The recent discussion Power Changes Involving Team-Up Tiles (2/18/17) got me thinking about a question that has been asked many times before:
Is the distinction between Team-Up tiles and colored tiles worthwhile anymore?
Team-Up tiles got their start as Environment tiles; square tiles that represented the stage-specific environment. Environment tiles dealt no damage, but instead generated Environment AP (in an amount based on the matching character) which could be spent on stage-specific effects. For example, in the city, you could use Hot-Dog stand, which healed for 50 HP… Or in the desert you could do Sandstorm which created 6(!!!) critical tiles on the board. Most of the expensive Environment powers were game-enders because of how many AP they would generate, but the cheap forest one generated 5 AP in each color and Storm could use it to winfinite all by herself. Since you could usually pick the environment you fight in, you could mop up in the forest. (Most players probably don’t notice it, but each node in a pvp event selects a different environment to serve as a background for the match, a hold-over from this early period in MPQ.)
Anyway, the Environment AP powers were notoriously unbalanced, and players were clamoring for some sort of ‘Team Up’ ability so eventually they got rid of them and replaced them with the Team-Up system we have now. Team-Up tiles are basically just colorless, low-damage normal tiles, but don’t count as basic tiles and can’t be turned into special tiles, and they’re used to generate a situationally-important resource. After all this time, they still seem kind of tacked on. (And, as the link above shows, are still the cause of some inconsistency and confusion to new players.)
Why this distinction at all? Why not just seven colors of AP?
Since TU matches deal the same damage for every character of a given level, TU AP does have the effect of ensuring that the highest level character is always tanking one more type of match.
There is an argument to be made that Team-Up AP creates an interesting textural asymmetry; human minds love puzzling out and mastering weird rules exceptions. In niche cases, it can create a handful interesting/unbalanced interactions*****. But usually it just ensures there’s one “bad” color on the board that you can ignore–or focus on if you’re holding onto a specific useful teamup. As they are, Team-Ups add a bit of randomness to each fight, but randomness by itself isn’t super interesting. Even if you love the TU system, I’d argue that it doesn’t necessitate its own unique color of AP.
***** Like strengthening powers utilizing standing Allies (Righteous Uppercut, Plot Armor) and sometimes weakening powers hilariously (Repulsor Punch with only 1 red AP; Lightning Rod).
I’m guessing that the exceptional TU AP is a holdover from the original Puzzle Quest, where colored tiles just generated AP and there were different tiles to specifically deal damage (skulls) or gain XP (stars). That, and/or it’s possible the original designers intended the six power colors to roughly line up with the six attributes on the Marvel Power Grid: Intelligence, Strength, Speed, Durability, Energy Projection and Fighting Ability. It’s a long shot since even in the earliest character specs didn’t really line up in that way, but it’s plausible that it planted the seed of having 6 basic colors.
What do you think? Does a weird, exceptional type of basic AP make the game more interesting?
I think it’s arbitrary and strange. In my opinion, it would be awesome if the devs shook up the game and turned TU AP into a seventh color (White, presumably). A few existing powers could be color-shifted to create new possibilities, while some powers would gain new functionality. And Team-Ups would no longer cost TU AP, but instead–get this–just cost the color they normally are.
For fun I’ll suggest some existing powers that could be color shifted to White in a follow-up post. To keep the theme, White AP could be generally slotted into powers that represent Teamwork or Cooperation, or maybe Leadership.
