User blog:DutchRits/S.O.S. Dinobots & The Omega Corps Commentary

 Once again, I feel compelled to comment on event(s) rather than post what I said I would, previously.

 S.O.S. Dinobots had enough about it that it demanded attention, and The Omega Corps REALLY needs some commentary. Here are a few items I noticed, and please comment if you feel I’ve overlooked anything.

 SOS DINOBOTS 

 Episode Characters :

 Evolve Sunstorm and Evolve Skywarp are pretty close in ability, being separated by 7k MTM total but with the bulk of the difference being in Defense (2,079 in Skywarp’s favor) and Health (4,855 diff., advantage Skywarp) but with Attack being only 94 points apart. Both cards are superior to most Raid Tier 3 cards, and are HUGE improvements over the previous Campaign event Evolve cards, Wheelie/Wreck-Gar/Ultra Magnus.

 Evolve Thundercracker is actually 490 points superior to Evolve Soundwave, which is a change in the trend from the previous two Campaign event final Evolve bosses (Evolve Ultra Magnus and Evolve Hotspot.   However, Thundercracker’s weapons absolutely sucks in the Attack Power department, which leads to issues with the “Recommend” feature actually prioritizing other cards ahead of ol’ TC.   Still he’s a solid card.

 Episode Swoop 2 is pretty average for a bottom-tier Raid card, but he’s superior to Sunstorm and Skywarp. It’s quite a fall from his stats in Day of the Dinobots (Part 2) though.

 Episode Sludge 3 is a great Tier 2 Raid card, yet he strats behind Episode Sharpshot from Junkion Reunion. And yes, that’s the least-powerful version of that card, too. I never got his weapon, so I can’t comment on it.

 Episode Slug, on the other hand, compares favorably to Episode Sharpshot 2 but 4k behind Episode Sharpshot 3. Still, his high attack, average defense and healthy…um…health make him a great addition to most Tier-2 decks. His weapon is decent, but still defense-heavy.

 Episode Grimlock 2 is a freakin’ truck. More powerful than Episode Megatron 2, this was the first UR card available through Ruby Medal pulls…to much frustration (see below). I haven’t seen his weapon (or his alt…) so I won’t comment on how he stacks up with it.

 I finished Tier-2, so only got 3x Evolve Snarl cards. Still, his stats make him the leader of my deck. For some reason, his full-evolve form is more powerful than MTM Grimlock, although his defense is 700 points lower.

 Ruby Medal Pulls :

 This aspect is both the most rewarding and most frustrating of this event. With time, effort, and a couple purchases of Energon Chains, I had every new character in this event…except for Grimlock. I’m a casual player who seeks to avoid aggro-ing the wife with excessive playing of this game, and my boys no longer play, so I’ll check a few times per day and grind for about an hour in the evenings. I got enough medals for Swoop the first night…in fact, I had enough for seven pulls, ‘cause that’s how many it took before I got an Alt form. I had a couple Mobacoins left over, and I got an MTM set of Sludge and Slug after three pulls on the Space Bridge, so I can’t complain there. But Grimlock…ah, Grimlock. I got my first pull after 2-days in the event…bot. Cool. Two more days, got my second…bot. Dang. My third pull was the morning of the final day…another bot. WTF?!?

 This aspect of the game brought a lot of players back who were frustrated with the gambling aspect of the space bridge, which required its use in order to compete in an event. It’s an awesome idea, but it is still incredibly frustrating to players, casual or otherwise. To invest that much time and effort only to have multiple draws of the same card is more than disappointing. Some on these boards drew as many as eight(!) times and never received the other form needed to MTM.

 I would really like to see Mobage implement a change to the Ruby Medal pulls in which the first two pulls for a character will get you Bot & Alt, while subsequent pulls are completely random. It will give the casual players and collectors a known quantity as their reward for their time, and the hardcore players will still have the opportunity to get more of the same cards in their pursuit for a high-tier finish.

 The Ruby Medal Weapon Space Bridge was a nice addition as well, but there seemed to be some redundancy in the pulls. I got 3x Thundercracker weapons, 2x Sunstorm, but never saw Grimlock’s or Sludge’s. I would reduce the chance of getting a weapon that’s available as a point reward…that’s just pouring salt in the wound for most players.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> Bugs : The one that annoyed me the most was the “don’t let the battle get to Trans-Scan/Evolve bonuses, or the game will lock up.”   I found that if I then hit “Skip” I could then close the app and when I came back in and it reloaded the battle would be complete…but I wouldn’t get ANY rewards unless I had a successful capture, and then I’d only get the “escaped” rewards.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> Lesson Learned(?) : If anything, this episode highlighted the need for previous episode characters to be available via the Space Bridge. Awarding an incomplete Evolve Snarl is bad enough, but there are a TON of players out there with only one mode for a character, Grimlock or otherwise. Even if my suggestion for rebalancing the SR/UR cards isn’t implemented (see my previous post), this needs to happen. There are 28 Common cards, 32 Uncommon, 22 Rare (29 w/ events), 20 non-Event Super Rare…and 119 Event/Episode Super Rare cards. Oh, and 17 Ultra Rares. In short, there are more Super Rare cards than ANY of the other cards types…combined. It’s time to make a few more of these available to players. I’ve been playing since Fatal Furies and I STILL don’t have a complete Elite Ironhide, Trypticon or Metroplex, yet, and I’m still missing weapons for other non-Event SRs. Making the other 119 SR cards available in the Space Bridge won’t unbalance the game, but it WILL excite the fan base.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> The Omega Corps 

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> Okay, this event is filed under, “Events that should have only been 203 days long,” or “It could have been SO much more.”   The PVP ranks were hyped on the official blog (twice!), were in the splash screen...and yet the top rank was achievd in ~1hour of play. That meant the rest of the event was a lot of "running in place," unless you were competing for the top tier.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> Reward Tiers : Tier 1 (Omega Supreme) 1-250; Tier 2 (Jetfire) 251-1000; Tier 3 (Ratchet) 1001-2000; Tier 4 (Sunstreaker) 2001-3000. Anything below that is crap. Total # of players (based on when I started my sons' old accounts on day 3, out fo curiosity): ~60k.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> I was happy to see that Mobage expanded the reward tiers for this event...NOT! The only tier that was expanded was Tier 1, while the others requrie you to get below 3k to get anything worthwhile. In other words, only the top ~5% could get a card out of this event. Way to reward the casual gamer! Or, in homage to the "Occupy" movement weirdos, "The top 5% earn 100% of the reward cards.  OCCUPY TFL!!".

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> What I REALLY don't understand is WHY Mobage is holding these cards so close to the vest. The PvP event has shown that the Tier 3/4 cards (even though over-powered by non-event SR standards) are worfully underpowered for this type of event, in chich a player will routinely get smacked around after 9-12 wins. Expand the tiers and actually REWARD the players for their efforts! If you rased the threshold to 20% you'd be rewarding the top 12k players with at least one card. Or, to use a grade-school analogy, those students with and A or B average will get a reward, not just those with a 95% or higher average.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> Episode Bonus for PRevious Raid/Reward Cards: This is pure genius, and I'd love to see it incorporated into EVERY episode!

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> Raid Cards: I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that this event would NOT have new charaters available in the Space Bridge. Someone forgot to tell Episode Decepticon Frenzy and Episode Mirage 2. And while they were nice to see (I guess), they were an asset only to newbie decks. I sincerely don't understand why there were included to begin with, as they're geared toward offense with weapons to match, but are in a defense-heavy episode. At most, they should have been Ruby rewards.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> Episode Reward Characters: A mixed bag, here. Omega Supreme is finally a UR card that, while available to 150 more people than normal, remains out of the reach for nearly EVERY player.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> Episode Sunstreaker: well, it's about freakin' time! His stat total puts him as a solid equivalent to Windcharger and Warpath.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> Episode Autobot Ratchet 3: Really? Another Ratchet? REALLY?!? You couldn't come up with ANY other character for this? On par with Episode Prowl 2.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> Episode Jetfire 3: See above. As much as I love Jetfire, having another one is just plain overkill. This would have been a great opportunity to include Powerflide, or maybe one fot he other Aerialbots. As it is, he's about equal to Episode Silverbolt. But then, Powerflide is a minibot, so he'd have to be downgraded in power, I suppose.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> Episode Omega Supreme 2: Omega Supreme is FINALLY a UR card...but is less powerful than the Optimus Prime, Megatron, and Grimlock URs?

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> Battle Cube Recharges: I can't remember an event that sucked up as many BCs as this one. I have to use THREE BCs to get to the first win-streak reward tier that gives ONE BC recharge? Riiiiggghht. Later tiers give two recharges, but I still had to spend three to get there. WHY is this feature not like the Boss/Campaign Events, where so long as I beat the boss, I get a Battle Cube Recharge? That would at LEAST promost player participation from a "farming" aspect.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> Incorrect Evolve Card Display : This was quite an annoyance that was brought to light on the forums. Evolve cards were being displayed without the correct number of "pips" in the upper-left, which indicates the stage of evolvement (evolution?) of the card. The trend was that an incomplete state Evolve card in an opponent's deck would cause other Evolve cards in the same location in the two other opponent decks to display incorrectly. The "fix" suggested in the forums was to pay attention to the card picture itself, which was usually correct, and use that as the true indicator of the card's stage and power. However, I noticed that the cards in my own deck/Base would occasionally show the incorrect number of "pips," too.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> At least TELL us when you're going to Alpha/Beta test and event on the players, Mobage.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> Where is the Bug Bomb?: iOS 7 Bugs abounded, whether it was the Mobacoin purchase issue that plagued the startup screen, or the display issues caused by the same alert in the Mobage account profile screen. I'm sure they'll eventually be worked out, but damn.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> Crit-a-pa-looza: Okay, how many others hated seeing player decks that are/were CLEARLY inferior to your own, yet when you battled them the opponent gets multiple crits and defeats you? I had this happen numerous times, the most egregious being when it ended a 17-win streak and I'd used two battle cubes. Fix, please.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> Special Abilities : Okay, this is more of a "wouldn't it be nice." This event would have been a GREAT time to introduce some new weapons with special abilities unrelated to attack. I.e., how 'bout one that created a force-field (DEF boost) around all three characters in one "group?" What about one that healed characters? One that increased the health total of characters? Basically SOMETHING that would add to the strategic aspect of the game and maybe prevented people from using mulitiples of the same character simply to get high DEF/Health ratings without sacrificing ATK.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> "Recommend" needs an overhaul : Seriously, in this event this feature seemed to prioritize "glass cannons" over everything else, even though defense needed to be prioritized. Mobage NEEDS to change this feature so that there are more options for the user. Make it a paradigm menu, like when we sort our Base/Upgrades by Overall/ATK/DEF, etc., and give us options like "Decepticon/Autobot," "DEF," "ATK," "Health," "w/ Signature Weapon," and "Best Available Weapon."

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> That's all for now. If you've read my screed above (or any of my previous posts) please comment. I'd like to make sure I'm not just wasting my time.

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