Post by Yaggleberry Finn on Jan 30, 2012 10:34:02 GMT -6
There's probably a better name for these types of battles than "Pokemon style" but that's all I've got for now.
Ok, my son and I played and I have results to share. Before I do, here are a few thoughts regarding the process. First of all, you need to have a system for selecting your figures. If I am headed to a friend's house, I can just build my team and bring whomever I want. However, if I'm playing with people in my own household (as will often be the case for all of us) then it won't work that way. What if I want Stealth Elf and my son does too? Then what?
So here's how we picked. I let him go first since he's younger, and we just went back and forth, keeping track of our point total. As we got near the end, I thought a better method might be to let the person with the most points remaining pick next. That adds strategy even into how you build your team. If you start out with Drobot, I might want to counter with Bash. But in the meantime, I could also pick from a lower tier and then still pick Bash before you pick again. Anyway, just a thought.
Another thing I considered today was planning your team ahead of time, but if you both pick a figure then neither of you gets it. You simply take that character out of the running and you both have fewer points to work with.
There are still more variations that could be done, such as finding a way to keep your team completely secret and have no idea what each other have. That's intriguing to me, because we both clearly built our teams as we went by trying to counter each other. I suppose seeing what you're up against allows for more competitive balance, because there's no way of being completely blindsided or just having the bad luck of having chosen all the wrong matchups.
Since this is along the lines of Pokemon, another way that is played is that after both players have shown their 6 pokes, only four are actually selected to be on your team. That way you can ballpark which ones your opponent will choose and then strategize which four you want to use. I don't know how that would break down exactly in this scenario, but that's for you smarter guys to figure out!
Now, on with the results. I'm assuming you know the default "best" paths for most characters. Otherwise I'll list what they are:
My team: Stealth Elf, Terrafin, Bash (Granite Dragon), Gill Grunt, Dark Spyro (Sheep Burner) and Eruptor
Son's team: Slam Bam, Drobot, Sonic Boom (Medea Griffin), Ignitor (Blademaster), Cynder, Double Trouble (Conjuror)
All battles took place on Cyclops Square with every option turned off. I thought he would start with Slam Bam (his favorite) so I threw out Stealth Elf first. Turns out he started with Ignitor. And he absolutely pummeled me. I wasn't able to dodge his giant mega slam sword attack and that was pretty much it. I'm not very good at aiming it, but he is. Ignitor had 260 health when the battle was over.
Next: Ignitor (260) vs Gill Grunt. You can imagine how this went. Pretty much the opposite of the previous fight. Gill went crazy with his water hose, and it was too little too late when Ignitor tried to attack from distance with his flame form. Gill won with 414 remaining.
Next: Gill Grunt (414) vs Cynder. I openly admit that our Cynder results are probably not typical. We just haven't mastered her at our house yet, and she really frustrates my son. (Which makes me wonder why he picked her in the first place.) Anyway, Gill pulls off a momentum changer here by knocking her out with 74 health left. He's not going to last much longer.
Next: Gill Grunt (74) vs Drobot. Ha! I'm amazed Gill got in any damage at all. Drobot wins with 544 health remaining.
Next: Drobot (544) vs Terrafin. I threated to pull out Bash first, but he pleaded with me to at least use Terrafin instead. I figured it didn't really matter, I was going to win either way. Wrong! This was a very frustrating match for me, as I simply couldn't catch up to Drobot. He kept fleeing to the teleporters and reappearing in the center. When I did come above ground in an attempted body slam, he was usually on a higher tier by then (via bounce pad) and I missed. In the meantime he got plenty of shots in as well as some occasional thruster damage. Drobot won with 175 health left, and regains momentum for the boy's team.
Next: Drobot (175) vs Bash. An angry Bash. You won't like Bash when he's angry! Bash simply rolled up and ended this one in a hurry. Drobot knocked him down to 519 while waiting for his demise.
Next: Bash (519) vs Sonic Boom. Oh. My. Goodness. This was the most frustrating battle ever! He had a great strategy and it drove me nuts. All he did was fly to the corners and then teleport to the middle, all the while pumping out four babies as fast as necessary. Those four babies nickled and dimed me to death. I just wasn't fast enough to track Sonic Boom down. I was so frustrated I didn't even record how much health Sonic Boom had left! I feel that this battle was what led to my ultimate defeat.
Next: Sonic Boom (plenty) vs Dark Spyro. While babies cause fits for Bash, Spyro mows them down with ease and can keep pace with Sonic Boom all day. Eventually he switched tactics and tried to roar me to death, but it wasn't enough. Dark Spyro nudges out a victory with 122 health left. As I said, it was Sonic Boom that ultimately stole the day from me.
Next: Dark Spyro (122) vs Slam Bam. We were in a hurry because my son was headed to a pool party, so I didn't write down the final totals here. But Slam Bam dispatched Dark Spyro very quickly.
Next: Slam Bam (nearly full) vs Eruptor. We left a this point, because I didn't figure there was really even any point in playing it out. I was ready to declare him the winner. However, while he was gone a friend and I played this matchup a few times and discovered it wasn't a foregone conclusion. Therefore, when he got home we duked it out. I was stunned to see that Eruptor, type disadvantage and all, pulled out an impressive victory! And our Slam Bam is the only figure we have so far that's maxed out on HC's (sorry, I know that skews the results somewhat, but it takes time to max all these guys out!) so that's pretty impressive. Eruptor wins but is hurting badly with only 76 health left.
Next: FINALE! Eruptor (76) vs Double Trouble. Well, I didn't really expect to win this one. 76 health just isn't much. He sat back and tried to minion me to death from a distance, and it ended up working. I was actually able to take quite a few of them out with eruptions and get after DT in the process. He ended up winning with 278 health left on his Double Trouble.
VICTOR: My son!
My first immediate thought was don't ever use Cyclops Square again. Fast characters can just run to the corners and teleport back to the middle when threatened and it was too frustrating. Later we started playing some PVP matches on Mushroom Grove and found it to be more fair.
Second, it seems that the Spell Punk characters provide the most bang for your buck. There are a lot of silver bullets in there for the Kaos group, and they come at almost half the cost. The next time we play I think I'll draw more of my team from that group.
Ok, my son and I played and I have results to share. Before I do, here are a few thoughts regarding the process. First of all, you need to have a system for selecting your figures. If I am headed to a friend's house, I can just build my team and bring whomever I want. However, if I'm playing with people in my own household (as will often be the case for all of us) then it won't work that way. What if I want Stealth Elf and my son does too? Then what?
So here's how we picked. I let him go first since he's younger, and we just went back and forth, keeping track of our point total. As we got near the end, I thought a better method might be to let the person with the most points remaining pick next. That adds strategy even into how you build your team. If you start out with Drobot, I might want to counter with Bash. But in the meantime, I could also pick from a lower tier and then still pick Bash before you pick again. Anyway, just a thought.
Another thing I considered today was planning your team ahead of time, but if you both pick a figure then neither of you gets it. You simply take that character out of the running and you both have fewer points to work with.
There are still more variations that could be done, such as finding a way to keep your team completely secret and have no idea what each other have. That's intriguing to me, because we both clearly built our teams as we went by trying to counter each other. I suppose seeing what you're up against allows for more competitive balance, because there's no way of being completely blindsided or just having the bad luck of having chosen all the wrong matchups.
Since this is along the lines of Pokemon, another way that is played is that after both players have shown their 6 pokes, only four are actually selected to be on your team. That way you can ballpark which ones your opponent will choose and then strategize which four you want to use. I don't know how that would break down exactly in this scenario, but that's for you smarter guys to figure out!
Now, on with the results. I'm assuming you know the default "best" paths for most characters. Otherwise I'll list what they are:
My team: Stealth Elf, Terrafin, Bash (Granite Dragon), Gill Grunt, Dark Spyro (Sheep Burner) and Eruptor
Son's team: Slam Bam, Drobot, Sonic Boom (Medea Griffin), Ignitor (Blademaster), Cynder, Double Trouble (Conjuror)
All battles took place on Cyclops Square with every option turned off. I thought he would start with Slam Bam (his favorite) so I threw out Stealth Elf first. Turns out he started with Ignitor. And he absolutely pummeled me. I wasn't able to dodge his giant mega slam sword attack and that was pretty much it. I'm not very good at aiming it, but he is. Ignitor had 260 health when the battle was over.
Next: Ignitor (260) vs Gill Grunt. You can imagine how this went. Pretty much the opposite of the previous fight. Gill went crazy with his water hose, and it was too little too late when Ignitor tried to attack from distance with his flame form. Gill won with 414 remaining.
Next: Gill Grunt (414) vs Cynder. I openly admit that our Cynder results are probably not typical. We just haven't mastered her at our house yet, and she really frustrates my son. (Which makes me wonder why he picked her in the first place.) Anyway, Gill pulls off a momentum changer here by knocking her out with 74 health left. He's not going to last much longer.
Next: Gill Grunt (74) vs Drobot. Ha! I'm amazed Gill got in any damage at all. Drobot wins with 544 health remaining.
Next: Drobot (544) vs Terrafin. I threated to pull out Bash first, but he pleaded with me to at least use Terrafin instead. I figured it didn't really matter, I was going to win either way. Wrong! This was a very frustrating match for me, as I simply couldn't catch up to Drobot. He kept fleeing to the teleporters and reappearing in the center. When I did come above ground in an attempted body slam, he was usually on a higher tier by then (via bounce pad) and I missed. In the meantime he got plenty of shots in as well as some occasional thruster damage. Drobot won with 175 health left, and regains momentum for the boy's team.
Next: Drobot (175) vs Bash. An angry Bash. You won't like Bash when he's angry! Bash simply rolled up and ended this one in a hurry. Drobot knocked him down to 519 while waiting for his demise.
Next: Bash (519) vs Sonic Boom. Oh. My. Goodness. This was the most frustrating battle ever! He had a great strategy and it drove me nuts. All he did was fly to the corners and then teleport to the middle, all the while pumping out four babies as fast as necessary. Those four babies nickled and dimed me to death. I just wasn't fast enough to track Sonic Boom down. I was so frustrated I didn't even record how much health Sonic Boom had left! I feel that this battle was what led to my ultimate defeat.
Next: Sonic Boom (plenty) vs Dark Spyro. While babies cause fits for Bash, Spyro mows them down with ease and can keep pace with Sonic Boom all day. Eventually he switched tactics and tried to roar me to death, but it wasn't enough. Dark Spyro nudges out a victory with 122 health left. As I said, it was Sonic Boom that ultimately stole the day from me.
Next: Dark Spyro (122) vs Slam Bam. We were in a hurry because my son was headed to a pool party, so I didn't write down the final totals here. But Slam Bam dispatched Dark Spyro very quickly.
Next: Slam Bam (nearly full) vs Eruptor. We left a this point, because I didn't figure there was really even any point in playing it out. I was ready to declare him the winner. However, while he was gone a friend and I played this matchup a few times and discovered it wasn't a foregone conclusion. Therefore, when he got home we duked it out. I was stunned to see that Eruptor, type disadvantage and all, pulled out an impressive victory! And our Slam Bam is the only figure we have so far that's maxed out on HC's (sorry, I know that skews the results somewhat, but it takes time to max all these guys out!) so that's pretty impressive. Eruptor wins but is hurting badly with only 76 health left.
Next: FINALE! Eruptor (76) vs Double Trouble. Well, I didn't really expect to win this one. 76 health just isn't much. He sat back and tried to minion me to death from a distance, and it ended up working. I was actually able to take quite a few of them out with eruptions and get after DT in the process. He ended up winning with 278 health left on his Double Trouble.
VICTOR: My son!
My first immediate thought was don't ever use Cyclops Square again. Fast characters can just run to the corners and teleport back to the middle when threatened and it was too frustrating. Later we started playing some PVP matches on Mushroom Grove and found it to be more fair.
Second, it seems that the Spell Punk characters provide the most bang for your buck. There are a lot of silver bullets in there for the Kaos group, and they come at almost half the cost. The next time we play I think I'll draw more of my team from that group.