The answer to making tag outs less powerful shouldn't be tied to being vulnerable on incoming. What if I make a CD reduction team centered around snapback, which maxed has 10 sec cooldown (and costs no meter) that gets cut down to at least 4 seconds with Harlequin and Hair Apparent behind me, then do a simple ABC launch, wait, ABC snap. Even if you fix the launch infinites, I still have time to hit them as they're falling after a launcher, so getting the first hit, assuming I don't make a mistake (and it's not that hard) they should lose all of their characters without getting the chance to play at all.
To clarify, the intent isn't to "balance" the power of tagouts by making you vulnerable on Tag In, that's just a secondary benefit.
The instance you describe is a totally valid concern. That it would be partially addressed by not having Cooldown buffs stack (part of the plan per our earlier discussions), and/or increasing the base cooldown on Snapback (so you could only get one instance of that combo off).
Again, it's not a foregone conclusion that this stays in the game as is (hence the discussion), just giving context as to how we were imagining it would shake out. We are constantly triaging adjustments that we feel are the most critical to deliver the best possible experience.
It's a bad thing for players to do it to each other in PvP. It's also not fun to do to the AI (pretty sure it wouldn't be fun to do to real people either).
Please don't quote yourself again. I've read it all. Sure, casuals might enjoy the freedom, but they won't enjoy playing someone like me and may quit when they run into a player that thinks like the people on this forum do. If it was only PvE it'd be fine (not really, but finer), but letting us do this to each other won't be fun in the long run.
This isn't a PvP game, it's a PvE game.
We would
love to support PvP eventually (likely as a separate app that will pull your progression data from the current version), but that only happens if the game is very successful as PvE first.
As much as possible, we have designed the game as a PvE experience with the intent to "future proof" it with PvP in mind, but I expect that there will be a variety of adjustments that will need to be made to the PvP experience to address issues like this after thousands of PvP tests (it would be naive to think otherwise).
Why play when every match is essentially "I get a hit then the game is literally over unless I drop this"?
There a few presumptions here that I think - when addressed - help to offset some of these concerns:
- In this instance, we have steps we can take to help "close the loop" (per the comment above). This means that you do get SOME "free" damage, but it's not that different from the "free" damage you get doing a long juggle in the original SG. Also, against higher level PvE opponents, they will often be buffed (i.e. extra HP or Damage) to raise the stakes (and to offset the fact that Player skill ALWAYS outpaces the AI). In brief, this won't be "game over" in most fights.
- As you get to intermediate/high levels - there will be a variety of "fight types" that will negate various tactics that players otherwise "lean on" to force them to diversify tactics. As you've seen in Event Mode, there are plenty of modifiers like "Immune to Snapback", or "Invincible on Tag In", or even fights vs 1 super buffed character where Snapbacks aren't even an option.
- This also presumes you've accumulated all of the necessary components (and leveled them up accordingly) to make this build viable. If you've made that investment in pursuit of creating a tactically effective build for this particular purpose, every time you execute that chunk of guaranteed damage, you feel a sense of ownership for having the wherewithall to make that happen. If it's the ONLY solution to getting big chunks of damage, that's a problem, but if it's ONE solution, that's ok.
It's also fine that some fights are over easily and quickly -- ideally mid-high level play oscillates between easy/medium/hard fights, depending on your particular collection, skill level, and tactical aptitude.
I bring these up less in regards to this specific situation (which I want to address one way or another), but rather in context for other "exploits" that we discover along the way (some of which we'll fix, otherwise we will probably embrace).
In brief, we of course want the game to be as balanced as possible (for PvE and future PvP content), but selective "exploits" will (and should) be a part of the metagame.
I've mostly stopped playing the Beta after I figured out the Filia infinite (the one before Liam's; ran through around 15 Arena matches (containing gold characters) doing this over and over with Bronze Filia).
I appreciate you guys finding the exploit, and we'll definitely address it (although it won't be in the next Beta build update).
I know it's a bit awkward, but if you're interested in continuing to play the Beta I would recommend not doing it in the interim! It's a Beta build, there will no doubt be exploits yet to be discovered!
Potential solution to incoming vulnerability: make the character dash onto the screen instead of coming in from the side of the screen. Leave them with no point they're in the air, unless they are tagging in. Let them be vulnerable during TagIns, sure, don't really care about that. But, if the goal is to make a consistent feel for when characters are coming in, there's no real reason to imitate SG completely here.
This is a great suggestion! Definitely something we can explore. That said, unfortunately this is a non trivial change to integrate.
Ultimately, given limited time and resources, the question becomes how prevalent of an issue this is. If it's only
really an issue with a specific combination of Characters, Signature Abilities, and Special Moves, then we can tune those instances. If it's so prevalent that it breaks the game, then we would prioritize addressing it globally.
As noted before, my inclination is that it's the former -- but I'm totally game to be proven wrong (it's happened before!).
Regardless of how it all shakes out -- appreciate all of the thought and insight that you've put into your responses on this. We'll definitely be discussing it internally next week!
