Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Marvel War of Heroes

Some people may have noted that I was going to do a review of Marvel War of Heroes and after playing for a couple weeks I'm ready to do an analysis of the game.

I decided I would do this in a manner where I would just compare certain elements to Rage of Bahamut. Most people who play Rage of Bahamut understand how a trading card game works and will find a lot of the aspects pretty similar.

For example, stat distribution and questing are identical to Rage of Bahamut. The HP/CW/Magic Circle are also in the game in the form of Energy Pack/Power Pack/Shield Barrier. Overall, there are a lot of things that function similarly that should be no surprise to people who have played Rage for some time.

Now, for the things I find really good about it.

1) Marvel

This is a no brainer for me. The marvel universe is filled with interesting dynamic characters. Rage of Bahamut may have monsters and scantly clad women, but Marvel has Wolverine, Moon Knight, and Iron Man.

2) Two card Evolution

In Marvel its called fusion but it's the same thing. I've always been opposed of the four card evolutions because they are needlessly complicated. Marvel only requires two of the same card to be combined. The same 5% and 10% rules are there though. A cards mastery level though will also mess with the final numbers.

3) Resources

Resources are the treasure of the game. Each resource can be completed three times. This is awesome. The first completion nets a rare card, the second completion gives an enhancement card (equivalent of angel), and the third card is a second rare same as the first. This helps a lot in players starting their decks and makes a lot more sense than one treasure completion in Rage.

4) Mastery

I found this a little confusing at first but once I figured it out I liked it. Every card has a mastery number. It starts at zero and once maxed the card will gain something around 37% of its base stats. So if a card begins with 1000, it will get a bonus 370pts once maxed. 10% of this can be carried over to the final form as well. The final form once mastered also gets the boost. For high level cards this boost can be over 1000.

5) Team Combo Boosts

This is by far my favorite feature of the game. If you have certain heroes or villains together they will get an additional skill bonus even after their skills go off. Wolverine and Captain American for example have a chance to proc Super Soldier for an additional attack boost. So when creating decks players not only need to look at the normal skill boosts and stats, but also try to maximize for bonus buffs. My only disappointment in the system is certain buffs that should exist. For example there is a buff for Wolverine, Human Torch, and Ghost Rider for "Bikers Association" or something like that, but they couldn't do a buff for Wolverine/Sabertooth called Weapon X or something?

What I find really bad about it?

1) Trading

Currently trading follows the same two week rules as Rage of Bahamut and there is no bazaar/auction house yet. This makes trading a huge pain in the ass. You pretty much have to do it within your order/team. This is partially do to the game just recently releasing.

2) Power Packs/Energy Packs

Currently the HP/CW equivalents are only personal. I imagine the devs are waiting until they're ready to release the AH to release the Packs because they don't want the market flooded with them before trading is really allowed, but it's frustrating for a player like me who like to trade to be so limited over all.

That's all I really have to say that I don't like about it other than some random things I'm going to rand about now.

RANT:

I hate it when game developers like Mobage pick up a contract for Marvel and you can tell the people creating the game are not fans of the series. Not only that, they are only informed to the absolute minimum. It's probably one of the things that pisses me off most. There are HUGE gaping flaws in card quality for characters and although there are cool card combos, the developers seem to just be creating them randomly.

Franklin Richards is my primary example. When I saw him as a one star normal quality card it just screamed to me that the game developers said "oh, it's a kid, he can be low level." They completely ignore the fact that Franklin Richards is an Omega Level and was born one. Considering he's part of a group of under ten (can't remember the exact number) mutants that are considered to have extreme powers, I think he deserves a little more than a 'common' ranking. He doesn't necessarily deserve Ultra Rare quality rankings (for several geeky reasons I won't mention) but he at least deserved to be a damn rare.

Besides that, they use the same heroes in different rarity tiers. There will be a basic level hero. Then it will be (insert modifier here) hero if you get the rare version of it. For example there's Wolverine, then there's (Adamantium Claw) Wolverine. Last I checked all the other Wolverines (in the game) have adamantium claws too. I would have been impressed if there was a (Bone Claw) Wolverine. I understand using a modifier once but in some instances they do it three times just to reuse popular heroes. I think there may be a Spiderman in every damn tier by the time they're finished.

When they make a game like Rage of Bahamut where they can just pull random names and develop the lore themselves, I don't have issues. But when you are playing with a universe that already exists, get shit right. Hollywood and television bastardize enough Marvel stuff without videogames joining in.

END RANT

Finally, if you decide to join Marvel War of Heroes, please use my referral code:

q w y 7 0 1 6 7 9

Thanks!

5 comments:

  1. Hi,

    First of all I must tell you that since I discovered your blog my Rage of Bahamut experience totally changed. I learned many by following your articles. Thank you.
    I personally hated to play LoC but I will give a try for this one as RoB is under maintenance atm.
    I will use your code as well for repaying you about RoB. It is not enough but this is what I can do...
    Thanks again and please keep posting!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I felt LoC was good, but there was just something missing. I think the artwork in general just didn't really pull me in.

      Delete
  2. Interestingly, I can't seem to find this game in the app store... anyone else experiencing this?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Good post...the stuf f about Franklin will get resolved at some point since it looks like every character will eventually end up with all the various forms. They are just slowly rolling them out. I also think rates will be pretty expendable and you'lll need a SR deck to compete. Finally, the mastery thing is hard for defensive cards...they really need to tie those cards a boost for successes.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think I will give this game a try, getting tired of RoB.

    ReplyDelete