the second season of "crush/sturdy" but the changes were minimal to the point that when I was playing I barely noticed.
All that pain could be avoided by just testing the nodes properly and realizing that they needed some tuning and a few adjustements to become viable. I recall I suggested to just improve block proficiency as a bonus when succesfully activating attack tactic. While still keeping the defense tactic just as harsh and punishing if you were to fail at that. That observation was ignored and so we were just bound to lose a ton of health to block damage. When we weren't just diying to eating a single special to the face, that is.
I was hopeful that kabam would work better on the new tactics, but oh was I wrong!!!
The new defense tactic: magic thief
This defense tactics says the defender keeps piling up indestructible effects, 1 every 5 seconds, up to 7. Not just that, but the defender also gains 1 additional effect for every dodged/dexed/missed hit. You need to parry to remove 1 effect. But that single parry action and the consequent stun for the defender already uses up part of the 5 seconds window so while you remove 1 indestructible effect the defender is about to gain the next one. But not just this. Blocked hits give power to the defender, so it's not even like you can parry 10 times in a row because after a few parries the defender will throw a special. And don't you even think about dexing that! Dex a single multi hit special and you are doomed. Dexing nova's sp1 makes him gain 4 charges right away. And you can't hope to go back to 0 for the rest of the fight, so there you have it. Time out, fight loss. So much fun. No way you can deal with this WITHOUT attack tactic, right???!
The new attack tactic: x magica
This attack tactic says the attacker will gain 1 prowess effect for each parry (well timed block), up to 7. Striking the defender will also pause the indestructible timer for the defense tactic (a bigger window to deal damage). But most importantly, when the defender will gain the next indestructible effect, 1 prowess from the attack tactic will be consumed to instantly remove this indestructible effect. This is the most important part of the node. On paper, piling up prowess effects could make you think the node can somehow be managed. Well... I hardly think this is enough to counter the defense tactic but... well this is just broken. I just tested the node and this part of the tactic doesn't work. I pile up to 7 prowess effects and they just do nothing. The defender eventually gains the 7 indestructible charges and I time our or die.
So what can I say? It's really the same story as last time. Terrible design, no testing... Broken tactic that is probably unplayable even when fixed... I'm apalled really.
16
Comments
When I saw the tactic itself, I knew it would be abysmal to play it and just looking at a video itself showed how unplayable it is.
But someone at Kabam and probably at a higher war tier designing it must have thought that this is a fun tactic and decided to approve it, without thinking about the effect of the tactic and further interaction with nodes.
Truly a shame that they have completely destroyed the fun aspect of war in the last few seasons just by not understanding the way the game is played. And if the tactic is made by a higher tier player, then they definitely need to have a separate game for themselves.
There is a difference between making tactics harder to increase difficulty and making tactics unplayable, and Kabam have just moved into the second option.
id like to test but couldnt yet... its really sad what they did to the game!! its not contest of champions anymore, its the contest of bugs vs bank accounts...